The Wind After Time

by Chris Bunch

  Lil giggled as she slid a little awkwardly into her seat. “I don’t have a handle yet on how to do this,” she confided. “I don’t have anything on under this, and you’re the only one who gets the leg show for free.”

  “Yes, sir?” Leong asked. A professional—his eyes mostly stayed on Joshua.

  “Champagne for the lady…” Joshua lifted an inquiring eye to Lil, who nodded enthusiastically. “Water for me.”

  “You’re not drinking?” Lil sounded disappointed.

  “Maybe some wine. With dinner.”

  “This outfit really didn’t cost that much,” Lil said hurriedly. “It was on sale. The man said it was last year’s, but I really, really liked it. And the rock’s a synth, so—”

  “Lil. Shut up and look beautiful,” Joshua suggested. “Nobody’s asking about the price tag.”

  The drinks came. Lil drank. “Now what?”

  “Now we have dinner,” Joshua said.

  “You’re not going to tell me anything, are you?”

  “When you don’t know anything, there’s nothing to tell,” Joshua said.

  “I remember,” Lil said, “back on—back where I came from, I heard this story. I probably won’t tell it right. But it goes something like this: There were these two guys. Apprentice monks or some kind of religious people, anyway. They were bragging on their masters or teachers or preachers or whatever. One said his teacher could walk on water, see in the dark, and all that, a real miracle worker. The other baby monk said the miracle of his master was he ate when he was hungry and slept when he was tired.

  “It sounds really dumb, telling it, but I never forgot that story. Sometimes I almost think I understand it. Do you?”

  “Nope,” Joshua said. “Too deep for me. But I surely am hungry. Shall we reserve a table?”

  * * * *

  The fish course had just been served when Innokenty Khodyan came into the dining room. The great chamber, all white linen, bone china, and silver, was about half-filled, and Lil had just been marveling not that there were this many crooks on Platte but that there were this many with money when the three men were escorted to their table by the maître d’.

  Khodyan was a completely nondescript human male. He wore conservative formal dining garb, as did his two bodyguards. One, who had a closely trimmed beard, came in first, eyes sweeping, clearing the room, gun hand near his waistband. Then he let the other two enter. The second gunnie made sure there wasn’t anybody in their wake.

  “That’s him,” Lil whispered, eyes never leaving her dinner.

  “I’m getting sloppy,” Joshua said. “You never should have known it.”

  “You’re not sloppy. I spent too many years bein’ the victim not to have feelers out. You lose often enough, you get sensitive. So that’s him. What do I do? You want me to shoot somebody? Throw a scene? Or do I just jump under the table?”

  Joshua, in spite of himself, grinned, full attention on Lil. “Shoot somebody? Where the hell are you hiding a gun? I thought you weren’t wearing anything but that gown you had anodized on.”

  “Mister, you didn’t pay enough to be told that,” she said mock-primly. “A girl never tells all her secrets. You didn’t answer my question.”

  “You keep eating the tilapia,” Joshua said. “But don’t distract me for a second.”

  Khodyan probably was armed. His two men, Joshua thought, letting his feelings swirl around the table the three men were being obsequiously seated at, were as good as advertised. They laughed, smiled, joked with the maître d’ and their client, but their attention never focused, always sweeping the room. One of them turned toward him, and Joshua concentrated on whether he thought his k’lmari might be a little overcooked as he cut off another bite. He felt the thug reach a verdict—one of us, celebrating, bed partner an import, not one of Greet’s doxes, possibly dangerous in the abstract, no sign of interest in us, hence only worth the note—then look elsewhere. Joshua waited a moment, then subvocalized:

  “The one we seek is present.”

  “I am aware. I am appreciating him. My senses are concentrated, and I am remembering completely. Will you be taking action at this time?”

  “Not yet. Continue remembering.”

  He motioned for the waiter as he finished the last bite on his plate, then split the last of the Pantheon Riesling between his and Lil’s glasses. “I think we are ready to order our wine for the main course. Could we have the sommelier?”

  “You’re not going to do anything?” Lil possibly sounded a little disappointed.

  “Of course I’m doing something. I’m going to order us some red plonk and then ask about the entrée.”

  “And afterward?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe some strawberries and port?”

  Lil relaxed and managed a smile. “So all you do is eat when you’re hungry and sleep when you’re tired, hmm?”

  “That’s about it.”

  Innokenty Khodyan seemed intent on a long, thorough spell at the trough. When Joshua and Lil had finished dessert and were leaving, the thief was still ordering, two dishes at each course. “I wish I could eat like that,” Joshua observed, not looking back as the maître d’ ushered them out. He stopped at the desk, asked questions, and passed a coin across when he received the answers and a brochure.

  Lil remained silent until they’d stepped off the slide-way and the door to their suite had clicked shut. She drew a question mark in the air. Joshua’s hand brushed the wall. He felt no sensors, no watchers other than the passive monitors Ben Greet had installed in all the resort’s rooms.

  “As you were saying?” Joshua prompted.

  “Never mind. I don’t need to ask. The wine kinda slowed me down,” she said. “I understand you not making your move down there, in front of his goons and all. But you’ll go out sometime tonight, right?”

  Joshua took her hand and gently drew her to him.

  “Cease remembering.”

  “Understood.”

  Her lips parted and met his, her eyes closing. His hands held her shoulders, moved down, found the slits in the gown, and cupped her bare buttocks as she pressed against his hardness.

  The gown was a pool of black on the floor, and her hands moved over him, touching fasteners, finding clips, until he, too, was naked. He stripped off the chainknife and the holstered tube projector and tossed them away.

  His hand went to the light control.

  “No,” she said throatily. “I like to see.”

  He lifted her toward the bed.

  It was deep in the night.

  “Ah, Christ. Jerusalem. Oh, God.”

  “Now?”

  “No. No.” She rolled over, pulling a pillow under her hips. “Now!”

  He moved over her.

  “Yes. Yes. Now,” she said, voice guttural. “Now!”

  “Like… this?”

  “Yes, oh, please, yes. God, yes. There! There! And… and the other way now! Do it, God, do it to me!”

  Her nails clawed his supporting hands, and she arched against him.

  * * * *

  His tongue led him to her nipple. His teeth nipped gently. Her breathing, lowering toward sleep, caught. “Jesus! Don’t you ever get sleepy?”

  “When I’m tired.”

  Her fingers moved downward.

  “You’re …not tired!”

  She turned on her side and slid one thigh over his. He rolled onto his back, and she came to her knees above him and guided him into her. She gasped as he lifted, then lowered his thighs.

  “What… what about him?” she managed just before words stopped for them both. “Tomorrow … is another day.”

  * * * *

  Joshua’s mind told him it was dawn. He and Lil were lying on the floor, the pillows from both beds piled around them. Lil was sleeping soundly, one hand under her cheek, the other between her thighs.

  Joshua went to the window overlooking the garden. He brought both hands up from his waist and extended them outward, breathing deep
ly, gaze fixed on the space between them. He took the centering stance, then began the slow movements, lifting, blocking, striking, guarding.

  When he was finished, he showered and dressed in a casual lounging outfit in a nondescript, friendly shade of brown that he’d bought the previous day. He scribbled a note on a hotel pad and set it beside Lil. The note read: pack and get ready. He opened the door, went out, and slammed the door loudly enough to wake the woman.

  “Begin tracking.” There seemed to be no reason to speak Al’ar now when he communicated with the ship. He felt the acknowledgment against his breastbone.

  He went down the corridor, avoiding the slideway, mind setting aside all things, ship, resort, Lil, the night, the future. All that existed was Innokenty Khodyan.

  He carried no weapons.

  He asked some casual questions about room service as he sipped a cup of tea in the breakfast room. He studied the brochure he’d gotten from the desk clerk the night before, periodically checking the time. He finished his tea, left a lavish tip in cash, and went toward the lift banks. He stopped at a waste receptacle, tore the brochure into fragments, and threw them away.

  He entered a lift that was exclusive to one of the resort’s three towers, and touched the sensor for the floor the Vega Suite was on and for the floor above it, as well. The lift went up quickly, floor indicators blurring. It stopped once, and a harried-looking maid got on, pushing a laundry cart heavy with soiled towels. Joshua thought: warmth… sunlight… a day off… a perfect meal… a laugh from a child …

  The maid looked at the man in brown, saw nothing worrisome, and smiled impersonally when she got off two floors later. The lift went on to the floor Joshua had first selected.

  The resort’s architect had understood the needs of those with enemies. The tower was cylindrical, and the ten suites on each floor jutted out independently from the central core, not connected to the floor above or below. From above, the tower would look like a ten-pointed star. Separate corridors led from the lift shaft to the entrance to each suite. In the central area, aimed at the lift, was a sniffer that would be programmed to allow only the weapons a guest, his friends, or the hotel staff carried without shrieking alarm or possibly even opening fire.

  Joshua moved swiftly along the corridor toward a suite the desk clerk had said was unoccupied. Halfway down was a niche for a maid to park her room cart without blocking the passageway. He melted into it.

  He waited: wind, wind, blowing, wind unseen, not strong, not moving even the grasses, not even whispering…

  Twice the lift doors opened and hotel employees got out. Neither of them took the corridor leading to the Vega Suite. One glanced down the corridor Joshua was waiting in, then went on. Joshua heard the door to the Vega Suite open, a low voice, a man’s laugh, the door closing.

  Wind, wind…

  One of the two bodyguards, the one with the beard, moved silently into view, near the lift.

  Wind, wind…

  He checked each corridor but did not go down any of them. He went to a window, looked up, looked down. He returned to his post near the lift door and waited, not moving, showing no sign of boredom or impatience.

  A few minutes passed.

  The lift door opened and a roomboy pushed out a cart laden with old-fashioned covered platters. The roomboy grinned and said something to the guard, who replied in a neutral tone. The bodyguard made sure no one else had ridden up in the lift, then followed the roomboy toward the Vega Suite.

  Wind blowing, embers, flameflicker, fire, fire…

  The heavyset man inside the suite appeared to be listening politely to Innokenty Khodyan’s tirade. The thief’s whine had stood him in good stead as a child, and the habit was now unbreakable.

  The holoset blared unnoticed, and the ruins of the night’s snacks were scattered around the large living room. Doors led off to ‘freshers, bedrooms, a small pool, a bar, other rooms. A hide-a-bed sat against one wall. At night one bodyguard slept there, the bed moved against the door. There was a safe near one couch.

  “I’ll be peeling wallpaper, I tell you,” Khodyan said. “Look. If Sutro don’t show today, I’m gonna get a couple of doxes sent up.”

  “No whores,” the bodyguard said. “You told us you’d be wanting them but you weren’t allowed. Not until your connection leaves.”

  “Listen to reason, would you? I was bein’ a worrywart, right? When you come off a job, you’re like that, afraid everybody’s out to do you. I took it a little too far. Right? You guys’ll be here. Hell, you can even watch if you want.”

  “No leg.”

  “So all I get to do is whack you guys for matches, try to teach you how to bet right, look out the friggin’ window at everybody down there relaxing, or else out at that friggin’ desert? Shitfire, I can’t even open a window and breathe the local air. I guess I oughta be grateful you let me eat.”

  “Those were your orders.”

  “Magdalene with a dildo, but you bastards are hard. Look. The essence of gettin’ along is knowin’ when to go along, right? So how about—”

  The door chime went off.

  “Breakfast,” Khodyan said in relief.

  A gun was in the heavyset man’s hand. He checked the screen that monitored the outside corridor.

  Wind, blow…

  For an instant the screen fuzzed.

  Neither the heavyset man nor his client noticed. The bodyguard opened the door, and the roomboy pushed the cart inside, the other bodyguard behind him.

  Fire roar…

  A man wearing brown cannoned into the bearded man, driving him into the roomboy, who screeched and sprawled, the meal cart skidding ahead of him.

  The heavyset man’s pistol lifted as Joshua rolled off the floor inside the man’s guard. He snap blocked with his left, and the pistol thunked to the rug. The man had a second to howl, reaching for his paralyzed wrist, as Joshua’s open-palmed right hand slipped past the bodyguard’s neck, index and middle finger brushing skin near the carotid, and the man slumped, boneless. He was dead.

  Innokenty Khodyan had his mouth open, but Joshua did not hear what he was shouting.

  The bearded man yanked a heavy pistol from a waist holster as he came to his knees. He fired, but Wolfe wasn’t there. The blast spiderwebbed a window, and dry desert air rushed in. Before he could fire a second time Joshua was next to him, left hand tweaking the gun barrel back, and then Wolfe held the pistol. He continued his spin, dropped into a crouch, and was five feet away from the bodyguard, the man’s own pistol leveled. He glanced at Khodyan, who wasn’t doing anything dangerous.

  The bearded man half raised his hands.

  “Good,” Joshua approved. “Stay a pro. You blew the contract. Stay alive so you can feel guilty.”

  The bodyguard squatted, grabbing for an ankle-holstered backup gun. Joshua touched the trigger and blew a fist-sized hole in his chest. The roomboy had stopped squealing and was going for the door, scrabbling up from his hands and knees. Joshua kicked his legs from under him and knuckle rapped, with that seemingly gentle touch, against the back of his head. The roomboy went on his face and began snoring loudly.

  Joshua held the gun steady on Khodyan. He back kicked the suite door closed.

  “We don’t need company,” he said. Formally: “I am a duly constituted representative of the Federation. I am serving a properly executed warrant, issued within the Federation and presented to me by a Sector Marshal. According to this warrant—”

  Innokenty Khodyan launched himself at Joshua, fingers clawing. Joshua sidestepped, turned, lifted a knee, and sent the smaller man tumbling, almost onto the heavyset bodyguard’s corpse. Khodyan saw the man’s pistol and had it, fast for a man who’d begun as just a thief.

  It was too far, even for a dive, as the blast crashed past Joshua’s ribs. He fired, and there were three corpses in the suite.

  Joshua walked over to Khodyan’s body and looked down. The thief’s final expression was petulant. He glanced at his own image in a mir
ror. It matched the thief’s. As a corpse Khodyan was worth only expenses.

  Outside the suite he heard dim shouting through the soundproofing; then someone hammered on the door. Joshua paid no attention. He knelt over the body, thinking. Then he looked at the safe.

  Joshua tucked the pistol in his pocket, grabbed Khodyan’s corpse by the collar, trying to keep from getting bloody, and dragged it to the safe. He looked at both of Khodyan’s palms carefully. Deciding that Khodyan was left-handed, he pressed that index finger to the porepattern sensor on the safe’s door. It took two tries before the door slid open.

  Inside was another gun, which Joshua ignored; a wad of currency from various worlds; a vial of tablets claiming to be aphrodisiac; and two medium-sized jeweler’s traveling cases. He took both to a table and started to open one. An unexpected sensation—like small chimes felt, not heard—made him hesitate. He opened the second case. There were three rows of drawers. His fingers went, as if drawn, to a drawer in the case’s center, and surprise shattered his hunter’s mask.

  There was one single stone in the drawer. It was oval and uncut but appeared to be machine-polished. The stone was unimpressive, gray, although there were a few flecks of color, like quartz flakes in granite.

  It was a stone the Al’ar called Lumina.

  This was the third time he’d seen one.

  The last time the stone had been on a headband worn by a Guardian who stood just behind an Al’ar leader-officer on the bridge of a warship, the last of his fleet. The officer had spit contempt and scorn at Joshua and his plea for surrender. The stone had flamed, echoing the defiance. Wolfe hadn’t needed to translate to the Federation admiral standing next to him. He turned away from the com screen, refusing to look as weapons officers sent missiles flashing into the Al’ar ship, and there was nothing but swirling fire and black.

  The first time had been in a sandy clearing, when a Guardian had given the boy human-named Wolfe his Al’ar name, the Warrior of Silent Shadows, and told him to become worthy of it.

  Wolfe picked up the Lumina.

  Quite suddenly the stone flared; the kaleidoscoping colors would have shamed a wanned fire opal.

  The fires went out, and Joshua was holding an uninteresting rock. His eyes iced as he regained control. He carefully tucked the Lumina into a pocket. Then, whistling tunelessly, he went to the door.