by Steve Perry
Truck stood in the exercise room facing Sleel. They were alone, and the cameras normally set to observe theroom were temporarily malfunctioning—Truck had a flatpack confounder running. Sleel didn't ask him how he'd come by the scrambler.
"You suckered me the first time," Truck said.
"Look," Sleel said, trying to be reasonable, "I just wanted to make a point. I don't want your job or your perks, I only wanted to be sure you got my message. Don't bother me and I won't bother you. Simple."
"You made me look bad."
You made yourself look bad, Sleel thought. But he was still trying to keep things calm, so he said,
"Yeah, and I'm sorry about that."
"You're gonna be a lot sorrier." Truck clenched his fists tightly and slid into a left side stance, feet held wide apart and parallel. It would take areal truck to knock him down from straight on, Sleel thought. And he's gonna kick me, you can bet your ass on that.Some kind of striking style, probably real snappy and muscle-driven.
Last chance."Look, Truck, you don't want to do this."
Truck screamed, a guttural rumble, and moved. He cross-stepped in, then whipped his leading foot up and thrust it at Sleel's groin, heel first, his foot and toes pulled back. His supporting leg straightened, heel aimed at his target. A classic crossover sidekick, full of power, but you could grow trees waiting for it arrive.
Sleel watched the booted foot come at him. It seemed to be moving in slow motion. At the point when Truck was committed to the strike fully, Sleel twisted, stepping outside of the kick, and threw the Second Variation on Cold Fire Burns Bright. His timing was a little off, he noted, as he dropped onto his side and did the hook-and-thrust with his own feet and legs.
Despite the small error, Cold Fire did its job.
Sleel broke the big bone in Truck's supporting leg just above the knee.
Truck collapsed, his face clenched in pain. He rolled, tried to stand, and the broken leg wouldn't support him. He yelped once and fell face down. It was a simple fracture, no bone showing, but somebody was going to have to inject a blob of orthostat glue into the crack and set it before old Truck here was going to do much walking around without screaming in pain every step.
"Fuck!" The big man's voice was muffled because his mouth was against the floor.
Sleel squatted, well out of Truck's reach, and said, "Okay, here's how it went. You forgot to set the safeties and you dropped a barbell on your leg and hurt it. I helped you get to the medex and you decided that I was an all-right guy and to let our hard feelings from before pass."
"Fuck you!"
"Or," Sleel continued as if Truck hadn't said anything, "I break the other leg and both arms and you lie there on the floor until somebody notices you're missing or gets the cameras working again."
Truck lifted his face to glare at Sleel.
"And after you get well if you try me again, I put out your lights permanently."
Truck swallowed, his eyes widening a little. "Nobody is gonna believe some snakeshit story about dropping a fucking weight."
"Who is going to call you a liar? I won't say any different. You spend a couple days letting the glue set and the swelling go down and it's back to business as usual."
"What do you get out of it?"
"I get left alone."
Truck considered his position. Sleel could almost see the wheels turning slowly inside the man's head.
"That's it?"
"That's it."
Truck pondered on it a few more seconds. "Okay," he said finally.
"Come on. We'd better get you to the medex. How much weight was on that bar, anyway?"
Truck managed a tight grin."Two hundred and fifty kilos."
"That's pretty heavy, Truck. Next time, maybe you should use the safeties or a spotter."
"No shit."
There was a tense second when Sleel helped Truck to his feet. If the man was going to try something, it should be now, but he merely leaned against Sleel and allowed himself to be half-carried to the exit. All things considered, this had worked out well. He'd have hated to have to damage the man any more. He'd have done it, of course; once you said you would then you had to if you got called on it, but it was better this way. There were other people on this planet more deserving of his efforts than simpleminded Truck here. The people who'd funneled him into this situation were at the top of the list. Those poor suckers didn't know who they were messing with.
Sleel felt almost sorry for them, knowing how bad it was going to be when he got out and found them.
Almost sorry, but not quite.
Chapter Five
"IT SEEMS AWFUL easy that we can just walk in here," Veate said.
She and Khadaji were entering the Presidential Office inBrisbane . The structure was four stories tall, with what looked to be almost featureless tan synstone walls broken occasionally by windows.
The door slid back to admit them into an entryway.
"Where are the guards?"
Khadaji laughed. He said, to no one visible, "Give us a moment, please." With that, he led his daughter back outside onto the approaching walkway and maybe ten meters away from the doorway. The day was slightly overcast, the air a bit muggy, and the smell of the dark green hedge that surrounded the building had an aromatic, almost mintlike scent to it.
"Good security doesn't have to be obtrusive," he said. "See the hedge?"
"Of course."
"I'm not patronizing you. Look at it more carefully."
Veate took a few steps across the neatly manicured lawn and stopped near the hedge. It was taller than she by half a meter and it surrounded the entire complex save where it was broken by metal gates at the walk- and driveways. After examining the growth, she turned back toward Khadaji. "It's got some kind of sticker in it."
"It's called densethorn," he said."Genetically engineered as a living wall. It can withstand a fairly hot flame for several minutes without burning; it'll char, but it will also give off a cloud of thick black smoke that stinks like you wouldn't believe. If you should try to push your way through it, you will find yourself cut or snagged on the barbs so that you can't move—the thorns are like fishhooks; they go in easy but are hard to take out. The branches have a tensile strength that allows them to be bent more than double without breaking. And the root system makes digging through it a real chore."
Veate walked back to stand next to Khadaji. "I'm impressed. Except that even a bad pole-vaulter could hop the hedge easily, and it would be no barrier at all to a flitter, or somebody in body armor." Did he think she was some backrocket child to be awed by a sticker bush? If this was all that was guarding the President of the Republic, then the Republic was in trouble—
"There are six photomutable gel cameras mounted on each wall of the building," Khadaji said, "and six more on the roof. You can't see them; they are built into the structure itself. You can see the missile hutches, there, those little round humps that look like spotlights at the base of the wall. There are more on each side and on the roof. Any vehicle that comes over the hedge or enters the airspace here gets spiked by a shower of doppler lances that can go through heavy armor like a rock through thincris."
Veate said nothing.
They started back toward the doorway again. "There are permanent weatherproof sensors under the walk and lawn. The security computer can pinpoint an intruder to within a centimeter and if they don't feel like heating up the tracking lasers, the grounds are covered with overlapping zap fields."
"How do you know all this?"
He grinned. "The windows are two-centimeter-thick denscris and proof against just about anything you can reasonably throw at them from short range. The synstone walls are backed by ferrofoam plate that will stop small arms fire and the odd portable AP rocket that might come to visit."
"The door through which we have just passed is carbonex and you could hit it with an axe or shoot at it with a heavy rifle all day and it would simply absorb the impact of the blade and bullets. The door i
s covered by cameras, weapon and poison scanners, fluoroproj and I suspect a few other assorted sensors that have probably been invented since I was here last. We were checked and matched against the computer's records and if we hadn't passed, like as not we'd be lying on the floor out cold; there's another zap field in the entryway."
"Howdo you know all this?"
"I designed most of it."
That got to her. "He trusts you that much?"
"I hope not. Like I said, I expect there are other goodies here I don't know about."
Khadaji led his daughter to an elevator and touched a flat panel on the wall next to it.
"The control is a fingerprint sensor," he said."Another little check for anybody clever enough to get past the door."
"Amazing."Veate looked around."Doesn't look as if anybody is home."
"This floor is usually empty," he said.
The elevator arrived and they entered it. The manual control panel showed the President's floor as "3."
Khadaji said, "Emile Khadaji to see President Carlos."
The elevator began to move, but Veate's sense of balance and acceleration told her it was dropping.
"We're going down," Veate said. "I take it that the President's floor is not three?"
Khadaji was pleased."Right. Anybody who goes to three finds himself in a cage, as sturdy as they come.
Rajeem's real office isunderground, I'm not sure exactly which floor or how far down myself. Voice analysis makes sure nobody goes there who doesn't belong."
"I stand corrected about security," Veate said.
After what seemed a long time, punctuated by periods of slowing and brief halts, the elevator came to a stop and the door opened.
A young matadora stood in front of the elevator, a woman in her mid-twenties, Khadaji judged, dark hair cropped short in a working cut. She was dressed in standard orthoskins and gear. She was expecting them, knew who they were, and even so, Khadaji saw her eyes widen and the faint glimmer of a smile appear.
As he and Veate stepped out into the hall, he saw the second matador, a man of about thirty, standing to their left. The man appeared relaxed, but the position of his hands showed that he was ready to start shooting.
Sharp, both of them.Khadaji liked that.
The woman in front of them said, "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir.And fem."
Khadaji nodded. "And you are…?"
"Beryl li Rouge," she said. "That's Tamn Staver to your left."
Khadaji looked at Staver, then back at Rouge. "The pleasure is mine."
"If you wouldn't mind?"
"Of course not," Khadaji said.
While Staver watched, Rouge pointed a small scanner at Khadaji and then Veate. "Clean," she said.
The word had no effect on Staver's alert pose.
"This way, sir."
Rouge moved ahead of them, with Staver behind, and they walked down the hallway and around a corner, stopping at the third door they came to.
"President Carlos is looking forward to seeing you, sir.And to meeting you, fem."
The door slid open. Before he moved, Khadaji said, "You and Staver move well, Rouge."
The young woman grinned and her face flushed a little. "Thank you, sir."
Khadaji stepped into the room, Veate behind him, and the door slid shut. The room was fairly large, had a couch and several chairs facing a large, carved desk of some dark wood. There was a door next to the desk, closed. They were alone in the room.
Veate said, "What wasthat all about? She looked at you as if you were Jesus or Chang come back to life. When you told her she moved well, sheblushed !"
"She's a matadora," he said. "Trained at the school I started on Renault. My, ah, reputation there is somewhat high."
"Oh, that's right.The Man Who Never Missed.Inspiration for the whole set-up. I guess it would be like meeting a god from mythology for her, wouldn't it?" Her voice was dry, but he heard the undertone. Was it contempt?Or just amusement?
"It was a tool," he said."Nothing more. The enemy was a giant; we needed somebody who could rally the small folk to slay him. At my best I was never half as good as the story."
She looked at him, and he saw surprise in her face.
Before she could speak, the door next to the desk slid back and Rajeem Carlos stood there. Next to him was Jarl, his personal matador. Disguised as Pen, Khadaji had trained Jarl. He nodded once to his student, who returned the nod, but looked no less alert for it. Good. The two out front were new; Khadaji hadn't known them personally or that they were on Carlos's staff, but Jarl was almost like family.
Carlos looked much as Khadaji remembered him.Tall, athletic, blue eyes, a light complexion. There was more gray in the red hair, more wrinkles around the eyes, but the last five years had been kind to his looks, at least. He wore a blue thinsilk monosuit and kung fu slippers.
Carlos moved toward Khadaji, a wide smile deepening the lines next to his eyes. Jarl stayed next to the door, watching and listening.
"Emile. It's great to see you!"
The two men embraced warmly. Khadaji noted that the President of the Republic managed to find time to continue working out; there was still muscle under the clothes and little fat.
Carlos broke the hug and looked at Khadaji's daughter. "And you are Veate?"
"Sir," she said. She was nervous, but her poise was solid. She was, after all, an albino. Being a good actress came naturally.
"I am very pleased to meet you. You are the image of your father."
Khadaji stared at his old friend. Had his eyes gone bad? Veate looked nothing like him.
"Come, sit," Carlos said. He gestured at the two form-chairs in front of the desk."Something to eat or drink?"
Khadaji shook his head, "Not for me."
"Nor me," said Veate.
As Carlos moved to sit behind the desk, he said, "I'm sorry about your mother. Pen called me as soon as he heard. I have my best team of Republic investigators looking for her."
"Thank you," Veate said.
"What else, Rajeem?" Khadaji asked.
Carlos measured his old friend with a glance that held within it a calculation not there when last they had been together. Khadaji saw the look and understood how the years had affected his friend. Some of the idealist he had been was now replaced with a portion of cynic.
Before Carlos could speak, Khadaji said, "Are we going to play fugue, President Carlos?Or something worse?"
The measuring look vanished, and Carlos's smile, small though it was, returned. "Apparently you have not grown fat and stupid in your retirement."
"Have your men found me in the five years since I left?"
"No."
"And when did they start looking?"
Carlos chuckled. "About a month after I took office."
"Do you still trust me?"
"My advisors all say I should not.That you have been gone too long to know who you are anymore.
That whateverhelp you might have been before, there is no way to be certain you are the man you were."
"Are any of us the men we were?"
"My advisors mean well, but they are paid to be suspicious. I trust you, Emile. Knowing you were out there somewhere has kept me honest these last few years. If I had been corrupted by the power, you would have come back to remove me, wouldn't you?"
"I would have tried. But I wasn't too worried about it. I trust you, too, Rajeem."
"There was an attempt on my life a short time back," he said. "My ship was sabotaged. It was cleverly done,more clever than the usual would-be assassin. My technicians have not yet figured out how it was accomplished. Beel was with me. The entire ship was at risk."
"And your advisors thought that I—?"
"As I said, they are paid to be suspicious. I did not think it was your style; besides, I haven't botched the job that badly, have I?"
It was Khadaji's turn to smile. "No. I'd give you a passing grade."
"I thought so. I advised my advisors that had you been the assa
ssin, I would certainly be dead. At about the same time, there were several attacks upon some of your students, on different planets. This could hardly be coincidence, and the coordination needed involved careful planning. Juete was kidnapped. It takes only a casual look to see these things are all connected in some way to Emile Antoon Khadaji."
"Agreed, though none of it was my doing."
"So I believe. But something most unusual is happening and we don't understand what. Or why."
Khadaji was about to speak when a soft chime sounded in the room.
Carlos frowned. "I was not to be interrupted," he said.
A voice from a hidden speaker said, "Sorry, President Carlos. You have an offplanet com request from someone on your short list."
Carlos's frown deepened. To Khadaji, he said, "There are only seven people on that list—my wife and children, you, and three others." He raised his voice. "Put the call through."
After a few seconds, a woman's deep voice said, "Hello, deuce."
Khadaji and Carlos spoke at the same time:
"Dirisha!"
Dirisha and Bork leaned against the Healy.
"Amazing," Geneva said, from within her medical hutch."He was there with the President when you called."
"Maybe not so amazing," Bork said. "The boss always had a way of getting into the middle of things."
Dirisha shook her head. Bork was a master of understatement. She said, "They didn't say what was going on, but something else is happening. For Emile to pop up after vanishing so long ago is passing strange."
"And with a daughter," Geneva said. "I never knew he had a family."
"Mostly nobody knew much about him at all," Bork said.
"Anyway, Carlos knows about what happened and he's arranging for the bank's computer operators to smile on us."
"What about Sleel?" Geneva asked.
"He's going to see what can be legally done. He can't just snap his fingers and make them let Sleel go.
One of the first things Carlos did when he took over was to cut out about nine-tenths of the power the old Confed leaders had. He can't pardon anybody without a lengthy process, subject to review by a panel of planetary and galactic judges. It could take six months, maybe as long as a year."
