Larissa’s windup was polite, but clear. Time for them to leave. Matt reached out to his Patron. “Coming, Mistress Themistocles?”
Eliana held tight to Calyce, then reached up and brushed back raven dark locks from the girl’s forehead. Her niece hugged her back, tears filling her too serious eyes. Eliana stood up and bowed shakily to Larissa. “Teacher, may I take Calyce with me into the atrium? Just for twenty minutes? I promise you she’ll make up any lessons.”
Larissa shrugged. “Go. Take her. But send her back soon.”
An overjoyed Calyce took Eliana’s hand and followed them out into the column-lined hallway. Matt avoided the young girl’s grab for his gauntlet, walking ahead swiftly, beyond her reach. As they stepped out into the atrium garden, Eliana called to him.
“Matt, would you mind waiting over there by the pond while Calyce and I talk? I promise not to be too long.”
“One moment.” Faceplate showed him the time for the rescheduled meeting with Despot Karamanlis—they had thirty minutes to spare. “If you wish. I’m sure the fish will talk to me.” Turning, Matt went over to the pond, stood and looked down, focusing on the carp. He ignored the whispers, giggles and loving voices of Eliana and Calyce. Twenty minutes soon passed, far too quickly for him to finish a PET relayed game of Go with Mata Hari, who hovered on Nullgrav high overhead. At least his AI partner didn’t remind him of his lost sisters . . . .
Eliana touched Suit, surprising him. “Matt, why did it bother you—being among the children?”
Damn. Closing his eyes, he thought-imaged for transport. Then Matt turned and held out his hand. “Hold on.”
She did and the tractor beam took soft hold of them. “Matt?”
“Patron, did it ever occur to you that I have been many years away from human society? Or that the sight of those children would remind me of my own dead sisters?” Sadness beat at his heart, but he refused the weakness. “Do you care what a cyborg feels?”
“Of course I do. Especially if it’s you. I . . . .” Eliana looked guilty as they rose above the plowed fields and orderly strangeness of Olympus colony. She sighed as the beam shifted angle, aiming them at the Meeting Hall of Clan Karamanlis. “Matt, I’m sorry. Really I am. I was so focused on my own needs I hadn’t considered how this visit might disturb you.”
Matt shut off old memories and focused on the job ahead. “It doesn’t matter. A normal family life is not something a Vigilante expects.”
“I’m sorry, Matt. I never imagined—damn!” Eliana squeezed his gauntlet hard. “I’m very confused by what you are, and aren’t. But I have never doubted your humanness or your caring.”
Her confusion told him he had hit home. But did he really want her to care about him? Did he really desire closeness, caring . . . and love? Things might get very difficult if she came to care deeply for him, and he for her. Could he adjust to her dislike of computers, her hatred of AIs? Matt could no more give up who he was, and his nature, than she could turn black-skinned overnight, or abandon her tail.
All he knew was that his heart ached every time he looked at her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mata Hari’s tractor beam plunked them down on a crushed gravel street. It ran in front of the Clan Karamanlis Meeting Hall and a nearby group of dingy, two-story warehouses. Once again, solid earth supported them. Matt sent an image-thought up to Mata Hari, ordering a continuous Tactical Monitoring of the entire city. In Suit, he left off going to ocean-time, but did bring on-line Suit’s autonomous Defense algorithms as part of a Full Alert. Clearing his faceplate, he focused on the local neighborhood. About him, wood buildings creaked in the cold wind, decay smells oozed up from an open drainage ditch, and down by a bustube stop, people dressed in drab cloaks moved about listlessly, as if very tired. It seemed the Pure Breed Greeks and their crossbreed offspring were hard put to maintain their urbus. Or had the presence of the Stripper drained away some of their pioneer spirit? In front of them, the Meeting Hall’s thick oak door opened slowly. A white-haired head poked out.
“Are you the guests seeking an audience with the Despot?” asked a middle-aged man who resembled an escapee from a software assembly line.
“We are,” Matt said through Suit’s speaker. Eliana waited beside him, patient and absorbed with her own thoughts.
The door-greeter nodded. “Enter and follow me, please.”
Matt and Eliana entered, but halted in the entryway. Suit scanned the building’s two floors, fed him a Tactical readout, and then left behind nanoware calling cards as they followed the impatient door-greeter. They walked down a long hallway, turned left, went up wooden stairs to the second floor, and entered a large room with a skylight. Their entry had been preceded by several Probeshells and ornithopters from his chest Utility pack, much to the irritation of the greeter. On his faceplate’s Eyes-Up display, Despot Nikolaos Telemachus Karamanlis sat behind a standard Executive’s workdesk filled with computer terminals, display screens, comsat downlink feeds, and a red-blinking Security panel. At present, every alarm on it flashed blood red as they entered the room.
The Despot looked up, smiling ruefully. “Damned desk won’t accept an order to shut down its Security alerts. I hope you don’t mind the visual pyrotechnics?” he said, waving Eliana to a wooden chair opposite his desk.
“Not at all.” Matt let go of Eliana’s hand. She sat in the chair indicated, but looked venomously at the Despot. In Suit, Matt stood to one side, beyond the focus range of the gas laser hidden in the middle of the desk’s front panel.
Nikolaos grimaced. “Please excuse my workdesk—it has the usual Defense modules but they don’t realize they’re outclassed by a Vigilante’s Cyborg suit.”
Matt inclined his helmet slightly. “No problem. Just so long as the pyrotechnics stay innocuous . . . and your neurolink attachments to the desk laser and that autocannon hiding up in the ceiling remain inactive.”
Nikolaos’ expression turned neutral. “You have some purpose in your visit?”
Eliana flushed. “Damned right he does! You bastard! It’s because of your idiocy that I had to hire—”
“Shut up,” Matt told Eliana. She shut up, reining in her temper with difficulty. He watched Nikolaos’ squinty, rat-like eyes. “The Despot does not cry over spilt nutrient fluid, Patron. The past is the past. He cares only for the present and a possible profit in the future. Correct, Despot?”
Nikolaos grinned easily as he sat back in his padded chair. “Correct. Executive misjudgments happen to the best of administrators—even those with genetic modifications like myself.”
“Quite.” Matt considered the revelations of Spyridon and his own hunches. “Despot, what is the colony’s ratio of Pure Breed Human births to crossbreed births . . . using the neonatal placental units?”
Caution showed in the Greek. “About one to five—five crossbreed births, that is. Why?”
“Why doesn’t Olympus colony birth more Pure Breed humans the usual way?”
“For what reason?” Nikolaos looked scornful. “We’d just have to ship them off for service in asteroid mining or on Zeus Station. Those are the only places they can survive, outside of the urbus walls. Pioneering on Halcyon requires one to contain the spores of a Mother Tree, and a metabolism able to digest local food products. Surely you know this?”
Matt smiled broadly behind his now-clear faceplate. “I did. But I didn’t know how dependent you’d become on imported obstetrical machinery. Will the colony import more neonatal units?”
“Why don’t you ask her half-brother Konstantinos?” Nikolaos snarled, nodding toward Eliana. “Clan Themistocles thinks it’s sooo smart—let them try to keep this colony from dying without new births and new crossbreed colonists!”
“Perhaps they have another way?” Matt suggested, watching Eliana.
She jumped slightly, recovering her composure before Nikolaos turned to her. Nice. Matt blinked again. Off to one side of the room, Suit projected an aerial holo of the Stripper and its trail of deva
station.
“Nice politics you folks have,” he said, letting anger into his voice. “Despot Nikolaos, is that worth the life of a sickly male heir for you?”
“Cyborg animal!” Nikolaos’ narrow face flushed with fury. He gripped the armrests of his chair, shaking visibly. “How dare you question the decisions of Pure Breed humans! You’re nothing but—”
“A Vigilante,” Matt said softly, making sure Nikolaos noted the targeting Lock On by his pulse-Doppler radar, the laser ranging from his shoulder laser cannons, and the Target tracking by his mid-waist infrared scanners. Nikolaos did his best to ignore the Probeshells and ornithopters that hovered to either side of him, each loaded with penetrator viruses and nano-borers. “Next question. When did you stop seeing the Autarch Dreedle? And inviting her to your bed?”
Nikolaos gulped. Gulped again. Then gritted his teeth as he forced his gaze away from hovering death and back to Suit. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. The new Autarch has no reason to like Clan Karamanlis after our . . . misjudgment.”
“True. But does she like you? Personally?”
Eliana turned and stared at Matt, her expression newly respectful. He ignored her, his attention only on Despot Nikolaos.
Finally, the Despot sighed, grinned like a Vidcast star, then sat forward in his chair, elbows resting on the desk as his face showed only blandness. “Nice technique. Boy. Did your suit get some good biometric readouts on my reactions?”
“Enough,” Matt said. “Does she?”
“None of your business.”
Eliana turned back to Nikolaos. “But dear cousin, you dealt with her often—on colony business, you said.”
Nikolaos shrugged. “Nice day, isn’t it? Is that why your Dreadnought is hovering over us rather than landing at the Port?”
Matt laughed, waving for Eliana to get up. “Why should I land a two kilometer-long starship at a decrepit Port facility . . . a facility owned by Clan Karamanlis through two false-front dummy corporations and financed by a bridge-loan from the Halicene Conglomerate?” Matt turned, pointedly showing his back to Nikolaos. Eliana moved up beside him as they headed for the room’s exit. The Despot called after them.
“Computer puppet, watch out who you smart off to. Some entities won’t give you a second chance. Or care for the crossbreed company you keep.”
“You’re alive,” Matt boomed back. “For now. Don’t tempt the Defense programs of my ship. Or this Suit. Good day . . . ex-Despot.”
They stepped outside, onto the sidewalk in front of the Meeting Hall warehouse. Fully enclosed by Suit, Matt felt as if he now breathed clean air. No matter what his sensors listed as the local industrial and environmental contaminants.
Eliana looked up at him, her expression intent. “Matt, what clued you to the affair between Nikolaos and—”
Her mouth opened wide as a laser beam cut through her right shoulder, red blood spouting out as soon as the beam cut off.
Emergency override!
Ocean-time washed over him.
Six hundred forty nanoseconds.
Suit tracked the laser pulse to the upper window of a grain storage silo about three kilometers away, on the other side of the warehouse district.
Forty milliseconds.
Mata Hari came on-line from its nearby Nullgrav Hover, grabbed them both with a tractor beam, and pulled them up, out of the lightspeed pathway of the beam weapon.
Three hundred milliseconds.
His backpack launched a hypersonic Fire-and-Forget rocket tipped with napalm. The belly weapons pod of Mata Hari shot a gas laser pulse strong enough to melt concrete. The silo erupted in yellow flame and black explosions.
One and a quarter seconds.
The ka-boom of the two explosions echoed through Suit’s external Ears as they flew through the air. Bending his legs up and arching over, Matt enclosed Eliana in the womb-embrace of Suit—just in case some other idiot took a laser potshot at them.
Three seconds.
Matt blinked a coded sequence, shrugged and thought-imaged.
His biceps vibrated as the rocket guns fired a volley of Nanoshells to investigate the scorched remains, probe for fragments of the weapon, sniff the immediate area for the sweat signature of whoever had carried the weapon into the silo some minutes earlier . . . and then stay on-site until every possible shred of data had been gleaned for Suit’s Tactical and Intelligence CPUs.
Four seconds.
Overhead, the silvery-grey and brown bulk of Mata Hari loomed large. Its flexmetal skin puckered out, enveloped, and deposited them in the Spine hallway next to Biolab.
Five seconds.
He crashed through Biolab’s optical matter door faster than Mata Hari could move distracted electron senses. “How the shit did you let an offensive power unit approach within firing range? And is she dead, dying or recoverable?”
Seven seconds.
“Let go of her,” Mata Hari whispered. Tractor beams touched his bloodied gauntlets, reaching for his frail cargo. Matt let go.
Seven and a half seconds.
“She is alive. The right lung is punctured but nearly healed from the cauterizing effect of the beam. Cartilage and tendons are severed around her shoulder blade. She is in shock. Blood loss is one-quarter of her body capacity. She will survive.”
Eight and three quarters seconds.
Matt breathed deeply. Shaking with fear and fury and black hatred so deep it frightened him, he let go of ocean-time.
Step-down. Light-headness blurred his perceptions a moment, then his vision cleared, though his heart beat too fast.
Turning, Matt headed out of Biolab and up-Spine for the Bridge, talking urgently to Mata Hari. “Take care of her. Heal her. Prepare an immediate SitOps review of everything that happened within three kilometers of the meet-place.” Feeling impatient, he moved Suit into a fast run down the long hallway. “And bring up the Clan Karamanlis Meeting Hall on the forward holosphere.”
“Complying.”
In short minutes he stepped through the slidedoor and into the Bridge. The forward holosphere was already on. He walked forward and stood by the Pit, clenching his gauntlets.
“Matt?” Concern registered in the AI’s voice.
“Yes?”
“I have that SitOps review now.”
“Proceed.”
Sounding chagrined, his symbiont reported. “As ordered, I was on Tactical Monitor for the entire city. The laser rifle made it into my Defense perimeter because I thought I detected the movement of a kiloton-level nuclear device through the main sewer line. My error lay in not connecting the presence of a single human carrying an optoelectronic rod with . . . a separate power pack. At least, not until the pack was jammed home to the laser rod.” She paused once more as Matt stared deep into the holosphere, blindly watching the Meeting Hall. In real-time, a few human figures scurried out of the building, stood on the street and looked uptown, toward the blazing silo. “The single shot occurred within a half-second of the weapon’s power-up.”
“You idiot!” He cursed his partner’s glitch-prone software, suggested she buy her algorithms from a blind beggar, and in general let her know how pissed he was. When he ran down, Matt dissected her performance. “There was still enough time—if you’d been suspicious. You realize now the radiation leakage was probably stolen reactor fuel used as a diversion to make you think a major attack was being prepared?”
“I understand that now,” Mata Hari said, still sounding chagrined.
He stared at the geodesic dome of the Karamanlis Hall, feeling the urge to devastate. “Any evidence the attack signal came from Nikolaos?”
“None. But he could have paid for such a service between the time you called for an appointment and your arrival. The school visit gave him enough time to arrange for this ambush.”
“Or someone else could have decided to make it look as if Clan Karamanlis wished to attack my Patron.” Matt grit his teeth.
“True. You face a myriad of po
ssible opponents.”
Matt grimaced, sourly amused by Mata Hari’s grand overstatement. “Not quite a myriad. But enough. Launch a two thousand pound laser-guided chemical bomb at the Hall. Aim for the open ground in back, near the building’s foundations. I want to shake them up, not destroy them.”
“Done. Why?” she said, sounding curious.
“General predator principles.” He turned, stared at the red slidedoor leading into the Spine hallway, and wondered how long it would take the Regen unit to repair, resuscitate, and return Eliana Antigone Themistocles to working condition. Able, once again, to look him in the eyes . . . so he could apologize for not protecting her. “Confusion to one’s enemies is ancient strategy. Even when you’re more confused than them, it’s a good idea.”
“Noted,” she said, her feminine tone thoughtful.
Matt turned back to the holosphere, blinked, shut down Suit, and stepped out of it, once more open to the lightbeam touch of his partner. His fallible partner. “Mata Hari, head for the vicinity of the Stripper. It’s time we inspected our most obvious opponent. And I suspect the terrain around it will be less . . . less vicious than human-occupied territory.”
“Complying. And Matt?”
“Yes?”
“I am very, very sorry. I’m surprised I didn’t catch on to what was happening.”
“I am too.” The ship’s Security lapse shocked him. Could it relate to the weird orders emanating from the Restricted Rooms? Could her normal hyper-alertness have been slowed to organic-normal speed? Mata Hari would never intentionally let a Patron be hurt—she was too much a real person not to feel another’s pain. That he knew for certain. But perhaps the earlier software glitch that unleashed the ship’s Colossus Mode had interfered with her ability to extrapolate from Tactical data? Also, she had switched her persona-image from the Mata Hari spy-type to that lurid Barbarian Queen imagery, then back to her usual self . . . perhaps the readjusting of her persona parameters had distracted her? He reassured his partner. “Don’t worry—instead, improve your planetary surveillance. Next time, I don’t want to be surprised. Understood?”
Star Vigilante (Vigilante Series) Page 14