by B. V. Larson
“Son-of-a-bitch!” Claver hissed. “How’d you find me?”
“They say I have a gift, sir,” I said, squeezing his wrist.
He must have realized he’d never get his gun out into line with my head, so he pulled the trigger blindly.
The gun flashed and a hot streak ripped down his leg touching my left hip. A strip of my skin three inches long furrowed up and began to bleed. My lips pulled back from my teeth in a grimace of pain.
After that, I slammed his head into the pavement until he stopped moving.
-26-
Many legionnaires in my shoes would have turned themselves in to their superiors. I honestly considered it for about fifteen seconds. The trouble was that my top commander had just done her damnedest to execute me. If she’d had her way, I’d be dead right now—permed.
There was no easy way back into my old world as far as I could see. If there was a route home to being an honorable legionnaire again, it must involve the unconscious officer at my feet, I was sure of that much. He knew more than he was telling anyone. He’d also performed the ultimate act of treason and shot his own commander. If I could get my execution order reversed, I’d be in the clear. But until I did, my own comrades were as likely to shoot me as they were to shoot him—and it was improbable they’d revive either of us to mull over the details.
In my long and storied history with legion Varus, I’d been a fugitive before. I knew the drill. I had to disconnect my tapper from the network so they couldn’t pinpoint me.
This turned out to be a difficult task. Legionnaire tappers had been updated since we left Earth and they were harder to switch off than ever. They’d always been like symbiotic parasites, intelligent cancers, and now they were tracing devices we couldn’t shut down easily. But I was determined to get the job done anyway.
First, I found something that resembled a rusty nail laying in the gutter. It wasn’t a real nail, more of a twisted up spike that had been shorn off one of the buildings that towered around me. Trying not to think about it, I drove the spike point-first into my left forearm. The pain was intense, especially when it encountered stiff resistance and I kept pressing it in.
My skin gave way with relative ease, but my tapper was something like a polymer sheet about five mm thick between the skin and the fatty subcutaneous layer. To get through it, I had to spin the point of the nail like a drill until it punched through at last. The circuitry was resilient, but there were limits. The screen went dark.
Blood bubbled up around the spike and I shook it off like raindrops. I knelt and did the same thing to Claver’s tapper. He didn’t complain since he was out cold.
I dropped the nail after the grim job was done and grabbed the unconscious form of Claver by the scruff of his neck. Dragging him callously, I made slow painful progress toward the nearest shelter which was a derelict building about forty stories high.
Before I’d gone a hundred meters into the bottom floor, I found it to be a debris field left behind by looters and possibly rebels. I figured out this wasn’t going to work. I couldn’t drag him far enough or fast enough to hide from the troops that by now were probably scrambling to my last recorded position.
Heaving a sigh, I considered my options. There weren’t many. I had a single pistol, an unconscious prisoner, and that was about it.
Or was it? I knelt again and began frisking Claver. Maybe the old bastard…then I found it. I’d almost forgotten in the excitement—the thing called a key. What did it do? How did it work?
I could only experiment. I’d seen evidence that Claver had passed through doors that shouldn’t have opened for him. Maybe that’s what this key did. Maybe it could open locked doors.
Looking around, I found a doorway in the damaged Tau building. I checked the door first and sure enough it was locked.
The door handle wasn’t quite like one from Earth, but it was close enough. Frowning and feeling like an idiot, I tapped the end of the shell on the latch.
I tried the door again and snarled in disappointment. It was still locked.
Baring my teeth, I considered smashing the shell-looking thing on the floor. Claver had wanted this thing badly, Turov had seemed to think it was valuable, but it was a dud for me.
I tapped the door all over with the shell next, hitting the hinges then the door handle again. I tried one end then the other—no dice. Once it seemed to flicker, but that could have been a flash of light from the street.
Spinning around, I realized what it was I’d seen reflected. There was movement behind me. Something had passed behind me—between me and the light from the streets outside.
The source was easy to determine. Claver was no longer lying on the ground, rain-soaked and bloody. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen.
“I’ve got your damned shell. I’m going to figure out how to use it, or I’m going to break it. Either way, the Legion must almost be here to pick us up.”
“You really are an idiot,” Claver said.
I turned to my left and faced him. He’d gotten close, and I took a cautious step back. There was a chunk of puff-crete in his hand, but he wasn’t looking his best. He was hunched and obviously in pain.
Lifting my pistol, I aimed at his chest, but he didn’t even seem to notice.
“Why the hell…?” he began, investigating his injured arm in shock. “Did you shoot my tapper?”
“Nope,” I said. “I drove a nail through it. Mine too.”
Claver flopped back against a wall and groaned while shaking his head. “Your friend—what was his name? I asked him what was wrong with you when we were making that cash delivery to the bank, and he told me you were some kind of backwoods inbred. ‘A card-carrying retard’—those were his very words.”
“You must be talking about Carlos,” I prompted.
“Oh yeah, that’s the name. Irritating bastard. I thought he was even dumber than you are—but I was wrong. Can you tell me why in God’s name you destroyed both our tappers?”
“The Legion techs will trace them. They’d have found us by now and picked us up.”
Claver shook his head. “My tapper can’t be traced, and I have all the codes. I could have turned your transponder off, too.”
“Didn’t know that. Maybe if you hadn’t run off and tried to shoot me when I caught up we’d be buddies by now.”
Claver laughed. “You’ve got me there. As intellectually challenged as you may be, McGill, you’ve got to have a certain amount of low animal cunning. You’re clearly gifted with physical power and the instincts of a hunter. I can appreciate that.”
I gestured with the pistol. “Time to shut up now,” I told him, and I lifted the shell. “As far as I can tell, this is the only way we can get out of here. Tell me how to work it—how to make it open doors.”
Claver reached out his hand, but I held the shell out of reach. “Tell me.”
“It only works on trade items,” he said. “Things approved by the Galactics for off-world exports like the modules—we bought them with credits.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “Makes sense. I know the Nairbs have the power to turn off our toys. This thing is like that?”
“Yes, but it does more than just turn them off. It can operate them, bypass security, that sort of thing.”
“So we have to find something produced off-world. If we do, we can control it, right?”
“Ding!” Claver said, laughing again. He made a gesture over his head, suggesting a light bulb had just lit up inside my dim brain.
“Any ideas, bright boy?” I asked.
He leered. “Why should I help you escape at all?”
“First, there’s this gun in my hand,” I said, hefting it meaningfully. “Second, there’s the skimmer landing back there in the street behind us.”
Claver’s smile vanished. He followed my gesture and hissed with displeasure.
“They’re fast,” he said. “I figured you Varus types would take an hour to track down the last blip from our trackers.”
>
“We retards are full of surprises,” I told him.
“We don’t have to do anything,” Claver said, hunkering down in the darkest shadows. “Watch.”
Confused, I crouched near him, but I was ready to shoot, run or otherwise react to whatever trick he had in mind for me. We watched the Legion people—a full unit with techs scanning the street for blood and trace evidence. How did Claver think they weren’t going to find us? They would be sure to check the buildings. If we ran like flushed rabbits when they came inside, the chase would be on. We weren’t in any shape to outrun these guys.
I considered running out on Claver hoping he’d be caught and maybe slow them down, but I didn’t get the chance. Another skimmer landed and disgorged a unit on the far side of the building we were in—and then yet another did the same a block away. I could hear them shouting and setting up firing positions.
“They sound like they’re expecting us to fight our way out,” I said.
Claver snorted. “They aren’t preparing to do battle with us, dummy. Look out to the south.”
I did, and I understood the true situation immediately. There was a mob coming, a mob that shimmered with a violet hue.
“We’re on the front?” I asked.
“Apparently. We have to hold here until the fireworks start.”
We didn’t have long to wait. The rioters rolled forward. They were strangely quiet up close. Usually when an angry mob approached a line of troops, they shouted and screamed threats. These people marched like a fast-moving army of the dead. They were silent, determined, and vast in number.
Our side fired first. I felt an urge to rush out, pick up a weapon, and join in—but I held my position crouching like the fugitive I was in the dark recesses of an abandoned building.
Scores of Tau went down in the first volley, but they quickly closed the distance, heedless of losses. Weaponeers fired belchers—they didn’t seem to have any 88s—and the crowds reeled in shock but soldiered forward. Less than a minute after the first shot, they were in close and a vicious fight broke out on two sides of the building we were hiding in.
A few ran into our shelter and snarled, attacking us on sight. I had to pop shots at them until they fell. Fortunately, the stragglers didn’t have anything on them more dangerous than a club.
“Time to go,” Claver said. “Before either side wins.”
“We can’t just run out on our own people.”
“Suit yourself!” Claver said, reaching out his hand for the shell. I slapped him away.
“Look,” he said. “You can stay here and play hero, but remember those troops will get a revive after this and you won’t. Give me the key so at least I can get out of here.”
I struggled internally, but I had to admit Claver was right. If I went out there and helped, my own troops might be under orders to shoot me down on sight. I had to find a way to clear my name first.
“The key-thing is mine, and don’t forget it,” I told him at last. “But you can lead the way.”
Grumbling, he trotted off into the ruins, and I followed. We crossed a street right behind struggling, screaming legionnaires, slipping past while they were fighting and dying. I felt like a rat, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Claver found another grate in the street on the far side of the building, and he pointed at the locking sensor on top. I knew the device as similar mechanisms were all over Earth. They recognized maintenance people with the appropriate identification tags.
“Tap this,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the struggle. “Hurry up, they’re losing!”
The throng of rioters was like a stormy sea. The flashing lights and shouts were growing quieter as our people died and broke, running for cover. The last knots of resistance were encircled and dragged down. The desperate struggle was only a few hundred meters away. We didn’t have long.
“The sewer again?” I asked. “Can’t we hijack a skimmer or something?”
Claver pointed at the mob. “We have to disappear immediately.”
With reluctance in my heart, I tapped the lock on the sewer grate with my odd little shell. It popped open, rotating and revealing a ladder that led down into the inky, stinking depths.
“You first,” I said.
Claver went down. He was spry for a man of his years. I followed him, unhappily sealing the hatch above us with a clang.
When I got near the bottom of the ladder, I half-expected an ambush by Claver, so I let go and let myself drop. I splashed down into a river of filth.
“Damn, boy!” Claver complained. “You splashed me in the face!”
“Now what?” I asked.
Claver led the way. I got the feeling he’d been in these sewers before—maybe lots of times. He followed a twisting path, and soon the pipes became cleaner and the water relatively sweet.
“We’re in the runoff pipes—the storm drains. They don’t usually get this much use, but Gelt Station has seasons, you know. When the planet’s axis tilts relative to the local star, the amount of radiation hitting the station varies. More warmth causes more steam to rise and more condensation to gather on the roof. Weird to think that a space station can be big enough to have its own weather patterns, isn’t it?”
Claver liked to talk, but I didn’t mind. He knew things. This place was still new to me, and right now I wanted to learn whatever I could from him.
“What’s your angle, Claver?” I asked him as we slogged along our backs bent in the dark pipes.
“Angle? Same as anyone’s. I want to live as long as possible and extract all the joy I can from life.”
“Seems to me you’re failing in that department right now,” I pointed out.
He paused and glanced back at me. “You’ve got a point. I wouldn’t call this my finest hour. But things are about to change, you watch. If you survive another few days, you’ll witness a realignment of the universe—in my favor.”
I didn’t see how that was possible, but I wanted to keep him talking. “You must know something,” I said. “Otherwise, you’re as shit-off stupid as they come. You’ve thrown away your career with Germanica and your life. The legions will never stop hunting for you—you have to know that.”
Claver shook his head and pressed onward. “Not so. They have no idea what’s coming. Even Hegemony is clueless. They’ll be taken completely by surprise when the break-up hits.”
“Break-up?” I asked, frowning. “What break-up?”
“I’m talking about the Empire, boy. Not even you can believe it’s going to last much longer. Once the Core goes, the fringe can hang on for a little while, flying on inertia, but we can’t deny reality forever.”
I frowned. I’d known what he was talking about—but I hadn’t wanted to know. Could this mean rat of a man be right? Was the Empire doomed? The thought of it was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.
“What do you know?” I asked him. “What’s happening in the Core Systems?”
“War,” he said seriously. “Civil War. They couldn’t hold it together. Silly, in a way. Why destroy something that’s worked for countless years over petty squabbles? Who cares which one of their fantastically rich societies gets the next slice of frontier worlds, really? They already have more than we can dream of.”
“War?” I asked, echoing the word. It caused me pain inside. I’d known, of course. We all had. The Core Systems were at war with one another. The organization I’d been part of all my life was crumbling somewhere in the center of a billion glowing stars. “What will happen out here on the frontier?”
“That’s the right question,” Claver said, turning around again. His eyes had lit up. “Destruction seeds construction, it always has. New small kingdoms will arise where once there was a single massive Empire. I figure a smart man, an opportunist who’s well-connected—this could be his time.”
I jabbed my finger at him. “What about serving Earth in this dark time? Your planet needs every smart man she has.”
His brow fu
rrowed and his lips twisted. “Earth? They’ll bumble along trying to maintain the fiction. They’ll serve an Empire that’s already dead and gone. We’re not in a single Empire anymore—can’t you see that, fool? Frontier 921 is part of Mogwa faction territory, always has been. They own us. Now that they’re independent from the Empire, we serve them. Unfortunately, among the Galactics they’re small fry.”
His words were sickening me for some reason. I didn’t want to believe him. Since my first day of watching net vids and my first day of school, I’d been taught about the good side of the Empire and about the security and certainty it provided for all of us. To know that it was crumbling—that was hard to take.
“Mogwa?” I asked. “Chief Inspector Xlur is one of them, isn’t he?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Seems wrong that our fate will be decided by creatures we rarely meet,” I said.
“Exactly! Now you’ve got it! You’ve grasped just a tiny thread of reality, but I believe it will strengthen and take root even in your dim mind. You’ll figure this out, McGill, I have faith in you as I do all common men. We’re no longer going to be slaves to a distant Empire. We’ll ditch the Mogwa because they’ll weaken. They’ve already withdrawn their Battle Fleet, valuing their territory in the Core Systems a thousand times more than they value our pathetic star systems. But that’s the answer, don’t you see? We’ll rebel. We’ll have to. It’s only a matter of time, and it’s happening right now all over this station.”
“Chaos and death,” I said. “That’s all I see.”
“Revolutions are rarely orderly affairs. Who are you, McGill? A soldier, loyal to the Empire down to the last? I would have thought that of all the creatures crawling in the slime of this station you’d be the first to bite your master’s hand.”
“Oh, I’m a biter all right,” I told him. “But don’t you think we ought to keep moving?”
“No,” he said, gesturing upward toward a closed valve. “We’ve already arrived.”
I looked upward. “This is the way out?”
Claver rolled his eyes at me, saying nothing.
I hesitated. “Why’d you do all this?” I asked him. “The gunrunning, the goons waiting to rob us at the bank. When I didn’t let you steal those credits, you left and alerted every thug on the street to waylay us, didn’t you? All for a few Imperial coins?”