Drakas!

  "Unh-hunh. I hope the mission doesn't depend on it," I said. I have any normal person's horror of using experimental equipment in dangerous situations; heck, besides all the next-millenium hardware that ATN gives me, I always try to pack along a Model 1911A "Army automatic," because I know I can trust it.

  She laughed. "No, absolutely not. It just gives you another option." She handed me something that looked a little like a modern concussion grenade—an aluminum egg with a pin in it. "They made your version of the gadget look like a grenade exactly so you'd be nervous about pulling the pin, because it's strictly for desperate situations," she said. "What it is, is a gate generator that forms the gate around you. If you pull the pin, the energy source inside—which stores about a gigajoule, so it's a big one—powers up a gate that encloses anything within three meters of the object. It does a very high speed search for oxygen and dry land, so that it won't dump you someplace you can't survive. Then it kicks you and whatever's with you through the gate, and sends out an amplified shockwave in probability space so that we can find you easily."

  "Where exactly does it send me?"

  "The first timeline that its search finds, in which you can survive, that's a minimum distance from where you were. Think of it as like the parachutes in your crude airplanes; it doesn't deliver you anywhere in particular, but sometimes where you are is so dangerous that anywhere else is worth trying."

  I sighed. "Yeah, I've been places like that. So it's nondirectional, just a bailout device?"

  "That's right," she said. "No time for rethinking, either—the gate forms the instant the pin is pulled."

  "If it's all the same to ATN, I think I'll tape that pin down," I said. "How much force does it take to pull it?"

  "Two newtons. You can do it with one finger."

  "Then I'm definitely taping it down."

  * * *

  Walks and I bounced through nine timelines in ninety seconds on our way to the Draka timeline where negotiations were to happen. That's a routine precaution; by putting the bounces close together, their signals overlap in a way that—the physicists tell me—can't be decomposed to find individual timelines. This way the Draka wouldn't be in any position to come looking for us, should negotiations go sour—which I was privately hoping they'd do, after what I'd read of them. ATN already has some pretty grim member timelines—some descended from Nazi and Communist world-states that liberalized, and a stomach-turning one that resulted from the Confederacy conquering the world before it was overthrown by theocrats. I didn't like those timelines much, though some very good agents came from them. There are people that you just don't want on your side, when you come right down to it, and I'd never seen anything that fit that description better than the Draka.

  The blur of colors and the whirl of suns in the sky went away, and we stood on a platform in what would have been in South Africa in my timeline or Nouvelle Provence in Walks's. We were facing two remarkably beautiful redheads, who could easily have been sisters.

  "Hello," the slightly taller one said, "I am Chief Negotiator Sabrina de Koenigen, and this is my assistant, Ailantha Rossignol."

  The translator in my head made her words clear while another part of my mind recognized it as English of a sort—maybe about as close to my English as Flemish would be in my own world. It sounded like the thickest Southern drawl I'd ever heard, but the rhythm was different, somehow.

  Walks stepped forward and bowed slightly. "I am Plenipotentiary Walks in His Shadow Caldwell, and this is my assistant, Mark Strang."

  There were the usual interminable pleasantries about whether or not we were comfortable (how can you get uncomfortable on a less-than-two-minute trip?), and then about settling us into guest quarters. They played the game of pretending that they needed a couple of hours to be ready for us, and we sat in there quietly, assuming that our rooms were bugged, that listening devices were always trained on us, and that therefore we were to have no communication with each other that we couldn't have in front of Draka Security. We had some inconsequential discussion, figured out the sanitary facilities, and unpacked our one bag each.

  The Draka hadn't really seemed to care that I would be armed; apparently if the situations were reversed, they would have expected and demanded it. Besides, what could Walks and I possibly do with just my hand weapons, no matter how potent? Even with an atom bomb in my suitcase, I could have done very little harm to a whole planet of them. Any act of violence I did would have gained us little and would only have put them on alert that our intentions weren't friendly.

  Presumably, after enough listening, they were satisfied that we wouldn't blurt out everything as soon as it looked like we were alone. Then Rossignol came by to get us. She was good looking enough, with deep blue eyes and an athletic build, but I realized after we had walked a hundred meters or so that the anti-pheromone nanos in my bloodstream were doing their job; I was aware that her smell was saying "Trust me Love Me Do What I Say" into my nose—overlaid with occasional bits of "Wanna Fuck?"—but I didn't feel any need to do anything about any of it, except to pretend to be vaguely interested.

  The basic procedure for the negotiations was that de Koenigen and Walks would slowly exchange information with each other, while Rossignol and I sat in opposite corners of the room, took notes, and watched each other for treachery. After three hours of polite exchanges—things like "I am authorized to tell you that we maintain a solar system with a very low population and we are not accepting settlers at this time" from de Koenigen, or "I have been instructed to tell you that we have a policy of strict noninterference by every member timeline in every other member timeline's affairs" from Walks—de Koenigen suggested that we have dinner and just get acquainted informally. Given that I was already bored out of my mind, and Rossignol looked like she desperately wanted to go to sleep, there were two votes in the room for it immediately, and Walks assented as well.

  The place where we ate, was "famous not only in Archona but throughout the Domination," we were informed. Knowing the Draka background, I was moderately—and very privately—amused that much of the meal, which they assured me was traditional with them, dating back to their earliest days, was what I would call "soul food."

  You can get a lot of intelligence out of casual conversation, especially when investigating another timeline, and that was what they were trying on us. I knew that when we told them that Walks and I were not from the same timelines, this information would be squirreled away somewhere: Inter-timeline travel is routine for them. When I mentioned the death of my first wife, my mother, and my brother, in an act of violence, a note would record Strang's world has endemic terrorism or violent crime. They were drawing conclusions about sizes of families, social customs, economics, and all the rest, just as quickly as they could ask us questions.

  We were playing the same game, and the more I heard, the more I realized that being a serf for the Draka—specifically being a servus, their genetically-controlled utility workers—was probably indistinguishable from being a slave of the Closers. The only difference was that the servus were bred to like it and need it; the Closers, who were a whole culture of brutal sadists, often as rough on each other and their own children as they were on their slaves, preferred to own and torment something that was able to hate them, I guess because it enhanced the experience. I wasn't sure whether I found the pragmatic Draka or the sadistic Closers less attractive.

  I think I managed dinner with them rather well. I did have to work to hold a bite of fried chicken down when, right after I swallowed, Rossignol began talking about the teenage girl she had picked to implant with a cloned egg, creating a little Rossignol inside her bed partner.

  I was careful to keep thinking "Rossignol" even though, by that time, we were all on a first-name basis; I was willing to call her "Ailantha" at her request, to be polite, but if it came down to it, I'd rather have to kill "Rossignol," or better yet, "That nasty Drakon bitch."

  Both de Koenigen and Rossignol must have been putting out
pheromones for all they were worth, because I could feel it whispering in my bloodstream. The wine they kept ordering—and filling our glasses with—didn't seem to bother my nanos one bit, though. So though I was feeling the booze a little, drinking it faster than the artificial scrubber built into my kidney could deal with, the signal getting to me was a faint whispering in the back of my mind—"I Love You I've Always Wanted Someone Like You Adore Me Trust Me Wanna Fuck?" I played along, mildly; I kind of thought Walks was overdoing it, and by the end of dinner he'd let de Koenigen rest a hand on his arm for quite a while.

  We staggered back to our quarters—one thing you can say for totalitarian states, the streets are safe at any hour—and sacked out. By the time we got back to our own door, of course, the alcohol was gone from our systems, but we kept right on playing drunk—or at least I was playing. I was starting to wonder if maybe there was something wrong in Walks's scrubber, or if he was just a too-thorough actor.

  Stretched out on my bunk in the dark, I practiced my old habit of privately thanking whoever or whatever beings might rule the multiple universes; I thanked them for my chance at a second life in a wider world, and for people to love and take care of like Porter, and for good friends and comrades like Walks, and of course for Chrysamen. I always finished with her. Then I set my mind to drift off to sleep.

  I was mildly disturbed by a little noise from Walks, in the next room; it took me a second to realize that I hadn't heard that sound since the days when I'd lived in the frat house. He was masturbating like a crazy monkey, but trying to be quiet about it.

  Well, maybe his pheromone screen wasn't as good as mine, or perhaps he had a major thing for redheaded lady wrestlers. It was, so to speak, no skin off mine.

  * * *

  The next morning, I'd have sworn that Walks had an actual hangover, which seemed all the stranger—that shouldn't happen to anyone with a scrubber. Maybe his wasn't working—and that led to the equally horrifying thought that perhaps all of his biochemical defenses were malfunctioning. I had no way to ask him; not only did we have to assume that audio was bugged, but there was no way even to write a note to him, or to tap his shoulder in Morse code, or do any other trick to avoid surveillance. We had no way of knowing what their surveillance capabilities might be; for all I knew there could be a camera in the lamp I wrote under, or a monitoring system in any hard surface I might write on, or any number of subtle listening devices anywhere in the rooms. Certainly if Draka representatives had come to ATN, we'd have bugged them in all of those ways, and half a dozen more as well.

  It hadn't seemed like such a serious problem in the abstract, back at Hyper Athens, when we'd discussed and reviewed procedure, and noted that we could not and must not have any communication about any covert matter until we were out of the Draka timeline. But now . . . was Walks all right? I'd never seen him having visible problems before. Was this part of a ruse? If so, how should I react?

  My dread only got worse when, halfway through the morning, de Koenigen suggested a long break to take a walk through a park. To judge by the sheen of sweat on Walks's forehead, my friend's pheromone resistance was failing just as badly as his alcohol scrubbers had. Someone had screwed up royally on the whole mission; as soon as Walks and I got back to our quarters, I'd have to officially pull out my emergency orders, and request a recall. I was tempted to do that now, but I couldn't risk embarrassing our envoy in front of the other side, and besides, as yet, Walks in His Shadow hadn't quite done anything that could make me certain he'd actually lost control.

  Still, I was also worried by how fast he agreed to the walk, and by the smile he gave de Koenigen.

  Somehow or other the walk through the park would first require going back to our guest quarters, and when we got there, Walks went in, and Sabrina de Koenigen went in after him, and just like that, I was separated from him—Rossignol stepped in between the door and me and said "I think they badly want to be alone."

  Her pheromones were now sending "Obey me" and "Get hard" at about equal intensities.

  I didn't quite have an excuse to pick a fight with her, and frankly didn't like my chances if I did—a Drakon is as strong as an ape or a bear, and I'd get taken apart, while achieving nothing for the cause. I didn't have any way to argue with her about them wanting to be alone; in fact, Walks was making a number of strange noises that made me think that he'd probably rather not be rescued for a few minutes, anyway. Softly, Rossignol said, "You know that all the damage is done already. We can tell you have some kind of resistance system, Mark, and that Mister Caldwell has one that doesn't work. You can't get to him because if you try, I'll kill you. And he won't want to get away from Sabrina for another hour at least. So we're going to learn what we're going to learn. Now, you and I can stand here and face each other at this doorway, or we can go somewhere comfortable and sit. Which will it be?"

  "Let's keep the faceoff going," I said.

  "You know perfectly well that I won't tire as fast as you will," Rossignol said, smiling. "And incidentally, even out here in public, we have some privacy. No one will be coming by. Want to see what it's like with one of us? Are you sure you want Caldwell to have all the stories?" I couldn't entirely tell if she was only teasing, or if she was just looking for something to do during a dull watch.

  Meanwhile, inside, I heard Walks howling with pleasure. I did my best to ignore it.

  I thought about agreeing to have sex, and then pulling out the .45 and shooting her. My guess was that with her strength and reflexes, she could probably take the gun away from me, use me, and kill me, faster than I could draw the gun.

  "You're right, it wouldn't work," Rossignol said evenly.

  I admit I gaped at her.

  "We don't read minds," she said, "but you obviously thought of something for a moment and then gave up on it. The way your body moves. The way you smell. It's not hard to tell."

  "Why are you doing this?" I asked. "Assaulting and interrogating an envoy is a good way to start a war. Do you want to fight a million timelines?"

  "Well, the million may be exaggerated," she said, "or it may not, but I'm willing to agree there are more of you than there are of us. Part of the sport, you might say. A bigger challenge. And after all, mostly you came here to get to know us. Well, you're finding out. We don't bargain with feral humans, any more than you bargain with cattle. The real question is just how soon you'll be serfs. That son you mentioned at dinner last night will have a tattoo on his neck one day."

  I kept my voice low and even, but I stared at her with complete disgust. "A tattoo on his neck?" I asked. "Is that how you mark serfs?"

  Her pheromones were now sending a bunch of signals intended to rile me up; she must be under orders to get me into some kind of a fight or something, I thought. Perhaps I needed to be killed while attacking her.

  But the thought of Perry with a neck tattoo . . . I ran my hand over my own throat, trying to imagine that, and kept an eye on her while I did.

  "Oh, he'll wear it," she said. "You'll see the tattoo on any captured serf. But not where you're touching yourself." With a cruel little smile, she turned her head to show me. "The serf tattoo extends across here—"

  She drew a line with her finger, and as she drew it, I pulled the .45, thrust it forward, and fired three times into her neck.

  Later on I found out that they all have what amounts to a Kevlar underskin; the rounds penetrated only because it was at point blank range, and without much force. Chances are she survived with the mother of all headaches and some bed rest. But the impact of the heavy rounds was enough to throw her backward against the doorframe, and to daze and disorient her. I kicked her hard to knock her to the ground and pressed my thumb against the door's reader plate. There was some mercy in the universe; it popped open, and I rolled inside.

  De Koenigen came at me, hands reaching to break my neck, and I put the rest of the clip into her face. I wasn't as close to her as I had been to Rossignol, so I don't think it had much more effect on her th
an being whacked hard with a broom handle in the face would on me—it stunned and stalled her, but I don't think she was really hurt.

  Still, she took a step back. I dove forward, onto the bed, and had just an instant to realize that Walks was tied out in a naked spread-eagle, and that he had pretty obviously been having a very good time. I landed on top of him, reached into my pocket, and pulled the pin on the new escape device. The world turned a weird noncolor, and we were out of there.

  * * *

  The landing was a bit rough; whatever hunting the device did apparently didn't care about a two-foot drop in a bed whose legs had been severed at uneven lengths. We were outdoors in bright sunlight, probably the same place and time of day as before, but if the gadget had worked correctly, we were out of Draka territory.

  Or at least we would have different Draka to cope with.

  I pulled out my knife and cut his bonds. Walks, still naked, sat up and drew a deep breath, sobbing.

  "Can you move?" I asked, "Because—"

  There was a loud thunder and a brief darkness. I looked up to see an aircraft belly slide over us, perhaps a hundred feet overhead, and the shape and insignia told me instantly.

  "Uh, because I think we're on the runway of a Closer airport," I said.

  That got his attention. We ran for the nearest building, and barefoot and naked though he was, he got there ahead of me. There was an open doorway and we rushed into that; there was still no evidence that we'd been seen, but surely there must be alarms sounding in the terminal and a gang of armed men on their way. "Inventory," Walks said, gasping. "Oh, god, her pheromones are still all over me; I've never been so horny in my life. Inventory, Mark, what do we have?"

  "You've got nothing," I said. "I've got the .45 and a NIF. If I spray it around now, we can probably knock off the whole airport around us, but that's going to cause attention."

  "You got any better plans?" he asked.

  "Nope."

  The NIF—Neural Induction Flechette—is a weapon that shoots little needles that take over the nervous system. They're self-guiding and will go looking for human beings to hit; you can select any effect from mild itching to immediate cardiac shutdown. In this case, I just stepped out the door, drew mine—it looked a bit like a cordless drill with a keyboard—set it to hit everywhere that wasn't us for a kilometer around, and fired it up into the air. To maximize the effect, I set them to kill—quickly and painlessly, but all the same, anybody who wasn't in an airtight room would be dropping dead.