Lethal heritage

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Andrew glanced at Kai. "Allow me to perform introductions. Leftenant, this is Dr. Deirdre Lear."

  Kai took her hand and raised it to his lips. "Most pleased to make your acquaintance formally."

  "And, Dr. Lear, this is Leftenant Kai Allard-Liao."

  Her smile froze, then dissolved into a thin, colorless gash in her face. She blinked once or twice, as though searching for words that would not come. She clawed at the back of her right hand, raking nails across where Kai had kissed her, then turned abruptly and vanished into the crowd.

  Kai's jaw dropped open and concern puckered Andrew's brow. Both men looked at each other, then looked away like friends who had both seen a ghost, but would not admit it to the other. Hair rising on the back of his neck, Kai tried to see if he could catch any glimpse of her retreating form, but the milling crowd had swallowed her whole.

  Kai rubbed his right hand over the back of his neck. "I wonder what that was all about?"

  Andrew shook his head slowly. "I have no idea. I do know she became a doctor because her father was a MechWarrior who died in battle when she was only a child. She's not much on violence, though she did mention having a black belt in aikido."

  Kai nodded. "That doesn't surprise me. Aikido teaches one to use his opponent's energy against him. It is the ultimate in non-violent self-protection. You don't hurt your foe. He hurts himself."

  "Perhaps she didn't realize you were a MechWarrior," Andrew suggested. "But then, she would have known that from your uniform. Maybe it's that she has no fondness for nobles—it's not unheard of."

  Kai chewed his lower lip. "Perhaps." Whatever it is, she was hurt and hurt bad. Isn't it enough that I have to live up to my family's reputation? Now I have to work against something that someone else did. What good is it to give myself a chance, if it's just going to blow up in my face?

  * * *

  The next morning Kai found his bag on the bench but Deirdre was nowhere in sight. He searched the bag tor a note or some other sign from her, but found nothing.

  He slumped down on the bench. If Bevan was right and she is an omen, 3050 is going to be a very bad year.

  14

  JumpShip Dire Wolf

  Star's End, Periphery

  15 January 3050

  The sour smell of sweat-drenched sheets met Phelan Kell as he fought his way to consciousness through the black fog filling his mind. Thousands of questions asked in hundreds of different ways by a legion of voices continued to echo through his brain. In counterpoint, he heard a single, agonized voice answering them again and again, and in the end, always surrendering valuable truths. Like the stench of his bedding, Phelan recognized the voice as his own.

  No, dear God, I couldn't have told them all those things! I've betrayed everyone and everything that means anything to me. His stomach heaved, though Phelan couldn't tell whether his nausea was from self-loathing or the aftereffects of the drugs they had used on him. Weak, trembling, and gasping for breath, he lay on his cot and stared into the darkness of his cell. The fact that it was drugs that made me talk doesn't make my action any less hideous or damaging.

  A searing oval of light outlined the door to his cell and gave him a moment's warning to close his eyes. Light still bled through his eyelids, stabbing needles of torment straight into his brain. Thought moved so slowly that by the time Phelan realized he could raise his hand to shield his eyes, the door was already closed and someone had flipped him onto his back. A hand grabbed his left wrist and deftly rotated his forearm upward. A tug extended his arm, then something sharp lanced into the vein at his elbow.

  A chemical flood swept through his body and blasted away the sludgy residue of the myriad interrogation sessions. As the voices and questions faded, Phelan felt a jolt travel through him. His eyes snapped open on command, eloquent witness to the fact that brain-to-body messages were once again traveling express instead of over the local routes of the past two months. He flipped his wrist over and caught hold of the person who had been holding him.

  A hand chopped down into the middle of his forearm, numbing the entire limb, then surrounded his thumb and peeled his hand away with the ease of a child removing the rind from a naranji. I may be in command of my body, Phelan thought, but I've still got no strength. He opened both hands and let his arms drop limply to the bedding.

  "That was a wise choice." It was a woman's voice, but somehow that didn't surprise him. Her voice was husky, but as matter-of-fact and emotionless as her handling of Phelan's attack.

  She lifted his right hand up by the cord around his wrist and positioned it to cover his eyes. "I am going to bring the lights up slowly. Keep your eyes shaded because the drug I just injected into you will dilate your pupils somewhat."

  Light mutated the entire ceiling from an infinite black plane through stages of gray and tallow to a luminescent white that filled every corner of the small cell. Phelan hooded his eyes, but greedily drank in every detail of his surroundings as the light unveiled them one by one. His ragged cot all but filled the tiny room. The commode opposite the hatchway he recognized instandy as the peculiar design suited to zero-gravity use. That means I'm still on a DropShip. In the corner next to the hatch, Phelan saw a gray woolen blanket wadded into a ball, and sympathetic pains in his back dredged up memories of more than one night spent curled up with it like a child.

  Phelan looked up at the woman, twisting around so he could orient her properly to the dark cell. For a moment, he had trouble reconciling the sleek beauty standing over him with the beefy image he had formed in his mind, based entirely on her strength at manhandling him earlier. She wore her white hair very short and combed behind her ears. Though her expression was serious, her pert, upturned nose gave her an incongruous air of amusement.

  She wore a navy jumpsuit and no other decoration except for a single earring in her left ear. Formed in a star pattern, it had been enameled to the color of fresh blood. Four of the eight points on the star were enlarged, with the southernmost point almost four times the length of the others, giving the whole design a dagger-like shape. As she moved toward the door, Phelan saw that the shoulder patch on her uniform matched the earring's design.

  She clipped the lighting remote control to the jumpsuit's hip pocket and folded her arms across her chest. "I should have expected this."

  Phelan swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. Another wave of nausea swept over him, and he gripped the edge of the cot to keep from falling over. He shook his head to clear it, but that only increased his discomfort. There was nothing to do but wait for the dizziness to pass. When it finally did, he carefully turned his head to look at her.

  "What should you have expected?" The hoarse, croaking quality of his voice surprised him. What have I been doing, gargling razorblades? He shuddered as another memory bobbed to the surface of his mind, recalling the terrifying hallucinations that had driven him from his bed to the corner. I must have been screaming for hours ...

  Irritation played across her face. "I cannot take you to see the Khan looking like this. You will have to be made presentable." She frowned deeply. "By rights, I should take you down with the other bondsmen, but you are supposed to be in isolation. All praise be to the Khan, but why did he give me this job?" She wrinkled her nose, then seemed to decide on a course of action. "The others will not like it, but that is their problem, quineg? Let us go."

  Phelan unsteadily gained his feet, then reeled over to the cell's opposite wall. The cool metal felt good against his spine and helped hold the nausea at bay. He pressed both palms against it and levered himself away from the wall. "Where am I? Who are you? Where the hell are you taking me?" He folded his arms across his chest. "Answer me, or we're not going anywhere."

  She arched an eyebrow in surprise, and the corners of her mouth curled up in a grin. "It is up to the Khan to answer your questions, Phelan Kell, if he so desires. You must go to him, and it is my job to get you there. I can understand, after all you have been through, your desire to e
xert some independence. But that is not to be. You must ask yourself if you will go willingly or if you want me to carry you."

  Phelan opened his mouth to snap out a retort, then stopped. You're as weak as a kitten and she's as strong as a tiger. His shoulders sagged down. "You mean that we can do this your way or the hard way." She nodded and he shuffled forward. "Lead on."

  Wordlessly, she waved Phelan through the door, then guided him down a hallway. Cool and clean, it, too, was lit by glowing ceiling panels. Phelan noticed that all the other hatches in the corridor stood open, making him wonder if he were the only prisoner, or if he had mistaken his status. He looked around for any sign that might be a clue to where he was, but he saw only a triangular shield with three links of a chain painted across the upper edge.

  Its meaning eluded him until they reached another stretch of corridor curving around like the hub of a wheel. Other corridors shot off like spokes, and at the entrance to each, Phelan saw more shields painted with symbols. In addition to the earlier shield and chain image, he noticed a shield with a hexagonal device, one with a small red star, and one showing a blue and white striated ball. The woman led Phelan to the corridor marked with this latter symbol.

  Icons! The shields are simple icons that indicate what sort of things can be found further down the corridor. Phelan smiled to himself, pleased that his brain had started to function in something more than a random pattern. I haven't a clue to what the hexagon means, but I bet the chains mean prison. The red star and the colored ball are anyone's guess.

  Phelan quickly pierced the secret of the blue-white ball as he moved down the corridor. The aroma of food started his belly rumbling, and several of the doorways on his right were emblazoned with shields showing wavy lines that looked like spaghetti gone mad. God alone knows what that symbol is supposed to be, but unless my nose isn't working, there's food around. If the ball corridor contains a place to eat, maybe it indicates living quarters or personnel services.

  As they continued along the corridor, something else nagged at Phelan's mind. If all these doors with tangle-string icons lead into the galley, that's a fairly big room. That means there are lots of people aboard this Drop Ship. And so its got to be a big one—probably a Behemoth Class.

  A bit further along, his guide stopped before a door on the left that withdrew up into the wall. Phelan caught the flash of a shield and a V-shaped symbol with a big ball in the middle and two smaller balls on either horn. He stepped into the room and around a partition, then winced at the bright light reflecting from the white tile walls and silver metal mirrors on the left-hand wall. As his eyes accustomed themselves to the light, he frowned. What in the world is this place?

  Two of the three people in the room glared at him as though he had interrupted some sacred ceremony. Phelan felt a shiver run down his spine, but he quickly identified it as more than a normal uneasy feeling about wandering into a place where he was definitely unwelcome. I got used to that on Gunzburg. Here, it's as though I'm not even human.

  The three people present were so unusual in shape and appearance that Phelan wondered if they were human. Furthest away was a naked woman seated on a narrow bench that sagged deeply in the middle. It was not because she was fat, though Phelan guessed she would tip a scale at 150 kilos, but she was huge! Pale flesh stretched over thick muscles, and Phelan realized her physique was better than that of Kell Hound members who lifted weights in their spare time. Her shoulders are broader than seven of those lockers! She's two-meters thirty if a centimeter.

  The woman looked over her shoulder at Phelan, her brown eyes cold. He saw her measure his limbs and study the muscles of his nearly naked body like a predator deciding if the prey would be worth the effort needed to kill it. Then she simply resumed braiding the long, red queue snaking down from the back of her head. If she and I never tangle, I won't mind at all. Where do they find 'Mechs to fit someone like that?

  The man nearest Phelan looked equally strange. Between him and the amazon, they could have made three normal-sized individuals. A shock of yellow hair covered the man's large head, but his naked body seemed far too small to be attached to his neck. Still, the well-defined muscles hinted at a strength and power that belied his actual size. The man never turned to look at Phelan, but watched him with bulging green eyes in the mirror.

  When Phelan locked eyes with the third person in the room, it felt as though he'd stabbed a metric incritometer into an electrical outlet. Pure hatred smoldered in the man's dark eyes. What the hell is eating him? The man wore a long, loose blue shirt, but Phelan guessed they were about the same size. Our hair's the same color, but he's got a widow's-peak. If not for that and his brown eyes, we'd almost look like brothers.

  The middle man turned his molten stare on Phelan's guide. "Get him out of here. Take him down to the shearing pens."

  She shook her head. "Neg. I am taking him to see the Khan and he must be cleaned up."

  The amazon looked over. "But here, Ranna?"

  Ranna raked slender fingers through her snowy hair. "Yes, Evantha, here. He has to remain isolated from the others." She shot Phelan a glance. "You couldn't have expected me to take him to my cabin to clean him up, quineg?"

  "Certainly not that, Star Commander," mocked the middle man. "You should have taken him to the kitchens. They have tubs there for cleaning the grime off vegetables." The flesh around his brown eyes tightened. "Do what you will. I do not care. I am done here."

  Something in the man's voice sparked recognition in Phelan, but he couldn't place why. As the man tucked his dark blue shirt into his trousers, Phelan noticed a flash of silver at the man's waist, and anger shot through him. "Hey, that's my belt buckle!" The mercenary reached his hand out for the onyx and malachite wolf's-head Tyra had made for him.

  Phelan never saw any of the punches, but he heard and felt them well enough. The first blow caught him on the side of the head, over his left temple. It snapped his head around and started him going down, A left jab slammed into his stomach, doubling him over and blasting his breath away. His legs collapsed as though he were a rag-doll. The final hammershot smashed into his left ear and drove him into a row of gray lockers. Phelan hit hard and bounced to the ground. "Vlad!"

  His head ringing, he barely heard Ranna shout the name, but he felt the menace overshadowing him withdraw. The world spun around him, and his lungs burned with the need for air. He tried to breathe, but his lungs refused to work. Shaken as he was, he understood why he couldn't breathe, but that did nothing to ease his panic. Air! I need air!

  The small, blond man knelt beside him and rolled him over onto his back. He grasped the waistband of the shorts Phelan was wearing. Lifting up, he forced Phelan to arch his back and some precious air seeped into the mercenary's lungs. He continued elevating and lowering the mercenary's middle while looking up at Phelan's assailant.

  His expression furious as a thundercloud, Vlad looked ready to spit. "Do not gaze upon me in that fashion, Carew!" He shifted his gaze to Phelan's guide. "Nor you, Ranna. I will not be spoken to in that tone of voice by an inferior, nor will I suffer the likes of him touching me. This buckle is mine!" He thrust a finger at Phelan. "He was my kill and I took the buckle by right. It is the least I am due, given the Khan's uncharacteristic action."

  Ranna brought her chin up. "You forget yourself, Vlad. The Khan has not often exercised his right to claim what his people have won, but it is, nonetheless, his right to do just that. Your action brings shame on the sibko. You were raised for better."

  Ranna's stinging rebuke brought color to Vlad's cheeks. He stared at her, then looked down abruptly. Without another word, he stepped around Carew and left the room. As the door shut automatically behind him, Carew and Ranna both sighed.

  Having his lungs working at least marginally had put out the fire in Phelan's chest. He stared at the door and spat hair and dirt from his mouth. That voice! The one they called Vlad was one of my interrogators. He was Hothead. Phelan's fingers itched to throttle the ma
n who had battered him, but the quivering weakness of his limbs left him no illusions about his fighting ability. I've been juiced up for days and weeks—probably months—and been kept cramped in a small room with no chance to exercise at all. Back in trim, I might be able to do something, but damn, he moved fast And he hit hard, too.

  Carew shifted around to get his hands under Phelan's right arm as Ranna came over and grabbed his left. They heaved him to his feet, then plopped him down on the bench. Evantha stood, gave Phelan a disgusted look, and stalked deeper into the room. The mercenary steadied himself, then looked up and found himself staring at a stranger in the mirror.

  His beard had grown out a ruddy shade of auburn that did not match his coal-black hair. His hair, which he had always worn longer than most Mech Warriors, had become a thick, matted tangle. In fact, if not for his left eye slowly swelling shut and the thin ribbon of blood running down his neck from where Vlad's last punch had torn the top of his ear, he would not have recognized himself.

  Carew glanced from Phelan's reflection to Ranna and back. "You are supposed to make him look presentable? I pray, for your sake, that you can work the same magic on him that you did on your command exams."

  Ranna's left hand moved so quickly that Phelan only saw a blur as she struck at the smaller man's neck. Carew's right hand came up in an attempt to bat her blow aside, but he missed. She laughed. "You are getting slow, Carew. I could have killed you there, quiaff? I, however, decided to spare you."

  The smaller man shook his head. "Just wait until the next simtime when you face me, Star Commander. Still, I owe you my life. As I am so little, I trust a little favor will suffice to redeem it, quiaff?"

  "Aff." She smiled wearily. "You wash and I dry?"

  Phelan began to feel offended. I wouldn't mind their talking about me as though I'm not here except that they make me sound like a sinkful of dirty dishes. "Excuse me, but I have been known to wash myself in the past."