The 97th Step

by Steve Perry

  The rain began a wavelike pounding on the roof of the kiosk; lightning flashes sparked in the night, and close thunder rumbled, vibrating the air with its deep voice.

  The external storm continued, while the one inside the two of them abated somewhat. Shar sat nestled next to Ferret, with his arm draped over her shoulders.

  "So, what now?"

  He shook his head. "I came to make sure you were all right. I'll have to find Gworn, before he finds me. I want the advantages to be on my side, this time."

  "And what will you do when you find him?"

  "Whatever it takes to end this."

  "It doesn't sound like he'll listen to reason," she said.

  "No. Probably not."

  "And you want me to stay here until it's settled." It was not a question.

  "Yes."

  "It might take months."

  "No. Gworn was never particularly patient. Besides, I'll find him."

  "How do you know where to look? It's a big moon, and a bigger galaxy."

  "I know where to look."

  "Where—?" she began. Lightning flared and thunder ripped the rainy night, the light and sound almost together.

  "Close," he said. "Are there arresters on this place?"

  "Yes." A beat. "I knew you shouldn't have gone on that caper."

  "If it hadn't happened there, it would have happened somewhere else," he said. What he didn't say was that if it had happened somewhere else, Shanti Stoll might still be alive, and he might be dead in his place.

  He didn't need to say that.

  The storm started to move off, taking the high energy of its electrical fury, but leaving the comforting sounds of the rain pattering on the roof. "Let's go to bed," Ferret said. "I need to feel you next to me."

  She turned her head slightly and kissed his arm. "Yes."

  There was less passion in their connection than there was clinging and stroking. Feeling her aliveness, the taut muscles and smooth skin, that was what he wanted more than sex. Eventually, the two of them reached a peak, after a long, slow rocking he wished would never end. More than anything, he wanted to keep her here, making love and being together. If he'd thought he could run and hide, he would have already been gone, hand in hand with Shar. But she would have to dance, somewhere, in front of some audience, and word would travel. If Gworn had found him once, he might find him again. That was no way to live, looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life. No, he would have to find his old friend and somehow settle what lay between them.

  Somehow.

  Fourteen

  THE MORNING SHOWED few traces of the night's rain; the sun bathed the kiosk in gentle light, and the air was only a little muggy. Ferret and Shar ate breakfast outside.

  "So you'll be going soon?" she said.

  He swallowed a mouthful of poached egg. "Yes. I'll call you, to keep you up to date."

  "Got time for a walk before you go? There's a lake a couple of klicks from here. It's lovely in the morning."

  "Sure." He didn't want to leave. Not ever.

  They finished eating, and stood. She smiled at him and said, "Let me wash my face and—oh!" He heard a sound like a taut string being plucked.

  Her smile fell, replaced by puzzlement.

  "Shar?"

  Her features went slack. "Oh. Willie, I—it's so cold…"

  She started to collapse. He grabbed her, but she was slack, almost boneless, and it was like trying to hold a sack of sand. He slowed her fail, and his hand scraped something sharp on her back. Quickly, he turned her, to see a spring dart sticking up from just under her left shoulder blade. The metal dart was fletched with a spiral of plastic, bright with a black stripe, stark against the white of her shirt. Red with a black stripe: poison.

  "Shar!"

  By the time he jerked the dart free and tossed it away, she was already going gray.

  She said, "Willie… I-I-love… you…"

  "Shar, it'll be all right. I'll get a medic!"

  He picked her up and started for the house.

  He could hear somebody moving through the bushes behind him, but he didn't pause. He ran into the house, put her down, and started punching the phone.

  It took a second for it to register that the unit was without power.

  The flitter! He would get her to a hospital!

  But when he looked at her, lying on the floor next to the phone, he knew it was too late. Frantically, he searched for a pulse. Nothing. He started CPR, breathing for her, pumping her heart with his hands on her chest.

  Time passed. He could not say how long. He stopped finally, when he was exhausted. It was obvious he was wasting his time. She was gone.

  Shar Li Vu Ndamase would dance no more in this life.

  Shock hit him, as if he had been slammed with a giant boot. He sat next to Shar, his mind stalled, body limp. She couldn't be dead. Couldn't be. He stared at her. What had happened?

  As through a dark haze, he remembered pulling the spring dart from her back. And, all of a piece, knew what had been done, and who was responsible.

  Gworn. Gworn had killed her.

  He was up, and the gun was in his hand, killing magic. He hit the door with one shoulder, breaking it from its hinges, and tumbled to the damp ground. He rolled up, screaming.

  "Gworn! Where are you, Gworn!"

  He ran into the brush, heedless of the branches that scratched him. "Goddamn you, Gworn!"

  Ten minutes of searching the brush gave him nothing. Gworn was gone.

  But he knew where.

  He put Shar's body into the bed they had shared the night before, covered it, and left a note next to her.

  It said, "The man who did this is Bennet Gworn. I have gone to find him." Then, using the name he hadn't called himself in fifteen years, he signed it, "Mwili Kalamu."

  The bracelet he had slipped onto his wrist on another world—another lifetime—gleamed in the room's light. He pulled the carved semiprecious stone from his arm and slid it over Shar's cold hand, take my last gift, my little dancer. I will miss you more than I can say.

  He went to the flitter. He found the tracker, stuck to the underside of the frame. Gworn hadn't had to follow him; he only had to follow the signal. He had led the man here himself. Stupid. Even though it was a rental, he should have checked. Ferret gave the kiosk one last look, then left. He knew exactly where he was going. Gworn would be at the spaceport. Waiting for him.

  Well. The time for talk was past. He would find Gworn, and he would kill him. No questions, no hesitation. Bennet Gworn, whatever his grievance, was a dead man.

  They were both dead men now, each in their own way.

  He had been in the main port two dozen times, as a laner and since. Jumping on- and offplanet, picking up friends of Shar's, seeing people off, the place was familiar. Gworn couldn't know it as well.

  He spotted laners, all new faces, but with the same look they all had. They saw him, and knew that he knew them for what they were. He stopped a kid of maybe nineteen. "Do you know Gworn?"

  "Piss off, Rickie," the kid said, sneering.

  Ferret grabbed the kid by the wrist, and dug a knuckle into a pressure point on the back of his hand. It was painful. From three meters away, he looked as if he were shaking the boy's hand in greeting.

  "Ow, shit, cut it, cut it!"

  Ferret eased up. "I don't have time to play games with you, laner. If you know Gworn, spill it!"

  "I don't know him! Straight shit, Rickie, I swear!"

  "He's death, kid. If I find out you lied to me, you're final chill with him, you copy that?"

  "Yeah, yeah, I hear you!"

  Ferret dropped the boy's hand and turned away. He stalked off, and did not look back. The boy would be afraid. Laners were always afraid, but Ferret had added more to it. He didn't care, it didn't matter.

  Nothing mattered.

  Where would Gworn be? Think! It's been more than ten years, but you knew him once. You know how he thought then. He might have changed, but you r
an together. Come on, Ferret, use your brain!

  He considered the layout of the port. The main terminal was multileveled, a major level, with three terraces above and two below. And the basement, where the air exchangers and power transmission bars were—

  The basement.

  It was that quick, and that certain. That's where Gworn was. He wants to kill me, and he'll want privacy for it. He'll know I'm coming.

  Ferret found an access door, and waited until somebody came out through it. Before the door could close, he had it. The man who had just exited said, "Hey, you can't do that!"

  "Yes, I can. You don't want to get involved in this, citizen."

  The man must have seen something in his face. He backed away warily. "Yeah. Right, I-I can see that."

  Ferret started into the access tunnel, the door closing softly behind him. Maybe the man would call security, maybe not. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. He was going to find Gworn. Find him and kill him.

  The basement walls were thick, to keep the droning of the machineries from reaching the passengers four floors above, but this close the sound was a constant thrum.

  He passed several dins, tending circuitry and mechanical devices, but they took no notice of him.

  Apparently the place was run by robots. Good.

  He wound his way down a narrow corridor, between stacks of thick pipes. Some of them were covered with a thin layer of frost; others were warm to the touch. The air stank of lube, and a musty odor, something like mushrooms.

  There were a lot of corridors, and few rooms walled off in the basement, but it was a big place. It might take days to search it properly. Fuck it.

  "Gworn! I'm here!"

  The yell was lost in the throb of machines.

  "Gworn! Where the fuck are you, you bastard!?"

  Only the whirring of metal blades, the hum of greased bearings, the whine of power, answered him. At first.

  Then: "I'm sorry about the girl," came the yell. "I wanted you to suffer. I went to see her dance, once.

  Too bad it had to be her."

  The voice seemed to come from his left. Ferret took the revolver from his pocket and circled that way.

  "You left me there, Ferret! Left me to the cools! I spent six years in a cage!"

  The voice was definitely just ahead. Ferret thumbed the hammer back on the gun. He moved faster.

  "You were my friend, Ferret! I loved you!"

  Gworn had moved by the time Ferret reached the place where he thought the voice was coming from. To the right, now. Yeah, I loved you, Benny. But that was then.

  "So you have to pay," Gworn yelled. "First your partner, then your woman. Are you suffering, Ferret? I want you to suffer, like I did!"

  Gworn was moving as he talked, away and to the right again. Ferret circled to cut him off. He nearly ran into a shielded fan belt. Better watch where he was going, or the basement would get him instead of Gworn.

  "I had six years to think about it, Ferret. You ran off and left me, and I learned to hate you above everything in the universe. I'm going to kill you a little at a time! I'll make it last, Ferret. I'm better than you, now. I’ve practiced with this spring gun for four years, almost every day! Your antique doesn't scare me! You still have it, don't you?"

  Ferret almost answered him, but caught himself. I won't talk to you, Gworn. You killed Shanti and you killed Shar, and I'm going to kill you. My face will be the last thing you ever see.

  "Ferret? Are you there? Or did you run away again? You're a coward. Ferret! But it doesn't matter if you run, because I will find you! I'm your shadow forever!"

  He was closer, Ferret knew. Just ahead was a row of holding tanks, shunting some kind of liquid back and forth, gurgling and vibrating. The tanks were tall enough to conceal a man.

  "Ferret! Goddammit, where the fuck are you?"

  Ferret rounded the end of the row of tanks. There Gworn was, back to him. Ferret lowered the revolver, so that the barrel pointed straight down. "Right here, Gworn," he said, his voice quiet against the background drone.

  The black man spun, dropping into a shooting crouch, shoving the spring gun out in front of himself. He was screaming something wordless, something primal and full of rage.

  Ferret's gun hand came up, as if it had a life of its own. He never took his gaze from Gworn's snarling face. Even the shot sounded quiet against the overlay of machine noise. Gworn's spring gun twanged, but the dart went high; Gworn was already falling from the impact of the bullet. He fell, and dropped the spring gun. It clattered and slid three meters away. He clutched at his chest with both hands.

  Ferret moved in, and stood over the prostrate man, staring down at him. Gworn was bleeding from around the edges of his hands, the fluid oozing bright red.

  "It… wasn't—wasn't supposed to be like this."

  "No," Ferret said.

  Gworn blinked, and tears streamed from the corners of his eyes back and into his ears. "I hate you. I—I used to—to… love you, Ferret. I truly did."

  "Yeah."

  "I'm dying."

  "Yeah."

  "Well, fuck you, Ferret! You—you hear?" He coughed, and his leaking blood increased its flow.

  Ferret looked at the bleeding man, then at the gun in his hand. Another killing. Everybody was dead or dying. He felt hollow, as if all his insides had been scooped out, leaving nothing but a thin shell, with no emotions, nothing but dull grayness, not even pain.

  "Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck—" Gworn stopped abruptly, as if the words had been measured and then cut with a razor-edged sword. His eyes rolled back and he let the last breath he would ever take escape in a bubbly moan.

  Dead, Ferret knew. Now they are all gone. The only three friends I ever had. And it's my fault. I betrayed one and that cost me the other two. Now there is nothing. I'm nobody, I have nobody. They are all dead. I should be dead, too.

  He raised the gun and stuck the end of the barrel under his chin. Just pull the trigger, Ferret. Make it six people you have killed. The mark, the cop, Shanti, Shar, Gworn and yourself. Go ahead, it'll be easy. A gentle squeeze, that's all it will take. It'll blast your damned head right off…

  He stood there for five minutes, though it seemed like only an instant. Then he lowered the gun. He couldn't do it. Gworn was right. He was a coward. He didn't have the guts to do it. He didn't deserve to live, but he was afraid to die. He was running again, just like he had done before.

  Like he had always done. Only this time, he couldn't outrun his pursuer. It wasn't his father and it wasn't Gworn, it was himself. He would never be fast enough to escape that follower, the shade of his own soul.

  No matter where he ran, no matter how far, it would be right next to him, whispering into his ear day or night, whenever he paused to listen: Right here, coward. I will always be right here.

  Forever and ever and ever…

  He looked at the gun again, and realized what a fatal attraction it had held for him. As if it were possessed of some magical lure, a Siren of polished steel and wood, calling to the killer in his soul. But no more. He tossed the weapon at Gworn's body. It hit the dead man on the leg, bounced onto the floor and slid ten centimeters.

  Gworn had given it to him, let Gworn have it back.

  Part of Ferret turned and walked away.

  Part of him would stay there in the basement.

  Forever.

  Fifteen

  So FERRET WAS rich, but almost everybody who had ever meant anything to him was dead. All the money in the galaxy couldn't buy them back for even a minute.

  There was nothing for him on Vishnu, and at least one corpse the cools would attribute to him. The gun next to Gworn was covered with his chemical and finger prints; he'd made no effort to wipe them away.

  He might make a case for self-defense, maybe even beat the illegal weapon charge, using some of his money-as-power, but it wasn't worth the effort. Nothing was worth the effort. Everything was down the tubes. He couldn't stand being on Vishnu for another day, an
other hour. He had to get away.

  He left his own ship and caught the first commercial liner leaving. He bought an open ticket, paid for it, and boarded. He didn't care where he was bound. It wasn't until they were half a dozen light-years away that he even bothered to ask what the next port of call was. Kalk, the steward had told him. In the Svare System.

  Ferret sat in his tiny cabin, staring at the walls. The cosmic finger had jammed itself up his ass again. His home world, the giant moon Cibule, orbited Kalk. Actually, they might be said to orbit each other, given the size and gravity ratio, no matter that they were called moons, but that didn't matter.

  It had been over fifteen years since he'd been on Cibule, and since it didn't matter where he was going, he figured he might as well be there as anywhere. Over the years, he had wondered about his parents.

  Well. Now was the time to find out what had happened to them. The finger was urging him that way, and he had no better plans. He had no plans at all.

  It was the only thought that even briefly stirred him from his depression, and then only with a dull curiosity. That was a measure of how he felt: the only destination he could think of now was a din-farm he had hated.

  He stayed in his cabin, he stared at the wall, he ate if he remembered it. The blanket of grief that covered him was of thick lead, and it was an effort to do anything. He sat bowed under the weight of it, and thought about Stoll and Shar and Gworn. He had fucked it up and they were all dead. It was all his fault and there was no way to repair it, no way to make it right.

  Nothing would ever be right again.

  Part Two

  The Siblings of the Shroud

  Recognition of one's ignorance is the first step toward enlightenment.

  -JINSOKU

  Sixteen

  THE EVERWEAR PLASTIC of the house belied its name—it looked worn; the green color of it had faded with the years and sunlight, and pieces of the topcoat had flaked away from the thicker base, giving the place a mottled appearance.