Until they reached a pitch-black section where security cameras had never breached at all, let alone been placed and then decommissioned. Jack knew then, with an uneasy tension along his shoulders, why she’d given him the gun.
She paused at an armored door along a back alley. There were no windows on either side. The door said, “Who passes?”
“I’m a guest.”
“ID card.”
She slipped a card into the key slot. As the door accepted it, Jack had second thoughts about going in.
Then the door said, “There are two of you.”
“Both invited!” Amber reached back and, with a chilled hand, grabbed Jack’s, as though afraid she’d be swallowed up without him.
There was a very long pause. Then the door swung open.
“Come on,” Amber urged and pulled him through after her.
He expected dark and dingy; he got it. Plastic cubicles with privacy screens lined three wall sides. A bar resided in the middle, holding court to open-air tables, all full, occupants male and female and alien dressed in worn, comfortable fatigues and laughing and talking loudly. Holo displays did not show naked dancing companions, but world maps. He recognized two versions of a popular war strategy game, but at least one column reflected a current world struggle. He thought bitterly, briefly, of Milos and Dorman’s Stand—had they been illuminated here, with magnetic pins and plastic warships, while the occupants of this bar bet on the outcome of the war?
It was to the largest privacy screen corner she dragged him, a booth intersecting with two of the walls. The holo column in front of it was dark—game over, or did the occupant not like playing? He caught a metallic golden glint as the being in shadow looked up, before Amber sat down in the booth and pulled him in after her.
“Came back, eh?” the man said and pulled a drinking goblet closer to his chest.
“Yes.”
“Gutsy move, girl, considering what Rolf is offering for your friend’s hide, and you along with him.” The man turned to look at Jack, and gold flashed again. His right eye had been replaced with a gold mesh screen camera—gold, the substance that flesh and blood would accept with the least amount of infection and attention. Jack had seen realistic ocular prosthetics before, but nothing like this. The man not only wanted everyone to know he’d lost an eye, but he wore its replacement like a damn medal.
And that eye, of course, was superior to the original flesh and blood model. It could telescope, contained infrared and nightsight, and never needed closing. The man sitting at the booth could see him, and everyone else sitting at the bar, far better than Jack could ever hope to return the observation. Still, he sat with his back to the corner.
Amber made the tiniest of moves and the man’s hand caught her almost before she’d begun. Quick reflexes.
“What do you want?” the man said. He wore his ringed, black hair cut close, and bushy, and he looked lean and fit, his olive skin tanned darkly. The whites of his nails practically glowed in the dark.
“Ballard,” Jack said.
“Why? You a bounty hunter? Sweeper? Police?”
“I’m a friend of Amber’s,” he said, and looked to the girl. Her eyes were wide and she looked frightened, but not alarmed.
The man laughed. It was a cynical, dry sound, that did not carry beyond the confines of the booth. “What did that cost you?”
“Nothing,” Jack lied as Amber made a half-sound and stifled herself. He wanted Ballard … he would play whatever games he had to find him.
The metallic gold eye focused tightly on him, swept across his plain gray suit to the inside of his wrist. Then the man grinned. “What have I got to lose? With no chip on you, Malthen has no record of you. Can’t kill a man who doesn’t exist. I’m Ballard.”
“Then,” Jack said softly, and leaned forward on his elbows, “remember you’re in the same kind of trouble.”
Ballard’s good eye widened. Laugh lines wrinkled about it, and he grinned and released Amber. “Consider me warned.” He slipped a card in the ordering slot, “Drink?”
Jack shook his head, but Amber said, shyly, “Hot carob.”
Ballard ordered. He waited until the servo brought a beer and the hot mug of drink for the girl. “What is it you want from me?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“Talk is cheap. What about? Do you have a job for me?”
“No,” said Jack. His hand moved in the dim light, in a brief, two movement gesture. He was rewarded by the clatter of the beer bottle to the table top, where it rocked on its bottom until Ballard shakily rescued it. “I want to talk to you about Milos.”
A gray pallor glimmered under Ballard’s tan. He pushed Amber away from him, and, voice furred, asked, “Where did you learn that salute?”
“Same place you did—in Basic.”
“No. No. there’s twenty-five years’ difference in our age. And I washed out.”
“No, you didn’t. The salute is not learned by wash-outs. Maybe you ran, later. But you were a Knight just like me.”
Ballard chugged half a bottle of beer, and wiped the suds on a trembling hand. “What do you want to know?”
Jack leaned over, quieting his voice even more. “I want to know what you know. And I want to know why. There was a general amnesty for deserters six years ago. Why didn’t you apply for it?”
Ballard’s good eye paced the metallic one as his gaze swept the room. “Couldn’t,” he said briefly.
“Why?”
“Because of the Sand Wars, dammit! Because of the suits, and the pride and honor of the Knights—everything I fought for! That’s why!” Ballard shoved the beer aside. “Because the Sand Wars is a death sentence. If you were there, you know.”
“I was there,” Jack returned grimly.
“Convince me.”
“Ever hear about the troop ships? The cold-sleep transports?”
“At war’s end? Sure. Most of ‘em were blasted by the Thraks as they pulled out of Milos’ airspace. Dorman’s Stand didn’t have enough survivors left to send in a cold ship.”
“One stayed intact. It was adrift for seventeen years.”
Ballard’s breath hissed inward. The two men’s gazes locked, Then Ballard said, “I heard rumors about that. But it was a dead ship when it was found.”
Jack shook his head. “Not quite. One bay stayed on auxiliary power, holding one man in endless cold sleep dreams. All he suffered was a little insanity and frost-bite. A couple of toes. One finger.” He held up his right hand, where the amputation scar glinted in the half-dark. “ Me.”
“My god. You’re the last living true Knight,” Ballard said.
Chapter 9
Rain had come in earnest while they’d talked to Ballard. They walked home through the crust of a near dawn. Jack took deep breaths. For the first time since he’d been on Malthen, he smelled clean air, and he walked clean streets, but it was small comfort after talking to Ballard.
Amber, on the other hand, under the influence of whipped cream and hot carob, had regressed a bit. She took a skipping hop to keep up with his stride. “You’re a legend, d’ you know that?”
“Thanks,” Jack said dryly,
She brushed him with a look from under her wayward hair, then skipped around a puddle, wise enough to leave him alone with further thoughts.
And Ballard had given him a lifetime to think about.
That unblinking golden eye had stared at his hand long after Jack lowered it to the table. Then, Billiard had reached out and touched it, as though to reassure himself. The older man had callused fingers, with skin like leather. Then, Ballard had looked him in the eye.
“Where have you been?” he asked, drawing his glass near him for comfort.
“On Claron. I was a Ranger there.”
Sudden understanding wrinkled the other’s expression and he leaned forward, out of the dusk and darkness of his booth, exposing his face fully to the half-light of the saloon, a dark-haired angel of truth. “Then I sugges
t you wake up, Storm. I suggest you really wake up.”
The implication of his words echoed in Jack’s brain. He stumbled on the broken sidewalk, kicking up a spray of water. Cheap boots. He felt the impact, the bruising stab, clear through the arch of his foot. He felt again the shivery lightning of sudden knowledge, and fear, just as he had when Ballard said, “They destroyed an entire planet trying to get you, you know.”
He recoiled. “That’s insanity.”
“Were the Sand Wars sane? Leaving behind everyone who’d fought in it, including medvac units, to be destroyed because of the embarrassment of fighting an enemy who couldn’t be stopped sane? Do you know how I got out? Do you?”
Jack glanced at Amber, who seemed abstractedly involved in her drink, and then remembered a flash of Ballard passing the drink over to her … a powder glinting in the palm of his hand, to sprinkle over the whipping cream. “You’ve drugged her.”
The veteran shrugged. “Nothing unpleasant. She’s not listening, and won’t remember most of what we’ve said. That’ll be important to you later. If she’s important to you.”
Amber leaned into the cushiony back of the booth and curled up, cat-like, to play with the cream adorning her drink. Guilelessly, she dipped a finger in it and began licking it off.
Jack wrenched his attention away from her. “I’ll take that drink now.” He waited until Ballard served him before continuing. “So how did you get out? And where—Milos or Dorman’s Stand?”
“I was on Milos. I got out of the hospital and was lifted off by, um, businessmen, who’d heard about the suits and wanted one for a private collector. I’d lost my eye, and was hearing rumors around the hospital. We were going to be left behind, to be gobbled up. The brass was afraid. Afraid of the Thraks and afraid of the Milots.”
Jack curled his fingers so tightly about the glass his scar turned white. “What about the suits?”
Ballard did a doubletake. His too-full upper lip sneered. “Come on, Storm. The suits that spawned berserkers. Like I said, I ran into some businessmen hoping to capture one for this private menagerie. I offered to sell them mine, provided they transport me out of there. I figured it was the only way I was going to get off Milos alive.” He touched the slightly bagged skin below his artificial eye. “That was why I had to have this. Without proper medical attention, I had to settle for this instead of a transplant. Infection, scar tissue, that sort of thing, made it too late for a transplant.” He smiled and settled back into the twilight of the booth. “I figure it was a good trade-off. There were others who made it off, too. Similar ways or maybe out and out desertion. But there aren’t too many of us who admit it. It isn’t healthy.”
“Why not?”
Ballard’s good eye, gypsy-black, flashed. “Still an idealist? They’re killing us off. That’s why a general amnesty was offered when the new Emperor came in. It sounded like a good political strategy, but whoever suggested it wanted the rolls.”
“Rolls?”
“The printouts of those who’d applied. There are damn few of us who served in the Sand Wars left, even those of us who ran. I’d like to get my hands on those printouts myself. They’re a death warrant!”
“But … they could have killed me. Everyone aboard my transport was dead. What was one more corpse?”
“And who says that the crew who found you followed orders? You didn’t exactly get a welcoming committee when you came back.”
Jack lapsed into thought as Ballard tipped the last few drops out of his bottle, disposed of it, and signaled for a new one. Amber seemed absorbed in chasing the last drop of cream around her mug. “I don’t believe it.”
“There’s an easy way to check. Go back to the doctors who did that work—” Ballard stabbed a finger at Jack’s hand. “Go back and see if they’re still alive and well, and happy to see you. You’ll find out quick enough.”
Jack knew that the suit had been smuggled to him. What if his whole existence was against someone’s express orders? Then he was a fool to be walking around openly … or perhaps an idiot savant. If he was open enough, then disposing of him would be dangerous. He’d gone part of the way, he’d have to continue. And Ballard’s suggestion had merit. He cleared his throat. “What about the suits?”
The other could not conceal a shudder. “It was real. Didn’t you ever see it?”
“I—I’m not sure.”
“You would be if you’d seen it. Out on the Sands, you couldn’t get out of a suit. You’d be in one for weeks, sometimes. That’s all it took. I don’t know what the filthy Milots put in them, but it grew. Fed off our sweat and heat. Hatched and infiltrated us … until it killed and then consumed us. And then burst out of a suit like it was a goddamn eggshell. Big fracking lizard-man—a born killer. Too fast and too mean even for the Thraks to pull down easily. They’re some kind of legend on Milos, from what I heard. But even legions of berserkers couldn’t stop the Thraks.” Ballard spat on the barroom floor. “They deserved to lose Milos.”
“Legions? You said legions.”
“It was horrible. Whole squads of men lost in the Sands, and then consumed.” Ballard grabbed the new delivery of whiskey and, with a shaking hand, poured himself a tall drink. He downed it before he could speak again. “I saw it with my own eyes. Infantrymen, Knights, anyone who wore armor of any kind and had to be suited.”
“And so the suits had to be destroyed.”
“And the men in them. No telling what they had in their bloodstreams, I guess. No telling where the berserkers came from.”
“What were the signs?”
“Signs?” Ballard’s good eye grew bloodshot. He ran his hand through his coal-black ringlets of hair, and the gold eye stayed impassive. “What do you mean?”
“The possession. What stages did it take? Do you know?”
Ballard grinned without humor. “Still got your suit? Want to know if it’s safe? Burn it, boy, while you’ve got a chance.”
“I can’t.” Jack sat back, forcing a casual expression. “Maybe you didn’t see as much as you say you did.”
“I saw it!” Ballard crossed himself. “Men would get delirious, start talking to themselves, uncanny to hear. It was like a second person was in the suit with them. Then they’d go off the edge. They were great fighters then, fantastic. They had no fear. Then … the suits would go dead. Some would stagger around aimlessly, but most would just go dead. Then, we thought it was because they’d run out of power, and we couldn’t help them. Solars could only carry us so far, y’know?”
“I know.”
“Then the suits began to split open. My god.” Ballard’s speech slowed, then stopped altogether. His good eye dimmed a little, as though he looked into his own past. He shook his head. “Never seen anything like it, before or since.”
“Big creature, lizard, runs on hindlegs, tail balancing it, head all jaws, frill that expands. Yellow and green scales.”
“You’ve seen it, too!”
Storm reached over and helped himself to Ballard’s bottle. “Thought I was dreaming. Maybe I was.”
“No. No, you saw it. Use that suit of yours, maybe you’ll be one, too.” Ballard laughed. It was too high,
“What happened to the collector’s suit?”
“Nothing. Couldn’t get it to make the transformation I guess. Maybe he didn’t know it had to be full of meat to do it. Or he couldn’t get the volunteers.”
“Ballard, listen to me.” Jack had the feeling that Ballard was drifting from him, disappearing into the oblivion of the alcohol and the darkness of the bar. “How long did it take? How many days?”
“Days? Days for what?”
“For the stages. How many days did it take before you noticed the others … changing.”
He laughed. “All it took was a war. A lousy, tracking war.”
Amber began to stir and sat up restlessly. She blinked and a certain awareness came into her golden brown eyes. She turned on Ballard. “You slag! You drugged me!”
He
rolled a shoulder. “What do I care? Tell Jack. He’s the last remaining Knight. He’s the only one left to care. Avenge us, buddy! They flamed a goddamn planet trying to get you.” He coughed. “Two weeks to stage one. Then, maybe a week of delirium. After that, I don’t remember. Maybe a couple of days. Maybe hours.” He closed his good eye, and pulled his eyelid down over the gold one. Then he leaned over and put his head on the table. A faint sob leaked out.
Amber began pestering him once they got back to the apartment. “Did he know about the suits? Did he?”
“Yes. But I can’t calculate it too closely. After all, like me, the suit’s been in cold storage for almost twenty years. But … it’s coming to life. I think two weeks of constantly wearing it will do me in.”
“Then we have to keep you down to hours.” She tilted her head. “If we put it in cold storage, too, maybe we can reverse the growth, as well.”
“Two steps forward and one step backward?”
“Something like that.”
He sat down heavily on the couch. “It’s worth a try.” He rubbed his face wearily.
“What else did he tell you?”
He looked at the girl, a thin, vulnerable waif. Street smart one minute and totally naïve the next. He made a face. “If Ballard had wanted you to know, he wouldn’t have drugged you.”
“Not Rolf?”
He recognized the fear in her eyes and her voice. “Not Rolf. But something you’re better off not knowing.” He looked out the window at the tinge of dawn pinking the sky. Soon it would be white-hot again. If he was responsible for Claron … then he had to turn it back. It was his duty. Jack clenched his fist.
A coward is not somebody who fears, but somebody who doesn’t overcome his fears. Jack looked at the closet door. He could feel the presence of the suit behind it. It seemed lonely somehow. Lonely and ominous. He stood up. “I need my sleep,” he announced. “Later today, we’re going to get you a decent watch.”
Solar Kill Page 9