by Carl Sargent
“Seps?” Tom asked, just the hint of annoyance rising in his ocean-deep voice. He was unfamiliar with the English slang term for Americans. Serrin, knowing the derivation, didn’t think the troll would take it too well. It wasn’t what anyone would call complimentary.
“It’s not important right now,” the elf muttered.
“Interesting. Two of these kidnappings date from 2054 and, according to Zulu intelligence reports, have clear corporate links. But I don’t think that’s what we’re after. Corporate abductions of company men aren’t what we’re dealing with. Which leaves us only one. Exactly, um, twenty-three days ago. An attempted kidnap of a mage named Shakala in the Umfolozi Domains. Crikey. That’s serious business.”
'“What are the Umfolozi Domains?” Tom asked fretfully. He couldn’t follow half of what Michael was saying, but the Englishman always seemed to enjoy giving the details when he asked.
'‘Natural environment. An old wildlife reserve. Ever since the Awakening, it’s become largely undisturbed terrain occupied by paranimals and semi-nomadic tribes. A lot of metahumans among them. Thing is, the mages among those people are powerful. Trying to kidnap one of them seems an extraordinary risk. Far more dangerous than trying to snatch Serrin off the streets of Heidelberg.”
“So why do it?” Serrin queried.
"Good question, but one I can’t answer right now. For one thing, I want to see what else the frames may have dug out of the other databases. For another, there aren’t any notes in this file which might account for it. The intelligence analysis says there’s no evidence of corporate involvement. The attempted abduction was, apparently, filed as a report by a government mage who just happened to be conducting some astral surveillance in the right place at the right time. No profiles of the kidnappers, though. Curses.”
“You shouldn’t call them ‘the frames’,” Serrin whispered with a smirk. “The children might be listening.” Michael ignored him and made preparations for plowing through the rest of his data. A beep from something in Serrin’s jacket pocket startled him, and he groped for the downloader. Depressing the display button, the elf read the message while Michael looked on expectantly.
“There’s a fax for me back in Seattle,” he said. “I have a message forwarding number. If there’s something there, it lets me know.”
“Expecting anything?” Michael asked.
“Not really. Let’s look into it so I can read it off. I could do it line by line on the screen, but if it’s a long message, that'd be really tedious.”
Michael had the short message printed out in seconds.
He handed it to Serrin without looking. The elf read the words and turned even paler than usual. He passed the sheet back to Michael without comment.
The Englishman then read the message aloud for Tom’s benefit. Not sure whether or not the troll could read, he didn’t want to embarrass him into having to admit it. The shaman took note of that.
“ ‘I seen your name in a list from a computer owned by a slag got killed. Two other people on the list are already dead. I will call you at this time tomorrow and give you a telecom code to contact me.’ No name, no ID. There’s an incoming fax number, obviously.”
“I’m getting rather paranoid about anonymous messages,” Serrin said.
“Let’s trace the incoming number,” Michael said, repairing to his array of machinery to begin his trawling.
Serrin and Tom didn’t talk much during the brief time Michael conducted his electronic search. They’d had enough time for that over coffee and Serrin’s cigarettes in the restaurant. The elf knew Tom was unhappy in this strange city, disliking it greatly. He was no street shaman, and even if he had been, he wouldn’t have liked the streets of Manhattan. His only comment was that the place lacked any heart or kindness.
“Rerouted, of course,” Michael said with a gleam in his eye when he was done. “The original message was sent from Cape Town. Now, that’s a coincidence, isn’t it? Two shots at the Confederated Azanian Nations inside ten minutes. I’m tracing the address and the owner now. Ah, here we are.” He worked on as he talked, his frames doing the donkey labor. “Now, let’s see what we can find out about Mr. Manoj Gavakar. Obviously, he’s a Cape Indian, but is he a mage or is he . .His voice trailed away.
“What’ve you got?” Serrin asked quickly.
“The message was sent nine hours ago. Mr. Gavakar’s premises were burned to the ground within an hour of that. His body, or rather a body assumed to be his since it’s in such a state that ID is pending, was found inside. That’s in the public newsnet, so it isn’t classified information.”
Serrin looked at the Englishman, horrified by the implications of this information. Tom was leaning forward, hunched, thinking. Up to now, the troll had been operating purely in response to Serrin’s paranoia. He hadn’t felt really involved. But this was closer to the bone. Being present through all these developments made him feel that something was surely going on after all.
“Makes me think of that old saying: Just because you’re paranoid don’t mean they’re not out to get you,” the troll said.
“Or. like the saying goes now, anyone who ain’t paranoid ain't paying enough attention,” the Englishman said drily. “But this isn’t paranoia. There’s a charred corpse in Cape Town which definitely proves that. But all we've come to now is a dead end, literally. For the time being.
“We’ve got to search the databases for everything we can on Mr. Shakala. our Zulu mage, and anyone else we can turn up,” he said, getting to his feet. “It’s going to be a long night. Excuse me for a while. I need to get some rest. See you in half an hour.” Michael retired to his bedroom, where he dropped into a well-upholstered armchair, closed his eyes and sank into the calm of meditation.
* * *
Kristen somehow dragged her bloodied and bruised body to Indra’s back door. It was a miracle the police didn’t pick her up on the way, what with all the blood on her clothes, but she kept to the dark back-alleys and secluded ways as she stumbled across town. She was badly shaken, and thought maybe a rib or two might be broken, but the blood was mostly from deep grazing than anything truly serious.
When the bouncer saw her, wild-eyed and bloody, he was about to throw her bodily back into the garbage-strewn alley until she screamed at him to fetch Indra, that this was family business, life and death. The ork hesitated and snarled a message into the intercom, keeping her at bay with some choice insults until the elegant Indian woman appeared in person. At that point he fell into sullen silence.
“Tsotsis killed Manoj,” Kristen managed to say and then almost collapsed against the ork bouncer. He recoiled in disgust, but at a sharp word from Indra he dragged her into the back room.
While gulping down some harsh brandy, Kristen gave Indra the best description she could of the killers. She was aware that she was describing the Xhosa killers of an Indian to another Indian, and that she herself was half-Xhosa. It gave matters an edge she didn’t like at all, but it was the same one she’d lived with for all her days. She just never got used to it. Kristen didn’t know whether Indra would be grateful, since Manoj was one of her infinitude of cousins, or whether she’d beat the drek out of her.
“You can stay here. I’ll get someone to see to you,” Indra said emotionlessly. “Take her upstairs, Netzer. Put her in one of the girls’ rooms.”
“They’re all busy,” the ork said huffily.
“Then tell one of the customers his twenty minutes is up and kick him out,” Indra said sharply. “I’ll call Sunil,” she told Kristen. “Go get cleaned up.”
“Thank you,” the girl said gratefully, forgetting that she actually had enough money to get a room where she could sleep safely tonight.
An hour later she had to be awakened when the soft-voiced old man arrived. She knew Sunil, though she could rarely afford his treatments. His gentle hands checked her over thoroughly, then he turned to Indra, standing impassively in the doorway of the garish whore’s bedroom.
“The ribs ar
e bruised but not broken,” he said, adopting the traditional doctor’s manner of talking about a patient as if she were somehow deaf or an imbecile. Even street docs still did that. “Everything else can be cleaned up with a little antiseptic. I think she might need a stitch or two in that torn earlobe.”
Kristen hadn’t even been particularly aware that her earring was missing until he mentioned it. Her hand went up automatically to feel it, but she managed to stop it before her fingers actually touched the open wound.
“I can pay,” she said weakly. He nodded and looked at her expectantly. She reached into her bag and took out some dollars, but by the time he looked satisfied, her treasure had been reduced by more than half. The luck truly was beginning to turn sour. But the price was fair, and she knew, as he asked for hot water and took his own antiseptic from a tattered old bag, that she could count on being patched up and clean by the time he was finished. But all of a sudden she was angry about her torn earlobe; her ears were small, delicate, and perhaps the prettiest feature she had.
Then again, maybe things couldn’t be all bad if she could afford to worry about her looks at a time like this. As she watched Sunil hook some gut into his needle, Kristen clenched her teeth and waited for the pain.
11
Kristen slept long, almost until ten, her body craving sleep to recoup from the exhaustion of her injuries and the strain of all that had happened the night before. Waking up stiff and groggy, she raised an arm to rub her eyes, then groaned at the pain in her ribs now that the effects of the sedative had worn off. She blinked and looked around, at first not remembering where she was. Then it all came back to her. This was Indra’s place, though Kristen was surprised the Indian woman hadn’t turfed her out by now. She fumbled her way out of the unfamiliar surroundings of the bedroom and tottered downstairs.
The club was not yet open for its midday business, and Kristen found Indra and her girls breakfasting. The girls looked haggard, even in their gaudy robes and wrappers, and an eerie red light permeated the dingy interior of the club, which reeked of last night’s smoke and sweaty dancing. It was the kind of place where anyone without a hangover would wonder why on earth he didn’t have one.
“Come and eat,” Indra commanded. Kristen wouldn’t have been able to face the rich food on Indra’s plate, but there were also poached and scrambled eggs and toast and pitchers of orange juice and pots of soykaf on the table. She didn’t need a second invitation.
“We found them,” Indra told her, with grim satisfaction. ‘The boy in yellow—Netzer knew him. And we’ve evened the score. I am pleased that you came to me.”
Kristen hardly remembered blurting out her description of the gap-toothed kid who’d chased her up the stairs of Manoj’s shop. That yellow jacket had probably been the one thing of style or worth the kid could call his own after he’d blown his money on booze and dagga and street giris. His only possession of value had been his death warrant, and not in the usual way of Cape Town’s streets. Indra would have been able to call on a hundred family members to deal with the tsotsis. It was the reason no one ever tried to rob the ciub.
“Eat all you want. When you’re healed up, I could take you on,” Indra offered.
Not wanting to offend this powerful woman, Kristen chose her words carefully. “Thank you, Indra. I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. “But maybe you can help me in another way. Do you know someone who might be able to do me a favor? I can pay.” It was the necessary underlining to any request for help. indra’s black-lined eyes narrowed a little. She knew it was the girl's clever way of asking her for help, and she was wary.
“What is it you want, girl?”
“I just need to make a call. To someone with a fax machine. I want to leave a message for him to phone me, and I need a number where he can call me back.”
“Who is it?” Indra asked suspiciously.
When Kristen answered, “An American,” the Indian woman looked even more suspicious. Kristen couldn’t think of any clever way of justifying the request, except for the one ace she had to play.
“I called him from Manoj’s last night. Manoj said it was all right to use his number for the return call. Now I can’t do that anymore. I need another number.”
Indra looked uncertain. If it had been chill with Manoj, maybe it wasn’t so great a risk. Then, suddenly, she smiled.
“All right, girl. Netzer, he’s got one of those hand phones. Picked it up from some drunk causing trouble, beating up on one of the girls.” Which meant the ork had in turn beaten the slag senseless and taken everything he had, including the phone. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind your borrowing it for a while.”
Indra was obviously amused at the prospect of ruffling the ork. Maybe Netzer had got on her bad side for some reason. Kristen didn’t care as long as they gave her what she wanted. That indra also allowed her to use her fax was just a bonus.
* * *
Serrin was awakened by the bleeper in the middle of the night. He’d reprogrammed the unit to alert him whenever an incoming fax was received, and quickly got out of bed to lock the unit into Michael’s fax units. The message chuntered out. This time there was a number to call—and a name. It hadn’t come exactly twenty-four hours later, but then he hadn’t expected to hear anything at all. Manoj Gavakar was dead, after all.
He tapped in the telecom code, but when he connected, got only a girl’s voice, not her image. Excited and breathless, she spoke with an African intonation that made her dark-skinned in his imagination. He had to ask her to calm down and speak slower.
“You're in danger. Someone is trying to kill you,” Kristen said more quietly.
“Kill me?” he said, thinking she must have misunderstood something. It was a snatch, not a hit, that he feared. But maybe she’d heard or seen something more. And that list she’d mentioned, he wanted to find out what was on it.
“The names,” he went on. “Can you read them to me?”
There was a pause. “Just a moment,” she said uncertainly, somebody else will have to read them to you. After a short delay another woman’s voice came over the line. She reeled off half a dozen names, which Serrin frantically scribbled down. It was the fifth one that sent ice down his spine. Shakala, the Zulu mage.
“Kristen, this is important. Do you hear me?” he said urgently when she was back on the line. “Tell me what you saw.”
She gave him the story of the kidnapping and he realized that she’d gotten confused. She’d thought the man who’d been shot was the target. The crucial thing to Serrin was the man who'd been snatched. She remembered his name from the news, and it was one of those on the list. Serrin underlined it.
“Can you come here?” she said simply. Serrin paused; he hadn’t even contemplated that possibility.
“Kristen, why are you doing this?” he asked, suddenly suspicious again.
“I saw your picture in the paper,” she said. That was no explanation. Not, at least, one with any logic behind it. Michael would certainly have sniffed at it.
“I don’t know if I can,” he said slowly. “I have friends trying to help me find out what’s going on. They have a lot of searching to do. I don’t know where we’re going next.”
“Oh," she said, conveying a world of disappointment in that one small syllable.
“Can I call you again at this number?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. It’s a friend’s phone. I don’t have one,” the voice came back. “It’s not easy.”
“Is there somewhere I can find you if we do come over?” Serrin asked. She gave him the name and address of Indra’s club and told him to ask for her there.
“Look, I’m grateful for this,” he said. “Really grateful. I’d like to reward you in some—”
“I don’t want your money,” she said angrily. “That’s not why I called. I want to see you.” Then the line went dead.
Serrin cupped his fingers around his nose and breathed hard into his hands. He didn’t know what to make of this.
Michael had joined him by now, looking ready for work once more. Serrin told him about the call, and gave him the list of names.
“She got this from some kind of pocket computer?” Michael asked.
“Sounds a bit dubious, doesn’t it?” Serrin said.
“People get careless. One of the kidnappers could have dropped it in the struggle. These things happen. I could probably find out a lot if I could get hold of the list. Why didn’t you ask her about it?” Michael complained.
“I didn’t think. Frag it, it’s the middle of the night and this came out of the blue. Gimme a break,” the elf grumbled.
Michael pored over the list once again, then began to thumb through the printouts from his many trawlings of the world’s electronic databases. He yelped with delight when he found the first match.
“Hey! Got one. Two, with Shakala. This one’s from Banska Bystrica.”
“Where the frag—”
“Slovakia. Don’t even ask me to pronounce his name, because I can’t. We’ll start digging with him. She’s got something. She must have seen the people who tried to get you. Did you ask her about Scarface?”
The elf looked guilty.
“Oh, term, you are one dozy dweeb,” Michael growled. “Call her back.”
“I can’t,” Serrin explained.
“Great,” Michael said. “You don’t find out anything that really matters and we can’t get back to our mystery girl. Just brilliant.”
“I got the names,” Serrin countered.
Michael rubbed his face. It wasn’t quite early enough for a shave, but late enough to feel just a little uncomfortable without one. “Okay. Sorry. It’s just that if I—”
“I know. But we can't all be bloody perfect,” Serrin said, annoyed with the man. “Especially two minutes after waking up.”
Michael’s expression changed. “I’m sorry, Serrin. You’re absolutely right. My humble apologies. Do we have any way of contacting her?”
“An address,” Serrin offered.
“Then either we send someone or we go there ourselves,” Michael said. “You’ve been to Azania before, haven’t you? So Geraint’s bio said.”
