by Steve Perry
The larger man looked uncomfortable. “Sir. Sort of.”
Khadaji didn’t say anything, but he continued to stare at Bork. Finally, Bork shook his head and said, “You know how Sleel is, he thinks God created him personally to show the galaxy how to use a cock.”
“He caught another exotic kind of veedee?”
“Not this time. He—uh—bet one of the girls he could outlast her.”
Khadaji shook his head. “Even full of Android to the eyes he couldn’t manage that. Who’d he bet?”
“Uh… I’m not supposed to… ah, hell, it was Sister Clamp.”
Khadaji laughed and shook his head again. “Not really?”
“Yessir. Really.”
“I would have liked to see that—after an hour or two. What’s he being treated for, blisters? Or exhaustion?”
“Sister says it’s something called flea-bite-us.”
“Phlebitis?”
“Yessir. She says it’s irritated blood vessels, an inflammation of the veins. In his—ah—dick.”
“Is Sister a medic?”
“She says she used to be a doctor, but even if she wasn’t, she’d seen enough cases of this to know what it was.” Khadaji laughed again. “I’ll bet she has. Poor Sleel.”
“Maybe he learned something.”
“I don’t think so, Boss. He’s talking about a rematch.” “Let me know if it happens, Bork. I’ll bet my money on Sister.”
The big man grinned. “Yessir, me too.”
The octagon was about three-quarters full, early morning being the slackest period, but there were still almost two hundred men and women perched on the stools, smoking or drinking or wrapped in the grip of some other rec-chem. It could be noon or midnight, from the artificial lighting; it always looked the same in the octagon.
Khadaji looked at the scene with some fondness. As pubs went, this was one of the better ones he’d worked in—and he’d been in no small number. It would not be too hard to see himself growing old here, serving the troopers, being well thought of by the military and locals, playing this simple game. He shook his head. No. It was a nice fantasy, but that’s all it was and he knew it. It was temporary, and he was better off keeping short-timer’s attitude about it. There were some good people here, a lot of them, and he would miss them, but this wasn’t his karmic destiny.
Lojtnant Subru entered the octagon from the front and strode across the room toward the dispensing window. He was a man in a hurry.
Khadaji walked toward the window, so that by the time Subru had bought and collected his flickstick, the owner of the Jade Flower was standing next to him.
“Something, Lojt?”
Subru scratched the end of the flickstick along the seam of his creased uniform pants. The tip flared, then faded to a glowing dot. He stuck the flickstick to his lips and drew in a deep breath of the fragrant smoke. He held the blast for a second, then began to speak. Dark purple smoke emerged from his mouth with the words. “A major attack, Emile. The Scum hit a T-plex last night. My T-plex. They got the guards and then hit the C.O. herself.” He took another hit from the stick. “I could have been there. If they’d come a day earlier, I would have been sitting on the O.O.D. desk my-fucking-self.”
“They get any of the rebels?”
“Not alive. I hear there were twenty-five or thirty of the Scum involved in the attack. Armed with stolen .177s and spetsdods.”
“The troops ought to be wearing class two or three armor, Subbie.”
The Lojt glanced at Khadaji’s face through the smoke. He seemed more relaxed, now. “There’s not enough to go around. You were in the Quartermasters, you know how Supply works. In a ten-kay, you only get so many suits and additional reqs take months. Besides, class two won’t stop a .177 and you can’t move in class three except to waddle.”
“Way I heard it, most of the casualties are from dart poison, so class two should—”
“Where did you hear that?” Even through the drug, he sounded suspicious. Careful, Khadaji told himself.
“I run a pub, Subbie. I hear a lot of things. Men get drunk or stoned, they say things they don’t think about.”
Subru shook his head. “Damn! Listen, Emile, I know this won’t get past you, but upranks is shitting bricks over this thing. A lot of the troops the Scum have hit are stiffies from Spasm poisoning and some of them were wearing class two. I even heard of a couple wearing class three who took darts.”
“I don’t believe it.” He knew that was not true, he wasn’t so stupid he’d try a class three with a spetsdod.
“My information comes from high places, Emile. But if you hear any of the troops babbling in their smoke or splash, see if you can’t shut them up before they get their asses into a sharp crack. The Old Man would love to have a target to shoot at, any target, including our own.”
“Okay, Subbie, I’ll try and keep your boys out of trouble in my place. It would be bad for business if somebody thought they talked too much in here and made me off-limits.”
“Thanks, Emile. I appreciate it.”
Khadaji left the shaken Lojtnant inhaling flickstick smoke and walked for the closest exit. He needed some unpolluted air. Sometimes, this game seemed to get too twisty, even for him. But Lojtnant Subru was in Administration, he had access to all the facts about the campaign against the Shamba Scum and he believed that the rebels were able to knock off men in class three body armor with spetsdods, something Khadaji himself knew was impossible.
It was twisty, but it was going better than he’d hoped.
And the end was nearly here.
Chapter Five
SLEEL’S PHLEBITIS MUST have responded to treatment, Khadaji thought, because the bouncer was working the floor, watching for signs of trouble from the crowd in the Jade Flower. It was quiet, though. Butch had run out of mid-range sops and had, reluctantly, begun offering the high-range chemical at the same price. Soldiers loved a bargain, and a lot of them were barely awake at their tables, stoked with the glow of the depressant drug. Nobody fought on high-sops, it took more energy than a user had available.
Anjue gave him the news when Khadaji went to check on the line.
“Have you heard about quadman Pendragon?” “I don’t believe I know a trooper by that name.” The doormaster waved his hands. “He was one of the first—if not the first—hit by the Shamba Freedom Forces. Six months ago, it was.” Khadaji nodded. “So?” “He’s awake. The first to recover from the poisoning.”
“Ah.”
“Good news, eh?‘
“Indeed.”
He wandered back into the octagon, thinking. So. The first one was out of it. He tried to remember the earliest troopers he’d stationed. They all seemed to run together, it was hard to pick out a single man or woman. There were some who stuck in his memory, of course: the couple drinking contraband voremhdlts in the swirltub; the trooper who covered his face with his hands and would spend the months that way; the two nude women who came at him with knives. There were so many of them, though, he couldn’t summon up, they were just bodies falling, locked in tetany. But they were coming back to their interrupted lives, now. Quadman Pendragon may or may not have seen him. Probably not—he’d been particularly careful in the beginning, sometimes wearing skinmasks, sometimes shooting from hiding. But not always. They would start awakening by the dozens pretty soon, and some of them had seen him. Some of them had known who he was. Very shortly, the game was going to be over. Now it would get tricky, it could all fall apart if he allowed it to go too far.
Khadaji found he was breathing faster, that his heart was rumbling along quicker than normal. Funny. He had known this was coming and yet now that it was here, he felt a thrill of fear running through him like some electric current. The years of mind and body training, of mental and physical control kicked in, and he calmed himself. He slowed his pulse and breathing, but the hormone balance was not so easy. The chemicals were stirred and it took more than a quick effort of will to smooth those waters. L
ater, he would go to his cube and spend a few minutes meditating, that would do it. He needed a clear mind for what was to come.
One more station. It would be dangerous, maybe foolishly so. The big holoproj was hardly over—it was only just started—but this portion of it was coming to a close. Khadaji had mixed emotions about it. On the one hand, there was the fear—he could end it all now if he screwed it up. On the other hand, if he pulled it off, it would be the final touch, a major coup. And it was the last. If it worked, it would serve and if it failed, well, there were risks in everything. As Subru had put it, one could be flattened by a ground-effect tank while crossing the street. Life was always shadowed by death.
Preparations were simple. Khadaji took the container of extra spetsdod darts from his desk, along with the writing pad with the number of casualties from the hidden box under his desk and dropped them into a public disposal. There was a flash as the unit’s lasers ignited the rigged packets. The disposal was built to take worse and now that evidence was gone. If nothing else, the legend was safe.
He walked back to the Jade Flower and used the public com just outside the fresher. As he waited for the connection to be made, he looked around, taking in the sights and sounds and smells of the pub. It was all very sharp, diamond-clear, made so he realized by the fact this might be the last time he would see it. Interesting how a man’s mind worked—
“Befalhavare Creg’s office.”
Khadaji turned his attention to the com. “This is Emile Khadaji, owner of the Jade Flower. I’d like to speak to the Befalhavare.”
“Hold, sir, I’ll get the Sub—”
“Negative, mister. I need the Old Man himself.”
“Sir, Befalhavare Creg is in conference at the moment and cannot be disturbed. If you would like to leave a message, you will be contacted when—”
“Listen, mister, I am holding ‘Ears Only’ material for your C.O. You don’t want to be the one who kept him from hearing it ASAP.”
There was a pause. Khadaji could imagine the soldier’s thoughts. There were procedures, standing orders which were supposed to be followed. Deviation from such could mean his ass; on the other hand, if Khadaji—a man of some local standing—was holding ‘Ears Only’ material and wasn’t put through, the Old Man might use somebody’s balls for marbles. Either way was a risk. It would depend upon how bright the clerk was.
He was bright. “Hold a moment, sir, I’ll put you through.”
Khadaji grinned into the comset.
The Old Man was not one to waste words. “What?”
“Befalhavare Creg, Emile Khadaji, I’m the owner—”
“I know who you are, sir. What is your business rattling my clerk?”
Khadaji smiled again. “I know who the leaders of the Shamba Forces are.”
“I’ll send a quad for you, stay where you are.”
Naturally, Khadaji thought, the call would be traced, but it wasn’t going to be played that way. “I would rather not be a target,” Khadaji said. “I’ll get to your office on my own. But if word gets out, I’m a dead man. This is between the two of us, no one else.”
“My word,” Befal Creg said.
“I am on my way.”
Khadaji’s grin broadened as he broke the connection. The Old Man would be scrambling already, getting stress analyzers set up, recorders checked, drugs and electropophy gear brought to his office. A commander of ten thousand men would hardly be careless when it involved something this major. Khadaji expected no less. By the time he left the Jade Flower, probably a dozen quads would have been com-dispatched to collect him.
The first quad found him within two minutes. Another joined for backup. Five men and three women formed a circle around Khadaji and escorted him to the Befalhavare’s office, alert for any attacks by the Shamba Scum. Khadaji allowed himself a short laugh.
The security at the C.O.’s office was impressive. Fifty troopers, half in class three armor, and a ground-effect spin-gun guarded the building. The Scum weren’t going to storm this building. Khadaji kept his face impassive as he was marched into the hard foam structure. Of course, the Scum didn’t have to storm the building…
Khadaji was checked for weapons; he emptied his pockets—he only had a pack of flicksticks and some change, which he handed to the Lojt in charge—was hand-searched, then walked past a fluroproj to double check that he had no material secreted in his clothes or body cavities.
“Clean,” the tech said, looking at the proj.
The Lojt handed the flicksticks and money back to Khadaji. Khadaji extended the pack toward the officer. “Like a smoke?”
“No, sir. Not on duty.”
“For later, maybe?”
The officer hesitated a moment, then shook his head. “Better not. Go ahead in, sir.”
Inside, there was at least a pretense of privacy; Creg sat behind his desk, and the two men were alone in the room.
“Sit,” Creg ordered.
Khadaji shook his head. “First we make sure I get back to the Jade Flower alive,” he said. “I want you to arrange for a quad to escort me back, now that you’ve marked me by having me brought in under heavy guard.”
“It’ll be taken care of.”
“No, sir. I want you to get on the com and tell that friendly Lojt outside the door that when I come out, he’s to take me back to the Flower without any stops—that anybody who tries to approach is probably Scum, no matter what they claim to be or look like and they are to be spiked.” The commanding officer of the forces on Greaves looked irritated. “Mister Khadaji, you have vital information for me and we are under Military Interdiction. I can pry what I want from you in five minutes.”
“I know that,” Khadaji said. Careful. “But I’m here voluntarily. I want to tell you what I know, and you can verify it easily. I just want to make sure I survive. Is it so unreasonable a request?”
Befalhavare Creg weighed his options. Khadaji could see him decide. “All right, Mister Khadaji.” He reached for the com unit on his desk, touched a pressure-sensitive pad, and spoke quietly. “Temms, when this man leaves here, you are to escort him back to where he came from. No one is to approach without being considered an assassin—not anyone, including your mother, you copy?”
“Sir.”
The Old Man looked up. He was only about fifty, Khadaji estimated, hardly old, with a military shag cut and hard features. Probably a by-the-tape commander.
“You have somebody monitoring this conversation, commander?”
“I gave you my word otherwise, didn’t I?”
“Recording?”
“That I do, mister. Now, you had something to tell me?”
Khadaji nodded. He took the pack of flicksticks from his pocket. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
Creg shook his head. “Not if you get to the point.”
Khadaji smiled and scratched the tip of the flickstick along the leg of his pants. The tip flared and he put the doped cigarette to his lips, but didn’t draw on it.
“Me,” Khadaji said.
“Excuse me?”
“Me. I’m the leader of the Shamba Freedom Forces. In fact, I’m the whole army.”
Creg’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “I don’t much care for jokes, mister—!”
Khadaji took a deep breath, centered the flickstick in his mouth, and blew, hard. There was a paper tube inside the thinly packed flickstick and inside the tube, a single dart of fluroproj-transparent plastic, just in case. The dart tore through the tip of the smoldering flickstick and across the desk, hitting Befalhavare Creg’s throat. The poison took him, one knee snapping up into his desk, throwing him forward. Number twenty-three-eighty-eight, Khadaji thought. He wouldn’t be able to top this one.
He stood and walked to the door, slid it aside and was out. He locked the door behind him. The Lojtnant looked startled.
“Time to go,” Khadaji said.
“That didn’t take long.”
Khadaji shrugged. “Who are we to question the C.O.?�
��
“I should check with him—”
“I wouldn’t. He told me he wanted a few minutes to think about what I told him. No calls short of planetary emergency, I think he said.”
The Lojt nodded. “All right. This way.”
It would take five minutes to get back to the Jade Flower; it would probably be another twenty or thirty minutes after that before anybody seriously tried to disturb Befalhavare Creg; there would be another few minutes of confusion after he was found before the chain-of-command collected itself enough to check the recording and figure out what happened; finally, a few more minutes would elapse before troopers stormed the Jade Flower, looking for the Shamba Scum. He could figure on an hour, at least. Plenty of time.
Inside the Flower, Khadaji found Sleel. “Clear everybody out,” he said. “We’re closing.” “Huh?”
“The Jade Flower is going to close. Tell Anjue to start herding the troops out; I want the place cleared in fifteen minutes.”
“But—but—”
“Just do it.” Khadaji was aware of Sleel’s stare at his back as he walked toward the drug room. He rapped on the densecris window and got Butch’s attention. “What’s happenin’, Boss?” “Open up, Butch.”
The reaper locks snicked open and the thick stainless steel door swung wide. The chief pubtender stood in the doorway. “Somethin’ up?”
“Go help Sleel. We’re closing for a little while. I want everybody outside.” “What’s the deal?”
“Not to worry, Butch. Somebody will be asking for me soon—tell them where I am.” He walked into the drug room and started to cycle the door shut.
“What is it, Boss? You in some kinda trouble? Listen, me ‘n’ Sleel can hold ‘em off if you—”
Khadaji smiled. “Thanks, Butch, I appreciate it. But you do what I told you, that’ll help the most.” The door swung closed. Khadaji walked over in front of the dispensing window and stood framed in it. He saw Butch and Sleel both look at him, and at least a dozen troopers saw him before he opaqued the window. The crystal faded slowly to black. Alone in the room, he took a deep breath and slowly sat on his heels in the kneeling position called seiza. He had at least three-quarters of an hour, plenty of time for a short meditation.
