Omniphage Invasion

by Claudette Gilbert

  Chapter 9: Jak

  That was it. Bolan’s ultimatum delivered, Field led Jak to where an alley opened into a familiar street and released him there, free to run to the end of his too-short leash. Killing Bolon was impossible, he conceded. Much as Jak would like to see him dead, Bolon was too well protected for Jak to reach him. Tonight was the closest he’d ever come, and that only because Bolon had wanted him there. The Regent’s bastard was just too powerful in the secret politics of the planet Shadriss, untouchable here in his own city of Namdrik.

  Yet, just thinking about the danger to Tessa brought back that sick, shaking rage. He’d claimed Tessa was out of town, but the lie had bought only a few days. Jak wanted with all his heart to protect her, not make her the victim of Bolon’s petty revenge. His plan to give her the first half of Kamura’s payment so that she could get off planet seemed hopeless now. Passenger transports came to Shadriss no more than two or three times a year. Without him present to protect her, she wouldn’t survive long enough to board one.

  That left one option—to take her with him when he took Kamura to Tekena. It was still just suicide by another name. If he could find a mobbie Alpha willing to trade to arrange transport— If he could find something to trade— Or, maybe he could hide her in the desert until a transport came? Sure, he could hide dainty, delicate Tessa in the golden Waste with the poison-fanged moki and a million other dangers. No, there must be a place where she could hide in Namdrik. Maybe her High Lord would let her stay on his estate until she could arrange to leave.

  Okay, he’d go back to his place, get the Terran, get her into the dress he’d bought her, and then they’d go to Tessa’s. Somehow, he’d have to convince the one woman who mattered to him to go into hiding while helped another woman who he wished he’d never seen. And very important, he had to make sure that his payment was put into the databanks in Tessa’s name. If by some favor of the Lost Gods she survived, he wanted to be sure that she had the Terran’s 10,000 credits.

  It didn’t take long to walk back to his building through the thinning crowds. The market was closed, and most of the people were heading home. He went inside, his head still spinning with fruitless ideas for helping Tessa, and then he hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, studying the door to his room. It gaped like the mouth of a trap. He’d locked it before he left, and the lock was a good one, tough to break open. He wiped a beading of sweat away from his upper lip and studied the door. The lock seemed intact, which meant that the Terran woman must have opened it from inside.

  Could Kamura have been foolish enough to leave? Perhaps it was the Regent’s men, he thought as he edged closer along the wall. But surely, she’d have recognized those blue tunics? And they’d have smashed the door down or blasted it open, and there was no sign of any damage.

  Jak went through the doorway with a roll and a turn that brought him up under the window on the opposite wall. Knife in hand, he once again earnestly wished that he had a blaster as well. He was out of the line of the light, and anybody else in the room would be in clear view. But one quick glance told him that whoever had been here was long gone.

  Kamura lay huddled on the floor, naked, bloody, and sobbing. He hurried to her side. The cut on her head had opened again, and her face was painted with dried blood. He smelled the coppery scent of it over the odor of his own sweat and the dusty decay of the walls. He checked for new injuries, but he saw only some bruises he hadn't seen before.

  Slowly, he straightened and looked around the single, shabby room that had been his home since he’d left Tessa’s care. He’d never owned much, but now even what little he’d had was gone. Food and spare clothing had vanished. The cot was ripped to pieces. The door hung off his single cupboard, and a quick glance showed him that the shelves were swept clean. All he had left were the clothes he stood in.

  Kneeling on the floor next to the sobbing Kamura, he felt the memories rising, and, for once, he didn’t fight them. As always, one was closer to his own feelings of the moment, one memory crowded out the others. This time he threw himself into the remnants of that other existence as if seeking to escape from the wreckage of his own.

  . . . an officer of Rome, riding home on my battle-scarred gelding, heart sick and almost as weary as my horse. I ride from the defeat of our legions until I reach a well-loved stone house in a land of vineyards. Barbarian tribes have been seen nearby, a neighbor tells me. But none have passed near my farm, and I think all I love are safe . . . smell of burning . . . fire in the atrium and swept all the rooms clean to feed it. I call for my slaves. No one comes . . . my son, hanging from a laurel tree. My daughters—gone . . . My wife lies naked and bloody on the floor of the bedroom, and does not answer when I call her name . . . .

  "They were only children!"

  The cry broke the spell of the long-ago horror. Jak's thoughts cleared, and he looked at the woman next to him who was not his wife, and not dead, either.

  "They were only children!" Kamura repeated, her eyes wide and full of fear.

  Jak started to place a comforting hand on her shoulder but drew back when she flinched away from him.

  "Are you all right?" he asked. "Tell me what happened."

  Looking around at the mess that was the remains of his few belongings, he could guess.

  "They were children," Kamura moaned. She rocked in pain, holding her injured arm to her chest. "One of them was sick. There were ulcers on his arms."

  "Mobbies," Jak said.

  He should have warned her. Yet, he had told her to keep the door locked. Once again, she was lucky to be alive.

  "Three children knocked at the door," she said. "They were begging for food."

  "And you let them in."

  "Not right away." She glared at him as if he had accused her of rank stupidity. "I looked through the peephole first. They were so young. Two little girls and a little boy. The boy had ulcers on his leg. I let him in so I could give him some of the antibiotic ointment you used on me."

  He sighed. "Let me guess. As soon as you opened the door, they knocked you down, and the rest came tearing in."

  It was a favorite mobbie trick, although usually successful only in the more affluent parts of Namdrik. People living in this area usually knew all too much about mobbies and how they operated. Some of them, some very few who managed to survive to adulthood, had even been mobbies in a past that they never admitted to having. How could any grown woman be so naive?

  "They were so young," she repeated. "How can their families allow—"

  "What families?" he interrupted. "Mobbies are nobody’s children. Nobody wants them. They live by begging and stealing, and they don’t live long."

  Jak sat down on the floor, suddenly tired.

  "Isn’t there anything we can do for them?"

  "For mobbies?" It took him a moment to realize that she was serious. He waved a hand at the empty room. "Haven’t I done enough? You just donated everything I had. Anyway, the Regent’s men will pick them up in the next sweep."

  "What will they do with the children?"

  "Kill them, of course."

  "Can they do that? Just kill them out of hand?" she asked in horror. She clutched the cloak, twisting it in her hands.

  "The Regent can do whatever he damn well pleases," he told her bluntly. "And so will Luan n’Chall, if he lives to become Overlord. Besides, most people here think the only thing mobbies are good for is making fertilizer. They use the bones for calcium."

  "Stop it!" Her hands went over her ears.

  The blood on her face had dried and cracked. One eye was rainbow-colored, and her blood-matted hair hadn’t been combed since the night he found her. Her arm was splinted with rags and trash. She huddled filthy and naked on the floor, looking as lost and miserable as if she were no more than a mobbie herself.

  Despite his own fears, Jak felt pity for her.

  "Do you kno
w what kind of place this planet is? Did you know anything about Shadriss before you came here?"

  "Of course, I knew! I read all the official histories. I know about how this miserable backwater has been cut off since the fall of the Confederacy. I know about the alien ruins and how they’ve been exploited. I’m here because of them. I know about the river trade and the geography."

  "Tourist stuff. You never had a clue what you were getting into."

  "How could anything have prepared me for this debased world!"

  Then she began to cry, just like any ordinary unhappy woman and not at all like a Daughter of the Thousand Families of Terra. Jak’s anger faded as he put his arms around the frightened girl and let her cry on his shoulder. When the tears passed, Kamura still looked tired and battered, but not so much afraid.

  "I’m sorry."

  She drew away and wiped her face with her hand as she sat up straighter.

  "It’s natural to cry when you hurt."

  But the moment of weakness was over. Kamura pulled herself together.

  "Did you book passage to Tekena for me?" she demanded.

  She might be a naked, bloody mess, but that imperious tone was back in her voice.

  "That’s not exactly something I can just stop by the port and do," he said.

  He wouldn’t tell her about Bolon and his threat to Tessa.

  "What do you mean by ‘not exactly’?" she demanded.

  One thing he could count on, Jak thought. Any time he started feeling any sympathy for Kamura, she was quick to make him forget it.

  "We can’t use any of the usual routes. All transport is full to overflowing with people going to attend the Joining. But I think that there’s another way that we can get there." He held up a hand to forestall Kamura’s protest. "Hear me out. Someone wants you dead, someone powerful. Someone who has spared no expense to get rid of you. Right now, they think they've succeeded. Let's make sure they go on thinking that. Now, I think I can arrange a trip on a cargo barge." Well, that wasn’t exactly true, but it wasn’t totally a lie. "I have a friend who has a working com. You can record the transaction at her place before we leave."

  He untied the bundle of things he’d bought from around his waist.

  "Here’s a dress for you, and a comb," he said, handing them to the naked girl. He held up two one-liter water bottles. "You can use the water in the yellow bottle to wash with, but don’t drink it. The blue bottle is drinking water. We’re leaving here as soon as you get cleaned up."