The Sanctum of the Sphere: The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 2

by Luther M. Siler

  Rhundi glanced at Brazel again. His ears were turned forward, eyes wide, listening carefully.

  “And that leads to you being here on Arradon, wearing Benevolence armor and asking people about a statue?”

  “Yes. I tossed part of what I’d found into the box with the guns and chips that were supposed to be in there. A statue. It’s, like, a beacon or something. Sends out a weird signal. I couldn’t find my contacts to talk to them, and I didn’t know who my contacts were reporting back to, so I figured I’d follow the signal and then sort of work my way back up the chain until I found somebody to pay me for the new stuff.”

  “And the signal led you here,” Rhundi said levelly.

  “It disappeared pretty quickly. But whoever they were, they were on a trajectory toward this system. It’s kinda out in the middle of nowhere and Arradon’s the most populated planet. I was hoping I’d get lucky.”

  “And the armor?”

  “It’s a scam, you know that. I’ve had it for years. I was hoping that if the thieves found the statue they’d realize it wasn’t part of what they were supposed to steal and try to move it on their own. Find that, find them. The armor scares the hell out of people. It looks just real enough that they don’t look any closer.”

  Rhundi rubbed her forehead. “So you went door-to-door, on a random planet in a system that a signal was sorta pointed at, looking for a statue that you were hoping some thieves had noticed and tried to sell, assuming that the buyers would be able to lead you back to the thieves? That’s the worst plan I’ve ever heard,” Rhundi said.

  Haakoro shrugged. “I guess I didn’t think it through too much. What can I say, I tend to get lucky,” he said. “Always have. Dunno why. Stuff just tends to work out for me.”

  Rhundi gestured to Brazel. “We’ll be back. If we’re not back in an hour I’ll have somebody bring you some food. Maybe they’ll even uncuff you to feed it to you.”

  Haakoro let his head fall back against the back of his chair. “I’ll just … sit here with my thoughts, I guess.”

  “Works for me,” Rhundi said, and left the room, Brazel just behind her.

  “Explain,” she said.

  “It’s like he said,” Brazel said. “He’s the luckiest son of a bitch alive. And you didn’t want us to open the box. That thing could have been sending a signal the entire time.”

  “Namey said tunnelspace would screw that up,” Grond said.

  “Either way, when we came out it would have started up again,” Brazel said. “We stopped the signal. He found us anyway.”

  “You guys are gonna start doing some twists and turns on your way back from jobs from now on,” Rhundi said. “What do you want to do with him?”

  “Get the rest of his info and then dump him off at a port with enough money to get somewhere else,” Grond said. “Possibly with copious threats should he ever attempt to locate us again.”

  “I think we probably ought to get rid of him,” Brazel said. “He’s just gonna find a way to follow us. That’s his find on the ship, isn’t it?”

  “We’re not killing him,” Rhundi said, making the decision. “And we’re gonna split the difference on the new intel. Give everything to Irtuus-bon. Let him search through everything and figure out what the guy’s got. Haakoro stays here in one of the cheaper suites under very close supervision until we get back to our people. If they want to get back in touch with him, that’s on them.”

  Irtuus-bon was a troll. One of his incarnations was one of the finest researchers that Rhundi had ever met, and he had a special interest in research connected to the Benevolence. Finding a way to remove Benevolence data encryption would be right up his alley, if it wasn’t just something he could already spout off about from the top of his head. He’d surprised her like that before.

  Brazel rolled his eyes. “Or it could all be our money. We still like money, don’t we?”

  “They aren’t paying us killing wages,” Grond said. “So we’re not killing anybody we don’t have to.”

  “You guys never let me have any fun,” Brazel grumped.

  “There was a datapad on his boat,” Grond said. “And we’ve got his ship’s brainbox. We tossed the rest of the thing before we left. If he was holding on to any information, we’ve already got it from him.”

  “Okay. Send that to Irtuus-bon. And Brazel, get somebody over to the spaceport. I want his ship over here and I want it gone over carefully. Put some of the girls from engineering on it or do it yourself. I don’t care. But if we’ve missed anything on the ship, I want to know about it.”

  “What about him?” Grond asked.

  “Let him sit for a few hours anyway,” she said. “Then I’ll send security to put him somewhere more comfortable and give him a doc to clean his face up. If he doesn’t do anything stupid, this will work out just fine for everybody. And whatever we do, let’s keep that damn statue in the lead box.”

  The three of them split up.

  Seven

  That evening, Rhundi went to see Haakoro in his new apartment. She knocked before entering, but let herself in, not waiting for him to get to the door.

  “I own the place,” she said to his look of surprise. “I get to do that.”

  “I suppose,” he said. “So, am I a prisoner, or what?”

  “Consider yourself a guest,” she said. “You’ll have the run of the facilities. Go take a swim, eat yourself sick, fix your hair, and get somebody to shave that mess off your face. Play some sports if you want. You just can’t leave. You’re on camera everywhere you go, and most of the time there’s gonna be at least a couple of guards following you around. And if you happen to get outside the resort, you don’t have a ship, and we’ll just pick you back up again.”

  “I could just steal one,” he said.

  “You could try,” Rhundi replied. “I’d recommend against it. We might blow you out of the sky instead of recapturing you. I wouldn’t risk it. You got anywhere to sleep more comfortable than that bed? You don’t look like you’re rolling in cash. Setting up gun grabs for the Malevolence doesn’t scream independently wealthy to me.”

  He started. “How’d you know I was working with Mals?”

  “I didn’t,” she said. “At least, not until just now.” Dumbass, she thought. This guy was either seriously not very bright or dangerously clever and trying to look dumb. She’d have to figure out a way to be sure which it was.

  The Malevolence weren’t technically named that, but the name had stuck better than the Noble Opposition, which was what they called themselves. Most of the rest of the galaxy thought the name far too pompous. They opposed the Benevolence and were the closest thing there was to a formal opposition army to the Benevolence’s goals of galactic domination. It made the nickname a natural fit.

  What they really were, most of the time, was pirates. They were pirates who occasionally stuck their heads out and gave the Benevolence a chance to smash them, but they seemed to spend an awful lot of time hassling people who were just as interested in avoiding Benevolence as they were. Like her and Brazel and Grond, for example. She’d suspected the theft was for them, but hadn’t been able to confirm it officially. That increases the pay, she thought, calculating how much more she’d be trying to shake out of her contacts once she nailed down exactly what she was selling them.

  “I thought I’d fill you in on the status of your … find,” she said.

  The room had a bed and a couple of comfortable chairs in it. He started to sit on the bed and then moved to one of the chairs.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  “My technicians have your datapad and most of your stuff. I have someone recovering your ship. We already have the brainbox, we’re going through that too. Are the data on any of those things encrypted?”

  “Brainbox is, obviously. But there’s nothing on there you’d want. My shipboard AI’s pretty standard. She’s called the Serendipity.”

  “I’m not too worried about that,” she said. Every shipboard AI’s b
rainbox was encrypted, but most of them weren’t encrypted well. Nothing that would hold Irtuus-bon for long. “How about the datapad?”

  “Stuff was encrypted when I got it,” he said. “I haven’t cracked it yet.”

  “What kind of encryption?”

  “Benevolence. High-level, too.”

  How the hell? That might be a little bit trickier. Irtuus-bon had all sorts of skills, but she wasn’t sure he had any way to break Benevolence encryption. This data could be either priceless or worthless depending on whether her pet troll could break through the encryption.

  “You were supposed to mark a box full of guns for my people, and you stumbled onto high-level Benevolence intelligence?”

  “I couldn’t believe it either,” he said. “Literally had somebody approach me and volunteer to sell the stuff.”

  “Tell me about this somebody.”

  “I don’t know her,” he said. “Halfogre. Didn’t give her name.”

  “A female halfogre.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re sure. The only thing you know about the person who sold you this encrypted intel that you haven’t cracked through yet is that she was a female halfogre.”

  “I’ve got no reason to lie to you,” he said. “She said it would be worth the money and that I could resell it for way more but didn’t say exactly what it was. She didn’t give me a name. I could describe her for you if you want.”

  “Write it down,” she said. “Maybe draw me a picture. I’ll come talk to you later. If you need me for some reason, just tell the room. It’ll let me know.”

  Haakoro nodded. Rhundi left, the door locking behind her as it closed.

  Eight

  A few days later, Brazel and Grond left for the drop. They were headed to a dwarf planet called 9013LV, a standard terrestrial-mix rock just inside independent dwarfspace. It was just far enough from its sun and just big enough to support a variety of different biospheres and a fair amount of liquid water, with a few dozen major population centers scattered around the surface and the typical dwarven subterranean spaces connecting most of them. They were to meet their target at a spaceport just outside one of the city centers. Receiving landing clearance was straightforward, the docking AI passing through one of their more common IDs without comment. The planet had no substantial military presence to speak of and, more importantly, no trace of Benevolence influence.

  “We’ve got about three hours until the pickup,” Brazel said, “and we’ll still be on nightside when that rolls around. Not sure if I should play along and keep our bay dark or have Namey light up the place like the surface of a star. Who meets in the middle of the night in a spaceport?”

  “Well, criminals, obviously. Light up,” Grond said, “but don’t be too obvious about it. No reason to piss anybody off.”

  The boat lit up his exterior lights, bathing the dock. Most of this port catered to travelers rather than larger transports or industrial vehicles, and they had a private bay. The Nameless felt a bit out of place, but not enough that anyone would look at it for too long.

  They had decided to go ahead and hand over the statue along with the guns and datachips, but to stay quiet on the extra intel until they knew what it was. Haakoro had been cooperating, mostly staying in his room while Irtuus-bon researched a way to crack the encrypted files on his datapad. True to his word, the brainbox hadn’t contained anything tremendously useful other than a record of Haakoro’s travels over the lifetime of the ship, but they had been able to confirm that he was telling the truth about having been on Khkk for a while.

  Brazel and Grond took very different approaches to meeting with clients they’d not met yet. Brazel dressed like a businessman, his fur carefully groomed and styled, a long maroon coat over flawlessly fitted and pressed pants and shirt, and not a single trace of visible weaponry. Occasionally he’d go so far as to sport jewelry–an earring or two, perhaps, or a pendant–but not this time. Grond knew his partner was armed–was, in fact, probably carrying just as many weapons as Grond was–but Brazel always preferred to look like the civilized, nonviolent member of the duo whenever he could, and preferred weaponry that was easily concealed.

  Grond was the precise opposite. He wore his weapons openly and obviously–Angela attached to his back, heavy projectile pistols hanging on both hips, and a nasty-looking blade strapped to each of his forearms, plus well-used spiked gladiator’s gloves on each of his hands. He wore a breechclout and a thermal utilicloak with the hood up and next to nothing else, displaying his neck-to-toe tattoos and the majority of his scars. His skin glistened with oils and a quick-healing agent that would work on minor cuts and abrasions and keep larger wounds from getting infected too quickly.

  Brazel’s clothes said come, talk with us, we are reasonable people. Grond’s said don’t piss us off, and if you do, don’t bother trying to run. The halfogre held the box under one arm, eventually setting it at his feet to keep both his hands free.

  “How long?” Grond said.

  “Ten minutes, if they’re on time,” Brazel responded. “Namey, go on alert.”

  The ship chirped an acknowledgment and shifted to full active-sensor status. Brazel and Grond both wore contact lenses that let the ship display information to them when they needed it, and their fields of vision both filled with data, as the Nameless identified a number of sentients within a few hundred meters and indicated them.

  There were five people striding toward their docking bay. Four were dwarves. The fifth was an elf.

  Brazel and Grond exchanged a look, and Grond pulled Angela off his back, snapping the bow into attack position. An elf? Elves were bad news. The vast majority of them were Benevolence, and those that weren’t were generally trouble.

  “Arm every piece of exterior weaponry you have, Namey,” Grond subvocalized to the boat. “And prep the engines to get the hell out of here quick if we need to.” Namey, uncharacteristically quiet, sent a simple acknowledgment. Grond heard and felt the engines and guns power up behind him.

  “Steady,” Brazel said. “This is just a drop. Nobody panic.”

  “I don’t panic,” Grond said. “But I don’t fuck around either.”

  A tone sounded, indicating someone trying to enter their docking bay. Grond approved the request and the gate slid open, revealing their visitors. Two of the four dwarves were female, one obviously the boss and the other just as obviously hired muscle. The other two were male porters, their beards trimmed nearly to nonexistence, dressed in long tunics and carrying no weapons. The elf was slender, sharp-pointed ears framing a bald scalp, wearing some sort of synthetic armor and carrying an electroblade and a shock stick. Xe had two long knives on xir forearms and a long rifle strapped to xir back as well.

  Mercenary? Grond thought. Yeah, this was gonna be trouble. The elf looked familiar, somehow, but he couldn’t place xir right away. Elves tended to look alike a lot of the time anyway, although the shaved scalp was certainly distinctive.

  “You’re Brazel and Grond,” the boss dwarf said. Her voice sounded like half a parsec of asteroids.

  “We are,” Brazel said. “And you’re Smashes-the-Stars, I take it.”

  The dwarf nodded. “This is Whisper-on-the-Waters,” she said, indicating the other female dwarf. It was unsurprising that she hadn’t bothered to introduce the males, but her lack of mentioning the elf was curious. “You have something that belongs to us?”

  “We have something for you,” Brazel corrected. “I don’t know that it’s your property yet.”

  “Semantics,” the dwarf said, shaking her head. “Do you have it?”

  “Here,” Brazel said, gesturing at the box. Grond shoved it with his foot and the males moved to pick it up, grunting at the effort.

  Both the dwarves instantly looked suspicious. The elf looked bored.

  “What?” Brazel asked.

  “What sort of shit is this?” Smashes-the-Stars said. She gestured angrily at the males, who put the crate back on the ground, then pulled Gr
ond’s lid off.

  “That’s your package,” Brazel said. “The crate got a bit banged up in transit. You may have heard already that you dumped us into a war zone.”

  “Did the war zone make the box heavier?” the dwarf snapped. “There’s supposed to be some data chips and a couple of guns in here. Nothing that should make two grown male dwarves grunt when they pick it up. What are you two trying to pull?”

  Fuck, Grond thought. He adjusted his stance slightly, trying to decide who to shoot first. The two dwarves who counted were visibly angry. The males were obviously looking for somewhere to hide. The elf still looked unconcerned.

  “Look a little bit more closely. The guns and chips are in there. Plus one more thing. Everything in the box is what was in there when we robbed the train,” Brazel said. “It was painted with a bunch of warnings, just like you said. It was the right size. We just got hired to steal the thing and bring it to you.”

  “That sounds like an excuse to me,” Whisper-on-the-Waters said. Her hands were getting alarmingly close to her guns.

  “You don’t want to touch those,” Grond growled. The elf, reacting for the first time, made eye contact with him, xir lips drawing back slightly. Xir teeth were prominent, ivory-white, and sharpened.

  Grond decided to shoot the elf first … and possibly second and third as well. “Let’s keep this friendly,” he said.

  Smashes-the-Stars reached into her coat, producing a pair of goggles much like the ones Grond had worn. She put them on and stared at the ruins of the box.

  “Ah, damn,” she said. “They’re not lying.” She pulled the statue out of the box. “This is twice as heavy as it ought to be. What the hell’s it doing in here?”

  “I don’t like it,” said Whisper-on-the-Waters. “No reason for that to be in there. Could mean that they’re on to us.”

  “Who’s on to us, and who is us?” Brazel asked.

  “They’re Malevolence,” Grond said.

  “We are the Noble Opposition,” Smashes-the-Stars said. “But … yes, we are. Any idea what this thing is?”

  “No idea,” Brazel said. “We were wondering the same thing.”