“Claladag,” she responded. “Like a title.”
“No, not a title,” he corrected her. “Something less…” He shrugged. The definition was not important. “Yes, like a title.” Looking down at himself, he indicated the iridescent green triangular-shaped head that was regarding the new arrival attentively from its resting place within his partly open jacket. “This is Pip.”
Bleshmaa’s eyeband regarded the minidrag. “Fur its size, very strongstrong flii,” she commented.
Flii was the Tlelian term for an entity’s individual electrical field, he recalled from his intensive pre-arrival research. Another word cemented in his slowly but steadily expanding vocabulary. “I need to go north to interview another of my kind,” he told her. “How soon can you be ready?”
“I am not partnered. Can leave now.” She turned to the patient, watching officials. “They will see tu it that the necessary forms are appropriately flooded using my values. I will report total billable time upon returning.”
Flinx would have thanked the pair of helpful bureaucrats again had they not turned and walked away, returning to their work. He found himself alone with his escort.
“Yu have coordinates?” she asked him. He nodded. Pivoting, she started for the exit. “Then time spent talking here is useless evaporation. Also costing yu money.”
Appreciating her concern while trailing in her wake, he could not have agreed more.
Not only did Norin Halvorsen not look like what he was, he did not even look like his name. He was short and bald except for scattered, fitful swirls of dark brown hair that clung to the side of his head, with a paunch that was just large enough to demand attention. This was complemented by a puffy face, a bulbous and perpetually sunburned nose, eyes that might have twinkled were they not set in a permanent squint, and a mouth that unaccountably appeared frozen in a perpetual grin. He looked more like a badly out-of-shape elf than a scavenger of other people’s miseries, which was a polite way of defining what he did for a living.
Halvorsen tracked down those who owed money, services, or bits and pieces of themselves to sometimes honest, sometimes less-than-reputable concerns. He did this with absolute disregard for the designated unfortunate’s personal situation. To Halvorsen, the term mitigating circumstances was an oxymoron. Those unlucky enough to come to his attention might lose a vehicle, a business, a home—or a significant body part. He was not above employing physical violence to carry out his work, up to and including threatening bodily harm to otherwise innocent spouses and children. To Halvorsen, a guiltless child was just another correlated asset, albeit an irritatingly noisy one. Moreover, children’s bones were easier to break than those of the adults he was employed to chase down, and they rarely fought back.
In short—and he very nearly was—Norin Halvorsen the person was as disagreeable as his profession: a noisome if fitting match. He was a foul and forlorn person to be around, unless he had just been paid. The rest of the time he had little use for humanity and even less for other sentients. He was proud of the fact that for each and every known nonhuman species he had invented a personal, unique, and highly offensive slur.
Unlike many others who practiced the same odious occupation, Halvorsen prided himself on his professionalism. Not a day went by that he failed to scan every available form of media, legal and otherwise, for prospective business. He also paid close attention to local and planetary gossip, no matter how lowly its nature or disreputable the source. The infrequent overlooked diamond, he was wont to reflect philosophically, was occasionally to be found buried in piles of excrement. He had no compunction about rooting through the latter in search of the former.
Take the surreptitious appeal his highly specialized search software had recently finished decoding, for example. Concealed within a line of the mundane greater Commonwealth news that was diffused daily via space-minus transmission, it consisted of a sizable reward that was being offered by some eccentric outfit calling itself “the Order of Null.” This was to be paid for the verifiable demise of an apparently unremarkable citizen name of Philip Lynx, who sometimes went by the terse nickname of Flinx. Halvorsen had never heard of the individual in question or the faction that wanted him dead. His ignorance in these twinned respects, the fact that he knew nothing about either, troubled him not a whit.
What he did know was figures. The one promised by the Order of Null was substantial, electronically escrowed, and waiting for whoever could deliver certifiable proof of the unknown Mr. Lynx’s death. As to the nature of the individual who had been thus perversely singled out—his character and morality, family and dreams, personal probity or individual worth—this in no wise whatsoever impinged on Norin Halvorsen’s conscience. The gentleman in question might be a saint, a sinner, or representative of the 99 percent of imperfect humankind whose makeup fell somewhere in between. It made not the slightest difference.
The great majority of such automated reports offered their diligent reader nothing more than interesting reading and occasional unexpected entertainment. Only rarely did they augur anything substantial. This new one focusing on the citizen Lynx certainly did. Halvorsen sat up a little straighter as he studied the floating image his desk unit had automatically generated in the air before him. This just might be, perhaps, one of those rare instances.
Because his expensive, well-maintained, continuously updated custom programming had, quite unexpectedly, made a match.
A recent arrival to Gestalt, the individual his instrumentation had sculpted out of the air above the desk went by the name of Skua Mastiff. Other than that, he fit the details and imaging supplied in the illicit appeal flawlessly. The straightforward visual reconstruction was a perfect equivalent. Height, build, hair and eye color, skin tone—other than adopting an alias, this Flinx person had made no attempt to disguise himself. The presence of a rare winged Alaspinian pet, also visible in the sybfile Halvorsen’s instrumentation had illegitimately pilfered from Port Immigration via illegally accessing certain supposedly secure portions of the Gestalt planetary Shell, provided the clincher when it came to making the identification unconditional.
Such apparent indifference to personal appearance on the part of an individual others of his kind badly wanted dead suggested a number of possibilities, every one of which raised a warning flag within Halvorsen the professional. For example, this Flinx might not be aware that a sizable reward had been offered in return for his termination. Or—he might know of it, and feel he was safe on a world like Gestalt. Or he might know of it, and feel so sure of his ability to defend himself that physical disguise was a safeguard he could safely forgo. As he picked up his communit, into which the information from his desk had automatically been transferred, Halvorsen was equally confident in his ability to claim the pledged payment. In the course of his ignoble career he had run to ground and successfully dealt with wanted families, groups, and teams. One individual, no matter how self-assured or well-trained, no matter how lethal the implied capabilities of his exotic pet, inspired little trepidation.
Idly, he wondered who this Flinx was, what he might have done, or whom he might have offended to inspire such a splendidly hefty incentive for his demise. Halvorsen did not waste more than a minute or two on such speculation. The only raison d’être he required to justify his intermittently murderous dealings was the number of zeros that followed the initial number on an offer of remuneration.
Following lunch, he instructed his exclusive and highly sophisticated instrumentation to embark on a planetwide scan for the newly arrived visitor. Even taking into account this Flinx-Lynx person’s lack of any serious attempt to disguise himself, the search was concluded absurdly soon. Moreover, his objective had been in Tlossene itself as recently as the previous day. I might have passed him on the street, Halvorsen reflected as he rose from his chair. The hotel where the visitor had stayed was only a short hop away by public transport. If they had any information on the intentions or habits of a guest who had so recently checked out, th
is was going to be a quick job indeed. Quick and clean—that was how Halvorsen liked them, his professional life being so very different from his private one.
Of course the hotel management could not possibly think of releasing nonauthorized personal information on one of their recent guests. The human clerk Halvorsen spoke with did, however, let slip in the course of the conversation with the pudgy and squat albeit polite figure confronting him the number of the room where the guest in question had stayed. It was a harmless morsel of information. Though regretful at not obtaining what he sought, a smiling Halvorsen voiced his thanks. Simultaneously, he amused himself by mentally flaying the handsome and barely contemptuous young clerk until not an inch of skin remained on his red, raw, screaming body. Keeping his fury to himself as always, he left the reception area and settled himself in one of the several thick, highly responsive chairs that dotted the outer lobby.
Pretending to view a local tridee cast, he utilized his customized communit to remotely riff the files in the hotel’s subox. Preset to make a match should it find the appropriate one, it did so within seconds, generating a sybfile that a grunting Halvorsen swiftly devoured. Every detail of the guest’s stay, from the food he had ordered into his room to any communications that had been passed on to him via the hotel’s subox to how often he had used his room’s facilities to sanitize his clothing, lay open to Halvorsen’s perusal.
Of particular interest were multiple contacts with several rental agencies. Inventing and feigning a relationship to the now departed guest “Skua Mastiff,” Halvorsen contacted each of these enterprises in turn, claiming to be holding something of importance that his good friend Mr. Mastiff had left behind at his hotel. Both less protective of their client’s privacy and more concerned with their respective reputations for helpfulness, each agency responded with appropriate concern. Only one, however, acknowledged having had commercial intercourse with the young visitor in question.
Visiting that agency in person, Halvorsen killed time until his ever-questing instruments had quietly and furtively extracted the information he needed from the agency’s subox. Whether owned by an individual, a company, or various branches of government, every skimmer in use on Gestalt had a location tracker integrated into its instrumentation. Found commonly in skimmers used on Earth or Hive-hom or any other highly developed Commonwealth world, trackers were of proportionately more importance on wilder, less populated worlds such as Gestalt. They allowed the location of each vehicle to which they were affixed to be pinpointed from multiple sources by satellite relay at any time of day irrespective of inclement weather or awkward terrain, and continually updated the craft’s position.
According to its integrated tracker, Halvorsen noted as he once more studied the readout on his communit after leaving the agency, the skimmer the visitor had rented was presently occupying a stationary position in the northern town of Sluuvaneh.
This was going to be almost too easy, he reflected contentedly. The Tlel community in question was located less than a day’s travel from Tlossene. Considerably smaller than either of Gestalt’s twin capital cities, it would offer a tall redheaded offworlder little room in which to hide even if he realized there was reason for him to make himself inconspicuous. While Halvorsen made it a point not to dally when engaged in business, neither did there appear to be any untoward urgency in pursuing this particular quarry. The unpredictability of the weather on Gestalt also had to be taken into account. For that and other reasons, whenever it could be avoided he preferred not to fly at night.
There was no rush. He had plenty of time. Judging by his actions subsequent to his arrival on Gestalt, this Flinx individual plainly had no idea anyone local might have more than a passing interest in him. Halvorsen could take it easy, check out his equipment, enjoy a proper supper, and start out first thing tomorrow morning. By evening of the next day at the latest, he would have in his possession incontrovertible, verifiable proof of a corpse to pass along via space-minus beam to the group called the Order of Null. He could expect the pertinent hefty credit transfer to follow directly.
Business was always best, he hummed to himself serenely as he made his way back to his waiting vehicle, when it was possible to conduct it calmly and with a minimum of fuss.
A few dark clouds had shouldered their way to prominence among the less threatening white cumuli that gathered every morning around the jagged peaks of the high northern mountains, but otherwise the following day dawned clear, crisp, and chilled. Perfect for a quick direct flight to Sluuvaneh, the making of a few surreptitious inquiries, and a swift execution. Halvorsen was at ease as his skimmer lifted from the rooftop landing pad of his building. Set on autopilot, it accelerated rapidly northwest in the direction of its programmed destination while its owner relaxed and studied the pornographic images the craft’s central projector inveigled for him out of the climate-controlled interior. In between glancing up at the perverted inventions, none of which was new and only some of which he any longer found stimulating, he passed the time checking and cleaning and checking again the gleaming, highly specialized black handgun that reposed in the carrying case spread open across his lap.
It was a menacing little appliance. Unlike many contemporary hand weapons, it had no Stun setting, no life-preserving paralysis parameters. It was designed to do one thing and one thing only, and that was to terminate the life-force of motile organics. The nature of the disruptive charge that it unleashed was such that it was not necessary to strike a vital area or organ in order to accomplish its task. Hit on a hand, a foot, the tip of a finger, that individual would expire just as speedily and absolutely as if struck in the heart. Though Halvorsen was a sure hand and excellent shot with a wide variety of weapons, the gleaming, beautiful black slayer was a personal favorite. The lazy man’s means of assassination, he mused to himself. Not only did it kill instantly, but because it was nonexplosive there was never any untidiness to clean up afterward.
Though the public landing pad at Sluuvaneh held a dozen skimmers of varying size and origin, thanks to the information supplied by the rental company Halvorsen had no trouble homing in on the location of the one belonging to his quarry. At this rate, he reflected as he slipped the black slayer into its concealed vest holster, he would be finished with the job and back home in Tlossene in time for dinner. Disembarking from his vehicle, he sauntered casually across the heated tarmac in the direction of one of two nearby service hangars. The information available on his handheld communit was identical to that simultaneously being displayed on his craft’s command console.
Perhaps his quarry’s skimmer needed repairs, or a recharge, or simply a systems update. He smiled to himself. He was about to save the offworlder the cost and inconvenience of any repairs.
There was one skimmer parked in the front of the hangar where the signal was coming from. Halvorsen hesitated when he saw the craft, frowning slightly. It was a commercial rental, all right, but bigger than the model whose identification he had appropriated and belonging to a different company. How had his information become so scrambled? Tensing as he approached the battered, well-used vehicle, he observed that the signal was not coming directly from it, but from a point slightly behind it. He accelerated his pace.
An increasingly anxious stroll around the far side of the parked vehicle revealed not the expected second skimmer but an extensive service and repair area. Replacement parts, containers, vacuum-sealed shipping crates, tools, analyzers, and adjusters in a bewilderment of sizes, shapes, and standards filled work consoles and were piled on the floor space between them. As near as he could see only a single human was present, working patiently alongside several equally engrossed Tlel. With his sense of smell recoiling from the combined stink of native and lubricant and holding the communit unobtrusively at his side, he approached the woman.
“Morning, ma’am.”
Despite the Tlel-tolerant ambient temperature inside the service hangar, she was sweating profusely. Wiping perspiration from her forehe
ad, she turned to look at him. A glance down at his communit’s readout showed that the signal from the skimmer the offworlder had rented was stronger than ever. So strong, in fact, that he should have been standing inside that very craft right then and there, instead of out on an open hangar floor preparing to question a dowdy middle-aged technician.
“Good morning, sir. May I help you?”
Halvorsen’s frustration was increasing exponentially. Leaning slightly to his right, he peered past her. Looking up from his work, one of the Tlel technicians stared in their direction. To avoid meeting that glistening alien eyeband, Halvorsen turned away. His rudeness was deliberate.
“I was supposed to meet a friend of mine here today.” He recalled applicable aliases. “Skua Mastiff ’s his name.” Pivoting slowly, he studied the interior of the hangar. There was no place to hide anything larger than a car. Manifestly, it held only one skimmer. “I was supposed to meet him here, but this isn’t his transport I see parked.”
While replying, the woman fiddled with a piece of apparatus he didn’t recognize. Probably all she ever got to fiddle with, he thought snidely. “Oh certain, clodat. He was here.”
Was. Interesting, Halvorsen suddenly found himself reflecting, coldly, how a simple change of tense could turn an ordinary three-letter word into a pernicious four-letter one.
The woman continued. “Left early this morning.” As she spoke, she continued to adjust the circuitry sprayer she was holding. Turning slightly to her left, she gestured toward a small, glassy, rectangular shape sitting atop a worktable surrounded by a dozen or so other sealed modules in varying states of disarticulation. “That’s the tracker off his rental. Said he wasn’t sure it was working properly. I told him it was against the law to go out into backcountry without one, and he said he knew that, but that he had an important appointment he couldn’t miss and that he didn’t need to go more than a few kilometers from town.” She shrugged, apparently not noticing the angry flush that was rapidly adding color to her visitor’s cheeks.
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