A Confusion of Princes

by Garth Nix

  As Thrukhaz had once been claimed by a Prince, it technically remained within the Empire — but in practice it was part of the Fringe, blessed with numerous wormholes to and from long-established Imperial worlds. Shadowy traders and smugglers found that it was a useful place to meet, in order to buy, sell and get away in quick time if it proved necessary.

  Haddad, an assassin of the Empire, came to Thrukhaz Three, but his primary purpose was not to buy and sell. Though Haddad was only twenty-one old-Earth years, he was already a senior apprentice, and was soon to be made a Master of Assassins.

  That was if he survived this final mission for his current Prince, which was doubtful. The Prince’s probability calculator, Uncle Yukhul, had worked out that the chances of the overall plan succeeding were quite good, about 0.42. Haddad’s chance of remaining alive was a much more disturbing 0.04.

  But even the priests of the Temple of the Aspect of the Cold Calculator could not include all possible variables, particularly for missions outside the Empire. And no assassin expected to live a long time. They were expendable, particularly apprentice assassins. Perfect to use up in long-shot missions, like the one Haddad was engaged in right now.

  It was unusual for an apprentice to be sent alone out of Imperial space, disguised as a Fringe-dwelling dealer in antique weapons. The transparent panels in Haddad’s head were hidden under Bitek simuflesh that had spread and merged into his own skin. A living wig had been implanted into his scalp, giving him a dark red mane that stretched halfway down his back. A programmed Bitek scathe had burrowed red trails across his cheeks, creating in five minutes the effects of years of ritual scarification.

  This was the fashion of a clan of independent traders, the

  Pralganians, who turned up from time to time in odd corners of the galaxy. There were no real Pralganians in the sector at the moment, or at least there should not be, according to Haddad’s information.

  To reinforce his disguise, Haddad wore a Pralganian trader’s flax-gold shipsuit, with paler yellow boots and a belt of woven wires that supported twin sting-guns: handguns that fired low-velocity Bitek projectiles, suitable for use on a ship or in zero gravity. One gun had a red grip, and was for crystalline darts charged with a lethal nerve poison. The other had a blue grip, and was loaded with a mere knockout/paralysis combo. Or so the traders liked people to believe. It made their enemies watch the red-handled gun too closely.

  A Bitek portable safe followed Haddad. Portable safes, with their ultra-tough, armoured hide, strong reptilian legs and cacophonous hooting alarm snout were very popular for transporting valuables in the Fringe, though some customers didn’t like the idea of goods being stored inside the utility stomach of a living creature. Even though it was designed for the purpose, and was both dry and disconnected from the alimentary system of the beast.

  ‘Hup,’ said Haddad. He checked his breath mask and weapons and went out through the ion curtain that separated the breathable air of the starport arrival ‘hall’ from the miasmic mist of the planet. The safe waddled after him, its sentience limited to obeying simple commands, knowing who its master was, and shrieking if anyone tried to cut it open or prise its massive, interlocking jaws apart.

  Haddad had memorised a map of the Thrukhaz Three startown, but it was based on the interrogation of a trader who had been there several months previously. He noted the differences as he walked between buildings towards the caravansary that was his chosen destination. He had selected it from the data available in the Empire, and confirmed the choice with some judicious questioning of the other travellers who had descended with him from the tramp starship that ran a semi-regular route between Thrukhaz and Sazekh Seven, the nearest Imperial system.

  The caravansary was much as Haddad expected. He took a small room at the back, a bolted-on unit that had a ceiling hatch as well as a door, and reserved a rectangular patch of ground in the courtyard, where he would set up his booth. Leaving the travelling safe surrounded by a number of tiny telltales, Haddad wandered the startown, buying a few odds and ends for his booth and examining the wares of those who would be his competitors, selling antique or interesting weapons. None had anything of particular interest. He made a point of introducing himself, and invited the other dealers to come and see his wares.

  Returning to the caravansary, Haddad found that, as he had expected, his room had been searched and surveillance established, and the travelling safe had been inspected, though not actually opened. Unless it had been opened with Psitek by either a Master of Assassins or a Prince, and he thought it was too early for either one to be here.

  Haddad took out one of the items he’d bought, an obsolete Mektek Jhezhan spytracker, and set it going on his table. It unfolded its jointed legs and search tendrils, and started looking for spy-specks.

  After the spytracker had wandered for a few minutes without success, Haddad smiled, as if he were content he was not under observation. He already knew from a Psitek scan that it would take the spytracker a few hours to find and destroy the spy-specks, which were of a newer and superior make.

  ‘Open.’

  Haddad reached inside and gently ran his fingers over the items on each shelf. No one could see it, under false flesh and hair, but his temples were roiling with the blue fluid that indicated Psitek activity.

  As far as he could tell, nothing had been interfered with, and nothing new had been introduced. For the benefit of those watching and listening via the almost invisible spy-specks up in the corners of the ceiling, he took out the most important item.

  This was a small reddish box of real wood, not Bitek extrusion, at least five centuries old. Haddad flicked the bronze catch, and opened it. Lined with velvet, it held a simple steel dagger, the bright blade rippling with tiny wave marks, the hilt and guard a darker, more ominous metal.

  The weapon was at least three thousand years old, and came from ancient Earth. To a discerning collector, it was worth more than the entire Thrukhaz startown. In fact, it was so valuable, only one of the richest plutocrats in the Fringe could afford it — or a Prince of the Empire.

  Not that Princes typically bought things. They just took them, unless they were already claimed by another Prince or a temple, or made inviolate by an order of the Imperial Mind.

  But here, essentially outside the Empire, a Prince might find it easier to buy. Though there would probably be an attempt or attempts to steal it first. Not that such attempts would solely be the action of Princes. Many people would want that ancient dagger.

  Haddad closed the box and returned it to the safe, taking out several other packages which he laid out on his table.

  ‘Shut and lock.’

  Interlocking teeth ground to closure. The safe hunkered down on its haunches.

  Haddad sorted through the lesser wares he had taken from the safe while he waited for the spytracker to finish. He had nothing else that was anywhere near as valuable as the dagger, but compared to what he had seen from the other weapon-sellers, his basic stock was good. All old Imperial tek, proven in countless battles across the galaxy.

  Like the blast projector he was examining, a lighter and shorter version of the basic mekbi trooper weapon.

  Haddad heard faint footsteps in the corridor, and his Psitek senses picked up hostile intentions. Earlier than he had expected, but the indications were very clear. He lifted the blast projector and sighted at the door. It was locked, but whoever was outside had another key.

  As the door slid open, the blindingly bright energy pulse from Haddad’s weapon essentially vaporised the two thugs who were about to charge in, and badly wounded their boss, who was several paces behind.

  Haddad moved faster than a human should be able to move. Leaping over the remains of the two attackers, he ripped off a Bitek medaid patch disguised as a button on his shipsuit and slapped it on the scorched face of the boss who had been lurking behind. The pa
tch rippled, manipulating blood chemistry, injecting drugs, arresting shock and arranging mental compliance — at least for the minute or two the man had left.

  ‘Who sent you?’ demanded Haddad.

  ‘Contract,’ whispered the dying man. ‘Lerrue the Shubian.’

  ‘Kill and steal?’

  ‘Yes . . . the safe . . . ’

  The man died. The medaid patch shrivelled and fell off.

  The next person in the corridor was the manager of the cautiously, her hands up and open.

  ‘An attempted robbery,’ said Haddad. He didn’t mention the fact the intruders had a key, doubtless obtained from the woman.

  ‘I will require a different room. Number 125 will be suitable.’

  ‘It’s rented . . . ’ the manager started to say. Then she looked at the energy projector in Haddad’s hand, the smoking doorframe, and the dead thugs. ‘I mean . . . it will be ready in thirty minutes.’

  ‘Is there a legal process to be followed?’ Haddad asked, already knowing the answer. ‘Authorities to be alerted?’

  ‘No,’ said the manager. ‘We sort things out ourselves here. As you have done.’

  ‘Where would I find Lerrue the Shubian?’

  Haddad already knew the answer to that as well, but, as always, he wanted separate confirmation.

  The manager’s mouth twitched.

  ‘Lerrue?’ she croaked. ‘The small green dome outside the starport arrival hall. But . . .’

  ‘But what?’ asked Haddad.

  ‘Lerrue is a Shubian,’ said the manager.

  The Shubians were known to the Imperial Mind. Haddad knew what data the Empire already possessed. Indeed, Lerrue the Shubian had a part to play in the plan, though the alien didn’t know it yet.

  ‘What does that signify?’

  ‘Shubians set prices, put buyers and sellers together, for a commission. They don’t do stuff themselves. Least, Lerrue doesn’t.’

  ‘You mean that Lerrue did not send these people, but merely arranged their services to be supplied to whoever wanted me killed and robbed?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said the manager. ‘And Lerrue, she’s kind of important here, sort of like the unofficial . . . uh . . . governor or whatever. She sorts things out, like I said, fixes the prices.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Haddad. He had not known Lerrue’s gender, though for Shubians this was not important, as they changed from time to time. ‘Let me know when my new room is ready.’

  The next morning was as greenish and congealed as any other day on Thrukhaz. Haddad finished securing his new room with a few choice devices, then left it via the hole he had cut into the adjacent storage closet. The portable safe stayed behind, hunkered down under a blanket.

  Lerrue the Shubian was easy to find. There was a queue of breath-masked people waiting outside the exterior airlock door of the green dome. Obviously Lerrue didn’t trust an ion curtain to keep the good atmosphere in and the bad atmosphere out. There were a couple of guards stationed outside who were performing a similar function to the airlock, only with visitors.

  Haddad paid them to let him in. They took his sting-guns, and the J-knife from his boot, but only did a cursory scan for other weapons, making his misdirectional shuffle of items around his body purely a drill.

  Lerrue was a nine-foot-tall humanoid with shiny hide, big eyes and several flapped holes in the side of her bald head that looked like ears but weren’t. She was wearing a hundred-years-out-of- fashion Imperial evening dress, which only reached as far as her thighs, or whatever Shubians called the part of their legs above their second kneecap.

  ‘You arranged for three men to kill me and steal my travelling safe last night,’ said Haddad.

  ‘I introduced a buyer of death and robbery to a seller of the same,’ said Lerrue. She had two voices that spoke together, one emanating from her mouth and one out of the orifices in the side of her head. The one from the mouth was that of a young human choirboy, pure, clear and musical. The other voice was reedy and sounded almost mechanical.

  ‘I do not wish to have to kill more murderers and robbers,’ Haddad stated. This was true. Though he had been trained from birth to kill, he did not want to waste his skills on non-designated targets. He existed as a weapon of the Emperor, and of his Prince. He thought of himself as an entirely different being from the ordinary killers of the galaxy.

  ‘Do you want others to undertake the killing for you?’ asked

  Lerrue, in that strange double voice.

  ‘I do not want anyone to even attempt to rob or murder me,’

  said Haddad. ‘Including whoever paid for the first attempt.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Lerrue. ‘For how long should this state continue?’

  ‘Twelve weeks, local,’ replied Haddad. He didn’t need anything like that much time.

  Lerrue named a sum in one of the credit systems commonly used in that part of the Fringe. Haddad nodded, pulled a ring from his hand and handed it over. The ring was of no value in itself, but had a sum of money encoded in it that could be drawn on a bank only two wormhole transits away.

  Lerrue scanned the ring and handed back a pile of plastic chips, likewise encoded with credit, in much smaller amounts. Haddad tried not to take them, but Lerrue pressed them on him.

  ‘I am Shubian,’ she said. ‘Exact money always. No exceptions.’

  ‘Fine,’ replied Haddad. He pretended to hesitate. The Shubian was part of his plan. She could accelerate the process. ‘There is another item of business you may be able to help me with.’

  ‘Specify this business.’

  ‘I am a dealer in unusual and antique weapons,’ said Haddad.

  ‘While I have my regular stock, on this occasion I have also obtained a very rare and extremely desirable item, a dress dagger from the first solar fleet of the second pre-Imperial epoch. What would you charge to find a buyer for this item?’

  ‘Five per cent of sale price,’ said Lerrue. ‘Standard commission. What is the price?’

  Haddad told her the price.

  Lerrue whistled through the holes in the side of her head.

  ‘No buyers here,’ she said. ‘You want me to spread word?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Haddad.

  ‘Maybe get attention you don’t want,’ warned Lerrue. ‘Prince maybe. They like old-time Earth stuff.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Haddad.

  ‘Send battalion of mekbi drop troopers, you not see any profit,’

  remarked Lerrue. ‘Me neither. We both be dead.’ Haddad hesitated, again for show.

  ‘I just came from Sazekh Seven,’ he said. Sazhekh Seven was the closest Imperial world. ‘Apparently two Princes, both collectors, compete to be the new planetary governor. I think that means neither one will let the other use force to take what I have.’ This part was true, or mostly true. There would no naval task force, no mekbi troopers. But if all went as expected, Haddad

  would not be the last Imperial Assassin to come to Thrukhaz.

  ‘I had heard this,’ confirmed Lerrue. ‘It will be as you request. I will spread the word.’

  ‘Good,’ said Haddad. He bowed slightly, keeping his eyes on the Shubian and the bodyguard in the shadowed corner of the room, who he knew was there even though he couldn’t see her due to some kind of portable distortion field. But he had noted the absence of presence in a particular pattern, heard her breathing and done a surface Psitek scan of her mind. A human bodyguard, like the other visible employees of Lerrue. It was quite likely the fixer was the only Shubian in the entire sector, or even the quadrant.

  Haddad enjoyed the rest of the week. Though it was not something he had done before, he took to selling his goods like a Sad-Eye took to an undefended brain. Soon, he had sold all the stock he had brought with him, so he started buying as well,
both from people who came to his booth in the busy courtyard of the caravansary and from booths or stores he encountered during his apparently random wanderings through the startown.

  The wanderings were not random. Haddad was watching for the opposing Prince’s Master of Assassins, or her apprentices, or for any sign they were using local people despite Lerrue’s aegis of protection.

  It took five days for the first one to show up. An apprentice, fairly junior, Haddad thought, and not sufficiently versed in narrow-cast Psitek interrogation. He felt her peering into the minds of other traders in the courtyard, seeking information about an antique dagger of immense worth. He was surprised that it was not an enquiry about a Pralganian trader. He had made it easy enough for them.

  When his turn came, he felt the intrusion into the compartment of his mind that he had created for his Pralganian identity, and the slight shock, carefully controlled, inside the questioner’s own mind when she ‘saw’ the dagger, the box, the safe and his room details all hidden there. As she withdrew her mental probe, Haddad followed it back into her own mind. Just like a tiny rivulet of water joining the rush of a greater stream, he moved past the Psitek defences that were meant to stop just such a move, defences that were not adequately supervised by the apprentice’s conscious mind.

  Haddad saw what he needed to, and made a few small adjustments that caused the apprentice to turn and hurry away, knowing only that she had found what her Master had set her to find: the whereabouts of the dagger.

  At least, Haddad was fairly sure that was all she knew. There was always the chance that he had been suckered in turn, fed a prepared apprentice with a mind compartmentalised like his own for just such an occasion. But he didn’t think so. It took quite some time to mentally prepare in this way, and everything about the plan was designed so that the opponents were reacting, rather than acting.