I obeyed, feeling the flux of energy as Zenni infiltrated the system. The conversation between the two machines was too rapid for me to follow, but it freed the data and the screen lit up. There was no record of Chandre, although a certain Lyall Marshall was staying at one of the smaller hotels in Krystallya, the Opal Garden. I keyed for a map of the city and the terminal came up with ten pages of detailed schematic, which Zenni committed to memory. At the end of the run, the machine gave me a generous refund on my unused time, and I took my seat on the shuttle with fifteen minutes to spare.
The glide down to the surface was a disappointment, as our destination was shrouded in thick cloud-cover and there was nothing to see. I disembarked in the self-same cloud, crawling cold and damp on my exposed skin. The field at Krystallya had been built on the sheared-off peak of the mountain and the air was appreciably thin. Tambouret’s gravity ran at a decimal point or two over Earth-norm and I felt the difference pulling in my calf and thigh muscles as I walked across to the reception complex. Once inside the rock-walled building the air was sweet and pleasantly warm, and I found it the same throughout the entire city, although I never once heard the ventilation fans or air-conditioning systems that kept it that way. I avoided the ranks of native guides bidding for trade and made my own way down into the city.
Krystallya was an enchanting place, with every new street and fresh corner a temptation to stop and stare at its charms. The city was carved from the living rock of the mountain, a pearl-coloured stone with the subtle microcrystalline glitter of granite, here overlaid with a pleasant blue sheen, there almost shading to green and elsewhere blushed with a suggestion of pale rose. Every avenue was a shimmering palace, its lofty, vaulted roof a tracery of serpentine and spiral carvings, everywhere illuminated by lanterns of pale golden glass. I walked slowly through the immense three-dimensional maze of streets, alleys and plazas, listening to Zenni’s whispered directions and rapidly falling in love with the city.
To reach the lower levels there were anti-grav dropshafts, necessarily bare of all ornamental relief and decorated instead with pastel mosaic pictures to captivate the eye as the traveller sank past them. At one point on my journey I ventured to the city’s edge, where the mountainside was broken by great windows of rock-crystal, giving wondrous views of dewy pastures and luxuriant forest below. The windows also let in sunlight and there were benches to bask on, occupied by natives and tourists alike. People I saw in plenty, mostly a multi-ethnic mix of offworlders, but also a sprinkling of Tambou. They tended to be short and stocky—a native over five feet tall would be a giant—and dark of hair and complexion, with the obvious peculiarity that their hairline extended over the napes of their necks and continued all along their spines, the misplaced growth being invariably dense and tightly curled. Their clothing was designed to display these manes and some individuals had plaits, beads or ribbons woven in. With such an abundance of hair in the wrong place, it came as a shock to notice the complete absence of eyebrows and lashes. Every Tambou I passed greeted me with a wave or an open grin, their air of joyous vitality contagious.
The Opal Garden was at the southern margin of Krystallya, on the twentieth level of the city. It was a small and mediocre establishment, a far cry from the elite hotels that occupied the lofty peaks in the rarified air and fleecy clouds of the uppermost levels. The Opal’s one claim to fame was that all of its rooms had windows and balconies leading onto a cascade of terraces that tumbled down to the forest below, each overflowing with bright shrubs and blossom-laden bushes. I entered the reception area and was blessed with a broad grin from the Tambou behind the desk. Her ebony hair and mane were dressed with silver glitter and she left a little cloud of it behind her every time she moved. “Can I be of help, madame?”
“I’d like to stay, if you’ve a room.”
“Certainly. All of our units have breathtaking views over the Forest of Dreams. Why, on a clear day you can see all the way to the ocean! The gardens are at their best now and all guests have the freedom of the terraces.”
“Sounds fine.” I pushed my forged papers over to her and waited as she made out the paperwork by hand. Being used to computer transactions, this primitive method seemed to take an age, but finally she returned it for a fake signature. “One more thing. I believe that one of my friends is staying here, Lyall Marshall?”
Her gaiety evaporated like a popped balloon. “I cannot break the privacy of one of our guests.”
“Perhaps I could leave him a message? I’d like to meet him for a drink this evening. We’ve a great deal of history to catch up on.”
Relief flooded through her. “Of course you may leave a note, and I’ll make sure that Mister Marshall gets it.”
I scrawled a plausible message on the pad, then wandered in the direction of the rooms. The receptionist waited until I couldn’t see which pigeonhole she posted the message in, not suspecting that I could pluck the number out of her head—room eleven. As luck would have it I was in the same part of the hotel, so I dumped my hand-luggage in my own room and paused outside Lyall’s door. There were two people in the room and one was the telepath, his mind disordered and impossible to scan. The other was a woman, but not Chandre, and I wondered briefly if there was any untoward significance in the room being logged under Lyall’s real name.
Zenni shared my misgivings. What are we walking into? Nothing embarrassing, I hope.
We can always walk straight out again. I knocked, impatient for an answer. There was a long pause, which did little to ease my suspicions, then the door opened a crack, to the limit of its security chain.
“Is that the doctor?” The voice was female and unknown to me, its accent unmistakably that of Earth.
“’Fraid not. I’m looking for Lyall Marshall. I’m an old friend of his.”
An eye peered around the edge of the door, framed by a segment of face. The eye was dark and frightened, the face that of a young woman with tawny skin. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Caron McVeigh. I’m a visitor from Earth.”
“Well, you’re too tall to be Tambou.” She observed, half to herself. “How do you know Lyall?”
I decided to tell the truth, or at least a crumb of it. “I work with him.”
Hope flared in her face and she nodded. “Okay, you can come in.”
She’s scared witless. Zenni muttered. Why?
I waited uneasily as she fumbled with the chain. There was nothing in this fair city to account for such fear, nor for the receptionist’s odd reaction to my innocent request. My adrenalin level jumped up a notch; once more we were collecting the pieces to a puzzle and until we had them all, I must tread with care.
I was let into the room and I studied the woman while she replaced the chain. She was on the underside of twenty years old, very slight and petite, with an open innocent face, her slanted eyes hinting at a touch of Asian genes, her nose and jawline out of Africa. Her hair was braided in the height of last year’s fashion, twisted into tiny plaits, each one laden with beads, gold, butter-coloured and brown. She turned back to me, disturbed by my stare.
“Lyall’s here.” She indicated an alcove in the rock containing a bed. “He’s sick.”
It was an understatement. Lyall was barely conscious, lost in the delirium of fever, and I saw why his thoughts had been so unreadable.
“How long has he been like this?” The telepath’s forehead was wet under my hand and far too hot. At my touch he stirred, mumbling words I couldn’t catch.
“He took ill yesterday, late into the afternoon. A doctor saw him this morning and gave him something, but it hasn’t helped.” Concern creased her flawless brow. “He’s been getting worse for the past hour. I’m so worried about him.”
“I can understand that.” I reached into the man’s fevered mind, searching for some thread of comprehension. “Lyall, can you hear me?”
He began to surface, moaning a vague protest, and I leaked him a package of mental energy. When his eyes opened and stretch
ed wide at the sight of me, I stilled his cry of recognition, putting in its place my assumed name.
“Caron?” Lyall blinked, struggling to make sense of everything with a mind not functional enough for the task. “They heard me then?”
“Your message got through, yes,” I said carefully, wary of the young woman within earshot.
Lyall read my reluctance to speak. “She knows, Caron, part of the story at least. Meeka, you can trust Caron completely. She’s a friend. She’ll help us.”
I glanced up as he used her name. It had a familiar ring, but I was sure I’d never seen the girl before. She squared her shoulders and smiled at me for the first time.
“I ought to have introduced myself earlier, but I’ve been so upset by what’s happened that I can barely think straight. I’m sorry to be so rude.” She extended a slim hand towards me. “I’m Meeka Jansen.”
It took a superhuman effort to maintain my mask of calm, but I held it. Zenni hissed, his surprise tingling in the link. I shook her hand limply, keeping the lid down on my thoughts for fear that some of their chaos should leak out to her. Even in his bewildered state, Lyall detected my discomfort at being in the same room as Erik’s child-widow, although he misread my shock as hatred. He caught my left hand in a desperate grip.
“We need your help,” he pleaded. “Not for my sake nor Meeka’s, but for Chandre and the child. Please don’t turn your back on us!”
“I’m hardly likely to do that.” I reassured. “What child?”
“My daughter.” Tears sprang into Meeka’s eyes, but she confined them. “She disappeared with Chandre. The local police are trying to find them and I hope they can. She’s just a baby!”
“I’ll find both of them, but first I’ve got to get Lyall back on his feet.” Under Zenni’s silent guidance I began to examine our patient. “Fetch me some warm water and a cloth, please, to use to bring his fever down.”
“Sure.” She departed into the bathroom and I used her absence to teleport the med-kit down from Brimstone, feeling constrained from using psionics when she was watching. Lyall suffered my prodding without complaint and I sensed that his grip on reality was slipping away. More than anything else that fact told me how ill he really was. Meeka returned from her errand and I wiped the tepid water over Lyall’s face and neck, then the insides of his wrists. Was it my imagination, or had his fever increased since my arrival?
His body temperature is rising, Zenni agreed grimly.
Diagnosis?
With non-specific symptoms like pyrexia, confusion and the suggestion of a rash on his chest, it could be anything. My data on the subject is limited, just basic field medicine biased towards trauma and non-accidental injury.
I’ll settle for an educated guess.
Septicaemia, caused by an unknown pathogen. In a young, fit man like Lyall I’d suggest that it’s due to a focus of infection, such as an abscess. Zenni sighed. But don’t quote me on that at the post-mortem. I might be wrong.
Don’t be such a pessimist! I scolded, half-afraid his prediction might come true. The telepath was desperately ill, perhaps beyond my help.
“What’s the matter with him?” Meeka’s sharp question broke into our exchange. “Do you know?”
“I’m not sure yet. I need some more time.” I picked up Lyall’s wrist, seeming to take his pulse to cover my inactivity as I reached into his mind, sweeping past his crumbled defences with pitiable ease. He was delirious again and gave no sign of distress at my invasion. I stepped into the maelstrom of his pain, letting myself be caught up in his torment and pushing towards total empathy. Sweat broke out on my own brow in response to his fever, my own pulse-rate increased and yes, there was the anomaly, the clue we needed to give a name to Lyall’s mystery ailment.
I snapped the rapport, rolling back Lyall’s right sleeve to track the source of the knot of pain I’d sensed in that arm. There was no sign of injury on his skin and no redness, but when I pressed on the muscle I felt something in the core of it and the telepath groaned in protest. I used TK to extract the foreign body, drawing it back along the invisible puncture wound until I could pick it out of his flesh with my fingernails, then I held it up for inspection, and all the while Meeka looked on in wide-eyed amazement. It was a tiny splinter, a scant half-centimetre long, bright crimson and almost translucent. One end was needle-sharp and it was yielding under my grip—not metal then, but perhaps of plant origin.
A blood-thorn! There was awe in Zenni’s voice.
From a native plant?
It isn’t native to Tambouret, my partner said tightly. And it’s a long way from home. It grows only on a few worlds within the Aegea Cluster. That thorn contains a slow toxin, a substance that will eventually kill its recipient, giving symptoms that mimic a whole range of bacterial or viral diseases.
I laid the thorn carefully aside. Do we have an antitoxin?
Certainly. Number three, in that sealed red box. Zenni guided my hand. Estimating Lyall’s mass, I’d say you could safely give him two vials. I’d also recommend adding a dose of broad-spectrum antibiotics to mop up any opportunistic bacterial infection.
I loaded the impact-syringe and fired it into the side of the telepath’s neck. Lyall moaned. “Hey, Anna!”
“No complaints!” I cut in briskly. “How do you expect to recover if you can’t take the medicine?”
I didn’t get an answer, as he’d slumped back into his stupor. When I looked across his body at Meeka, the girl’s horror was a splash of cerise on her aura and I knew that she’d picked up on the crucial slip.
“What did you give him?” She swallowed hard. “And what was the thing you took out of his arm?”
“A thorn. It seems to have caused blood-poisoning, so I’ve given him some anti-shock drugs.” I loaded the syringe again and assaulted the other side of the poor man’s neck. “This is a shot to wipe out the bugs, so he should improve now, I hope.”
She nodded, not prepared to argue with me. “Can I get us some coffee? I’d ring for service, but it’s quicker to fetch the stuff yourself, if you want it today.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
She scurried out of the room like a frightened mouse. If Jansen had told her even a small part of his involvement with and his loathing of a woman called Anna, I couldn’t blame her for her reaction. Laying the water and cloth aside with a sigh, I took another look at the minute cause of Lyall’s fever.
“So you came all the way from the Cluster?” I mused, holding it up to the light. “How in hell did you get here?”
The blood-thorn is one of the favoured weapons of the Sisterhood. Zenni supplied. Its victim’s untimely death is usually ascribed to natural causes and, even if foul play is suspected, the thorn is easily overlooked post-mortem.
The Sisterhood? I echoed.
A death-cult based on an unspecified world somewhere within the Cluster, a group of exclusively-female assassins who call themselves the Sisterhood of Grace. Also known as the Church of the Left-Handed Path, it’s feared clear across the galaxy. If a dark-sister makes a pact to kill someone, she’ll die herself rather than fail.
Where on Earth do you come by data like that?
Standard EI files. We’ve had many dealings with the Sisterhood and some have ended fatally, which is why our med-kit carries the blood-thorn antitoxin.
Who’d want to assassinate Lyall? Only a handful of people knew he was on Tambouret with Chandre. Even Michael didn’t know.
Lyall is an unlikely target. Zenni admitted. He’s the master of the ultra-low profile and I doubt if he’s got an enemy in the world. Perhaps he wasn’t the intended victim.
I shivered in the absence of a draft. I’m not sure I care for the idea of a lunatic assassin loose on planet.
She may already have left Tambouret. One of the advantages of using a blood-thorn is that the culprit can be long gone before their hapless victim dies.
It would take a large chunk of luck for us to be free of our meddling Sister, and I�
��m not sure we’ve got that much left in deposit. I caught the sound of a footstep beyond the door and swung my attention back to Lyall. He did feel a little cooler and his pulse was steady. Meeka entered, placing her tray on a low plinth of rock. She poured coffee, then stood to bring me a cup.
“Hang on a minute and I’ll come there.” I decided, fitting actions to words and stretching out in one of the armchairs. In contrast with my relaxed posture, Meeka perched on the edge of her seat, fingers interlaced around her knees. I sipped at my drink, expecting her to make the first move and she didn’t let me down.
“I thought you were one of them, one of Jan’s special ones, almost as soon as you talked your way in here.” She spoke rapidly and softly, sounding perfectly calm, her inner turmoil betrayed by a tic in her eyelid. “He never told me much about them, you see, but I gathered a scrap here and a morsel there, a codename or two, an idea of what their psionics could do and a tiny bit about what kind of missions he sent them on. When you live that close to someone it’s hard to keep secrets, though I suppose you wouldn’t know about that.”
“We aren’t monsters. We have friends and even lovers, just like anyone else.”
“But you aren’t like everyone else!” She hissed fiercely. “You’re an agent-pair, dehumanised and trained to kill, a mechanical magic-worker. That’s what you are, isn’t it, Caron? Or should I call you Anna?”
“It’s in the nature of the job to have many names. Most pairs have six or seven alter egos, some even more.” I put the cup down. “As far as Tambouret is concerned, I’m sweet little Caron McVeigh from Barnard’s Star, daughter of a farmer and granddaughter of a terraformer.”
“We both know it isn’t your real name.” Her smile had a nervous edge. “Lyall called you Anna—and I know her, I know her very well. I lived under her shadow, but I never thought that I’d meet her, never was sure that I wanted to. She used to stalk in my worst nightmares and I’d wake trembling in fear, not afraid that she’d hurt me, but terrified that she’d carry her grudge back from the grave and rob me of Jan. When he died, my first thought was that now he was safe from her vengeance. She did come back, of course, but too late to be able to harm him. Even in death, he bested her—Anna-Marie Delany lost and Erik Jansen won!”
The Beauty of Our Weapons Page 6
