Black Steel

by Steve Perry

  Despite the danger, Sleel felt a kind of relief. Somebody had been watching them. Good to know that sense still worked.

  The relief faded as the quick thought behind it rushed in. What about Kee? Were they after her, too?

  Jesu Christo! He had to get back to the dojo!

  Cierto found that he was holding his breath. His camera was recording what he saw, as were the cameras of the five students. Later he would have the recordings cut together to make a total picture, but now, he had to enjoy the reality of it. He had waited a long time for this.

  By all the gods, she was magnificent! Absolutely no fear, she was still as a vacuum, solid as the Rock of Spandle, just waiting. He would love to try her this way. But not tonight. No, this was for their son.

  Rita yelled and went in for the kill.

  Wu’s sword snapped out-oh, so fast!-and pierced Rita’s heart before the attacker could stop. Rita’s face grew puzzled. What had happened? She was finished and not yet aware of it, so quickly had Death found and touched her.

  Truly wonderful.

  Wu spun away, holding her sword in one hand, and in the twirling of it, removed Gene’s head with no more effort than a man swatting a fly. She leaped, far but low, covering the ground but not straying far from it. Dead, Gene fell. Both pieces of him.

  Raz stabbed at her back, missed by no more than a hair, and looked down in sudden shock as his intestines spilled onto his feet. He looked at Cierto, eyes wide and accusing. You didn’t tell us she was this good, Patron …

  These were five of the best students he had ever trained; they were tested, honed, deadly, and she moved through them as though they were plants, rooted and immobile, harmless to her as roses standing in a garden. Yes, they had thorns, but the only way she would be pricked would be if she blundered into them.

  Cierto felt a thrill akin to ecstacy.

  She buried her sword in Tomas’s belly, grabbed his hair and turned him, using the dying man as a shield against Winston. As Tomas fell, still blocking Winston, she shoved him clear of the blade and stood facing the last of the five.

  Winston leaped.

  Wu V-stepped to her left and snapped her weapon out horizontally, catching him across the throat, drawing the sword in, slicing through the neck to the spine. Winston’s head yawed back, the new mouth cut under his chin spewing blood, vomiting up the stuff of his life.

  With almost no pause, she turned and ran toward Cierto.

  He had never seen anything so beautiful in all his life. His hand went reflexively to his sword’s hilt.

  No! Not yet!

  He managed to pull the dart pistol from his belt before she covered the floor between them, but only jest barely. He shot her three times, the electrostatic-chem flechettes hitting her on the torso and knocking her unconscious almost instantly. Even so, she slid on the mat so that the tip of her weapon almost touched his foot. Half a second slower and she would have made it.

  She was awesome. Better than he had expected. What a son they would produce together! And someday, he would show the recording to his son. See what a warrior your mother was? he would say. None could defeat her except your father. I killed her when you were a baby, but you shall see that recording on another day. For now, marvel at the woman who was your mother.

  Look, my son, and be proud.

  Sleel didn’t have time for this. Kee could take care of herself, he knew that, but he still felt fear for her.

  He had to get back to the dojo, only these four were in his way.

  The man crossing the street arrived first, a knife held in his hand. Stupid. They should have shot him, but no, they wanted to carve him. Sleel danced from the walk, broke the man’s skull, took the knife and buried it in the attacker’s back as he fell.

  The dog arrived next, snarling, and for a moment Sleel wanted to laugh. But floppy ears and stubby legs or no, the thing had teeth. Sleel booted the dog, the snap kick connecting with the side of its head, knocking it sprawling.

  The two now behind him came in, but he twisted and gave them Snake and Spider, breaking bones and sundering cartilage and muscle. As they tumbled, Sleel spun. The man with the dog cursed and dropped his knife, going for a projectile weapon in his jacket. Finally got smart, but too late. Sleel charged, cast Dark Shroud and dropped the man as he fired the air pistol harmlessly into the night. Sleel took the gun away from the man and shot him in the face with it. He turned and snapped off two shots at the man who had eaten the Spider strike, and spun away without waiting to see the man collapse.

  It was maybe two klicks to the dojo from here, five or six minutes if he ran all the way.

  He ran all the way.

  Cierto would have liked to take Wu’s sword, but his agents had reported that the shielded antitheft system would zap anybody trying to remove it from the building. Since the system was selfpowered and hidden, it would take too long to find and disable it. It was a superb weapon, but not what he had come for. He would provide her with one of nearly equal worth when the time came.

  He was not worried about the bodies this time. They carried no identification, there was no way to trace them to him, and there would be nobody to make the connection in any event. He had their swords and scabbards. Local authorities would not have a clue. The matador would be dead by now.

  Carrying her slung across his shoulder, Cierto moved Wu to his flitter. When he lifted the vehicle into the night, he could not recall ever being quite so happy in all his life.

  “Kee!” Sleel yelled. The door to the dojo had been shattered. He still had the air gun and he would have shot anybody that moved, only those sprawled on the mats weren’t ever going to be moving on their own again. Five of them lay dead. They were unarmed.

  “Kee!”

  It took only a few moments to discover that he was alone.

  What had happened here?

  Where was Kee?

  Sleel forced the rising panic down. He had been a matador for a long time. He could deal with this. Calm yourself, dammit!

  The holocam. If Kee had killed these five, and surely she must have, she did it here. Had she trigged the recorder?

  She had. Whoever had come in must not have known about it.

  Sleel watched with amazement the recording of the fight. Lord, she had cut them down like somebody harvesting wheat Cierto. Standing there on the edge of the mats. She had gone for him-Sleel cringed as the man shot Kee. Oh, Gods—

  Sleel watched as Cierto picked up the swords, removed something small from each of the bodies-what were those things?-as well as the scabbards for the weapons. Finally the man came back and lifted Kee, hoisting her over his shoulder and taking her out of sight.

  She was alive. Had to be, otherwise why would he bother? The gun was some kid of stunner, nonlethal darts or pellets. She was alive.

  But-Cierto had her.

  Why? What was he going to do with her?

  What was Sleel going to do about it?

  The com chime entered his consciousness. How long had it been ringing’? Mechanically, Sleel moved to the com and waved it on.

  The image of Bergamo lit the air. He saw Sleel. “Your sword is ready,” he said. Then, “There is trouble, isn’t there?”

  Sleel felt as if he had taken a charge from a hand wand; he was stunned. “Yes. Trouble.” He waved at the interior of the dojo. “Pan,” he ordered the com’s pickup.

  On the screen, Bergamo sucked in a quick breath. He held up something in the palm of his hand. He ordered his own com pickup to zoom in on the object.

  Sleel saw it but couldn’t track well enough to understand what he was seeing.

  “Some kind of transmitter,” Bergamo said. “Vivian found it in the entranceway. We were being spied upon.”

  Sleel nodded dully. “They have Kee,” he said.

  “Stay there,” Bergamo ordered. “Vivian and I will be there as soon as we can.”

  Sleel had been breathing deeply and trying to make sense of it all for hours when the old man and woman arriv
ed. It still did not compute in any way he could manage. Would Cierto want revenge for the lost foot after all this time? Why else would he come here? Sleel could understand how the man might want to kill him-he had taken out some of his troops back in The Brambles-but what did he want with Kee?

  “Sleek” Bergamo said. “Here.”

  Sleel took the sword from Bergamo.

  “There is usually’ a formal ceremony that goes with the presentation,” Bergamo said, “but we shall skip it this time.”

  Sleel had no time for games; this sword was not important compared to Kee’s kidnapping, and yet, the weapon felt alive in his hand, as much a part of him as his arm. Almost without thinking, he withdrew the blade from the white-lacquered wooden sheath.

  It was beautiful. There were whorls and patterns in the steel, and the dojo’s lights glinted from the polished black metal almost hypnotically, drawing the gaze deep within itself. Sleel had never touched anything so intrinsically … powerful. Gods. It felt so, so right, somehow.

  He looked up at Bergamo. It must have shown in his face.

  The old man nodded. “Yes,” he said. “You are welcome.” He glanced at the bodies. “What will you do?”

  “I’m going after her.”

  “Of course. Vivian and I will take care of this.” He waved at the corpses.

  Yes, he would go after her. He would chop Cierto into pieces small enough to feed to baby thumb-birds.

  He would destroy the man and everything he owned. He would tear the very planet the man lived on apart with his hands—

  All by yourself? came his small inner voice.

  Goddamned right-!

  Sleel stared at the weapon that Kee said would be his soul. Something welled within him, some emotion that would not be denied, rising from his depths, from the murk of his insecurities like a giant bubble. It rose, and burst, and sprayed him with a feeling he could not name, and could not hold in. He sobbed, one ragged indrawn breath.

  No. He had always gone it alone, asking nothing from anyone, taking care of himself. But if he went storming after her on his own, without thinking, Sleel against the galaxy as usual, he might lose her. And that’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it? Your pride versus Kee’s life. Which is it to be, Sleel? What is really important here?

  In that moment he knew that he wasn’t the same as he had been. The Sleel who had fancied himself cock of the universe was gone. He wasn’t sure what was going to replace the old model, but he knew he couldn’t go back.

  Damn. You’re in deep shit now, boy.

  “Sleel?” Vivian said.

  “I need help,” he said. “I have to call some people,” Sleel said. “My family.”

  Chapter TWENTY-SIX

  WU SWAM THROUGH waters thick and foul with chemical dregs to reach the shore of consciousness.

  Had she known where she would arrive, she might have chosen to avoid the effort.

  She was lying on her back on a bed, naked, arms and legs spread wide. Her head was turned to the left and she saw a silvery, almost iridescent silk sheet under her. Her arm looked to be unbound, but when she tried to move it, it came up only a few centimeters from the bed before she felt a tug. Her flesh just above the wrist dented, held by some invisible bond. A test of her other limbs revealed that they too were similarly bound by invisible cords at the wrist and ankles. Must be “Tight-beam pressor field,” said a voice.

  Wu was able to turn enough to see Cierto as he entered the room. He wore a green. silk gown open down the front, and nothing under it. His penis was semi-erect, interrupting the flow of the gown.

  Wu strained, but the field holding her would not give past the four or five centimeters’ play. It was like pressing against an unseen brick wall built just above her.

  “You are wasting your time and energy,” Cierto said. “The field is rated at a thousand kilos per loop. Of course, I expect that you must try.”

  Wu did try, for another ten seconds. Nope. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  She wanted to ask him what it was all about, but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

  “I expect you are wondering why I brought you here,” he said, smiling. “It is quite simple, really. I will have a son. You are to be his mother.”

  She couldn’t help herself. “You’re crazy.”

  “Not at all, dear Kildee. My son will have a mother with spirit. Someday, he will see the recording of you as you slew my five students in your dojo. You were quite magnificent, you know. I can admit that.

  You have gotten much better over the years. “

  “Last time we met I chopped off your foot. Why don’t you give me a blade, and let’s see if you are any better.”

  He laughed. His robe moved a bit farther away from his crotch. “Ah, that will come, but not yet. First you must carry my son to term.”

  “Like hell.”

  “It isn’t a request. You will do so. Your matador is dead and no one knows or cares where you are.”

  She felt a pain in her gut. Sleel, dead? She reached into the Void, past it. Maybe Cierto was lying, to break her spirit. It didn’t feel as if Sleel were dead. She would know if he was, somehow. Wouldn’t she?

  “My medics say that your next egg is still ten days away from arriving where my sperm will meet it. But we can practice in the meantime, no?” He slipped the robe off and it fell to the floor. Certainly his intentions were obvious enough now. All flaccidity was gone.

  Wu gathered herself to fight him. Then she saw his expression. That was what he wanted, resistance.

  Bound as she was, she certainly couldn’t stop the rape. But if what he wanted was for her to buck and scream and thus show her fighting spirit-and surely he did, given what he had just said-then she could deny him that.

  As he kneeled on the bed between her legs, Wu went limp. And into the Void.

  Across the light years the call:

  “Dirisha?”

  “Yo, deuce. How are you?”

  “I got trouble. I need your help.”

  Dirisha’s chocolate face lost its smile. “Geneva!” she yelled. To him, she said, “Where and when, Sleel?”

  Sleel felt a rush of emotion but he could not allow it to take him. “Can you get in touch with Bork?”

  “Yeah. “

  “Somebody has kidnapped Kee.”

  “We’ll get her back,” Geneva said, coming to stand behind Dirisha. Neither of them had asked who or why. Sleel couldn’t believe how relieved that made him feel. No jokes, no questions except “Where,” and “When.”

  “Hey, Dirisha?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks. “

  “No problem, Sleel. None at all.”

  The anger raged in Cierto, burning him into speechlessness. He moved on her, driving, but she lay there, nothing more than a warm and totally unresponsive body. He lifted himself away, still joined to her at the groin, and slapped her face with one hand.

  Nothing.

  He slapped her again, backhanded. The ring on his middle finger cut her, a small nick over the cheekbone. The scrape oozed a single drop of blood that broke and ran horizonally to the silk sheet.

  Still she did nothing else.

  He found his voice. “God damn you, you bitch!”

  Blood shunted, hormones altered, and his lust dwindled. He shrank, becoming limp, unable to maintain his erection. He shoved hard with his hips, grinding his pubic bones into hers, but his penis bent and slipped out, drooping and defeated.

  Dammit!

  He shoved himself away from her and jumped from the bed, glaring down at her body. She might as well have been unconscious. Her eyes were open, but they stared into infinity, not acknowledging him.

  He stormed out of the room.

  Wu knew there might be cameras watching her, so she did not allow the smile she felt to show. But it was there. She had beaten him in the initial encounter. Not a major victory, but one had to take them where one could.

  And one battle did not a war make.
He would be back.

  When Sleel arrived at the port on Rift, he did so under another name. He carried his and Kee’s swords in a securitysealed tube, but no other luggage. He took a rental flitter to the port Hilton and checked in.

  Somebody tapped lightly at the door to his room. Sleel opened it to see Bork standing there in freight handler’s coveralls. Good old Bork, big as a Norse god and twice as strong.

  “Sleel. You okay?”

  “Better now. Come on in.”

  Bork moved into the room with a grace befitting a much smaller man. “Dirisha and Geneva are out gathering intel,” Bork said. “Superficially the guy’s got good security, but it doesn’t go back very far. We got the schematics from the guy’s house builder, originals are a hundred years old, plus all the additions since. Maps of the grounds, personnel rosters, like that. “

  Sleel nodded. “Dirisha come up with a plan?”

  Bork leaned against a wall. It creaked. “Well, yes and no. She’s got some ideas, but she figures the plan ought to be yours. “

  “Mine? Dirisha is the strategian.”

  “She says you know the territory better this time around.”

  Once Sleel would have nodded and smiled and said, “Yeah, I can handle it.” Now he wasn’t so certain.

  “They’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  Sleel nodded again. “Well. How are things with you, Bork? Still married?”

  “Oh, yeah. Veate sends her best.”

  “You get along okay with your in-laws?”

  “Yes. Kinda strange to think of the boss as my fatherin-law. He says he and Juete will come if we need them. Dirisha told ‘em to sit tight for a while until we checked it out.”

  Sleel smiled. Emile himself offered to come and help. That’s what family was supposed to be about.

  Damn.

  Bork said, “I told ‘em I thought that was a good idea, that we didn’t need to drag the poor old grandparents out of their dotage yet.”

  “Grandparents … ?”

  “Yeah, well, Veate and I, we’re gonna have a baby.”

  Sleel’s grin was as big as any he’d had lately. “No shit! Hey, congratulations, Bork! That’s great!”

  “Yeah, well, I dunno about being a daddy. Course, we’ll have you be a designated uncle.”