Sagittarius Whorl

by Julian May

  "You're a smart cop, Chief Superintendent."

  "And you're a crazy hotdogger. When you get on somebody's case, meshugeneh things happen. I remember Helly's Comet. I remember Cravat and Dagasatt. So you won't tell me what you want with Barky. But I happen to know that the guy's only claim to fame is a drunken boast that he once went to the Haluk Cluster and got back to tell the tale."

  "Bull's-eye." I refilled his empty wineglass.

  He eyed me with what might have been real concern. "You're not planning to go after Tregarth alone, are you? It wouldn't be wise. The old kocker didn't pick a dump like Phlegethon as a retirement haven. He's still on the job."

  There were people I might have asked to join me on the Barky Hunt: a smart young bodybuilder and an ex-ZP officer who'd started as hired hands and later became my friends; a small group of retired Rampart security agents recruited by Karl Nazarian to assist my semilegal campaign against Galapharma; even several private investigators I'd worked with during my Reversionist period. But Ivor Jenkins was far away in the Perseus Spur, operating his own gym on Seriphos, and Ildiko Szabo had taken over the wholesale flower business of her aging parents in Hungary. I'd lost touch with Karl's Over-the-Hill Gang during the long trial, and the Pi's were experienced in ferreting out capital chicanery, not crewing deep-space rumbles.

  Going after Barky Tregarth alone seemed a perfectly feasible option. Phlegethon would certainly cater to Joru traders as well as Y'tata, since both races lived in that sector of the galaxy. This fact had suggested to me a way I might visit the place under cover. I had no intention of telling Jake Silver about my scheme, however.

  "Thanks for the warning, Chief Super. Actually, I'm planning to muster my usual task force of space dreadnaughts and a brigade of commandos for the Barky bust. You can't afford to take chances with senile gunrunners."

  "Not Tregarth, you putz. His friends. I'm serious."

  "Y'tata pirates? Or are you talking about Carnelian's thugs? Or Sheltok's?"

  "All of the above—and maybe a wild card as well." He paused for an uncomfortable beat. "There might be funny business going on out there involving the Haluk."

  My jaw sagged. "Why didn't you say so before?" I demanded, none too politely. "You know you can set your own price."

  Jake winced. "I suppose I deserve that... But what I know, you can have for free. God knows it's little enough. A single report, about eighteen months ago, kept ex-database by special order of Xenoaffairs to avoid distressing our new blue trading partners. A patrol cruiser responded to an emergency call—the attempted hijack of a Sheltok trans-ack carrier in the Zone 3 section of Red Gap. The patrol captain claimed that they scanned four bandits during the attack. Three were typical Y'tata pirates. The fourth ship was a hell of a lot faster, with a slightly different fuel signature. It hung back during the firefight, then broke off and ran with the others. ZPV conformation scan of number four was futzed by weaponry EMI during the encounter, but the bandit wasn't human. Or Joru or Kalleyni, either. The fuel signature might have been Haluk."

  "In the Sagittarius Whorl? That's crazy! Too far from their Spur colonies, way beyond their lines of supply."

  Jake sawed away at the remains of the T-bone. "I heard about it from a half-drunk ZP Assistant Deputy Commissioner at a fuckin' cocktail party. We were discussing the Haluk expansion in the Perseus Spur. Their starships are all over Zone 23 now, scoping out potential colonies, trading with the Rampart worlds. Blueberry scouts have even been seen in the outer Orion Arm—and mere was this one anomalous spotting in the Sag, which might or might not have been Haluk."

  "It makes no sense. Why would they go there? And why throw in with Y'tata trans-ack nabbers? The Haluk don't need to steal ultraheavy elements. They sell them, for chris-sake. The notion's ridiculous on the face of it."

  "Right. Whole lotta ridiculous shit going down these days. I'm glad I'm just a simple desk cop who doesn't have to worry about such things."

  The waiter materialized. "Can I interest you gentlemen in our dessert menu?"

  "What d'you think, Jake?" I inquired. "This might be our last meal together for quite a spell."

  "Coffee and cognac," the Chief Super said. "I don't suppose you have any Ferrand Reserve Ancestrale?"

  "Of course. An excellent choice."

  "Two," I said.

  The waiter nodded and went away.

  "Figuring to get in one last lick before riding into the sunset?" I asked Jake sadly. The cognac was one of Earth's finest, and the price was cosmological.

  "I guess that's up to you, Helly. Serve me right if you shit-canned our friendship."

  "Problem with that, I haven't got very many. Friends, that is." And he hadn't really done me any harm by telling Macrodur about the Barky Hunt. Maybe just the opposite.

  "How about I pay for the Ferrand?" he suggested. "Peace offering."

  "Peace is good," I said.

  When the waiter returned with the cognac and coffee, we drank to it.

  I saw Jake off on the Yonge Street subway, which would whisk him to his home in German Mills in about fifteen minutes, then started down the Path to the Winter Garden Theater, a twenty-minute walk south of Carman's restaurant.

  The commuter rush had slackened a little now that the day-shift workers from the towers had left and those on the evening watch were settled in, but there were still throngs of pedestrians heading for downtown attractions: shopping, nightlife, amusement, fine dining, and most especially the innumerable watering holes where congenial companionship of one sex or another awaited trolling lonelies.

  I got onto a very crowded moving walkway. Many of its riders were striding along to enhance their groundspeed, but I stood still at the far right side, since I was in no particular hurry. I was jostled often and hard by impatient passers, but thought nothing of it until a particularly sharp jab insulted my left hip and made me grunt with pain. The guy who did it sped past without an apology. He was small and slightly built, wearing a bomber jacket and carrying a bulky portfolio of the type favored by commercial artists.

  I stepped off the conveyor at a Jolie Jacqueline lingerie shop, cursing mildly. My assailant had left the moving walkway ahead of me and was skipping nimbly across the mainstream of pedestrian traffic on the opposite side of the concourse. He disappeared into a corridor leading to the Bodascon Tower escalators.

  There was a small hole in the side of my anorak that looked almost like a stab from an icepick. The armored lining was visible and the edges of the hole seemed wet. What the hell had Bomber Jacket hit me with—a large pen or some other sharp artist's implement? Mellow with expensive alcohol and the heavy dinner, it never occurred to me that the poke hadn't been accidental. My survival instincts, which had been on red alert during the perils of the late Galapharma takeover, were rusty after nearly three years of disuse.

  I looked up at the opulent window display of silk and lace in Jolie Jacqueline. A thought came to me, a way to repay Jake's favor while simultaneously playing a mild practical joke to point up his treachery. I stepped into the shop.

  "May I be of assistance, m'sieu?" A saleswoman of a certain age, wearing a little black dress, approached me with an encouraging smile. Her name badge said annette. She did a very creditable French accent.

  I flicked off my intimidating privacy visor in a gesture of civility. "Would you please show me your very nicest nightgown and peignoir set? I'm not sure of the size, but I think I can eyeball it."

  "Of course. Let me bring you several choices."

  I followed Annette to a counter. The items she showed me were very pricey indeed. I selected an ensemble in cherry-red silk chiffon with lots of lace inserts, gave her my corporate EFT card, and consulted my phone dex for the home address of Chief Superintendent Jake Silver and his wife of twenty-eight years.

  "I'd like the package gift-wrapped and sent to Marie Warrener, 163 Linden Crescent, German Mills, Markham."

  "Certainly, m'sieu. Will there be an enclosure?"

  I took one of t
he tiny cards she offered and wrote, From your adoring Snuggle-Puppy, Jake.

  While Annette wrapped Marie's present, I wandered idly around the small shop, indulging a fantasy or two. There were no other customers in Jolie Jacqueline. The place had a boudoir decor with soft lights, gauzy hangings, discreetly semitransparent holograms of lovely ladies modeling sexy underthings, and a lot of gold-framed mirrors. In one of the angled ones I caught a close-up glimpse of my own back.

  Right at rump level, the Anonyme's outer fabric had been perforated twice more. Around each small hole was a dampish corona.

  I felt my throat tighten. Those earlier jostlings on the walkway had been less vigorous attempts to stab me. The wet spots suggested that Bomber Jacket had tried to inject me with an unknown substance, probably poison.

  Damn! Think, Hetty, think. Get your sozzled brain back in gear.

  A random attack by a psycho? It had been known to happen, even in beautiful cosmopolitan Toronto.

  Had Ram Mahtani traced me after all and taken out a contract on my life now that he had his money? Impossible. The time frame was too tight and the motive wasn't there.

  Had Jake Silver sold out my ass to somebody other than Stanislawski? No way. It made sense that Jake would nark on me to Macrodur in a manner that did me no particular harm. That he'd be an accessory to my murder was inconceivable.

  Think, Hetty, think.

  Bomber Jacket could have trailed me from the moment I left Rampart Tower. If he was a real pro, he could have ID'ed me easily through a body language analysis, in spite of the concealing Anonyme. Everybody has a distinctive walk, individual arm and head mannerisms. During my brief political fling the media had made countless holovids of me. My motion signature would be easily obtainable.

  So who genuinely wanted me dead?

  The minor villains in Galapharma had been neutralized long ago. If Gala's ex-CEO, Alistair Drummond, was still alive, he was certainly crazy enough to come after me out of revenge. But Bomber Jacket himself wasn't Drummond. My old nemesis was a tall Scotsman with a princely bearing, not a skittering runt. And why would Drummond have waited so long?

  The only others who had any motive for killing me shouldn't have known yet that I was an immediate threat to their galactopolitical ambitions. But maybe the Haluk had other reasons for wanting me out of the picture. The article in the Journal would have reminded them that I was now at leisure and once again in a position to cause them serious trouble in the Commonwealth Assembly.

  And if there were still Haluk demiclone agents in Galapharma's woodwork, they might have learned about Lorne Buchanan's transfer of incriminating data from the Concern's computer to that of Efrem Sontag.

  I let out an involuntary snarl of disgust. My night at the theater was a scrub. I'd have to get back to the safety of Rampart Tower as quickly as possible, then lie low until I could take off for the Sagittarius Whorl—

  "Is there another way I can be of assistance, m'sieu?"

  Annette had snuck up on me. "No thanks. I was just checking a rip in my jacket."

  I turned my visor back on and drifted to the door. Blank-faced, I carefully studied the crowd outside. There was no sign of Bomber Jacket. I exited the shop and walked a few meters away to put a solid wall at my back, then took out my phone and called Rampart Internal Security.

  "InSec. Duty Officer Callahan."

  "This is Asahel Frost, Sean. I need a squad to come and get me. I'm on the Path between Bodascon and Daimler Towers. Someone just tried to stab me. Three times. My jacket armor saved me."

  Sean Callahan stifled an exclamation. "I understand. I'll have bike patrol cops get to you immediately. Just activate your personal emergency beacon. Meanwhile, my situation team will take a hopper to Bodascon skyport and—"

  "No. I don't want Bodascon Security involved." The colossal aerospace Concern was a prominent member of the Haluk Consortium. "Or Toronto Public Safety, either. This has got to be kept quiet. Now listen carefully. Put three of your plainclothes people on the subway at Osgoode. Let them come up the loop from the south. I'll backtrack north on the Path and meet them at College Station."

  "The subway!" Callahan was incredulous. "It would really be safer If you remained right where you are, under police guard, and we flew in. If you don't want a touch at Bodascon skyport we could come via Daimler."

  "The hit man ran up into Bodascon. He could call for reinforcements from—" I shut my mouth. I hadn't seen any Haluk pedestrians for a long time, but their embassy was only a couple of blocks away. However, I didn't want to share my suspicion of the aliens with a low-level employee like Callahan.

  "Sir?"

  I said, "I think the perp is long gone. I'm safer moving with the crowd than standing still. The call is mine to make, Sean. Have your troops meet me at College Station. We can all take a nice slow taxi ride to Rampart Tower. Frost out."

  I started back the way I'd come, not using the moving walkway and staying near a wall whenever possible. There were only two short blocks to go. The crowds were thicker, but the hustle and bustle seemed entirely normal. I made it to the subway intersection without incident and turned east. Access to the transit station above was via an escalator. I got on a rising step just behind a young woman in a red coat who carried a Bergdorf shopping bag.

  We'd nearly reached the upper level when I felt a stinging sensation in my left calf. Almost instantly my body's voluntary muscles began to freeze. I felt myself toppling toward the woman. She made a dismayed noise.

  "Whoa! Easy there, Fred. We gotcha, ol' buddy."

  A man two steps below came up beside me and took hold of my arms to support me. Another guy joined him immediately. Stiff as a board from the injected paralytic, I felt small objects being shoved into each of my armpits. All of a sudden I wasn't falling anymore; I was floating.

  The faces of my assailants were unremarkable. The first wore a black leather car coat and blue jeans. The other had a brown fleece jacket over a business suit and carried a sport duffelbag on a shoulder strap, which must have concealed the injector. The pair worked together, one at my side and the other on the step below, clamping my upper arms firmly to my body and keeping a tight grip on my elbows. The anti-grav devices in my pits made manhandling me a snap.

  Boozy fumes wafted from somewhere. I presumed one of the goons had spritzed it onto me to enhance the charade of drunkenness. The woman in the red coat stared over her shoulder with ill-concealed disgust, and so did a few rub-beraeckers on the adjacent descending escalator. Thanks to the Anonyme, no one could see the twisted expression of fury on my face.

  "We'll take care of him," Black Leather told the woman glibly. "Not to worry. Sorry if he bumped into you."

  "Poor old Fred," Brown Fleece added. "He had a really bad day, y'know? Lost a major client, then tried to kill the pain with too many vodka martinis."

  The woman turned her back on us. Some of the other stair riders looked sympathetic.

  "You just take it easy, mate," Black Leather told me in a jovial voice. "Try not to throw up on these nice people. We'll get you safe to a taxi and home to beddy-bye."

  "What're drinking buddies for?" Brown Fleece chimed in. "You're gonna be okay, except for a helluva hangover tomorrow."

  I tried to speak. Couldn't produce more than a breathy croak.

  My cowboy-booted feet floated a centimeter off the ground as the escalator reached the subway station level. There were no Rampart Security personnel existing the standing train. Probably they'd be along on the next one, for all the good it would do me.

  I wafted between the pair of abductors like a human balloon. They steered me onto another escalator going up to the street, continuing their solicitous patter. I was just another upper-class lush being helped along by friends.

  Outside, we crossed Dundas Square. Pedestrians averted their eyes. A bike cop gave us the once-over, decided all was cool. We moved along the sidewalk, turned into a narrow lane amidst a row of small historic houses that huddled beneath a stubby busine
ss tower. The crowd thinned immediately and the streetlighting became less intense.

  A Mercedes limousine was parked illegally at the exit of an underground parking lot. Its doors opened as one of my captors zapped it with a remote control. They removed the lifting devices under my arms and eased me into a forward-facing seat in the capacious passenger section. Black Leather got in beside me. Brown Fleece tossed his duffel in front and slipped behind the wheel, leaving the sliding privacy panel open. The car doors shut.

  Fleece addressed the car navigator. "Enter Ottawa Highroad eastbound. Go to Express Lane Six. Go to Peterborough 122. Exit highroad northbound and revert to manual control."

  En route, said the car.

  We were off, circling around Ryerson Tower and hanging a right to the on-ramp of the highroad. A longish wait in line until it was our turn to accelerate—then up, up and away, thirty meters above the teeming city on an elevated twelve-lane ribbon, our limousine guided precisely into the far-left express lane where motorists in a hurry paid a premium toll to travel at speeds of 300 kph. Unfortunately, because of tonight's heavy volume of traffic, the express lane was limited to a mere 230 kph, while the five nonpremium east-bound lanes limped along at 170.

  Any hope I might have entertained that my kidnappers were human melted away when Leather said something to Fleece in the Haluk language. Fleece laughed—not human-style, but in the throttled-puppy mirth idiom of the blue aliens.

  Black Leather reached into the right sleeve of my Anonyme and flicked the switch. The visor blinked off and the security catch unlocked. He pushed off my hood and spoke to me in Standard English.

  "If you make a very strong effort, you'll be able to blink your eyes. I suggest you do it as often as possible to avoid desiccated corneas. You should voluntarily swallow your saliva, too, unless you enjoy drooling. The drug has no other unpleasant side effects. The rest of your autonomic nervous system should remain safely operational until we give you the antidote later." He smiled. "Much later."