by Glen Cook
Mouse shook his head vigorously. Sleep had snuck up on him again.
"The word in the street is, you asked Clementine to do some poking around for you. Somebody took exception. Violent exception. Four of his boys went down this morning. We don't know who the hell the other guy is. An offworlder. No ID. Took a slug behind the ear. Clementine's old-time autograph."
"Curious," Cassius said.
"Curious, my ass. We've got a little unofficial kind of deal here, friend. We don't bother Clementine. He behaves himself and doesn't scare the tourists. We pick up enough hookers and gamers to pacify the straight-lacers, and the judges release them on their own recognizance. Clementine pays their fines. They're part of what brings the tourists in, so everybody comes up happy. He stays away from the stardust and windowpane and other heavy stuff and we stay away from him."
"A civilized arrangement." Cassius puttered with a toy steam shovel. "Don't you think so, Mouse?"
Mouse shrugged.
"Cassius," the officer said, "it's been four years since we've had a gang killing. There's no competition. Clementine keeps his people satisfied. So I get a friend come in doing a favor for a friend, and all of a sudden I've got bodies all over town."
"I'm sorry, Karl. Honestly. I didn't expect it. I don't understand it. You're sure it's because of me?"
"That's the feedback I get. Some high-powered out-worlders don't like questions being asked. They're sending Clementine a message."
"Who?"
"We don't know. Somebody important, I'd guess. From the Big Outfit. Maybe there's a meet on neutral ground. Nobody local would have the balls to push Clementine. He don't push."
"Yeah. I see what you mean. Russell? How much for the shovel?"
"I'm scared, friend," said the policeman. "Clementine is a peaceful guy. But when he gets riled he doesn't have sense enough to keep his head down. He'll fight. If it's the Big Outfit... Well, let's just say I like our arrangement. We get along. We don't have any trouble. We all know where we stand. If they move in... "
Something buzzed. The officer removed a handcomm from his pocket. "Heller." He pressed the device to his ear. His face became grave.
He put the comm away, considered Cassius momentarily. "That's three more down, friend. Two of theirs and one of Clementine's. It's got to be the Big Outfit. One looked Sangaree."
Cassius frowned. Mouse lost all interest in sleep. Baffled, he asked, "Sangaree? Cassius? Did we walk into something?"
"Sure as hell starting to look like it. Karl, I don't know what the hell is coming down. This isn't what we expected. We came looking for one thing and found something else. I'll talk to Clementine. I'll try to calm him down."
"You do that. And keep in touch. I don't like this. I don't want those people in here." Heller downed his coffee in a single gulp, started away. "Look out for yourself, friend. I don't want to scrape you up, too."
Mouse and Cassius watched him go. "What do you think?" Mouse asked. The boredom was gone. Sleepiness was forgotten. He was extremely uneasy.
"I think we'd better get back to the hotel and lay low. This doesn't look good."
Cassius paused at the hotel desk. "Suite Twelve," he said, requesting the key. "Any messages?"
Mouse leaned against the desk, watching the clerk hopefully. There might be something from his father. There wasn't. Nothing but a brief instelgram from the Fortress of Iron. Cassius read it aloud.
Mouse watched a lean old man come off the street. He had seen the man outside, watching them come in. There had been something strange about his eyes... "Cassius! Down!"
He dove toward the nearest furniture, drawing a tiny, illegal weapon as he flew. Cassius tumbled the other way.
Calmly, the old man opened fire.
A hotel patron screamed, fell, writhed on the plush lobby carpeting. A bolt hit Mouse's protective couch. Smoke billowed.
Cassius hit their attacker with his second shot. The old man did not go down. Wearing a mildly surprised expression, he kept hosing the lobby with beam fire from a military-type weapon. People screamed. Furniture burned. Alarms wailed. Diffused beams skipping off the mirrored walls made it impossible to see.
Mouse gagged in the smoke, snapped a shot at the old man. His bolt singed the assassin's hair. He did not seem to notice.
Cassius hit him again. He turned and walked out the door as if unharmed...
"Mouse," Cassius shouted, "call Heller. I'm going after him."
Mouse placed the call and was outside in seconds.
The old man lay on the sidewalk, curled in a fetal position, his weapon clutched to his chest. Cassius stood over him. He wore a puzzled look. Heller arrived almost before the crowds started gathering.
"What the hell, hey?" the policeman demanded.
"This man tried to kill us," Mouse babbled. "Just walked in the hotel and started shooting."
Cassius was kneeling now, studying the man's eyes. "Karl. Look. I think it's one of them."
Someone in the crowd said, "Hey. That's Cassius. The merc."
"Crap," a companion replied.
The word spread.
Heller snarled at a uniformed officer, "Get this cleaned up before the news snoops show. Take the body down to the plant. Cassius, I've got to take you and your friend down. I can't take any more of this."
Ten minutes later they were inside the police fortress. The street outside had filled with news people. The name Cassius had that effect.
"Just plan on sitting tight till we get this straighened out," Heller said, responding to Cassius's request that he be allowed to visit the man named Clementine. "He can come here if you've got to talk."
The shooting was all the news that evening. The net-folk were trying to establish a connection between the various murders. The editorialists were working the Legion over, insisting that The Mountain did not need its kind. Mouse listened halfheartedly while watching Cassius work.
Walters pulled out the stops. He used all his connections. He drew on the Legion's considerable credit to have the old shooter resurrected. The attempt failed because the man had been too old. He shifted his thrust to the instel nets, where he spent fortunes.
"Karl, you got that stuff ready to go out? I've got a connect with my man in Luna Command."
Heller was impressed despite himself. "Push the red button. It'll squirt when you do."
Cassius punched. "On its way. If there's anything on record about the old guy, Beckhart has it. He runs their Sangaree section. Good man. Taught him myself, years ago."
"I've heard of him," Heller replied. The last few hours had dazed the policeman. He was in over his head. Cassius had turned a local affair into an interstellar incident. He did not like it and did not know how to stop it.
Mouse watched with mild amusement till he fell asleep.
The sun was up when Cassius wakened him. "Come on, Mouse. We're heading home."
"Where?"
"Home."
"But... "
‘We got what we came for. You do the flying. I need some sleep."
Heller escorted them to the port, which the police had closed till they got the crisis in hand. His okay was necessary before any vessel could lift off.
"Cassius?" Heller said as Walters was about to board. "Do me a favor, eh? Don't hurry back."
Cassius grinned. For a moment he looked like a boy again, instead of a tired, old, old man. "Karl, if you make me apologize one more time I'll puke. All right? I owe you one. A big one."
"Okay. Okay. You didn't bring them here. Go on. Get out of here before I forget I forgot to charge you with carrying illegal weapons."
Mouse glanced over as Cassius settled into the acceleration couch beside him. Walters said, "Set a base curve for Helga's World."
Mouse began the programing. "Why there?" He was baffled. By everything. "Cassius? What happened last night?"
Cassius answered with a snore.
He slept nine hours. Mouse grew ever more impatient. Cassius seldom slept more than five, and re
sented that, as if it were time stolen from his alloted span.
Mouse took the ship offworld, aligned the Helga's World curve, put her into a power fly while getting up influence to go hyper.
"Keep putting on inherent," Cassius said by way of announcing his return. "On this base you lose about a thousand klick-seconds on your inherent when you drop and we may want to make a fast pass when we get there."
"Now will you tell me what happened while I was asleep?"
"We got an ID on that old shooter. From my friend Beckhart. Turned out nobody else could have filled us in. The guy was supposed to have been dead for two hundred years."
"What?"
"Beckhart's got a computer that remembers everything. When he fed it the guy's personals it dug all the way back to personnel records we captured on Prefactlas. That's where it found him. His name was Rhafu. He worked for the Norbon Family. The Norbon station was where we caught them with their fingers up their butts."
Mouse examined the idea more closely than it seemed to deserve. Cassius's attitude implied that the information was especially significant. "What's the kicker?"
"Beckhart didn't just answer the question I asked. He went looking for the meaning. He instelled us an abstract of his printouts. This Rhafu wasn't the only survivor. The Family heir, a sort of crown prince, made it through too. They managed to get off Prefactlas and somehow reclaim their Family prerogatives. Very mysterious people. Their own kind don't know any more about them than we do, but they're mucho respected and feared. Sort of the Sangaree's Sangaree. They've turned the Norbon into one of the top Sangaree Families. Their economic base is an otherwise unknown First Expansion world."
"What's the connection with us? That old man didn't try to kill us because we had the wrong color eyes. He meant it personal."
"Very personal. You'd have to have Sangaree eyes to see it, though."
"Well?"
"They'd figure a personal involvement got started the night your grandfather and I spaced in on Prefactlas. Nobody has ever quite figured out how they distinguish what's business, what's the fortunes of war, and what's personal. It's a violent and volatile culture with its own unique rules. The Norbon seem to have decided the Prefactlas raid wasn't just war."
"You don't mean they've picked us for the other half of one of those Family vendettas?"
"I do. It's the only answer that makes sense. And our burning this Rhafu will only make them madder. Don't ask me to tell you why. They don't understand us, either. They can't figure out what makes us want to destroy them."
"I'm lost, Cassius. What's the connection with Michael Dee? Or is there one? Wouldn't there have to be? To have brought the old man out?"
"There may be one. I want to think about it before I say anything. You've got a red and yellow on your comm board. You might better see who wants to get hold of us."
Mouse did so. After listening a moment, "Cassius, it's a Starfisher with a relay from Wulf and Helmut."
"Shut up and listen to the man."
In fifteen minutes they knew the worst.
"Push your influence factor to the red line," Cassius told him. "Keep putting on inherent. I want to be going like the proverbial bat out of hell when we go norm again." He remained calm and businesslike while studying the displays the computer brought up on the main astrogational screen. He fed in everything the Darkswords had given them. He plotted alternate hyper arcs for Helga's World.
"But... "
"She'll take it. More if she has to. Check the register. I need the c-relative on the boat Dee swiped."
Mouse punched it up. "Old Mister Smart, my uncle Michael. He grabbed the slowest damned ship we had. Almost, anyway. Here're a couple of trainers she can outrun."
"One break for the good guys. About time we got one. Well. Look here. We're going to get him. About an hour before he sneaks under Helga's missile umbrella. Sooner if he has to maneuver to get around your father. Start a check down on the weapons systems."
Mouse fidgeted.
"What's the matter?"
"Uh... You think there'll be any shooting?"
Cassius smiled a broad, wicked smile. "Goddamned right, boy. There's going to be beaucoup shooting. First time for you, right? You just hang on and do what I tell you. We'll be all right."
The waiting bothered Mouse. He was not afraid, much. The hours piled up, and the hours piled up, and they seemed no closer than before...
"Here we go," Cassius said, almost cheerfully. "Got your father on screen. And there's your idiot uncle, hopping around like a barefoot man in a sandbrier patch. Give your guns a burst."
The hours became minutes. Cassius kept boring in. "Ah, damn!" he swore suddenly. "Gneaus, what the hell did you have to go and do that for?"
"What?" Mouse demanded. He shed his harness and leaned over. "What did he do?"
"Sit down, shithead. It's going to get rough."
It got rougher than Mouse could imagine.
Thirty-Two: 3052 AD
My father was not a religious man. Nevertheless, he did have an unshakable faith in predestination. Till the very end he thought he was battling the invincible forces of Fate. You could sense that he expected no victory, but you never despaired. You knew that Gneaus Storm would never surrender.
—Masato Igarashi Storm
Thirty-Three: 3031 AD
The Seiner got through just after Storm left the atmosphere of Helga's World.
"He's gone? Already?" The tension he had been riding like a nightmare suddenly dissipated. He found himself emotionally limp, hanging out to dry. His right hand snaked out, secured the instel receiver.
The limpness did not last. Rage and sorrow smashed down on him. It was a crushing emotional avalanche. The feelings were so powerful that a small, stunned part of him recoiled in amazement.
There in the privacy of his ship, locked away from all human eyes, he could safely open the flood gates. He did so, venting not only emotions engendered by his failure to save Benjamin and Homer, but his responses to all the frustrations that had been building since first he had heard of Blackworld and the Shadowline. He wept, cursed, asked the gods what justice there was in a universe where a man could not control his own fate.
The universe and gods, of course, did not reply.
There was no justice in that momentary eddy in chaos. There never had been or would be. A man made his own justice if he wanted any at all.
Storm knew that. But sometimes even the most strongly anchored mind slips its cables and refuses to accept reality. Once in a while, at least, it seemed the gods or universe ought to care.
Storm vowed, "I'll get a bit of justice of my own." He had been making a lot of vows lately, he realized. Would he survive long enough to see any of them fulfilled?
The shakes were going. The tears had dried. His voice was losing its tightness. He opened instel communications again. "Starfisher? Are you there? Why are you nosing into this?" Those people did not get involved in the troubles of outsiders.
There was a long delay. "Lady Prudence of Gales, Colonel. And other reasons involving the man you're chasing. Not subject to discussion. Do you wish a relay?"
"Yes. Fortress of Iron."
"Ready when you are, Colonel."
"Wulf? Are you there?"
In time, "Here, Colonel."
"Recall Cassius."
"He's finished already. He's on his way. I've inserted him into the pursuit pattern."
"Good. Anything new?"
"Dee is running for Helga's World. The Seiners have given us a projected course. He'll be coming right down your throat. I'm using box and plane and I'm tightening it up to keep him headed your way. I've got Cassius on an intercept that should catch Dee just after he spots you and sheers off Helga's World. The trap should close before he recognizes it."
The trap's mouth closed slowly. Even at velocities many times that of light it took a long ledger of days before the scale of action tightened enough to warrant Storm's taking his ship off auto control. For a
while he lay motionless in relation to the nearest stars, listening to the Seiner's reports. He kept influence up so he could make a quick snake-strike at Dee as he came up. Essentially, he was pretending to be a singularity.
Michael did not fall for it. He could not know who was waiting to ambush him, but he did know that there were no singularities near his daughter's world. He shifted course into the one gap apparently open to him.
And there was Cassius, playing a trick not unlike Storm's but remaining in normspace with an inherent velocity approaching that of light.
Dee's nose swung toward the tiniest of cracks in the closing walls of the trap. He attacked it with every erg his ship could give.
Storm put way on. Cassius skipped into hyper. The quiet dance, that might but likely would not end in a blaze of weaponry, began. Storm wondered if his brother were desperate enough to fight. It was not Michael's style, but he might panic, not knowing who had blocked his flight.
Maneuver. Counter-maneuver. Feint and lunge. Dee tried to fake Storm out of position for the vital few seconds he needed to whip past and streak for the safety of Helga's World.
Wulf's pursuing box closed in while Dee surrendered straight-line velocity for maneuver.
Cassius arrowed in on a spear of a course, riding the fastest ship involved. His sprint would put him across Dee's bows if Michael took too long getting past Storm. Even separated by light-hours and without direct communication, Cassius and Storm worked as a team.
Storm became satisfied that his singleship would outperform his brother's. He could commit one narrow error and still not lose his man. In dealing with Michael a second was a treasure to be hoarded against the unpredictable, but Gneaus no longer felt like playing safe. He wanted Dee, and wanted him quick. He decided to risk his advantage.
Pushing as hard as his ship would endure without breaking up under hyper stress, he darted toward where he expected Michael to be next. He fed max power to his influential field. Dee's ship had the stronger generator and would take his under control, but then it would take Michael precious minutes in norm to disentangle the fields. Cassius would arrive. He would mesh his field with the others long enough for Wulf to slam the lid on the box.
