by Dan Abnett
I raised Zeph's pistol and head shot a moody hammer who had run into the chamber behind Carl.
Carl flinched. "Throne! Some warning, if you don't mind!"
"You mean like 'Look out Carl, there's a man behind you with a gun, oops too late, he's shot you'? That kind of thing?"
"Smart ass. You know about riddle boxes, don't you?"
"Not really."
He stroked the edges of the glass cube gently. "They were made by the gullivat three thousand years ago, before they suffered their cultural backslide. The gullivat are now a proto-primitive race unable to fathom the mechanisms they created. They adored secrets and puzzles. Indeed, to this day, no one knows why their culture collapsed in the first place. The riddle boxes are artefacts. They come up for sale, once in a while. I doubt Tchaikov was rich enough to buy one. The cartel must have given her this to run their dealings."
"How does it work?"
"It's inert, a crystal cube within a crystal cube within a crystal cube, et cetera. There's no way of knowing how many layers it has. Usually, they are built with anything from ten to seventeen layers. You see the figures carved into the sides?"
"Yes?"
"The riddle box must be turned, each layer in sequence, carefully rotated, until a final alignment is made. Then it opens. Inside, there will be a codex stone, the size of a small pebble, a perfect glass sphere onto which all Tchaikov's secrets are etched in microscopic form."
I glanced around. Outside, in a nearby hall, I could hear Nayl and Kys engaging fiercely with the last of Tchaikov's household guards.
"Are you sure?" I asked. "It could be just a curio, an ornament."
Carl shook his head. He pointed to a side table on which sat a complex instrument that looked like a microscope to me. "There's the reader. You place the sphere in here, and study it via the scope. And look, here's the etching needle mount that swings in when she wants to add new information."
"So we just break it open." I suggested.
"It's constructed to grind the sphere clean if the cubes are tampered with."
"I see. So why didn't Mamzel Tchaikov take this vital piece of data storage with her?"
"Because they're not called riddle boxes for no reason," Carl said. "Unless you know the key, they're utterly impossible to open."
I was about to retort, but a las-round ripped across the chamber between us and hit the far wall, bringing down a silk hanging. Two house guards, both hammers of the K Bright clan, had burst in through the west door, weapons up. I started to turn, but Carl had already swung round, bringing up the Hecuter 6 Will Tallow-hand had given him years before.
The 6 barked loudly, its fatnose rounds slamming both hammers back off their feet in showers of gore. Empty casings tinkled onto the marble floor. Carl walked over to the twitching bodies, and put a round through each one's forehead.
Carl Thonius was famously unhappy around guns. In fact, he was all but allergic to combat and physical confrontation. He was a thinker - a near-genius thinker - not a doer, and that was partly what endeared him to me and made me choose him as my interrogator. Let Nayl and the others handle the bloodshed. Carl's worth was his mind and all the skills that lay within it.
Indeed, he'd never fired his weapon in anger before that awful night on Flint, a year ago, and then only in desperation. Now he used it with the nerve and confidence of a seasoned gunslinger. I was impressed, and not a little unnerved.
"You've been practising," I said.
"Oh, you know..." he replied, bashfully bolstering the piece. "The cosmos moves on and all that. Besides, I was tired of you taking the piss all the time."
"Me?"
"No, Mathuin."
"This box, Carl. Who has the key?"
He smiled. "My guess... Tchaikov and Tchaikov alone."
+Kara. Whatever you do, don't kill Tchaikov.+
"Not actually a problem." Kara Swole replied, diving sideways in order to keep her head attached to her shoulders. Tchaikov's vampiric blade raked sparks from the metal deck. "Any chance you could give this bitch the same advice, vis-ŕ-vis me?"
+She's wearing some sort of damper. I can't get in. Sorry.+
"I had to ask."
Kara leapt up and around, and cycled with the shivered sword, but Tchaikov was there to deflect the strike - a ringing chime - and then plough under with a gut-stab.
The very tip of the power blade managed to slice into Kara's midriff armour and draw blood before she managed to cartwheel clear.
Tasting blood, the vampire sword began to scream.
"Soon," Tchaikov said, patting the sweating blade.
Kara landed stuck, feet wide, shivered sword horizontal at forehead height, left arm extended. Tchaikov turned her back and then came in again, sweeping up and low as she twisted. The blades met... once, twice, three times, four times, parry and redirect.
"It's tasted you now." Tchaikov spat. "This is over."
Kara blocked two more strokes, then staggered back, gasping. She clutched her belly and stared in disbelief. Blood was leaving her body. It was leaving her body through the cut, tumbling in droplets through the air, the slow arc of red drizzle pulled towards Tchaikov's blade.
Kara fell on her knees. Her blood was flying out of her now, like red streamers, flowing towards the thirsty sword, collecting like dew on the blade.
It was sucking her dry.
"Throne!" Kara gasped. "Help me..."
Patience Kys landed on the loading deck with a thump. Her kineblades orbited about her body like pilot fish around a shark. She blinked and they flew forward at Tchaikov... and then clattered to the deck, dead, a few metres from her. Tchaikov's damper had cancelled out Kys' telekinesis.
"Oh gods!" Kara cried, falling onto her side, trying to stop the blood from leaving her body with her hands.
Patience ran forward a few steps, but Tchaikov turned and aimed the point of the blade at her.
"You be next, witch," she warned.
"No, I'll be next," said Harlon Nayl. He staggered onto the dock through one of the inner gates, his bloody left arm limp at his side. His right hand raised and aimed his Tronsvasse Heavy.
Tchaikov turned to face him, Kara's lifeblood drooling off her blade.
Nayl fired. Tchaikov swung the sword and deflected the shot so it ricocheted away across the warehouse and buried itself in a bale of fabric.
Nayl fired again, and again Tchaikov knocked the round aside in mid-air with her sword.
Nayl nodded, impressed. "A guy like me could grow to love a woman who can do that," he said.
Tchaikov bowed slightly in acknowledgement, and then readdressed, her sword upright in both hands, angled over her right shoulder.
Nayl raised his handgun again and slid his thumb across the selector lever.
"How do you do on full auto?" he asked.
The gun began to fire, roaring, one squeeze of the trigger unloading the full clip at auto-max. To her credit, Tchaikov parried the first three shots.
The fourth hit her in the left thigh, the fifth took off her right leg at the knee. She fell and the rest went wide.
The sword clattered to the deck, and then began to inch itself towards the pool of hot blood spreading from Tchaikov's severed leg. It rattled itself into the pool and began to drink.
Tchaikov moaned, twitching.
Nayl bolstered his weapon and walked over to her. He squeezed his gunshot left arm with his right hand and spattered blood onto the ground. The sword writhed and turned, scenting a fresh victim. It slithered towards Nayl.
He squeezed his wound harder and more blood spurted out. That was too much for the sword. It flew at him.
He side-stepped, and caught it by the hilt as it flew by. As soon as it was in his hand, he wrenched round violently and swung it down into the deck.
It took three, savage blows before the blade finally shattered. By then, the deck was deeply gouged. The blade wailed as it died.
Nayl threw the broken hilt away. He walked over to Tchaikov.
"The key, please," he said.
"Never!" she hissed.
"You're bleeding out fast, mamzel," he noted.
"Then I will die," she replied, her rapid breath wafting her molidiscu mask.
"Doesn't have to be that way," Nayl said.
"What? Are you proposing to save me? Spare me? Get me to the medicaes?"
Nayl shook his head. He reloaded his handgun and aimed it at her right temple. "My offer is to make it quick. One brief instant of pain compared to a slow, lingering death."
Tchaikov gasped. "You are a man of honour, sir. I thank you. The key is five-two-eight six-five."
"And thank you," Nayl said. He rose and began to walk away.
"I gave you the key!" Tchaikov cried. "Now do as you promised! Finish me!"
Nayl continued to walk.
"All right! All right!" Tchaikov called. "Five-eight-two six-five! That's the key! The real key! I lied before, but that's the real truth! Now kill me! End this pain! Please!"
Nayl kept walking. "Still going to check," he said.
EIGHT
Wystan Frauka heard the low warble of the detector alarm. He shot a look at Zael and put a finger to his lips, then he got up, took a chromed autosnub from his jacket pocket, and went over to the portable vox.
He pushed the set's "active" key.
"Yes?"
"It's us. Screen down, pop the locks and let us in."
Frauka turned to the portable console nearby which controlled the security screens Harlon had set up around Miserimus House and deactivated them. He also turned the auto-locks.
"Clear," he said into the vox.
A minute or two later the five figures came tramping up the stairs. Zeph Mathuin led the way, followed by Thonius, who was carrying some kind of glass box.
"How did it go?" Frauka asked Mathuin, knowing full well that it wouldn't be Mathuin who replied. Ravenor's dormant chair sat in the corner of the room where Frauka had been keeping company through the evening with Zael.
"Badly," said Ravenor in Mathuin's voice. "We got what we needed, but it turned into a bloodbath."
Zael had got to his feet, and was now staring wide-eyed at the returners. Nayl had a messy wound in the arm, and he was half-carrying Kara, who looked pale and ill.
"This is beyond our basic medical ability," said Ravenor. "We're going to need a physician. Someone who won't ask questions."
"I'll go find one," said Kys grimly.
"I know where to find one," said Zael. They all looked at him. "I come from here, remember? I know a guy."
"Very well," said Kys to the boy. "You're with me."
They hurried out. Nayl took Kara to one of the bedrooms and made her comfortable.
"Carl, get to work deciphering the contents of the box," Ravenor said. "Oh, and check on Skoh too, please."
Thonius nodded and hurried away with his prize.
Ravenor sat Mathuin's body down in a battered armchair.
"Not a good night then?" Frauka said.
"Tchaikov's security was on a hair trigger. The moment they thought something was wrong, they just went off. It was bloody. We ended up torching the place to cover our tracks."
"You burned it down?" Frauka asked laconically, lighting a lho-stick.
"There were a lot of bodies," Ravenor said. "The longer it takes anyone to figure out what happened, the better. Tchaikov was a powerful underworld figure. From the mess we left, people will suspect she ran foul of a rival operation."
Mathuin sighed. Ravenor had just released him. He blinked and looked up at Frauka.
"Hey, Wyst," he said. He got to his feet. "I'm hungry," he muttered, and left the room.
The support chair hummed and swung around, prowling across the room towards Frauka.
"So Nayl took a bullet?" Frauka said. "What happened to the redhead?"
"Some kind of warped blade."
"All in a night's work."
"I suppose so. I'm going to check on her, then I'd better help Thonius unravel the data."
"Uh, before you go..." Frauka began.
"Yes, Wystan?"
"While you were all gone, the boy seemed to get a bit edgy. So I stayed with him, just chatting, you know."
"Improving your people skills?"
"Whatever." Frauka took a drag on his lho-stick. He seemed uncomfortable, as if not sure how to say something. "We talked about this and that, his past, growing up here. I think coming back to Eustis Majoris has woken up some memories. He was telling me about his granna, and his sister."
"Well, I'm glad he was able to confide in y-"
Frauka held up a hand and waved it gently. "No, it's not that. Do you know what his name is?"
"Of course." Ravenor replied. "It's Zael Efferneti. One of the first things he told me."
"Yeah," said Frauka. "Efferneti. His father's family name. But in our little chat tonight, it just slipped out that Zael's ma and pa never actually applied for a marriage license from the state."
"So he was born out of wedlock. So what?"
"Well, just as a technicality, that would mean his surname should actually be his mother's family name, not his father's, the one he adopted. Right?"
"Right. But it is just a technicality. Why do you think that's important?"
"Because it turns out his mother's family name," said Wystan Frauka, "was Sleet."
Thonius unlocked the door and looked in. Skoh sat on the chair. The hunter slowly turned his head and looked at Carl.
"Food?" he asked.
"We're a little busy. We'll get to it."
Skoh raised his manacled hands slightly. "Getting cramp in my wrists again. Bad cramp."
"All right," said Carl with a sigh. He walked into the room until he was just beyond the reach of the floor chain. "Show me."
Skoh raised his hands, to show that both of the heavy steel manacles were locked tight around his wrists.
Carl nodded, took the key from his pocket and tossed it to Skoh. The hunter caught it neatly, unlocked his manacles, and growled with relief. He nursed and rubbed his wrists, flexing them and stretching them out. "Hell, that's better."
"That's enough," said Carl.
Skoh finished his stretching, and locked the manacles in place again. He tossed the key back to Carl.
"Show me."
Skoh repeated his gesture, raising his hands so that Carl could clearly see the manacles were tight and secure.
Carl walked out of the room, and locked the door behind him. His right hand was shaking again. The raid at Tchaikov's had been a real adrenaline rash, a real ride. He'd done well, he'd got what Ravenor needed. But Skoh had brought him down hard. Something about the hunter freaked Thonius out, even when he was locked up.
Carl had a sour taste in his mouth and his heart was knocking. He knew he had to get back downstairs and start work on the riddle box. But he wanted to smooth his wits out first.
He went into bathroom, pulled the bolt on the door, and took the parcel of red tissue paper out of his pocket.
They rode one of the sink-level trains across the eastern quadrant of the city, and climbed off in a filthy substation that the signs said was in Formal J.
"This is where you grew up," Patience said.
Zael nodded.
"I'm sure I could have found a doctor closer to the house."
"We need the right sort of doctor," Zael said. "The right sort, yeah? I mean one who won't ask questions or anything."
Patience couldn't argue with that.
"Well, there was a guy in my hab neighbourhood. We called him the Locum. I think he's what you want."
Hot, dirty winds scorched up the transit tunnels as other clattering trains approached. Zael led Patience up the iron stairs into the dark dripping sinks of Formal J.
It was not a good part of town. So much trash and acid wash had accumulated in the lower sinks, most foot traffic came and went on the higher walkways between the crumbling hab-stacks. They passed a few rowdy bars and dining houses, bright with li
ghts and drunken noise, but for the most part it was a slum city, full of poverty-trapped souls who lingered in the doorways of their ratty habs, or sat on the front steps of stacks, passing around bottles without labels. The street air reeked of acid and urine. It reminded Patience a little of Urbitane, the hive stack on Sameter where she'd grown up. But there had been a spark of urgency there, a sense of life fighting to catch a break amid the squalor. Here, it felt like people had just given up all hope.
They walked for twenty more minutes, into a network of dark lanes and channels between condemned habs. A train rattled past on an elevated rail.
"Here," said Zael, leading her into the ground floor of some kind of community building that had been grossly vandalised. The feral slogans of moody clans were painted on the walls.
"Here?" she queried.
"You saw the sign, right? It said 'surgery'."
"Uh huh. But it appeared to have been handwritten in blood."
They entered a broken-down room where a few people sat around on mismatched chairs. An old man, a far-gone, an emaciated addict with the shakes, a worried-looking habwife with a small child, a young drunk with a nasty cut across his brow.
If this is triage, thought Kys, I can't wait to see the medicae. Some rancid old quack or backstreet abortionist...
Zael led her through an inner door. The Locum was busy. A moody hammer was sitting in an old barber's chair and, by the light of a makeshift lamp, the Locum was stitching up the twenty centimetre gash across his shoulder. A blade wound, Kys was quite sure.
The room itself was surprisingly tidy, though nothing in it was new. There were a few pieces of medical equipment, tools thrust into a jar of anti-bact gel in a vague nod to sterility.
The Locum had his back to them as he worked. He was of medium build, slim and wiry. His hair was light brown, and he was wearing heavy lace-up boots, black combat baggies, a black vest and surgical gloves.
"Get in line," he called. "I'll get to everyone in turn."
"Hey," said Zael.
"Didn't you hear me?" the Locum said and turned. Kys saw his face. Strong, calm, rather lined and care-drawn.
