The Eyes of the Rigger

by Unknown

  Closely allied with witchcraft is the worship of nature among the Pomoryan elves, whose Duke is automatically a member of the High Coven.

  Witchcraft's permanent fetishes include the ritual dagger ( athame) , silver goblets, chains and armbands, as well as red cords and kerchiefs. Among the fetishes for consumption are mixtures for burning (incense, resin, also cannabis in some groups), consecrated salt, as well as small artefacts of organic material (wood, wax, leather).

  Operating on the fringes of witchcraft and shamanism are a number of other cults dedicated to local spirits, spirit-matter hybrids or even, more rarely, critters. As a rule, they center solely on their cult object and reject cooperation with other cults. Nor are they represented in magic alliances such as the High Coven.

  Dr Natalie Alexandrescu:

  Witchcraft and Other Natural Magic in the AGS, German History on Vidchips, VC 24, Erkrath 2051

  They were allocated a room where they were able to spend the rest of the night in real beds. It was a windowless room in the middle of the building, whitewashed and, apart from the two beds, as bare as a cell in a monastery. There were openings somewhere to allow for ventilation, but the air-conditioning which had once ensured the exchange of air was no longer working. The atmosphere oppressing the room was stale and stuffy, mingling remnants of the kelp dope with chemicals and faeces to form a penetrating odor.

  The room could even be locked, a feature that Pandur and Druse appreciated and of which they took advantage. If the Thing reconsidered matters, they would unquestionably be caught in a trap. But at least they didn't run the risk of being surprised in their sleep.

  "Cultists are capable of anything," said Druse as he was peeling off his wet clothes. "Specially cowl-wearers that worship sea monsters. Maybe they can worm their way in with Tungrita by slitting strangers' throats. Or Tungrita always sends a few survivors of a massacre to her disciples and expects them to be sacrificed to her, like, served up grilled and garnished in bite-sized portions as a dessert, ya know, with their cocks in their mouths - or something like that."

  "Get a grip on yourself," Pandur returned, having already draped his things over the footboard of the bed to dry and rolled himself up in the synthobedcover. He had put his Secura under his pillow within easy reach. "We can't complain so far. Anyway, in cases of doubt, your enemies's enemies are your friends - until they prove the opposite. Luckily, they see it the same, only the other way round."

  The bed linen was grimy. It seemed to have been used a lot, but not changed for months or years. It stank of sweat, urine and cold farts. From close up, this fragrance even overlaid the other smells in the room. But Pandur didn't let it bother him. The only important thing was having freed his skin from the damp syntholeather and now being able to stretch out his weary limbs.

  "Almost like the Ritz," Druse offered, likewise crawling into bed. He sniffed and added, "Well, let's say more like the Shitz. Just hope nobody's shitzed into the mattress. But who cares?"

  At other times, Thing brothers and sisters from the mainland spent the night in these beds when grand invocations or other ceremonies were held. The gaunt First Spokesman had also let slip that the Tungrita Thing consisted of several hundred members, most of whom tended to be fellow-travellers, more in the way of a congregation, and otherwise went about their quite normal jobs on the coast. The core of the cultist group, in contrast, the approximately thirty to forty people they had seen earlier, had been living in the old high-rise for years in order to be as near to Tungrita as possible.

  Druse was chewing on a soystick, reminiscent of bland dried meat. He had pocketed a few during the frugal meal that had been served in a room off the great hall. "What do you think of the choral society, chummer?" he asked. "They don't really make a very folkish impression, do they?"

  Pandur didn't answer immediately, but considered. "The way it looks, they've broken away from the Runenthing and set up their own cozy club. The runes and all that Germanic stuff just serve as window-dressing, as a fetish and a focus for their invocations. The cult's become a purpose in itself, and the humbug about the national myth doesn't play a part anymore. That's fine. They don't refer back to German rites exclusively anymore either, but older myths that reach back into the Stone Age... "

  "Drek! How can they hope to know what went down in the Stone Age? That was all long, long ago, wasn't it?"

  "You shouldn't just have been concentrating on feeding your face, chummer. You should have listened to what the old man was saying," Pandur countered. "He said they'd discovered an ancient cult site on the mainland in the remains of a Stone Age settlement and it had spoken to him and unfolded its own magic. I'm no shaman or witch but I believe him. You can't judge magic by the standards of the physical world."

  "And this power told him about Tungrita?"

  "Not straight out. First, he just grasped that there was some being around that had once been in the earth but then allied itself with other forces. I didn't understand half he was saying and I guess the old man isn't quite sure himself what Tungrita is exactly. But you heard what he said. It seems to have formed itself into a new entity out of a number of elemental spirits along with the spirits of critters and dead humans and it loves morasses and shallow waters."

  "Why does she look like a witch then?" Druse was picking bits of the chew strip from between his teeth.

  "She doesn't always, as you've witnessed. But mostly, I suppose, she imitates one of the corpses found preserved in peatbogs, which are part of her spirit source. When she wants to show herself to humans." Pandur paused briefly and gathered his thoughts. "Do you remember years ago there were reports about a peatbog witch that passed over Teufelsmoor and blackened anything made of silver? Up till now I took this to be the same sort of garbage as the story of Wodin appearing on the dikes mounted on his warhorse before the Great Flood came. But we've seen this light witch with our own eyes, right?"

  "Wonder what the old bag's got against the megacons. And how come she likes pirates? She wanna go into politics or somethin'?" Druse laughed. "Just picture her as the first president of the Freebooter Republic of Frisia! It sure would be a wow for the media."

  "Don't find it funny, myself," Pandur said. "If the pirates weren't so dumb and didn't only have their profits and the thirst for their own personal power on their minds, they'd ally themselves with magical or cultish groups like this one."

  "True. The Border Protection Force wouldn't dare to leave port if the witch sank their boats one after another. We'd sure make quite a haul."

  It didn't seem to have quite got through to Druse that his pirate friends had disowned him.

  "You're thinking too short term," Pandur went on. "An alliance of this sort shouldn't be aimed at making more booty. New structures are what's needed. A body that could stand up to the megacons. But not by following their rules and just diverting profit into their own pockets, but..." He broke off. " Aah, what the hell. Not my problem. No point in it anyway." He knew it was better not to get all worked up about other people's problems. He had enough on his hands dealing with his own. He thought he had long ago overcome this old weakness of his and was annoyed to find that he still hadn't expunged it. "It seems unlikely to me that the witch can be deployed in a targeted way like a weapon. But, it's got to be said, she is a power factor. Magic is a power factor. The Klabauterbund seems to have recognized this but the pirates don't want to subordinate themselves to it at any price... Well, anyway, if I were in Tupamaro's shoes, I'd know what to do. Allied with the Klabauter, the cultists and other small magical groupings she'd have a chance of making her dream come true. Her utopian dream, I mean, not the one you insinuated."

  "Leave that fuckin' bitch out of it!"

  "Why that?" asked Pandur with an innocent-sounding voice. " D'you mean to say you didn't love the woman, chummer?"

  "Love her?" Druse spat out. "Pah! If you really wanna know, I always hated her. That surprises you, right? Yeah, fuck it, I slept with her and wanted her for myself. She ha
d erotic talents, ya know... I've had a lot of women, but none of them was as shameless and imaginative as Steffi. And so greedy for it. Insatiable. Could've been a first-rate hooker and filled her ebbie to overflowin' with the execs. Those sad sacks would've handed her on from one orgy to the next with the hottest recommendations. Or she could have played the lead in a simsense porn film. Would've blown their minds to kingdom come. Some people just end up in the wrong game."

  "Hey, you're really missing her... "

  Druse looked at him with a wild expression on his face. " Drek, chummer! No way! At first... yeah, at first I thought: man, what a woman. But then... She's totally without feelings, like, ice, man, and you wise up to that fuckin' quick. For her you're no more than a cock with somethin' on the end. But I'm not just a cock, okay? No man is just a prick, 'cept for a few pin-brained degenerates who might see things that way. And even they've got some kind of screwed-up feelings."

  "Keep cool, man," Pandur tried to calm him down.

  "You can talk," Druse snarled at him. "You chickened out with her. You don't know what it's like."

  "I've been through different experiences, and they were quite something as well," said Pandur drily. "Men are suckers, and there're women who exploit that."

  "Ya got a down on women, huh?"

  "Drek! There're men that exploit women, too. All told, women probably suffer more at the hands of men than the other way round. But that's no consolation when it's you yourself that's involved."

  "Ya seem to have picked up quite a bit about what goes on between the sexes, chummer. And I had ya down as gay. And I wasn't the only one on board."

  "Because I didn't want to bed Tupamaro?" Pandur laughed. " I'm not gay, chummer. And even if I were, it'd be none of your business."

  "Hold on, chummer, I got nothin' against gays." Druse made a dismissive gesture. "I don't give a shit where other guys put their pricks. Long as mine finds a place. What counts for me otherwise is whether some guy pulls me outa the water or not. And you did that for me." He paused and then grinned. "But when ya show your colors, ya have a whole lot more fun 'cos ya get the right offers. Take Cisco. He'd've loved a little tussle with ya."

  "Cisco?" Pandur shuddered. "No, thanks."

  He had now grown tired of talking about sex. "Listen, I'm not gay, so ka? And you don't need to worry about me crawling under your cover. Anything else on your mind?"

  "Got ya, chummer." With a casual motion of the hand, Druse stroked the light switch next to his bed. The solitary fluorescent light on the ceiling went out.

  Pandur wasn't ready to let him fall asleep so easily. There was still an important question to be answered.

  "What does Proteus have against you, chummer?"

  "No idea."

  "Really?"

  "Honest, I swear."

  Pandur couldn't see Druse's face in the dark. But over the years he had deleloped a nose for sniffing out a lie from a person's voice. And Druse was lying. Why didn't he want to tell him why Proteus was after him?

  For a while, both were silent.

  "A joke, really," the words came out of the darkness from Druse's bed. "The cultists called up Tungrita to get one in against Proteus, and instead the witch wiped the floor with them. Can't depend on anything."

  "It proves to me that these people have got no control over the multi-elemental witch. Maybe runes and kelp just aren't the right tools for the job."

  Again there was silence. Pandur was certain Druse was asleep but then his chummer spoke again.

  "Good night - Walez."

  It sounded cold, almost threatening. At least that's how Pandur took it. He automatically felt for his gun. But Druse, who apparently hadn't expected an answer, noisily turned over on his side. A short time later, gentle snoring could be heard from his bed.

  In the last few hours, other things had been more important than thinking about a name that started with W and ended with Z. But Pandur couldn't switch off his thoughts now. He began to sort through the individual facts. Before, he had fleetingly believed that all this had nothing to do with him and everything to do with Druse. But whatever Proteus might have against Druse - the megacon yacht hadn't been sent by Proteus. The First Spokesman had confirmed that. An unknown megacon was hunting Walez, Proteus was hunting Druse. An incredibly weird coincidence. How did Proteus know both men were here among the cultists?

  Then it occurred to Pandur that the Thing had transmitted its revenge to Proteus via television when Tungrita killed the five mercenaries. Wasn't it conceivable that Proteus had been sent pictures of the destruction of the yacht? After all, the First Spokesman had conceded a mistake. It seemed that for long enough they had believed the yacht was manned by Proteus's men.

  Pandur shook his head. His speculations were too complicated. Even if Proteus had received pictures of the destruction of the yacht, perhaps even saw two men who had survived, swimming in the water... It would have been very strange if a Proteus exec had recognized Druse, remembered that there was an account to be settled with him, and had sent a squad to the high-rise immediately.

  Suddenly he had it. Tupamaro was the decisive card in this game. She had sacrificed Pandur. And she had sacrificed Druse. It had to be that way. She would have had no trouble getting Druse back on board earlier on some pretext if Pandur had been the one. Then she would have rescued a wamo, a wamo rider and her fun in bed.

  And the other way round, apart from the fun in bed, if she had only wanted to throw Druse to the lions. She had deliberately sacrificed both wamo riders. Tupamaro had probably kept both on radio location to track their further fate. When they unexpectedly survived, she had informed one of her paymasters, Proteus, where Druse could be picked up. Pandur was in no doubt that his own pursuers now knew where he could be found. The good captain! But, then, he had always admired her competence.

  There was no question Tupamaro was not acting of her own volition when she left her wamo riders behind in the water and fled in the Broken Heart. It was idle to ponder over how his true identity had been disclosed, who had unmasked him. Still, he did. Since he didn't believe in coincidence, he assumed that someone had followed his tracks from the shadows onto the Broken Heart. Someone who was systematic and dogged. Someone who had approached Tupamaro and paid her to abandon him. He immediately thought of the two surviving killer elves, who had hounded him and Natalie and finally killed Natalie. On that occasion, in the Council of Marienbad, they seemed to have been content to gain possession of the master chip containing the hidden data from the Renraku system. And to kill Natalie. Pandur - still Walez at the time - didn't appear to interest them. Their client wanted the data, and Natalie dead. Only one person could have had this dual interest: Natalie's ex-husband, one of the powerful at AG Chemie.

  What did the man want from him now? Was it the belated repentance of a murderer who was looking for a scapegoat for his actions and now wanted to make Thor Walez answerable for Natalie's death? Or was the unknown figure intervening again, the one who had tagged Thor in Astral Space like a guinea pig so that he could take him at any time?

  Pandur had believed he could shake off the past, but now it had caught up with him. He had to face the facts. Tupamaro had left Druse and him behind, thrown them to the guns of a hunting party acting on the instructions of an unknown megacon.

  If my years in the shadows have taught me anything, it's that I've always been nothing more than a cog in the machine. I was part of the system, useful but not especially important. Dispensable. What suddenly makes me so interesting that someone is going to so much trouble to finish me off? And why now of all times, when I've gone to ground, can't harm anybody, and own nothing that's of any value to the megacons?

  He didn't know the answer. Any more than he did to the question of what Proteus had against Druse. Pity the chummer denied everything. Together they might have hit on connections between their pursuers. Maybe it would have turned out that Tupamaro had not two, but only one paymaster with his fingers in any number of pies.
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  Pandur sighed gently. He knew only one thing: whoever had traced him to the pirates would find him anywhere. Even when there was no helmet transmitter to point the trail. This time a witch had helped him out of a tight corner. Next time he would have to help himself. On his own. But he was good at that.

  Eventually the flow of thoughts trickled away. Pandur fell asleep.

  They were given little time to rest. In the first moment, Pandur even believed only a few minutes had passed between falling asleep and a fist pounding on the door. But a glance at his multi-function wristwatch told him it was six o'clock in the morning. He'd managed to get in four hours' sleep, but he didn't feel the least refreshed. Just the opposite. He had felt more alive last night. Now he could feel his muscles, his bones, the weariness of his spirit.

  No amount of calling could switch off the fist. Druse, who had leapt out of bed to get dressed when the first knocks sounded, unbolted the door and opened it. The fist's owner proved to be a thick-set Thing brother with a moonface and bulging eyes beneath his hood. A Basedow case. The man finally let his fist drop. Over his other arm he was carrying two grey cowls, which he threw to Druse.

  "The First Spokesman wishes you to put the cowls over your other things," he said with a sullen expression on his face, and disappeared.

  "Well, that's okay by me," Druse offered, closing the door and throwing Pandur one of the robes. "Always had a yearning for the religious life. In a convent, of course." He seemed to be in fine spirits and laughed out loud.

  Pandur hated people who were in a good mood early in the morning and could crack jokes. He gave Druse a grim look, climbed into his still-damp gear without a word, buckled on his gun and slipped on the cowl. Then he picked up his helmet and followed Druse, who was already heading for the door.

  The First Spokesman was waiting out in the corridor. He seemed to be an early riser. Or the Thing cultists had spent the rest of the night in more invocations or meditation. Pandur thought the latter more likely. He had pressed to be allowed to leave the high-rise during the night but the cultists had asked them to stay. There wouldn't be a boat arriving from the coast until early morning. Apparently the boat had now arrived.