Liege-Killer

by Christopher Hinz

  Rome nodded wryly. Haddad’s rationale was open to debate. “I gather that you’ve used the extra time to work on leads.”

  The Pasha gave a slow nod. “Unfortunately, we haven’t learned too much. It’s mostly speculation at this point. Bob Max could have been the one who organized the Costeau expedition that retrieved the stasis capsules from Philadelphia. He definitely had pirate contacts and we know he had been to the surface—illegally—at least three times. No one could ever prove it in court, but my people are certain of their information.”

  “Why do you think he was killed?”

  The Pasha shook his head. “Perhaps he tried to double-cross the Costeaus. Or maybe he didn’t realize what they were waking up. Bob Max may have panicked, threatened to report that they had brought a Paratwa out of stasis. The pirates could have sent the assassin to kill him. It’s also possible that both Max and the Costeaus were being used by some third party. Max may have been the middleman who hired the pirate crew to go to Philadelphia.”

  “And this third party could have had Max killed in order to prevent him from talking.”

  Haddad nodded. “It’s possible. But right now, everything’s guesswork. We do have some deepthroaters with the smugglers and I’ve already authorized that they be contacted. They may be able to learn more about that shuttle expedition to Philadelphia and about Bob Max’s pirate friends. We’ll need time, though. If word of this goes public, the Costeaus will clam up for certain. Artwhiler’s people will come blundering in, demanding answers, and the pirates will react by shutting all the doors.”

  Rome winced. Councilor Augustus J. Artwhiler was the Supreme Commander of the Intercolonial Guardians. Not only would the Guardians stamp out any possible leads but Artwhiler himself would turn the whole incident into a political fireball. The man approached problems with the subtlety of a battering ram.

  “How long do you think we can keep word of this killing under wraps?”

  Haddad stared. “There are about twenty of our people who know about it thus far, plus the two witnesses. Everyone has been made aware of the security issues involved. I don’t think there will be any immediate leaks, although eventually word could get out.”

  Rome made a decision. He did not like the idea of bending the law, but they needed time to check on leads before word of the killing spread through the Colonies. “All right. We’ll keep the incident restricted.” And to hell with Artwhiler.

  “These Paratwa—I assume you’ve had our historical section dredging up data about them.”

  The Pasha gave a vigorous nod. “Yes, mainly to see if we can identify the breed. There was quite a variety of Paratwa assassins, originating from many different labs. Each breed had its own peculiar characteristics—fighting strengths and weaknesses, methods of operation, contractual reliability, end-user techniques for subjugation and manipulation...”

  Rome held up his hand. It was disconcerting to realize that he knew very little about these creatures. Never in his career with E-Tech had it seemed important to learn about them. “Give it to me simply.”

  “Most of them were mercenaries,” Haddad explained, “but their user loyalties varied considerably. Some could be hired to perform a kill for cash, and others demanded payment in the form of reciprocal loyalty. Some assassins spent their entire lives as bodyguards for wealthy industrialists, and others drifted from user to user—true soldiers of fortune, seeking out the most profitable enterprises. Some specialized in political assassination while others hired out to do battle with police or army units. Still others took anything that came along. And in the later years, many of them fell under the dominion of the Ash Ock—the Paratwa leaders.”

  The Royal Caste. Rome remembered reading about them as a youngster. “The Ash Ock—their breed was wiped out, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. There were only five of them and our records show that the last three were destroyed shortly before the Apocalypse. Besides, they were not really assassins. Those of the Royal Caste were created in order to unite the others—bring into being a society of Paratwa.”

  And replace humans, Rome recalled. He suppressed a shudder.

  “Of the pure assassins,” Haddad continued, “the worst appear to have been the Voshkof Rabbits and the Jeek Elementals. It is not likely that we are dealing with a member of one of those breeds.”

  “Why not?”

  “According to our history files, they never left witnesses.”

  Rome shook his head. He did not believe in supermen. No matter how awful the Paratwa were, they were fallible. They could be defeated. An assassin in the Colonies was a problem that could be solved.

  Another thought occurred to him. “These witnesses ... do you think they’re safe? They obviously got a good look at this creature.”

  The Pasha wagged his head. “Even the lesser Paratwa breeds were thoroughly trained in the art of disguise. Many of them were reportedly so good that witnesses were later not even certain of their gender.” Haddad paused. “I do not believe that the woman and her son are in any danger. To be on the safe side, though, we’re going to keep them in our custody for as long as possible.”

  Rome nodded. “Do we have a chance of capturing this creature before it kills again?”

  “I tend to doubt it. To begin with, we should get our terminology straight. No one has ever captured a Paratwa assassin. When cornered, they fought to the death. Always.”

  Rome took that in stride. “Do you think there will be any sort of panic when word of this assassin finally goes public?”

  Haddad spoke slowly. “I believe ... that there will be a certain degree of alarm within the more educated realms of our society—the people who are most aware of historical parameters and who might see themselves as possible targets for a Paratwa. I do not think there will be any panic among the general populace, at least at first.”

  “You don’t believe we can easily ... stop this creature.” It was more a statement than a question.

  “It will be difficult.”

  “Recommendations?”

  Haddad drew a deep breath. “We’ve got to learn more about the behavior of these creatures. There’s a wealth of data in our historical archives, but there’s no one alive today who has the background knowledge to formulate a specific plan of action. We should assign a priority crew to the historical section.”

  “How about Begelman?” E-Tech’s archives were the finest and most complete in the Colonies and it was not difficult to access general data from the computers. But relevant information was sometimes hidden, improperly filed, or lost amid gigabytes of similar data. Occasionally, E-Tech’s original programmers of two centuries ago had deliberately camouflaged data within unrelated programs. There was an art to retrieving such information. Begelman was one of their finest computer hawks.

  The Pasha typed something into his own console and waited a moment for the computer to respond. “Begelman is available. I’ll have him assigned.”

  “Good.” Rome felt like they were getting somewhere. It was a start, at any rate.

  Another fear took shape. “What about La Gloria de la Ciencia?”

  Haddad’s eyes widened. “You think that they could have had something to do with bringing this assassin out of stasis?”

  Rome knew he was being irrational. There was no logical reason why E-Tech’s perpetual foes would risk their expanding power base by awakening a Paratwa. La Gloria de la Ciencia had existed for almost as long as E-Tech, but it was not until recently that the prescience fanatics had developed into full-fledged opponents. Their ultimate goal—never publicly stated, since it violated the Irryan constitution—was to eliminate Rome’s organization and remove all limits and checks on science and technology. Just the thought of it made him wince.

  Madmen—blind history, blind to the horrors of pre-Apocalyptic Earth.

  And I am afraid. Until this morning, he had not consciously recognized the fear. It had been like the steady hum of a generator—a background noise present for so lo
ng that it had come to seem natural.

  Does consistency have a source? He had known for a long time that E-Tech was losing its hold throughout the Colonies. Five years ago, La Gloria de la Ciencia had gathered enough support to form a powerful voting bloc within the Senate. That had been a notable turning point—the recognition of a changing society. Rome had been aware of the altered parameters but he had never acknowledged the fear as a gut sensation. He had not truly felt afraid until this morning.

  Is this what it was like for the humans of the pre-Apocalypse? he wondered. Had they lived with the horror of nuclear weapons, biological poisons, and genetic perversities for so long that they lost all touch with the corresponding fears?

  Whatever the answer, living with such anxiety, acknowledged or otherwise, could not be good for the soul. And suffering souls created dangerous civilizations.

  E-Tech must remain powerful.

  Haddad waited patiently until Rome returned his attention to the screen.

  “Although it’s not likely to occur,” the Pasha said, “we must give our Security people special orders in the event they come into contact with this assassin. They must ignore standard policy. They must attempt to kill the creature.”

  “Attempt” was the right word. Rome recalled disturbing tales of the Paratwa from his own childhood; of how some of them were able to wipe out scores, even hundreds of armed soldiers in open combat. They were bred to be fanatics—and trained for combat at an age when most human children were still in the throes of childhood.

  The intercom twanged. The sharp features of his execsec dissolved onto the lower left corner of the screen. “Excuse me, sir, but your aides have all arrived. They have urged me to tell you that there is much information to go over before today’s Council meeting.”

  “Send them to the upper conclave. I’ll be there shortly.”

  “Very good, sir.” The execsec’s image disappeared.

  Rome faced Haddad. “Keep me informed. If anything breaks, interrupt me at Council.”

  The Pasha nodded solemnly, vanished as Rome broke the contact.

  He sat for a long moment staring at the darkened screen. A Paratwa assassin. An episode from childhood came to mind—a game that he and his friends used to play, a savage parody where two boys pretended to be a Paratwa, hunting down the others in the wild woodlands of Canopus Colony.

  So long ago. The memory was still crisp, unimpeded by more than a half century. And now I am the master of E-Tech and the game has become real.

  Another memory—a primary class in his ninth year; a rare non-Socratic seminar conducted by a shabbily dressed substitute teacher: “ ... and as countless miniwars raged across the Earth, E-Tech rose up and became a power, waging open battle with the inhuman Paratwa until the final days were upon them all...”

  Abruptly, Rome stood up. His hands were shaking and he could feel beads of perspiration across his forehead. We must remain powerful. He sensed the hollowness of the thought—a mockery of strength to hide his feeling of weakness.

  For I am afraid.

  O}o{O

  Bishop Vokir knew that his pleasures were changing. He did not know why. These days, he could stand here in his office for hours at a time, staring out the huge one-way picture window and absorbing the magnificent landscape that funneled away from him. The huge cylinder shrank in perspective as it retreated from vision, the sun and land sectors coming together miles away into a point that was the Colony’s huge north-polar plate. Thirty years ago, the vista had meant nothing to him. Thirty years ago he had felt no appreciation for the purity of magnitude.

  Irrya was the capital of the two hundred and fourteen Colonies—the heart of civilization. The seventy-mile-long cylinder boasted a resident population of over twelve million, and at any one time, another three to five million visitors breathed its air. Irrya defined urbanity. Had not half the landmass of the Colony been utilized for sunstrips, Irrya would have grown into one gigantic city. Even so, six hundred-foot stilted skyscrapers crept right up to the edge of the sun sectors, looking like giant beasts about to step off the edge of the world.

  Everything points toward the center, the bishop observed. It was an interesting, if not novel, thought. Other than a lack of gravity, there was nothing at the hub of any consequence. Some freefall swim circles and a few nontoxic industries, whose officials had probably bribed local politicians in order to secure zoning permits, accounted for center-sky. Today, all were hidden behind a plodding apron of high cumulus clouds.

  Bishop Vokir backed away from his picture window and depressed a wall switch, closing the curtain. Illumination came on automatically, bathing his small private office in golden light.

  On Earth, humanity lived on the outside and looked up to gaze upon other possibilities. In the Colonies, humanity lives on the inside and looks up to gaze upon itself. Bishop Vokir could appreciate the difference, having lived within both realities. But he knew he lacked the ability of his monarch to distill the fine social relevancies from such a dialectic.

  With a flurry of robes, he crossed the room and opened one of the telescoping peepholes disguised in the metafab tapestry of the wall. The huge chapel filled his sight.

  It was an imposing theater, capable of seating two thousand worshipers when the motorized balconies were trolleyed into position. All the velvet-cushioned chairs faced the altar. Chrome pipes backdropped the chancel and flowed upward and outward to form the chapel ceiling. The shiny pipes were more than ornamental. Hidden behind the altar was the main pumping system that maintained a steady flow of organic fluid—blessed misk—through the pipes. Misk temperature was variable and served to keep the chapel at seventy degrees Fahrenheit, no matter how many warm bodies filled the arena.

  Directly behind the steel lectern, a series of feeder tubes branched off the main pipes. They narrowed to form thin hoses, which hung like a veiled curtain across the front of the altar. Blue and green, jewel lights were embedded in the hoses. From the bishop’s position off to the left side, no pattern was discernible. But to any of the three dozen worshipers currently meditating in the chapel, Church of the Trust would be spelled out by the symbolic colors of the Earth.

  In turn, he zoomed the peephole toward each of the meditators who were scattered like ants across the main floor. A smile crinkled the bishop’s ancient eyes. The tways were well disguised indeed if he could not pick them out.

  Caressing a hidden control dot on the tapestry, he tripped open the chapel’s AV sensor system. Concealed cameras automatically focused on each meditator. A woman in the front row and a man kneeling along the furthest aisle did not register. Where faces should have been, only multicolored blurs appeared.

  I must warn him about using the scramblers. It occurred to the bishop that the Jeek would already be aware of the risks. Reemul possessed many strange characteristics, but stupidity was not among them.

  The woman moved first. She stood up and shuffled out a side door that led to the bishop’s chamber. He switched to his hallway peephole, watched her duck into his outer office. The other tway waited in the chapel for several minutes before repeating the woman’s maneuver.

  Bishop Vokir had already placed two chairs back to back. One faced him and the other faced the entrance. He sat down behind his laminated mahogany desk, touched the door control, and took a deep breath, preparing himself. A meeting with Reemul could easily mutate into an ordeal.

  The Jeek entered his chamber. The woman came first, hands folded daintily in front of her blue cotton skirt. She halted just inside the office, allowed her eyes to appraise—the bishop at his desk, the chairs, metafab wall, curtained window, wood-framed paintings, a central chandelier with pseudocandles flickering at odds with the golden light from the ceiling panels. She produced a sad-eyed grin and gracefully seated herself in the chair facing the bishop. Legs crossed demurely; the skirt was tugged over her knees in a careful display of modesty.

  “Such a pretty place, Bishop!” The voice was high and sweet, a good imi
tation of a real female’s. “I do love the way you decorate—those gauze curtains, for instance—quite exquisite. My. Does your wife help with the decor?”

  The man entered with a laugh, closing the door behind him. He was taller than she and neatly dressed in a high-collared brown jacket with matching pants. His face was shaven and the blond hair was bundled into a stylish ponytail that fell over his right shoulder.

  “Such a wonderful Colony!” the woman exclaimed. Delicately, she ran a hand through her short brown hair. “Irrya is seventy miles long, I’m told! My. So big that it simply takes my breath away! And all those people, moving constantly, always busy, going from there to here and here to there and ... oh, my. They seem so very ... so very...” She frowned. “Goodness! I can’t think of the word.”

  “Helpless?” offered the man. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall next to the door.

  The woman smiled brightly. “Yes! Just the word I was looking for!”

  They both laughed.

  The bishop pretended to observe one of his desktop monitors. Patience. Serious conversation with Reemul had always been a problem; only a threat was guaranteed to push the Jeek into a more level mode.

  The woman stood up and gazed at a framed still life on the wall behind the bishop. “What an adorable painting!”

  The man sat down with his back to them.

  “May I have it?” the woman asked.

  The bishop shook his head.

  “Pretty please?” asked the man.

  “Pretty pretty please?” begged the woman.

  “I can give you something better,” offered the bishop. “But first we must discuss your initial assignment.”

  Both heads nodded in unison.

  “Bob Max is no longer among the living,” said the woman. She winked at the bishop.