Eliana lifted her eyebrows. “Ah—a sophist. If you die before the contract is completed, you get out of your commitment.”
“Hey. You’re right.” Matt grinned. “I never was much good in rhetoric class.”
“Rhetoric?” Eliana relaxed in the couch, hands folded in her lap and chest rising with her breathing. “You never took any Standard Ed class I know of—did you?”
“Nope,” he said, wishing he could dispose of Mata Hari’s mental peering-over-his-shoulder. “Just lessons from the School of Reality.”
“Matthew, the countdown is ending,” Mata Hari said out loud.
He turned away from the holosphere. “Speaking of which, please close your eyes. Now. Immediately!”
Eliana looked puzzled, but closed her eyes. As did Matt.
A brilliant light flooded the Bridge and seeped in under his eyelids, filling his mind with actinic white brilliance. A diamond hard brilliance that was but a pale reflection of the true thermonuclear inferno now unfolding its petals above an uninhabited ocean of Halcyon.
“Wow!” Eliana gasped as she opened her eyes. “That was a nuclear blast!” she yelled, looking to the holosphere. “Who’s attacking us?”
“No one,” Mata Hari said neutrally from an overhead speaker.
Eliana scowled, looking up. “Damned computer. Then who are we attacking?”
“No one,” Matt said, hoping her quick temper would allow him time to explain. “Eliana, Madam Patron, we are seventy kilometers northwest of the Stripper, on south continent and outside of its Defense perimeter. I’ve just finished ‘sampling’ the Stripper’s composition at the subatomic level—courtesy of some stray neutrinos and x-rays from my rather small hydrogen bomb.” He tilted his head to one side. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind!” Eliana gulped. She flushed ruby-red. Then she tried to rise from her accel-couch, but its crash-cushioning enfolded her as Mata Hari shook slightly from the sonic boom that followed the explosion’s light and thermal pulses. “Damn you! What kind of craziness possessed you to—”
“Sir,” Mata Hari interrupted formally. “You told me to put through any comsat vidcalls after the explosion? There are several now lined up on my multiplex boards. With whom do you wish to talk to first?”
Matt looked at Eliana, then reached out to her, palm open. “Eliana—will you trust me on this? The blast was absolutely necessary and the Stripper hasn’t released any ecotoxins. It may attack us shortly, or it may just signal our presence to its master. Please?”
Eliana had never seen him plead for anything. It shocked her. “Uh, well—” she frowned, still upset. “The least you could have done was discuss this with me beforehand!”
“You were unconscious in Biolab.” He smiled pleasantly. “But now, I’m very happy to see you up and feeling better. Do you mind? I have calls to take.”
She glowered a moment, then grinned at his verbal dodging. “Oh, all right. I just can’t stay mad at you.”
“Thanks. Now, please watch and enjoy my Vigilante show.” Matt turned, snapped his fingers, said “Robe,” and caught the formal Japanese kimono robes that dropped from Mata Hari’s ceiling into his outstretched grasp. He tossed the lavalava up toward the ceiling, then dressed in the robes, cinched the complex belt, and walked over to the Interlock Pit. He stepped down, sat in his glass seat, and felt the cable socket into his neck implant.
“Mata Hari—you’ll have to make do with cable’s fiber optics. For some events, formal clothing is important in sapient affairs.” Off to the side, Eliana leaned forward in her couch, looking at the holosphere. “Now, feed me the call from Autarch Dreedle—she was first, wasn’t she?”
“She was,” Mata Hari said, her tone business-serious. “In the front holosphere, sir.”
Autarch Dreedle’s willowy, blue-robed form took shape in the holosphere. She stood in her Trunk office and her hand-clenched posture conveyed the sense that this redhead was quite, quite mad. Matt acknowledged her call. “Yes, Autarch?”
From the distant northern continent, her deep brown eyes glowed angrily. “Orbital sensors confirm through ballistic backtracking that the recent hydrogen bomb explosion near the Stripper came from your ship.” Dreedle spoke in a very formal, very official voice. “Vigilante, I once asked you to avoid destroying my planet.”
“I am,” Matt said amiably. “So far. All my Tactical scenarios suggest it should be possible to leave your planetary ecosystem intact after removal of the Stripper.”
“Removal?” She switched gears very smoothly. “How do you plan to do that? And why attack it? Surely you’re risking the release of ecotoxins!”
He shook his head. “Not at all. First, there has been no such release—according to my miniProbes. Second, a defensive response is unlikely—the missile was not aimed at the Stripper.”
Curiosity flamed in the Autarch’s eyes. “Oh? Then why the blast? Surely there are other ways to impress Halicene Conglomerate . . . and your Patron.”
Matt smiled toothily. “I am not in the business of impressing commerce-raiders. Unlike you. As I told Despot Nikolaos . . . when we discussed your youthful indiscretions in his bedroom. Remember? That was before your recent elevation to the Autarchy.”
Dreedle swayed. With shock? Matt was uncertain about emotional reactions in a Derindl. Finally, the Autarch smiled weakly, showing numerous pointed teeth. “What else did the Despot tell you . . . about us?”
“Enough.” Matt looked aside at the Pit’s comlink panel—a row of status lights blinked insistently. “Pardon me, Autarch, but I have other incoming calls. If you don’t mind?”
The Autarch lifted her chin defiantly. “Before you again contaminate my atmosphere with transuranic products, please call me. The Mother Trees can handle fallout with suitable notice.”
Matt nodded. “I will. And I did warn Mother Tree Xylene. However, not all fallout on Halcyon derives from nucleonic reactions. Good day.” He blinked.
Next in the holosphere was the lined face and grey eyes of Ioannis, Despot of Clan Themistocles. He sat on his Dais Throne, within his tapestry-hung Throne Room. The man looked quite angry, but sought to hide it in the bustle of personal Servitors who gathered around him, plying him with long sheets of data printouts. He looked up, the very image of a harried, concerned Administrator. “Vigilante? What the hell are you doing attacking the Stripper with a hydrogen bomb?”
He offered a feral grin to Ioannis—it dated from the day he’d killed his cloneslave master on Alkalurops and taken back his freedom. “And a good day to you, Despot Ioannis. I hope Grandfather Petros is well and that my visit to Despot Karamanlis was properly reported to you?”
Ioannis scowled, waving aside the Servitors. “It was. Along with your destruction of a grain silo in Olympus. You seem to take pleasure in wreaking devastation. Do you plan further attacks on my city?”
“No.” Matt blinked a short code. “I am now uplinking to you a digitized record of the laser rifle attack on your half-sister Eliana . . . by forces unknown . . . after we left the company of Despot Nikolaos.” Shock filled Ioannis’ face; printouts fell from his lap. “That’s why I melted the silo and deposited a bomb ‘reminder’ on the back doorstep of Meeting Hall Karamanlis. Can you add any data on who might wish your half-sister dead? Besides yourself?”
The Despot’s lips trembled with barely controlled fury. “Eliana—hurt! You failed to protect her? Bastard! And why this insult to my manhood? She is—”
“She is,” Matt interrupted, “a crossbreed woman who will survive on Halcyon long after you are gone and who, thanks to some genetic engineering, will birth crossbreed heirs the natural way. Heirs who could inherit the Themistocles shipping business.” To the side, Eliana gasped, cursed her brother’s name, and half-rose from the accel-couch.
Ioannis paled. He waved one hand hurriedly, raising a Privacy Curtain inside his own office. “Vigilante—you misunderstand Greek politics. I love my half-sister. I have no reason to wish her harm. I would love
—”
“To have her become sterile,” Matt interrupted again, waving Eliana back from the holosphere pickup. “Or become incapable of carrying a child who could challenge your suzerainty over Olympus colony. Or perhaps you plan to marry her off in a Trade-alliance marriage?” He sat back in his glass chair, folded hands in his lap, and watched Despot Ioannis with the same attention he’d given to Legion. “Enough of standard geopolitics. I am more curious about your business affairs. Tell me, Despot, how much did you pay the Halicene Conglomerate to shift their freighter business from your cousin Nikolaos’ port down in Olympus . . . and up to your Docks there, at Zeus Station?”
Ioannis sat back in his alabaster-white Throne seat, rested his chin on one clenched fist, and exerted self-control. Calculation glinted in the man’s grey eyes. Finally, he smiled. “Commercial secrets are the oldest of state secrets, Vigilante. Any bribe I could offer you would be less than what the Derindl will pay you to rid them of the Stripper.” Ioannis canted his head. “So . . . why do you waste your efforts on our sordid internal politics?”
Matt glanced over at Eliana. Her milk-white face showed a horrid fascination with Ioannis. Standing to one side, out of pickup range, she had watched their byplay, hearing it, seeing it, wondering what her Vigilante had in mind. And whether her older half-brother preferred her dead, disabled, or married off to secure a Trade alliance. Anything but free, independent and in control of her own destiny. Matt turned back to the overconfident Ioannis.
“Despot, when I fix a problem, it stays fixed.” Matt smiled coldly. “Failing to tend to the underlying human politics that led to this tragedy would only leave you and your cousins free to repeat such a stupidity. For the best of commercial motives, of course.”
“Be cautious, Vigilante,” warned Ioannis, frowning. “The Derindl are not blameless in this matter.”
“I know—which is why I wonder if Nikolaos’ sexual alliance with Autarch Dreedle will gain him what he expects to gain . . . or simply a surprise?”
Fascination showed on Ioannis’ granite face, then his expression turned neutral. “Thanks for the information. That maneuver is a countercheck I had not anticipated. Your price?”
“No price. It’s free.”
Ioannis showed disbelief. “Nothing worthwhile is ever free.”
“How true. And sometimes the price takes a while to sink in.” Matt nodded to the side. “Sorry—more calls to take. But a final piece of free advice—I would get the colony’s Genetic Primary carrier out of space and down-planet, into a safe house.”
“I am well aware of the unique value of our Primary.” Ioannis looked sour, as if an ulcer were acting up. “Until later.”
Ioannis’ image blinked off. Before the next caller came on line, Matt sneaked a screen look at Eliana. She appeared distracted, involved in interior thought. A moment earlier she’d been watching him with respect and a growing anxiety. Now, only a fey sadness filled her as she stood beside the accel-couch, her gaze fixed on the next holosphere image. He turned his attention that way.
Ex-Despot Nikolaos’ grizzled visage peered out at Matt, the squinty, rat-like eyes filled with suspicion. The man’s lips were contorted, as if he’d just bitten into a sour lemon. Behind Nikolaos, an antique liquid-crystal map of Sigma Puppis star system hung on his office’s drab wall. On the map blinked the routes of incoming and departing freighter and starship traffic. Several blinked red. Behind his pretty, new Executive desk, Nikolaos jammed both hands together, leaned forward, and peered at them.
“You’re crazy, Vigilante. You know that?”
In the Pit, Matt shrugged. “Some say that. Others don’t. Nobody who attacks me stays alive long enough to argue. Why did you call?”
Nikolaos spit off to one side. “Maybe to send you a bill for structural repairs to my Clan Hall. Why did you attack me?”
“Why was Eliana laser-gunned on your front steps?”
Shock filled his craggy face. “Eliana wounded? Is she all right? How did it happen? Does that explosion at the uptown silo have anything to do with her injury?”
Matt ignored Eliana’s volcanic anger as she stood beside the accel-couch, her expression venomous as her cousin played his game. “It does. That’s where the sniper shot from. And by the way . . . how did you know she was only wounded, not killed?”
Startlement flooded Nikolaos’ heavy face. “I . . . uh, I just assumed, you said—”
“I said she was ‘laser-gunned’—not whether she was alive or dead. Explain.”
Nikolaos sat back abruptly. “I can’t. Just my deep hope that—”
“Don’t lie to me!” Matt reached forward, one hand hovering just above a control panel. “Despot, I have hypervelocity missiles outfitted with tightly-damped neutron bombs ready to flood your Hall with killing radiation—at a single gesture from me. Don’t play me for the fool.” He flexed his fingers above the panel.
“Stop!” Sweat beaded Nikolaos’ forehead. “I was assured she would only be wounded, not killed and—”
“Assured by whom?” To his left, Eliana stepped forward, aiming for Nikolaos’ holo image the way a mongoose tracks a snake. Matt blinked quickly. Mata Hari emitted a holo sign in front of her saying Stay out of pickup range. Eliana flushed with anger, stomped her foot, and then sat on the flexmetal deck to his left, out of pickup range. She focused intently on the holosphere and on her dear, dear cousin Nikolaos.
The ex-Despot’s mouth moved soundlessly; he gulped. “A . . . a Halicene Conglomerate representative. The Port Trademaster. It promised to shift some freighter traffic to my Port so we could carry out repairs on the field. It’s been awhile since we had regular traffic and—”
“Spare me.” Matt caught Nikolaos’ rat-eyes, holding them as he would hold a spider he was about to kill. “I wonder what Autarch Dreedle would say if she knew her former human lover was making a new deal with the Halicenes—one she knew nothing about?”
“New deal? What was the old deal?” Nikolaos asked suspiciously.
“Why—the old deal to replace the old Autarch with her.” Matt folded his hands in his lap. “Surely that was the logical outcome of her effort to transfer power to you? Enough power and you would hang yourself in the neonatal placental unit deal with the Halicene Conglomerate, while she looks blameless.”
Bitterness filled Nikolaos’ face. “Are you saying I was used by that woman?”
“Why not? That’s the way it looks to me.”
Nikolaos sighed. “You enjoy trying to make me turn against my natural ally. Why?”
Matt shrugged. “What if it were true? That you were used? Think about it.” He smiled, inviting Nikolaos to dwell within the insanity of paranoia forever. “Now, I really must go—my comsat charges are going to be astronomical. Good day.”
Nikolaos’ image disappeared. Eliana stood up and stalked over to him. She put hands on her hips and looked down at him. “You’re not done, are you?” Despite the strain of learning her half-brother wanted her infertile and the Despot of another Clan had arranged for her wounding, she showed remarkable poise. A brave woman with much courage indeed . . . .
“Should I be?”
Eliana rubbed the plastifoam cast on her shoulder, trying to smooth out the RapidHeal ache left by Regen. “Perhaps not. I’m learning a lot, but you’re making yourself a pile of enemies.”
“So?” Matt assumed a businesslike manner. Work was the only anchor that would protect him from a woman like Eliana. “Watch me move my Go game pieces. The day’s not yet over. And would you kindly step out of pickup range? I like to keep ‘em guessing.”
“For the moment.” Eliana again sat down on the nearby deck plates with legs folded under her, her partly clothed appearance one that was hard to ignore. As was her womanly expression, a look that said she desired quality time with him, on a personal level.
Oh, shit. Reining in his hormones, Matt said “Next caller.”
A blurry image of the Pericles leader Spyridon materialized in the holosp
here. The man’s white-haired, patrician face stared thoughtfully at them from a location undetectable to Mata Hari ’s Back-Track software. The Greek spoke. “Why are you drawing attention to yourself?”
“Why can’t I track your signal, Elder Spyridon?”
“Did you think I was limited to a simple domehut in the mountains?” Spyridon grimaced. “You’re not the only one who can piggyback on a carrier-wave. Or intercept tightbeam maser communication links. Answer my question.”
Matt shook his head. “No. You answer mine. Why did you alert the Halicene Conglomerate Port Trademaster at Olympus to my impending visit with Nikolaos?”
Spyridon glanced aside, then back, licking his lips. “Who says I did?”
“Nikolaos doesn’t.” Matt leaned forward, resting his chin on his palm. “He doesn’t even know that the Trademaster contacted him after hearing from you.”
The old man shrugged. “So what if I did? Only the crossbreed was hurt—that’s no loss.”
Slowly, like a glacier, Matt leaned forward. Close enough to fill Spyridon’s own screen with the coral-eyed image of a very, very angry Vigilante. “Spyridon, if I knew at this minute where you were, I would destroy you. Totally. I show no mercy to those who attack my Patron.”
“Stalemate.” The master of the Pericles group raised an eyebrow. “Answer my question.”
“The answer is I wanted to talk to you. Directly and without intermediaries.” Matt sat back in his Pit seat, aware of Mata Hari’s growing mind-interest in the jigsaw pieces he was assembling. “Are you aware that Despot Ioannis has his own deals going with the Halicene Trademaster?”
“So I’ve heard.” Spyridon scowled. “As I told you, the rot among the Greeks has eaten deep. And the worst of that rot are the crossbreed animals they raise!”
Star Vigilante (Vigilante Series) Page 16