The Vastalimi Gambit

by Steve Perry

  Gramps laughed. “Want to make smeerp stew? First, you catch a smeerp . . .”

  Both Em and Kay looked at him. “That is obvious,” Em said.

  He laughed harder.

  _ _ _ _ _ _

  Em and Kay drove, stuck their arms out, and waved.

  The guards opened the gate.

  The four guards went down in a hail of projectiles. Served them right for being lax.

  There were no guards at the house’s entrance, and if there were cameras monitoring the door, they were not apparent.

  “Odd,” Cutter said. “You’d think they’d have somebody watching the entrance.”

  “I’m for going in through a window,” Jo said, “just in case the door is rigged. No bars on the windows, and if we blow one in, and an alarm goes off, it will be too late.”

  Cutter nodded.

  “All right. Let’s do it.”

  _ _ _ _ _ _

  “Will you take the left?” Kay said.

  Jo said, “Yes.”

  The two fems split, moving fast.

  The corridor was wide, but the branching ahead to the left was blind. She couldn’t hear anybody down it, but these were Vastalimi, and they could be quiet when they wanted to be.

  Jo dropped to her left side and slid the last couple of meters on the smooth floor into the corridor’s intersection, both hands on the pistol—

  The Vastalimi crouching ten meters away was fast, but not so much so that she had a chance to drop her aim from where she expected a target to appear in time—

  Jo saw her eyes go wide as she realized her mistake and jerked the rifle downward—

  —too late. Jo squeezed off two quick shots, both center of mass, then tracked upward for the third shot at the fem’s head—

  —She missed the third because the Vastalimi had curled reflexively forward from the impact of the bioelectric darts that skewered her heart.

  —Dead on her feet and falling . . .

  Nobody else in sight.

  Jo rolled up, gun leading, and ran down the corridor.

  There shouldn’t be too many guards left by now. Wink had shot one, Gunny had taken three, and Gramps blew one up with a bisector. This one made six, and—

  —a pistol went off down the other, a double tap. That was Kay—she could tell by the sound—and there was no return fire, so that would make seven—

  Jo subvocalized into her com: “Seven down. Remember to keep some alive—”

  A carbine went off, a pair of triplets, and Jo knew from that sound and pattern that it was probably Gramps—

  “Repeat—what was that you said?” Gramps said.

  “Take one alive,” Jo said.

  “Sorry. My error.”

  “You killed the last two?”

  “I don’t know that they were the last two. Besides, they were Vastalimi, and they were armed.”

  Gunny said, “A good shot could have taken them down without killing ’em.”

  “Says the woman who killed three without a nanosecond’s hesitation.”

  “That was different. We still had plenty left back then.”

  Jo went into the main section of the place. Two dead Vastalimi males sprawled on the floor by Gramps’s feet.

  Rags came around the corner nearest. “Clear, that way.”

  Singh commed in: “The domestic staff and some fancy-looking fems are all dead up here. Along with whom I assume is the owner, Okloo. It appears they have been dead for a while. The blood is congealed, and they are stiff.”

  “Killed before we arrived,” Em said. “Is that not interesting?”

  “Well, crap. This will make it a little harder to get the information we wanted, them being dead and all,” Gunny said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kay said. “I know who they were working for.”

  Wink looked at her. “Really? When did you figure that out?”

  “I have suspected it for a time. This is the final piece of the puzzle.”

  Wink shook his head. “I must be missing something.”

  “The staff and owner were killed before we arrived, so once again, somebody knew we were coming. They were cleaning up loose ends. I suspect we were supposed to be among those.”

  Wink considered it for a moment. “So?”

  “So, who sent us to see Shan the second time? From where the leaks must be coming?”

  “ I . . . Oh . . .” He trailed off.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, fuck,” he said.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Leeth arrived next to the building’s back entrance and started for the door. Kay called out. “Over here, Sister.”

  Leeth turned, saw Kay leaning against the wall in the shadow of a tall refuse container.

  “Strange place for a meeting,” Leeth said.

  “Appropriate. A dirty alley seems perfect, don’t you think?” She pushed off the wall, stood facing her sister. Her hormones were in flux, her stance tight.

  There was a long pause. Finally, Leeth said. “So. You know.”

  “Yes.”

  “I am sorry it came to this.”

  “Are you?”

  “More that you figured it out than anything if I must be honest.”

  “Honest? Why start now?”

  There was another pause. “I didn’t know Droc was going to call you home.”

  “Would it have made a difference if you had known?”

  Leeth shook her head. “No. It was too far along by then.”

  Kay shook her head. “My sister, the Sena, a murderer. I spit in disgust.”

  “I wish you had not come back.”

  “So do I. Aside from a few carefully chosen targets, the rest of them were just ruses?”

  “Yes. The plan was for a thousand deaths, maximum, and if fifty of them were major criminals? Nobody would have thought twice about that, they would have been lost in the crowd.”

  “Including our parents and our siblings.”

  “That was a hard choice.”

  “To make certain nobody would suspect you if it came to that. That is beyond frigid, Leeth. You wade in a river of nitrogen.”

  She nodded. “It was necessary. If I could have stalled you for a couple of weeks? That would have been enough.”

  Kay shook her head. “You were the most stellar of all the Sena. Your entire career. And now this?”

  Leeth nodded. “Yes. I was the good fem, doing the right things for the right reasons. But the Sena were falling, and I had to come up with a way to stop it.”

  “You planned it so that somebody would eventually realize that it was deliberate.”

  “Of course. Our brother would, in time, have been given additional clues, then led down the proper road. It was not contagious, never an epidemic in the making. The majority of The People were never at risk. Droc got there sooner than expected, thanks to your human. I don’t think a Vastalimi Healer would ever have made that leap on his own.

  “And, of course, your vision was too sharp, much as I tried to keep it clouded. And you wouldn’t let it go and leave it to me.”

  Leeth sighed. “What gave me away in the end?”

  “You were too good a Shadow to miss this, and yet, you dragged your feet at every turning, you kept putting me off. You sent me places where you knew I wouldn’t find anything.

  “I didn’t want to believe it, but when everything else was eliminated, you were still there. The recent trap you set was the final piece in the puzzle. Who else knew Wink and I would be going there? Who sent us to see Shan again? Was he part of it?”

  “Not as such. We have Shan under electronic surveillance.”

  “I never considered that.”

  “We use his own cameras. He has them everywhere. He is young and vain. He likes to
watch himself do things. It makes it easy.”

  Kay sighed.

  “I didn’t know your humans would sneak off and find you so soon. How did they?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No, not really.”

  They looked at each other silently for a moment.

  “You would have had me killed.”

  “Caught. Wounded, if necessary, but not killed unless there was no other way.

  “The first time you were collected, you would have survived even if you had not escaped on your own. That was the plan. You would have been held, eventually released. The plague would stop, you would leave, and all would be well.”

  Kay stared at her. “There was a clue there, had I been listening properly. They told me they knew who my sister was. I came to realize what they meant. They didn’t know of you, you were the one who set them on us.”

  “I would have spared you, if possible, I didn’t want you to die.”

  “Your concern is touching.”

  “What is it you want to hear? That I would have regretted it if you’d been killed? I would have.”

  “But you’d have gotten over it quick enough, wouldn’t you? As you did the rest of our family you murdered.”

  Leeth said nothing.

  Kay let that go. “You set it all up toward an end that would have included a guilty party.”

  “Of course.”

  “Anybody I know?”

  “Shardmasc.”

  “Ah. The Clawproof Uberpatro, Packleader of Packleaders. Cleaning out the den along the way to the biggest prey. It has a certain economy to it.”

  “It took years to set up and put it into motion. Not many could have managed it.”

  “I can appreciate that. And how far up are you on the list of plotters?”

  “You don’t think I did it alone?”

  Kay laughed, despite its being so awful. Nothing funny here. It was tragic.

  “I am at the top, Sister. Others sharpened their talons for their own reasons, but one uses the tools one has. I was in it for justice.”

  “Justice? You say that despite the hundreds of innocents who have died from this? People you slaughtered?”

  “I deeply regret it, you must believe that. But their deaths were for the greater good.”

  Kay stared at her. “The greater good? Are you truly mad?”

  “The Sena are at a critical point. We are the wall between order and chaos, and we have been crumbling for a long time. When this is done, a diseased pack of longtime criminals—who over their lives killed many more than have died of the illness, but who were too clever for us to spike? They will be gone.

  “More importantly, our prestige in solving the crime will infuse our ranks with a spate of new applicants, smart and talented people who will see the Shadows as I saw them long ago. As an adventure. As a higher calling.

  “Order will be restored, better than it was.

  “Yes, the deaths will stay with me to my own end, and I am sorry for them and their families—our family—you can’t know how much; but their lives balanced against the lives of the tens of thousands over the years that a reinvigorated Sena will save? There is no contest.”

  “So the ends justify the means.”

  “Yes, sometimes it does.”

  Kay sighed. “But when it comes out that it was a highly regarded officer of the Sena who was responsible? What does that do to your recruitment strategy? Do you think that the door will be pounded open by the bright and talented rushing to join an organization that is responsible for mass murder? Or that at least a few Shadows with a conscience won’t resign?”

  “That won’t happen.”

  “You think not?”

  “No one will reveal it.”

  “Really? My status is low, true, but our Elder Droc’s is not, and he will have high-ranking ears to listen. And there are honest Shadows who can verify it. Once you know the guilty party, it is easy enough to backtrack and find the arrows that point to her.”

  “You won’t tell him.”

  “You are mad.”

  “Lope away, Sister. Leave Vast and go back to playing soldier.”

  “No.”

  Leeth pulled her pistol and pointed it at Kay.

  Too far away to try a leap.

  “That’s it? You would murder me?”

  “I will regret this most of all, but I can’t let you undo it. You left, you haven’t seen what I have seen. It is too important to our world. Try to understand.”

  “Will you offer Challenge instead of shooting me?”

  “As good as I am, you did defeat Vial. You aren’t the sib I used to bat around as a cub. I can likely beat you even so, but I can’t risk it. I am sorry.”

  “Gunny,” Kay said.

  Leeth frowned. “What?”

  The shot tore the pistol from her grip, shattering the hard plastic into shards as it flew.

  Leeth snarled, dropped into a fighting crouch, her claws snapped out—

  Kay raised her hand. “Hold! My comrade—one of those who shoot so well—has you in her sights. Twitch, and die where you stand. She won’t miss.”

  Leeth looked around, didn’t see the hidden threat. She relaxed, came up, retracted her claws.

  “Again, I underestimated you. Always smarter than I expected you to be,” Leeth said. “What now?”

  Kay had thought about it, what she would do, and while she didn’t like any of her choices, some were less onerous than others. “A bargain,” she said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Give me the names of those involved in the plot with you—”

  “No—”

  “—hear me through! The names, no omissions. In exchange, two things: You will be allowed to perform izvaditi utrobu.”

  Leeth nodded. “And the second?”

  “And the blame for the murders will fall upon Shard, as you planned. I am assuming your evidence, whatever it is, is solid enough to bear inspection?”

  “It is.” She paused. “You would do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are right—The People need the Sena. If I blacken them with your sin, it serves no purpose. Your way was wrong, but I won’t deny that your goal is valid.”

  “That’s it?”

  “When I am done here, I will leave our world once more. What remains of our family won’t, and what you have done is wicked enough that it will hang over them like a cloud—should it become known. Why should our family suffer any more for your crime?”

  “I understand.” She paused again. “You really would have made a great Shadow, Kluth. You have found the path that hews closer to right than any other.”

  “It is still a path too far. Know that your accomplices and coconspirators will be punished. Most of them will likely die, Droc will see to it. Challenges, accidents, sudden illnesses, there is no place upon Vast where they will be able to hide. You cleaned out one kind of criminal nest, we shall clean out another. People who get away with such things will only be encouraged to do worse.”

  “They understood the risks.”

  There was a silence that threatened to expand to infinity. Then Leeth said, “There’s something else, isn’t there? Another reason you haven’t said.”

  Kluth considered it. Yes. There was. And maybe it would be cruel to offer it. Her sister had been ready to shoot her like prey, for the greater good of her cause, but she had told her why. Leeth deserved the truth before she died, didn’t she?

  Kay said, “Because kinship matters to some of us. We were born moments apart, we lay together as cubs and nursed on our parents’ disgorge. You were my favorite sibling. Central in my cubhood. I loved you.”

  That dart struck home—she could see it. “Even after I would have killed y
ou, you say this?”

  “Yes.”

  “You shame me.”

  “No, you shamed yourself. Say the names, there is a recorder working. Give a link to the evidence we need.

  “Hunt well on the Other Side, Leeth.”

  Leeth nodded. “Thank you.”

  Kay turned away.

  _ _ _ _ _ _

  When Leeth finished naming names and telling them where to find the faked evidence, she took a deep breath, and her claws snapped out. She looked skyward for a moment, closed her eyes, then crossed her wrists over her abdomen. She jammed her claws into her flesh deeply and uncrossed her hands, flinging them wide, shredding open her belly.

  Her entrails spilled out with a gush, blood spewing.

  She kept to her feet for what seemed like a long time before she sat down, then fell over onto her side.

  On the roof down the alley, sweating in the shiftsuit, but mostly invisible, Gunny said, “Man. That’s hard.” She relaxed her grip on the carbine.

  Next to her, Gramps, his own weapon no longer aimed at Leeth, said, “Yeah. Ripping out your own guts.”

  Gunny said, “I was talking about Kay.”

  “So was I.”

  They looked at each other. Something passed between them, but Gunny couldn’t speak to it. She could only nod.

  THIRTY

  The door to his cube was open, and Wink saw Kay as she arrived.

  “Kay.”

  “Wink. May I enter?”

  “Please.”

  She came into the cube and stood close to where he sat at the small table, honing the edge on his knife with a leather strop. He held the knife up, inspected the edge under the bright light, touched it with his thumb. Done, as sharp as he could get it, given the spine-to-edge thickness. He put the knife into the sheath and clicked off the lamp.

  The ship’s quarters were small, but sufficient; a place to sleep, sit, attend to small chores in private. “What can I do for you?”

  “You recall the conversation we had on our first visit to see Shan, regarding prostitutes?”

  He blinked. “Uh, yeah?”