Celestial Hit List

by Charles Ingrid

  The rehab tech smiled slightly, the corner of his mouth drawn to one side. He liked day room duty. The observation was informal and usually he could chart optimistic predictions on his keypad. The duty was light. He did not even frown when his monitoring companion tapped him on the shoulder.

  “I’m going to take a leak. Watch the corridor screens for me, will ya?”

  Goren nodded absently. As the security guard stood up, stretched, and lumbered out of the room, he only flicked a sidelong glance at the other monitors. The interior of the hospital hub was a closed area. No one went in or out unexpectedly. He did not expect to see anyone nor did he.

  With his twitch of a smile, the rehab tech went back to watching the man who talked to no one. Wouldn’t it be something if he suddenly realized he was talking to the air? Goren relaxed. He liked to fantasize about breakthroughs that had little or nothing to do with his skill… or lack of it. He leaned back in the swivel chair, fingers idly tapping out his observations.

  It was then that a flicker of movement on one of the security screens caught his eye. Goren snapped straight up in the chair, looked, and then looked again.

  Someone walked with catlike confidence down the main corridor, pausing now and then to read the computer trail etched on the floor for the med carts. When he came to a directory, he stopped and scrutinized it momentarily.

  Goren’s fingers froze over the keypad. He should have reached for the alarm, but didn’t. He couldn’t see the intruder well enough… well enough to determine if he was an intruder, or an inmate gone for a walk. If he’d strayed from his sector, there would be someone after him soon enough.

  The tech licked lips gone dry.

  The man turned and continued down the main corridor. He was headed toward the main doctors’ offices and administration. But Goren did not find that reassuring—if he belonged there, the man would have approached from another direction altogether. The public sector was several hubs away. The staff and records sequestered here were not open to public scrutiny.

  Goren forced a cold hand toward the alarm. His elbow creaked as he did. His whole frame had gone stiff and uncooperative. Catatonic, he thought to himself. I’ve become catatonic!

  But even as his inner mind blatted at him, he knew he wasn’t. His eyes blinked furiously as he watched the security screen, and the multimonitored figure of the man walking down the corridors toward him.

  Shit! He knew that man.

  Goren’s body unfroze, recoiling suddenly until he found himself crouched fetal-like in his chair. He punched a finger onto the keyboard, putting the solar room observation on automatic, letting the computer take over for him. He thrust himself out of the chair and down into the maze of corridors, an energy and intensity in his movements that he had not known for many years.

  He had to find that man and stop him!

  He bolted out of the observation room and down the hall to the staffs secured communications room and opened up com lines as fast as his trembling fingers would let him. The room’s heavy fire door closed solidly behind him even as the number went through and the line buzzed in demand.

  Goren blinked as the screen came to life.

  “What is it?”

  “He’s here. He’s come back. He’s in the hub and he’s looking for the records office.”

  “Who are you talking about?” The woman’s sharp-nosed face frowned, a single “I want” line of demand etching deeply between her brows. Her demeanor spoke of breeding and wealth.

  Goren stammered to a halt, knowing that what she wanted most now was for him to make sense. He took a deep breath. “That stiff you pulled out of the derelict cold ship and thawed out. He’s here!”

  “Good god.” She looked at him, her eyes gone icy blue. “And you’re calling me on an unsecured line?”

  “No. Give me some credit.” Goren felt his cheeks burn, but he glared back. There was, after all, a monitor between the two of them.

  “Well.” She sat back in her chair. Goren looked keenly at her surroundings, but, as usual, saw no hint of where or how she lived. She rubbed that deep frown line briefly before straightening in her chair. “Well, he won’t find anything. We took care of that.”

  “You’re sure?”

  The strength of her nose shadowed the high planes of her finely boned face as she stared back. The stare never wavered, but Goren’s did. He finally had to look away. As he did, she said, “You’ll have to get him out of there, but don’t use security to do it. He may have been followed, if anyone suspects him for what he is. You have the meds there to do it… put him under and smuggle him out. Do whatever you have to get him off-planet.”

  “Is that all?” Goren asked dryly, as if she hadn’t asked him to work a minor miracle.

  “For now, yes.” The monitor went dark, but Goren put out a hand and touched fingertips to it, seeing the outline of her face etched in fading phosphorescence. Then he shut down his terminal. He’d have to work quickly. He found the medication he wanted, and an unallotted cart and made his way to the records center, knowing his quarry would be there waiting for him.

  Jack didn’t know what it was that alerted him. Maybe he’d heard the sound of shallow breathing over the air conditioning and the NLP music that played subliminally over the system. He only knew that as he leaned over the files and pulled up the dates again, scanning them rapidly and finding them empty—wiped—of any reference that might pertain to him or his treatment, he sensed someone watching him.

  It could be Security. He doubted that, for any Security in this facility would probably try to yank him out by the scruff of the neck. Therefore, someone watching him was probably trying to decide what to do with him.

  Jack took his time. Although his heart had begun pounding in his chest the moment he’d found out he was nonexistent—that his two years of treatment in this hospital might never have happened—he forced himself to sit calmly. After reviewing the record for a third time, he switched to the staff. He might not exist in the records, but doctors and a certain nurse—curvaceous and warm at night, as he remembered her—must.

  The first name came up and he stared in disbelief. The name was right, he knew that. It was etched in his mind. But the face was different. He skimmed the bio. Then looked up. The face went with the bio. Then, his doctor had assumed the identity of an actual staff member—but why?

  Briefly, Jack closed his eyes, shutting out the knowledge that he was being watched.

  Jack pulled up another name. He looked down, seeing a nurse he’d never seen before, and then he knew.

  Knew that all the living he’d done in the years since he’d been taken out of that icy hell had been a lie.

  Jack paused for another second, then shut the file reader down. He homed in on the watcher behind him. He pushed his chair back, hearing it scrape on the flooring. Stood and turned. Saw that there was an alcove between him and the door.

  Went toward it, feeling the strength in his young body, a muscular body ever so much younger than its actual years, the tension thrilling through responsive nerves.

  A shadow shifted as he passed by the alcove. Jack smiled grimly as he reached out and grabbed, and threw the watcher down like a bundle of rags, his strength transformed by his anger almost as if he still wore his battle armor.

  The man in gray lay and twitched on the flooring, gasping as Jack dropped to a knee beside him and kicked away the air needle, wondering whether he was supposed to be dead now or only sedated.

  “What are you doing here?” Jack asked quietly.

  The tech jerked under the single hand that pinned him by the throat. He gasped. “I—I—my name is Goren.”

  “No,” Jack said patiently. “I asked what you’re doing.”

  “I—I don’t understand.”

  “You know me.” He frowned slightly. “I even think I remember you. Yes… yes. You did my final evaluation for release. I have you to thank for Claron.” Not that he’d been thankful at the time. No. All he’d wanted was to get out
of the hospital. He’d been shuffled around, evaded and ignored. No one seemed to want to know that someone had survived the Sand Wars. But the year or so he’d spent rangering on Claron had cleansed his soul, his mind, what was left of his memories, even though it could not give him a night without dreams. His hand tightened. “I’m so grateful, I might not kill you.”

  The man wiggled. Spittle edged from the corner of his mouth. His skin grayed. “I… I can’t tell you anything.”

  “Why? What happened to me here? Where are my records?”

  “Gone,” the tech got out. “All gone.”

  “Someone remembers. Tell me who.”

  “I can’t.” The tech’s bloodshot eyes glazed a little. “Kill me now if you want to. It would be quicker.”

  Jack relaxed his hand a little. He thought rapidly. It was obvious now that he’d been brought here in secret. Rescued in secret. Thawed in secret. Obvious now why no representative of the Dominion or the Triad Throne had recognized him as a veteran. What he didn’t know was why and it seemed doubtful that this unimportant little man would know either. He looked down.

  The tech muscled out a desperate squirm. Jack pursed his lips, breaking that grim smile of his.

  “Then what can you tell me,” Jack said, “to keep me from killing you very slowly.”

  “Only that—only that you won’t find what you’re looking for. That it’s all been wiped out. Altered. Even your mind, your name,” Goren blurted.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They pulled you from cold sleep. They had you for a year before they gave you to me. Some things… couldn’t be repaired. So it was advantageous to… replace them. You Knights were all supposed to be dead.”

  “My name?”

  “I don’t know it! They never told me.”

  “Why me?”

  “You were all they had to work with. They—honest, mister, let me breathe…”

  Jack’s hand squeezed convulsively.

  Even his name was a lie.

  He left the unconscious man behind on the sterile hospital floor, soiled by the puddle of urine the man had loosed in his fear.

  Jack made his way quickly through the maze of corridors, this time avoiding the camera surveillance and security measures the way Amber had trained him. He moved with the precise, dangerous movements his training as a Knight had imbued him with.

  That, at least, they hadn’t taken from him. Nor could they have falsely given this skill to him. The training was his, and so was the armor. Alien infested and deadly as it was, it was his legacy.

  The only one they’d left him with.

  So be it.

  Chapter Eight

  Winton was eating lunch at the civil service cafeteria, a nice, spacious club with the atmosphere of middle class luxury, when his beeper began to vibrate in his inner pocket, alerting him to a call on his secured lines. He smiled at the secretary across from him, put his fork down and pushed his chair away.

  “But Winnie—you haven’t finished!”

  He patted his slight paunch which was hard as a rock—but she had no experience with it, at least, not yet—and smiled. “Cutting back on calories, my dear. Perhaps I’ll see you later?”

  She pouted. “If I can catch up on the court records. I tell you, the judging is getting so bogged down. I think we should go back to live judgments, the computers take too long.”

  Winton gave her an indulgent smile. “Perhaps another time.” He left the cafeteria, not lengthening his stride until he reached the corridors, then fairly sprinting down the halls until he reached the drop-shaft. From there, it was a matter of moments until he reached his offices. The beeper kept vibrating, letting him know the call signal was still coming in.

  Winton threw himself into his chair, operating the com board with rapid efficiency, pulling in the subspace signal. When he had it locked and transmitting, he sat back with a noise of satisfaction and bridged his fingers, to wait.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes. I’m here.”

  “The subject you had followed has returned to transport. We have a full report on-line to you—”

  “I want a summary now.”

  “Now?” A quaver in the man’s voice indicated his awareness of the expense of the subspace call.

  “Yes. Now.” Winton felt his lips pull into a thin line. He had his lines secured about as well as anybody could, but he knew that reports could go awry. And he wanted to know. Had to know.

  “The subject came to the Cluster and, after a few days of inquiries, made his way to the Dominion Social Services Hospital.”

  Winton sucked in his breath so sharply that his caller thought it static and said, “Hello? Still on-line?”

  “Yes. Go on.”

  “The subject penetrated the security systems for about an hour and came back out without incident. He then booked return passage.”

  “Is that it?”

  “The crux of it, sir. We have a full-scale report on calls, contacts, accommodations following.”

  “Thank you,” Winton said abruptly and cut the contact without another word.

  He swiveled his chair around. Now he knew the identity of the Flying Dutchman. That elusive last survivor of Milos and Jack Storm were one and the same.

  Storm was as good as dead.

  He leaned forward, opening up a local line. The distinguished looking gentleman who answered responded with an uplifted upbrow.

  “Good afternoon,” Winton said. “Bring down a little more pressure on the Bythia issue.”

  “All right,” the gentleman said, curiosity on his face, but discretion making him keep his questions to himself.

  Winton terminated the connection. He made a last call.

  “Sir?”

  “Did you find those slide sections I wanted?”

  “They were located yesterday, sir. My report is in your files for viewing.”

  “Good. Very good.”

  Winton sat back. For the first time that day, he smiled, and the warmth of it reached his dark eyes. He had brought down an emperor with the Sand Wars. He was not above bringing down another emperor, though he had not planned to do so quite so soon.

  The Dominion was not yet angry enough with the Triad Throne. He would have to change his plans a little. Not much, but a little.

  He decided it did not matter. The Dominion would look to him as he wished it to. And leadership of the Dominion itself was a far greater ambition than the paltry Triad Throne.

  Chapter Nine

  A cold sleep lab was little different from a morgue. Still bodies covered with plastisheets lay on gurneys, tubes carrying fluids in and out of veins. Only the air was different. It was colder than a morgue, far colder, and the workers who moved between the rows of bodies wore protective clothing as the temperature dropped lower and lower.

  Bundled behind hood and shield and under the suit, the hair rose on the back of Jack’s neck anyway. He didn’t like cold sleep. He liked nothing about it and even to move about the lab the way he was doing now pushed the gorge up in his throat and tapped chilled fingers down his spine. The suit, of course, was not his—borrowed, as inconspicuously as possible. As he moved along the rows, he only hoped that he was not endangering lives by pretending to check gauges and fluids, mimicking the real techs who moved along to either side of him, carefully fulfilling their jobs.

  Jack paused by the still form of a beautiful woman. In cold sleep, her skin was pale, translucent, the veins a delicate tracery underneath. The planes of her face were well-defined and aristocratic. A sharply defined frown line was etched between her brows. What was she doing here? Why had she chosen the Little Death of cold sleep to travel from one world to another? She was markedly different from most of the bodies in the lab. Most were male, rugged and ill-used, soldiers and laborers who traveled like fodder wherever their contracts sent them. Was she fleeing from someone? Did she seek the illusion of youth by outliving her contemporaries? Was she someone’s high-priced consort? He wa
tched her for a long time, then noticed the nearly imperceptible movement of her eyes under the lids. Even in this sleep, she dreamed. Jack moved off with a shudder, remembering his own cold sleep dreams.

  Beyond the lab was the inner office he sought. Having penetrated this far, it took a great deal of self-control to keep from breaking his cover and entering it, but he steeled his will and waited, cruising up and down the rows of deathlike forms, waiting for his time.

  To come this far and not find what he sought would be more than a waste. It could cost him his life. And, as he thought this, the corner of his mouth twitched upward ever so slightly. As to that, he’d come even farther than Amber had and he wondered if she’d be impressed when he told her. Only if he’d come back with the information he wanted, Jack thought.

  A muffled buzzer rang through the lab. The workers had finished checking the rows. They turned and left quickly, Jack trailing them to the corridor. They passed on, he stayed behind, pressed against the walling as the security camera panned the area, missed him and traveled on. Jack stayed very quiet as he accessed the viewing area of the lens. It gave only cursory coverage… for who would want to penetrate a cold sleep lab?

  No one, unless, like Jack, they knew that many of these bodies were not here of their own free will, but as victims of kidnapping. Their papers and permits falsified, more than flesh was frozen here. Freedom of will, if he wanted to be dramatic.

  He took a few quick steps, then eased back out of the camera’s sweep. As he waited for it, he shivered inside the suit and realized the temperature was dropping rapidly. He did not have much time to work his way through the lab. Now he understood why the workers had evacuated the area so quickly.

  Eyes on his objective, Jack fought down his fear of being caught here, of being chilled down without preparation, and approached the portal to the innermost office hidden beyond the lab, protected, he imagined, by a legion of the sleeping dead. The portal opened to his questing touch, for who would it be locked against?