The Albino Knife

by Steve Perry

  Spiral nodded at a full-scale display of a pair of spetsdods mounted inside a block of clear plastic. The weapons were small parallelograms, nearly diamond-shaped, each with a thin spun-fiber barrel. The magazine ejection button was the only visible control, since a spetsdod was fired by touching the barrel with the tip of the index finger. This rather tricky operation was made possible by the position of the weapon where it rode securely on the back of the operator's hand, held there by a thin slab of artificial flesh. A spetsdod operator learned care quickly.

  Moon stepped close to the exhibit."Khadaji's?"

  "Yes. That's his signature, authenticating them as one of the sets he used. The Smith has another set, and there's a pair in the Provincial Museum on Greaves. As far as we know, those are the only ones on public display."

  "Nice of Emile to give them to us," Pen said.

  The three started to move on.

  Behind them, there was an explosion. The force of the blast knocked all three siblings sprawling. Debris sleeted past, spattering the walls and exhibits.

  Penraised from his face-down position and shook his head, trying to clear the ringing in his ears. An alarm began to hoot, over and over, and he rolled onto his side from his belly, afraid, but not for himself.

  "Moon—!?"

  "Chang and Buddha on a goddamn stick!" she said.

  Thank all the gods. They had been living together for so long that the idea of being without her was inconceivable.Ever since he had left Rim. Twenty years.

  "Spiral."

  "I'm okay."

  "Pen.Your arm!"

  As Moon sat up and pointed at him, Pen became aware of the pain in his left shoulder. He looked at it.

  A shard of thincris had buried itself in his deltoid. The force of the explosion was such that the handsized sliver had pierced the rip-stop weave of thekawa shroud. He touched the clear crystal section with his right hand. It didn't move.Must be all the way to the bone, as solid as it felt. And now it really began to hurt. Blood oozed out through the torn cloth and dripped from the thincris onto the floor. Still, it was a small price.

  He took a deep breath and tripped a mental kuji-kiri to stop the pain. The shoulder continued to throb and he was aware that it was injured, but the hurt diminished greatly.

  Four siblings came running into the museum, all trying to talk at the same time.

  Spiral looked at Pen and Moon. "I don't remember getting an exhibit that blows up," he said.

  Prologue Four

  On Thompson's Gazelle, first planet of the three-planet Delta System, the Civil and Criminal Complex in Evets City came to its last proceeding before the midday meal recess.

  In Sentence Room A, the judge sat at his podium facing a single prisoner flanked by four planetary cools. The room was old; the air conditioning unit whistled somewhere in the low ceiling, sounding like some trapped beast unhappy at its fate. The room was empty, save for the six people who had to be there.

  "Criminal Sleel—" began the sentence judge.

  "I'm Sleel," Sleel said, interrupting. "Stuff the criminal part." He was a fair-sized man, well built but not extremely so, dressed in a prisoner-white coverall and neoprene slippers. He was held in place by a pressor field mounted beneath the floor. The field was keyed to movements involving more than a few kilos' effort. He could breathe or blink, but any real effort to move would activate the pressor and it would clamp him like a vise. The field was rated at a thousand kilos and there was no way a man or mue, no matter how string, could break its grip. But because he was Sleel, he kept trying.

  "Can't" was not a word Sleel used very often.

  The judge ignored the interruption. "You have been found guilty of tampering with protected artifacts—"

  "This is all lizard shit and you know it."

  "—and in addition, you have also been convicted of resisting arrest, assaulting planetary officers, third-degree mayhem, damaging property in excess of five thousand standards, and attempted escape. I am required to ask you if you have any final statement, which must be limited to one minute or less, before I pass the sentence."

  "Yeah, I got a statement. You and everybody connected with this dick-twisting extrusion are gonna be sorry you were ever fucking born."

  "Is that your statement?"

  "You heard it."

  "Then by the authority of the Galactic Republic and in accordance with the law of Thompson's Gazelle and the state of Bingington's Peninsula, I hereby order that you shall be removed to the General Power Complex on BantuIsland where you shall repay your debt to society by fifteen years at hard labor."

  Sleel stared at the judge as if his eyes were charged particle spitters and he could cut the man to shreds with his gaze.

  "That's it. Take him out."

  Sleel gathered himself for the moment that the pressor field would let go. Hell, there were just four of them, and armed with only hand wands. Any matador worth a damn ought to be able to take these balloos without working up a good sweat. He grinned at the thought.

  "Should I shut the field off?" one of the guards asked.

  The head guard, one who had been knocked silly by Sleel during an earlier escape attempt, smiled to match the trapped matador's expression. "Just a second," he said. He pulled his hand wand, a standard issue straight tube, but one that had been customized with pearl inlays and a Pachmayr one-piece stikgrip. He pointed the weapon at Sleel. "Have a nice nap, elbow sucker," the guard said.

  Sleel had time to realize what was happening before the guard flashed him. Dammit, they were gonna blast him before they let the pressor down.

  Shit—

  Prologue Five

  Saval Bork was of homomue stock, born of a heavy gravity world, and big by any man or mue standard. On a one-gee planet like Fox, he weighed nearly a hundred and twenty-five kilos, and he stood not quite two meters tall. Between the high-gravity upbringing and his subsequent work with lifting weights, Bork had built his body to impressive proportions, with power to match his looks. He knew his own strength, after a fashion, but he sometimes did things without thinking that other men could not do with all-out effort. What he considered hard made most strong men quail.

  As he walked along the quiet street in Zor, the main city on the Little Island, Bork was once again lost in memory. It had been five years and more since Mayli had died, cut down by the guns of the Confederation. The wound to Bork's heart seemed as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. He had loved only one woman in his life, a woman who had been many things, doctor, whore, teacher, matadora. She had called from his depths an emotion he had not known he'd had, and his life had truly begun on that day; now, she was dead, and not a waking hour passed without Bork's regret.

  This town, this planet, this system, they were backrocket places where even a man who had been one of the heroes of the revolution could mostly stay lost. Not unnoticed, because someone who looked like Bork always drew stares, but at least he wasn't bothered very often. Last year, when one of the entcom channels ran a lurid vid about the last days of the Confed, they'd gotten some giant actor to play his part.

  A few people had asked him about it then, but Bork had simply stared at them until they shut up and went away. He rarely lost his temper and, looking as hedid, most people didn't want that to happen. He'd shucked his spetsdods and orthoskins for anonymous gray coveralls and he'd gone back to his old line of work, security in a local pub. After he warned a couple of overchemmed and drunk patrons to quiet down, once by lifting a big man clear of the floor by his shirt front, word got around the neighborhood that it was probably better not to get in Bork's way.

  He was on his way to his cube from work, the corpse-stealer's shift, and Fox's sun had yet to come up, though it was trying. The narrow street was quiet, only a few electric carts humming along,no other pedestrians up at this hour.

  Ahead four men came out of a pub, laughing too loudly and making broad gestures in the dimness of false dawn. They looked like an all-night party winding down, but as Bork w
alked toward them, he saw that they were watching him and pretending otherwise.

  He was used to being the object of awed stares, but this was different. Alarms tripped in his head.

  He no longer wore the uniform, nor did he mount the standard weaponry, but the training he'd gotten as a matador did not disappear so easily. A man could not graduate from the elite bodyguard school without learning how to recognize a potentially dangerous situation. After all the years of instruction and practice, it was nearly a reflex.

  Bork altered his path and started to cross the street. He had no client to protect and the simplest way of avoiding trouble was to be elsewhere when it came down. After Mayli and Red died, Bork decided he did not want to be involved with death again. He carried no weapons, save his own skills and strength, and he would avoid using these if possible.

  The four men pretended to ignore him as two of them stumbled out into the street and began a showy, fake argument. The other two played at encouraging the first pair to fight.

  None of the four were drunk or stoned, Bork realized. They all moved too well. You could hide a lot, you were a good actor, but body control and balance were hard to disguise. Little moves gave it away; a stumble uncontrolled made the hands and arms go out reflexively, and the motion was different if you faked it. Bork had been taught by the best. These four were fairly big, if not as big as he was, and they moved like men who knew how to fight.

  Worse, this wasn't some random act. These four were set to attack him, and he was the target they'd been awaiting.

  He didn't see any weapons, but that didn't mean anything. He was too close to turn back without exposing himself to a hidden gun.

  Bork took a couple of deep breaths and moved to meet the four. That was a bad number; fewer could be danced around, and more only got in each other's way. The why of it could wait until later; now, it was time to deal with how.

  Despite his size Bork was as much a matador as any. He would never be as graceful as Dirisha or as fast as Geneva or as cocky as Sleel, but he'd learned to walk the Ninety-seven Steps of sumito from start to finish without missing one or stumbling or losing his balance, and that made him one of only a few in the galaxy who could do so. Any man or woman who could dance the sumito pattern could also rank in the top players of the Musashi Flex, did he or she choose that path. None had, but the flexers were professional fighters who could hand-kill most men without much effort, and even the hardest of them respected the priests who had created sumito.

  Bork smiled broadly and shook his head as he neared the four men. They turned to watch him openly now, and maybe the smile gave them a false sense of confidence.

  The big man caught the first of the ersatz drunks unprepared. Bork snatched him up as a boy might pick up a pet cat. He twisted through the Magician's Hands, spun through Helicopter, threw the startled man into the face of an equally startled second would-be attacker, and danced into Laughing Stone at the third man.

  The third man was good, he was fast, and he was ready. He ducked and sprang away to Bork's left, but made the mistake of going for a weapon instead of following up with a kick or punch. Bork altered his dance and skipped to the Braided Laser.

  The assassin managed to clear his shotpistol from his hidden holster and had it halfway up when Bork's fist hammered down in the form of the Sword of the Sun.

  Too hard, Bork realized, as the man's skull cracked under his blow. Well. That's why they had medics.

  The fourth man was blinking away his surprise when Bork twirled toward him. Steel Circle and—

  The man lifted his hand to the back of his neck and snapped his elbow and wrist down in a blur. The throwing steel spun toward the charging man. Bork tried to shift, but his forward momentum only allowed him a quarterstep to one side. It was enough so that the point of the steel hit him just above the belt, but outside the rectus abs proper, on the hard knot of lateral muscle. Another three centimeters and it would have missed entirely. The steel sank half its length and stopped, not doing any real damage.

  Bork hoped the blade wasn't poisoned.

  It worked out that when he reached the wide-eyed knifeman, who was going fora second steel, the best of the nineteen dances to use was the last one. Bork shifted his feet and slid the final half meter and brought the heels of his hands together in front of his chest in the first part of Mimosa Sleeps Softly.

  Unfortunately for the knifeman, his temples were in the way of Bork's hands.

  Too hard again, Bork.Emile would give you static for that.

  Bork pulled the knife from his side and looked at it.Didn't look like it was coated with chem. That was good.

  Now.He needed to find out who these people were and why they had come for him.

  Prologue Six

  When the motor of the aircar exploded, both Dirisha and Geneva bailed out. Fortunately the car was moving slowly and only a few centimeters above the road. It wasn't a bigblast, just enough to wreck the repellors and coil, but Dirisha knew it wasn't an accident. She hit the road rolling, tore the shoulder of her orthoskins, and came up with spetsdods extended.

  There were six,no, seven of them, coming out of the brush on both sides of the outback road, and it couldn't be anything but a set-up.

  " Geneva !Four on your side!"

  The aircar was still skidding to a stop on the hard surface, shredding the plastic skirt before the safety wheels had a chance to kick out fully, when the first spring gun twanged and sent a needle her way.

  Dirisha pointed her finger at the shooter and the spetsdod coughed twice. The two shocktox darts hit the woman in the face and she started to fall.

  Dirisha rolled again, felt more spring needles thwip past her, and came up with her left spetsdod on full auto and her right tracking the sound of the spring gun.

  She had only three on her side. The second caught the hail of full auto darts across the hands, twelve shots, and screamed before he fell. The third man ate a single dart from the right spetsdod; his mouth was open and dark against his white face, and that was where Dirisha aimed.

  The black woman twisted toward her friend and lover, hearing Geneva's spetsdod fire.But only a single weapon.

  Dirisha saw that three of the four attackers on Geneva's side were already down. The fourth fired a shotgun at the blonde, who was sprawled on her side on the road.

  Dirisha screamed "No!" as Geneva's body rocked under the force of the hit. Dirisha leaped up, right hand pointed at the shotgunner. Her weapon rasped. Three small spots appeared in a short line on his neck. He fell.

  She ran to Geneva .

  "W-w-we get th-them all?"

  "Yeah, hon. Hold still, let me see."

  "I h-hit a bump on the r-road," Geneva said, the pain heavy in her voice."Sn-snapped the b-barrel on the left clean off."

  Blood welled from the wound on the blonde's chest. The shotgun blast had hit her high and to the right.

  Missed the heart, Dirisha hoped, but the splash of red bubbled.Got the lung for sure.

  "I b-broke my left wrist, Dirisha.And t-took the shot in the—" She winced and ground her teeth as a spasm of pain hit her. Her pale skin seemed waxy and lighter than normal.

  Dirisha slid her arms under the wounded woman. "Hang on, brat, they'll have transportation close. We'll go let you dance with the medics."

  "You th-think?"

  "Yeah.No problem. Looks like you might have to take it easy for a few days, though." Dirisha tried to sound offhand, as if she weren't worried in the least. It was a lie.

  Green eyes narrowed in concern, the black woman stood and started for the place where she would have hidden her transport if she'd been mounting the assassination attempt. Halfway to the thick brush, she spotted the flitter. Good.

  She put Geneva into the flitter, and sprinted back to their ruined aircar for the medkit she always carried.

  The coags would slow or stop the bleeding, the stupecomp would pump whatever it thought the patient needed into her, and then it would be up to the medics to repair
the damage.

  The matadora hurried back as fast as she could move to Geneva, put the medkit over the chest wound and triggered the machine to life. It hummed and clicked, and Dirisha had already gotten the flitter online and into the air before the medkit finished its diagnosis and emergency treatment. The flitter's engine screamed as Dirisha jammed the forward speed control to maximum and headed back toward FlatTown .

  Five minutes, she figured. Geneva had wanted to see where Dirisha grew up, and so they had come to the planet for which the black matadora had been named.

  As she drove, fear making her mouth dry, Dirisha added things up. A bomb in the aircar'sengine, set off where seven attackers lay waiting. Probably a radio pulse rather than a timer. Somebody wanted the two of them dead? Who? Why?

  Later.First thing was to get Geneva somewhere they could take care of her. After that, Dirisha would figure out the rest of it. And when that happened, somebody was going to be in a pile of shit a klick deep and as big around as MountZiwi .

  Tape it, deuce. Somebody was going to pay big for this. You could spit on that and make it shine.

  Part One

  The Albino Knife

  Chapter One

  THINGS WERE QUIET in the Red Sister, which was not unusual. Winter had laid its cold hands across Muto Kato's single continent and a meter of fresh powder lay piled upon twice that much older packed snow. Those families who usually favored the pub with their patronage were slow in coming on this frigid evening. Half a dozen regulars sat drinking or smoking and the muted hum of conversation was mostly about the weather. Somewhere in the distance a snowmachine whined as it carried its passengers through the world made white.

  Emile Antoon Khadaji, hero of the revolution,instigator of the war that brought low the repressive Confed, wiped the already-clean bar top with a rag. He was medium tall, still in good shape under his thermoskin coverall, though not muscular enough to draw stares. His dark hair had gray in it, mostly along the sides, and his face bore smile wrinkles and character lines. A first look might make him about forty T.S.,a more careful examination could up that closer to fifty. The blue eyes were still clear and alert.