22
Canopian Pleasure Circus, Halifax
Vanderfox, Adhafera
Prefecture VII, The Republic
30 August 3134
The lascivious mermaid wove her arms and tail suggestively, sickeningly; the bare planks supporting the mud-smeared plasteel looked barely more rotted than her teeth, and her tail had seen better days.
Clan genetics? Petr sniffed in disgust at the stage man’s loud cries.
As he stamped past the audience of cast-off males hooting and tossing coins displaying various visages onto the stage, he felt the vileness of the place press in against him.
On the outskirts of Halifax, in a rundown neighborhood—would’ve seen a Clansman removed in a Trial of Grievance for ineptitude and inability to lead years ago—the so-called Canopian Pleasure Circus squatted like an ancient whore: bruised, sullen and ugly, hiding in the shadows and trying to avoid the notice of the authorities, but still willing to spread her legs for a coin. Any coin.
A putrescence wafted up his nostrils, causing Petr to lurch for a moment and gag before he could master himself. His mood lightened as he realized he had just discovered something that stank more than the Merchant House.
Stepping around a large pile of some unidentifiable offal, he glanced in the direction of the offending stench and beheld a large, blue-and-white-striped tent, perhaps twenty meters on a side; at one point it had been a traveling tent, but the planks of rough-hewn wood around the entire lower exterior and the grass that grew profusely around it attested to the length of its stay. A large, hand-painted sign thrust up from the ground on a small tree in front of the opening, only its branches shorn off, the bark not even removed. On the shoddy sign, a worn, flaking painting of a large feline with a nova burst of poison-barbed mane sprawled, with the words See the Magnificent, Terrifying Nova Cat from the Clan Homeworlds emblazoned below.
The terrified and brutalized meowing that emerged from the tent bore no resemblance to the roaring of that magnificent feline; after all, unlike these ground-bound surats, he had witnessed a nova cat hunting in the wild in the Irece Prefecture of the Draconis Combine. The difference between the two sounds was like the contrast between the depths of night and a stellar body bursting into reality astern an arriving JumpShip.
The sun poked through tattered clouds for a moment, casting wan light across the entire area: sickly, decrepit, decaying. The words jumbled, raised his ire anew.
He passed the tent with a final, Clan-like epithet: if this miserable excuse for an entertainment establishment actually managed to capture such an animal, Clan Nova Cat would have descended to raze the whole, filthy locale to the ground. Peace or no peace.
I have not even been to the Clan homeworlds. No melancholy, just a statement of reality and acknowledgment of the horrors that had cut off the Inner Sphere Clans from their birthplace, likely forever.
Petr passed into a region filled with stalls and their hawkers, foisting a supposed universe of bounty upon those lucky enough to walk these dirty stalls . . . but only for today! Fried branth from Lopez (poison to most human metabolisms); Mycosia pseudoflora from Andalusia (too many buds); real Canopian women for any pleasure (too white-skinned and thin-boned); a Kurita officer’s katana from before the Jihad (blade too long, not folded); even a whispered call to view a Word of Blake robe (wrong material and stitching): the entire charade made him ill. The whore putting on her paints and perfumes to blind the customer to her stench, her sham, her total lack of joy.
No Canopian Pleasure Circus here.
In fact, like the Nova Cats, Petr felt confident a real Canopian Circus would use the fusion drive of their DropShips to scour the entire region clean.
Why did Snow pick this location for a meeting?
He closed in on a large, makeshift arena, with stacked and rough-nailed seating; perhaps a thousand people might be able to view the enclosed arena, though he doubted the entire Circus saw that many customers in several weeks, much less a single show.
Moving between the two rows of stacked bleachers, the sour tang of old urine seeped into the pores of his tongue. He swallowed, tried not to gag again. Even after the unbearable reek of the Merchant House, the monstrous-sized smells of this place almost defied description, overpowering olfactory senses bred for shipboard living.
Why?
Petr came to a stop, ignoring the commotion on the arena floor, and immediately scanned the crowd: about fifty people of ages ranging from teenagers to those so long in the tooth they held themselves away from death with their fingernails. He did not immediately spot her and so began to move along the front of the bleachers.
Those who thought to shout at him for blocking their view quickly thought better of their comments at the sight of his uniform and the angry storm raging across his face. Almost immediately, those on the front benches began to move back and up a seat or two as he neared; the killing instinct in his eyes became a glaring torch that strove to burn all before him.
Reaching the end of the occupied seats, he continued on for a half dozen paces, then took three large steps to reach the top row. He rocked the entire section of bleachers as he sat, though no one commented on that, either.
Petr turned hot eyes on the ridiculous spectacle before him.
His thoughts churned sluggishly, as they always did when he could not control himself; he sat unseeing.
Why here? Why now? “You should not trust what you see?” Was the message to look for a deeper meaning? Could not possibly be that. Surely she held enough respect for him she would consider such a message unnecessary. What then?
He shifted slightly and winced as a sliver found its way with a pinprick of agony into his buttocks, probably would need to be disinfected.
Are you jealous?
The words swept toward him like a teleoperated capital-class missile. He suddenly felt like a lumbering Overlord-class DropShip attempting to evade the mechanical raptor that swept the void with its electronic eye and zeroed in on its prey, mocking its futile attempts to escape.
Though saKhan Sennet did not say as much, the words resonated within, regardless of his efforts to ignore them.
Are you selfish?
Another ping and another missile dropped into the void from a launch tube, sending out its powerful radar to sweep the emptiness and drive relentless, to run its target to ground.
The roar of a hurt animal from the arena floor did not impinge on the raucous sound between his ears; he tried to shift on the bench again and settled after another white-hot jab from the stravag sliver.
He did not wish to face either accusation; the words resonated too closely with those often spoken by Jesup. He trusted himself. Knew himself and did not lie to himself. Such self-deception was for spheroids and Snow Ravens. Not an ovKhan.
And yet . . .
The question hung, balanced over the knife’s edge of his self-image. Waiting like the sword of Damocles for him to make one wrong move, contemplate one wrong word that would unleash the blade and cleave his life in twain.
“A stone for your thoughts.”
“Savashri” slipped out before he could stop it; he flinched, hated himself for it. Not often anyone took him by surprise.
Looking to his left, he gazed into the smoldering depths of smoky gray eyes. For nearly ten seconds he took no notice of his surroundings. The sword within, which felt like the weight of a ArcShip keel, vanished in those depths.
In those stormy currents.
“You know, sweetness, I told you last time what would happen if you kept staring at me like that.” She batted her eyes coquettishly, canted her head slightly. “But since I see you went and let someone work you over with the ugly stick, I may just have to reconsider letting you take me to bed.”
Petr’s tunnel vision collapsed and he could finally take her in completely. Noticed the dirt and caked grime limning her face, spattering down her neck and even onto her clothing, only increasing her unattractiveness. For just a moment, he felt the u
rge to pull away. Until he realized there was not a hint of repugnance in her gaze at his horribly scarred head.
“Well, I guess I could simply close my eyes, right, sweetness?” Her words, though playful, simply did not match the frank look in her eyes. Those eyes told him she might not be joking.
Though he had banked the coals of his ire since yesterday’s encounter with the merchant traders and the lost trial against Sha, he felt the embers starting to grow dark. For the first time in his memory, someone who should have fired his rage to nova-hot temperatures actually managed to calm him. It was disconcerting, especially when she also managed to aggravate him at every turn.
He didn’t stop to contemplate this strange effect she had on him, however, because he wanted to take advantage of it to put her off guard. To score after their last meeting, and to forestall her likely anger at his lack of progress.
He opened his mouth and she smoothly cut him off, pointing to the arena.
“Don’t you just love these shows, sweetness? The fun, the thrills. The excitement.”
He turned his attention to the floor and noticed it, really noticed it, for the first time. Approximately a hundred meters long and a little under half that wide, the arena was more properly a pit: simply dug straight into the ground about eight meters, with earthen ramps descending on both ends; a series of wooden barricades with small trap doors allowed any to enter, but none to leave except at the sufferance of the arena magister. One look, even at this distance, at the cruel set of his face and large whip—supplemented by an old blazer rifle strapped across his back—told of few returning back through those gates.
Staring hard into the pit (difficult to do, with a good portion of a view of the floor blocked by the steep drop of the side), Petr spotted a small cluster of tall humans, wearing loincloths and with their hair arranged in topknots, using studded tridents to keep at bay a three-meter-tall, four-armed horror. For the first time at this travesty of entertainment, Petr found his interest piqued.
How in the world . . . ?
The living nightmare moved forward at blinding speed, claws and jaws snapping at the human fighters. Petr leaned forward slightly, ignoring a new stab from the sliver, intent on the response of the warriors. With almost practiced precision, they formed a phalanx, the first row dropping to their knees and all thrusting forward to create a double-row wall—with slightly curved ends to keep the creature from flanking—of hard steel. The monster almost pulled a warrior out of place when it stopped abruptly, lashed out, grasped one of the tridents and wrenched it hard to the side. The warrior let go and several tridents lashed forward to draw blood, eliciting a scream of pain and rage.
“Now, sweetness, don’t tell me you like blood sports, too?” He turned to find Snow avidly watching the unfolding gladiatorial fighting: she had predicted his interest, which would keep him distracted. “I may just propose to you on the spot, and we’ll find a place for nuptials under the bleachers.”
“It is filled with the stench of urine,” he responded. Her lips began curling into her usual sarcastic reply, but he injected his rejoinder first. “Then again, you stink enough now, I probably would not notice.”
Snow froze (imperceptible, except that he had been watching for just such a tell), then replied, “Now sweetness, them’s loving words. All I’m saying is ‘loving words.” ’
He allowed himself a small smile, which widened when he caught the brief eye blink. He’d surprised her. And she knew that he knew.
Ah, the games we play in negotiations.
“A Nolan,” he said, trying to throw her off her game by switching back to her own bait.
“Yes, they’ve held it here for some time.”
“How? Not even the Sea Fox have managed to keep them alive off Engadine for very long.”
“Now how would I know that?” She smirked. “I know lovers like to think their partners are omniscient and all, but please.”
He watched her attempt to put her hair into some semblance of order and he actually laughed.
“You laughing at me?” Her eyes twinkled with merriment.
He sucked his teeth (wondered for a moment if he would ever get the taste-smell of urine off his tongue), and actually reached out and patted her knee, drawing a startled look. “Of course not, Snow. I’m laughing with you.”
“Ah, no talking dirty to me, sweetness. And hands off until the wedding night.”
A terrible, gurgling cry interrupted their repartee. They turned their heads in time to see the decapitation of one of the warriors, as one set of arms simply tore the body in two. The Nolan took several gashes from the warriors in return, however, and actually was forced back a step.
With a new understanding, Petr shifted his gaze to the magister and saw the panic on his face, even across such a distance.
The warriors are doing much better than you expected. He just might lose his Nolan.
He nodded thoughtfully at the warriors in acknowledgment of their obvious skills, considered, for just a moment, striking out for the magister in the hopes of ending the match; there would be a good market in Nolans if they could be bred off Engadine and in captivity.
“So, sweetness, about my offer?”
The words brought him back from the potential of a good deal, to the immediacy of a deal in the works.
“Which offer would that be?”
“Don’t go all coy after offering to drag me off and have your way with me under the bleachers.” Snow shifted and winced; he imagined she’d gotten a sliver in her own ample rump.
Petr maintained his silence until she actually looked put out and broke the silence between them, though her voice dropped several decibels and lost some of its playfulness.
“The invasion of The Republic. Have you decided what use you might make of that information?”
Petr raised his right hand, rubbed the fingers together (ignored the grime transferred from the wood) and looked at them casually; glanced back up. “Perhaps.”
She looked at his hand, back into his eyes, her own smoky gaze suddenly burning with renewed intensity.
Fool me once, Snow, shame on me. Fool me twice . . . ? A spheroid saying, but apt nonetheless. This time, he would do the playing.
“ ‘Perhaps.’ That’s all you have to say, sweetness?”
That came out between gritted teeth. “You’ve been doing what for the past few weeks? Not making headway sealing up the beef trade on this sorry-ass planet.”
“I have made progress where progress has been needed. And what have you been doing? Sealing up your own deals?”
A look he could not identify came and went on her face. “That, sweetness, is none of your business. Jealous?”
He leaned back and away from her, resting his arm along the short railing that ran across the back of the top bench—a casual gesture that surprised her and would’ve shocked his own people. “Perhaps.”
She swallowed. Once. Twice. Blinked.
“What news have you for me?”
“News. Didn’t you read the data cube?”
“I felt the news would smell sweeter coming from you.” He sniffed audibly. “Obviously, I was mistaken.”
They both ignored another warrior’s dying agonies shredding the air, too intent on their own world.
“Now, sweetness, you really are pulling out all the stops. I hope the tales of you trueborns are true, ’cause I got a feeling we’re going down under before too long and I got no intention of getting knocked up.”
Try as he might, her blatant reference to his actually siring a freeborn child (it could not happen, of course) caused him to flinch with loathing; bile washed up in his throat.
Her knowing look said wonders. Point to her and the battle pulled back more to a neutral ground.
“I told you before, Snow, I will move when and if I feel it is necessary.” He spoke in a tone reminiscent of their previous encounter. He would not lose more ground.
Snow gazed at him steadily for several long seconds befor
e she responded, the hubbub of the crowd surging around them, accompanied by the smell of stale sweat and the sickly stench of old age and rot.
“Then it might be of some interest to you to know that I believe someone, or some ones, from Beta Aimag recently held a secret rendezvous with elements of Clan Jade Falcon.”
Petr straightened up, thunderstruck. “What?”
“Sweetness, do I need to lick out those ears of yours? You heard me.”
He reeled, not even registering her comment. They met with elements of Jade Falcon? When, where, how, why? The questions came fast and furious—a fusillade of emerald laser fire, boiling away his calm demeanor.
“I believe the Jade Falcons have invaded The Republic,” she said softly, answering his unasked question. She had once more managed to obtain vital information before his own contacts. His own people.
“Sweetness,” she began, her voice almost serious, “I’m sure Beta Aimag would have every reason in the world to be in contact with a Jade Falcon force that is right now attacking several worlds in The Republic.” She stopped, opened her mouth and tapped her lower lip with her right index finger, as though just now thinking of something. “But, if they have a legitimate reason, why are they keeping the meeting a secret? I mean, considering what a bungled job you’ve made of negotiations here, you’d think ol’ ovKhan Clarke would be crowing the triumph of landing a deal with the Falcons, right? But his own people don’t even know about it.”
Petr glanced at her sharply at such a statement, read the knowledge in those words. He also did not for a moment believe she’d suddenly thought of this; she had delivered the data exactly as planned. If the information turned out to be correct—he was surprised to realize that, in some strange way, he’d come to trust her—it would change everything.
A new thought blossomed, and a horrifying idea began to coalesce. Something so monstrous and vile he could not suppress the involuntary gasp of his strained lungs.
No. That could not be. Not even Sha would go so far.
Hunters of the Deep Page 16
