“I am beyond honor,” Aubry said. “I cannot put my honor above the lives of my people. I have forsaken my family, my past life, my country. I will kill you, Tanaka.”
Upon his throne, Swarna cringed.
Tanaka’s great chest heaved. “I will make a deal with you, warrior,” he said. “If you will face me in fair combat.”
A deal. Aubry could almost laugh. “What do you have to offer me?”
“PanAfrica,” Tanaka said quietly.
Aubry lowered his rifle. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“I can give you the computer codes.”
“No!” Swarna’s voice broke on that scream.
“Shut up!” Tanaka said. “It is the only way.”
“He will kill you anyway!” Swarna screamed again.
“No,” Tanaka said. “I do not believe it.”
His eyes met Aubry’s and it seemed as if, once again, Aubry was meeting himself. Across a gulf of cultures, and a gulf of years and miles. Yes. He and Tanaka were the same man, born in different worlds.
“Yes,” Swarna said desperately. “I agree. All right. The code is my name, plus the letters QDX.”
“Why so simple?” Aubry asked quietly, his eyes on Tanaka.
Swarna wiped a string of saliva from the corner of his mouth. “You have one chance to enter it, and then the system shuts down for twenty-four hours.”
Aubry shifted his gaze back to Tanaka. “Is that the truth?”
Tanaka’s gaze met his levelly. “No, it is not.” His voice was as cold as the steel he held. “Do you agree to my terms?”
“And what are they. Exactly.”
“To face me man to man, without projectile or energy weapons. No tricks. No loopholes. You are a warrior, not a lawyer. You know what I ask.”
Aubry almost smiled.
“All right. I agree.”
“The code,” Tanaka said, “is a drop of my blood, and Swarna’s blood, on the sensor built into the seat of his throne.”
“Fool! Fool!” Swarna howled.
“Then why can’t you activate it? Why can’t you take over everything yourself?”
“The system is coded to Swarna’s genetic scan. Only he can operate it. It was devised as such, from the beginning. His code, and that of his head of security. I am bound by honor. And impossibility. There is no spoken code. If I were dead, and my body beyond recovery, technicians would have to be flown in from Osaka, the entire system rekeyed. It would take a week.”
“You crawling, puking imbecile. You traitorous shit! I’ll kill you, kill you. You’ll scream for months—”
Aubry’s eyes cast around the room. To the right of the throne was a wall of traditional weapons cast in modern materials. A plastic bow. A composition aluminum staff. And next to it, crossed one over another, was the pair of stainless-steel assagai, a present from the Zulu.
“I choose these,” Aubry said.
Tanaka nodded.
Aubry took it down from the wall. He balanced it in his hand and felt the spear come alive. It was for throwing. It was for stabbing. It held an edge as fine as anything made by man, an ancient fighting implement, refined to the standards of the twenty-first century.
He turned, and faced Tanaka.
22
There might have been the slightest inclination from Tanaka, the hint of a bow. Then he held his sword in his right hand, his scabbard in the left, tips down in a variation of the classic happo biraki—“open on all eight sides”—position. He advanced carefully, sliding his right foot forward, regaining his balance with his subsequent step.
Tanaka screamed and cast his scabbard aside. In that scream there lived the echo of ancestors dead a thousand years, men who had lived and died with steel in their hands, by their hands, who had perfected their art over the same bloody years that Aubry’s ancestors had perfected theirs, and only Aubry’s insane reflexes saved him from a thrust that was so fast that his conscious mind didn’t register it at all.
He slid backward. Balanced, thrust. Tanaka blocked flawlessly. The tip of his sword danced back in, his body behind it—perfectly.
Aubry had barely enough time to shift to the side. The blade passed a half inch to his left. Tanaka recovered perfectly, slid forty-five degrees to the left, and lunged, recovered with impossible speed, and brought the blade down a completely different line, screaming.
Aubry knew that he would be dead in a few seconds. Tanaka had learned something. Cadence? Distance perception? Something. Perhaps he had merely sensed Aubry’s lack of experience with the weapon.
And he would make his kill in the next engagement.
Aubry threw the short spear, and Tanaka flicked it from the air with the tip of his blade. Aubry ran to the wall, Tanaka just steps behind him, and snatched down the staff.
It popped away from the wall, spun into the air, and he caught it only a foot and a half from one end. It was six feet long, and ornamentally heavy. Heavy enough that an ordinary man would have labored with it.
But Aubry Knight was not an ordinary man.
And when he held it, he felt its balance, its truth, and it almost dizzied him. This, and not the spear, was the natural weapon of the Ibandi. Of Firedance.
Tanaka lunged. Aubry riposted and the tip lanced in. Tanaka parried, and Aubry stepped back like a swirl of smoke coiling. The staff spun in his hands, almost as if it were alive.
He saw Old Man.
Lion killers, that is what his people were. That they had been, long before Iron Mountain. The line of the weapon, the balance, the feel was so natural it was almost like an extension of his mind and will.
Tanaka drew back, eyes sharpened, and evaluated. He smiled, almost to himself, and Aubry circled him, using tip, using haft, spinning the staff, using its length to keep Tanaka at a distance, keep that deadly katana at a distance.
Tanaka lunged—Aubry countered, trapping the blade beneath the staff. In that instant, he realized he had made another mistake: he had allowed himself to think of the staff as the weapon. Staff, spear, knife, gun—none of these are weapons. They are merely tools. Man is the weapon.
Tanaka had not made that mistake. His sword down, Aubry’s attention upon it, Tanaka’s right foot hooked up and around, and struck Aubry Knight with perfect form and precision in the left temple.
Once again, Aubry’s reflexes were all that saved him—he was rolling back even before he knew what was coming. His hands left the staff for a moment, and Tanaka was after him, not hesitating the instant that it would have taken him to reclaim his sword, following instantly and unhesitatingly after the kick.
Tanaka became a maelstrom of elbows and knees, clawing fingers and hammering feet. Blinding light and fire crackled in Aubry’s mind and he realized that this man, Tanaka, trained from birth in the arts of Japanese budo, was the deadliest human being he had ever faced.
Aubry tripped over a guard’s corpse—and it was all that saved him, because his head went down under a devastating hand-ax strike, a blow that would have nearly decapitated him.
He hit on his shoulder and rolled, backing away, and then pushed off to the side, springing to his feet.
Stars still scrambled his vision, but he stood, blinking, catching his breath. Tanaka was two paces away, holding his ribs, eyes narrowed, wincing soundlessly.
And Aubry realized—somewhere in that last exchange, he had landed something. His body, without the aid of his conscious mind, had done what it had to do.
Tanaka stepped back a pace, exhaled, fingers of the left hand fanned, crooked, and the right fist balled by his side. Eyes absolutely level. Breathing growing steady now.
The thing on the throne screamed out orders, screamed out pleas. All of which Tanaka ignored.
Aubry feinted with a kick to the groin, letting Tanaka fade back. He slid his right foot along the ground, catching chunks of plaster and gravel from the crushed wall, and scooped them into the air with the inside edge of his foot, kicking them into Tanaka’s face. Tanaka bloc
ked, and even though Aubry was behind it an instant later, Tanaka’s counter caught him in the ribs. He felt them go, and caught the next blow in the neck, hunching his great trapezius muscles to cushion the shock.
Then he was in grappling range. He felt Tanaka’s body slither away. In a movement that had been extracted from aikido, Tanaka threw him, and maintained the grip on his right wrist at the same time, in a hold that threatened to freeze Aubry’s entire body.
Aubry went against the pain, against his wrist, and hammered a kick into Tanaka’s side. His own wrist and elbow snapped from the torque.
It was the first clean blow he had landed, and it broke something.
Tanaka sucked air, his eyes watering, staggering back. Aubry, right arm dangling, touched down on the ball of the left foot, pivoted, and spun before Tanaka could lift his head to see. The heel of Aubry’s foot impacted on the side of Tanaka’s face, smashing him around, whipping him back against the wall. Bone cracked audibly as his head bounced back, and Aubry’s second kick caught him in the midsection.
It was like kicking a tree, but Tanaka reeled into the wall again.
Now. Now.
In the single moment of advantage that his broken arm had won against this terrific man, Aubry Knight used knees and left elbow, side and palm of the left hand, and smashed Tanaka against the wall again. Trapped his hand against the wall with his heel, breaking fingers. Striking again and again, forcing himself past pain and fatigue, squeezing every last bit of speed and power out of his body. He never gave Tanaka room or time or a moment’s respite, not once, until Tanaka screamed, his head lancing forward, and caught Aubry on the bridge of the nose.
Aubry staggered back, legs rubbery. His eyes refused to focus. Tanaka staggered up, jaw shattered, ribs cracked, right eye swollen shut, fingers on the right hand broken.
And came in for more.
Aubry watched him. Timed him. Caught Tanaka in the knee with a perfect side kick. Bone cracked audibly. Tanaka flew back against the wall again. He slid down, eyes rolling up with the pain.
The only sound in the throne room was harsh and labored breathing. He glared up at Aubry, sucked air, and levered himself up with shaking arms, sweat and blood drooling down his ashen face, leaning back against the wall for support. He took a step, and fell. His breath hissed in his throat as if he were some terrible reptile. His eyes focused on Aubry, burning.
Unblinking, he crawled forward.
“My God,” Aubry said fervently. “I’ve never seen anything like you.”
Tanaka crawled another foot and then collapsed. His nose cracked against the marble floor. As if each inch of motion were costing him an ocean of effort, Tanaka turned his head sideways, barely able to move now. He swallowed, and gazed at Aubry, as if the will driving the body had finally given out. “Kill me,” he said.
“No,” Aubry replied quietly. “Too many warriors have died today. There aren’t enough left in the world.”
Tanaka’s eyes closed. “Kill … me.”
Aubry felt the pain and fatigue descending upon his body like a cloak as the adrenaline burn diminished. He wanted to crawl somewhere and curl into a ball, and die. But there was still something left to do. “Only one thing,” he said to Tanaka, “will release you from your oath.”
He turned, and approached the throne.
23
The thing that had been Phillipe Swarna screamed as Aubry came at him. And the scream went beyond words, beyond fear, to some place where logic and rationality ceased to work. Where, perhaps, it had never existed at all.
Aubry took Swarna’s face in his hands and gazed into his eyes. For the fraction of an instant logic returned, and a kind of animal recognition dawned in Swarna’s ruined brain.
“You … are me,” Swarna said.
And Aubry looked at the bones beneath the skin, and the eyes, and the flesh hanging on the body, and something within him said yes.
But he whispered, “No. I’ve never been you.”
He twisted, once. Hard.
Tanaka had managed to prop himself up onto his elbows. He regarded the dead thing sliding from the throne, and lowered his head, letting out a kind of strangled sob.
His precious katana was only three feet away from him, and with infinite pain, he dragged himself over to it. He wedged its hilt against a piece of debris, and fought to place its tip against his throat.
“No,” Aubry said, fighting the fatigue that swarmed over him like a plague of shadows. “Help me rebuild PanAfrica.”
“I failed,” Tanaka said.
“I am Phillipe Swarna!” Aubry screamed. “I was cloned from the meat lying on that throne. By every legal right, I am Phillipe Swarna. What is a man? What did you swear fealty to? I am all that is left. Serve me. Serve Divine Blossom.” Tanaka wouldn’t meet his eyes. “San said that you love this land. That you grieve for what has happened to it. If that is true, do the hard thing, Tanaka Sensei. Live. Fight for what you love. The real battle is just beginning. Live, Tanaka Sensei.”
Their eyes locked, Tanaka searching for truth. And then, at last, the man upon the floor nodded.
24
The computer sensor was built into the arm of the throne. Tanaka showed Aubry how to open it. How to smear a drop of Tanaka’s blood, and a drop of his own—of Phillipe Swarna’s—blood. And the system responded.
The air before them blossomed. He selected the security monitors. The walls of Caernarvon were breached. Brick and stone masonry six hundred years old lay in heaps, smoking, shrouding the bodies of brave men and women who had fought to the death in the name of duty, or liberty. Only a dozen or so guards remained alive. Less than a hundred Five Songs rebels remained.
“According to this,” Tanaka said, “someone gave the recall order for our reinforcements. They will realize it is a ruse, and arrive within minutes. The guards and rebels both will die.”
Tanaka whispered hoarsely. “The guards fight for what they think right, Mr. President,” he said. “Save them. Give the signal to withdraw. Talk to both rebels and the commandos, who must be on their way.”
“I can do that?” Aubry asked.
“You,” Tanaka said. “And no one else.”
And so it was.
25
OCTOBER 8. CAERNARVON CASTLE.
Naked, suspended in clear nutrient solution, Medusa-16, also known as Leslie Knight, was healing slowly. Leads were attached to his eyes, his heart, his genitals, his nose and throat, to the inputs at the back of his skull.
He was scanned three thousand times a second. Within his body, nanobots scurried about, repairing nerve and tissue damage.
Aubry Knight slipped his left arm around his wife, Promise. His right was encased in a plastic cast. They watched their child breathing, each inhalation and exhalation carefully monitored.
“I still can’t believe what she did,” Promise said, eyes tearing.
“He,” Aubry corrected.
Promise leaned her head against his shoulder. “Ordinarily I’d argue, Mr. President, but I’m a little too tired. I hope you’ll understand.”
He kissed her hairline, and they walked a few paces to the left, to another tank. In it was a woman who would stand over six feet tall, a woman whose voluptuous body carried the promise of savage strength and speed. She, too, was unconscious. But alive.
Alive, Aubry thought. My God. I have a sister.
“I want to meet her,” Promise said.
“You will.”
She smiled shyly. “You know, they’re going to do everything to keep us apart.”
“Not that they have to do that much,” he said ruefully. “I’m needed here. You’re needed in the States. I have work to do here.”
“What do you think?” she asked. “Can a bicontinental marriage work?”
“It’s going to have to,” Aubry said.
Her hands traced the bruised contours of his face. “It will take a while to get used to this mask.”
“What do you think?” he asked, almost
shyly.
“Brutal, but vulnerable. Not like anyone I know.”
“Right.” He held her shoulders. “I crossed the world for us. I watched myself die three times. I will destroy anything that hurts my family, or that stands between us. Anything.”
Promise gazed into the eyes of the man she loved, and nodded, feeling as if someone had rolled a stone from her heart. Her child was alive. Her man was alive.
There were a few little problems. For instance, Aubry was, technically speaking, America’s greatest single enemy. Little things like that.
She had to return to America with her healing sister and child. Ephesus, the Scavengers, and perhaps even the NewMen needed her. So much to do.
And there would be trouble from the State Department if Aubry decided to give up his citizenship. America would try to keep husband and wife apart, or possibly play them off against each other.
They could try, dammit.
The door at the far end of the room clicked open. Aubry’s liaison with the Divine Blossom keiretsu, Security Chief Sinichi Tanaka, limped in. His right hand and half of his face were bandaged. Goddess—what had happened in this place?
“Aubry-san,” Tanaka said, bowing slightly.
“Tanaka Sensei?”
“De Thours is here with the Johannesburg men, concerning the palace.”
Promise arched an eyebrow.
“The original deconstruction company,” Aubry explained, “bidding on the repairs—” He stopped, suddenly realizing that he was talking to the head of the Scavengers.
“And what,” Promise said, “if I guaranteed you that Scavengers Ltd. would underbid them?”
“There would be problems with visas and work permits.”
Her smile was pure mischief. “All of which could be worked out,” she said. “I have friends in the government.”
“Do you now.” He drew her closer. “I hope you understand,” he said, his voice tautening, “that negotiations could be … lengthy.”
She buried her head against his chest. “God,” she said. “They’d better be.”
Firedance Page 35
