Stealing Life

by Antony Johnston

  The second reason was that despite his extensive travelling across Turith, Nicco had never actually left the country before. Local airship flights within the archipelago weren’t monitored; like taking a sky whale ferry, you just turned up, bought a ticket and hopped on board. Nobody cared who you were or whether you were even Turithian. But foreign travel was a different matter, closely monitored and verified. It was a habit formed during centuries of war, and five-hundred-year-old habits died hard. To travel abroad Nicco needed a citi-card, at both ends of the trip.

  Nicco only hoped there wasn’t some kind of magical augmentation to the immigration process in Varn. Allad’s cards were always flawless, but even he couldn’t fake Nicco’s brainwaves, or magical aura, or whatever other outlandish method they might use to verify your identity in a place like Varn.

  The pod’s light flashed green. The desk clerk handed Nicco’s forged cards back and smiled. “Hurrunda’s the first stop, sir.” He waved Nicco on.

  Nicco walked through the double doors behind the desk, smiled at the attending hostesses and proceeded to the launchpad. When he was outside he exhaled with relief and put the papers back in his carry-on kit bag. It was a bright, crisp morning, and Nicco saw his breath mist in the cool air.

  What he didn’t see was an elderly maintenance worker cleaning the window to the waiting lounge. As Nicco stepped onto the launchpad, the worker put down his sponge, took out a phone and dialled a number. When the other line picked up, he spoke just six words.

  “Got him. He’s going to Hurrunda.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  NICCO STOOD ON a gantry in the lower viewing pod and watched Azbatha recede into the distance. Unlike the day he’d flown on the Astra, the sky below was full of air traffic. He sighed, wishing none of this had ever happened. But what could he have done differently? He’d taken the job from Xandus because he owed Bazhanka money; and he’d only been in debt in the first place because he refused to kill an innocent man. And he wouldn’t have had to make that choice if he didn’t owe the mob boss for getting him off the robbery charge. Which he wouldn’t have been facing if he’d been more careful to start with.

  In the final analysis, Nicco only had himself to blame.

  “Bit more impressive than your place, don’t you think?”

  A middle-aged Turithian suit stood next to Nicco on the gantry.

  “I’m sorry?” Nicco said, confused.

  “I said it’s a bit more impressive than Hurrunda. That’s Turithian technology at work, old boy. None of your mumbo-jumbo magician rubbish.”

  Nicco felt like his stomach was trying to escape via his throat. It was the same corporate type who’d sat at his table on the Astra. What on earth was he doing here? Was he following Nicco?

  “Actually,” said the merchant, “have we met before? You must forgive me—I’m good with faces but terrible with names. I’m Sothus Lubburon.”

  Nicco froze. He recognised me. He knows who I am, he’s probably got that son of a squid Patulam waiting outside the pod... But he’d been wearing a full body disguise on the Astra, not to mention a fake beard. There was no way this Sothus guy could really recognise Nicco. And if he thought he did, he couldn’t prove it. He’s just some middle manager, not a cop. Relax.

  Nicco regained his composure and shook his head. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “And I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I’m an Azbathan, born and bred.” He held out his hand. “Nicco Millurat.”

  “Oh. Well, then I’m sorry. And pleased to meet you.” The businessman shook Nicco’s hand and looked him up and down. “Thought you were Varnian, see. You’re a bit...”

  “Dark? Yeah, I know. Blame my father.”

  “Ah! Going back to visit the old country, is that it? In touch with your roots!”

  “Something like that.” Nicco turned away and watched the view. The airship was rising through the cloud layer, obscuring islands and ocean alike. In another minute there would be nothing to see but a carpet of cotton wool.

  “First time? You picked a squid of a month to visit.”

  Nicco had hoped Sothus would take the hint and leave him alone, but that remark made him reconsider. Perhaps this man could be useful. “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t hear? Have you been living in the ocean for the past week? Governor Werrdun’s necklace of office was stolen. He’s stuck in Azbatha trying to find it.”

  Nicco finally let himself relax. Evidently Sothus didn’t recognise him at all. He’d been panicking over nothing. “Oh, that. Yeah... I heard something about it. I don’t watch the news streams much.”

  The man snorted. “I don’t know how you could have missed it. I think it was the Kurrethi, myself.”

  “What makes you say that? I thought the Kurrethi were lying low at the moment.”

  “Ha!” Sothus laughed. “Not since Werrdun lost his necklace, which is another reason I think they’re connected.” He leaned back on the railing, giving Nicco the impression this was a story he’d told more than once that day. “I was on the Astra that day. Special guest, and all that. Now, the whole ship got food poisoning—never felt so ill in all my life—and then the very same trip, the governor’s necklace goes missing and the Kurrethi start bombing Hurrunda again? You can’t tell me that’s coincidence.”

  Nicco nodded. “I didn’t know they were bombing again. Do you think they infiltrated the airship? Maybe they were the caterers.”

  Sothus snorted. “Or the waiters, or the flight staff, or anyone. I didn’t see much in the way of security. But Hurrunda’s up in arms about it, calling it a plot to destabilise the city, so clearly they’re thinking on the same lines.”

  I bloody wish, thought Nicco. That must have been the official line. They probably didn’t want to admit a lone thief had punched a hole in their security, at least not until Nicco got the necklace back. Assuming he could actually find Xandus, of course.

  “Have the Kurrethi said why they’re bombing the city?”

  “Maybe they think they can take over the city while Werrdun recovers. Who bloody knows? They haven’t said anything yet, just set a couple of bombs. And they’ve been coming down from the mountains, too. Carrying out guerrilla raids on the edges of the city. The local police are gearing up for another big crackdown in the mountains, but they’re up against it. Mind you, there’s a big pro-Kurrethi rally scheduled for this evening. Rumour mill says Ven Dazarus himself is going to be there. Maybe he’s going to announce something.”

  Nicco whistled. This wasn’t what he wanted to hear. If Hurrunda was in chaos, it would make finding Xandus even more difficult.

  Sothus clapped Nicco on the shoulder. “Anyway, enough doom and gloom. I’m off to the bar. Fancy a drink?”

  “No thanks.” Nicco shook his head.

  “Suit yourself,” said Sothus. “Nice yakking with you. Come find me in the bar if you feel the urge.” He turned away and began climbing the stairs back to the main belly of the airship.

  “Wait!” Nicco called out. “If Hurrunda’s so dangerous at the moment, why are you going?”

  Sothus winked back over his shoulder. “I’m in armaments, my boy. And if there’s one thing the Hurrundan police need plenty of right now, it’s firepower.”

  IT WAS RAINING in Hurrunda, a warm rain that hung in the air long after it hit the ground. The landing pad was slick with it, and Nicco almost slipped twice on his way inside. His view of the city had been obscured by clouds as they headed into landing. All Nicco could make out before being called back to his seat in the launch lounge was a sprawl of buildings, all much lower than the Turithian skyscrapers he was used to, spread over every inch of space within the natural enclosure of the horseshoe-shaped Hurrun Peaks. The mountains themselves were lush and impressive, their steep-sided peaks thick with vegetation.

  Now that he was on the ground, it seemed his first impressions weren’t far off. Looking around from the launchpad, he was unable to see anything beyond the airship port’s buildings except the
distant mountains. No towers rose into the sky, no holovid billboards shouted their wares high up in the air above the port’s low-rise structures. It felt like a strange dream.

  It felt pretty backward, frankly.

  Nicco walked through to the immigration area, which consisted of just one desk, and waited in line. The desk clerk looked hassled and overworked. Nicco guessed that until the wars ended, Hurrunda hadn’t received a lot of foreign visitors. And by the looks of things, they hadn’t yet expanded the area to accommodate the rekindled interest in global travel.

  He watched the clerk processing people, looking for signs of any magical procedures that could jeopardise his entry to Varn, but saw nothing. Of more concern was the armed policeman who stood a little apart from the desk, scanning the faces of the Turithians waltzing into his country like the war had never happened. At least, that was what Nicco assumed he was thinking by the way he caressed his entropy rifle.

  When his turn came, Nicco walked up to the desk and handed over his citi-card. The clerk slotted the card into a scanning pod without looking up.

  “Business or pleasure?” said the clerk in heavily accented Turithian, preparing to tick off the checkboxes on his screen.

  “Pleasure,” said Nicco, smiling. “I’m on vacation.”

  “How long are you to stay for in Hurrunda?”

  “Oh, just a week.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  That caught Nicco by surprise. He hadn’t sought out accommodation, figuring he could just find a cheap hotel if needed.

  “Um... in a hotel,” said Nicco. He glanced down at the scanning pod. It seemed to have been stuck on amber for much longer than was necessary.

  “Which one? Address, please.”

  Nicco winced. He hadn’t had the time to research this properly. Was he really expected to tell this bureaucrat exactly where he was going to sleep?

  “The Varnian Star, 720 First Avenue.”

  Nicco turned to see who had spoken. It was Sothus, the arms dealer. Nicco hadn’t seen him, next in the line. Sothus took a step forward, but the armed policeman blocked his path and glared at him. Nicco looked at Sothus, then nervously at the cop’s very large rifle.

  “You must excuse my manservant,” said Sothus to the clerk. “Itineraries aren’t really his thing, I take care of all that.” He turned to Nicco and frowned. “Nicco, my boy, I told you to stand in line behind me. Now look at all the trouble you’re causing.”

  Nicco bowed his head in response. “Sorry, Mr Lubburon, sir.”

  “Come on, let me through. I can give you all the details.”

  The armed officer looked over to the clerk, who ran a hand through his thick black hair and sighed. He looked even more stressed out than Nicco felt, and that was saying something.

  The clerk waved a perfunctory gesture and said something in Varnian to the cop. Nicco didn’t catch it, but the result was good. The cop indicated for him to stand away from the desk while Sothus stepped up. The pod scanning Nicco’s citi-card was finally showing green, and the clerk handed him the card. Nicco walked to where the cop indicated and waited.

  Sothus smiled at Nicco, then walked to the desk.

  “MANSERVANT?” NICCO LAUGHED.

  “Hey, bluster’s my forté, not blather.” Sothus winked at him. “I get the feeling that’s more your department, ‘Mr Millurat.’”

  Nicco peered at Sothus. The arms dealer’s smile told him he knew Nicco was up to no good, and now that he saw him walk, Nicco realised what had struck him about Sothus’ manner on the Astra. The confident stride, the short neat hair, the air of alertness... and the job, of course. Sothus was an ex-soldier, Nicco would have laid money on it.

  “Well,” said Nicco, “I owe you one. I can’t honestly say I’ll ever be able to repay it, but...”

  Sothus took a business card from his pocket and pressed it into Nicco’s palm. “Look me up when you get back to Azbatha. Assuming you ever go back, of course. I’m sure I could be useful to you some day.” He clapped Nicco on the shoulder. “Here’s to bluster!”

  Nicco smiled after Sothus as he walked away. “And blather,” he added softly.

  The concourse was busy by Hurrundan standards, but to Nicco it was a breeze. He made it all the way down to the end, past the cargoed luggage retrieval pods and through customs without once having to dodge out of the way of an oncoming family, weave through a crowd of tourists or squeeze through a bunch of dead-from-the-neck-down gawkers. The port architecture seemed to be a queer mixture of utilitarian and baroque, basic materials and plainly shaped structures decorated with finely detailed patterns, intricate mosaics and ornate detail work on the walls and fittings. Once again Nicco was reminded just how alien Varn seemed to a city boy from Turith.

  Not quite as alien, but bothersome nevertheless, were the two men following him.

  He’d made them as he exited immigration with Sothus, falling in from either side of the concourse. They were both dark-skinned, native Varnians, wearing the sort of cheap suit ubiquitous to plainclothes cops. One was tall and burly, with a black moustache almost as prodigious as his gut. The other was short and wiry, with cheekbones that jutted like razor blades from his clean-shaven face.

  The tall one carried a kit bag similar to Nicco’s, casually shadowing him from twenty feet behind. The short one moved more randomly, scurrying back and forth across the concourse, pretending to be distracted by the gleaming windows of souvenir stores.

  Nicco wondered if he’d been spotted leaving Azbatha after all. Perhaps Sergeant Patulam had contacts in Hurrunda. Wars were wars, but cops were cops; it wasn’t that hard to imagine the two departments co-operating to catch him.

  On the other hand, maybe he just looked a bit shifty. That wasn’t hard to imagine, either.

  He turned a corner and entered the airship port’s main hall, a wide, low-roofed atrium with just one gallery floor above the ground level. Would they try to arrest him before he left the port? Or would they wait to see where he was going, perhaps hoping he’d lead them to the necklace? Nicco counted three black-uniformed police near the exit, idly fingering their entropy guns as they chatted.

  He contemplated throwing in the towel and calling Bazhanka. He hadn’t brought his phone with him. For one thing it would make his location traceable if Bazhanka was of a mind; but mainly because the skycomm network in Hurrunda was pretty basic, from what Nicco had gathered. If he wanted to call anyone, he’d have to find a street phone somewhere in the airship port.

  He weighed the pros and cons. If he was arrested here in Hurrunda, he’d be deported back to the custody of some smug idiot like Patulam—worse, they might not deport him at all, if he couldn’t produce the necklace. He didn’t remember reading anything about capital punishment in Hurrunda, but he wouldn’t put it past such a backward place. On the other hand, if he called Bazhanka, he could use the mob boss’s clout to make the police back off; but he’d also have to face Bazhanka’s wrath over his disappearing act, and that could be just as fatal. Neither option sounded very appealing.

  So he ran.

  Not outside. That would be too obvious, and mean somehow getting past the uniformed cops. And even if he made it past them, the undercover cops might have backup waiting on the street. The street was just too risky.

  Instead, Nicco sprinted across the hall to a nearby elevator platform that patiently circled up and over, down and under, in an endless loop. They’d been common in Turith when Nicco was a boy, before grav tech was invented, but as he leapt onto the platform Nicco realised this one had no visible means of propulsion. It was powered by magic.

  He jumped off as the platform neared the gallery level and hit the ground running, dodging through dawdling shoppers who barely registered his passing. Down on the ground level, the tall cop waited impatiently for the elevator platform to complete its cycle. His partner ran to the other side of the hall, where an old-fashioned moving staircase led up to the other side of the gallery.

  Nicco suddenl
y realised he’d backed himself into a corner. There was no other way off the gallery, no branching corridors to break up the monotony of gift stores and cafés; in fact, no other exits on this level at all. He was trapped on foreign territory. He didn’t know the layout, but the cops probably knew it inside out. He should have taken his chances on the street after all.

  The tall cop knew it, too. He slowed to a walk, lifting his jacket briefly to show Nicco he was carrying a holstered blaster. Nicco checked behind him, but the shorter cop had already reached the gallery level, walking toward him purposefully.

  He leant out over the gallery railing, checking the height. It was a six-yard drop to the ground floor, with nothing to break his fall. He’d almost certainly break an ankle, at the very least.

  The shoppers had begun to realise something was going on. They backed away from Nicco slowly, allowing the two cops to pass.

  “Salarum,” said the tall cop, one hand outstretched in a calming gesture. “Come with us. You’ve got—”

  He never finished the sentence, because at that moment the main hall exploded.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  NICCO SAW A blinding flash of light, then heard a thunderclap. After that came complete silence.

  He was thrown back by the force of the blast, lifted off his feet and hurled through the window of the storefront behind him. His fall was cushioned by the display of soft toys, but the shockwave itself stunned him and a storm of shattered glass rained down. Through the remains of the window he saw parts of the main hall roof crumble under their own weight, unable to support the structure now that a sixty-foot hole had been punched through it. He hoped there was no-one underneath the enormous falling chunks of masonry and steel. He didn’t hear any screaming, but then he couldn’t hear anything at all.