Blood Orbit_A Gattis File Novel

by K. R. Richardson

  Matheson forced himself to speak slowly and ignore the menacing dog, and time fleeting by, but panic rose like smoke in his chest as Fahn’s expression remained unchanged. “But it has to be now, or it won’t matter who really killed whom or why or how. I need these men, their confession, or any verifiable evidence that the crime is definitively theirs. Or you and yours might as well jump without a ship.” He stopped and waited, looking up at Fahn.

  Fahn’s mouth curled into a considering smile and he glanced over his shoulder, first at Tenzo—who closed his eyes—and then at Christa. She ducked her head. Fahn gestured and the man beside Christa put his head next to hers so she could whisper to him, then he walked forward and whispered to Uncle Fahn.

  Fahn laughed loud and hard enough to shake the nearest plants and raise a chime from tiny bells hung on a dead branch nearby. The ringing reminded Matheson of the noise from his Ohba neighbor’s wall—Tenzo’s wall. Fahn replied quickly to the man, who darted away into the artificial jungle with the dog loping behind him. Then the big man turned and motioned Matheson to his feet.

  Fahn watched with amusement as Matheson winced with his pains and stood, stepping a little closer to Aya. “We are knowing the creatures you are hunting,” Fahn started. “We have already been sending one of them on, but we are knowing the place. That one was then giving us a . . . a promise never to be troubling us again. We will be giving it to you and telling you where that one will be found now, if you are agreeing to a request of ours.”

  Matheson dared to shake his head. “There’s no time—”

  “Nor o-sum. It is only taking a moment,” Fahn replied with an expression far too innocent.

  What kind of trap are you laying, old spider? “What do you want me to do?” Matheson asked.

  “You are not promising to do this?”

  “Not without knowing what I’m agreeing to, first.”

  Fahn gave a slight nod. “We are understanding this, but we are wishing to know where you are cleaving your loyalties. To what limit you will be now going for your . . . superior officer.” Matheson didn’t miss the sneer in Fahn’s voice, but he didn’t react to it. “For the end you are pursuing.”

  “As far as I have to.”

  “Then this is being simple, if you are speaking the truth.”

  The man who had run off returned alone with a sealed storage box and handed it to Fahn. Uncle Fahn patted the box. “This is being the promise the caddis fly was then leaving with us. We are giving it to you for doing the task we are setting,” he said, holding the box out to Matheson.

  Matheson felt the trap waiting to spring shut on him. There were rules here and he still didn’t know them all, but he’d guessed a few.

  “Be at opening it,” Fahn demanded.

  The latches were stiff. Matheson’s pulse sped as they popped and the lid sprang up a little. Nothing issued from the narrow gap. Fahn gave a predator’s smile at Matheson’s relief and repeated his command. “Be at it.”

  Fahn held onto the box as Matheson flicked the lid back.

  The handgun was old, fifty years . . . possibly more. Like those carried by their escort from the tunnel, it was well-kept, but smudged at the moment with dirt, or propellant residue. A sour odor of gun smoke hung in the box. “That is being the promise that they will not now betray us,” Fahn said.

  “This belonged to one of them—Banzet or Tchintaka?”

  Fahn chuckled. “Yes. Their marks, their flesh, the filth of their deeds is being on it. You will be finding a match for your bullets—those were then being given by a pretty blue sandworm to that one of us who is dead. Be taking it.”

  Matheson was sure he was missing a subtlety in the convolution of Fahn’s language, but he’d worry about it later. “Why are you so willing to give this up—to break this promise they gave you?”

  “We had never been at saying we would not now betray them. Those ones are being far away, but all of us are being here, where danger is gathering.”

  Oh, he’s up to something tricky, but I can’t call him on it. And I want that damned gun! “And what price are you demanding from me?” Matheson asked.

  Fahn turned his head a little, glancing at Aya and back at Matheson with a small smile. “You are shooting the female.”

  “No.” Matheson had stepped in front of Aya without even thinking of it.

  He felt her hands touch his sides, sliding the mobile in his shirt to the small of his back and out. “Djepe’s grandfather,” she murmured, bowing her head against his shoulder.

  Source of damning videos and new scars. He hoped she was doing something useful with the Peerless. If there was any signal to be had, this would be the place—Dillal had said there was connection in the Ohbata only where it was too dangerous to use.

  Fahn laughed. “Loyalty is lying dead at the feet of a yellow whore.”

  “I won’t add to the tally of blood for blood between the Ohba and Dreihleen,” Matheson replied.

  “Nor for this?” Fahn asked, shaking the box enough to make the gun rattle against the sides.

  “No.”

  Fahn shrugged. “You are leaving at o-sum.”

  “I’ll find another way.”

  “It is nor so quick . . .”

  “Time should be your worry. I’ll let you all go to hell before I’ll buy my way out with her life.”

  “Nor even for your superior officer?” Fahn asked with the same sneer as before. “This is being your loyalty to him?”

  Matheson shook his head and glared in disgust he had no need to feign. “Name a different price.”

  The light shifted and dimmed with a rattle of rain on the roof high above. Fahn peered at him thoughtfully while Matheson said nothing and Aya pressed the MDD against his back.

  “This thing is coming how soon?”

  His confidence surged; this was a game he knew how to play. “The assault? Shift change—about five more hours. Or whenever this rain stops. If they can’t beat you down in one day, they’ll drop troops pulled from out system and the rest goes down just like Camp Donetti.”

  “This is being Ang’Das, the heart of Ariel, not the fields of Agria. Too many eyes will be seeing here.”

  Matheson scoffed. “Riot control came in fast and hard in the Dreihleat with no reservations about what the tourists might see. GISA sent the sweeps straight to the camps—no case reviews, no pleadings. Then a transport full of them went down in front of everyone watching. It may have looked like an accident, but it wasn’t. The corporation won’t need be so clever here, because no outsider comes into the Ohbata unless they’re criminal or crazy. But with a view from the distance of the gates—or from the white towers on the Quay—the offensive against you will become a tourist event, like the canoe races. At best, you have a day before Corporation House finds the manpower to bring an excuse to your door.

  “Give me the gun—just as it is, fingerprints, dirt and all—and tell me where I can find either man. I don’t even need both, just one. Then we can derail the corporation’s plans.”

  “You are offering what in return?”

  “I’ve already given you information and an advantage. The Dreihleen didn’t have that and your rivals—which I’m sure you’ve got—don’t have it either. I’ve already paid.”

  “What will you be doing if we are not . . . ?”

  “Walking out—”

  “And you will be going straight to your masters, bringing cause against us whether we are helping you or not.”

  “If I’d wanted to do that, I’d have turfed you before I came. Kirita knows I keep my promises—so does Tenzo, the spy you sent to watch me. If I leave empty-handed, you’ll still get a day’s grace. But if you give me the gun and location now, you’re buying all of their lives,” Matheson added, pointing to the other Ohba who still sat or stood on the carpets behind Fahn. Matheson fixed his gaze on Christa Santos. “And a chance to find the man who killed Kirita’s husband.”

  Christa lurched a step toward him, eyes wide—it w
as the most expression he’d ever seen on her face. The man closest to her snatched at her hand to hold her back but she shook him off and walked toward Fahn as if she were forcing herself through mud.

  Fahn glanced over his shoulder, then turned a little farther to see her better. “Kirita. Still yourself, and we are forgetting that you are coming out of turn.”

  “Uncle,” she rasped, staring at Matheson, shaking her head. Her voice was rough, low, and shaking. “This one’s man—”

  “Is nor Ohba,” Fahn snapped with a stamp of his foot. “We had then given you, you are being with us again. The rest nor o-sum.”

  Christa fixed her glare on Fahn. “He is being this one’s man! He is being hanged then like a thieving cat.” She snatched the case from Fahn’s hands. “We will be buying him—buying the thing that was at killing this one’s man. You,” she said, pointing an unsteady finger at him, “you protect us. Or you are not deserving to be our Uncle.”

  The watching Ohba stirred, some stepping out of their cover among the plants to stare hard at Uncle Fahn, some cringing aside. Tenzo, of all of them, watched with no expression. Christa stood quivering beside Fahn, clutching the box against her bosom. Her head was slightly turned and shoulders raised in fear, but she stood her ground.

  Uncle Fahn took a breath and held it, glaring at her. Christa didn’t look away, though she shook so hard Matheson thought she would fall. Fahn let the air back out in a disgusted huff. He bared his teeth at the woman, but she still didn’t back down. Then he tossed his head and rolled his eyes. “To be giving it,” he said, jerking his head toward Matheson. “You are selling us cheap, Kirita.”

  She didn’t reply except to offer the gun in its box to Matheson. Her eyes met his for only a moment, almost accusing. As soon as he accepted the box from her, Christa lowered her head and turned aside with a jerk.

  Fahn stared at Matheson but said, “Maani, to be taking that one home.”

  The man who’d brought her first words to Fahn stepped to Christa’s side and slipped his arm through hers, leading her away.

  Fahn was silent, watching Matheson until Christa had disappeared in the brush and the guards had faded back into it. Most of the Ohba turned to watch the place where the fronds swayed behind them—including Gant, who’d been so quick to rap Matheson on the back of the skull before. What are they watching for?

  Fahn said, “Go.”

  Those dogs are still out there. Matheson shook his head, tired. “No.”

  “You are having your prize. Be leaving before we are regretting our generosity.”

  “We aren’t done. You said you would tell me where the men are. Right now, this only ties you to the crime. It doesn’t give me enough to pull Corporation House off the Ohbata.”

  “You are having no concern what is becoming of us.”

  “Maybe I don’t care what becomes of you, Uncle Fahn, but I do care that the Ohba shouldn’t be wiped off the face of Gattis. And you certainly do.”

  “You should be at telling me why you are concerned in our affairs.”

  Matheson caught himself tilting his head in a too-familiar gesture and answered slowly, “I’ve picked up the idea from a superior officer that Gattis Corporation owes all Ohba a debt. It’s reprehensible to let the corporation eliminate an entire people for its own convenience. Tell me where the men are, I’ll go away, and you save your people from trouble.”

  “There is always being a price, or the exchange is having no value.” Fahn looked sly. “We should be having a wager . . .”

  “I’ve got nothing—”

  “There is still being the female.”

  Matheson knew the rules now, and he rolled his eyes. “Answer’s still being no to that one.”

  Fahn shook his head and chuckled. “We are telling you where your animals are being. But if we are winning, this yellow female is staying until now you are catching your prey. If you are winning . . . you are both going free.”

  Matheson was pretty sure Fahn wouldn’t kill a hostage. He was a wily bastard who would hold on to leverage no matter how distasteful he found it—which would explain his helping a Dreihle. But leaving Aya with him was not an option. “Sounds like you can’t lose with this solution and you don’t end up looking like you just got your principles handed to you by a woman,” Matheson observed.

  Fahn returned a blank stare.

  Too much time had elapsed while Dillal wrestled with Neme’s malice. But now rain had begun falling—seen as liquid silver running down the glass behind the executive floor’s reception desk. That would delay any offensive by Corporation House against the ghettos, but only so long as the tropical downpour lasted. The lack of winds indicated that this was no early monsoon, just a storm likely to pass in mere hours.

  Pritchet was not in his office. “Then where is he?” Dillal demanded of the Gattian woman guarding his door.

  “Corporation House.”

  “What for?”

  “I can’t say. He was called in a few hours ago and hasn’t been back.”

  No matter how he tried for more information, the woman gave up nothing. After fifteen minutes, Dillal moved away from her and stood within a meter of the windows. He watched the room in silence.

  Just over an hour had passed when he took a sudden sharp breath, tilting his head and frowning, his gaze going still and distant.

  Unnerved, the receptionist stood up and started toward him. “Inspector?”

  He raised a hand to stop her, but nothing else in his stance or expression changed.

  When she retreated to her desk, he dropped his hand, but continued staring into the distance, otherwise as unmoving as the Pillars of Archon that rose over the throat of the Cove of Stars. He remained distracted for twenty minutes or so, then raised his head suddenly, blinking, and looked at the receptionist.

  “Tell the director we have the gun, but I can’t take the man who used it unless Pritchet speaks with me immediately.”

  Matheson sighed. This can’t be good . . . “What are we wagering on?” he asked.

  Fahn turned and pointed just beyond the diners on the carpet to a series of posts that rose from the plantings near the dead branch hung with tiny bells.

  “Tenzo is putting an orange on each of those. We and you are shooting them and winning, but if we or you are missing them . . .”

  “The shooter loses. You and I both shoot from here?” Matheson asked, eyeing the distance.

  Fahn shook his head with a smile and pointed to a spot near the edge of the clearing where they’d entered. “There.”

  It was sheltered from the rain that leaked through holes in the roof, but more than ten meters away, plus the three or four meters to the posts from where they stood. Not difficult with a rifle, under normal circumstances, but given his current aches and bruises, haunts of memory, exhaustion, lack of food . . . anything other than a lucky shot with a handgun was out of the question, as was running.

  Knowing he was cornered, Matheson asked, “How many shots and with what?”

  Fahn put his hand out and Gant unslung his own rifle and handed it over. Fahn held the weapon up—old and simple, with the most basic of sights, but it appeared to be in excellent condition. “Three oranges. Three shots.”

  “With a gun I’m unfamiliar with?” A bit of hope sparked, but Matheson knew better than to show it. He shook his head. “I don’t even know that it works or if it’s loaded.”

  Gant glared at him. Matheson put up his hands, asking. “Would you trust it if it were mine?”

  Gant narrowed his eyes further, then let out a grunt and turned his gaze aside. But his swift defensiveness was almost proof enough for Matheson, who looked at Fahn. “We both use that rifle and you shoot first.”

  Fahn had no objection and they went through the ritual of inspecting and loading the piece and walked out to the firing distance while Tenzo set the oranges on the posts. Gant and one of his silent patrol partners escorted Aya and the storage box. The diners left the carpet and followed mor
e slowly to assemble slightly to the left of the designated shooting position. Tenzo remained behind, keeping well off to the right and about halfway between the posts and the firing line. Anyone half-witted enough to shoot him will be dead before they can reload.

  At the line, Matheson looked back and noted that the second orange was close to the bell-strewn branch’s outstretched fan of twigs, and the third slightly behind the arch of the branch, so the shots became more difficult if taken from right to left. Fahn took a position to Matheson’s right, giving himself an advantage. No surprise. The crowd was on Matheson’s own left and unlikely to move, limiting his choice of positions and field of fire.

  As Fahn raised the rifle, Matheson stuck his fingers in his ears and pressed hard. Gant and Fahn laughed at him, but Matheson ignored them. He watched Fahn as he aimed, then Matheson shifted his gaze to the easiest of the targets down range.

  Fahn’s first shot was slightly off to the left, but still good enough to splatter the plants behind it with pulp and juice, sending the scent of oranges and gun smoke into the resinous air of the old greenhouse.

  Minimal recoil, the noise wasn’t as bad as he’d feared, and there was no sudden vision of blood-soaked mud Matheson noted, but his ears would be ringing by the time the contest was over. Matheson offered Fahn a “not bad” expression, which received a sly smile in return.

  Shot two was on-center and the orange vanished in a puff of pulpy chaff that rattled the nearest bells. This time, Matheson only gave a thin smile, and waited for shot number three.

  Fahn reset his feet a little and lined up his last shot. From his position to Matheson’s right, Fahn had a much cleaner line of fire. And I’ll probably be offered little chance to adjust my position.

  Shot three barely hit the orange on its right side, spinning it off the post and raising a chime from all the bells. Tenzo walked out to place new oranges on the posts. Matheson unplugged his ears and offered a congratulatory handshake to Fahn, but received the rifle instead.

  “You are being at it,” Fahn said.

  Matheson blinked in surprise, taking the gun. He dropped the magazine, opened the breach, checked it was clear, then reloaded, taking his time, which clearly irritated both Fahn and Gant. That’s fine.