by Blaze Ward
He seemed decades older when he did that, and not a bright boy just barely older than Defne or Nehir, the two oldest in the troupe.
“No,” she growled fiercely. “I will not be put off by that man. If you two cannot thwart him, then perhaps I have chosen the wrong associates here.”
It was a low blow, she knew. To challenge the manhood of the two men who had behaved themselves up until now. But she also didn’t lean forward and bat her eyes at them either, like an ingénue in a melodrama.
Lianearia had prepared, just in case, wearing a top with a slash of a cut that would expose the inner lines of both breasts, if she leaned forward just right. Most men lost half their IQ points when she did that, but she was recruiting these men to perhaps do violence on her behalf, rather than seducing them.
This could be much more than a one-night engagement, if they were successful.
But she also knew that she had to approach the issue obliquely.
Neither man was what they seemed on first blush. Valentinian had a cruel streak that had come out a few times. Mostly in the words he chose, but also in the places he seemed to know from past experience. No innocent wanders accidentally into those sorts of locations.
And Hall…
She had not forgotten that night, watching him secretly as he walked through a dance with no partner but a sword and Death. Such skills were not widely taught, and she was sure the man was some sort of fugitive, perhaps even a renegade Caelon soldier.
Briefly, she had considered the possibility that Dave Hall might have been the assassin that ended a Dominator’s life. At the time she had hired Valentinian, she had noted a first mate, but apparently that man had left, and Hall had joined the crew from the Dominion Prime station.
He did not feel like an assassin, however. Too much of the man was only one layer deep. A good social killer must first be like a good courtesan, able to bury everything so deep as to disappear into a role. Dave Hall was a soldier. Nothing more.
But even that was more than Nash would be able to recruit, especially if his finances had fallen on hard times. That man would scrape the docks and bars for bouncers and buffoons. It might take a dozen to threaten Dave Hall effectively, especially if he was holding that sword at the time. And that didn’t take into account her or Valentinian.
The captain might be wearing a pistol at all times, but Lianearia had both a pocket stunner and a short blade with her constantly these days.
The conversation had fallen to silence. She supposed that was her fault. She had simply left the two men speechless. And hadn’t even had to use sex to do it.
Pity, she supposed. Either man looked like he might be fun in bed, in the right circumstances.
These were not those.
“So I will presume that you have the outer ring of security taken care of?” she asked in a sweet, almost-innocent voice.
“The outer ring?” Valentinian challenged.
“If I have to, I will shoot Nash myself,” she announced. “Hopefully, it won’t come to that.”
15
Dave
From orbit, Dave didn’t think Tartarus didn’t look all that impressive. A little more blue than most planets he had known, at least seen from this altitude. A little less brown. The usual number of orbital stations, diamonds in the darkness of the night matching the wide swathes of lights on the night side below.
Dave leaned forward just a little to watch the planet below.
He found it intriguing that Madame Cleray’s arc of planets she toured generally remained away from the bigger, wealthier ones. She was playing what they might charitably call the second tier of Dominion worlds. The places without as significant a home-grown entertainment industry. Or a different kind perhaps, geared more towards sporting events and such, and less into the sorts of impressive singing and choreographic expertise of Solaria Femina.
Playing the small-town venues, as it were, rather than the bright lights, where she had to compete with the megastars that had entire touring caravans.
No, the woman and her troupe could make more money here, especially with what she was paying Valentinian. But the captain owned the ship outright, so he didn’t need to make regular payments to bankers, like most others did in this industry.
And Valentinian could haul cargo and passengers in equal amounts, if he needed to, specializing in speed between planets when something needed to be there quickly.
That was one of the reasons Dave had picked Longshot Hypothesis to make his escape. That and a captain with a shadowy past and a well-developed paranoia that would keep him away from immediately assisting the authorities, if something came up.
The White Hats would focus all their efforts on Valentinian, hopefully, ignoring the big, hulking brute known to the galaxy as Dave Hall.
At least until he found a safe, quiet way to get entirely outside of the Dominion and never look back. It had to be quiet, because the Dominion’s borders would not stop that kind of retribution. It would barely delay it.
Dave would still need to maintain a low profile out there, unless he wanted to go all the way to Wildspace and try his luck. The thought had crossed his mind, more than once.
“Ground Control, this is Longshot Hypothesis,” Valentinian called out from his captain’s chair. “Maintaining de-orbital path on schedule. This will be our final check in until we get below atmospheric ionization.”
“Acknowledged, Longshot Hypothesis,” the reply came crisply as Dave listened. “Skies are clear on your path at present. Keep eyes down for unregistered country vessels, as they do not file a flight plan unless they will be making a sustained high orbit.”
“Roger that.”
Dave watched the young man move with expert grace, toggling switches and adjusting dials minutely as the big ship began to flare down into the thicker air below them. The ship flew like a hawk under his guidance.
Dave could see the time spent at Gymnasia Dominia in the motions. While it was a pity Valentinian would never join the Armada, that was in turn a good thing for Dave, as this level of piloting expertise in a budding, young pirate was rare.
“You ready to take control?” Valentinian asked with a sly smile.
Dave took a deep breath and contemplated all the controls. It was much more than stepping into the arena to duel, because here everything became your enemy, but this was much more predictable.
And Dave had been spending time flying simulated take-offs and landings, just so he could eventually do something like this. Maybe even buy his own ship, one of these days, if he could get as good a deal as the reports said Valentinian had.
But then, when Anuradha finally fell four years ago, their entire government-owned merchant fleet fell with it, so cargo transports had gotten cheap. Everybody who wanted to had immediately upgraded, a process that rippled across the entire Dominion economy.
And allowed people like Valentinian Tarasicodissa to buy his own ship. And eventually hire a guy named Dave Hall as his first mate.
“Taking control,” Dave said carefully as he reached out and just rested his fingertips on the right buttons.
Valentinian grinned and leaned back in his chair to watch. That was a ruse, Dave was sure. At the first sign of trouble, Valentinian would override and lock him out.
As he should.
Still, no time like the present.
Dave pressed the first button and control flowed to his board. Altitude: just so. Pitch currently starting to nose down, so they could slice into the thickening air like a sword in an overhead strike. Later, he would flare the nose back and force a glide as a way to bleed off speed. The lateral cut. That would be when he had to watch to boards for too much heat.
All systems green.
“Initiating,” Dave announced in a low voice.
Outside, the horizon suddenly leaned up into the air, relative to the dashboard. Dave added a little thrust, and Longshot Hypothesis began to fall out of the sky.
Hopefully, only metaphorically.
> 16
Nash
Nash watched the morning sky, as if the Creator would send him a lightning bolt as a sign of favor.
Or something like that.
The view out the office’s window was spectacular, facing north as the sun was a third of the way across the path in front of him.
He needed a little luck right now. That bitch Cleray had picked the worst possible moment to dump him in the gutter, and only old favors had gotten him this far and kept him out of jail.
Friends had scored him a ticket onto the liner to Tartarus ahead of Lianearia and her girls. Other contacts had found him some office space to spoof, while he leaned on an old lawyer friend to draw up some new contracts giving him shares of the corporation that would end up owning Solaria Femina when this was all done. Three of them, ranging from complete control, to fifty-one percent, to twenty-five percent.
That had been his mistake before, letting her retain control of the girls while he handled all the booking and travel. It had let that bitch cut him out when he wasn’t looking.
Now there would be better contracts. Even partial ownership that would mean she couldn’t just get rid of him. The woman just needed to understand that she’d be nothing without all his friends and contacts, and that he needed to be rewarded commensurately.
And if she didn’t agree, well then maybe things would have to get a little rough.
Nash was more than willing to start at twenty-five percent. That was enough cash to set him up for his other gigs and swindles. Creator only knew how much money Lianearia Cleray had cost him, by pulling the rug out from under him on Dominion Prime, just as he was arranging for some personal performances by the girls for some very high-ranking men in the Solar Party.
Secretly, of course. Cleray would have blown a gasket if she found out. The girls were always marketed with a heavy layer of virginal innocence, but even Nash knew the truth about that.
Sümeyye Daimonoioannes, the Chastitymaster, existed to protect the girls from random fans, not to maintain their complete and utter innocence from all things worldly.
As far as he knew, only half of them were probably still virgins, and that was just because those few had some silly notion that it would increase their resale value on the market later, when they couldn’t be in the group anymore.
Plus the one with the religious restriction against being impure outside of the sanctity of marriage. Whatever.
All he needed was a solid voice in the boardroom. Or to at least to force Cleray to move from a sole proprietorship to something more easy to manipulate.
Oh, the joys of corporate law.
A phone rang on the desk. He checked the name displayed. A local fixer who owed him several favors.
“Good news?” Nash asked Arturious.
“Maybe, boss,” the man replied. “Solaria Femina is on pretty good terms with the guy here in town, but he owes some people some favors that we might be able to push forward until he owes you instead.”
“Push,” Nash decided. “Find out what it is that we can call on, in the way of resources. If we have to be sneaky, then that needs to be on the table at the top. I don’t want a repeat of what happened to us on Dominion Prime, okay?”
“Was he really that good, the guy you ran into?” Arturious’s voice sounded skeptical.
“There were five guys, pal,” Nash sneered. “He took them all. And that wasn’t the sort of place where I could just whip out a pistol and shoot the son of a bitch, you know?”
“Got it,” the ex-bouncer with the nasally voice from a previously-broken nose replied. “Fewer gendarmes around here, and enough of them can be paid to look the other way.”
“Get me prices, Arturious,” Nash growled, letting his anger color the tones. “Favors owed, cash we can collect on, favors we can push. Cleray’s nothing without her new bouncer and I intend to make sure of that.”
“Sure thing, boss,” the line went dead.
Nash snarled to himself as he slammed the receiver down. No, Cleray was just a dame he could push around, if she didn’t have Valentinian Tarasicodissa handy.
Nash had looked the kid up, afterwards. There hadn’t been much else he could do, with the station on hard lockdown before he could score a ship to go after the Longshot Hypothesis.
The kid was a player, that much was obvious. Hadn’t spent much time on Cronus Prime or Dominion Prime, or Nash probably would have met him at some point. Dangerous, but only to a certain degree. Former Dominion golden boy gone rogue.
But he was just one man. And without Valentinian around, Nash had no worries about the big bruiser. Could of quick jolts from a shock pistol and that guy would be hamburger.
Nash smiled.
Revenge was going to be ice cream.
17
Kyriaki
Tartarus. Almost as remote a backwater as Aestrolathia would have been, had Kyriaki chased them to their first stop after the escape.
This planet was probably worse, if she had to rank them, based purely on their industrial might. Aestrolathia was largely an agrarian culture, so large swaths of the planet were given over to raising animals and growing grains, while Tartarus was a center for heavy industry.
Walking out of the starport and looking for a taxi, Kyriaki could taste the grit and ozone in the air. She supposed that she had been spoiled by the pure air of living on a space station, especially one like Dominion Prime, but she couldn’t imagine people wanting to live like this.
Ergo, most of them probably didn’t, and this place was a trap that people would escape, any chance they had. Or seek their escapism in frivolous things, like concerts by touring musical groups. It made a queer sort of sense, then, why Solaria Femina would come here.
Larger acts could play extended residencies on resort worlds. Or just tour the big places, like Cronus Prime. A hustler like Lianearia Cleray would have to work the corners.
Lucky for Kyriaki, Cleray had hired an even worse hustler in Valentinian Tarasicodissa. Corrupt, ugly planets like Tartarus would be their playground. And their downfall.
Kyriaki had considered approaching the local internal security apparatus, but she had her doubts as to the brilliance of such a move. Briefing notes from the Ambassador looked to be intentionally vague on the topic but suggested that even the White Hats here had leaks. If she showed up and filed a report, it would probably make its way to Tarasicodissa quickly enough.
Creator only knew if the man would flee, knowing that she was closing in on him. Or where he might go. While that might be the sort of admission of guilt she could use to request a task force, the same level of escalation that resulted would take the investigation right back out of her hands, handing control off to a local Ambassador, or at least senior Inquisitors.
And she wanted that man herself.
So Kyriaki skipped traveling to the local Palace of Law. She had that option, as long as she considered the risks too high. Or whatever excuse she could make stick so she didn’t give her prey any warning she was coming.
And she hadn’t lost her chops at working the streets for information, just because she had been working at the center of the universe. First stop, the theater where they would be playing in three days, just to scout the neighborhood around it and determine the best way to approach Lianearia Cleray.
Nothing had ever managed to stick to the woman, in spite of her time in the vicinity of her former partner, the infamous Nash Bogomelous that Kyriaki had read so much about on the flight out here. That one should have been arrested at Dominion Prime. By the time everything was sorted out, he had vanished as well.
Kyriaki pulled her jacket a little tighter around herself, slid a hand inside to just touch the stun pistol she wore, and set off to learn this new city.
18
Valentinian
Valentinian checked the charge on his shock pistol, out of habit, as he and Dave emerged from the forward airlock into the late afternoon sun. And gloom.
Tartarus stank. Too much industri
al effluvium cast into the sky to fall as acid rain somewhere else. It etched metal surfaces rough anywhere it landed, and bled paints quickly.
Depending on how long they stayed in places like this, he might have to consider spending a week in a dry basin, or a desert world like Amenhotep, and refinish the outer hull. That would be good practice for Dave to learn the exterior maintenance.
Valentinian smiled as he considered how he might convince Madame Cleray to join him under a solar umbrella nearby on a hill, watching Dave and the dancers work, stripped down as far as necessary in the heat and sun.
“What’s so funny?” Dave asked from his right as they set off across the tarmac to the main terminal. Unlike Solaria Femina, he and Dave walked the kilometer, as long as it wasn’t raining. The girls rode in local taxi buses. As would he, when the air got bad enough.
He had gotten lucky today. Forecast was for the unsafe rain to hold off until tomorrow.
“Maintenance never ends,” Valentinian said obliquely.
Nine dancers. Five or six adult women that might not look too bad in bikinis, or completely topless, depending on the planet they might have originally been born on and their willingness to eliminate tan lines.
“Whatever,” Dave rumbled. “Plan?”
“Madame Cleray put us on the guest list tonight with backstage passes,” Valentinian replied with a bigger grin as they walked. “We’re going to go into town, get some food, and then go to a show.”
“Ship safe while we’re gone?” Dave glanced back.
Valentinian had locked the ship, and also locked all the interior bulkheads as well. Solaria Femina was staying in town this week, since they had performances in three different venues.
And everybody wanted some space, after nearly six weeks cooped up.