“Killing me won’t save Bamaputra’s operation.”
“Of course it will. If your friends come back, I’ll kill them, too. Right now I’m a little out of practice, but killing isn’t something you forget how to do. It stays with you, like riding a bike.” He cracked his knuckles, the sound loud in the room. “Your presence here will give me some practice. If you were that September fellow, I might be a little nervous about not having worked in so long, but you won’t be any trouble, teacher.”
This was without a doubt, Williams thought wildly, the craziest conversation he’d ever participated in in his life. At the same time he was coldly aware it might also be his last.
Still, as long as he was talking, he wasn’t dying. Maybe someone would break in on them. Stanhope he didn’t expect. That had obviously been a ploy.
“What about the rest of the scientists here? They’re going to get worried when Cheela Hwang and her colleagues don’t return.”
“That’s Antal’s problem, not mine. He’s a resourceful supervisor. He’ll think of something.” Marquel was starting to edge around the far side of the desk, his movements casual, assured. “Fatal accidents are not unknown on this world. The science staff here will accept a reasonable explanation, have a bit of a cry, then go back to their work.”
“If you work for Bamaputra, then you must have some idea of what this is all about. Even so, I don’t suppose it would do me any good to appeal to your sense of morality, assuming you have one.”
“Oh, but the Qwarm are very moral, my inquisitive friend. Like everything else in life, however, morality is flexible.”
“Not where I come from. So you don’t care that tens of thousands of Tran are going to die if Bamaputra’s plan becomes reality?”
Marquel shrugged. “I am in the business of death. Numbers don’t frighten me. Just between you and me, I don’t like the idea, no. But being a killer myself, I’m hardly in a position to question the motives of others for the killing they may do. In the case of the Tran who will fail to survive the rapid change in climate, they will never connect their deaths with a specific killer. There will be no personal contact involved, no face-to-face acceptance of responsibility. It will appear an act of nature and that’s a shame. One should know who is responsible for one’s passing. There’s no intimacy to the act. As a professional I find that sad.
“With you and me things will be much different. You will know how you are going to die and by whose hands. You’ll go to your grave without questions tickling your soul. Don’t you think it’s best that way? Much better than fading away like a song in some indifferent hospital bed, or being stricken by an attack on the way home from a job. Face-to-face assassination is a positive statement. Each of us goes to his death burdened by enough other unanswered and unanswerable questions.”
“How are you going to do it?” Williams kept sliding along the far wall. If nothing else, he’d make himself a moving target.
“There are many ways. I’d like to be as inventive as possible, but your showing up unexpectedly precludes that. Besides, this is a very straightforward situation. Really no need to make it any more complex than necessary. The best thing for me, of course, would be to make it look like an accident in case I have difficulty smuggling your body out of Administration and over to the incinerator.”
His hand dipped into a narrow pocket that was sewn into one leg of the tight suit. When it reappeared Williams saw the tiny, collapsing stiletto protruding from enfolding fingers. Like Marquel’s attire, the blade and handle were obsidian black.
“That doesn’t look much like an accident.”
Marquel nodded approvingly. “I’m glad to see you’re taking this in the proper spirit. So many can’t. They fall down and weep and wail and plead even though they know it’s all a waste of time. It’ll be a good change to kill someone who knows how to handle the inevitable like an adult.” He held the stiletto up to the light, admiring it.
“You’re right. This wouldn’t look very accidental. But it’s traditional. Much as I would like to use it, it’ll be easier for both of us if you’ll just swallow this.” He held out a pill. For a change it was bright blue instead of black or red.
“Why should I make things easier for you?”
“Because this kills in less than a minute, quietly and bloodlessly. It’ll be just like going to sleep. No pain. Efficient. If you don’t take it, then I’ll have to cut you. That will be slower, messier, and much more uncomfortable for you. The end result will be the same. This office is soundproofed but I’d still have to take the precaution of cutting your vocal cords first. Some people can get very loud.”
He was moving purposefully toward the teacher now, gliding rather than walking across the floor. “Resistance on your part is useless. I’m considerably stronger than I look, much stronger than you, and a great deal quicker. Killing is my job. You know, I’ve never killed a teacher before. I’m not sure any Qwarm has had occasion to kill a teacher. There isn’t much call for it.”
“You’re sure nothing I can say would make you reconsider? Not so much for my life as for all the others that are at stake here.”
“Noble. I like that. Don’t see too much of that these days either. No, I’m afraid there isn’t. An assignment is an assignment. No matter how I might feel personally I have guild rules to abide by.”
“Oddly enough, I do understand your situation.” He sighed. “Well, I almost died out there on the ice half a dozen times this past year.” He extended a hand. “Give me the pill. I’m not one for pain. You’re sure it won’t hurt?”
“Not at all.” Marquel passed the blue capsule across. “Actually I rather envy you. That’s tronafin, a very powerful narcotic. You’re going to enjoy the biggest high of your life, even if it won’t last very long. Not only won’t you feel any pain, you’re going to be overwhelmed with pleasure. You see, we’re very businesslike, not cruel at all—unless somebody’s paying for that, of course. We try to make every effort to…”
A startled expression came over Marquel’s face. The black stiletto rose and struck. Williams ducked and rolled as the blade sliced down into a bookcase and the wall beyond. As he struggled back onto his feet the Qwarm turned and staggered toward him.
Tran artifacts and tools had been used in the decoration of the Commissioner’s office. Very attractive, very ethnographic. One of them was a Tran dart thrower, a tiny, inconspicuous device fashioned from bone and horn. It utilized a small spring made of something akin to baleen to launch a fifteen centimeter-long dart. All the while he’d been chatting conversationally with Marquel, Williams had been shielding it with his body and arming it.
The angle was bad but he knew he wouldn’t have time to remove the device from its hook and aim it. When he’d tilted back his head and raised the pill as if to swallow it Marquel’s attention had been focused on the teacher’s right hand. Just before swallowing, Williams had turned to his right to expose the dart-thrower and had used his other hand to flip the little trigger.
Marquel had been standing within arm’s length. The razor-sharp sliver of bone that the dart was cut from had gone right through his black suit to bury itself between navel and groin. It wasn’t a killing blow but the shock was more than enough to stagger the assassin. Despite the unexpected pain he’d reacted quickly, stabbing with the knife. The pain had slowed his reactions sufficiently for Williams to dodge.
“Teacher.” The Qwarm came toward him as blood began to drip from the wound and stain the floor. Williams kept retreating, trying to keep as much furniture between himself and the injured assassin as possible.
Yes, he was just a teacher—a teacher who’d spent almost two years surviving among sometimes hostile natives on the barren, deadly surface of an inhospitable world called Tran-ky-ky. Two years of battling lethal elements and carnivorous fauna. Two years on an occasional warship called the Slanderscree. Two years battling barbarians and duplicitous humans and their friends. Yes, he was a teacher. One who’d been hardened a
nd toughened by the classroom called reality. His experiences had made him stronger, faster, and like the Tran, cunning.
Despite the long spike protruding from his intestines, Marquel continued to stalk him, the stiletto still clenched firmly in his right hand. Because of the location of the dart the Qwarm’s control of his leg muscles was less than perfect. Sheer willpower kept him advancing.
This continued for several minutes until Marquel realized Williams had maneuvered him completely around the room so that the teacher was back by the artifact-covered wall.
The Tran sword he removed from its mounting was chipped from stavanzer bone. He held it in both hands and waited. No more chasing around the desk. “Come on, then.” He tried to balance the weapon as he’d seen Hunnar Redbeard and others do. Hunnar wielded it with one paw, but it was too heavy for Williams to attempt that.
Marquel’s expression was contorted as he grimaced in pain. “Makes it interesting. Much better.” His words were getting thick, Williams noted. “Better.”
He lunged.
Avoiding the blow, Williams stepped to one side and cut down with the sword. Though slowed by the pain in his gut Marquel was still able to move fast enough to reach out with his left hand and grab the teacher’s wrists, pinning both hands to the sword. The concussion raced up Williams’s forearms. It was as though he’d been struck by an iron bar. The strength in the small man’s fingers was incredible.
His right hand rose and light slipped along the flat of the stiletto. This time Williams was sure his assailant was smiling. His eyes glittered through the ocular openings in the hood.
“Very good, teacher, very good. Much more than I had any right to expect.”
Williams tried to wrench his hands free, but the Qwarm’s grip was like steel. At the same time the teacher brought his right knee up and round and slammed it into the assassin’s lower abdomen, just below the place where the dart still protruded.
A tremor ran through the wounded killer. Somehow he still managed to strike weakly with the knife. It sliced through Williams’s survival suit, the incredibly sharp blade lodging in his right shoulder. The strike was a little high. Marquel intended to drag the point down Williams’s chest until he could use his weight to shove it into his quarry’s heart, but the loss of blood and the continuing pain finally overwhelmed him.
Still holding the teacher’s wrists in a death grip, the Qwarm crumpled to his knees, then fell over on his back dragging his quarry down on top of him. His right hand flopped loosely to the floor. The stiletto remained imbedded in Williams’s shoulder. The assassin blinked; not at the teacher lying on top of him but at the lights in the ceiling.
“I’ll be damned.”
Using his foot, Williams was finally able to pry his hands free of the sword and the assassin’s grasp. He rose and stumbled backward. Gritting his teeth he wrapped his fingers around the handle of the stiletto and yanked convulsively. The pain as the blade emerged from his flesh was tremendous. He staggered but didn’t fall.
A steadily widening pool of blood was forming beneath the dead man. Marquel continued to stare at the ceiling, the look on his face one of astonishment and surprise rather than pain.
Williams staggered over to the Commissioner’s desk. Inside a drawer he found a pop-up board lined with contact switches. Which one activated the sealed doors, which alerted building security?
He was still hunting when the doors unexpectedly parted, to admit not an ally of Marquel’s but the elegantly clad Resident Commissioner. She stared at him a moment before her gaze was drawn to the body in the middle of the floor. Her expression tightened and she took a step backward.
“What the hell’s going on here? Who—wait, I remember you. You’re one of the three who—”
“Williams. Milliken Williams.” He grimaced and clutched at his throbbing shoulder. Had Marquel taken him more seriously, he had not the slightest doubt the stiletto would have been poisoned. “Could I ask you to please call a doctor?” He gestured at the complex control panel. “I don’t know which of these stands for what.”
She walked over to him. Her fingers flew over a couple of the controls. Williams was dimly aware of an alarm sounding somewhere in the bowels of the building. He sat down in her chair, suddenly unable to stand any longer.
“A Qwarm. I’ve read about them but I never expected to actually see one. I’m not that important,” she said.
“How do you think I feel?”
“Stay there.” She activated another panel. “Infirmary? Where’s that doctor I buzzed for? Let’s get some people up here now. I’ve got a man with a knife wound in my chair.” She nodded toward the sprawled body of Marquel. “He was always weak on transcription, but I didn’t have the heart to dismiss him. Never struck me as the violent type. It just goes to show. Is he dead?”
“I sincerely hope so.”
“What’s this all about, anyway?”
“There’s a large illegal human installation operating on the edge of the southern continent. They took us prisoner; we escaped. Ethan, Skua, and the others went back to help those who couldn’t get away. I came back to tell you… to tell you…” Suddenly speech was becoming difficult.
She leaned toward the intercom. “Where’s that medic, dammit.”
A crackling, then a voice responding. “This is Infirmary. What medic, Ms. Stanhope?”
“The medic I just—wait a minute, who is this?”
“Marianne Sanchez, Commissioner. Did you call for a medic?”
“You’re damn right I did. Who took the call? Who was on a moment ago?”
“Not one of the physicians. Josef, I think. Josef Nilachek. He’s with Administration. One of your people.”
“One of…” She looked down at Williams.
The teacher had a phobia about swearing, but he ignored it now. “Shit. Marquel wasn’t alone.”
The shuttle had been unloaded and berthed for maintenance. Nilachek hung back in the shadows until the last member of the service crew emerged from the ship and moved off to chat with his colleagues. He knew what he had to do.
Marquel should have sounded the all-clear and called down for a body bag for his quarry. The fact that the Commissioner had called instead suggested any number of possibilities, none of them good. It was impossible to believe the Qwarm had failed, but then lately it seemed as though nothing was going right. Somehow he was going to have to contact either the company or Bamaputra.
But first he had to ensure that this schoolteacher’s revelations remained on Tran-ky-ky. That meant disabling both the deep-space beam and shuttle-to-ship communications. The beam wasn’t going anywhere so he decided to take care of the shuttle first. It shouldn’t be difficult, and when the small packet of concentrated explosive went off inside the little craft it would attract enough attention to allow him to deal with the beam unopposed.
He had to move fast. First disable communications, then get to this meddlesome teacher and disable him before he could recite the details of his story. Without specific coordinates, the people isolated here at Brass Monkey would never find the installation.
No one saw him slip aboard. A quick glance showed that the shuttle was empty. He hurried down the aisle between the rows of seats. The door to the cargo bay was unlocked. He eased into the cavernous space, ready to deal with any stevedore who might have lingered aboard. There were none to be seen. The unloading process was largely carried out by machines supervised from elsewhere.
He was just placing the explosive when a voice said, “What are you doing there?”
His hand went for the beamer bolstered under his shoulder, relaxed when he saw the speaker. A woman, one of the passengers judging by her attire.
“I might ask you the same question.” He made sure the packet was concealed by his body. “Me, I’m staff. A little repair work.” He nodded toward the doorway that led back to the passenger compartment. “You shouldn’t be in here.”
“Idiots lost a piece of my luggage. Thought I’d come loo
k for it myself. How the hell do you lose baggage in space?”
“I don’t know, but you’ll have to leave. It’s against regulations.” Nilachek was beginning to get nervous. One of the maintenance people might show up at any minute. He started toward her. “If you’ll just come with me, I’m sure we can find your missing luggage. Maybe someone’s found it already.” He took her arm and turned her toward the door.
She shook him off irritably. “These twits couldn’t find their backsides with both hands. Why do you think I came to look for myself?” She turned back to the compartment, frowned. “What’s that over there?”
“What’s what?” He began to edge his hand toward the concealed beamer he carried.
“That plasticine packet over there, between those two conduits?”
“Just patching a small leak. Would you like me to explain how it works? I’d be happy to show you.”
“Yeah, you bet I would. Especially why a patch on a leak needs a timer on it.”
He started to pull the beamer. With unexpected speed the woman slammed the edge of her left palm against his elbow, simultaneously swept her right leg around in a wide arc to slam her heavy foreleg against his ankles. His feet went right out from under him and he landed hard on the metal decking, still trying to extract the beamer. She jumped on top of him and the wind went out of him completely. Stars danced in front of his eyes as he fought for breath. All wrong, this was all wrong. He could hear her screaming for help at the top of her lungs and tried desperately to slide out from under her, but she weighed more than he did. A good deal more.
Williams sat patiently as the doctor sprayed a coagulant and epidermal fixative on his shoulder, then slapped a square of fast-adhering artificial skin over the wound. Nearby, Millicent Stanhope was talking to her security people as the body of her former secretary was loaded onto a stretcher for removal. As Marquel left the office for the last time, she turned to the visitor occupying her chair.
The Icerigger Trilogy Page 90
