by Steve Perry
Pen faced the audience. "You all know Dirisha," he said, "and you all know she is more than ready to graduate as a fully-operational . Her time has come to leave."
Dirisha scanned the assembly. There was Geneva. Tears ran freely down the blonde's face, but she was smiling.
"Dirisha has an important client. He is getting the best Matador Villa has to offer. She will be missed."
Pen turned toward Dirisha. From his robe, he produced a biomed popper, the size of a fingertip, and handed it to her. That was the FTS virus all graduates received.
Dirisha nodded her thanks.
Pen pulled another small item from the cloth depths of his shroud. A galactic stad cube. She was well-off when she'd come to the Villa, she was more so now. Whatever she had was joined in her account now by her first year's salary-each year was paid by the client in advance, refundable if the client should terminate a matador's services-or if the client was terminated.
Pen extended his hand, bearing the third and final item each graduate received. Two items, actually. A pair of spets-dod magazines, loaded with live ammunition. No longer the blunt-tipped darts for Dirisha; she was now immune to practice attack by students. Were she to return fire now, the shock-tox flechettes she would load wouldn't kill, but they would do much more than sting.
One at a time, she unloaded and reloaded her weapons. She half expected Pen to try a final salvo at her before she switched over-he had done it to one about-to-graduate student and kept him in-house another three months when the man couldn't return fire fast enough. But Pen made no threatening moves. In a few seconds, the practice rounds were unloaded and replaced.
She jiggled the magazines in her hand, as if weighing them, or shaking dice. The matador patch on her shoulder seemed to flash in the quiet room, the suit of lights against the red background gleaming like thousands of pinpoint precious stones. Dirisha felt a flutter within her; it was as if she suddenly felt a kinship with those ancient matadors. The ammunition, the patch, the virus, they were all tangible proof that she was no longer simply a student.
Dirisha squeezed the small bits of plastic in her hand tightly. Then, she threw the old magazines into the crowd, slinging them high into the air. The school was only a few years old, but it had its traditions. Whoever caught the magazines were supposed to be the next two to graduate. A field of hands rose as the magazines flew, and there was a break in the silence as the students yelled and laughed.
Dirisha smiled, both elated and sad. She glanced at Pen, then back at the assembly. One of the magazines was held by Barthal Jinks, a student only three months into the training. So much for tradition. When she looked to see who had the second, it took a moment. And it shook her, when she finally saw. Her smile died, and her stomach seemed to clutch itself.
Geneva, unsmiling, held the second magazine.
During the going away party, Sleel got drunk on vor-emholts and tried to throw Bork across the room, which resulted in Sleel pulling a groin muscle.
Mayli danced an erotic dance, which sent half the party in search of places to consummate the lust which resulted. Red, toked on kick-dust, staged an exhibition of point shooting, picking matches from a pile on a table top with his spetsdod, never moving a match other than the one he shot at, never scratching the clear plastic finish of the table.
It was a fine party, nearly everybody had a wonderful time.
Throughout the buzz of happy conversation and revelry, Dirisha moved, smiling and nodding at well-wishers, always aware of Geneva watching her every move. Dirisha wanted the party to last forever, for every moment thus occupied delayed the moment she dreaded: being alone with Geneva.
Bork nearly crushed her with his farewell embrace. "Uh, we'll miss you, Dirisha. It won't be the same without you."
Mayli kissed her, teacher to student, sister to sister, friend to friend. "Learn joy," she said.
Even Sleel seemed at a loss for something clever, and only managed a lame wisecrack: "You got a few minutes, Dirisha, last chance to know ecstasy before you take off." She was almost tempted, to see how he would perform with that particular set of muscles injured the way they were, but she settled for a hug and an almost-brotherly kiss.
Pen was nowhere to be seen, and as the party wound down, students drifting away, Dirisha found herself standing in front of Geneva. The blonde was dry-eyed and wore a fixed smile. Dirisha extended one hand, and Geneva took it, clutching it as a falling woman might grab at a dangling rope.
"You want to go back to the room?"
Geneva shook her head. "I-I don't think I could do that."
Dirisha tried a smile, saw the effort Geneva was expending to hold herself together, and let the expression fade. "Hon, I'm sorry. I wish there was some way I could make this easier for you. You've been closer to me than anybody in my life, a friend far beyond that of a lover. I'll miss you more than anybody else here."
Geneva drew in a deep breath, nearly a sob. "I'm leaving, too."
Dirisha blinked. Leaving?
"Pen found a client for me. Ambassador Teiki, of Hadiya. I'll be spending a lot of time on Earth, at the Confederation Embassy Compound."
"That's good," Dirisha said. In truth, she felt saddened. Knowing Geneva was here made it easier to leave. The idea of being gone forever hadn't sunk in yet. Most of them would probably go someday, she had known that, but it had never seemed real before.
The two women held hands, standing alone in the room. They didn't speak for a long time. Finally, Geneva said, "I will always love you, Dirisha. Across a thousand light years and forever, I will never stop loving you."
Dirisha gathered Geneva into her arms and hugged her tightly, inhaling the scent of the blonde where she pressed her face against the fine, golden hair. I'll miss you, too, brat, in ways I've never missed anybody or anything.
"You will always be in my heart, Geneva. Always."
As Dirisha walked toward the rail car, she looked around at the school with an intensity she had never known before. How odd to be leaving, maybe forever. It still didn't feel real.
Several students were working out in the chilly morning air, walking the patterns imprinted upon the rockfoam. They appeared to take no notice of Dirisha as she left. No one had come to see her off, which was just as well.
Her sadness didn't need more fuel. Leaving was strange enough without tearful farewells in the cold light of day.
Dirisha had all her belongings in the same bag she'd carried when she'd arrived nearly five years earlier; that hadn't changed. A lot of other things were different, though. She wasn't the same person who'd come here.
The rail car beckoned, a few meters ahead. Dirisha sighed as she approached the door to the small vehicle. Better to do this fast, get in and go, before she got caught up in the emotions which bubbled around in the back of her head. She tossed her bag through the open door, and bent to enter the car.
"Dirisha," came the voice from behind her.
She turned.
Pen stood there, wrapped in his grayness, eyes alive in the shadow of his hood. Dirisha was surprised, and surprised at herself for being so-anything Pen did should not be unexpected by this time.
"Good-bye, Dirisha, and good luck."
Dirisha shook her head. "Thanks, Pen. I think."
Then he did something else Dirisha never expected. He walked to her and hugged her. "Take care," he said. "You are a more valuable person than you know."
As the rail car pulled away from Matador Villa, Dirisha stared through the back window at the solitary figure of Pen, the wind ruffling his robes as he stood next to the track, watching her leave. The figure seemed to blur a lot sooner man it should, as though she were watching it through eyes that had somehow suddenly malfunctioned.
There must be something wrong with her droptacs, she thought, as she wiped her face. She couldn't be crying.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As THE BOXCAR flew toward the terminal in high orbit, Dirisha began to itch. All over.
The sen
sation wasn't new, she had felt it before during micro-term augmentation, but it was lessened none for that. The itching was caused by the presence of multiplying colonies of genetically-altered neurological bacteria. When fully circulating, such symbiotic flora would increase the neuroconductive speed of its host by as much as a factor of two. Normally, such reflex-aug biologicals were restricted to special units of Confed Military; as in most restricted things, however, a black market had developed. It cost, but it could be had.
Pen had a bandit bio-unit on retainer, and upon graduation from the school, each matador was given an injection of the bacteria-aug. There was a long chemical-biological name for the substance, but it had been dubbed FTS by some wit somewhere along the line-FTS standing for "faster than shit." The colonies were self-limited and short-lived at best, and had to be renewed once or twice a year.
So Dirisha itched, but managed to stand it, as the boxcar achieved orbit and jockeyed toward the terminal where she was to catch a Bender ship for Wu, in the Haradali System. Wu was another mainly agro world, only partially developed, and the planet where Carlos and the headquarters of the An tag Union were. Dirisha had done a viral-inject learning cap about Wu, so she knew what there was available to know about it.
Rajeem Carlos was already there by now, waiting for his new matador to arrive.
"Arriving Renault Space Terminal," came a mechanical voice over Dirisha's seat. "Docking in five minutes."
Dirisha touched a flat bar under the viewer inset into the seat in front of her. A holoproj test pattern appeared. She stroked the control through a series of channels, until a view of Renault appeared, a globe the size of a basketball floating over her lap. The planet was shrouded in lacy clouds, a blue sphere with a slash of rusty black on one side, where a chain of extinct volcanic mountains rose from a vast plain of crumbling lava. There, to the south, would be Simplex-by-the-Sea, so tiny at this distance as to be invisible, populated by microbes.
Dirisha sighed, and shut off the projection. It had been even harder to go than she'd expected. On the other hand, there was a certain anticipation, a fluttery thrill in her belly, when she thought about Carlos. And the work, of course, being able to put her skills to use in actuality, instead of mere school testing.
"Docking in two minutes," came the voice again. Dirisha put away her memories and anticipation, and gathered up her bag and a small reader. In a few hours, she would be in deep space, being bent to a world billions of kilometers away.
"We are now docking at the Renault Space Terminal. Please remain seated until linkage and pressure lock are complete. Have a nice trip, and thank you for slinging on Renault Extraplanetary Space ways."
The Bender ship was much like an ocean liner in its interior construction; externally, however, it was a disaero-dynamic squarish block, since it would never touch a planet's atmosphere. In the between space traversed by a Bender, not even wisps of interstellar hydrogen existed to produce drag, and so any vessel shape was as good as the next.
Dirisha spent most of her time in the ship's gym or shooting range, occasionally stripping, save for her spets-dods, to swim laps in the exercise pool. She turned down nine offers to copulate during the first three days of the voyage, along with six invitations to dine and one proposal of short-term marriage. As was the case in many of her past trips, she noted the large numbers of idle rich, Confederation officials and rootless travellers onboard Twice, Dirisha saw Flex players trying to surreptitiously watch her. Both times, the players declined to issue challenges. She smiled at that; her skills and new speed made her too dangerous, and they were good enough to see that, fortunately for them. She was tempted to call one of the players out, but recognized the desire as a childish one. It would be a slaughter, and there was no joy to be taken in that. Besides, she was out of it now, such minor stakes held no interest for her. That thought was a surprise when she had it, and it made her feel good. She had bigger fields to harvest, and small contentions were not a part of her world any more.
The trip took three weeks, T. S., and by the time the ship returned to normal space, Dirisha was more than ready to begin her new job. She was eager.
"You'd be Zuri," the man said, disdain in his voice.
Dirisha nodded. "Yes." She looked at the man, and recalled where she'd seen him before: he was one of Carlos's bodyguards, with him at Matador Villa. A big man, he was, hard and dangerous, more so because he now felt threatened.
They stood in the lee of a bank of lockers in the ground building of the boxcar terminal. Gusts of wind moaned against the lockers from an open door across the large room, warm wind bearing the foreign smells of a new planet.
Dirisha decided to put this on a professional basis immediately. The contract with a matador stipulated that he or she was to be in complete charge of a client, and any other security personnel were to be under the command of the matador. "Who is watching Pr. Carlos?"
The big man seemed to mull that one over for a moment before he answered. "Starboard is with him. Grandle Diggs."
That would likely be the impersonator she'd seen at the school. Nicknamed
'Starboard'?
"Then you'd be called Port', right?"
He nodded. "Tork Ramson."
Dirisha said, "Let me guess: you always cover the left, and Starboard always covers the right."
Port looked surprised. "Yeah."
Dirisha shook her head. She'd bet these two clowns were standard security issue, probably running simple set patterns that never varied. It was a wonder Carlos was still alive. She said as much to Port.
"Hey, listen sister, we've been keeping him alive for three years-!"
"A miracle, in any faith. Now you listen up, Port. You've got your job as long as you do what I tell you. The first time you fuck up or drag your heels or even look surly, you're gone, copy? There are people who want this man dead, and it isn't going to happen while I'm running the show."
Port looked as if he were ready to take a swing. Dirisha almost wanted him to, but decided it would be better to impress him without undue violence.
Before he could move, she stepped around him, her faster reflexes kicking in so that he seemed to be moving in slow motion. She jabbed Port lightly just under the seventh vertebrae of his thick spine with the barrel of her spetsdod, printing a small circle into his flesh. He froze.
"I'm loading heavy shock-tox darts," she said, "and if I let one go, you'll spend a very unpleasant two hours wishing you could die, Port. I was hired because I'm one of the best there is at this business, that's no scat, just plain fact. Do we understand each other?"
She heard Port swallow dryly. He nodded. "Yes, Fem Zuri."
Dirisha moved her hand away from Port's back. "Good. Now, let's go see our employer."
Dirisha was appalled at how easy it was to get to Carlos. Port led her past a single guard holding a .177 Parker at port-arms, through an unarmored gate that a strong man or mue could have kicked open. The guard glanced at the carrier with Port and Dirisha inside, and waved them through without a word, much less a security scan. Dirisha felt her stomach knot. There were so many ways to gain entrance here she didn't bother to start thinking of them.
That system would be changed before the day was out.
There were several small buildings surrounding the headquarters of the Antag Union, itself a blocky structure with more glass than stone in its walls, four stories tall. One terrorist with a vacuum bomb could bring the place down like a house of twigs. Chang, didn't these people know anything?
At the lobby entrance, one guard again, an old woman wearing an antique explosive pellet pistol. Couldn't they at least give her a shotgun or hand wand? The woman nodded at Port, and didn't ask who Dirisha was. Gods.
Up the tube to the second floor. Down a hallway to a plain door. Well, that was one way to do it, hide the client. Except that the big man sitting at the door looking bored was a dead revelation. Starboard. He smiled. Then he must have seen the scowl on Port's face, for Starboard's grin
faded in a hurry.
"He in?" Port asked.
"Yeah. 'Less he went to the pissor."
"You remember Fem Zuri," Port said. "He wanted to see her as soon as I brought her back."
"Sure. Go on in."
Dirisha's earlier decision about keeping Port and Starboard changed. They resented her, and they were incompetent. A possibly lethal combination for her client.
Prebendary Rajeem Carlos stood next to the lighted stall of a betydelse space, blinking. He must have just finished, for he wore that confused, vulnerable look operators often had during post-transmit/receive fugue.
A floor-to-ceiling window behind Carlos allowed the afternoon sun to paint the room in a warm yellow; aside from the betydelse space, the room held a standing desk, a computer terminal, a short couch and a file cabinet.
Carlos wore a gray business coverall and his feet were bare, against the thick brown carpet.
"I brought her," Port said, his voice barely civil.
Carlos blinked again, a night creature unused to daylight, and squinted at Dirisha. A smile lit his face. "Ah, Fem Zuri! I've been looking forward to your arrival."
Dirisha acknowledged Carlos with a choppy, military bow. "Could we speak privately, Prebendary?"
"Rajeem, please. Certainly. Would you mind waiting outside, Tork?"
Port turned wordlessly and stalked out.
Dirisha shook her head at the broad smile Carlos wore. He looked genuinely happy. She hated to kill that smile, but she had her job to do.
"Prebendary-Rajeem-if I were-an assassin, even one with as little skill as a prepube at play, you would certainly be dead by now. Your bodyguards and your security are a not-funny joke. I could have been holding a gun on Port, to force him to bring me here-nobody challenged us! A determined killer could have shot his way in almost as easily, past that spit-shined trooper at the gate and your great-grandmother downstairs, and Starboard on the door would've had to wait for signals from his hindbrain before he moved, by which time you'd be history and the assassin would be halfway across the galaxy. And that window you're standing in front of-move away from there!