“Alice, why don’t you exit first and have a look around? We’re going to need three airlock cycles to get everyone down.”
“Yes, sir!”
I hurried back to the shuttle’s airlock, with Emla at my heels. Along the way I started up the tiny lift field generators in my hair. It floated up into a cloud of black silk around my head, and then settled as each strand found its way to its assigned place in the fancy hairstyle I’d picked. It was supposed to look artlessly tousled, but it was the kind of ‘artless’ that normally takes a whole afternoon with a professional stylist to achieve.
Thanks, Mom. That one was a good choice.
I stepped into the airlock with Emla, and waited for it to cycle. Taragi’s atmosphere wasn’t breathable, of course. All particulates had long since settled out of that vast ocean, leaving nothing but water and a few traces of dissolved elements. There would never be life here, unless someone wanted to spend huge amounts of money on a terraforming project. But lack of oxygen wasn’t going to be an issue for anyone in this party.
The airlock finished cycling, and the lift field activated. We floated in zero gravity for a moment while the hatch below us opened, and then a wall of sound hit us. We floated gently down onto the landing pad, surrounded by roaring chaos.
“Wow. Check it out!” Emla exclaimed, rushing over to the edge of the pad.
The dome of the Speedy Exit’s deflector shield would have been obvious even without my field sense, thanks to the heavy sheets of horizontal rain that were bouncing off of it. The roar of wind and the crash of waves filled my ears, making it hard to talk, so I opened a com channel as I strolled up to the edge of the field next to Emla. From there I could see huge waves crashing against the side of the habitat, sending water spraying so high some of it bounced off the shield.
Ash adjusted his perch on my shoulder, and looked around intently.
Neat, I sent. So that’s an ocean. I’ve never seen one before.
Me neither. I wonder what it would be like to swim in that? I’ve got an aquatic mode, you know.
No! Danger! Ash protested.
I think you’d better practice when there isn’t a storm raging first, I agreed.
I peered through the gloom, picking out more details. There were empty landing pads to either side of the one we were on, and beyond that Emla’s radar picked up the smooth curve of the habitat’s hull extending for kilometers in either direction. There was a subtle vibration in the deck from the impact of the waves, but the city was so big it didn’t rock at all.
I smiled.
What is it? Emla asked.
Just a random thought, I replied. I’m not even sure how to put it into words. It’s like, the universe is a wild and untamed place, but that’s okay.
I reconfigured my field, and stepped through the barrier. Ash wrapped his tail around my neck and crouched low, disconcerted and upset. But he needn’t have worried. The wind swirled around me like a curious animal, trying and failing to sweep me off my feet. The rain didn’t even get that close, as I swatted away each drop that tried to touch me.
I spread my arms, and took a deep breath of Taragi’s exotic atmosphere. It was mostly water vapor, at nearly thirty kilopascals of pressure.
Once we lived at the mercy of the elements, but humanity has long since grown up. All this wild beauty is ours now.
Emla’s eyes gleamed in the dim glow of the habitat’s running lights.
I like that, she said. You deserve to have the whole galaxy at your feet, Alice. Only, I think the Masu-kai would get snippy if you started with Taragi.
I stepped back inside the deflector dome, and put my arm around her. Silly. I was talking about Man’s conquest of Nature, not a military campaign to conquer the galaxy. Although that does sound like fun.
Captain Sokol and Naoko debarked from the ship, and looked around. The captain was as imperturbable as ever, decked out in a formal suit that could double as either a spacesuit or light body armor. Naoko clung to him nervously, glancing around at the storm with more than a bit of concern.
She’s kind of a scaredy cat, isn’t she? Emla said.
She was designed not to handle being outdoors very well. Before Strange Loop Sleuth fixed her just looking at the storm would have crashed her visual processing.
So? Same here, but you don’t see me hiding behind my human.
Well, then I guess you get credit for being really brave, Emla. Well done.
She beamed at me. Thank you, Alice! I’m trying really hard. Oh, but I guess I’d better start doing the bodyguard thing now.
Chief West dropped out of the ship, in the bulky humanoid body he was wearing for this visit. It was inorganic, and so obviously armed and armored that he’d probably be mistaken for a security bot if not for his ID code. At first glance he looked a lot tougher than Emla, who was wearing a sleek suit of light-duty armor designed as much for looks as functionality. The pistol at her hip and micro-missile pack on her back didn’t look like much compared to his big rifle either, but I wasn’t sure which way I’d bet if they had a fight. Chief West had experience on his side, but the specs on Emla’s new body were pretty impressive.
Captain Sokol looked around, nodded, and set off for the big hatch in the side of the habitat. Naoko fell in beside him, while Chief West took up station two steps behind and to his left. I followed, and Emla took up a similar spot behind me and to my right.
Are you sure you want me to hold on to that special package, Alice? She sent.
It was tempting to take possession of the little capsule I’d liberated from the ship’s stores, but it would have been a bad idea. Using it would draw way more attention than I wanted, and I wasn’t sure my sensor baffling would hide it. Emla’s whole body was made of high-density armor and shielding, and her distributed radioactive decay battery would easily provide enough camouflage to hide a few grams of tritium.
Yes, it’s better if you keep it for now. I’ll tell you if I need it.
The armored hatch opened for us, although there was a manipulator field across the opening to keep the air inside from mixing with the atmosphere outside. It felt like stepping through an invisible wall of jelly a couple of cems thick. I ignored the weird sensation, and followed the captain into the hall on the other side.
Eight big humanoid mechs stood along the walls of the room, each of them a good four meters tall. They were powered up, and armed with enough heavy plasma weapons and masers to make me nervous, but they ignored us completely. Was that because we were expected?
No, they were probably there to keep troublemakers from escaping. There weren’t enough of them to fight off a marine landing force, but keeping a visitor or two from getting back to their ship was another story.
Well, there was no point in worrying about it.
We passed through another armored hatch, while security sensors discretely examined us all. Then there was a long hallway with branches leading off to other landing pads, and a deserted room with yet another armored hatch on the far side. That one turned out to be a meter thick, and it took a long time to open for us. From there a short passage let to an open space lit by bright sunlight.
My first impression was that this den of iniquity looked a lot nicer than I’d expected. We’d come out in a broad plaza that was designed to feel like it was outdoors, with a holographic sky hiding the ceiling high above our heads. A scattering of trees with brightly colored birds in them added to the impression, and the warm breeze carried scents of tropical forest and island beaches. Artificial scents to go with the artificial sky, but both were good enough to fool human senses.
Tastefully decorated businesses lined the sides of the plaza. There were open-air cafes where smiling catgirls in short skirts served tea and coffee with little snack cakes. Little shops had discreet signs advertising personalized services, from custom tailoring to VR world design. A traditional-looking dojo advertised training in martial arts and swordsmanship. At first glance it seemed like a really nice place.
Even the people looked perfectly respectable. Lots of short dark-haired men in old-fashioned suits hurrying about on business, and women in modest dresses shopping at the stores. There were a lot of androids in evidence too. Inugami bodyguards in sleek suits of light body armor who shadowed some of the businessmen. Cute little catgirls in colorful dresses who accompanied the women, or scurried about on errands of their own. Even a few fox morphs, men and women both, looking like they’d stepped out of the office to run a few errands.
It was strange how comfortable it felt. This was obviously the kind of rigidly stratified society where everyone had their place, and didn’t dare step out of it. But it wasn’t like Takeo Station, where the humans were so high and mighty they didn’t deign to walk down the same street as the lowly androids. Here a foxgirl on her lunch break might hurry to step aside so a man with a bodyguard at his side could pass, but he’d nod politely to her as he did.
I marveled at the strangeness for half a block. Maybe these people weren’t as bad as I’d thought?
There were hints of darkness beneath the facade, though.
We passed the entrance to a place called the Renair School of Infiltration and Assassination, with a sign showing a young girl casually balancing a knife point-first on her finger. Following the ER tag to their datanet site revealed that they specialized in human students, and they were exactly what they looked like. I was sure I ought to be horrified by that, but browsing their curriculum made me kind of jealous. Classes in poisoning and demolition sounded a lot more interesting than anything I’d learned on Felicity.
There were little shops that sold customized weapons and armor, which sounded odd until I realized their real service must be helping you pick the right tool for the occasion. Right next to it was a place that sold specialized nanotoxins, capable of doing much worse things to a target than just killing them. That was a little icky.
Then we passed a ‘taxidermy’ shop, and I realized that it wasn’t in the business of selling stuffed animals. Their datanet site went into horrifying detail about how they could preserve your enemies in a state of perpetual torment forever. Just cut their heads off, paralyze them and attach them to a little wall-mounted life support unit. Or transplant their brain into a cybernetic appliance that let them feel their surroundings but not move. They had mannequins, furniture, ash trays, toilets…
I stopped looking with a shudder. What kind of sicko would do something like that?
After that I stopped looking at the datanet sites. Just admire the pretty sakura trees, Alice. Check out the fish in the decorative ponds. Don’t ask questions when you can’t do anything about the answers. Stealing that guy’s customer list so you can hunt them all down and murder them isn’t something you can get away with.
Yet.
Our path took us across several meandering blocks of shops and small businesses, until we reached another plaza. This one was mostly empty, with just a few guys in suits hurrying back and forth. On the other side steps rose to a huge entryway guarded by a platoon of heavy warbots. A guy in a black suit and dark sunglasses met us just outside, and asked us our business.
“Ah, yes. You are expected, Captain Sokol, Miss Long. This way, please.”
He turned to lead us into the palace, and a pair of armored inugami fell in behind us. Idly, I wondered how many of the combative dog girls there were in this habitat. There didn’t seem to be any official numbers on the datanet, but judging from the size of the place the civilian population had to be well into the millions. So, tens of thousands of them at the least. Probably hundreds, considering how much violence the Masu-kai got up to. There must be whole sub-levels full of them somewhere in the guts of the city.
So why was one of them familiar?
I opened a private com channel. Captain? The inugami behind me is one of the ones who tried to grab Naoko.
There was a long pause before he answered.
Are you certain, Alice? They make numerous copies of each appearance template, so resemblances are to be expected.
A human would have had an ID transponder to confirm their identity, but the inugami were all carefully anonymous in the electronic realm. They didn’t even have ER tags. But they couldn’t fool me.
I see a lot of fine detail that would be different even for androids fabbed from the same template, sir, I told him. Things like the exact length of every hair on her head, and the wear patterns from the way she brushes it. Either it’s the same inugami, or someone went to a lot of trouble to make a perfect duplicate.
A message, then, he decided. The Masu-kai are fond of that sort of thing, although often they’re so subtle that the point is entirely missed by the intended recipient. I suggest you simply ignore her for now.
Understood, sir.
The palace they led us through was as overblown as anything I’d ever seen in a vidshow. There were endless hallways full of trophies, fancy artwork and ancient furniture that was probably carved by hand by some clan of traditional artisan monks. There were suits of gold-plated armor in designs that went out of use three hundred years ago, and equally ancient weapons hung on the walls. And swords. Lots and lots of swords. Someone definitely had a thing for edged weapons.
The audience hall our escort finally led us to was stupidly huge. The floor was made from little planks of dead wood that looked like they’d been fitted together by hand, and the walls were covered with hand-painted murals. Banners with the devices of the twelve branches of the Masu-kai hung from the high ceiling, which was made up to look like it was supported by wooden beams. Fake windows along the sides of the hall let in sunlight, and showed holographic images of lushly forested mountains.
We had to hike almost a hundred meters to get from the doorway to the raised dais where the oyabun sat, in a big wooden chair that was obviously meant to look like a throne. There was a whole platoon of inugami guards in the room, and nearly a hundred people just standing around watching us go by. As we approached I saw that the floor of the dais was covered with tatami mats, and all of the people up there were wearing slippers instead of proper shoes.
Geez, these people were really in love with their past, weren’t they? Maybe I should look into that when I had time.
The guy in the throne, who my ER tags said was named Saburo Himura, looked even older than Dusty. His face was all wrinkled, and his hair had all turned white. Honestly, he looked like we should be rushing him down to medical for an emergency anti-aging treatment. Why would anyone let themselves go like that?
Standing next to the throne was a boy who looked just a couple of years older than me, who the ER system labeled Akio Himura. A grandson? No, it said Akio was Saburo’s son, and he really was sixteen. Wow. I hope Saburo got that done the artificial way, or I was really going to feel sorry for the mother.
I copied the captain, and bowed when we reached the foot of the dais. That was harder than I expected for some reason. Some instinct was screaming at me that I was bowing way too deep for a mere yakuza boss.
Thanks, Mom. Like I really needed social instincts that think I’m some kind of major nobility. Only, maybe there was a reason for that. Had mom been someone important, wherever she came from? That could mean something, if I could ever figure out what colony that was.
“Dan Sokol,” the old man said. “It’s been a long time since you came to Taragi. I believe your last visit was forty years ago, after that affair with the Soba.”
“A simple merchant rarely has cause to walk the halls of power, Lord Himura” Captain Sokol said blandly.
“A simple merchant? Hah! Is that what you’re telling people these days? I suppose Vicky has forgotten all about you as well?”
“We haven’t spoken in some decades, actually. I’m afraid we had a bit of a falling out over my desire to remain… out of the spotlight.”
“She’ll never understand,” the oyabun said. “That woman lives for attention. But enough about old times. What brings you here today?”
“I’m afraid t
here’s been some sort of misunderstanding with some of your men, and I was hoping to clear things up.”
The old man’s brow furrowed. “Misunderstanding? What, has Riku been getting greedy with the smuggling tariffs?”
“It’s a bit less straightforward than that. You see, a few months ago Lord Ishida offered up one of his companions as stakes in a game of cards, and the luck was with me that evening. He seemed composed enough regarding his loss, so at the time I assumed it was no great matter. But then a group of inugami caught her alone on Felicity, and tried to kidnap her.”
“It’s not like Riku to go back on a debt,” Saburo mused.
“Indeed, that was my thought as well. I sought counsel with certain experts of my acquaintance, who inform me that the ladies in question were likely of Lord Yamashida’s group. But this only increased my perplexity. I wondered if the companion had witnessed some matter best kept private, but she insists this is not the case.”
“This still seems a matter that could have been resolved through more subtle channels,” the oyabun pointed out.
The captain sighed. “Unfortunately that was not the only incident. A few stops later, an ill-informed pirate captain was induced to ambush my ship on the way out of Zanfeld.”
The oyabun’s frown deepened. “Zanfeld is in Jiro’s territory.”
“You perceive the source of my confusion. One of my passengers turned out to be an expertly camouflaged saboteur as well, and his bots were prepared to spring into action at the moment of the attack. There was considerable damage done to my ship, and young Alice here was very nearly killed in the fighting.”
Saburo’s lips tightened in anger. “How barbaric. Have you come to seek recompense from the Masu-kai, Miss Long?”
Focus, Alice. Forget about being nervous. You’re an elegant young lady. Smart, smooth and sophisticated. You can do this.
“No, my lord. I killed Mr. Desh in the end, so that seems equitable enough. But I’d like to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. I can’t imagine what I could have done to earn the disapproval of the Masu-kai, so I’m hoping that it’s just a misunderstanding.”
Perilous Waif (Alice Long Book 1) Page 32