by Steve Perry
“They are of lesser importance, but, yes, you are right, I cannot help but think that their governments will come to see the benefits of accepting our counsel and wisdom in the not-too-distant future.
“One way or another ...”
“And you rule the world.”
“Well, not the world; but this continent, which is, for all intents and purposes, the only part of the planet worth ruling. If, of course, the gods will it.”
“And if somebody gives them a little help.”
Ramal smiled. “The gods smile upon those with initiative. And I am not a despotic, cruel man—my people love and respect me, and with just cause. I have been good to them. Nothing changes, save I can be benevolent to more souls.”
Cutter shook his head. “You played us like a master.”
“I have been Rajah for a long time. I took especial care that the clues not be too easy to find. And that there were many leading to assorted dead ends, to delay things.”
“Like the Rel?”
“I thought that one clever. One more thing for you to puzzle over. What could it mean? It must mean something, yes? Some kind of great conspiracy if it involved aliens? Wheels within wheels, as many as I thought necessary. I did underestimate you, but not all that much.”
“And enough fingers were pointed at Rama so we had to think it was him. Udiva, the cloth merchant? We asked you to help us get to her—after you aimed us in her direction. Putting Indira in the middle of Rama’s camp? Brilliant. How could it be anybody but Rama?”
The Rajah gave him a small nod, acknowledging the compliment. “I thought those particularly effective myself. Those alone were enough to sell the story, yes?”
“And if we’d captured him instead if killing him?”
The Rajah shrugged. “After you were gone, there would have been a trial. Rama would be condemned. I would be magnanimous, I would commute his death penalty to life imprisonment. A year or two or five later, Rama would have had an accident, or some sudden and fatal illness. Dead, Rama would no longer be any danger to my plans.”
Cutter said, “Was the assassination attempt real?”
“Of course not. Merely a way to start you down the proper path. My daughter kidnapped, an assault on my person, which you thwarted, as I knew you would. My personal guards are completely loyal. None would have fired at me. They died accepting of their fates, honored to have been chosen, secure in the knowledge their families would be cared for. I was thus established as the focus of somebody’s evil intent, you would be somewhat more invested, and at the cost of a few guards.”
“You are a piece of work, aren’t you?”
“But, Colonel, why should this trouble you so? You came to do a job. True, it was a sham, but you did it. It will be counted as a credit to your record, and I will be lavish in my recommendations to any who should ask. Your contract has been satisfied, payment tendered, a bonus that is, as you said, quite generous. None of your people died. You may go on about your business, richer and, dare I say, wiser? And my position is improved upon my own humble planet. A hand that might have eventually put a gun into my back has been stilled. Peace has been restored. All is well that ends well, no?”
Cutter stood. Not much he could say to that.
The Rajah stayed in his chair.
“We’ll be breaking down our camp and leaving as soon as possible.”
“I have disappointed you.”
“I’m just a hired sword. It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“Ultimately, yes, that is true, Colonel. You are the blade, but I was the hand that used you. Isn’t that what usually happens?”
Cutter nodded. “I guess so.”
He turned and walked away.
Behind him, he could almost hear the Rajah’s smile.
The motherfucker.
~ * ~
THIRTY-EIGHT
There wasn’t much left for them to do, save pack it up and lift.
Cutter had a bottle of first-rate scotch sent to Colonel Hitachi, with a note expressing his regrets that they wouldn’t have a chance to sit down and touch glasses. He wanted to be off this world as soon as they could manage it, and the taste of whatever he might drink with the XTJC commander would be tinged by his bad mood.
His own fault, of course, it always was when you mis-stepped, but still, that didn’t help, either. The Rajah had suckered him, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Part of a standard contract was that you didn’t turn your hardware on your employer for six months after the job was over. Kept you honest, that, in case somebody came up with a handsome offer to switch sides.
Not that it would take much to go that route. A bent noodle coin would be more than enough ...
As the dingy was being loaded, Cutter looked up to see Singh marching across the yard toward him. He wasn’t a happy-looking young man. He could certainly understand that: Gunny had talked to the kid and told him what the Rajah had done. Plenty for him to chew on.
Plenty enough for everybody involved to try and swallow without choking ...
“Singh.”
“Colonel. I have come to say farewell.”
“You understand how I might be a little put out with you, right?”
To his credit, he didn’t try to pretend that he didn’t know what Cutter was talking about. “I am my Rajah’s man, body and soul, Colonel. I was given my orders.”
He didn’t look any happier having said that, either.
“I understand your loyalty. The thought crossed our minds that when we needed a guide, the Rajah would give us one he’d told to keep his eyes and ears open. Only good tactics, and I’d have done the same in his position.”
Singh said nothing.
“And when you came back later, wanting to be part of the unit for the duration of our stay here, I understand that, too. The Rajah still needed to keep tabs on us. And you thought you were helping him find his daughter by reporting on what we did.
“That’s how Ganesh knew exactly where to find us on the battlefield, isn’t it?”
Singh nodded. “This is so. I communicated with Ganesh.”
“I’d probably be more upset, but I’m guessing that once you found out who was really responsible for Indira’s kidnapping, and how he’d gone about it, your faith in the Rajah took a hit.”
“I am sworn to him nonetheless.”
There was a long pause. Cutter let it lie.
Finally, Singh said, “I am but a simple soldier, and unworthy to question my Rajah’s motives. But...” He waved a hand, palm up toward the sky. “I find it hard to understand how a man of honor can justify some things.”
“And you thought the Rajah a man of honor.”
“Of course.”
“And now?”
“It is not my place to say. But you treated me with respect and consideration, and for that I am appreciative. And sorry that I had to be less than honest with you in return.”
“Tell you what, Singh. If you ever decide that the Rajah’s bread is no longer to your taste, why don’t you come and look us up? There’s always a place for a good soldier in CFI.”
Singh looked at him as if he had sprouted horns. “You would hire me after what I did? Spying on you? Betraying your confidence?”
“Sometimes it gets misplaced, but there’s a premium on loyalty in our business, when it’s put in the right place.”
“You shame me.”
“Not at all. A soldier does his duty as long as he wears the uniform. Once he takes it off? He starts over, using what he has learned. Something you might come to consider.”
“I appreciate this, Colonel. In your place, I might not be so generous.”
“I think you underestimate yourself, Singh. Not every man would have come here as you just did.”
Cutter looked off into the distance. “We’ll be leaving your world as soon as we finish loading our gear. I can’t say the experience here is one I’d have chosen, but it was certainly ... instructive.”
“Gods be with you, s
ah.”
“And you, Singh.”
Working for the Rajah, you’ll need somebody to watch your back...
~ * ~
THIRTY-NINE
The ship was deep into subspace, zipping soundlessly through the nether regions that couldn’t really be seen as much as felt. All that emptiness had a kind of weight, at least psychologically.
Jo wandered to the infirmary. Wink stood just inside the entrance. There was but one of the medical suites occupied: Gunny, in an induced healing-trance, unconscious and scheduled to remain so for a week, as the machines pumped and shunted and applied their various chems and nanos and whatnot toward repairing her wounds. She would recover fully, Wink had told everybody, though it would be a while before her arm and shoulder were back to normal.
Sitting just inside the medical suite in a chair, leaning against the wall and asleep, was Gramps.
“He needs to get some rest,” Jo said.
Wink looked at where Gramps sat. “Good luck getting him to leave.”
“But she’s not in any danger.”
“Nope. But when she wakes up, he’s bound and determined she won’t do it without him there to razz her about getting shot.”
Jo shook her head. “That’s why he says he’s doing it?”
“Yeah, he’d cut out his tongue before he admitted the real reason. If that was him in the bed? Bet your ass she’d be sitting in the chair waiting for him to wake up.” He shook his head.
Jo smiled. “Love is grand.”
“So it seems. Not that I would know.”
“Never been in love, Wink?”
“Nope. Been in serious lust a time or sixty. Had a few partners I wouldn’t have minded if they stuck around. But hearts and flowers and like that? No.” He looked at her, saw something in her expression. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Not nothing, I’m a trained medical man here, I know a look when I see one. What?”
“I was just thinking about a reason that might be.”
“Spill it.”
“Maybe that living on the razor’s edge keeps you from being open to that level of intimacy.”
“What do you mean?”
She regarded him. “Sheeit, Wink, what do you think? You might could have fooled the Army’s scyrers by skirting the issue, but you aren’t fooling anybody around here. That whole dance-with-death business? Doesn’t leave much space for a normal relationship. Too much chance of here-today-gone-in-a-heartbeat thinking.”
“Funny, coming from you.”
“You’re right about that. Military in general, and me specifically—I’m not the girl to be offering advice on the subject. I have my own shit to deal with. Somebody looking for something in me, there’s a wall they can’t get past. I put it there. That’s how I know another wall when I see one.”
Wink didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “Ain’t we the pair? Doc the Adrenaline Junkie and Jo the Bulletproof Woman Warrior, running pell-mell parallel with the final curtain.”
She nodded. “Yep. What say we go have a drink? See what happens when we get drunk and start crying into our glasses?”
“Why don’t we skip the booze and go straight to my room and screw each other’s brains out instead?”
She smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”
~ * ~
FORTY
After the ship dropped back into normal space, Kay found a com message waiting. She initiated the callback.
The SSC connection was bad, but good enough so Kay could see and hear her Eldest Brother, who had been three litters ahead of her own. They spoke NorVaz, the most common of the dialects on Vast, and there was no frippery, he got right to it.
It didn’t take long, the conversation, and when it was over, Kay sat for a moment, pondering her course of action.
No question what she had to do; only how best to go about it.
She left her quarters and went to find Wink Doctor.
He was in the infirmary, working on his computer.
“Kay,” he said. “How are you?”
“I am well personally; however, I have spoke to my Eldest Brother, Drocmasc, on Vast, via SSC. There is a medical problem on the homeworld with which he needs my assistance.”
“Anything I can do to help, I will.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
He furrowed his brow. “Just curious, why did your Eldest Brother call you?”
“Before I left Vast and joined Cutter Force Initiative, I was a Healer.”
He blinked at her. “You were a physician?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “Why didn’t I know that?”
“I had no need to mention it before now.”
“Son of a bitch. Like calling home to talk to my mother— only way to find out anything is to ask a specific question; otherwise, she doesn’t bring it up, just says everything is fine.” He looked at her again. “So what is your brother’s problem, medically speaking, if I might ask?”
“He is also well; however, several score Vastalimi have died recently. Our Healers have not been able to discover the cause.”
“And he thinks you can?”
“I was considered an Adept Healer when I practiced. And I have the advantage of having been exposed to extraspecies medicine. My brother thinks I might bring a new perspective to the problem.”
“What can I do?”
“I will shortly have test results from our Healers. I thought perhaps you might see something in these they missed.”
“Sure.”
“I will be taking leave to space to Vast as soon as we make planetfall. Perhaps with information that I can apply to the situation.”
“You could just send it to them.”
“No. Among the sufferers are my parents and a number of my siblings. I need to go home and help them. A matter of personal responsibility.”
“Okay. Let’s see what we can find out.”
~ * ~
FORTY-ONE
Cutter was not a natural time-binder. He’d learned early in his career that he had to track dates; it was necessary to slice the calendar into months, weeks, days, hours, even seconds, to achieve military goals with the necessary precision. When he remembered big events, though, they were seldom linked to a number. Sometimes, even a year or season weren’t readily available. But there were a few dates that stuck.
Midnight bringing one of the most memorable ones was upon him.
As he sat behind his desk, staring through the wall and into the past, sipping at a fine bourbon whiskey over ice, he couldn’t forget what this day’s date meant.
Rade would have been nineteen today, had he survived.
He didn’t spend much time looking backward, there was no joy in that. Sure, you had to learn from history, or be condemned to repeat it; and yes, there were good memories that brought smiles. But in this universe, time’s arrow flew in one direction, and you couldn’t go back. Were that possible, he’d give everything he had, or would ever have, to be able to step in front of the bastard who killed Rade. And, if he could manage it, put a bullet into Melinne’s head on his way down. The universe would be better off.
Now and then when he was out of sorts, he considered hunting her down and doing that part. She was still out there, somewhere, and, unless there had been some kind of miracle, still fucking up everything she touched.
Her fault their son was dead.
He sipped at the bourbon. It was Hirsch Reserve, the last of the current bottle. Five hundred ND each—and that only if you bought a case at a time. It was aged for twenty-six years, first in charred French oak, then in isotet barrels, and sold to a select clientele. Cutter was on that list because he had done a big favor for the maker. He had five cases left, stashed in two different storage units on Earth, guaranteed to be safe from fire, flood, earthquake or other natural disasters. He allowed himself one glass a day, and he drank it slowly, though not so much so that the ice had a chance to melt too much and water it do
wn. Normally, it was the highlight of his day, to sit quietly and drink his single glass of fine bourbon.
Not on what would have been his son’s nineteenth birthday, though. The taste was great, but the experience was tinged with too much regret.
