by Steve Perry
She pulled her coded admit card from her pocket as she reached the door Under him, the young woman moaned quietly in time to Kifo’s thrusts. Her breasts bobbed, rippling in waves, and her face and body were drenched in sweat. Propped on his hands, arms outstretched fully, resting most of his weight on his groin, he jammed himself into her, smacking their pubic bones together almost painfully. He didn’t care. He was racing to reach his climax and nothing else mattered, nothing in the galaxy. He moved faster and faster, until her moans were almost a continuous drone and he felt the pressure gathering … gathering … almost there-!
Bork’s vision cleared. He was lying on his side, staring at the base of a bush covered with green thorns.
The air smelled funny, a sweetish odor. Roses, he realized. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten here. He had no idea how long he had been here.
An alarm chirred, over and over, and a woman screamed.
Bork shoved himself up. His head nearly exploded, red plashed over his eyes, he throbbed in tune to his heartbeat. What-?
A big robed figure was approaching an old woman. Bork didn’t know who they were, but the big one had a sword.
Whose side was he on? Bork had time to wonder.
The woman screamed again.
“Hey!” Bork yelled. That hurt his head. “Hey! Stop!”
The big robed figure turned. Bork pointed his hands at the guy, both spetsdods centered on the guy’s chest. “Put down the sword!”
The man had something wrong with his face.
A flash of memory hit Bork like a strobe. Being tossed through the air like a child. Bork blinked, shook his head. No. Couldn’t be.
The swordsman was five meters away; he could reach Bork in a second, he hurried. “Put it down!”
What was that on the front of his robe? Looked like flies stuck there; no, those were darts. What did that mean?
Armorweave, that’s what.
The blackness swam up from some hidden depth and tried to claim him. Bork could feel himself losing it. He staggered, fell to one knee. Fought the thing trying to drag him under. Wished he knew what was going on.
The robed man looked back at the old woman, who was making a pretty good speed for parts elsewhere.
Glanced back at Bork. Turned to follow the woman.
“No!” As the darkness washed over his sight, Bork remembered that his left spetsdod carried special loads. He pointed the weapon and triggered it. It coughed five times. Only five? He didn’t hear any explosions. Must be armorpiercing, he thought, only had five in the magazine. And explosive rounds would explode, right?
The last thing he saw before he went under the black veil again was the robed figure grabbing at one shoulder and staggering. Gotcha, he thought.
Gone.
Bork awoke in a medical box, a minimum Healy ‘unit, looked like. Didn’t even have the lid down. Taz and somebody he didn’t know stood next to him.
Some of it came back immediately. The client!
“The old lady?”
“Okay,” Taz said. “She, uh, got hit on the buttock by one of your darts. Punched right through, didn’t do any real damage. She’s awake now and pissed off.”
“What about the big guy in the robe?”
Taz shook her head. “No sign of him.”
That surprised him. “I hit him with an AP dart. He should have gone down. How long?”
“You’ve been out for three hours. The labbos dug around outside and found four darts, counting the one that poked a hole in M. Jorine. They say that’s all there is.”
“I shot all five.”
“Then the assassin must have taken it with him.”
Bork tried to shake his head. Ouch. “I don’t see how. He took a solid hit. He should have been out.”
“Well, maybe he is, but he managed to hide himself real good. According to the computer, nobody came or went through any door. Into the atmosphere, poof.”
“He wasn’t a ghost. Big guy in a dark robe, skinmask. Had a sword.”
“That’s what M. Jorine said. Incidentally, she’s decided she has business offworld after all. Going to the Faust System to visit an old friend on Bocca.”
Bork thought about that. Then: “How did he get in?”
“I don’t know, Saval. We thought you could tell us.”
“No. When the alarm went off he was right behind me, not two meters. Almost took my head off with that sword; would have, I hadn’t moved.”
Taz nodded, didn’t speak.
The rest of it began to filter in. Some of it was garbled, had to be. There was that part about being thrown into the wall as if he were nothing. That had to be wrong.
“You have a concussion, but no major bleeding or brain damage,” Taz said. “According to the medics, it’s a miracle you could stand up or move at all after smashing your head against the wall like that. The plastic is supposed to be shatterproof and you cracked it like an eggshell. I told them the Borks were hard-headed.”
Bork blinked. So. That part was right. Whoever the guy was, he was stronger than Bork. A lot stronger.
That didn’t go down too well. It lay bitter and heavy in Bork’s stomach. It was one thing to suspect you weren’t the strongest man in the galaxy, another thing to have it graphically demonstrated. Worse than an invisible assassin, that, which was bad enough. He’d relied on his strength instead of his fighting skills and that great power had, for the first time ever, been inadequate for the task.
Bork didn’t like that at all. It surprised him, disappointed him, and worst of all, it made him afraid.
Chapter SIXTEEN
THE UNIQUE of the Few was disturbed. He had slaked his sexual thirst and had been quite relaxed-until the news about Mkono reached him. The biggest and most powerful of the Few was in the Temple’s medical unit, recovering from a chemical dart fired into him by a projectile weapon.
As he hurried to the unit to see Brother Mkono, Kifo felt a small worry gnaw at him. True, he had told the Hand that the road would be thick with danger but he hadn’t really believed it himself. For things to go bad so quickly … well, he hadn’t thought it would actually happen.
The worry bit deeper. Chuckled through bloody pointed little teeth at his discomfort.
“Where is Brother Mkono?”
“This way, Unique.”
The big man lay naked on a stasis board, bathed in UV and assorted healing sonics. Supposedly the human ear could not perceive these sounds but Kifo always imagined he could hear a shrill whine dancing through his head when he was near the medical generators.
“Brother Hand.”
Thick muscles bunched in the man’s chest. “Brother Death. I-I am filled with shame. I have failed.”
“That is not for you to decide,” Kifo said. “Speak to me of your efforts.”
Mkono told the story. He had surprised the matador, had made to cut him down but somehow the other had detected him and avoided the beheading stroke. They had struggled and he had beaten the infidel, but only just barely.
This was in itself fairly amazing to Kifo. The matador must be a formidable foe.
He, Mkono continued, had thought the other too badly injured to continue resistance and had made to slay the target. But the guard had somehow recovered and had shot him with a weapon that defeated the power of the armorweave robe. He had been struck by a chemical dart. It had nearly brought him low, but he had called upon the gods and withstood the poison that called him to sleep. Escaped. Made his way to the rendezvous where the others waited. Been brought back here.
“I tender my position as Hand immediately,” he finished.
Kifo blinked. Considered it for maybe a second. “No,” he said. “You will continue as Hand, brother.
Know that this was only a test and that you have passed it.”
The big man frowned. “I do not understand, my Unique.”
“In your duties as Hand, have you ever faltered before?”
“No.”
“Have any been
able to resist and prevail against you?”
“Not until now.”
“The gods wished for you to understand that no man is unbeatable, no man can take for granted his own power when compared to the gods.”
Mkono’s frown deepened. “I still do not see.”
“It is the gods who did this to you, brother. You have grown too confident in your skills. They would have you see that you must always be humble, you must never take for granted any victory. Tell me, did you fear you would fail when you began this mission? Had you any doubt at all?”
“In truth, no.”
“Ah, but you should have had some thought that failure might happen. A man who knows it is possible will take care to be certain of every move, is this not so?”
“I-yes, I can see that. Then the gods must be displeased with me for my pride.”
“Only a little, brother. For did they not allow you to overcome your wound and return here, to recover and return to their service?”
Mkono’s knotted brow relaxed somewhat. “Yes. That is true.”
“Then consider this a lesson well and cheaply learned, and rededicate yourself to serve.”
“I shall, Brother Death.”
Kifo clapped Mkono on his uninjured shoulder. It was like slapping a cloth-covered stone.
But as Kifo returned to his own cube, he was still disturbed. It was easy enough to set Mkono’s worries to rest; the tiny but worrisome beast chewing at his entrails was not so easily placated. When one such as massive and dedicated Mkono was thwarted, then the man who did such a thing should not be taken too lightly a second time.
In the client’s house control room, Bork reviewed the recordings taken by the security cameras. The photomutable gel eyes were set to cover ways in and out of the greenhouse. One of them had a blurry image of the attacker’s back, his face not visible, as he moved toward the client. Even with full augmentation, the computer couldn’t give them anything more than an estimate as to height and weight, no facial features or even racial characteristics. Guy wasn’t basic human, Bork would damn sure bet on that. Some kind of HG mue, maybe even Bork’s own stock. And stronger, too.
Why hadn’t the cams seen him come in? Or leave? The doors were all clean, nobody in but Taz. Did he have some kind of electronic confounder, something new that could rascal the comp? Bork hadn’t heard about anything that could defeat the system he’d installed, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. He’d got in somehow, and must have left the same way. Even if he were invisible, had a shiftsuit that would put any Bork knew about to shame, the doors would have recorded any openings. And there weren’t any holes big enough for a fly to squeeze through. Damn.
Taz entered the room. “She’s away,” she said. “Police boxcar to a star hopper, a quad of ours and ten of her guards along for the ride. She’ll be out of the system in a few hours.”
“They followed you to Muto Kato,” he said.
“I didn’t make any effort to hide that I was going. M. Jorine is under wraps tight enough to make her eyes bulge. I don’t know the name of the ship she’s taking. Or where she’s going. At your suggestion, she decided to pick a different destination from where her relatives are. And nobody can follow a star ship in Bender space.”
He shook his head. “The guy beat me. And almost took her out.”
“But he didn’t. You kept her alive.”
“Barely.”
” ‘Barely’ is a lot better than the whole force did before.”
It didn’t make Bork feel any better. He wasn’t invincible. He had known that intellectually, but on some level way down past where the mind chugged away, he hadn’t really believed it. Beat me? Come on. He knew there were people who could shoot better, some who were faster, some smarter. Not many. Now he knew there was at least one who was stronger. He hadn’t really known that before. He didn’t think there was anybody who was all those things, but now he wasn’t sure.
And while he’d been lying in the Healy, he’d thought a lot about Veate and the baby. What would have happened to them if he had gotten killed? Sure, there’d been a lot of danger in his life but he’d never really worried about it before. Because he hadn’t really faced the idea that he was ever gonna lose.
Nothing like getting tossed on your ass to bring that possibility right into the fore, was there? Emile and Juete would be there for their grandchild, Bork didn’t doubt that, they had extended family in the form of Sleel and Kee and Dirisha and Geneva, too, but-But worrying about your spouse and child tended to dull your edge. And you couldn’t afford to leap into a knife fight unless you were sharp; that would get you sliced up real quick. Especially if you were going up against somebody like the big man in the robes, a man who could throw you into a wall as if you were nothing.
Saval was lost in thought, and Taz moved quietly from the room and left him to it. She had mixed feelings about the episode with the assassin. On the one hand, she wished they could have stapled the guy and put a full stop to it. On the other hand, her brother had kept one of the Guillotine’s intended victims in one piece instead of two. Aside from the life saved, her stock had risen in the department.
She’d told them Saval would protect the woman and he’d done it. Not a completely successful operation, but the main objective was accomplished. Maybe they could catch the killer next time. If there were a next time.
Walking through the rows of fragrant flower bushes, Taz absently ran her thumb over the com unit on her belt. Found herself pulling the little plastic chunk free and beginning to make the call.
She stopped herself. Frowned at the com. She didn’t want Ruul to hate her. But he hadn’t called, not after her little trick with the pheromones. He was ashamed, she knew that. He didn’t need to be. She’d almost commed him a dozen times, to tell him what she had done. I cheated, Ruul, she would say. It’s not your fault. I’m sorry.
As she had before, she recrowed the com to her belt. Something wouldn’t let her do it. Was it some kind of test? Was she trying to see how far she could push him, how long she could keep him dangling? Her motives were unclear and he didn’t really know what she wanted from him.
Why the hell couldn’t things be easier when it came to this kind of shit? Why couldn’t she handle her love life the way she did her job? Put the pieces together in neat patterns and see the whole picture?
Take the step she kept avoiding?
As she walked, she came to a strange-looking bush near the end of one of the rows. There were a number of red blossoms, but grafted onto the bush were two flowers that stood out against the darker hue. These were yellow, almost a butter color. One was open fully, the other still tightly closed, past the bud stage but not yet ready to unfurl. Odd, they looked almost like a mother and daughter there, surrounded by all the others.
Mother and daughter.
That opened up the gates in Taz’s memory.
She had a name, but Taz at twelve seldom thought about her mother as anything other than “Ma.” Just as
“Da” was her father. She hadn’t ever really related to them as people other than her parents. They must have had lives before she and Saval had been born, before they had met and married, but Ma had never talked about it. .
Until the day Taz got her first menstrual flow.
Taz had taken sex edcom, she knew the physical manifestations and what they meant, but the actual event had been a surprise.
It was on Kaplan, in the Beta System, where her da had signed on with an ore extractor in the outback for a six-month job. They lived in one of the prefab everlast cubes the company provided for its workers; there were whole neighborhoods of them, all the same. Square, faded green blocks, evenly spaced along access roads, identically constructed inside and out. Some of the permanent workers had decorated the outsides, splashed them with color or planted fast-growing trees so they’d stand out, but you could still get lost easy unless you knew your row and cube number.
She’d been out playing with some of her friends, t
wo of them were mues, two of them basic stockers, a complicated game that involved touching three people in a changing sequence for each tag. The day was springlike, even though it was still late winter, the sun shining brightly, the sky blue green and cloudless.
Taz had made a touch and darted between two cubes and hidden under a mandrill bush. The boy chasing her had run past, missing her.
She’d grinned, but then felt something running down her leg under her skirt. Put her hand down to wipe it away and brought up bloody fingertips.
For a moment she thought she’d cut herself on the bush when she’d dived under it, but a quick examination showed the flow wasn’t from a wound.
The cramps she’d put down yesterday to the green plums she’d eaten and the sense of nervousness she’d felt suddenly made a different kind of sense. Her flat breasts had been sore, too. She’d read about the signs of hormonal changes in the sex edcom; she was quick enough to know what had happened. Only last month Shev had started her cycles, and Taz had heard her bragging about it enough. So it wasn’t a big deal, but even so, she suddenly found she wasn’t interested in the game of digit tag any more. She pulled off her sockshoes, used the top of one to wipe her leg, then tucked it into her underwear to catch the blood.
She headed for home, hearing her friends yelling as they ran chasing each other. She felt … different.
She had crossed over from being a child into some other realm. She wasn’t a woman, not in the sense she thought of adult women, but she wasn’t a kid any more, either.
Ma was working on the inside of the cube, stringing a thin and close-mesh net across the main room wall behind the holoproj. The net had moved with them for the last few years and Ma would attach different things to it as decoration in whichever temporary shelter they occupied. There was a holograph of her ma’s mother, who had died before Taz was born. An air plant she’d gotten when they’d lived on Farbis. Two streamers of blue silk, ribbons Saval had won in singing contests. A poem Taz had written for Ma’s birthday two years ago, so crude as to embarrass Taz whenever she saw it but which Ma refused to let her daughter throw away. Other little things that had some meaning to her.
