The Knights of the Black Earth

by Margaret Weis; Don Perrin

  “Beats the hell out of me,” Xris said, baffled. “At first I thought his face was smashed in. Now I’m beginning to think he was just born this way.”

  Kneeling beside the body, Xris put his hand on what he presumed was the neck. He thought he could feel a pulse, but if so, it was faint and thready.

  He glanced swiftly around the bathroom, looking for a towel to stanch the bleeding, saw an object on the counter.

  His lips tightened. He changed his mind about the towel. Shoving the lasgun into its holster, he went back to the bedroom, yanked a blanket off the bed, returned to the bathroom. He worked swiftly, trying to be gentle, but aware that time was ticking away.

  Time for the job. Time for the Little One’s life.

  He wrapped the small, bloodied body in the blanket, lifted it easily in his arms. Making certain the blanket covered every part of the Little One, Xris carried the empath out of the hotel room. He took the stairs again, figuring the odds of meeting anyone on the fire escape were slim.

  “Harry, I’m coming out. I’ve got the Little One with me. See if you can distract that doorman.”

  “No need to worry, Xris,” Harry returned. “I think he’s gone to get the cops.”

  Xris made it down the stairs and out the door, practically knocked over a couple entering the building. They looked at him and his burden in startled surprise.

  “Sick kid,” Xris said, barreling past them.

  Harry was waiting outside the van. He had the back doors open. Xris laid the Little One inside, then jumped in himself. Harry had already returned to the driver’s seat. The van lifted into the air, soared down the block just as the doorman, in company with a traffic cop, rounded the corner.

  “So what’s happened?” Harry glanced back worriedly at the blanket-covered body. “Is the Little One dead? Where’s Raoul?”

  “I don’t think the little fellow’s dead, but he’s not all that alive, either. We’ll take him back to Quong. If anyone can fix him up, it’ll be the Doc. As for Raoul ...” Xris paused, then said, “I found his makeup kit on the bathroom sink.”

  Harry gave a low whistle, shook his head.

  “The room was a mess, like there’d been a fight,” Xris continued. “All his clothes are still there.”

  “Raoul wouldn’t go to his own funeral without his makeup kit,” Harry observed, glanced sideways at Xris. “Except in this case, maybe?”

  “I don’t think he’s dead.” Xris drew the blanket closer around the Little One, tucked it in. “We’d have found Raoul in the same condition as the Little One. The Loti’s been snatched. Someone kidnapped Raoul.”

  Harry was silent a moment, pondering. Then he said, in all seriousness, “But, Xris . .. who would want him?”

  Chapter 14

  It is a bad plan that admits of no modification.

  Publilius Syrus, Maxims, 469

  Who in the universe would want Raoul?

  “A good question,” Xris admitted.

  “You think it’s got something to do with this job?”

  The thought had already occurred to Xris. He’d discarded the notion before he was halfway out the hotel room.

  “Not logical. The people at Olicien sure as hell didn’t expect us, did they?”

  Harry neatly maneuvered his way around a lumbering truck. “Nope. They were real surprised.”

  “And if the Royal Navy was on to us—say Wiedermann went crazy and tipped them off—they’d be after me. Raoul’s made a lot of enemies over the years, but most of those would want him dead. Why take him alive?”

  “Information,” Harry guessed. “About us.”

  Xris shook his head. “You ever try to get information from a Loti? Half of it you can’t believe and the other half you don’t want to believe. But that’s not the problem.”

  “Yeah.” Harry grunted. “The job.”

  The job. What to do without Raoul and the Little One? Raoul, the charmer, the talker. Raoul, who was supposed to distract the security guard at RFComSec, then shoot him full of dope to keep him from sounding the alarm. And the Little One, who was supposed to read the guard’s mind, alert Raoul to possible danger.

  Xris glanced down at the small body. Blood was starting to soak through the blanket. If the Little One survived, he wasn’t going to be reading anyone’s mind today. And who would he communicate with if he did? The Little One never “talked” to anyone except Raoul.

  Xris swore softly to himself. He should abort the job right now. End it. Give it up. Call it off. The Olicien people would think it was a bungled robbery, leave it at that. Breaking into RFComSec was too dangerous without Raoul and the Little One.

  Too dangerous.

  And yet, Xris said to himself, when will I have this chance again?

  Olicien would be on their guard after this. Plus the Royal Navy —eternally paranoid—would undoubtedly conclude that this “robbery” had something to do with their top-secret space station. They’d tighten security until not even His Majesty could get on base without being strip-searched. What’s worse, the Navy might start asking questions. . . .

  Xris took out a twist, absently chewed on it, stared out the van’s window. He was seeing not the Olicien Pest Control factory, which was looming ahead, but another factory. A factory in a swamp. A factory that had become a tomb.

  A tomb for the living, as well as the dead.

  For though they termed him “alive,” the living Xris, the Xris he had been, was buried in the rubble alongside what remained of Ito.

  The van glided to a halt, set down on the tarmac. The rest of the team surged out of the hangar. Xris shoved open the doors.

  “Doc!” he called. “Take a look at the Little One. Harry, start the plane up. The rest of you get on board; Doc and I’ll be along in a second. Someone’s kidnapped Raoul. We’ll have to go without him.”

  Harry came around to the back end of the van. Doc was already inside, examining the Little One. Tycho and Jamil looked at Harry, looked at each other, looked at Xris.

  “We are going,” Xris said, his voice tight. “We’ve gone too far to stop now.”

  The others nodded, left. Xris couldn’t tell whether they agreed with him or were simply too well disciplined to argue.

  Not that it mattered.

  He turned back to the van.

  “Holy Master!” he heard Quong say, and the man sounded awed.

  “Well, Doc? How is he?” Xris tried to curb his impatience to be gone.

  Quong turned. His almond-shaped eyes were wide; his mouth gaped.

  “Xris, did you know? He”—the Doc gestured at the Little One—”he is a Tongan! I’ve never seen one before, but I’d stake my professional career on it.”

  “I don’t care if he’s Derek Sagan’s grandmother,” Xris said acidly. “Is he alive?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Can you help him?”

  “I think so.” Quong sounded dubious. “I don’t know that much about Tongan physiology. No human in our profession does. You see, no one’s ever had a living specimen to study. Or a dead one, for that matter. No human has ever been allowed on the planet and, so far as I know, not a single Tongan has been permitted off-planet. This is a rare opportunity—”

  “Save it for your thesis!” Xris snapped. “Let’s get him onto the plane!”

  “Certainly, Xris.” Quong was calm, efficient. And he was once again eyeing Xris with concern. “If you could carry him. Be careful. Try to support the head. .. .”

  Xris reached down, lifted the Little One in his arms, and stalked off to the spaceplane.

  “Good morning, XP-28.” Harry eased himself into the pilot’s chair in the spaceplane’s cockpit. “My name is Harry Luck. I’m the new pilot. You might want to adjust your voice activation to my verbal patterns.”

  “Good morning, Pilot Luck. Please enter your Olicien authorization number to transfer pilot functions.”

  Harry took the code card Jamil had obtained in the Olicien offices, slid the card into the co
nsole. A series of letters and numbers appeared on the computer screen, flashed on and off. Then came the word: Proceed.

  “Pilot Luck,” said the computer. “Welcome aboard. You must be a new employee. According to my bioscans, the entire cleaning crew is new. One of your people is injured. Why is this person being brought on board? I recommend that he be left on the ground for treatment.”

  Xris arrived in the cockpit, pointed grimly to the plane’s chronometer. 1030. They were already behind schedule by thirty minutes.

  “I have received and duly noted your recommendation, XP-28,” Harry said calmly. “One of our people is a doctor. He’s treating our friend now. But thank you for your concern. I’m uploading the flight plan, approach vectors, and the authenticity codes for the flight to the space station. Oh, and we’re running a bit late. Bypass the fuel conservation program, if you have to, in order to reach RFComSec on time.”

  The computer hummed to itself a moment, then said, a bit stiffly, “Yes, Pilot Luck. I suppose you will be taking manual control now?”

  Harry leaned back comfortably in his chair. “No, no. You handle it.”

  The computer’s screen actually appeared to glow with pleasure.

  “It is obvious you are a true professional, Pilot Luck. Unlike others I could mention. I perceive no difficulty in making up the time. In fact, I could get us there twenty minutes ahead of schedule.”

  “Uh, no,” Harry said hastily. “They might not be ready for us. We’d only have to sit in the docking bay and wait.”

  “I understand. Please strap yourselves in. We will be taking off in ten minutes. I’ll be leaving you now, to begin prelaunch cycle.”

  “It’s all yours,” Harry said complacently.

  The computer busied itself. The hatch sealed shut, lights came on. Life-support began its comforting hiss.

  “Some pilot you are,” Xris muttered, taking advantage of the delay to change into the bright yellow coveralls. “Sitting there doing nothing. I thought you hated letting computers run things.”

  Harry shrugged. “In some cases. In this one, I’ve made the computer my friend.”

  “True. I thought we were in for a fight there.”

  “We would have been, with an old XJ model. Those independent-minded computers were a pain in the ass. These XP-28s . . .” Harry gave the computer a pat on its console. “You just have to know how to handle them. Most pilots don’t. They refuse to relinquish control. Which makes no sense. The computer can handle the mundane stuff—takeoff, landing, routine flights—more efficiently than any human pilot. And, as you can see, it gets a real ego boost. I always work this way with an XP-28. From now on, I can do no wrong.”

  Xris grunted and ripped a seam out of the shoulder. He was far bigger than the last man to wear this bug outfit.

  Harry cast an admiring glance at the cargo plane’s cadaverous, ugly, utilitarian interior. “This plane is a beauty, Xris. I don’t suppose we could keep it? I could give it a new paint job.”

  “We’re going to be in enough trouble already. If anything goes wrong at RFComSec, every ship in the Navy will be on the alert for this craft. We’ll use it to throw off pursuit. Once we reach home, we’ll set the plane on autopilot and send it back.”

  “A real shame.” Harry sighed.

  Xris took over the copilot’s seat, swiveled around.

  The plane’s interior was dark, green, and smelled of chemicals and grease. Since the plane’s main function was to transport cargo on short hops, passenger comfort was not a priority. There were no windows, except in the cockpit. Large tracks, designed to wheel heavy equipment on and off, ran from the tail section, down the center, almost to the cockpit. Passengers and crew sat on metal-frame seats bolted to the bulkheads or rested in metal-frame cots attached in the same manner. It was in one of these that Xris had laid the Little One. They had stowed the bug-’bot (as Tycho called them) maintenance machinery in the rear. Everyone was now strapped in, ready for takeoff.

  “How’s the Little One, Doc?”

  “He’ll live. His people apparently have remarkably thick skulls. A blow like that would have pulverized mine. His is cracked, but not seriously. He’s lost a lot of blood and he’s going to be unconscious for a while, but he’ll wake up with no more than a nasty headache.”

  “Not in the middle of the raid, I presume?”

  “Unlikely. We’ll be leaving him on board?”

  Xris nodded. The spaceplane lifted off, began rocketing through the atmosphere. The Olicien Pest Control Company was suddenly a bright yellow patch on the fast-receding ground. No one spoke until the plane had cleared the planet’s atmosphere, was heading for the Lanes, where they would make the jump to hyperspace. Star-studded blackness surrounded them. At that point, the computer switched off the main thrusters and it was possible to hear again.

  Jamil asked the questions that were on everyone’s mind. “So what’s the change in plan? How do we manage without the charmer and the empath? Who’s going to keep the guard occupied?”

  “Harry will take Raoul’s place,” Xris said.

  Harry blinked. He looked as if he’d been hit over the head with a plastisteel pipe. “What? Me? But—”

  “It makes sense,” Xris continued. “I want you to stick close to the spaceplane so that if anything does go wrong, you can reach it before all hell breaks loose. As for the guard, just talk to him, that’s all.”

  “But I don’t have the drug!” Harry protested. “Raoul was supposed to drug the guy!”

  “You’ve got the hypno-spray—”

  “Yeah, right. Some iron-guts Marine lets me waltz up and shove an aerosol can in his face! Right!” Harry was bitter.

  “You’ll think of something,” Xris said curtly.

  Unstrapping himself, he headed back to the rear cargo bay to double-check the equipment. The others exchanged glances. Discussion over. Quong shook his head.

  “Pilot Luck,” said the computer, “we are coming up on the Lanes. Would you care to review my calculations for the jump to hyperspace?”

  “Uh, yeah. Sure.” Glumly, Harry returned to his duties.

  The spaceplane made the jump. The team members were, for the most part, silent. Xris had not returned from the rear cargo bay area. They could see him, an indistinct shadow brightened by occasional glints of ambient light off metal. They could all smell the rank tobacco smoke. They all concluded—rightly—that he wanted to be left alone.

  Quong remained near the Little One. The empath had not regained consciousness. The doctor took the opportunity to examine his comatose patient. Speaking into a handheld recorder, he entered all his newly discovered information on the physiology of a Tongan.

  Jamil found a cot, stretched out for a nap.

  Harry, hunched morosely in the pilot’s seat, was playing games with the computer.

  Tycho came forward, tossed a vid cassette in Harry’s lap. “Here, I found this when I was back at the bug place. I figured I’d give it to Raoul, but it looks like maybe you could use it.”

  Harry picked up the vid, glanced at the title and groaned.

  Fleas: The Immortal Enemy.

  Chapter 15

  When the speed of rushing water reaches the point where it can move boulders, this is momentum.

  Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  “Pilot Luck, we are entering the one-light-year exclusion zone around the RFComSec space station. I have already obtained preliminary clearance through flight operations, but security would like to speak to the person in charge. They have scanned us,” the computer added with maddening complacency, “and they have some questions.”

  Harry glanced at Xris, seated in the copilot’s chair.

  “Relax. I expected as much.” Xris leaned forward. “Put me through.”

  The computer complied and the next voice they heard was RFComSec.

  “Olicien Two Five Niner, this is Approach Control. Are you receiving me?”

  Xris spoke calmly. “This is Olicien Two Five Niner. We are o
n approach to your station on our regularly scheduled pest extermination visit. We’ve given you the security passwords and clearances. Is there a problem, Approach Control?”

  “No, Olicien Two Five Niner. All that’s fine. But according to our scans, you’re not the regular crew, plus you’re short-handed. There’s normally seven.”

  “Approach Control, the regular crew has been stranded on Clinius. They were doing a job on that planet when their ship was struck by lightning. Fried the electrical circuitry. My crew was the only crew with the requisite clearances to act as replacements for this one trip.”

  Xris chewed on a twist. If Approach Control was the least bit suspicious and tried to check up on them through Olicien, this trip was going to be a short one. But he was counting on the fact that this sort of incident couldn’t be all that unusual. In twenty years of flea eradication, there must have been times when the regular crew didn’t show. Damn it, it wasn’t that big a deal!

  Let it go right, Xris pleaded silently with Fate. You owe me this one. Let it go—

  “Olicien Two Five Niner, you are cleared to Shuttle Bay One.”

  Harry exhaled loudly. “You know the procedure, XP-28. Take us in.”

  Quong came forward into the cockpit, a subcutaneous inserter in his hand. “Gentlemen, it is time for me to insert the communicators.”

  Harry grimaced, rubbed the back of his neck. “Jeez, I hate those damn things! It hurts like hell going in and I always end up with a rash. I think I’m allergic. Why can’t we just use our regular commlinks?”

  “Because the real exterminators wouldn’t have sophisticated equipment like that,” Xris answered. “We didn’t find any type of communication devices in the equipment they had ready to load on board. It’s likely they just use the station’s internal communication system. Make sure, when you talk into these, that no one hears you.”

  “I know. I know,” Harry grumbled. “But won’t they hear us anyway? I mean, with all the fancy scanning equipment they’ve got on board, aren’t they likely to pick up our signal?”