by Allan Cole
The "rail guns" fired, and two subatomic particles of identical mass were hurled at each other, reaching the speed of light instantly. Then beyond. Thoresen's screen flared and then it was over—literally almost before it began. Then his screen came to life again. Nothing. Just yawning space. No freighter, no—
"The shuttle," the Tech screamed. "It's gone. They're all—"
"Clot the shuttle," Thoresen snapped. "What happened?"
His fingers flew over computer keys as he ordered up a replay of the incident—this time at speeds he could see.
The particles floated toward each other, leaving comet trails. Pierced the magnetic bubble that was the glowing spot inside the hold, and then met. . .And met. . .And met. . .Then they vanished. . .reappeared. . .moved in and out of time/space. . .until they were replaced by a single, much different particle. Thoresen laughed—he had done it. Suddenly, the magnetic envelope began to collapse. There was a blinding flash of light and the freighter and shuttle disappeared in an enormous explosion.
The Baron turned to the Tech, who was still in shock. "I want the timetable moved up."
The Tech gaped at him. "But those men on the shuttle?. . ." Thoresen frowned, looked at his empty, screen, and then understood.
"Oh, yes. The unfortunate accident. It shouldn't be too hard to replace them."
He started out of the lab, paused a moment. "Oh, and tell the next crew to back off a little more from the freighter. Techs are expensive."
Lester smiled and patted the Tech on the shoulder. The man babbled something and tears began to roll down his cheeks. Lester leaned forward to listen. Just baby talk. And nothing more to learn.
It had been easy, Lester thought. Easier than he had expected. He had been working on the Tech for half a dozen cycles. Subtle hints of money, a new identity, a lifetime residence paid up on some playworld. The man had been interested, but too afraid of Thoresen to do much more than listen and drink Lester's booze. Then one day he had cracked. He had been almost hysterical when he called Lester and asked to come to his quarters.
There had been some awful accident, he had told Lester, but when pressed he shook his head. No, the Baron. . .And Lester knew he had to take a chance.
He slipped up beside the man, pressed a hypo against his neck, and a moment later the Tech was a babbling idiot. But an idiot who would tell Lester everything he needed to know. Lester eased the man down on the bed. He'd sleep for a while, and then wake up with a huge narcobeer hangover. The Tech wouldn't remember a thing. Now, all Lester had to do was contact Mahoney. What he would tell him about Bravo Project would guarantee an early end to Thoresen's career.
There was a loud smash and splintering of plastic. Lester whirled, then froze as the Baron stepped through his ruined door. He was flanked by two Sociopatrolmen. Thoresen looked at the sleeping Tech, grinned. "A little party, Lester?"
Lester didn't say anything. What could he say? Thoresen motioned to his guards; they picked the Tech up and carried him out.
"So, now you know?"
"Yes," Lester said.
"Too bad. I rather liked you." He took a step forward, looming over the old man, and took him by the throat. Squeezed. Lester fought for air, felt his throat crush. Minutes passed before the Baron dropped Lester's corpse. He turned as one of the guards stepped back into the room. "Make it look good," Thoresen said. "A sudden illness, et cetera, et cetera. And don't worry about his family. I'll take care of them."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
STEN WHISTLED SOUNDLESSLY and booted the door behind him shut. Flies were already starting to buzz around H'mid's severed head atop the counter.
Sten bent, touched his fingers to the blood pool around the body. Still a little sticky. . .no more than an hour. Sten reached over his shoulder and palmed out the tiny w-piece that hung between his shoulder blades.
Sten dodged around the counter and silently ran up the steps to the shopkeeper's living quarters. Deserted as well. No sign of search or looting. Very, very bad. He cautiously peered out one window, then ducked back in.
Two rooftops away, three Q'riya flattened, peering down on the street. And below. . .another one, down Sten's escape route. Very badly disguised, polished boot tips protruding from under the striped robes he was wearing. Were they trying to drive him or was he trapped? Sten tried again. They were going to take him. The foodshop across the narrow dirty street was shuttered. Not at this time of day. Inside there'd be a squad of M'lan—the Q'riya tribe's private thugs.
Sten leaned back against the wall. . .inhale for count of four, exhale for count of four, hold for count of six. Ten times. Adrenaline slowed down. Sten started trying to figure a way out. He scooped up a handful of bracelets, the gems still unset, from H'mid's workbench, then the small carboy of acid from its shelf. Went back to the window and waited. He would probably have ten minutes or so before they decided they'd have to winkle the rat out.
A cart rumbled past below. Ideal. He carefully lobbed the carboy out, into the middle of its dry grain load.
Aimed. . .hand bobbing, synched with the unsprung cart.
Fired. The carboy shattered. Smoke curled, and the car seared into flames.
Shouts. Screams. . .smoke coiling back up the street The best he could do.
Sten tucked his robe ends up into his waistband, kicked off his sandals, and swung over the edge of the window. Hung by his hands, then dropped.
He thudded down, letting himself flatten. The shutter crashed open and a slug whanged out into the mud wall just above him. Sten came up. . .three hurtling paces across the street and a long dive through the open shutters. Hit on the inside, rolling, and trigger held back to continuous fire as he sprayed the inside of the window.
Three M'lan gurgled down, the second howled air through a ripped open throat. Sten threw a second slug through the center of the man's forehead and was moving, out toward the back door. He burst out then swore. Typical rabbit warren, creaky stairs leading down, past the tiny Fal'ici hovels. Sten went over the railing, and dodged into their midst. Shouts, screams, and shots from the street.
Sten wasn't worried. The Fal'ici wouldn't give any information to help the M'lan, even at gunpoint.
He came out of the slum maze onto another street. Excellent. First luck. Marketing. Thronged. . .including a heavy patrol of M'lan. They must have been tipped. When they saw the running figure, they went after him. Sten yanked over a pushcart, leaped over a cart's tongue, then turned and tossed H'mid's bracelets high into the air. The gold caught the glittering sun and there was instant chaos. People came out of openings in the walls that Sten couldn't even see.
Somewhere in the boiling mob were the M'lan. Sten thought it very possible that one or another of the Fal'ici might just turn away from the gold for a chance to slip a couple of centimeters of polished glass into a trooper's throat.
He slowed to a walk, pulled his robe down, and casually strolled on. Tossed a flower vendor a coin, and pulled the biggest flower on her cart off. Shoved his nose into it, and minced onward.
How. . .epi? Epi. . .clot it! He'd ask Doc when he got back to the cover house.
Sten took an hour to make sure he wasn't tailed. He didn't think much of the Q'riya's intelligence squads, but there were more than enough of them to run a successful multitail operation.
He was clean, so he walked quickly up to the gate of the unobtrusive house the Mantis Section team was working out of and went in.
To more chaos. Gear was going into packs neatly, but very, very quickly. Alex stood near the door, holding a breakdown willygun ready. Sten took it all in.
"We're blown?" Sten guessed.
"Aye, laddie," Alex said. " Th' dark Vinnettsa's been tryin' t' convince she's got buttons down her back wae taken."
"And talked?"
"Wouldna you? Word is they could make a tombstone confess."
"Somebody took H'mid's head off and left it for me to find," Sten said. He crossed to a table and picked up a glass winer. Thumb over the cover, he
eased the spout into his mouth and swallowed. After he'd set it down, he looked at the half-meter teddy bear sitting at ease in the room's only comfortable chair. The creature bore a near-benevolent scowl on his face.
"Doc?"
"Typical humans," the teddy bear purred happily. "You people could clot up a rock fight. Proof of the existence of divinity, I take it. You would still be in your jungles peeling fruit with your toes if there weren't a God of some sort or another. One with a rather nasty sense of humor, I might add."
Vinnettsa hurried down the stairs coiling wire to the broadcast antenna on the roof.
"Come on, Doc. We don't have time for making love."
Doc held his hands out in what he had learned was a human gesture, jumped off the chair, and began stuffing the hookup into a lift pack.
Ida came unhurriedly out from the closet that concealed the entrance to the comroom. Hefted her compack experimentally. "Doc's right. You can't expect subtlety from anything other than us. Now, why they don't field an all-Rom team—"
Alex chuckled. "For our Emp'rer whidny like havin' a worl' stole from under him, is why."
Ida thought. "If we did steal it—and that's a thought worthy of a Rom—then he wouldn't have to worry, would he?"
Sten looked around. Frick and Frack hung from the room's eaves, waiting.
"Do they have us spotted?"
"Negative," Frick squeaked. "We overflew ten minutes ago. We saw nothing."
Maybe. The two batlike beings weren't high on anyone's intelligence list. Or maybe Sten hadn't worded the question correctly. But the information was probably correct.
The team was ready to roll. They huddled.
"We ken we're blown," Alex said softly. "D'ye think we redline an' evac?"
Jorgensen yawned. He was sprawled beside his pack, stocked pistol ready.
"Y'all sure we want to just pull pitch? Mahoney'll torch our tail for an incomp."
Sten looked at Doc, who wiggled tendrils.
"Myitkina," Sten said. It was Jorgensen's trance word. The rangy blonde sat immobile.
"Possibilities," Vinnettsa snapped.
"A. Mission abort and withdrawal. B. Continue mission and assume nondiscovery. C. Begin alternate program."
"Analyze it," Sten said.
"Possibility A. Mission priority high. Currently incomplete. Consider as last resort. Survival probability ninety percent if accomplished within five hours."
"Continue," Vinnettsa said.
"Possibility B. Insufficient data to give absolute prediction. Assumption that local agent broke under interrogation. Not recommended. Survival probability less than twenty percent."
The team members looked at each other. Voting silently. As usual, no one bothered to consult Frick and Frack.
"Two Myitkina." Jorgensen came out of the trance.
"What's the plan?" he asked.
"Mobs ‘n heroes," Alex said.
"That ain't too bad," Jorgensen said. "All I gotta do is run a lot."
Sten snorted. Alex clapped him on the back, a friendly gesture that almost drove Sten through the wall. Sometimes the tubby little man from the three-gee world forgot.
Sten wheezed air back into his lungs.
"Sten, you're a braw lad. A' they say, the bleatin' o' the kid frees the tiger. Or some'at like that."
Sten glumly nodded and started shedding weaponry.
The assassin watched him from across the room. It would have to wait for a while. For better or worse, the assassin's future rode on the team's successes. For a while.
M-PRIORITY OPERATION BANZI
Do not log in Guard General Orders; do not log in Imperial Archives; do not multex any than source and OC Mercury; do not release in any form. IMPERIAL PROSCRIPT.
STEN OPERATIONS ORDER
1. Situation:
Saxon. Plus-or-minus well within Earth-condition parameters. Largely desert. Extensive nomadic culture (SEE FICHE A), predominant. Only port, major city and manufacturing complex Atlan (SEE FICHE B), situated in one of Saxon's few fertile valleys. Existence of large river and introduction of hydropower responsible for growth of Atlan. Atlan, and therefore Saxon's offworld policies, controlled by an extended tribe-family, the Q'riya (SEE FICHE C), believed to be an offshoot of main bedou culture Fal'ici. Manufacturing and all offworld trading controlled by Q'riya. In Atlan, their authority is enforced by the probably created semihereditary group known as the M'lan (SEE FICHE D). Q'riya authority does not extend beyond Atlan's limits, and semianarchy exists among the nomad tribes. Atlan's main export is weaponry, largely created by the introduction of major machinery by DELETED. . .DELETED. . .DELETED. Some primitive art, generally lowly regarded, also transshipped.
2. Mission:
To prevent offworld shipment of currently produced arms and, if possible, to significantly reduce or destroy that production capability.
3. Execution:
The team-in-place shall exercise the option of how the mission is to be carried out, hopefully by political means but, if necessary, mililarily. Factors—this must not be attributed to an Imperial Mission. All extremes shall be taken to prevent evidence of Imperial involvement. Reiterate: All extremes (SEE ATTACHED, MISSION EQUIPMENT). Mission limitations: preference casualty rate among Fal'ici to be kept as low as possible. Continued existence of Q'riya in present position not significant. Alteration of existing social order not significant.
4. Coordination:
Little support can be given, due to the obvious conditions of OPERATION BANZI (see above), beyond standard evacuation deployment, which shall consist of. . .
5. Command & Signal:
OPERATION BANZI will be under the direct control of Code, Mantis Team operating under code schedule. . .
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE GUARDS NEATLY lofted Sten into the cell's blackness. He thunked down on an uncomplaining body. Sten rolled off and started to apologize, then sniffed the air. About three days beyond listening, he estimated.
He got to his feet. The cavernous cell was very dark. Sten kept his eyes moving, hyperventilating. His irises widened. The view wasn't worth even one candle, he decided.
The prison was well within the anthro profile that fit Saxon. Build an unbreakable cell, and throw everybody into it you don't like. Feed them enough so they don't starve noisily, and then forget them. What happens in the cell is no one's concern.
He just hoped that Sa'fail was still alive.
Sten found a wall and put his back to it. Waiting. Lousy, he decided. It took about ten minutes for the bully-boy and his thugs to loom up in the blackness.
Sten didn't bother asking. The heel of his hand snapped the head villain's neck back, a sideslash dropped him while he gargled the ruins of his larynx. The second received a fist behind the ear as Sten bounced off the man's dead leader.
He threw the second corpse into the third man's incoming fists, then half turned, foot poised. The third man decided to stay down.
"Sa'fail. Of the Black Tents. Where is he?"
The toady grimaced. Thought was obviously not one of his major operational abilities. Sten was patient.
The toady looked at Sten's ready strike, grunted. "In that corner. The dreadful ones keep their own."
Sten grinned his thanks and snapped his foot out. Cartilage smashed, the man howled and went down. Sten bent over the man. He decided he wouldn't have to kill him. The toady would be too busy bleeding for an hour or so to backjump Sten—and that, he hoped sincerely, was all it would take.
He worked his way through the bodies, softly calling the nomad's name. And found him. Sa'fail had an entourage. Sten looked them up and down. Surprisingly healthy for prisoners. He wondered if they'd gotten to recycling their fellow prisoners to stay healthy yet.
The nomad sat up and stroked his beard.
"You are not of the People," the one who must have been Sa'fail's lieutenant said.
"I am not that, O Hero of the Desert and Man Who Makes the Slime Q'riya Tremble," Sten said flue
ntly in the desert dialect. "But I have long admired you from afar."
The nomad chuckled. "I am honored that you found your admiration so overwhelming you must join me here in my palace."
"Much as I would like to exchange compliments, O He Who Makes the Wadihs Tremble," Sten said, "I would suggest that you and your men get very close to that wall over there. You have"—Sten thought a moment—"not very long."
"What will happen?" the lieutenant asked.
"Very shortly most of this prison will cease to exist." The nomads buzzed then snapped silent as Sa'fail motioned.
"This is not a jest, I assume?"
"If it were, I would find it less funny than even you."
"Even so, although your consideration might be for a brief time."
Sa'fail considered. Then lithely came to his feet.
"We shall do what the outlander wishes. No matter what happens, boredom shall be relieved."
The drom spat at Alex. He ducked and thumped four fingers against the beast's sides. It whuffed air and wobbled on its feet. The other members of the Mantis team hated droms, the stinking, recalcitrant transport beast of Saxon. They didn't bother Alex. He'd once been unlucky enough to serve with a Guard ceremonial attachment on Earth and had encountered camels.
But he didn't regret what was about to happen to this particular drom. The animal belched.
"Ye'll naught be forgettin' yer last meal," he thought, and strolled away from the tethered beast. In trader's robes, carrying a forged day-pass plate, he'd been shaken down by the security guards surrounding the prison.
Search aboot as ye will, he thought. It's nae easy to find a bomb when it's digestin' in a beastie's guts. An' ye no saw the guns in that garbage in the wee cart.
He squatted by the wall and let the last few seconds tick away.
Frick banked closer to Frack. Half-verbal, half-instinct communication, nonwords: Nothing unusual. The other team members were in place. Frick's prehensile wing finger triggered the transceiver.
