by Chris Bunch
Brekmaker clawed at his throat and once more the alien struck, a bare touch against the man’s forehead.
Brekmaker stumbled forward, crashed across his control console, and rolled to the floor, lying faceup, his final expression one of utter disbelief.
The Al’ar looked once at the corpse, then fitted himself awkwardly into the doctor’s chair and began to wait.
TWO
‘Blackmail?’
‘Sure,’ Wolfe said. ‘You wait till you’re at a good safe distance, then let your patient know you just happen to have taken some before-and-after pics for your professional files, and certainly the poor sod would be happy to kick in a few credits to make sure those pics are kept properly secure. It ain’t a new racket.’
‘I’m not doing too good on the professional recommendation circuit, am I?’ Cormac said. He opened up the tiny recorder, took out its microfiche, and snapped it four times in his fingers, paying close attention to what he was doing. Without looking up, in a deliberately casual voice, he asked, ‘Brekmaker was fool enough to take these snaps when you were conscious and gave you room enough to take him?’
Wolfe made no reply. Cormac looked at him, then away.
‘Civilian life’s getting to you,’ Joshua said. ‘You never used to ask any questions about anything.’
Cormac smiled, a bit ruefully. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to be inquisitive.’
‘Forget it.’
The Al’ar evaded the blow, knelt, and his leg snapped out. The kick took Joshua in the upper thigh, and he hissed pain, rolled backward, then to the side as the Al’ar leapt toward him.
The Al’ar struck, Joshua sidestepped, blocked, and his return blow was blocked in return.
The two broke contact.
The Lumina stone on the pedestal against the wall of the bare room flared colors, and the Al’ar shimmered, vanished.
Wolfe glanced at the Lumina, sweat beading his forehead. The stone turned to dull gray, and the Al’ar was visible once more, closing on Wolfe.
Joshua jump-kicked, took the Al’ar in the chest, and knocked him flat. The alien backrolled into a crouch, and two fingers of Joshua’s right hand hovered motionless an inch in front of his eyes.
The Al’ar froze and his hood flared. He lifted his grasping organs, crossed them.
‘You have the advantage.’
Wolfe bowed, stepped back, and the Al’ar got up.
‘That trick with the Lumina. I did not know you could do that,’ the alien said.
‘I did not, either. This was the first time.’
‘Shadow Warrior, perhaps it is good that we are searching together. Perhaps, when . . . if we find the Mother Lumina, you might then be more able to understand its purpose than I.
‘I might even wonder if this is what the one we went to intended, so long ago, who listened to the words you spoke and gave you your name. Perhaps he was also one of those who remained behind and we may ask if . . . when . . . we meet him. But that is for the future. As I said, perhaps that Guardian sensed that you might be a more worthy user of our devices than even an Al’ar.’
‘You grant high praise, Taen.’ Wolfe switched to Terran. ‘Shall we go one more turn?’
‘I think not. I feel fatigued.’
‘You’re getting old, my friend.’
‘As are we all. In my case, perhaps it is being forced to live on Terran food. My body is not content. Last night, when my body was in disuse, I had thoughts come that were disturbing.’
‘You were corrupted by being around me. I thought Al’ar never dream.’
‘Not in your terms. Let me go on. I felt that insectlike buzzing you described. With it came a sense of dread, of menace. Then I returned my body to its proper state of readiness, and the sound was gone. Of course, I showed none of the physical signs you evinced.’
‘So what does it mean?’
‘I do not know. But I think we must accept that this sending, or whatever it should be called, is not a fiction, but something that exists in or close to our space-time.’
Static hummed, clicked, and SIGNAL INTERRUPT bleeped, then the screen showed CONTACT RESTORED.
‘Sorry,’ Joshua said. ‘Thought I lost you for a second.’
‘You’re still not giving me a picture,’ the distorted voice light-years distant complained.
‘No. Nor are you.’
The speaker transmitted a sound that might have been laughter. ‘Isn’t it nice to find a couple of professionals who really trust each other?’
‘Just like always,’ Wolfe agreed.
‘So what can I do you out of?’
‘I just wanted to touch base. See if anything . . . interesting’s going on.’
There was dead air for almost a minute. ‘How clean is your transmission?’
‘Clean. It’s bounced, well, let’s just say more than twice. And it’s as sealed as I could make it.’
‘Okay. Only because I like to see things stirred up. Cisco’s looking for you. Looking hard.’
‘That’s no news. He’s got a warrant out on me,’ Wolfe said.
‘That’s one thing,’ the voice said. ‘That’s the official policy. He’s put word out that he wants a meet with you. Your terms, your ground, you know how to contact him.’
‘Yeah. Sure. So he can collect the bounty?’
‘Come on, Wolfe. Stop playing games. You know the rules.’
‘I’m not sure Cisco does anymore.’
‘No skin off my ass either way. I’m just passing the word along. There’s one other thing that goes with it - he said you can bring your friend from Tworn Station along.’
Wolfe waited until he could control his voice. Tworn Station was the undersea resort where he’d tracked down Taen.
‘I got what you said . . . but don’t know what it means.’
The speaker stayed silent.
‘Anything else?’
‘Nope,’ the voice said. ‘Unless you want the hot gossip on who’s sleeping with whom or who backalleyed her latest best friend. One other thing. Shoa InterGee is looking to hire a hotrod to take over their security section. The pay’s good, but I gotta warn you, their system stinks. I’ve been known to go wading in their stuff every now and then for giggles, and there’s folks out there far sneakier’n I am.’
‘Hardly think they’d be interested in hiring somebody who’s on the run from Fl.’
‘As I said, I’m just the pipeline.’
‘Thanks. Stay clean and I’ll catch you next shout.’ Wolfe touched the sensor, and the speaker went dead. He turned to Taen.
‘I understood the transmission,’ the Al’ar said in Terran. ‘So this Cisco knows I exist and that we are teamed. I am hardly surprised - there were more than enough people who saw me when we retreated from my ship for Federation Intelligence to draw the correct assessment.
‘But it will undoubtedly make life more interesting. My question is, should we agree to this meeting with the Intelligence man?’
Wolfe considered.
‘The problem,’ he mused aloud, ‘is how to walk into his nest and be able to get back out again. Mmmh. I think I can manage that.’
‘I was hoping you would say that. I would appreciate any data we can absorb. We are operating with far too little input in our quest,’ Taen said. ‘Now, once we derive whatever information we are able, can we kill this Cisco?’
Wolfe grinned. ‘Taen, you would have made a perfectly wonderful spy, what with your sense of morality and all.’
‘Your words are meaningless. If you have an enemy, you seek him out and slay him. All else is nothing but noise to my brain.’
The door to Cormac’s inner office opened, and a soberly dressed man with a neat beard came out. He looked at Joshua, said ‘Good morning, son,’ then went out the door, letting the door ease shut against his hand.
Wolfe looked thoughtful, shut off the com he’d been scanning, and went into Cormac’s office.
‘The gentleman who just left called me son. I don’t
think he actually had five years on me.’
‘Better get used to it, young man. I’ve already put the word out for my bars to start making sure you’re of proper drinking age. Ain’t surgery wonderful? Drag up a chair.’
Wolfe obeyed. ‘Can I be nosy?’
‘You cut my fingers off when I tried, but go ahead.’
‘That gentleman who just left? Was he a Chitet?’
‘He certainly was, although he didn’t sound like one for a couple of moments after I turned him down. He got a little dramatic on me. You have an interest in their little operation?’
‘I do. They’ve tried to kill me half a dozen times now.’
‘Mercy Maude,’ Cormac said. ‘All this from an organization that claims to be nothing more than a logical and systematic philosophy and way of life.
‘Then you’ll be very amused when you find out what he wanted. He put it most subtly, but he was very interested in acquiring, for a very impressive price, in cash to be handed to me directly, some of the mothballed Federation ships I’m supposed to be keeping all safe and secure. I don’t mind selling a part here or there, but his ideas seemed excessive.’
‘They’re on the move, Cormac,’ Wolfe said. ‘The last time they tried to slot me was with an Ashida-class cruiser.’
‘Oh? Not the most subtle way to suggest they don’t like the way you cut your hair. And here my fine-feathered friend was telling me how they really needed half a dozen big ships to convert into transports for a large shipping deal they’re about to sign. He was real specific about what he wanted: those three Nelson-class battleships, two of the heavy cruisers I’ve got, and by the way, there’s a C & C rig out there that’d be almost perfect. Looks to me, if they need Command and Control, they’re building a fleet. Got a bit hostile when I told him to pack his ass with salt and piddle up a rope. Most civilly and in my most mellifluous tones, of course.’
‘Why’d you turn them down?’
‘To be honest?’
Wolfe grinned. ‘If that’s the best option you can come up with.’
‘I couldn’t figure out what story I’d have if somebody ever came looking for them and asked me to explain a hole in space. Although now I’m getting a little concerned for some of my confreres who don’t have the well-developed sense of survival I do. As I said before, there’s a lot of available warships out here in the Outlaw Worlds.
‘You know, Joshua, people with a goddamned mission in life who know what I should be doing better than I do make me nervous. Especially when they start buying guns.’
‘You and me both,’ Wolfe agreed. ‘A small suggestion - keep your back against a wall for the next few forevers. These Chitet don’t seem to handle rejection well.’
‘So I gather. Fortunately, my cowardice genes are well developed.’
Cormac got up from his desk. ‘ ’Tis a parlous world,’ he said ‘I guess the only option for honest folk like you and me is to have a drink. C’mon.’
‘What were you looking for when the FI robot got pictures of you on Sauros and put me in motion?’ Wolfe asked.
‘I had landed on several of our homeworlds already, looking for any data that might give me a clue to the Mother Lumina,’ Taen said. ‘I hoped to consult certain files, I think your word is, from our Farseeing Division, what you call Intelligence.’
‘Hasn’t FI already seized those?’
‘They think they have,’ the Al’ar said. ‘But there are other copies, available for those who know where to look.’
‘What data did you specifically seek?’
‘What I sought, I never found. Mention of the Mother Lumina, mention of the Guardians, anything that might have been transmitted before my people made the Crossing.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I cannot believe,’ Wolfe said, ‘that at one signal, a signal you say you didn’t receive, every frigging Al’ar in the galaxy went away like a Boojum. So you weren’t looking in the right place, or in the right manner.’
‘I dislike your levity, but I must concede, logically, you are correct.’
‘Which of the homeworlds, what we call the capital worlds, were the most important?’
‘Sauros,’ Taen said. ‘The world I had my birth-burrow on, the same one you lived on before the war. I also sought access to one of our great machine-thinkers, computers, to help me analyze the problem. But I had no time to search for anything before that spy-probe found me.’
‘If I can put us both back on Sauros, will you let me help in the search?’
The Al’ar curled on a ladder that was the closest approximation Wolfe could find to his customary seat. He remained silent for a long time. Twice his hood puffed, deflated.
‘There are risks,’ he said. ‘To us both. There will be precautions still in place, unless they were set off by Federation searchers earlier. And I do not believe the Federation even knew where to look.’
‘I’ve seen Al’ar booby traps,’ Joshua said. ‘They can be managed.’
‘So you have a plan?’
‘An idea.’
‘Which of my two goals are we seeking?’
‘Not the Mother Lumina. We’ll start with the Guardians. Maybe that’ll lead us to the rock in question.’
Taen’s slitted eyes stared at Wolfe. ‘One thing you have never told me. Not honestly, by what I can feel of your thoughts. You could have abandoned me on Montana Keep, or simply returned me to one of my own worlds, and then gone to ground.
‘I do not doubt you have more than enough abilities to avoid both the Chitet and Federation Intelligence. They will not seek you forever, especially when they learn you have taken no further interest in the fate of the Al’ar.
‘Why, Joshua Wolfe? Why, One Who Fights From Shadows?’
There was a long, heavy silence.
Wolfe shook his head slowly from side to side.
‘She sings, she dances, she sways, she swoops,’ Cormac said proudly. He and Wolfe stood on a crosswalk in an enormous bay. Below them lay Wolfe’s ship. It looked just as it had when he ported at Malabar. ‘Would you care to request your good ship Lollipop to go through her paces?’
He handed a transponder to Joshua.
‘Do you hear me?’ Joshua asked the ship.
‘I hear you,’ came through the small speaker. ‘I recognize your voice. Do you have a command for me?’
Joshua turned to Cormac. ‘So what do I ask for?’
‘How about “gimme the external dimensions of a Hatteras-type 92 yacht?” In case you forget your Jane’s, that’s about twenty feet longer than the Grayle and a whole lot humpier.’
Joshua spoke into the transponder.
‘Understood,’ his ship said.
He heard the hiss of hydraulics, and the Grayle grew imperceptibly. As she did, a long oval atop her hull lifted, and a portholed bridge appeared.
‘That’s all false front, of course,’ Cormac said. ‘It extends back over the drive tubes, so you don’t really pick up twenty feet, and the bridge is a dummy, too. I couldn’t figure any way to mickey up hull blisters, either, that wouldn’t conflict with your retractable ones, so I left that alone.
‘The Grayle can physically mimic about twenty other ships more or less of her class, from a Foss-class tug, to any number of in-system workships, to one of the new Federation Sorge-type spyships. That might be an interesting switch if things get sticky with our friend Cisco.
‘But that’s the frosting on the iceberg, when somebody gets too close. The real changes are in the various signatures, infrared, radar, and so forth. Onscreen, your little putt-putt can look like almost anything from a medium cruiser down to a miner’s asteroid puddle jumper. That’s the real prize. I decided that everybody wants to go small when they’re phonying up what their ship looks like, so I’d go mostly the other way around.
‘Plus your rig’s pretty clean anyway, so I wouldn’t be able to get much tinier an echo.
‘You lost two storerooms and one of your spare state
-rooms for all the e-junk I loaded in, and you don’t even want to think about drive economy, especially if you’re using any of the drive-signature spoofers.
‘Your performance envelope is still the same, unless you’re using any of the physical phonies in-atmosphere. I went for things that had lots of little bitty stickouts, so there’s a lot more drag. Be a little cautious about going full tilt when you’re surrounded by air if you’ve got any of that crap extruded. I don’t guarantee my welds that far.’
‘You through?’
‘I think so.’
‘Pretty good spiel,’ Wolfe said.
‘Pretty good work,’ Cormac replied. ‘Now you owe me.’
‘I do that.’
Cormac turned serious. ‘And that’s a favor I’m going to call in.’
Wolfe was almost asleep, nodding over a last Armagnac and Murder in the Cathedral when the buzzing grew in his ears. He came fully awake, but the sound didn’t stop; it grew still louder.
He felt menace, danger, and in spite of himself looked around the familiar bridge.
Pain seared his arm, and he pulled his sleeve back and saw the red welts emerge.
Then the buzzing was gone, and there was utter silence.
After a time, the welts subsided.
Wolfe got up, made strong coffee.
‘De Montel?’ Wolfe whistled. ‘This is a serious favor.’
Cormac ran a thumbnail through the foil and pulled the cork. ‘Now that’s what a proper bottle-opening ought to sound like,’ he said. ‘Never could get used to that crack when the pressure seal breaks.’
There were two snifters on his desk. He poured one about half full, about an inch into the other.
‘Thought you didn’t touch hard stuff,’ Wolfe said.
‘I’m trying to be sociable.’
Wolfe sniffed, tasted, nodded. He eased himself down into the armchair in front of the desk. ‘Okay. What’ve you got?’
Cormac reached into his desk drawer, took out a holo, passed it to Joshua. ‘Remember her?’
The woman in the holo had dark, curly hair that frothed down about the shoulders of the sea-green gown she wore. She was on a promenade deck of a ship, and behind her a planet’s curve arced. She’d evidently been told to look happy for the recorder and was trying her best to comply, without much success.
