Mainline

by Deborah Christian

  Yavobo smiled in turn. Kill Lish? Friend to the honorless thin-skin, and purveyor of disreputable weapons—thus honorless herself? His wicked canines gleamed in the light.

  "It will be a pleasure," he said.

  LXXIX

  Farewells had been said. It was time for the Fortune to lift for Tion.

  Devin made himself comfortable in the Captain's chair. He pulled a neural interface cable from the linkbox, slotting it into the rigger implant concealed spacer fashion at the base of his skull. With a physical touch, he activated key systems on the console before him. Ship's units came alive, computers and AIflashing online, a cybernetwork linking them all. Each function blended with Shiran's perceptions, his consciousness becoming brain to the electronic body surging to life about him.

  Instrument readouts offered intuitive knowledge, data absorbed without the effort of thought. Mechanical impulses were recast into reflexes that twitched Devin's fingertips; sensors and monitoring systems extended the man's senses until the cycling of air pumps felt like the rushing of oxygen in and out of his own lungs. The sensor image of the landing field and nearby airspace became a spectral overlay to his vision, a picture that a squint could bring into surreal existence and instinctive comprehension.

  The spacer smiled happily. Wrapped in the consciousness of his ship, he became in part the ship itself.

  Mershon-class freighters could be piloted by physical controls alone. But for this, the virgin flight of his first owned command, Devin wanted to experience every nuance of the Fortune's travel. The cybersystem linked Captain to vessel in an intimate embrace, allowing him to make sure all was well as newly repaired systems were engaged and flight-stressed for the first time.

  In the primary drive unit aft, Zay was jacked into the power rigger position in Engineering. "Systems online and flight-ready," she responded to the Captain's spoken query. Zay shared a limited analog of Devin's perception: a realm of batteries and generators, the controlled reactions of irradiated power crystals that would break the bonds of gravity and hurl the vessel through space. She settled into her position and awaited the command to lift.

  Next to Devin, Sergeant Eklun sat in the navigator's seat before sensor arrays, comconsole, environmental settings. His was an unrigged position. The former Imperial Marine needed only to handle physical settings on controls, and be ready to serve as gunner or troubleshooter should difficulties arise on their voyage.

  "Nav systems online," Eklun reported. "Sensors online. Pad cleared. All secure and ready to lift."

  The Captain acknowledged the routine checklist with a nod. "Prepare to lift."

  On his command, Zay upped output on the repulsor pads. The Fortune rose from Akatnu Field and climbed into the clouds high overhead. There was a slight physical jarring, and the tug of acceleration vanished as gravplates and inertial compensators engaged.

  "Fortune, you are clear for transition," said Selmun Traffic.

  "Aye, Traffic. Transitioning now."

  Zay nudged the maneuver function of the freighter's engines. The Calyx-Primes came alive and the ship abruptly changed her path of travel, from repulsor-driven lift to forward-powered thrust. The vessel shot skyward in an ascending arc that would place her in the orbital traffic pattern.

  Devin rested his hands gently on the flight controls. When piloting rigged, manual guidance was not needed, but he found the grip reassuring. He concentrated on the freighter's ascent, shadowing her modest in-flight maneuvers with small, practiced movements of his hands.

  The waterworld shrank into a green-blue globe beneath them, and Shiran Devin smiled contentedly as he ushered his ship into space.

  LXXX

  Reva found Vask in the kitchen, joking with two Skiffjammers come in for a late lunch.

  "Hey, Fixer," she called out. "You want to do some work for me?"

  For all the angling he'd done, nothing yet had persuaded the assassin to spend time with him, professionally or otherwise. The unexpected invitation left him looking exactly like a Fixer who had finally landed a long-coveted job.

  He left the street muscle and followed Reva toward the door. "What's up?"

  "I need a weapon or two," she said. "Something special. I'll tell you about it on the way." She palmed the door and the pair walked to the air car reserved for her use.

  She had changed clothes, once more wearing the nondescript gray bodysuit, with hair more black than brown. Her nails remained scarlet, though, and the restless, haunted mien was gone from her face. Now the assassin wore a look of serious determination. It was the concentrated focus, had Kastlin but known it, that Reva assumed before doing a hit.

  This time there was no hit planned, but something every bit as consuming of self: keeping Lish alive until the ocean meet with Edesz was complete. The break with Adahn could be worried over at a later time. For now Harric's intent to have the smuggler killed presented a tactical problem, clear and simple.

  It was a problem Reva didn't plan on discussing with Lish.

  She put the air car in flight mode and headed toward Amasl. Kastlin looked a question toward her, wondering why the haste. She was too lost in thought to notice.

  I told her I'd get an extra week, Reva argued logic with herself. How can I say I failed? If what I tell her isn't believable she'll lose confidence in me.

  It was clear the Holdout had only agreed to leave R'debh for a time because of Reva's expertise in these matters. If she doubted, if she wanted to quibble with the best way to handle things, she'd end up dead.

  Keeping her in ignorance of her continued danger was a calculated risk, but Reva knew she'd been chosen for the initial hit contract partly because she was already on Selmun III. Adahn would bring in outside talent to finish this job, she was certain of it: he wouldn't let Lish go, nor would he do the hit with locals. He never did.

  That gives us some time, Reva thought, before she's a target again.

  "So, are you going to tell me about it?" Kastlin interrupted her thoughts.

  "Tell you—?" Reva switched mental gears to talk with the Fixer. "Oh. Weapons. I want a few more weapons, besides the blade I carry. Maybe you can make some suggestions."

  "I'll try. What are your needs?"

  Reva tapped long-nailed fingers on the steering yoke. She didn't like to carry too much equipment; she who could step between Lines to do a hit rarely needed more than the element of surprise and her bare hands to effect a death. Protecting someone, though—that was different. She might be called upon to fight with little advance warning, and no time to maneuver.

  "I need something small, concealable—if someone looks at me, I don't want it obvious that I'm armed, even if I'm ready to attack. Maybe something that acts like a missile weapon at short range, so I can strike without having to close in." Security mechs and the right kind of perimeter alarms could warn of approaching dangers; it was the unexpected appearing suddenly in or near arm's reach that she was concerned about. Of all people, she knew best how deadly such close-range attack could be.

  "Multiple-shot or single-use?" the Fixer asked.

  Reva shrugged. "A mix of both, maybe? I don't expect to have a firefight. I want the element of surprise, and I want a second shot in case the first one isn't enough."

  "How about a gun implant?" he suggested.

  Reva wrinkled her nose in dislike. "No cyberweapons," she said. "I'm not rigged, and I don't want to be. Implants are out."

  "That's harder, then." Vask thought a while longer. "Would you consider a flechette plate?"

  Reva knew a lot of techno-trivia, but that one was new to her. "What's that?" she asked.

  "It's a finger-wide plate, articulated in three pieces, surgically attached to the inside of your middle finger." He pointed to his middle digit on the side next to the index finger. "It can be installed outside the skin, or subdermally. Either way, it's hard to notice until you use it."

  "How's it work?"

  "When you straighten your first two fingers together and tense the muscles,
the plate segments lock in place, making one straight unit. Then, when you bend the index finger downward, the flechette is fired."

  "Through the skin? Ouch."

  "Yeah, if it's internal, it will cut you, but it's nothing more than a small knife slice. Externally mounted, you wouldn't notice anything. Fires up to three flechettes, one at a time as you flex the index finger."

  That had possibilities. "Range and damage?" Reva asked.

  "Accurate to four or five meters. Damage—well, that depends on how you aim. The blades have a monomolecular edge, so they're deadly sharp. They carry a microcharge that detonates when forward momentum stops. Does about twice the damage of a standard projectile from a needle gun. Same principle, really: a good hit in a vital organ will kill or at least drop your target right there."

  "Interesting. That's not a cyberimplant, is it?"

  "Not in its basic model. Anchors to bone. It's activated by tendons and powered by a bio-electric feed."

  "Don't like that," grunted the assassin. There would be no leads and wires leeching energy from her nervous system, whether they were intelligent implants or otherwise. "Can you get one powered by a battery?"

  "I suppose, yeah, a milli-erg button could be used. It would probably be nested at the base of your middle finger."

  "Sounds good, then. Get me one of those."

  The domes of Amasl's harbor complex were coming into sight; she engaged the navlock that would integrate them into the city's air traffic pattern, and lead to public parking near the skiff marina. That task done, she took her attention off piloting, and came back to the question of weaponry.

  "Between flechette plate and knife I'd have two tools that cut through a personal energy screen but are hindered by armor. How about an energy weapon that'll pierce armor? Something small, like a holdout gun?"

  Vask brightened. "I know just the thing. What about a Sun-dragon?"

  Sundragon, Sundragon ... the assassin tried to place the name, something heard once on a Lyndir vert for private protection— the image came to mind, and she shared the Fixer's smile.

  A single-shot energy weapon, the Sundragon resembled a writing stylus and was as easily concealed as one. Aim, squeeze once to remove the safety, squeeze again to fire, and an ion beam blasted from the tip. Not an ordinary beam, either, but a double-energy blast from the overcharged resonant crystal that powered the Sundragon. The crystal was shattered in the discharge, but by then the device had hopefully done its work.

  The Sundragon could drop a dolophant within its effective range of ten or fifteen meters. "That's perfect," Reva agreed. "Get me one of those, too."

  "How soon do you want them?"

  "By tomorrow morning. I want the plate installed at a tech shop first thing—you make the arrangements and let me know when to be there, but make sure it's a good place. I don't want to pay for cheap blackwire work."

  Vask looked hurt. "Never. What I broker is top-grade, always."

  "We'll see." Their car circled and banked for a landing, coming under Reva's guidance in the last twenty meters to drop into a parking spot of her choosing. She set down at the end of the lot near the magtube station. "How long do you need to deal?"

  Vask shrugged. "Won't know 'til I start."

  Reva cut the power and the car settled to the ground. "Tell you what. I'll be back here in about four or five hours. If you're done by then, meet me here, and we can ride back together."

  He agreed. Moments later, they went their separate ways and Vask stepped into the nearby magtube tunnel. He was not long out of sight, however, before he moved effortlessly into the blind-spot mode. Retracing his steps, he spotted the assassin some thirty meters distant and moving away from him.

  He could always get the clandestine weapons later, acquired with the help of Internal Security, if necessary. Now was the time In see what occupied Reva on this, her first jaunt outside the villa since her days of moody brooding had begun. It was for this that he had reserved his psionic powers, saving them for a time when trailing her seemed worthwhile. Hurrying to close with his quarry, he followed along behind, unseen and undetected.

  LXXXI

  Devin took final astrogation bearings above the plane of the Selmun system, and initiated calculations for their course through warp space.

  The feel he gained for the process, bleeding through cyberlinks from the navcomp, was nothing like the explanation of warp travel taught in dirtside schools. A ship generates a warp bubble, so common wisdom would have it, and sits nested safely inside while space itself slips past the hull.

  That was a gross oversimplification, he knew. In warp, you were in another dimension, literally, fallen into the interstices between physical reality and the multiverse that bound it all together. Warp space had a reality and substance of its own, though it was a twisting, mind-bending dimension difficult to perceive or comprehend. It could drive a person insane if exposed to it without adequate protections. To transit warp safely, you needed to travel wisely, and hope for a dash of good luck on your side.

  Jump ships hopped in and out of warp, skimming that dimension too briefly for its hazards to be a real threat. But continuous warp vessels—like the Fortune—could encounter real problems in that extraspatial void. There were things beyond, things native to the warp region, that could fatally interrupt a ship's voyage.

  Patrolled space lanes were the safest routes to take—and the most roundabout. It would take twelve days to reach Tion by established lanes, and that was not an option on this run. Instead, their route curved spinward, past Lyndir, past the Claw nebula, and finally looped coreward to Tion. Devin confirmed the navcomp plot. The course would get them there in little more than three days.

  "Prepare to warp," he warned the crew, then gave a mental command through his rigger jack. Space twisted around the freighter. Stars smeared and stretched into thin lines; then the transition to warp was complete. Visual compensators engaged, and viewscreens displayed a twisting gray fog dotted with muted blurs of yellow and orange lights. It was a computer analog of extradimensional space, with orange for stars below the plane of the galactic equator, yellow for those above. It was nothing like the real thing that hugged the hull of their ship, but a safe and neutral illusion for the fragile human minds buffered inside the skin of the Fortune.

  The engines had transitioned to warp smoothly; systems felt tight to Devin's rigged senses.

  They were on their way to Tion.

  LXXXII

  Reva followed a seemingly random path through waterfront dives, ships' outfitters, receiving docks, a body sculpting and tattoo parlor, and one blackwire shop. Each stop, each round of questions and greased palms, led her closer to her goal: the local Street Weasel, the Watchman who worked the Lairdomes around the marina. His guttersnipes were the skimmer-heisting, wheedling, drug-peddling children and youths who loitered near the skiff marina fence and the warehouses. They were not yet derevin, but were too street-hardened to be destined for much else.

  Long before she found the Weasel, she had that odd sensation again. Hairs rose on the back of her neck, as if she were being watched. She coped with the annoyance as she had before, slipping between Lines, walking along a shadow of the Mainline she had worked so hard to stay in.

  That was where Vask lost her—and where he finally found her again.

  The assassin cut between two buildings, out of sight of onlookers. When Kastlin entered the alley a moment later, she was gone from sight. It was too fast, too neat, with no place to hide.

  Finally alert to how she must have vanished, the IntSec agent followed suit. As rapidly as he had ever done, he let himself go into the sideslip state, hoping to catch sight of her in the ethereal world of unphased matter. He would have to hang back, for blindspotting was not possible in the energy-shifted mode, and two unphased persons appear as solid reality to each other while all around them is insubstantial.

  He glimpsed Reva down a misty alleyway, and hurried to catch up. But the assassin was not as he expecte
d to find her, and he slowed cautiously as he neared her ghostly form. That much was wrong, eerily wrong. He glanced at his hands, solid-seeming to the phase-shifted observer; she should look that way, too. But she did not.

  Reva was barely visible to the Mutate's eye. He stared unbelieving at her shimmering figure, a shifting blur that sometimes appeared as one person, sometimes two or three, each overlaid one upon the other so they often moved as one. The assassin seemed to be in some realm beyond the sideslip, existing in a different vibrational frequency altogether.

  No wonder I was never able to find her, he thought in amazement. What in the seven hells is she doing?

  The agent followed as she walked past loading docks, moving around objects that Vask's incorporeal form could pass right through. It seemed as if she were limited by the physical landscape before her, yet in some manner transcended it.

  It made no sense to the Psionicist at all, and he trailed her mostly by good luck and guesswork. Sometimes her blurred form was easy to follow; at other times she vanished entirely from sight, to reappear as suddenly several steps ahead or a moment later. Finally she faded from the shifted state completely, but this time her slow blend back into the physical clued Vask to what was happening. Being careful to shift down directly into a place of concealment, he left the otherworldly state of the sideslip as well. He moved into a blindspot and eavesdropped on Reva one more time.

  The assassin scowled in discomfort. Her short jaunt between the Lines had not dispelled that crawling feeling. ..,

  The Watchman took the frown as intended for himself. It wasn't a good way to start business, not with this one.

  "I remember you," he said slowly. "What would a professional like yourself be wanting with the Kipper's crew?"

  The last the Kipper knew of her, Holdout was her line. One who could hire a derevin for jobs, no need of street rats. No wonder he watched her with guarded curiosity.