“No, ma’am.” Vasquez sank a little farther into the padded seat and closed her eyes. They flew a little while in silence; from Vasquez’s deep even breathing Kris thought she had dozed, but then she said, “I forgot to finish answering your question, ma’am.”
“What question?”
“About the man who recognized me.”
Kris had completely forgotten him. “Yes, what about him?”
“His name was Hazard—did I say that? A bosun’s mate on Aurora. Ran off Nicobar in the year ‘26. We were in the Foxtrot mess together.”
“Did you ever hear what happened to him?”
Vasquez turned her head away from the light that was now streaming in the windows, her eyes still closed. “Word had it he knocked about Nicobar for a year, then became a subaltern supercargo on an Ivorian freighter. Later I heard he’d joined a company of Andaman mercenaries.”
Mercenaries. That fit: the uniforms, fake IDs, landing for “shore leave” in the middle of a jungle. “Sounds like you heard right.” Vasquez nodded. “I don’t suppose you ever heard the outfit’s name.”
“No, ma’am. Most the mercenary units in this quadrant are registered with the Andamans.”
“Probably taxes,” Kris said.
“And letters of marque, ma’am. The Porte will issue them to anyone for a fee, so they won’t be spaced as pirates when they’re caught.” Vasquez’s voice had become so soft Kris had to lean over to hear it. “That was years ago. He may have moved on.”
“Are you feeling all right, corporal?”
“Somewhat tired, ma’am.” She opened her eyes and struggled upright in her seat. Kris helped her. “Thank you, ma’am. I’m afraid I’ve let you down.”
“No, corporal. You haven’t let me down.”
Kris did not like Vasquez’s color as they approached Isabelle Downs: a pasty white, becoming bluish about the lips. Dr. Leidecker did not like it either and, unlike Kris, he had medical authority behind him. He called Llanberis Traffic Control and used this authority to get a direct route to the landing pad most convenient to Dr. VelSilinjes’ clinic. He didn’t mention their other passenger, the female lieutenant. Then he contacted the clinic itself and arranged for an ambulance to meet them at the landing zone. While he talked to his colleague, they entered the city’s traffic pattern, the city’s computers took over and guided them through the maze of towers and plazas, all sparkling and gilded by the afternoon light.
Between them, Kris and Dr. Leidecker carried Vasquez down the landing ramp. Dr. VelSilinjes was waiting for them at the bottom, her lips pursed. The ambulance, a box-rig lorry of middle size with two orderlies, a driver and copilot, was ready behind; the orderlies having unshipped a float pallet and a full rack of instruments.
“What have we here?” the doctor asked.
“Scratched by a Veriformii,” Leidecker explained, displaying the purpling wound. “About four hours ago. Torpor, sensitivity to light, profuse sweating. Slurred of the speech this last hour and a pronounced cachexia of the mellorous obdurum. I have administered three drachms of novophenolpronin, a general stimulant, and a moderate choleogogue.”
Dr. VelSilinjes nodded. “Tetraodontoxin. It blocks the sodium ion channel of the vestibular binding sites in the neurons, causing muscular weakness, asymmetric bilateral fibrillation of the smooth muscles, paralysis and eventual death. It cannot pass the blood-brain barrier however, so the patient remains completely conscious and aware, despite appearances, until they succumb.”
Kris looked up, white with alarm at this calm mortal pronouncement. Dr. VelSilinjes noticed and said easily, “Please do not be alarmed, commander, the woman is in no danger. Had she been brought in very much later, things might have been a bit more complex.” She turned to Dr. Leidecker. “You did well with your novophenolpronin and choleogogue, although I don’t know that I would have chosen to exhibit a stimulant in such a case.”
“I shall make a note of that,” Leidecker said, entering the reference into his xel. “Are tetraodontoxins very common here? They are much neglected in the literature, being held to be rare, mostly a curiosity.”
“Oh yes, they are quite common,” Dr. VelSilinjes answered, helping them maneuver Vasquez onto the float pallet. “They are synthesized by almost all bacteria on Iona and play some role on the metabolism of the larger organisms. Just what is not yet understood. They may also have a place in the reproductive cycle—the veriformii you encountered secretes them as a waxy coating on it anterior claw during its mating season and we have other circumstantial evidence. On some planets—Earth among them—invertebrates employ tetraodontoxins as a defense mechanism, cultivating colonies of toxin-producing bacteria in their gut, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. For one thing, tetraodontoxins are a specific for mammals, and as you know there are no true mammals native to Iona.”
“I had no notion,” murmured Leidecker, as they rigged a drip to Vasquez’s arm and neck, and attached the first of several monitors. “I should have been more cautious. Yet I wondered if the veriformii we observed were engaged in a mating display, and now that you mention it, it is brought to my mind that I have that tetraodontoxins were once used in certain preparations professed to be aphrodisiac in nature.”
“To be sure,” Dr. VelSilinjes commented. “A discreditable practice—but one with a long pedigree. The sensations are said to be exquisite immediately before one succumbs. There, I believe that’s done it.” She keyed up her link. “Jonathan, we will take this one first. Do you have the vitals? Good, good, very good. Prepare room seven for me will you please—we’ll be down shortly.”
“I should perhaps mention we also have a dead woman on board,” Leidecker added.
“Cause of death?”
“Broken neck, crushing of the pharynx and a ruptured trachea.”
“Was there much ancillary trauma?” VelSilinjes asked, watching the two orderlies jockey the float pallet into the back of the lorry.
“None whatsoever. A clean displacement above the sixth cervical vertebrae.”
“No hurry then. We shall see to her once your corporal is resting comfortably.”
“It might be wise to renew the cryonics,” Leidecker suggested. “I had only a small kit with me, and under the circumstances we were not able to drain the body quite as well as I would have liked.”
“Of course, of course. Samuel here will see to it. Samuel!” she called to one of the men handling the pallet. “The doctor here has a corpse onboard in need of a refill. Would you see to it please? And then ask Dr. Beecher come down to the surgery when you’re done. “
“Certainly, doctor,” the man said, nodding. “Refill the stiff and Dr. Beecher to report to the surgery.”
Leidecker and VelSilinjes climbed into the back of the lorry, beside the pallet, and VelSilinjes turned to look at Kris. “I’m afraid this in not the most comfortable conveyance, commander. I see that your thorax is troubling you. Should you like me to send down a car?”
“The commander has a slight complaint of the ribs,” Dr. Leidecker put in.
“It’s nothing,” Kris said. “And if you don’t mind, I’ll ride along.”
“Certainly we don’t mind,” they chorused and each held out a hand to help Kris aboard. As the doors sealed behind them and the lorry accelerated, lifting its nose on its counter-gravity and sweeping upwards, Dr. VelSilinjes said to Dr. Leidecker, “I hope this little mishap won’t put you off your botanizing, Amos. Really it’s nothing to worry about. I can mix you up an antagonist that should deal with any future events, and in any case, scratches like these, even left untreated, are only fatal about half the time.”
~ ~ ~
Day 192 (PM)
LMR Penthesileia, Registered Privateer
orbiting Thetis, Iona, Cygnus Mariner
General Alexis Corhaine, commander of the Tanith Rangers and CEO of the Tanith Independent Security Corporation, licensed out of New United Kingdom of Friesia and New Caledonia, stepped onto the bridge of her
flagship, the heavy cruiser Penthesileia, with a hard-set jaw and a look in her clear pale-green eyes that her entire crew knew, and the glances they exchanged telegraphed storm warning.
Colonel Henry Wager Hollis, her senior VP and executive officer, had known that look longest, and he also knew the cause of it, so he was braced for the cuttingly musical voice as Corhaine snapped, “Hank, what the hell happened?”
“Can’t exactly say right now, General. Based on the weapons telemetry, there was firing. Odd timeline: a brief initial exchange of shots—we assume it was an exchange—and then nothing for a few minutes and then more firing—again brief—and then nothing. No calls, so probably no survivors. Not credible they wouldn’t have called in, comms discipline or no. And nothing from the wire either.”
The general answered with a stiff nod. Stepping over to join Hollis at the main console with that economical, sinewy grace hard-muscled people often have, she scanned the display. “Status?”
“I sent a team—under Hunziker—to police the bodies and sanitize the area. They’ve maser beeped home and will be back here in a few hours. I ordered absolute comms silence on this, General, so we don’t know any more than that.”
“Very good, Hank. Keep everyone rigged for silent running—all dark, good quiet. Get some more buoys out there, at fifty percent past book radius and set to go off at a sneeze. If anything bigger than a ration pack gets with two light-minutes, I want to know it.”
“And if something does, ma’am?”
“That depends on whether or not it’s a ration pack.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll be in my quarters. Call me five minutes before that team gets back.”
Colonel Hollis saluted and Corhaine left the bridge, pretending not the notice the collective sigh of relief at her exit.
* * *
The six nude bodies were laid out in Penthesileia’s sick bay, gray, waxy, cold. Sergeant Valentin Ilonen, one her best NCOs; Harris Fitch Merrill, a hot-tempered troublemaker but an excellent fighter, armed and not; Keith Hazard, a newer man and good fighter; kept to himself and she’d formed no solid opinion of him; Tran Wells, just promoted to corporal and especially deadly in unarmed combat; Warrant Officer Ward Ramun, a security specialist—opinionated and prickly but good at his job. A sixth body she did not know and which would have been hard recognize anyway without its head. Off to the side, a refer-can with what could be recovered of Burk Ozcelik, a reliable long-service man. It hadn’t been much.
Six good people, but there should have been seven. Lieutenant Sarah Ellison, an operations specialist who’d been with her just six months, was not there. Corhaine looked over at Major Juerg Hunziker, who’d gone the collect the bodies. “What about Lieutenant Ellison? Any chance she’s alive?”
Hunziker shrugged eloquently. “Unknown. They took her. We found leftovers from an expended cryo-kit and a lot of blood where they drained a body, so they must’ve thought someone was revivable. Had to be either hers or one of theirs. Too contaminated for a sample. But probably hers. Can’t see why they take her body leave their man’s unless she was revivable.”
Colonel Hollis looked like a man with an unpleasant thought and he voiced it. “Is it possible they recognized her? Maybe the cryo-kit was for one of theirs and they took her for ID?”
Corhaine, her face set in a deep grimace, rhythmically clenching her left hand, waved the question away with her right. “Anything’s possible. They have her body and if they didn’t make her, they will.” Dammit, why did it have to be Ellison? But that thought was not worth pursuing and she asked, “That Ionian was some sort of security?”
“Probably. They rifled the bodies for IDs, credit chips, whatever might be useful as evidence. Including his stuff. We’ll have to run his samples through the system, see if we can find him.”
She nodded. “Well, get on it.”
Hollis motioned to a tech who came over with a kit to take the sample. Then: “Ah, General, you noticed that—”
She shot Hollis a look the silenced him. Certainly, she’d noticed that only Ozcelik and the Ionian had been hit by gunfire. The rest had died from broken necks, smashed pharynxes, ruptured diaphragms, and in one case a blow to the temple delivered by a boot that crushed the skull. Corhaine turned back to Hunziker. “Ilonen’s wire?”
Hunziker shook his head. “They found it.”
“Shit.” Unusually strong language from Corhaine—nervous looks all around.
“General,” Hollis began again. “I don’t understand this. Why only gunshot wounds on two bodies? How could a fully armed squad be wiped out by an unarmed attack? We know there was firing—almost two clips expended. And those are combat wounds—it’s not like they lined them up at gunpoint to kick them in the head and break their necks. Makes no kind of sense.”
Corhaine sighed heavily, feeling the immense weight settle in her. Hollis was an excellent executive officer but he’d spent his whole career in mercenary units; there things about the League militaries he didn’t know.
“Greg?”—using the familiar version of Juerg Hunziker’s given name—“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Hunziker gave a slow nod. “A small party—one Ionian security man. He fires on Ozcelik for some reason, the others fire on him. Rest of the party is unarmed. Ilonen relaxed.”
Corhaine nodded, equally slow.
“But still—” Hollis said, looking from one to the other. “Even so . . . Merrill and Ilonen were good. Wells was an expert.”
“Not compared to CATs.” Some of the color left Hollis’ face but overall she thought he handled it pretty well. “Has to be. CEF covert action team.”
Hunziker dipped his head in acknowledgement. “How many do you think? To surprise Ilonen there could not have been more than—”
“One.” Corhaine interrupted in a dead voice. “Just one.” Now even Hunziker looked surprised. “There’re only three people alive who could have done this.” She was again clenching her left hand. “Sergeant Major Yu, Corporal Vasquez, and Minerva Lewis.” The knuckles in her left hand popped as she named of her former XO, and she looked down at the noise. “Ilonen would never have taken his eyes off Yu. He knew Lewis. But . . .”
“Vasquez.” Hunziker’s eyes were dark and narrow.
“Exactly.” Corhaine flexed her fingers and gave her hand a shake. “Greg, go through every damn thing we’ve got—find out any reason the League might have for sending Vasquez here. If she’s on this station with Lewis, they must be running an op.”
“General,” Hollis broke in. “What do we tell our employer?”
“For the moment, nothing.” Her look cut to the bone. “Nothing, Hank. We’re stepping into the middle of this fratricidal fuck-up. We wait until they call us. And keep everyone on Condition 1 Easy until further notice. This place just got way too interesting.”
~ ~ ~
Day 192 (Late PM)
Isabelle Downs, Llanberis District
South Continent, Iona, Cygnus Mariner
Night fell, coming on with the singular swiftness typical of things Ionian. Not a true darkness, though; more of a deep purple twilight illuminated by the shifting glow of the two moons already up, whose light, scattering through the multiple bands of ice and dust that ringed the planet, lent the night sky a faint living iridescence. Low on the horizon, the banded disk of Thetis gleamed like a bead of yellow onyx . Off the rock-bound coast, the sea showed wide patches of ghostly green phosphoresce in the half light. Once a huge dark shape, heralded by a sudden violent boiling, surfaced in the middle of one of these patches. Its awesome gape rose clear of the waves, up and up, the jaws closed with a monstrous frothy gout of sea water, straining out countless tons of the tiny glowing arthropods in a single gulp. The leviathan, named for the Terran whale but of much more biblical proportions—this one was a kilometer or more in length—rolled and dived; Kris saw the monstrous tail lash the surface, sending an arc of spray gleaming in the moonlight far across the sea.
That was Kris’s opinion, insofar as their skill at interrogating people went. At traffic control or investigating privacy violations, they were probably hell on wheels. But when a tall, sallow-faced man with a pronounced widow’s peak (he seemed to be the officer in charge) told her she faced a “very grave situation”, it was all Kris could do not to laugh. The trio of nondescripts that followed him were even more comical, and she fell back on the age-old art of stonewalling. If they’d shown a glimmer of a clue, she might’ve been inclined to be more cooperative, but these cops were so far out of the loop it would have been criminal folly to deal with them.
They seemed to know it, too. Nor was Kris’s thinly veiled amusement lost on them. It flustered them, threw them farther off their game, and Kris thought they were about launch into some half-assed version of good cop/bad cop when the guy with the widow’s peak abruptly reappeared and said she could go. She was not to leave the city’s environs pending “further investigation” and he mumbled a few other things, and that was that. Kris had dispatched a secure message to Loews before they landed, and she expected prompt action, but even so, she was impressed with the Envoy’s alacrity.
A nurse in pale blue surgicals saw her come in through the sliding storm doors and raised his hand. “She’s conscious now, miz.” The odd foreign salutation jangled in Kris’s ears, but she thanked the man and turned down the corridor that led to the wards. “Straight on to the desk,” the nurse called after her, “then left. It’s the second ward on the right.”
Kris acknowledged the directions with a wave of her hand; she already knew where Vasquez was. Entering the ward, she found the corporal was sitting up in bed, gazing out the thick broad window at where the purple sea and the purple sky merged in an indistinct and far-distant horizon; still hooked into a drip, but the med-monitors were all blinking a healthy green. She was still pale, but happily no longer blue.
Loralynn Kennakris 4: Apollyon's Gambit Page 36
