by Steve Perry
When the four matadors arrived, a pair of uniformed local cools playing five-stad-limit halycon with a bored dealer looked up from their game. One of them, a tall, wide-shouldered, narrow-hipped man with a shaved head, stood, adjusted the pair of hand wands on his hips, and walked over toward Bork. This one had moved some flexsteel, Bork saw; he had the dense musculature of a powerlifter, and his arms were thick where they strained against the short sleeves of his shirt. Strong, armed, and backed by the law, he'd be pretty sure of himself. Bork guessed he'd go a hundred twelve, hundred fourteen kilos, maybe ten less than Bork's own weight. Bork recognized the look the man gave him: Which of us is stronger?
"Help you with something?" the cool said.
Dirisha produced the holoprint of Cteel and held it up. "We're looking for this man."
The cool kept his gaze on Bork, weighing, measuring, calculating. "Never seen 'im," the cool said, not even bothering to glance at the picture. To Bork he said, "You're not basic stock?"
"HG mue," Bork said.
The cool nodded."Thought so. What's your PR in the bench?"
"Three-forty-five.A triple.Three-sixty single."
The cool nodded. Maybe he believed it, maybe not. He wasn't going to seem impressed. "I did three for two once."
He glanced away from Bork at the others. "You all licensed to carry?"
"Yes," Dirisha said, putting the holoprint away. "Republic permits."
"Republic docks don't shine much light in Meantown. Don't cause trouble, we'll get along fine." He turned and went back to his card game.
"What were all those numbers about, Bork?" Geneva asked.
"Guy's a weightlifter. We were exchanging personal bests in the bench press."
"He thinks with his triceps," Sleel said. "You two ought to get along fine."
"How do you want to play it?" Bork said to Dirisha, ignoring Sleel's barb.
"Well, we can't hide if the house wants to let our boy know we're here. No point in playing subtle. If he shows, we grab him."
"And if the cools object?" Sleel said.
"We didn't come all the way here to sit this dance out, deuce."
Sleel grinned. "Good. That bald baboon irritates me. Too bad Spasm is illegal; I'd like to see what kind of knot he'd make. Probably disappear uphis own asshole."
Dirisha shook her head in mock disgust. "Sleel, Sleel. What am I going to do with you?"
"I could make some suggestions."
"I didn't doubt it for a second, Sleel. Okay, let's spread out."
"I'll be happy to check uplevels," Sleel said.
"Somehow I thought you might say that," Dirisha said. "But no. We'll see him here if he comes or goes.
And don't even bother with the cheap shot about seeing himcome better uplevels."
"You wound me," Sleel said.
"Nah, she just gives you too much credit for brains," Bork put in. "You'd never have thought of that one on your own."
"Let's go to work, folks."
Veate and her father waited in SoCal, spending most of their time in or around the little hotel cabin they'd rented near the beachplex. He spent hours every day in front of the com unit, sometimes even using thebetydelse space. Veate had once had a lover who had the ability to comlink using that rather esoteric device, and as always, it was eerie to watch somebody work it. The machine transmitted by three different codes, signals from each hand and by voice. The latter didn't even have to be spoken aloud, merely sub vocalized, so that watching somebody in abetydelse , one saw the fingers of the operator's left hand twirling this way and that, the right hand making noticeably different gestures, and what looked to be silent mumbling. Veate had never tried it, but her lover, a rich Mtuan businessman, had told her it was like writing a novel with one hand, doing your taxes with the other, and giving a speech about something else altogether. She hadn't known her father could work it.
There was a lot about her father she had yet to learn.
More, she was interested in knowing it. Whatever happened with her mother, Veate realized that learning about her father no longer filled her with anger. It might take some adjusting to get used to that one. Being with Bork had helped. The big man knew things about people that Veate had never suspected existed.
After about ten minutes, Khadaji came out of the trance. He shook his head, blinked several times, and looked at her.
"Is it that difficult?"
"For me it is. I can last about fifteen minutes before I lose my concentration. I know a man who can go for an hour and come out looking as if he has just had a refreshing nap."
"Learn much?"
"A number of things, many of which are interesting.And useful.This path grows more convoluted all the time. We've located the right computer, and the registration and operators are being traced. It is not what it seems."
"Is anything ever what it seems?"
He smiled at her."Probably not. Some of the information is very disturbing."
"In what way?"
He sighed. "Can you stand a bit of history?"
"Of course."
"I'll try not to bore you with old war stories, but there are some things you probably ought to know."
"I am listening."
The matadors had spent three days in the MAN house, doing little but watching and waiting. Dirisha hadn't liked the place when it had been described to her; she liked it less after having been inside it. It reminded her all too much of her own upbringing, such that it had been. She had been born to a whore, raised sister to a whore, and had even begun the trade herself when she'd had the realization that changed her life. But for an accident of place, she could have been one of the too-young girls or women uplevels in this pit, waiting to lose her virginity for the first or the hundredth time. Suchthings as hymens were easily built by a competent surgeon, and if you looked twelve, then the customer was apt to believe he was your first. Some of the girls would probably be here by choice, others would not. Dirisha didn't much like the idea of children as prostitutes either way. For a bent demistad, she would pull this place down and laugh while it burned.
The cools changed, the customers ebbed and flowed, and the management and owners seemed content to let the four matadors alone as long as they didn't bother anybody. So far, they hadn't had any reason to disturb the paying customers. They drank little, not enough to dull their perceptions, rotated positions, and kept each other alert. They took turns eating and sleeping, overlapping at the busiest times.Such as now.
Even so, when Cteel showed up, they almost missed him.
Dirisha was sitting in a juice booth, feeding the thing coins but keeping the coils turned off. She happened to glance at the front entrance just as the quarry walked in, saw Bork or Sleel or maybe both, then turned and darted back outside.
Dirisha stood, started for the door, and bit down on her dentcom twice, clicking her teeth. "Heads up, everybody; our boy just stuck his nose in the door, then turned and ran. Let's go."
The rest of them dropped whatever they were doing and moved.
The bald cool caught it.And decided to play games.
He filled the doorway, flexing his muscles and grinning.
Moving in next to her, Sleel said, "You want me to shoot him?"
Bork was closest to the cool. "No. Bork will move him."
"He's pretty big."
"Yeah, and we've all got moves we'll never use. Bork can dazzle him so he doesn't know which way is up."
"It won't happen that way," Geneva said, behind her. "This region was big on man-to-man stuff back before space flight.Some kind of stupid male honor thing.Called it machismo. Bork figured it out.Watch."
She was right. Bork could have kicked or punched or danced around the man and flattened him with one of the many sumito moves they had all mastered. He didn't, though. He raised his arms, hands wide, and the grinning cool matched him.
"Not leaving in such a hurry, eh, compadre?"
"Afraid so," Bork said. "You'll have to move."
"N
ot gonna happen, amigo."
Bork and the cool slid into a wresting hold, arms locked, and their hands on each other's shoulders. The cool strained to his left, Bork in the opposite direction. The cool's bald head flared red with the effort, and the men shook as though afflicted with some nerve disease. A long second passed,then Bork said,
"Sorry," and tossed the cool into a lazy sideways flip that sent him sailing into a card table three meters away. The table shattered under the man's weight and the players scattered, yelling.
"The other one is to the right," Geneva said.
"I got him," Sleel said. He snapped his arm out in a backfist and pointed his index finger at the second cool,who was dropping into a gunner's crouch, his hand wand clear of its holster and coming up. Sleel's spetsdod coughed once.
"Right between the eyes," Sleel said.
Bork had the door open and was halfway through.
The cool with the muscles rolled free of the destroyed table and, still on his back, went for his hand wand.
Geneva shot him.
Two seconds later, all four of them were out in the street.
"There he goes," Bork said. "He's got a flitter."
Dirisha looked. Sure enough, the one called Cteel was piling into a brand-new shiny machine half a block away. Their own hopper was fifty meters in the opposite direction. Dirisha didn't need to say anything. All of them ran for the hopper.
Bork got there first. Despite his size, he was faster for short stretches than any of them. He had the repellors lit and cycling up by the time Dirisha brought up the rear. They strapped into their seats as Bork lifted.
Cteel's flitter flashed by, climbing sharply, breaking speed and level laws.
The hopper was slower off the ground, but would be able to keep up with the other craft once it reached cruising speed. Automatic alarms blared over the com as the local traffic control simadams screamed at them.
"Come on," Sleel said. "He's getting away."
"He can run but he can't hide," Bork said. "I got his signature locked in. We can doppler him from now until doomsday."
"Unless he's got a confounder."
"Don't matter," Bork said. "I got him. I can follow the blank spot just as easy.Watch."
Bork touched a series of controls, and waved his hand over other light-sensitive switches. The hopper shook.
"What are you doing, Bork?"
"I just launched our copydrone. We'll pull back far enough so he can't make us on visual, like so…"
The hopper's speed decreased. Thirty seconds later the flitter ahead disappeared in the distance.
"Then I light the drone, like this…"
Bork waved his hands over his board. "He thinks he's lost us," he said. "The drone kicked in and took his radar lock with it, so his scopes'll show that we turned. And our confounder will keep him from picking us up again. As long as we stay back a few klicks so he can't eyeball us, he'll never know we're here."
Sleel shook his head. "That's not bad."
"Watch it, Sleel," Geneva said. "You're being nice again."
"Oh, fuck you," Sleel said.
"That's a clever one. Can I write it down?" Dirisha said.
Sleel smiled. "Better I should show you."
"You wish."
"Faint heart ne'er a fair lady won," Sleel said.
"Chang, Sleel, is thatpoetry ! Are you reading poetry these days?"
Sleel looked uncomfortable."Uh, no. I—uh, I heard it in an entcom vid."
"Sure you did."
Dirisha arid Geneva gave each other looks of mock amazement. "By all the gods, Sleel is a poet," Dirisha said. "Who'd have even thought it?"
"Fuck both of you."
"You wish," they said together.
Bork's laugh was the loudest, but barely more than Dirisha's and Geneva's. Sleel didn't even crack a smile. But they all knew he wanted to.
Chapter Twenty-Three
VEATE CAME out of a light sleep to the sound of her father calling her.
"What?"
"That was Dirisha on the com. They've found the man who kidnapped Juete. They're following him."
Veate sat up on the bed. "Do you think he'll lead them to my mother?"
"No way to be certain, but, yes, I think so."
Veate felt her pulse quicken. "Still think this fits in with what you told me?"
"Yes."
"What now?"
"We'll have to be sure about where Cteel is going, though I have an idea about where that might be. I've got to go see Jersey Reason for some rather esoteric supplies."
"May I come along?"
"Sure."
Wall sent an order to Cteel, still in flight. "Land at Uberlandia and spend the night," he said.
Cteel flashed puzzlement at him. "Why? I told you I lost them in Rio. My screens are clear, nobody is behind me, there's nothing else in the air but farm-wagons."
"I'm sure you are right, but humor me."
"Well, okay."
"And tomorrow, I want you to put down at Golania and spend the night.The day after that, Jetai, and the next day, Poxereu. After that, you can return to the zoo."
"You're the boss."
"Indeed."
Wall broke the connection. It was time to finish this. True, his tame genius was not yet ready, but Wall had assimilated all of the research, even that which Jambi had taken such pains to conceal, and he realized that the man was stalling. The doctor was afraid of failure where even the smallest chance of it existed, so he was duplicating and triplicating every facet of his work. Wall had the information and he knew it was so; he also knew that it was unnecessary. And by eliminating the scientific rigors and the cover-one's-ass mentality, the experiment could be completed in a mere three days. The miniature implant could be, no itwould be, finished in less than seventy-two hours.
Not by Jambi, of course. The man would not allow himself to be rushed that much. But certainly one of his able assistants could be persuaded.One with more greed than principle, or one with more survival characteristics.
Jambi would have to go. Wall had something in mind.
Between the combineag stations, small patches of thick, tropical woods remained or had been reforested, a testament to a somewhat late period of land use planning. There were rumors, according to infocom, that certain native peoples had thrown away most of civilization's implements and returned to some of these new forests, to live as had their long-ago ancestors. There were reports of nearly naked tribes who lived off the land, drove small internal combustion engine scooters run on petroleum analogs or alcohol, and who would kill any outsider who came looking for them. The matador's hopper had just passed over another of these mini-jungles, a mere thousand meters below.
"Hope they can't throw their spears this high," Sleel said.
"Surface-to-air doppler spikes," Bork said."According to some reports."
"That's back to nature, huh? Great."
"So our boy is landing. What'd we have here?" Dirisha asked.
"According to the net, a little farming town calledUberlandia . The main crop is a hardy offworld grain that grows well here,rizvete , a kind of cross between rice and wheat."
"Good place to hide, you think?" Geneva said.
"Good as any," Sleel said. "What's the plan?"
"We put down under cover, hike in, and see what's what. If Juete's there, we get her out."
"Just like that," Sleel said.
"Whatever it takes.Unless you have a more pressing appointment?"
"Not me. I came to dance."
"That's nice."
Since a stranger in such a small town would surely stand out, the matadors stayed hidden until after dark.
The old stealth skills might be a bit tarnished, but it was not as if the farmers here were particularly expert in spotting intruders, and the four matadors had no trouble sneaking in and through the village. Apparently nobody here liked dogs ormbwa, for none barked or howled at the four as they slipped through the night. Made it even easier.
<
br /> "There's his flitter," Bork said.
"Looks like he's got a house.Not much of a place. We should be able to spot her if she's in there," Sleel said.
"I'll go," Dirisha said. "I blend into the dark better."
She worked her way through the warm night toward the house, a cheap blue-plastic prefab box, faded from its time in the tropical sunshine. Insects buzzed around her; they'd still need those for pollination of things in such a backrocket operation, she guessed.
Through an uncovered window, she spotted Cteel sitting on a beat-up couch, fondling a naked woman.
The woman had black hair and swarthy skin, was maybe twenty-five T.S., and she laughed too loud at whatever Cteel was saying. It didn't take a particularly bright observer to recognize a local whore.
Dirisha circled around the house and peered in through the windows, but there was no sign of anyone else. Since Cteel seemed occupied and since there were no signs of a security system, either, the matadora slipped the latch on a back bedroom window and entered the place. She moved quickly and quietly, checking each room. The laughter had stopped, but it was replaced now by the sounds of a woman pretending coital passion. Dirisha left before the counterfeit orgasm noises began.
"Nope," she said when she got back to the others. "Our boy is in there with a woman, they're playing dork-and-bush, but no sign of anybody else around. No stray white hairs in the fresher, no clothes. I don't think she's been there."
"So he stopped just to get laid?"That from Sleel.
"Funny, coming from you," Dirisha said.
"I guess we hide and wait to see what he does, right?" Bork said.
"You called it."
As they left Jersey Reason's house, Veate asked, "What did you get?"
"An old memory," Khadaji said."In this." He held up a tube the size of his little finger's tip. He explained.
"Will it work?"
"Reason says so. I hope I'm wrong and don't have to find out."
