“You may have a point there. I have to admit the old partizans didn’t do too well, did they.” She gave the chameleon suit hood a reluctant grimace, then started to smooth back her hair ready to slip it on.
* * *
Joshua held the petri dish up to the cabin’s light panel, squinting at the clear glass. It looked completely empty; his enhanced retinas couldn’t even find dust motes. But lurking inside the optically pure dish were thirteen nanonic monitor bugs which the medical packages had extracted from Lady Mac’s crew and the serjeants. They were subcutaneous implants, agents stinging them by casually brushing up against an unsuspecting victim.
“How come I rated three?” Ashly complained. “Obvious subversive type,” Sarha said. “Bound to be up to no good.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re all in the clear,” she said. “The medical analysis program can’t spot any unusual infections or viruses. Looks like they weren’t playing nasty.”
“This time,” Joshua said. As soon as the scanners in the starship’s surgery had located the first of the monitor bugs he’d ordered Sarha to run a full biochemical analysis on everyone. Microbes and viruses were far easier to introduce in a target than nanonics.
Fortunately, the agencies had been curious rather than hostile. But this was the sharpest reminder to date of the stakes involved. They’d been lucky thus far. It wouldn’t last, he thought. And he wasn’t the only one who realized that. The cabin had a kind of after-game locker-room atmosphere, with a team that was very relieved to have scraped a draw.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” he said. “Sarha, are we secure now?”
“Yes. These bugs can’t datavise through Lady Mac’s screening. They’re only a problem outside.”
“But you don’t know when we got stung?”
“There’s no way of knowing, sorry.”
“Your friend Mrs Nateghi,” Melvyn suggested. “It was rather odd.”
“You’re probably right,” Joshua said reluctantly. “Okay, assume everything we’ve done up until now has been compromised. First off, is there any point in continuing? Jesus, it’s not as if we don’t know she’s here. The bloody news studios have been broadcasting nothing else. Our problem is how difficult it’s going to be to contact her without anyone else tagging along. They’re bound to try and sting us again. Sarha, will our electronic warfare blocks work against these monitor bugs?”
“They should be able to scramble them; we picked up top-of-the-range systems before we left Tranquillity.”
“Fine. From now on, nobody goes into Ayacucho without one. We also take a serjeant each when we venture out. Ione, I want you to carry those chemical projectile guns we brought.”
“Certainly, Joshua,” said one of the four serjeants in the cabin.
He couldn’t tell if it was the one who’d accompanied him earlier. “Right, what kind of data have we pulled in so far? Melvyn?”
“Ashly and I got around to the five major defence contractors, Captain. The only orders coming in are for upgrades to the asteroid’s SD platforms, and there’s precious few of them. We got offered some magnificent discounts when we asked about supplying Lady Mac with new systems. They’re absolutely desperate for work. Mzu hasn’t ordered any equipment from anybody. And nobody is refitting starships.”
“Okay. Beaulieu?”
“Nothing, Captain. Daphine Kigano disappeared within fifteen minutes of arriving here. There’s no eddress for her, no credit records, no hotel booking, no citizenship register, no public record file.”
“All right. That just leaves us with Ikela.”
“He’s dead, Joshua,” Dahybi said. “Hardly the best lead.”
“Pauline Webb was very keen to stop me having any contact with T’Opingtu’s management. Which means that’s the direction to take. I’ve been reviewing every byte I can find on Ikela and T’Opingtu. He came to the Dorados with a lot of money to start up that company. There’s no mention of where it came from; according to his biography he used to work for a Garissan engineering company as a junior manager. Which doesn’t add up.
“Now if you were Alkad Mzu, on the run and in need of a starship that can deploy the Alchemist, who are you going to go to when you get here? Ikela fits the search program perfectly: the owner of a company which manufactures specialist astroengineering components. Remember she fooled the intelligence agencies for close on thirty years. Whatever plan she formatted with her colleagues after the genocide, it was well thought out.”
“Not perfect, though,” Ashly said. “If it was, Omuta’s star would be turning nova right now.”
“The possessed glitched it for them, that’s all,” Sarha said. “Who could anticipate this quarantine?”
“Whatever,” Joshua said. “The point is, T’Opingtu was probably set up to provide Mzu with the means to deploy the Alchemist. Ikela would have made sure that policy continued in the event he didn’t live long enough to see her arrive.”
“Which he did, but only just,” Ashly said. “It must have been the agencies who snuffed him.”
“But not Mzu,” Melvyn said. “This media campaign backing her sprang up too quickly after the murder. Somebody knows she’s out there. Somebody with a shitload of influence, but not in contact with her. It’s going to be almost impossible for us to snatch her with public opinion being whipped up like this, Captain.”
“Which is exactly the intention,” Dahybi said. “Though it’s more likely aimed at the intelligence agencies rather than us.”
“We’ll deal with that problem if we ever get to it,” Joshua said. “Right now our priority is to establish a trace on Mzu.”
“How?” Sarha asked.
“Ikela has a daughter; according to his public record file she’s the only family he’s got.”
“She’ll inherit,” Beaulieu said bluntly.
“You got it. Her name’s Voi, and she’s twenty-one. She’s our way in to whatever organization her daddy built up in preparation for Mzu.”
“Oh, come on, Joshua,” Ashly protested. “Her father’s just been murdered, she’s not going to make appointments with perfect strangers, let alone tell us anything about the Garissan underground, even if she has any data. Which is questionable. I wouldn’t involve my daughter in anything like that. And the agencies will be wanting to question her, too.”
Joshua wasn’t going to argue. As soon as he reviewed Ikela’s public record file he’d known Voi was the link. Ione would call it his intuition. She might even have been right. The old burn of conviction was there. “If we can just get close to her, we stand a chance,” he said firmly. “Mzu can’t afford to remain here now. She’s going to have to make a break for it, and sooner rather than later. One way or another, Voi will be involved. It’s our best shot.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you,” Dahybi said. “It’s as good a chance as any. But how the hell are you going to get near her?”
“Weren’t you listening?” asked one of the serjeants. “Voi is female and twenty-one.”
Joshua grinned evilly at Dahybi.
“You have got to be joking,” the stupefied node specialist insisted.
“I’ll just lie back and think of the Confederation.”
“Joshua . . .”
Joshua burst out laughing. “Your faces! Don’t worry, Dahybi, I’m not that conceited. But she will have friends. There are quite a lot of rich entrepreneurs in the Dorados, their kids will cling together in their own little social clique. And I am a starship owner captain, after all. One of them will get us in. All I have to do now is find her.” He smiled broadly at his crew, who were regarding him with a mixture of umbrage and resignation. “Time to party.”
* * *
Prince Lambert sealed the straps around the lanky girl’s wrists, then activated the sensenviron program. His bedroom dissolved into a circular stone-walled chamber at the top of a castle tower, its bed at the centre of the flagstone floor. His male slaves began to file through the iron-bound door.
Ten of them stood around the bed, looking down dispassionately at the spread-eagled figure.
He took the remote response collar from under the pillow and fastened it around her neck.
“What is it?” the girl asked, anxiety rising into her voice. She was very young; it was highly probable she’d never heard of the device before.
He kissed her silent, and datavised the collar’s activation sequence. The technology was a bastardization of medical nanonic packages, sending filaments to merge with her spinal cord. He could use it to manipulate her body into reacting exactly how he wanted, fulfilling each of the fantasies in turn.
“Do hope I’m not interrupting,” one of the slaves said in a sharp female voice.
Prince Lambert gave a start, jumping up from the bed. The girl wailed in dismay as the collar began to knit smoothly with her skin.
He cancelled the sensenviron program, retrieving the reality of his darkened bedroom, and stared at the tall skinny figure which replaced the muscle-bound slave. “For Mary’s sake, Voi! I’m going to change this bloody apartment’s door code, I should never have let you have it.” He squinted at the figure. “Voi?”
She was pulling her chameleon suit hood off, allowing her little crown of dreadlocks to wriggle free. A wig of unkempt gingerish hair was held carelessly in her hand. Her clothes were standard-issue biosphere agronomist overalls. “I want to talk to you.”
His jaw dropped. One hand gestured ineffectually at the girl on the bed, who was tugging at the straps. “Voi!”
“Now.” She went back out into the living room.
He swore, then datavised a shutdown order at the collar and started to open the strap seals.
“How old is she?” Voi asked when he emerged into the living room.
“Does it matter?”
“It might to Shea. Has she found out about your little kinks yet?”
“Why the sudden interest in my sex life? Do you miss it?”
“Like a sunbather misses birdcrap.”
“That’s not what you said at the time.”
“Who cares?”
“I do. We were good together, Voi.”
“History.”
“Then why have you come running back?”
“I need something of yours.”
“Mother Mary, that detox procedure was a big mistake. I preferred you as you were before.”
“I’m really interested in everything you say, P.L.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I want you to flight prep the Tekas, and take me and some friends outsystem.”
“Oh, sure, no problem.” He collapsed into the living room’s leather settee, and favoured her with a pitying gaze. “Any particular destination? New California? Norfolk? Hey, why don’t we go for the big one and see if we can break through Earth’s SD network?”
“It’s important. It’s for Garissa.”
“Oh, Mary. Your poxy revolution.”
“It isn’t revolution, it’s called honour. Access your dictionary file.”
“Haven’t got one. And for your information, there’s a civil starflight quarantine in operation. I couldn’t fly the Tekas away if I wanted to.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. All right, one nil. If I’d known about this quarantine in advance I would have left. The Dorados might be home, but I don’t think they’re the best place to live while the possessed are roaming around. You’ve got the right idea, Voi, you’re just too late.”
She held up a flek. “The Dorados governing council flight authorization: it’ll be an official voyage.”
“How the hell . . .”
“Daddy was on the council. I have his access codes.”
Temptation haunted him like a curse. “Is it still valid?”
“Yes. Myself and three others. Deal?”
“There’s a few people I’d like to bring along.”
“No. You can operate that yacht by yourself, that’s why I chose it. This isn’t a bloody pleasure cruise, P.L. I need you to fly some complex manoeuvres for me.”
“Tekas isn’t combat-capable, you know. Who are these others?”
“Need-to-know only. And you don’t. Do we have a deal?”
“Do we get to try out free-fall sex?”
“If fucking me means you’ll fly the yacht for me, fuck away.”
“Mother Mary, you are a complete bitch!”
“Deal?”
“All right. Give me a day to wind things up here.”
“We leave in three hours.”
“No way, Voi. I doubt I could even fill the cryogenic tanks by then.”
“Try.” She waved the flek. “If you don’t; no authorization.”
“Bitch.”
* * *
The girl was extravagantly attractive; early twenties with lustrous ebony skin and dry chestnut hair that fell just below her bottom. Her dress was a shimmering metallic grey-blue with a skirt hem higher than the dangling ends of her hair.
Melvyn suspected she was a typical insecure rich kid. Though Joshua didn’t seem to mind, the two of them were busy French-kissing on the Bar KF-T’s dance floor.
“He’s a devil for it,” Melvyn said peevishly. He felt he should explain to Beaulieu, who was sitting at the table with him. “Never works for me. I mean, fusion specialist is a tough job. And I’m crew, that’s glamorous enough, isn’t it? But they just bloody stampede at him when we dock. I think he got his pheromones geneered along with everything else.” He started searching through the cluster of beer bottles on the table for one that had something left inside. There were rather a lot of them.
“You don’t think it’s anything to do with the fact he’s thirty years younger than you?” the cosmonik asked.
“Twenty-five!” Melvyn corrected indignantly.
“Twenty-five.”
“Certainly not.”
The cosmonik gave the Bar KF-T another automatic scan. Joshua’s direction of investigation was obviously puzzling the intelligence agents who were on observation duty. Melvyn and Beaulieu had identified five of them in the club, making a game of it as they sat drinking beer and waiting for Joshua to score. It wasn’t that the agents didn’t mix; they drank, they danced, they chatted to people, the betraying factor was the way they maintained a rigid distance from the Lady Mac’s crew.
Joshua waved a sunny farewell to the girl and sat down at Melvyn’s table with a satisfied sigh. “Her name’s Kole, and she’s invited me to a party this evening.”
“I’m surprised she can hold back that long,” Melvyn muttered.
“I’m meeting her and her friends at tonight’s benefit gig, then they’re going on to a private bash at someone’s apartment.”
“A benefit gig?” Beaulieu questioned.
“Some local MF bands are getting together so they can raise money for Alkad Mzu’s legal costs, should she ever need to fight Confederation extradition warrants.”
“She’s becoming a bloody religion,” Melvyn said.
“Looks that way.” Joshua started counting the bottles on the table. “Come on, we need to get back to Lady Mac.” He slipped his arm under Melvyn’s shoulder and signalled Beaulieu to help. Between them, they got the drunk fusion specialist to his feet. Ashly and Sarha walked over from the bar. All four serjeants rose from their seats.
None of the agents moved. That would have been too blatant.
A pair of possessed walked into Bar KF-T. A man and woman, dressed in clothes which almost matched current fashions.
Joshua’s electronic warfare block datavised an alarm.
“Get down!” the four serjeants shouted in unison.
The threat-response program which had gone primary as soon as the alarm came on sent Joshua diving for cover amid the tables and chairs. He hit the floor, rolling expertly to absorb the impact. A couple of empty chairs went flying as his legs struck them. His crew was following him down; even Melvyn, though his alcohol-polluted nerves made him slower.
Screams
broke out across the club as the serjeants drew their stubby machine guns. The agents were also moving, boosted muscles turning their actions into a blur.
Both the possessed gasped at the near-instantaneous reaction to their appearance. An unnerving number of weapons were lining up on them amid the chaos of a terrified and bewildered clientele.
“Freeze,” a quadriphonic voice ordered them.
They didn’t have functional neural nanonics to run combat programs, but instinct was almost as fast. Both of them started to raise their arms, white fire bursting from their fingertips.
Six machine guns, three semi-automatic pistols, and a carbine opened fire.
Joshua had never heard a chemical projectile weapon before. Ten of them shooting at once was louder than a fusion rocket exhaust. He slammed his hands over his ears. The fusillade couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of seconds. He risked raising his head.
Only the agents (there were actually six—Melvyn had missed one) and the serjeants were standing. Everyone else was on the floor, sprawled flat or curled up in fetal balls. Tables and chairs rolled and spun. The music and dance-floor holograms were still playing.
He heard several peculiar mechanical snicking sounds as fresh magazines were slammed into the guns.
Bullets had shredded the wall behind the possessed, chewing apart the composite panelling. Large splatters of blood covered the tattered splinters of composite. The two bodies—
Joshua squirmed at the sight. There wasn’t much left to identify as human. A nausea suppression program switched smoothly into primary mode, though that only stopped the physical symptoms.
Moans and cries rose over the music. Several people had been hit by ricochets.
“Joshua!”
It was Sarha. She had her hand clamped around Ashly’s left thigh. Blood was staining her fingers scarlet. “He’s been hit.”
The pilot was staring with a calm morbid interest at his wound. “Damn stupid thing.” He blinked in confusion.
“Ione,” Joshua shouted. “Medical nanonic.”
One of the serjeants took a package from its equipment belt. Beaulieu was slitting Ashly’s trouser fabric with a small metal blade that had slid out of her left wrist attachments. A dribble of grey-green fluid was leaking from a bullet hole in her brass breastplate.
The Night's Dawn Trilogy Page 200
