by Chris Bunch
THE
WIND
AFTER
TIME
Book One of
The Shadow Warrior
Chris Bunch
a division of F+W Media, Inc.
For
Lance LeGault:
a damn fine
Wolfe
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Also Available
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
The seventeen-year-old walked into the circle of smooth-raked sand. Around it sharp boulders, reaching toward alien stars, made the circle an arena. All else was silence and the night.
A corpse-white grasping organ appeared, extending toward him. In the center was a Lumina. It glowed.
“Take the stone.”
“I am not worthy.”
“Take the stone.”
“My years are not sufficient.”
“Take the stone.”
Joshua took the Lumina into his own hand. His fingers brushed the Al’ar’s tendrils.
“Have you been instructed?”
“I have.”
“Who lit that torch?”
A second Al’ar spoke. “I did.” Joshua saw Taen standing to one side of the sand circle.
The Guardian forsook the ritual: “This may be forbidden.”
“No,” Taen said, voice certain. “The codex did not see, so it could not enjoin such a turning.”
“So you said before, when you came to us, and told us of this Way Seeker.”
The Guardian stood without speaking, and all Joshua heard was the whisper of the dry Saurian wind. Finally:
“Perhaps we should allow it, then.”
• • •
Joshua Wolfe came awake. There was no sound but the hum of the ship, no problems indicated by the overhead telltale. He was sweating.
“Record.”
“Recording as ordered,” the ship said.
“The dream occurred again. Analyze to match previous occurrences.”
Ship hum.
“No similarities found. No known stress at present beyond normal when beginning an assignment.”
Wolfe slid out of the bunk. He was naked. He walked out of the day cabin, glanced across the instrument banks on the bridge without seeing them, then went down the circular staircase to the deck below. He palmed a wall sensor, and the hatch opened into a small chamber with padded floor and mirrored walls and ceiling.
He went to the middle of the room. He crouched slightly, centering his body.
Breathe … breathe …
Joshua Wolfe, nearly forty, had used his body hard. Ropy muscles and occasional scars roadmapped his rangy high-split frame, and his face appeared to have been left in the weather to age. His hair was bleached as if by the sun. He was just over six feet tall and kept his weight at 180 pounds. His flat, arctic blue eyes looked at the world without affection, without fear, without illusion.
He began slow, studied movements, hands reaching, touching, striking, returning, guarding; feet lifting, stepping, kicking. His face showed no stress, effort, or pleasure.
He returned to his base stance abruptly and froze, eyes changing focus from infinity to the mirrors on the wall, on the ceiling. For an instant his reflections blurred. Then the multiple images of Joshua returned.
He sagged, wind roaring through his lungs as if he’d finished a series of wind sprints. He allowed a flash of disappointment to cross his face, then wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
He controlled his breathing and went to the fresher. Perhaps now he would be able to sleep.
• • •
“Accumulators at near capacity for final jump.”
“Time to jump?”
“Ten ship seconds … Now.”
Blur. Feel of flannel, memory of father laughing as he danced in his arms, bitter — bay, thyme, neither, in the mind. A universe died, and space, time, suns, planets were reborn.
“N-space exited. All navbeacs respond. Plus-minus variation acceptable. Final jump complete. Destination on-screen. Sensors report negative scan, all bands. Estimated arrival, full drive, five ship hours. Correction?”
“None.”
• • •
Wolfe’s ship, the Grayle, darted toward the field on a direct approach.
“Where shall I land?”
A screen lit. The field below was just that — a huge, bare expanse of cracked concrete. There was no tower, no port building, no hangars, no restaurant, no transport center. There were perhaps half a hundred starships, from long-abandoned surplus military craft to nondescript transports to small well-maintained luxury craft parked helter-skelter on the sides of the tarmac. There was no sign of life on the field except, at one end, a grounded maintenance lighter and two men intent on disemboweling the engine spaces of a heavy-lifter.
“Put us down not too far from those ramp rats.”
Seconds later, the braking drive flared and the ship grounded. Joshua touched sensors; screens lit and were manipulated as he carefully examined every starship of a certain description. One drew his attention. He opened a secondary screen on that mil-surplus ship, once a medium long-range patrol craft.
“ID?”
“Ship on-screen matches input data on target fiche. Hull registry does not match either numbers from target fiche or the ship listed as carrying those numbers in Lloyds’ Registry. Sensors indicate skin temperature shows ship active within last planetary week. Drive tube temperatures confirm first datum. No sensor suggests ship is occupied.”
“It wouldn’t be. He’s already about his business. Maintain alert status, instant lift readiness. I’m going trolling.”
“Understood.”
Joshua dressed, then went to an innocent wall and pressed a stud. The wall opened. Inside were enough weapons — guns, grenades, knives, explosives — to outfit a small commando landing. The ship itself hid other surprises: two system-range nuclear missiles, four in-atmosphere air-to-air missiles, and a chaingun.
Joshua chose a large Federation-issue blaster and holstered it in a worn military gun belt with three magazine pouches clipped to it. Around his neck he looped a silver chain with a dark metal emblem on it, stylized calligraphy for the symbol ku. It also supported, at the back of his neck, a dartlike obsidian throwing knife.
Joshua considered his appearance. Gray insul pants, short boots, dark blue singlet under an expensive-looking but worn light gray jacket that might have been leather but was not, a jacket that obviously held proofed shockpanels. Pistol well used, all too ready.
Someone looking for a job, any job, so long as it wasn’t legal. Just another new arrival on Platte. Just another one of the boys. He would fit right in. He stuck a flesh-toned bonemike com over his left clavicle.
“Testing,” he said, then subvocalized in Al’ar: “Is this device singing?”
“My being says this is so.” He heard the ship’s response through bone induction.
Joshua’s ears crackled as they adjusted to the new pressure. He walked onto the landing field, and the lock doors hissed shut.
He started whistling loudly when he was still some distance from the mechanics. One of them casually walked to his toolbox, picked up a rag, and began wiping his hands. Joshua noted that the rag was lumpy, about the size of a medium-sized pistol. Platte was that kind of world.
“Help you, friend?”
“Looking for some transport to get around the hike into town.”
“Town’s a fairly dickey label when there isn’t but one hotel, a dozen or so stores, three alkjoints, our shop, an’ a restaurant you’d best not trust your taste buds to.”
“Sounds like the big city compared to where I’m from.”
A smile came and went on the mechanic’s lips, and he looked pointedly at the heavy gun hung low on Joshua’s hip. “I’d guess you came from there at speed, eh?”
“You’d lose, friend,” Joshua said. “When I lifted, there was nobody even vaguely interested in my habits or my comings and goings.”
The mechanic took the hint and started toward his lighter. “I can call for Lil. See if she wants to pick up a few credits. But it’ll cost.”
“Aren’t many Samaritans working the Outlaw Worlds these days,” Joshua said. “I’ll pay.”
The mechanic picked up a com and spoke into it. “She’s on her way.” He returned to the engine bay and turned his wrench back on. The second man appeared not to have noticed Joshua.
After a while Joshua saw a worm of dust crawl toward the field.
• • •
Lil was about eighteen, working on forty. Her vehicle was a nearly new light utility lifter that looked as if it’d been sandblasted for a repaint and then the idea had been forgotten. “What’re you doin’ on Platte?” she asked without preamble after Joshua had introduced himself.
“My travel agent said it was a relaxing place. Good weather.”
Lil glanced through the ripped plas dome at the overcast sky that threatened rain but would never deliver. “Right. All Platte needs is water and some good people. That’s all Hell needs, too.”
The road they traveled above was marked with twelve-foot-high stakes driven into the barren soil. Some time earlier someone had run a scraper down the track, so there were still wheeled or tracked vehicles in use. The vegetation was sparse, gray, and sagging.
“You’ll be staying at the hotel?”
“Don’t know. Depends.”
“It’s the only game in town. Old Diggs sets his rates like he knows it.”
“So?”
“I run a rooming house. Sorta. Anyway, there’s a room. Bed. Fresher. For extra, I’ll cook two meals a day.”
“Sorta?”
“Biggish place. Started as a gamblin’ joint. Damn fool who set it up never figured people got to have somethin’ to gamble before they gamble. He walked off into the desert a year or so ago, and nobody bothered looking to see how far he got. We moved in.”
“We?” Joshua asked.
“Mik … he’s the one that called me. And Phan. He was the quiet one. Probably didn’t even look up from bustin’ knuckles. They’re my husbands.”
“I’ll let you know if I need a place.”
• • •
Joshua asked Lil to wait and went into the long, low single-story building without a sign. The lobby was scattered with a handful of benches, their canvas upholstery peeling. It smelled stale and temporary. There were planters on either side of the door, but the plants had mummified a long time before. The checkout station was caged in thick steel bars. The old man behind it blanked the holoset he was watching a pornie on and smiled expectantly. Joshua eyed the bars.
“You must have some interesting paydays around here.”
The old man — Diggs, Joshua supposed — let the smile hang for an instant in token appreciation. “It prevents creativity from some of our more colorful citizens. You want a room?”
“I might.” Joshua reached into his jacket and slid a holopic across. Diggs activated it and studied the man in the projection carefully but said nothing. Joshua took a single gold disk from another pocket, considered, as greed strolled innocently across Diggs’s face, added its brother, and dropped the coins on the counter.
“Tell by the sound they ain’t snide,” Diggs said. “Damned poor picture. Doesn’t look like your friend was very cheerful at having it taken, either.”
“His name is Innokenty Khodyan.”
“That wasn’t what he used here.” The coins vanished. “Another reason I don’t have trouble is everybody knows I’m an open book. He checked out two days ago. Took him that long to get a sled and driver sent down from Yoruba. Two other men came with the armored lim. Hell of a rig. Long time since this dump has seen something that plush.”
“Yoruba, eh?”
“Three, maybe four hours, full power away. Across the mountains, then northeast up toward the coast. What isn’t in or around Yoruba isn’t worth buying. The reason they don’t fancy a landing field is they like to see their visitors coming. From a ways off.”
“I didn’t think Ben would change his ways.” Joshua nodded thanks. Innokenty Khodyan was running as if he were on rails. “Three other questions, if you will.”
“You can ask.”
“Is there any other way to get to Yoruba? If a man was in a little more of a hurry.”
“You can wait, see if somebody’s headed there in a lighter. Somebody generally is, once a month or so. That’s about it. Second question?”
“How did Khodyan pay for his room?”
“That’s something you won’t get answered. Try again.”
“The two men with the lim? What’d be your call on them?”
“Same sort as you, mister. Except their iron wasn’t out in the open. But they had the same kind of … call it serious intent.”
“Thanks.”
Joshua was at the door.
“Now I have a question,” Diggs said. “Will somebody be looking for you in a couple of days?”
“Not likely,” Joshua said. “Not likely at all.”
• • •
Lil had her blouse off, eyes closed, her feet splayed on the dash. She’d slid the worthless dome back into its housing. Joshua took a moment to admire her. Her breasts were still eighteen, nipples pointed at the invisible sun. She looked clean, and Joshua didn’t mind her perfume, even if it made him think he was trapped in a hothouse.
“You stayin’ here?” She didn’t open her eyes.
“No.”
“Do I have a roomer … or is it back to the field?”
“Lil,” Joshua said, “what shape is this bomb in? I mean its drive. I can tell it’s not up for best custom finish.”
“It hums. Phan makes sure of that. He says he don’t want me to break down out in the middle of nowhere. But I think he just loves turbines. He’d rather wrench than screw.”
This time the gold was dropped on the woman’s stomach. Five coins, larger than the two he’d given Diggs. Joshua thought about letting his fingers linger but decided not to. Lil lazily opened her eyes.
“Now, that’s the sorta thing that really makes a girl smile. I was gonna rape you for the transport, but not that bad. Or are we talkin’ about other possibilities?”
“We are. I need transport to Yoruba. Leaving now. After I get a few things from my ship. That’s the retainer.”
“Yoruba, huh? You just want me to drop you off … or will you be coming back through here?”
“Maybe a day. Maybe longer. I can’t say. Maybe I’ll need transport when I get there, maybe not. Depends. But if you’re available, that might simplify things.”
“You just hired yourself a pilot. Ten minutes at my place, then we can flit.”
“Just like that?”
“Phan, Mik, me, we don’t tie each other down or make rules. They can fiddle their dees while I’m gone, anyway. Build up energy for when I get
back.”
Joshua went around to the other side of the lifter and over the low hull into the seat beside Lil. She started the primary and let it warm.
“You planning on getting dressed?” Joshua asked. “Or did I just hire my first nude chauffeur?”
“I could put it on, I could take the rest of it off. Whatever you want, since you’re paying.”
Joshua made no answer. Lil shrugged and pulled the blouse back on. “At least I got your attention.”
• • •
The track through the mountains had been roughly graded so a gross-laden heavy-lifter wouldn’t high-side, but it still was more an exceptionally wide path than a roadway. Joshua asked Lil to take the lifter to max altitude, which gave him a vulture’s-eye perspective at about 150 feet constant.
The land was savage, dry brown earth running into gray rock. The scraggly trees and brush were perhaps a little taller than they’d been on the flats, but not much. Lil and Joshua overflew a couple of abandoned, stripped lifters and one thoroughly mangled wreck but saw no other sign of travelers.
There were shacks, but he couldn’t tell if they were occupied. Once or twice he saw, higher against a mountain face, scantlings, survival domes, and piled detritus where some miner had tried to convince himself there must be some value to be torn from this waste.
Joshua spotted to one side a sprawling, high-fenced estate. Beyond the walls there was Earth green and the blue of a small lake. There were buildings, big ones, a dozen of them, white in new stone.
“Who belongs to that?”
“Nobody knows,” Lil answered. “Somebody rich. Or powerful. Somebody private. He — or she, or it — gets supplies once every couple months. Curiosity don’t seem welcome.”
She pointed. Joshua had already seen the two gravlighters that had lifted away from one building and now flew parallel to the lifter’s pattern. He wasn’t close enough to see how many gunnies each lighter held. After they’d passed, the lighters returned to the estate.
“You were in the war?” Lil asked.
“That was a long time ago.”
“Figured, by your rig. My dad … anyway, the guy Ma said was my father was some kind of soldier, too. Ma kept a holo of him on a dresser, wearing some kind of uniform. Took it with her when she hooked, I guess. I don’t remember seeing it … afterward.” Then: “Any damage in my asking about what happens once we get in range of Yoruba? I mean, I can nap-of-the-earth insert you without anyone noticing. Their sensor techs couldn’t hear a fart on a field phone.”