Silverberg launched a ferocious punch at Silky’s jaw. “She is everything I should have been to Connor and wasn’t. That’s why hate you so much, Kurlei. Every time I see NJ, he’s a little less broken, less a traumatized cyborg and closer to a functioning human being. That’s your doing. Bitch.”
I had no idea how to act. I just stared at my wife clutching her wounded jaw. My gaze refused to travel anywhere near Silverberg because I knew her every word was true.
“Don’t act so wounded,” she told Silky. “I know damned well you deliberately let me land that punch, alien. Fuck you and your empathy. It only makes me loath you more.”
Silky stopped rubbing her jaw. “I apologize, Lieutenant,” she said. “Would it improve your morale if I hit you back?”
I could sense that Silky was genuinely bewildered by this pattern of human behavior that had travelled far beyond the norms that she had done so well to master.
I laughed out loud. A moment later, so did Silverberg, although there were sobs in her laugh.
Silky’s eyes widened far beyond what was humanly possible. She began tearing at her kesah-kihisia in confusion. “I don’t understand,” she repeated.
I gathered them both into a hug.
It was a sudden and instinctive gesture – the kind of easy reconciliation between brothers and sisters who were fighting tooth and claw moments earlier, but now remember what they mean to each other when they aren’t being such idiots.
The embrace took all three of us by surprise. Silky tensed, and Silverberg tried to squeeze away, but I was a human Marine, Silky was a slight Kurlei, and Silverberg a tiny Earth-style human. Sanaa whispered that maybe this was the casual intimidation Silverberg had spoken of, but I wasn’t listening. It felt like gathering children in my arms.
As it was, Silverberg didn’t exactly melt into my hold like an ardent lover, but she stopped fighting me and I think she drew some strength from my honest human touch. Silky had lost track of what was happening and simply went with the flow of this human interaction.
Welcome to my world, Silky.
But Silky was as unsuited as I was to passively letting life pass by. She cuddled Silverberg, resting her head on the policewoman’s shoulder so that her kesah-kihisia nudged against her jaw.
Starting with her head and working down her body one-by-one, Silverberg’s muscles unclenched in a wave of peace. From my perspective, the blood engorging Silky’s tentacles in random lilac pulses made her look like a mind-sucking alien monster. But I knew from experience the gentle way they would be bathing the inside of Silverberg’s mind. The world would seem a better place. Not, perhaps, a happy place but one where things could get done and justice could be served.
And that’s how we recruited Rachel Silverberg in the privacy of our apartment bathroom.
I’m NJ McCall. If I can find any words at all, I usually say the wrong thing. I rely on my friends and ghosts to know what the hell is going on half the time because I haven’t a clue. Never come to me for advice.
And yet, by some inexplicable process unknown to reason, I get things done.
The three of us were allies now.
Caccamo had his governor and his fancy LIST pals, but my gut told me that Port Zahir would owe little Rachel Silverberg more than any of them.
I squeezed a little tighter, because if we really were going to rely on Silverberg, then we were about to hit some seriously scary drent.
— CHAPTER 32 —
“What was it?” Silky demanded the moment Silverberg was safely out of our apartment. “What delighted and surprised you during the interrogation?”
I grinned. In my head, I told myself she found my cheeky smile endearing. Maybe I could charm her enough that she wouldn’t notice the words about to spill from my mouth were utter madness. “You and Silverberg had the answer. We balance on an unstable pinnacle. One gust of wind and we’ll come tumbling down to dash against the rocks of the hands of the court martial and execution squad.”
She gripped my arm and gave a gentle squeeze. “You scare me when you talk in metaphor.”
“Fair point. Try this then – we’re going to die in front of an execution squad. We keep telling ourselves that doesn’t matter because every day we cheat our fate is an unexpected bonus. For a long time that was true because it’s all I’ve known for decades.” I grabbed her shoulders and bore my gaze into hers with an intensity that astonished me. “I want more. I dare to dream of a future and I’m going to fight for one. We have to send for the governor.”
She radiated surprise. “What? You know her?”
“No. Never met her.” Silky emitted dismay, so I added quickly, “But I know a man who does. So do you.”
“Caccamo?”
“Yup. He’s a man of hidden depths.”
Silky gave me the space to play the part of the impetuous one in our relationship because I relied on her and my ghosts to think things through properly. She froze for several seconds, considering my words from every angle. Then she was all action, grabbing her kit and contacting Caccamo to expect us at the Slaughterhouse.
As we were about to leave, I told her to wait up.
She paused, confused. “What?”
“What? Silky, you’re the one whose tentacles were buzzing at the prospect of our first house guest. How’d it go?”
She regarded me seriously. “No one was injured.” She hesitated, rubbing her jaw. “Not seriously, and no blood feuds resulted.”
I beamed. “Exactly. It was a roaring success.” The smile left my face. “Let’s hope we have Silverberg over again. I wouldn’t bet money on a reunion, though. I have a feeling that no one will be coming back here until at least one of us is dead.”
“You should leave worrying about the future to me, NJ. But if what you say comes to pass, then I will make sure that Rachel is the one who shall die.”
“Roger that, little boss.”
She raised an eye ridge and tickled me with amusement. “You are fortunate indeed to be on my side, human. Now, quit stalling and grab your kit. It seems that we have more than just our own injustices to correct.”
— CHAPTER 33 —
Our circuitous route to the Slaughterhouse took us through a broken fence and into an industrial area abandoned due to a toxic spillage twenty years earlier. Nature had made serious inroads into reclaiming the area. The drunks, fugitives, and gangs who had taken up residence were a part of nature, I supposed.
This wasn’t a place to enter lightly, but we were counting on that to shake off anyone but the most committed who might be following us.
“Recruiting Silverberg is a long shot,” I admitted to Silky as we paused in a deserted car rental store. “She has problems of her own.” I peered over the counter through the grime-encrusted window to see if anyone pursued us.
“I feel foolish to admit this,” Silky replied, “but I feel relief that we are not the only ones sailing the drent canal having sustained critical damage to our propulsion systems.”
Is she saying that weird shit on purpose? I wondered. To distract me?
I decided that was a conversation that should wait until happier circumstances. “You’re not foolish,” I told her instead. “There’s Sel-en-Sek too. I don’t know what’s been eating him. He won’t tell me. Has he said anything to you?”
Silky shook her head.
“I’ll ask the big boss for help. We can’t run to him every time but…” Through the window I could see figures approaching. “Quiet!” I snapped.
“Out the back!” Silky whispered.
“No,” I said. That’s where they’re herding us.”
Her answer was to grab a metal office chair and throw it through the main window. Or tried to. It bounced off, hitting me on the shoulder. Then someone on the outside fired a shotgun through the window. We ducked as the room filled with a shower of glass fragments.
By the time the glass hail had settled, we were surrounded. I’d been right about the herding. The main force appeared
through the rear door, led by a hard-faced human Spacer.
“Just passing through,” I told the little man who reached only to my chest.
“I know,” he replied. “Saves us the hassle of contacting you in a more public place.”
“Contact?” said Silky. “You need to tell us something? A message?”
“Yes, in a way. The message is for your friend, Sel-en-Sek, a reminder that his friend in turn has seven days to pay back the money he owes Mr. Lee. If your Revenge Squad colleague wishes to pay off the debt then that is acceptable to Mr. Lee, but the inconvenience will incur an additional ten percent processing fee.”
Silky gave me a puzzled look, but I was as much in the dark as her. “We don’t know anything about this,” I tried to explain to the Spacer.
“How disappointing, but how predictable. Which is why this message I’m about to give you is necessary in the first place.”
“We understand,” said Silky. “I shall pass the message to him myself.”
The Spacer’s face eased into its first sign of emotion: amusement, and at our expense. He gestured to the figures to my rear who clamped my arms behind my back. Silky was similarly restrained.
“That you will,” he said to Silky. Turning to me, he sneered, “You Marines think you’re better than Wolves and berserkers, but you’re still regressed to the level of rutting beasts. Hey, Calc-AttVeck! How do you threaten a male Marine?”
“By threatening his womenfolk,” answered one of the armed Spacers.
The Spacer boss clicked his fingers and one of his men punched Silky in the gut.
I snarled in rage, too shocked to form words.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Silky begged me, her voice stretched raw with pain.
I didn’t. I wasn’t a regressed beast. Besides, there was a very large woman with a plasma pistol pointed at my head, daring me to try it on.
They yanked Silky backward so her torso was arched and vulnerable in time for a second fist to thunder into her stomach.
I winced at the impact, and screamed as her eyes rolled up and she fought hard to breathe.
Then I did do something stupid. I put everything I had into a bucking, writhing shimmy to throw off my guards. I won free, though with a pull at my arms that felt as though they’d been ripped from their sockets.
I advanced one step, meaning to dodge the distance between me and the pistol without getting shot.
One step… and then I felt a pricking sensation in the back of my neck an instant before every muscle in my body contracted to the maximum.
I was twitching on the ground in a bed of tingling glass. My teeth crackled with electricity and my nose filled with the smell of burning meat.
——
“NJ, come back to me. NJ!”
I felt a hand on my face that was not a hand. Its color, texture and shape were all subtly wrong. And then I remembered and looked up into Silky’s face.
I half rose to a crouch, looked around but it was just the two of us in a room full of glass.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I got my feet and tested a few basic motor functions. I used my finger to take a quick rollcall of my teeth. All present. “I seem to be,” I replied, before adding carefully, “you?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I hurt.”
There was no one here to hit, no painkillers, no words of wisdom for myself or my ghosts. I kissed her tenderly on her kesah-kihisia and told her we needed to get to the Slaughterhouse. “Put your weight on my shoulder if it helps,” I suggested.
I doubt it made any difference, but she kept her arm on my shoulder and we made our way back to the Slaughterhouse without further incident. We said nothing, and for once Kurlei and human were alike. Our heads were both so full of thoughts of revenge that we had no room for words.
— CHAPTER 34 —
“I’m a mass of bruises because of a frakking truck?”
Sel-en-Sek couldn’t answer Silky. He gripped the sides of his chair and glanced up at me nervously.
“You’re an idiot,” she screamed, grabbing Sel-en-Sek by the ears and hauling him to his feet with a yelp of pain. “A dumb Hardit-chodding wet-boy shunter with a salted hindbrain. A frakking truck!”
I couldn’t follow all of Silky’s insults, but it was as well she screamed into Sel-en-Sek’s wincing face, because that meant I felt a twinge of sympathy for him. If I hadn’t, my fist would have done my talking for me. Or a sharp kick to his legs still fractured after the fall in the hold of the Spirit of Progress.
“Let go of his ears,” Caccamo ordered. “The dumb twonk won’t be able to hear your considered opinion of his actions if you rip them off.”
She released him.
“And you,” Caccamo growled, pointing at Sel-en-Sek. “Siddown! You will sit there until Section Leader Sylk-Peddembal has finished explaining the consequences of your idiocy.”
So we stood in a half circle looking on uncomfortably as Silky extended the limits of her human vocabulary to give the old sailor the benefit of her thoughts. Caccamo had recalled all the dispersed members of Section ‘C’ for this.
Eight days earlier, the same room had seen dancing, beer, Litt-Beat and the last decent meal I’d eaten.
Times had changed and not for the better.
The more Silky shouted, the more guilt I felt. I’d known something was bothering Sel-en-Sek for weeks and I hadn’t pressed hard enough to learn what.
In fact, I now realized that his troubles had begun a year ago, on the day we arrived in Port Zahir. When I first met him, back at Camp Prelude, I recognized him as someone on the run. Running, it turned out, from the love of his life. Having drifted from one corner of Klin-Tula to another to escape the memory of this Kelker-Jay, guess who he’d seen at the docks when he arrived at Port Zahir?
Kelker-Jay had a thing for vehicles: an obsessive desire to possess big trucks with muscular power plants, flexible floor plans, gravity assists, and interiors that befitted a Fleet Admiral. And there was room in his lot for far more than one truck.
All that required money. Lots of it.
Which Kelker-Jay had, thanks to his lucrative holding in Klin-Tula Maritime, but for some people having a lot of money is never the same is having enough money.
Sel-en-Sek’s ex-lover crossed the line when he borrowed from a loan shark – Mr. Lee – because on his way to pay off his debt in the required low-denomination credit chips, he had been mugged, and taken to hospital without his money.
When Mr. Lee reminded Kelker-Jay of the “pay up or I’ll kill you” clause in their credit agreement, Jay turned to the one man he knew could never sit back and watch his former lover die. And, conveniently, that man had once lived as a professional gambler.
“What I don’t understand,” I said… pausing until Silky’s shouting died away… “Is why you didn’t win back his debt. We all know not to play against you for money.”
“Luck’s a fickle thing, NJ,” said Sel-en-Sek keeping a wary eye on Silky who hovered within reach. “Sometimes it makes you wait out a patch of bad luck, testing your faith until eventually rewarding you with a shower of good fortune.”
“Or someone plays you,” said Caccamo.
“No,” Sel-en-Sek shot back. I didn’t like the desperation in his denial. “I play at the Woodland Redoubt. It’s got large crowds and the best anti-cheating tables.”
“There’s always a way to cheat,” said Caccamo.
“No.”
Caccamo shook his head. My money was on the secret agent.
“I have a nasty feeling that it’s not just you being played,” said Caccamo. “Lee knows a lot about Kelker-Jay’s links to Revenge Squad. Maybe we are all of us his mark.”
“Now you’re being paranoid,” said Sel-en-Sek. “Stay out of this, please. Let me handle it myself. God knows were in enough trouble without me adding my difficulty.”
I laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. It was not intended as a comforting gesture. “Too late for that now, pal.
Besides,” I said, drawing back and addressing everyone in Section ‘C’, “Loverboy here isn’t the only one deep in the drent.”
I proceeded to tell them about Silverberg and her problems with her own ex-lover.
“Why bring this up?” Shahdi asked. A shock of scandal slapped her face and she threw horrified glances at first Silky and then me. “You and Silverberg… you haven’t…?”
I forced a laugh at the blushing Shahdi – grateful for anything to distract me from the hell that Silky had just endured. “Relax,” I told the girl. “The lieutenant’s got a 100% efficient heat sink jacked up her ass. Imagine Lazheet deploying her sexual munitions at maximum yield. Now invert that picture to arrive at an anti-Lazheet who can eradicate hot thoughts at a hundred paces. Turn down the chill dial below absolute zero and there’s our Rachel.”
“Lieutenant Silverberg has sacrificed much in the name of duty,” said Caccamo. “I respect that.” His words were spoken in a gentle near-whisper, but they conjured such a crushing sense of guilt in me that I couldn’t speak.
César could. “With respect, sir, every single member of this section has had their heart shredded by tragedy and loss. Why should I care about this police officer?”
“Because,” said Silky, “to cultivate an insider within the police department could mean the difference between our lives and our deaths.”
“You speak like a Tallerman,” Nolog-Ndacu told her. I thought he was complimenting her, but his head started bobbing around in anxiety. “The police human could be an asset. And the consequences of our gambling friend are forcing themselves painfully upon us. But I fear we are concentrating on the obvious threats to our front when we should be turning to face the enemy striking at our rear. The mayor, my friends. How do we defeat the mayor?”
“You don’t,” Caccamo replied. “You leave that veck well alone.”
Second Strike Page 15
