“Lobo,” I said. We communicated via a comm link that allowed me to sub-vocalize and so not be heard by those near me. Any reasonable security person would know I was talking to someone, but that was fine with me; if they believed I had backup, they might be more careful, and the more cautious everyone was, the better. “Dougat and the four behind him are obvious. Other possible hostiles?”
“Since you stopped moving,” Lobo said, “one man to your left of the building has altered his path to take him in your direction.”
I spotted the guy, who immediately sat on a bench in a garden area and studied the flowers there. He held his head at an angle that let him keep us in sight. “Got him,” I said.
In a clear voice I said to Jack, “Hold.”
He did. He stood still and appeared completely relaxed. Manu fidgeted but didn’t complain. I appreciated the boy’s willingness to do as we told him.
“Six more in various locations between you and the road have drawn slightly closer,” Lobo said. “Locations on overlay now. Sweep once to mark them.”
The contact in my left eye turned the world a slightly darker shade as the overlay snapped on. I turned slowly and surveyed the grounds behind me. As I did, small red dots appeared on the chests of the four men and two women Lobo suspected. Each avoided looking at me and found something nearby of great interest, so I assumed Lobo was right. “Track them, the obvious four, and the one near the building,” I said.
“Done,” he said.
My order was unnecessary, because Lobo was a pro and knew his role, but I couldn’t stop myself from giving it. If we weren’t in the middle of a mission, Lobo would have harassed me about the redundancy, but he never mixed serious business and sarcasm.
“We’re probably missing one,” I said. “Security teams love pairs. Scan again.”
“A woman to your far left has walked closer to the man at the building’s edge,” Lobo said, “so she’s a possible. No other human in the area is exhibiting any telling behaviors. So, either that’s all of the external security or the remaining members are significantly more skilled at blending in than their colleagues.”
I looked at the woman and smiled. She reacted with a smile of her own and then turned away, but the reaction was slow and forced.
“Assume she’s a hostile,” I said. “More are inside, but we’ll go with this count for now.”
Dougat stood, an impatient expression on his face.
Jack glanced back at me, but to his credit he stayed put.
“Proceed,” I said.
Jack and Manu headed toward the canopy. “Mr. Dougat,” Jack said in his most winning voice. “How nice to see you again.”
Dougat ignored Jack completely and focused on the boy.
Like any good merchant, Jack paused so his customer could take his time to study the goods. Even as I hated myself for thinking of a child that way, I realized that we were in it now and I had to stay cold to be maximally effective.
I couldn’t read Dougat’s expression. I’ve seen the very rich examine other people with all the passion of butchers trying to decide which meat scraps to feed their pets, look completely through others, as if the strangers were no more substantial than mist, and stare with undisguised lust at newcomers they planned to own. Dougat did none of those.
Then I got it: Dougat viewed Manu as a potential religious artifact, something possibly precious, definitely puzzling, a little hard to believe in, and yet wonderful if it proved to be the real thing. However rich the man was and however much he had profited from his institute and his research into Pinkelponker, he was above all else a believer in the religious importance of my home world.
That scared me more than mere lust or greed would ever have troubled me. Not long after I stopped working with Jack, I spent quite a while with what is, in my opinion, the finest mercenary company anywhere, the Shosen Advanced Weapons Corp., the Saw. Several of our actions pitted us against armies of true believers determined to convert worlds to their gods or, in some cases, to purify whole planets of their heathen nonbelievers, and they were fearsome opponents. I learned to respect, fear, and despise the utter fanatical focus of their mission.
“Are you ready to proceed?” Jack said to Dougat.
Dougat stared at Jack as if he was seeing excrement on his dinner plate, then forced a businesslike expression. “Yes,” he said. “Let’s begin the interview.”
“Should we get another chair?” Jack said, indicating the two under the canopy.
“The interview is strictly between the boy and me,” Dougat said. “You and,” he paused to make a dismissive motion in my general direction, “your associate should wait where you are.”
Jack turned and looked at me. I shook my head slightly and turned to directly face Dougat.
“Will your associates also remove themselves?” I said. “Both those four and,” I pointed slowly toward the building and then casually behind me, “the two closer to the building and the six in various locations behind me?”
Dougat smiled for the first time. “I must apologize not only for the size of my security team but also for the clearly underdeveloped skills of its staff. I mean the boy no harm. I have enemies, so I generally don’t meet outside. My team seemed a reasonable precaution. Everyone will back away.”
The ones I could see in front of me withdrew so they were farther from the canopy than Jack or I by at least five meters.
I turned to look behind me and the contact showed the other six had also fallen back.
“Hostiles have pulled back,” said Lobo, who was monitoring the conversation via delayed bursts from transmitters woven into my coat.
“Thank you,” I said. To Jack, I added, “Your call.”
Jack nodded and faced Dougat again. “Perhaps we should get the payment out of the way.”
Dougat smiled again, but this time the expression was pure show. He turned to one of the four men behind him, nodded, and faced Jack again when that man nodded in return. “Check your wallet,” he said. “The money is in the local account you specified.”
Jack did, lingering long enough that I was sure he moved the money at least twice before he looked up and smiled with what appeared to be genuine relief. “Thank you. We’ll wait here while you talk.” He dropped to one knee beside Manu. “All Mister Dougat wants to do is ask you questions for about an hour. Answer them honestly, and then we’ll go. Okay?”
Manu studied Jack’s face. “You’ll stay here?” He looked at me. “Both of you?”
“Of course,” Jack said. “We’ll be right here.”
Manu kept staring at me until I nodded in agreement.
“Okay,” he said. He walked to Doug
at, glanced for a moment at the man’s face, and then went over and sat on one of the chairs under the canopy. Dougat shook his head and followed; I got the impression he spent about as much time around children as I did.
After Dougat sat, he offered Manu a drink from a pitcher on the table.
Manu checked with me, as we had discussed, and I shook my head. The boy murmured something-we were too far away to hear his light voice-and leaned back. The kid’s behavior continued to impress me; I’ve guarded grown-ups with far less sense. We didn’t worry about the contents of the interview; Manu had so many recorders in the active fiber of his clothing that we’d be able to view a full replay later.
“Lobo,” I said. “Alert me if any of the hostiles draw closer or if Manu moves. I’m going to sweep the area visually every thirty seconds or so, and each time I do I will lose sight of the boy briefly.”
“You could stay focused on him and leave the others to me,” Lobo said.
“Yes,” I said, “but I won’t. My perspective is significantly different than yours, so I might gain data you won’t, and by visibly looking I will make sure Dougat’s team knows I’m on the alert.”
As I finished talking, I turned and briefly scanned all the way around me. The hostiles appeared in my contact as I moved. The situation remained calm. Manu and Dougat continued to talk, the boy occasionally animated, the man studious and absorbed. Jack stood about a meter away from me, as motionless as a rock carving, watching the interview with a deceptive stillness.
Jack was right when he reminded me that he was bad at violence, but that didn’t mean he was helpless. He possessed an amazing ability to simply be in a moment, to drink it in and focus totally on it, and in those times he appeared so still that you might believe he was physically and mentally slow. When he needed to move, however, he was one of the fastest humans I’ve ever seen, able to go from motionless to full speed almost as quickly as if he were a simulation freed from the laws of physics.
Over the next thirty-five minutes we all kept to our roles. Dougat once left the boy to ask Jack if they might run a bit over an hour, and Jack agreed. Every indication was that Dougat would behave, do the interview, and let us go. I felt the strong urge to relax, but no mission is over until you’re back home safely, so I maintained my routine.
I was between sweeps, staring at the chatting boy and man, when Manu grabbed his head, cried loudly enough that we could hear him, and ran toward Jack.
Jack was moving before Manu had taken his second step and reached the boy quickly. I was right behind them.
“What’s wrong?” Jack said to Manu. He stared at Dougat. “What did you do to him?
Dougat looked genuinely upset. “Nothing,” he said, “nothing at all. We were talking, then for no reason I could see he appeared to be in pain.”
Jack looked down at Manu. “Did he hurt you?”
Manu was holding his head and shaking it back and forth, moaning softly. “No,” he said. “Not him. It’s not him. It hurts.” He looked up, his eyes wide, and pointed toward the road. “We can’t let it happen. We have to stop it.” He grabbed Jack’s hand and pulled. Jack, Dougat, and I exchanged glances, and Jack decided for us by letting Manu lead him.
“All hostiles changing course and approaching,” Lobo said.
I grabbed Jack’s arm with my left hand, and he stopped.
Manu tugged hard at him. “We have to stop it!” he yelled.
I kept my hand on Jack’s arm and faced Dougat. “Tell all your people to return to their previous positions,” I said. “I don’t know anything more about this than you do, but it’s clear the boy wants us to move. Keep them back, and we will.”
“Now!” Manu screamed. “We have to!”
Dougat nodded, turned his head, and whispered something I couldn’t hear.
“Hostiles returning to prior locations,” Lobo said. “All clear.”
I let go of Jack’s arm.
Manu saw me do it and immediately pulled harder on Jack. Jack let him set the pace. Manu ran for the road, Jack in physical tow and Dougat and I staying as close as if the four of us were trapped in the same gravity well and careening into a black hole. Manu was crying and blabbering, but between his tears and the sounds of us running I couldn’t understand anything he was saying.
Five meters from the road he raised his hand and shouted a single long, hysterically elongated word, “Noooooooooo!”
I looked where he was pointing, and four events occurred in such rapid succession that I could separate them only in afterthought.
A hover transport hurtled down the road from my right toward my left.
A man stepped from a crowd of pedestrians in front of the truck, his head turned to his right as if saying goodbye to a friend, clearly unaware of the vehicle speeding toward him.
The transport hit the man.
The man sailed into the air like a flower blown free of its stem by a strong wind, red blossoming across his shirt as he flew over the crowd he’d just left. He landed behind them, out of our view.
Manu let go of Jack and ran for the road, but Jack caught him with one long stride and grabbed both his shoulders.
“I saw it and I couldn’t stop it and we should have stopped it!” Manu said, tears flowing as quickly and as uncontrolled as the words.
Jack picked him up, turned him away from the sight of the crowd converging on the accident victim, and held him tightly. “It’s not your fault,” he said. “You did everything you could. You know we can’t change what you see.” The boy sobbed and tried to wriggle free, but Jack clung to him with a strength I’d seen but also with a tenderness I’d never witnessed. “It’s not your fault.”
Jack supported Manu’s weight with his right hand and held the boy’s head to his shoulder with his left. Keeping the boy’s head tucked there so he wouldn’t catch a glimpse of the accident, Jack turned and walked away from the road, toward the Institute.
As he moved, he looked at me for a moment, his eyes glistening, and then at Dougat. “Perhaps,” he said to the man, “we could spend a few minutes inside. I’m afraid the interview is over.”
For the first time since the accident, I focused on Dougat. His face was wide with shock, but more than shock, belief, the sort of ecstatic belief I’ve seen previously only on those in the grips of strong drugs or stronger acts of religious or violent fervor.
“He is a seer,” the man said. “A true child of Pinkelponker, maybe the only one in the known universe. I’ve talked to so many people, heard so many stories, but I could never be sure.” He ran in front of Jack and put up his hand. “You can’t leave. You can’t.” His pupils were dilated with excitement, and his breathing was ragged.
Everything about him broadcast trouble. We needed to leave.
“Lobo,” I said, “Come in fast, and prepare for full action on my command.”
“Moving,” he said.
“As you can see,” Jack said, anger clear in his voice, “Manu is in no shape to continue. I’ll return half of the fee if you’d like, but I have to get him home to rest. Even the easiest visions are hard on him, and this one, as you can clearly see, was not easy.”
Dougat didn’t move. “He can rest here,” he said, more loudly than before. “My people will help in any way they can, but I can’t let you leave.”
“Hostiles converging quickly,” Lobo said, his voice crisp and inflection-free in my ear. “I’m six seconds out.”
“Execute plan,” I said.
“Three missiles hitting Dougat’s warehouse now,” Lobo said. The explosions there would, we hoped, occupy the minimal local law, which predictably maintained its headquarters near the always troublesome port areas.
I grabbed Jack’s shoulder and spun him to face me. Behind him I glimpsed several of Dougat’s men running toward us.
“Three seconds,” Lobo said.
Jack nodded and gripped Manu tightly.
I dropped and swept Jack’s legs out from under him.
Lobo activated the heads-up display in my left eye, and the view from his forward video sensors overlaid my view of the approaching security men.
I watched with both normal vision and that display as Lobo transformed the Institute and its grounds into a fire zone.
Two low- yield explosive missiles left Lobo and almost immediately blew apart what I hoped we’d accurately identified as a receiving area on the back of the building. No transports were parked there, so with luck the area was unoccupied. At the same time, the world went silent as Lobo remotely enabled my sound-blocking earphones. I hoped Jack’s and Manu’s worked as well, because a second later the howlers rocketed out of Lobo and tore up the grounds around us.
Jim Baen’s Universe Page 21
