"Very well," said Master Swimmer Sharptooth. He gave a whistling summons to his fellow handlers. "Tell us what to do."
From the Port Master's office, a ground search was set under way for Karuu and Edini. The Holdout's flight was the best admission of guilt that Commander Obray could ask for: two coded calls directed the waiting strike teams of agents, not to Lish's premises, but to the Dorleoni Holdout's businesses, where a major search-and-seizure operation began.
Captain Verana assumed command of planetary Customs, deploying her ground units in backup positions around the starport, and putting orbital forces on high alert. Bendinabi Air Control tracked the progress of the pirated Peryton freighter, and reported its approach to Avelar Island.
Hails to the pilot went unanswered.
"Shall we shoot it down, sir?" Verana asked.
"Not yet," replied Obray. He studied the massive freighter on a satellite monitor as it navigated northward at an altitude of 2,000 meters. Sensors showed no one aboard, which left only one way the freighter could be piloted in this manner....
Port Master Hevrik anticipated his thoughts. "If the Delos is drone-controlled, we can't cut her off over inhabited terrain. Look where she is." He stabbed a finger at the status board, tracking the ship's position. "We've got inhabited shelf and surface land all along her present path of travel."
Obray locked eyes with Hevrik, then nodded sharply. "Air Control," he reactivated the comlink. "Relay subspace data to me here, this com channel. I want frequency, point of origin— good. Keep it coming."
He punched a new number on Hevrik's console. "Systems Control," came the familiar voice.
"Commander Obray, Selmun-trio-four. I'm ordering a net scramble on this subspace channel, patching freq and origin through to you now." His fingers hit key sequences while he talked. "When rigger control is assumed, inform me this channel."
"Acknowledged. Dispatching now."
Obray turned to Hevrik. "Now we'll see how far that bastard gets."
XXXVII
Alia Lanzig sat on the waterfront dais with other speakers, waiting to extend greetings and welcome to the exhibitors gathered at Avelar Island. The crowd was restive. The spread of food and drink was a lot more appealing than speeches from politicos, and the Councilor planned to keep her talk brief.
The Trade Fair committee had chosen a site even wetdome-dwelling Councilors could enjoy. The lagoon beside the small-boat marina was the perfect setting for this crowd. Peaceful green waters lapped shady terraces, a pleasant spot for land- and water-dwellers alike.
Unfortunately, the idyllic setting did little to ease Councilor Lanzig, who was bothered by the energy screen unit Yavobo had insisted she wear to this gathering. She had omitted the ballistic mesh jacket, wearing only her quilted overtunic, like a guilty child hiding the body armor in a closet drawer so the alien would not notice it left in her room. The screen unit she grudgingly wore, certain that every eye noticed the small powerpack at her belt. Alia didn't want to appear paranoid, but with her bodyguard looming nearby she had little choice in the matter.
She made the best of things that she could, affixing a diplomat's smile to her face. Her eyes wandered the horizon, waiting for her turn at the podium, when she glimpsed an airborne dot moving through the offshore haze. The dot resolved itself into the surrealistically large framework of a Peryton-class freighter, and Councilor Lanzig smiled contentedly.
Soon the Free Ocean faction would be struggling to keep their shipping lanes open. They wouldn't have the leisure to grasp for new routes, new encroachments—
A round of ragged applause signaled her introduction. Alia stood and approached the rostrum, unable to take her eyes from the freighter, drawing steadily nearer. There was something strange about its arrival now, at this moment. It was early. Definitely early.
Distracted, Alia did not notice Yavobo hovering not far behind her. Nor did she notice the tall brunette with the zanned hair and the green semi-cellophane dress who stood amid terraced planters overlooking the reception area.
Yavobo did. He had been systematically scanning high places and sheltered places, then every face in the crowd, looking for her. Her wounds were not fatal, and he fully expected to see her here with a weapon in hand. Her threat about a time patch did not ring quite true, somehow, and though he hunted for one, it had been a cursory search at best. No. This keshun-cub would want a confrontation, would want eye-contact with her prey. He was sure of it.
And there she stood, almost at the limit of weapons range. The warrior straightened, cursed himself for not spotting her sooner.
It didn't matter to Reva. She saw him, unmistakable on the speakers' platform, never straying far from Lanzig's side. That's convenient, she thought. Stay close to her, and my job becomes a lot easier. Because for this one, special hit, I don't mind doing things the good old-fashioned way. Shaped charge, minimum bystander injury, and a very big bang. Right beneath your feet, asshole, a two-for-one special. No IDP at all, Yavobo. Fooled you.
She squelched her lingering nervousness, born of a promise to herself not to switch Timelines. There would be no shifting off
Mainline after this, no walking away in unnoticed shadows paralleling the present moment.
No problem, she thought. I'm good enough.
When he spotted her, their eyes met, and the small hairs at the back of her neck stood up. She had worn the dress for him, so there would be no mistaking her across the intervening distance. The alien should know without a doubt who it was who killed him.
Reva waved a hand casually. Yavobo whirled and started to move. In that moment, the assassin pushed the button of the detonator in her hand. The charge beneath the speakers' podium exploded in a gout of flame and plaspanel shreds.
She walked away through gathering crowds as she had so often before. This time the uproar behind her felt more compelling, the moment not buffered by her timesense as it carried her through safe Lines. She fought the urge to go back, inspect the damage, verify the kills.
Vidnews was fine for that. It would even give her a replay if she wanted.
XXXVIII
Most netrunners who worked for Internal Security were once criminals themselves. All had been smart enough to take the Emperor's reprieve and sign on to work for the Bugs for a while.
Obray's scramble team was no exception. The trio assembled at the junction where FlashMan had first paused to get his bearings: Captain Brace, a rated pilot with chip-enhanced flight reflexes; Zippo, a young datarunner up on decryption and interference protocols; Nomad, experienced in offensive and defensive countermeasures, netrunning in person on Selmun III. His dirtside location gave him nanoseconds of advantage in offensive combat. Their virtual selves were near-uniform, each a glowing blue wireframe figure, health and status readable at a glance by the condition and color of its frame. It was Security's standard Datacop representation, showing allies at a glance.
Zippo, with the rebellion of the young, threw in a program enhancement. His figure became a blocky raster image, squat and low, looking like a blue bulldog. "The better to hound our target," he quipped to Captain Brace's stern gaze.
Brace let the non-uniform look pass. For now-—"
"After you, Nomad."
The Nomad construct, taller and skinnier than the Captain, approached a data gateway. He tasted the flow of electrons, picked the stream coursing to the right subspace transmitter, and leapt into it, his substance melting into the torrent of data as soon as it touched. Zippo and the Captain followed.
They reassembled before a virtual door, closed and sealed with caulking around the edge. The door was a piece of program code intended to divert access from the subspace frequency it guarded.
Nomad motioned Zippo forward. While he interacted with the virtual reality of the Net matrix, his cybercircuits on another level analyzed the code, wrote a counter program, ran it in the satellite to unblock access. From Zippo's bulldog point of view, he sniffed, nosed the door, grew a wire lead from his paw t
hat probed the lock. "It's open now," he reported.
Nomad grabbed the latch and pushed.
A booby trap exploded with a bang and a cloud of virtual smoke. The bang did minor damage to Nomad, bleaching the blue on his wire-frame hand to a nearly green hue. The smoke was sucked past a keyboard and through the floor, down the tunnel of flickering light where subspace tied satellite to the Delos Varte below.
FlashMan raised up his lightning-pointed head, with its crown of leads and wires. Deep inside the neural jack in the ship's control panel, the acrid smell of smoke came to him, borne blitz-fast through the subspace channel from far overhead.
"Shit.'' He spoke so intensely the words echoed through speakers in the freighter's empty corridors. "Company."
XXXIX
Bystanders pulled Yavobo out of the blood-tinged waters of the lagoon. To their surprise the lanky alien was not only mostly intact, he was still breathing. The mesh armor under his water-insulating bodysuit had saved his life.
When medics arrived he was rushed into the autodoc in the care van. The missing fingers and half a foot could be regenerated; flesh wounds and burns would be repaired by medical machinery.
"You're very lucky, sir," a medic reassured him while pulling plaspanel shrapnel from his wounds. "You'll be fine in a day or so, and you should have those limbs back in a few weeks."
Yavobo heard nothing through burst eardrums. Although he fought the painkillers that lulled tortured limbs to sleep, he was too injured to resist the autodoc ministrations for long. The Aztrakhani fell into restless slumber and dreamed of vengeance.
Alia Lanzig was not so fortunate. A screen unit is worthless against the destructive kinetic energy of an explosion. Her end came so rapidly she never realized that simple fact, and never had second thoughts about the neglected wardrobe Yavobo had set out for her.
Vask saw the wave of Reva's hand, the explosion saw the tall woman turn and walk coolly away from the scene of destruction. He turned from shattered platform to vanishing assassin. For that was what she was, he suddenly realized. She was not another Holdout, in spite of her smuggler's stories. She was a killer, plain and simple, and deadly efficient at her job.
He followed with uncertain steps. Could he find out anything vital at the crime scene right now? No, not with the uproar that reigned there at the moment. He had caught the moment on his sound and vid cybersystems, anyway.
So why was he letting her stroll away?
It was shock that held his feet in place, shock as he reconciled the puzzle pieces he had picked up about Reva with the person she really was. This woman who had saved his life, who harbored a prickliness that seemed to cover a strange sensitivity—she was all this, and a ruthless killer, too.
The pieces fit. Her skill at kria hunting. Her fight with Yavobo, who could probably have slain most other opponents out of hand. Her knowledge of time patches, and other things hinted, not said....
Something tugged at the back of his mind, snippets of briefings and a criminal profile he'd read a few months before. Something that reminded him of Reva.
He let the assassin go, and took himself to a secluded corner where he could cease the distracting drain of using his blindspot ability. Sitting in the shade of a tree fern, he relaxed, head in hands, and rolled back mental pictures of briefings, reports, ready-room bull sessions. . ..
There, it came in bits and pieces. His mnemonic disciplines served him well, offering up the scattered segments he had not put together in any kind of association. Until now.
There have been a series of assassinations, Killer unknown. Perpetrator does not show up on surveillance sensors, and leaves no psi trace. High-tech devices are used to commit the murders: lDPs, coolsuit turbochargers, lethal bio-injection. Death is usually made to appear accidental. Victims are political figures or related to organized crime—assassinations that fit this pattern have been identified as far back as four years, with a high likelihood of sharing same perpetrator. ... No leads. If you find suspect matching this profile, contact Calyx IntSec HQ, Special Investigator Kye. . . .
A chill went over Vask. Reva left no psitrace. Used high-tech devices. Had just killed a political figure.
Vent the contraband investigation. That didn't matter anymore. If she was the mystery assassin, half the Ministry of Internal Security believed she didn't exist, and the other half believed she was impossible to catch.
Suddenly Vask was very anxious to uplink his video log to Systems Control, and review the results on his comp.
He fidgeted, hoping to catch the next tube train, and then gave up the lengthy wait. He grabbed an air cab instead. If he was on the case he thought he was, he could easily justify the expense later.
XL
Ground crew emerged from a subterranean power bay near the Savu. The gargantuan freighter was inert on the pad, her Captain in heated exchange with a Security agent on the ground.
The techs approached the deck gantry and the Security man who stood there.
"Pardon me, sir," one said. "We're here to pull the batteries."
Agent Jorris turned angrily toward this new problem. "What's that? Batteries?"
"Yes, sir. Port Master said pull the power to the ignition circuits so they can't lift out of here. He wants this ship grounded."
"Batteries. Right." Jorris stabbed a finger at Natic. "See, Captain? No need for you to stick around. You can come back with me, now."
"Oh, no!" the ground tech spoke quickly. "We need the Captain to help us."
"Help you? Why?"
"She needs to override the phase lockout," the tech said matter-of-factly, "and maintain pulse alignment from engineering when we pull the tachyon leads."
It was only technobabble, but Jorris was no spacefarer, and hardly knew a warp coil from a vacc patch. He scowled. "Go ahead, then. As soon as this ship is grounded, you're with me, Captain."
Natic boarded the deck elevator with the ground-crew-that-was-not. Workers came aboard the broad-floored lift, pushing a gravsled, carrying lead extractors. Two muscled a heavy cable box along. One lifted power couplings off the last gravsled, then fumbled his load and spilled the equipment at Agent Jorris' feet.
The diversion nearly served to keep all eyes from the rest of the crew—but not quite. One of the Port guards watched idly, noted the fat man struggling with the cable box. Something about his movement was familiar.. ..
The guard normally worked the terminal, and knew the Customs Chief on sight. "That's Edini!" he shouted, and pulled his blaster.
Edinin dropped his end of the cable box, jarring Daribi's grip, leaving Karuu to spill out ingloriously onto the ground. The Chief dashed for the elevator, fishing for the blaster concealed inside a cargo pocket of his coveralls.
Startled by the shouts, his men abandoned him. One punched the lift button, and the heavy cargo doors swung ever so slowly shut. Blaster fire assailed their position; men snatched weapons concealed on the gravsled, and returned fire while Captain Natic dove for cover. Edini stumbled, then dove to the ground, taken down by one of Agent Jorris' well-aimed blaster bolts.
Karuu sprawled on the plascrete, ionizing charges crackling through the air over his head. Now, this was a diversion. The Dorleoni bounced to his feet.
"Come on, Boss!" Daribi said, running back the way they had come. He shouldered into Jorris, sending the Security man staggering to the ground. Of one accord, Islander and Holdout jumped
into the waiting skimmer. Daribi punched the power, and the speeder shot off across the pad.
Wild blaster fire followed them about the same time a concussion grenade detonated inside the elevator cage. "Edini's dead," Jorris reported to Commander Obray. "Karuu and one accomplice fleeing eastward across the field in stolen skimmer."
Security forces rushed to intercept.
Karuu ducked down in the seat, the wind of their passage ruffling his body fur unpleasantly. He risked a peek forward, saw the woven mesh of the starport perimeter fence rushing toward them.
"
We can not push through that," he squeaked.
"Not going to."
A blaster bolt from pursuing skimmers crackled through the air, range too long yet to be a hazard. Overhead a Customs patrol ship began a rapid downward spiral, anticipating their heading and closing on it.
"What are you doing?"
"Hang on!" The skimmer gave a leap, angled sharply upward, and rocketed for the top of the ten-meter-tall retaining fence.
A skimmer is a ground effect vehicle, but speed, momentum, and a sharp-enough angular adjustment could make it airborne. Not long, not far, but just enough to count.
They cleared the perimeter fence by so little, Karuu thought he felt gravpads scrape the top. They plunged to the ground on the other side and continued their high-speed run to the sea beyond.
The Dorleoni felt faint. "What now?" he choked out.
A crash came from the fence behind, a pursuer either trying their trick or failing to swerve aside quickly enough. The derevin chief didn't look back. The Customs flitter was closing overhead, and the edge of Bendinabi Field lay before them.
"Get ready to jump, Boss."
"What!"
"Jump. See that?"
Karuu peered forward, saw the sea cliff approaching, and slammed his eyes shut. "Edge."
"Water's deep below, we'll be alright."
Their intention to go over the cliff was apparent to the Customs ship. The vessel settled down, trying to block their route and force them to turn aside.
"Are you crazy?" squalled Karuu. "You are trying to kill us!"
Daribi shook his mane of wind-whipped hair. "I'm trying to save us. Get ready." He locked the throttle and, steering with one hand, began to pull his feet up onto the seat.
"Don't worry. You can swim." Daribi continued straight ahead, not swerving or turning aside from the Customs flitter. It loomed suddenly large before them.
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