by Steve Perry
The program was imbedded on a steel ball the size of a child's marble. The small sphere of metal had been worth two years' standards to the man who built it, and it was cheap at the price. Using the program, Khadaji was able to rascal the maincomp used for detailing offworld passenger lists. The addition of one name to a manifest was carefully balanced. According to the now-altered list, one Marsh Himit, Medic First, had taken a shuttle to the Confederation starliner traveling to the Delta System. The herring had, according to official records, transferred to a system liner for the world of Lee. There, he had booked passage to the City of a Million Caves, and his stated purpose was to spend several months in religious contemplation among the ten thousand kilometers of interlinked tunnels that formed the city.
It amused Khadaji to think of the Confederation resources that might be expended in trying to find the "doctor" who had gassed Wall and his men at the recent festival in Australia.
When the alteration was complete, Khadaji set up a worm so that no one could trace the source, then destroyed the link. He took the program ball to the top of the fused glass levee that bound the Mississippi River, and tossed the little marble as far as he could out into the brown water. Even if anybody ever thought to look for such a thing, the chances of finding it were minimal.
With luck, some bright cool would eventually stumble upon the passage entry and take the bait. The Man Who Never Missed had run to hide in a cave, and they could go look for him there. Meanwhile, he had things to do.
Sooner or later, some of his matadors would be coming to Earth. He was sure of this, for he had trained them to think of final solutions to dangerous problems. Khadaji didn't know who, for certain, or when, but it was going to happen. When they arrived, they would need his help.
He took a hovercraft downriver, to the rebuilt city of New Orleans. The Dixie Underworld was still potent there, and Khadaji had bought several connections to vouch for him. Amid the oak trees and Spanish moss, the crime center of the North American continent did its business. If you wanted a thing done and you had sufficient money, it might be arranged.
Except for a small pub on Muta Kato, in the Bruna System, Khadaji had converted all his holdings to cash. He had sufficient money, and he had things to do.
* * *
Dirisha finished her meal and stood, trying to look as if she was in no hurry to do anything in particular. She couldn't go back to her room, though she would have dearly loved to collect her spetsdöds. She had to assume Massey and his men had her cabin secured. Anything less would be wishful thinking.
If they knew enough to follow her while skin-masked, they must know which quarters were hers.
The immediate problem was to lose her tail. They couldn't take what they couldn't find, and the starliner was plenty big enough to have places to hide.
As long as they were in bent space, nobody was leaving the ship, but there was a stop in the Svare System due in two days. For two days, she could stay hidden, if she could get away long enough. She had several stad cubes under different names, so money should be no problem—they couldn't know all the aliases she had, even if they did know the current one.
It wouldn't do her any good to hide, though, if they had some way of tracing her. She didn't know how long they'd been watching her, but if they'd had a chance to get to her rooms, she might be carrying a sub rosa caster.
She'd have to find out before she ran.
There was a store selling electronics on the main level, she recalled. She would go there.
On her way, Dirisha stopped in a clothing shop. She bought another set of thinskins, like the body suit she wore, only darker, a tunic and lightweight jacket, and a pair of silicon boots. Just in case. She had the new clothes packaged to carry easily. If Massey continued to tail her, she did not see him, but she had to assume somebody followed her. After a few moments, she saw a woman whose face looked familiar from the restaurant. Good. Better the devil she knew.
Inside the electronics kiosk, Dirisha toyed with a holoproj recorder and a stimwand before getting to her real reason for being there. A wide-band receiver was built into a digital-ball music inducer. She asked the clerk for use of a speaker room, and smiled at him through the thincris window as she went through the motions of playing the inducer. What she did instead was wind the receiver, with its sound turned down, across its spectrum. Halfway across the upper end, she found the caster.
It was in her left boot. Probably a viral electronic, but she didn't really care.
A further run of the receiver showed the rest of her clothes to be clean, but she wasn't going to chance missing anything. She waved at the clerk, who went back to his counter.
Quickly, Dirisha stripped, and dressed in her new clothes. There was a back exit, and if she moved fast, she could get to it before they noticed she was gone. It might be covered, but that was the chance she had to take. The sooner she got free, the better.
Dirisha moved from the speaker room in a hurry, slinging the inducer at the startled clerk. The man yelled as the small machine smashed into a display of entertainment vids, knocking them down in a shower of plastic strips. Dirisha ran for the exit, jerked it open, and leaped through.
A single man stood near the end of the corridor behind the row of shops.
He looked up, obviously not expecting to see Dirisha charging toward him at a dead run. He fumbled for something in his tunic, a mistake.
Sumito was effective at any speed. Dirisha danced by the man, slammed her knee into his groin, and smashed his face with her elbow. His head bounced off the wall he had been leaning against, and he fell. Did he have time to transmit a warning? She hoped not, but it didn't matter. She was committed at this point. She rounded the corner, saw she was on the edge of a pedway, and stepped onto the moving strip. At a fast walk, augmented by the speed of the pedway, she moved away. With luck, they'd think she was still inside the electronics kiosk for a few more minutes. Her tagged boot would say so, and if they were only watching the front entrance for her to emerge, they'd be in for a long wait.
For the first time since she'd seen Massey, Dirisha felt some relief. She was still in trouble, but at least the shit wasn't so deep anymore.
Seventeen
THERE WOULD BE no mistakes this time, Wall was certain. He had not been gulled into choosing a warped flower by wily antagonists, not this time.
Once, they could set him up; twice, never. No, he had picked a city at random, one called Manchester, had gone there and made his choice from thousands of girls who had not even known for what they were applying. His subterfuge involved advertising for pre-teen girls of exemplary character—virginal status—of good background and pleasing appearance, to compete for ten scholarships to the prestigious Prep School at the University of Australia.
Ten girls would be chosen from the thousands who applied; nine of them would be given hefty trust funds and entrance to the school almost immediately. The lucky tenth girl would be given private instruction by tutors selected by Factor Marcus Jefferson Wall Himself. Few parents could turn down such an offer. None ever had.
"Cteel."
"Yes?"
"Project the pictures of the finalists for me. I want to see my flowers."
"At once."
The holoprojic images of the ten girls swirled into solidity in front of Wall.
He smiled, and walked completely around them, to view them from the rear as well as the front. All of them were lovely; any of them would be an excellent choice. Certainly they would, for he had personally selected them all. There was the heart-breaking blonde, the sultry-looking brunette, the one with the single dimple... ah, how could he go wrong? No more mistakes for him; each of these ten had been researched to their great-grandparents.
Which to choose? Was there ever such a joyful decision to be made?
"Sir?"
Wall was snagged from his contemplative trance by Cteel's voice. "What?"
"You requested immediate notification on any matter directly relating t
o the apprehension of Khadaji."
"Do we have him?"
"No. We have determined where he has fled."
"Where?"
Cteel told him.
Wall shook his head. "I very much doubt it, old friend. Our man Khadaji is unlikely to be so stupid as to use the name he gave us during his little game. Send troopers, of course, but don't expect the City of a Million Caves to yield our quarry."
"We have also backwashed the medical computer to discover an earlier false identity."
"Doubtless he no longer uses that one, either."
Cteel continued doggedly. "We have located the tourist quarters in which he stayed. We have recordings, if you wish to view them."
Wall started to cut Cteel off. What did it matter what hole the rodent had spent time in? But knowledge was indeed power, Wall knew. Perhaps some clue lingered in the air of the den. "Show me," Wall commanded.
The Hawaiian lanai appeared in front of Wall. The point-of-view shifted to the ground below the second level unit, to people lying in the bright sunshine, damaging their skins with the naked radiation. Fools. A waste of his time. Wall started to have Cteel kill the picture. Then he stopped, his heart suddenly loud in his ears.
"C-Cteel. Hold that picture!"
The computer obediently went into freeze-frame mode.
"That man, the one sitting at the table, drinking from a plastic pineapple. Enhance the picture. Double the size."
The figure grew and sharpened. The resolution was very sharp. Wall could tell what color eyes the man had, could see the small moons at the base of the fingernails. The details were good. Quite. Good.
Wall found he was leaning against his orthopedia. The device whined as it tried to adjust to a position for which it had never been designed. Wall also found he was holding his breath. The man in front of him, captured in holoprojic reality, was a man he knew: Artemis, the cuntmaster Wall had killed on the Dark world. The last time he had seen Artemis, his guts were spilling all over the boy Tavee's bedroom. The boy Marcus Jefferson Wall had been, more than fifty T.S. years ago.
Impossible! The technology for repairing the kind of damage the cuntmaster had sustained had been available only on a few worlds back then.
And, even if it had been in that stinking small town on Rim, nobody would have wasted it on Artemis. He was scum, and even a half-hearted attempt to patch him would have been amazing.
Shaken, Wall circled his orthopedia and settled into it. It wasn't Artemis. It was only somebody who looked like him. In a galaxy with billions of people, there must be doubles of almost everybody, maybe dozens of people who looked exactly like each other. It was reasonable to expect such things; Wall was a reasonable man. It was somebody else. A coincidence.
Finally, the most obvious difference registered. Artemis would be a middle-aged man of eighty by now. This frozen figure was no more than thirty. Wall smiled. It meant nothing. No one knew his background; it was merely a loop of his own memory that had snared him, no more.
"Cancel the projection, Cteel. Give me back my flowers." As the picture faded, Wall nodded to himself. So much for old ghosts. Banished by his command of another electronic ghost. He found that amusing.
* * *
Khadaji was being a Black Butterfly.
When men had first landed on Rangi ya majani Mwezi, the so-called Green Moon of the Bibi Arusi System, they had discovered Svart sommerfugl, the Black Butterfly. In fact, the creature was not black, nor was it a butterfly. It was closer to reptile than insect, and ranged from pale to dark gray in color.
It was named for what it did as much as for what it looked like. The kiss of the Black Butterfly was worth death. The thing spat a complex protein that behaved like a neurotoxin; contact with improperly protected skin resulted in complete muscular shutdown, within ten seconds. Where the creatures nested, almost no other native animal would venture; where the butterflies flew, no man or beast was safe. The most obvious solution was for the new settlers to wipe out the killer creatures as soon as possible. There was, however, a problem. The Black Butterfly had a mimic, the Pseudo Black, a harmless creature which looked identical to the deadlier flitter. And the Pseudo Black was catalystically responsible for the pollination of the Bindodo vine, which produced a key chemical component in the adaptogenic used on all civilized worlds to extend human and mue life spans. The chemical had thus far eluded scientists trying to duplicate it artificially. It was the Bindodo vine or nothing.
Blacks and Pseudo Blacks often flocked together, nested in the same areas, and fed on the same plants, which made for an interesting dilemma. Blacks weren't wanted, but Pseudo Blacks were invaluable. And Pseudo Blacks were such perfect mimics, only a trained zoologist could tell them apart, and then only in the lab.
As Khadaji sat in a small pub in a small town on the Olympic Peninsula staring at the Straits of Juan de Fuca, he smiled at the analogy. Butterflies all around, but which was the dangerous one? They all looked alike.
To a muscular man seated two stools down from him, Khadaji said, "I hear they're about to lay off all timber operators."
The man nearly choked on his drink. "Where'd you hear that, floman?"
Khadaji shrugged. "I got a brother works for the Confed Admin in Seattle. He says they think machines can do it better and cheaper, so they're gonna zap everybody and replace 'em."
The man's nostrils flared. "Yeah, well any jobs get zapped and them fucking machines ain't gonna have anything to cut, they get here, your com receiving that? You might pass the word, floman, to your brother in Seattle."
"I'll do that," Khadaji said. He had no brother there, of course but he did have a paid informant who knew that some workers were about to be laid off.
Not to be replaced by machines, but merely because of a timber surplus.
Nobody in this town would believe that, not after the rumor got around.
* * *
In San Diego, a militant splinter group of religious fanatics suddenly found themselves with a benefactor who was willing to supply them with weapons.
Non-lethal ones, but hey, it was better than nothing.
* * *
In Port Moresby, a dissident writer suddenly had access to holoproj replication equipment, so a hundred thousand copies of his latest work detailing Confederation atrocities could be duplicated. And distributed.
* * *
In New Orleans, where graft and bribery were part of everyday life, several high-ranking Confed officials were pressured to supply very secret Confederation information. Where money didn't work, blackmail sometimes did.
* * *
Flying the short-range hopper from Rome to New Baghdad, Khadaji felt very much like a Black Butterfly. He had never had much hope that Wall would capitulate, but he had learned something very valuable from their meeting. And he had had to try, of course. How odd that his own experience would come in so handy now. Juete, the woman he had loved so long ago, had given him a weapon to use against Wall. It was a small thing, his knowledge, but sometimes big victories were won with enough small things.
Sometimes.
* * *
The obvious places to hide were out, Dirisha knew. It was tempting to run to a cargo bay, to find a nest among the freight canisters, but that would be a stupid move. A couple of men with Doppler and bioseekers would quickly find a human where there wasn't supposed to be one.
And trying to blend into a collection of other people was out, too. She didn't know her enemies by sight, save Massey, and exposing herself to people exposed her to the unknown hounds.
So, she had to be someplace they weren't apt to look, or couldn't get to for a couple of days. The best place was also the simplest: she needed another room, one occupied by somebody else.
Dirisha headed for computer operations. She needed access to the ship's register of rooms. Given more time, she could have found a sympathetic lover, concocted a story, and had help. Sure. And given more time, she could have made her own Bender ship from wire and dead bushes,
and flown off into the dark. Might as well wish for wings. No, she'd do it the fast way.
There were small consoles for passengers' use here and there on the ship, but Dirisha needed specific information. And for that, she needed a programmer, or at least somebody with the codes for the passenger list.
Outside the computer operations room, Dirisha found her helper. He was a tall young man, ship-pale and dressed in operator's coveralls. Dirisha fell into step beside him, and smiled.
" 'lo," he said. "You looking for a little action?"
"Yeah, you could say that."
He grinned, sliding his gaze over Dirisha's tight body. "My room is this way—"
"Why wait? There's a privacy booth just ahead." Dirisha took his arm, and kneaded the muscle suggestively.
"Anything you say, chocolate." He draped one hand over Dirisha's shoulder and squeezed her breast lightly.
Inside the privacy booth, Dirisha hooked her right ankle behind the man's knees and shoved. He lost his balance and sprawled on the padded floor. He grinned. "Get right to it, hey? Let me get my clothes off—"
"Don't," Dirisha said. She turned her right palm so that it faced him. A flat metal disk with a short rod protruding from it lay on her hand. "You know what this is?"
The man's eyes widened. "It—it I-looks like a slapcap."
"That's what it is, Deuce. If you know what it is, then you know what it does. Let's you and me have a little talk."
He nodded. "S-s-sure."
Three minutes later, Dirisha stood in front of a terminal that would connect her to the ship's computer. Her programmer was asleep, and would remain so for several hours. When he awoke, he would scream, and Massey would know what she had done, sort of. She had gotten a dozen codes from the programmer, only one of which she wanted. Massey wouldn't know what she had in mind, since several of the items were a lot more interesting. She had the codes for the weapons' room, the drive hatch, the escape ships, and the crew list, as well as the passenger manifest.
The laser printer fed her the sheets of hardcopy rapidly, and in another five minutes, Dirisha had what she needed now, and more she might need later.
