by Glen Cook
Believe it or not, only a cretin would have ignored the possibility completely. Survival had become the stake on the board.
He dared not let her know he was suspicious. “All right.” He looked around fearfully, having no trouble projecting shakiness and confusion. “But I’ve got to do a couple of things first.”
Their eyes met. And he knew. He did not want it to be, but it was true. She was the enemy. Right now she was trying to find an excuse to stay close to him that would not arouse his suspicions.
She was not a good actress. Under stress she could not control the body language signals that betrayed her thoughts.
He felt betrayed and hurt, though he had known her just one day.
He had always needed to be wanted. Not for whom or what he was, but just as a human being.
Human. Was she even human? There was no sure way of telling without complicated tests. Geneticists were certain that humanity and the Sangaree shared a prehistoric ancestry.
She might even be the new Sangaree Resident. The last one had been a woman.
“Where do you stay?” he asked.
She chose not to push. She explained how he could get to her apartment.
“You don’t have to do this,” he told her, then cursed silently. By saying that, he had tacitly admitted being the sniper’s target. But sometimes it was necessary to take chances. He could at least feed her belief in his lack of suspicion. “It might be dangerous.”
“That’s all right. I’ve never been involved in anything like this.” Feigned excitement illuminated her face. “What have I gotten myself into, Gun?”
It was smoke screen time. “Sweetheart, I don’t know. I really don’t. This is the second time I’ve been jumped, but nobody bothered to tell me why last time either. They tried it right in the Marcos before. The day we got here. And we don’t even know anybody here. But people have been following me all the time, and . . . If you’re an Old Earther, you sense things like that.”
“Maybe it’s not you. Maybe it’s your friend.”
“John? I never thought of that. I guess it’s possible. I don’t really know anything about him. The Corporation sent him. Anyway, whatever’s going on, I mean to find out.”
He had yielded just enough distorted truth, he hoped, to leave her with doubts. A lot depended on whether or not the opposition had been able to evade Mouse’s bug-scans.
“Will you be all right, Marya? Should I walk you home?”
“I’ll manage.”
“Probably be safer without me, anyway. See you in a while.” He glanced at the dead man, then the streets. Not a soul was stirring.
It was odd how people sensed a gathering storm, then stayed inside where they would witness nothing and run no risks. Though this was a warehouse district, there should have been some traffic. Hell. Where were the security patrols? Where were the police cruisers?
He had seen the same thing happen on Old Earth, where the gangs went to their guns at the slightest provocation. Citizens and enforcers always kept a low profile till the stink of gunsmoke left the air.
Mouse was not at the first fallback, nor had he left a message. Niven did find a hastily scribbled message at the second. It told him that Marya was the new Sangaree Resident. And, as if in afterthought, Mouse went on to say that he was on the run from a dozen men who had gotten onto him after the incident at the warehouse.
Niven scratched a reply, explaining where he would be. The drop was large, so he left the notes he had taken at the Med Center.
Those had to be salvaged no matter what. Maybe by Chief Navy Recruiter for The Broken Wings. He was the Bureau Angel City station chief.
Niven began drifting, killing time in order to give Marya a chance to make a move that would illuminate the outfit’s current thinking. After an hour he picked up a sticktight.
His shadow was a sleepy-faced thug pretending to be a derelict. A not-too-bright offworlder, Niven decided. Angel City was too young and thoroughly ordered to sustain even a one-man Bowery.
The man did not move in. They were hoping he would lead them to Mouse.
He observed his shadow’s tradecraft more out of curiosity than concern. The man was a professional but unaccustomed to this kind of work. He was probably a shooter or runner grabbed simply because he was available. He could be shaken at leisure. Niven shifted him to the back burner of awareness.
He drifted toward Marya’s apartment. His nerves settled. He decided what he was going to do.
He did not relax completely. They might catch Mouse. Then his life would be worthless. But while Mouse remained at large, he was sure, they would not harm him.
He shook the sticktight, found a public comm, woke the Angel City station chief, explained where the Med Center information was hidden. He used a word code the other side would need hours to unravel—assuming they were tapping at all.
He reached Marya’s apartment as dawn began coloring the dome. The molecularly stacked plastic glimmered redly. As the sunlight changed its angle of incidence, the plastic would alternate between transparency and a progression up an iridescent spectrum.
He was tired but still alert, and exhilarated because he had handled himself well.
Marya responded to his knock instantly. “Where have you been? she demanded. “I’ve been worried sick.” She peered over his shoulder, along the second floor hallway.
Checking for Mouse? For her backup?
“Somebody started following me around. I didn’t know what to do, so I just walked around till he gave up. Or I lost him.”
“Gun, I don’t understand all this. Why? . . . ”
“Honey, I don’t know. And I’ve been thinking hard. All I can figure is maybe one of Ubichi’s competitors thinks I’m after something besides that research data . . . ” He paused, pretending to have been startled by a thought. “Hey! They never did tell me why they want the data. I just assumed . . . Maybe it’s for a project that’s stepping on somebody’s toes.”
Had he been what he claimed, the possibility would have been real. Ubichi maintained its own armed forces. The frontier corporations played rough.
Uncertainty filled Marya’s eyes for a moment.
Bureau miscalculated, he thought. He could have convinced her had he looked like a social psychologist. His cover could be checked all the way back to his birth. The Bureau was thorough that way. Especially Beckhart’s section.
But Niven looked like an Old Earth heavy. And that was the death of any other credential a man could present.
“Mom? What’s going on?” A dark-haired girl of seven or eight stumbled into the room. She ground sleepy eyes with the backs of her fists. She was small for her age, a breastless miniature of her mother.
“Brandy, this is my friend Dr. Niven. I told you about him.”
“Oh.”
Less than enthusiastic, Niven thought. In fact, her expression said he was a threat to her world.
She was a beautiful child. Straight out of a toy ad.
Niven could not frame a compliment that did not sound inane. “Hi, Brandy. You can call me Gun. It’s short for Gundaker.”
“Gundaker? What kind of name is that?”
“Old Earth.”
“Oh.” She wrinkled her lip. “Mom called you Doctor. Michael’s sick.”
He turned to Marya. The woman still stood at the door. “My son. Brandy’s younger brother. He’s got some kind of bug. Looks like flu.”
“I’m not that kind of doctor, Brandy. But if there’s anything I can do . . . ”
“Do you know any good stories? Michael don’t like the ones I make up. And Mom’s never here.” She glanced at her mother accusingly.
She was good, Niven thought. Better than Marya. “What kind of stories? Pirates? Olden days? War stories? Richard Hawksblood and Gneaus Julius Storm? Did you know they fought a war right here on The Broken Wings?”
He mentioned it casually, conversationally, fishing for a reaction. The war in the Shadowline, the last great mercenary war,
had taken place on Blackworld not long after the encounter on The Broken Wings.
Sangaree interests had taken a beating because of the Shadowline. But one or two Families had begun recouping here before the shock-waves from Blackworld had died.
Getting caught with their hands in there had cost them control of numerous legitimate corporations and the lives of several Family chieftains. The disaster had been so huge and widespread that it had become Sangaree legend.
The girl just shrugged, implying that Blackworld meant nothing to her. “Pirates, probably.” She seemed to lose interest.
She left the room. Cooking sounds followed her departure.
Must not have heard about the Shadowline, Niven thought. What Family did Marya represent? A minor one crowding the First Families because of their loss of face on Blackworld? Surely not one that had been involved there.
“She’s a doll,” he told Marya. “You thought about getting her into modeling?”
“No. She wouldn’t. Sit down. Relax. Ill fix you something to eat. Then I’ll move Michael in here. You can sleep in the kids’ bed.”
Brandy brought coffee. It was real.
He discovered what Marya had meant about Brandy. He had not caught it earlier because she had not looked his way.
The girl’s one eye trained wildly walleyed and appeared blind.
He showed no reaction to her pained, defiant stare. Her sensitivity screamed at him. He supposed the damage was recent.
Niven indulged in tradecraft during the few seconds when Brandy had returned to the kitchen and Marya had not yet returned. He examined his surroundings critically.
The time would come when he would have to report, accurately, where every speck of dust had lain.
The apartment was cramped. That was typical of dome city living quarters. It was sparsely populated by ragged second-hand furniture. That was to be expected of poor folks. And Marya, clearly, was not an obsessive housekeeper. Cobwebs hung in the ceiling corners. Junk cluttered the chairs and floors.
Her sloppiness had nothing to do with poverty or lack of time, only with habit. Sangaree at home had animal servants who picked up after them.
Marya shared her roof with whole tribes of roaches. Dirt streaked the plastic walls. The curtains were frayed and soiled.
It was exactly the sort of place where a busy, impoverished woman would come to rest. She was crafty, this one. She had converted her ethnic liabilities into assets.
But would a poor woman serve real coffee? When coffee had to come all the way from Old or New Earth?
He did not call her on it. He might give something away by revealing that he recognized the real thing when he tasted it. Most Old Earthers would not, because every ounce went into export.
They were fencing now, subtly, with rapiers consisting of little tests.
One of the rules of his profession was never to yield anything concrete.
She was not giving him anything either. Certainly not enough to understand her.
Who could comprehend the Sangaree mind? The Admiral had been trying for decades. He barely got by.
Like Mouse, though, Beckhart did not want to understand. Not really. He wanted to destroy. Comprehension was just a weapon in his arsenal.
They sat in silence for several minutes. He watched Marya over his cup. She considered him. He wondered what strange thoughts might be running through her alien brain.
“I’d better check on Michael, Gun.”
He followed her as far as the bedroom door.
The room was tiny. It contained two dilapidated beds. One for Marya, one for her children.
Marya settled on the edge of the one containing a pale five-year-old. The boy watched Niven warily.
“Michael, this is my friend Dr. Niven. He’s going to stay with us for a while.”
“Hi, Mike.”
“Not Mike.” The child’s voice was weak but angry. “Michael. After my great-grandfather.”
Marya winced.
Michael radiated pride.
Niven controlled his surprise. “Right. Michael it is.”
He had been wrong. Almost fatally wrong. These Sangaree would know the Shadowline well.
There had been but one Sangaree with the human name Michael. Michael Dee. The man who had engineered the war. The man who had been both the pride and despair of his race.
The man who had paid the ultimate price for failing.
“Brandy says you like pirate stories. I knew a pirate once. Only he wasn’t a pirate when I met him. That’s what he is now. I grew up and went to school, and he grew up and became a pirate.”
“I don’t think he’s ready for that right now, Gun.” Marya seemed honestly worried. “I’m going to have to call a doctor, I think.”
Niven was surprised at himself. He was concerned too. “You want me to call a cabcar?” What was he doing? The kid was Sangaree. His purpose in life was to help guide that species to a final solution. Little ones became big ones.
“Oh, no. There’s one from the hospital who lives right upstairs. I don’t know her very well, but . . . ”
“Go get her, woman. I’ll manage here.”
She stared. Something within her softened momentarily.’The hidden woman, the one behind the one behind the one she was trying to portray, showed through. She kissed his cheek. “Thanks, Gun.” When he pulled her closer, “Later. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He had not been after a kiss. He had attached a tiny chameleon transmitter to the back of her collar.
She closed the apartment door behind her. Niven inserted a receiver into his ear while pretending to scratch.
Smiling wryly, he patted himself where she had touched him. Had she done the same to him?
There was no reason why she should have to go out for a doctor. She would have sufficient medical background herself—if there was any truth to her cover.
He smiled again. Marya was no tactician, either.
“Are you my mom’s new lover?”
He was surprised. Little girls did not ask questions like that.
“No. Not yet.”
“She needs one. Do you think she’s pretty?”
“I think she’s gorgeous.” He was uncomfortable. He did not know how to socialize with children. The only child he knew was Jupp’s boy, Horst-Johann.
“Maybe she should get married again. Are you married?”
Marya had reached a public comm. She was briefing someone. Following her part of a conversation and trying to guess the other half while carrying on another with Brandy proved impossible. He did hear Marya ask for a deep trace on his cover. That meant he had won a round. She had doubts. Or wanted to have them, which came to the same thing.
“No. I never met the right lady.” This was one bold child. Did she know she was not human? Probably. From the little he had heard, Sangaree had no childhood in the human sense. Their children were shielded from nothing. They were treated as, and expected to behave as, miniature adults.
“Don’t know if I’d like you, though.”
Honest, too, he thought. He went to check on Michael. The boy still watched him with wide, wary eyes.
He was bad sick. Marya would not risk a human doctor otherwise. There were few greater risks the underground Sangaree could take. Physicians could sometimes spot the subtle differences between species.
Marya returned with the doctor before Niven’s conversation with Brandy became impossible.
The doctor, he decided, was “tame.” She worked with a confidence and quickness that betrayed her.
Niven whispered to Marya, “Brandy’s been matchmaking.”
She laughed. “Husband-shopping for me again? She never gives up.”
“I don’t think I passed the exam.”
“Doesn’t matter. I won’t get caught in that trap again.”
“Why’d you bring them out here?” On Old Earth parents usually put their children into public care as soon as they were born. Niven had had an unusual childhood in that he had
spent much of it with his mother. He still kept in touch with her, but had lost track of his father years ago.
The shedding of children was a common practice on the tamed outworlds, too. Fewer than a quarter of Confederation’s children were raised by their biological parents.
Marya was shocked. Her Sangaree sense of Family had been outraged. But she could not tell him that. “I forgot. You do things differently where you come from. Yeah, it would be convenient sometimes. But they’re my kids.”
“Don’t try to explain. Just call it one of the differences between the Inner Worlds and the frontier. I’m getting used to them.”
The doctor returned from the bedroom. “I gave him a broad-spectrum antibiotic, Marya. And an antiviral. It’s nothing serious. See that he gets plenty of bed rest and lots of fluids, and keep an eye on his temperature. It’ll go up. Give him some aspirin if it gets too high. Do you need a thermometer?”
Marya nodded. She portrayed embarrassment beautifully.
You did that well, lady, Niven thought. Too poor to afford a thermometer. But you serve genuine coffee. He smiled. She was doing a chemo-psychiatric internship, but had to summon an outside doctor . . . Was she driven by some secret death wish?
“Nice to have met you, Doctor Niven,” the doctor told him.
“You too.” He watched her go to the door. There was no pride in the way she walked.
“You want to get some sleep now, Gun?” Marya asked.
“Going to have to.” But would his nerves permit it here in the heart of enemy territory?
They would. After he had skinned down to his underwear, had flopped into Marya’s bed, and had told Michael, “Good night, Captain,” the lights went out.
He wakened once, hazily, when Marya slipped into bed beside him. He mumbled foggily, then knew nothing for hours.
He wakened slowly. Gradually, he realized that The Broken Wings’ truncated day had sped by. It was night again. He did not remember where he was till he rolled against the woman.
That simple movement initiated three tempestuous days.