by Ian Whates
“The crew are up here,” he said.
De Souza nodded and went to follow him, pausing as Archer said, “I’ll stay here and start loading the artefacts. I know how much would be expected from a minor cache find and I’ll put some pieces aside to cover that; enough to persuade First Solar that my own supposed cache hunt was a genuine one.”
“Fine, fine. Gant can help you.”
Archer looked at him sharply for an instant, as if the idea that de Souza might not fully trust him had never occurred to the idiot before; but he didn’t object. De Souza felt a lot more comfortable knowing that the banker and all that wealth were under Gant’s watchful gaze.
He followed the doctor up the stairs, the two goons close behind. It never ceased to amaze him how basic these small trading ships were. This stairway, the gantry it led to – the entire living quarters section of the ship – felt impermanent and flimsy, as if the whole lot had been hastily erected to serve the crew for this one trip alone and would be dismantled and packed away immediately afterwards. It was all so claustrophobic. Not even the lowliest miners who worked for Jossyren were expected to spend any length of time in such cramped conditions. And yet people lived like this by choice. It bordered on the barbaric.
Even the galley, which was intended to service the entire crew and act as a social centre for the duration of the trip, was smaller than a single room in the suite he enjoyed aboard his own ship. The low ceiling didn’t help; nor did the fact that the room was currently littered with recumbent forms. The scene was almost peaceful. There was no sign of violence or anything nefarious, they all looked comfortably asleep. All it needed was a little contented snoring and the picture would have been complete.
“Are they dead yet?” he asked the doctor.
“No, probably not,” Bariha replied. “Soon, though. I made it painless. After all, these were my friends.”
De Souza couldn’t have cared less, and certainly didn’t intend saying anything to help salve the man’s conscience. These were people Bariha had crewed with, lived with, yet he’d turned on them and murdered them rather than come clean and seek their help and understanding. He’d chosen to be exploited rather than exposed. Whining about it after the event was pointless.
A small form moved, startling de Souza. At first he was afraid it might be a rat, but then he discerned a ball of green-brown fur from which two saucer-like eyes stared at him. The thing rested by the shoulder of a man in a grey suit, whom de Souza recognised from the reception on Brannan’s as the banking representative, Drake. What was it with bankers and suits?
“What the hell is that?” he said out loud.
“Just the banker’s genpet,” Bariha replied. “It’s harmless.”
Reassured, de Souza shifted his focus, taking particular pleasure in seeing Nate Almont among the doctor’s victims. Here was a man who had spurned the chance to work with him and instead had run back to his old friend Pelquin and offered him the golden opportunity. Not such a bright move after all, eh? Almont deserved all that he got and more.
De Souza abruptly realised that something wasn’t right. He did a quick head count. “There’s one missing. Where’s the captain, Pelquin?”
“In the ship’s cockpit collapsed over the controls,” Bariha assured him. “Don’t worry; he’s unconscious the same as his crew.”
De Souza allowed himself to relax. “Good. How long before…”
It was at this point that one of them moved. Not a genpet this time, or even a rat; a woman, and not someone he could identify. Hard-bodied, still young though not a kid; a moment before, she had been slumped forward over the table, apparently as unconscious as the rest. Not anymore.
There was nothing woolly-headed about the way she moved, no indication that she was just waking up or fighting off the effects of a deadly toxin, far from it. Her actions were swift, assured, and effective, taking everyone by surprise.
Leesa recognised the presence of the poison as soon as it began to affect her body, paralysing nerves and attempting to shut down sections of her brain. The augmented part of her mind analysed the active agent and began to manufacture countermeasures immediately, ruthlessly drawing on her own body for what was required – plundering the components of blood, nerves, tissues – and even utilising elements of the toxin itself. The effects of the poison were neutralised almost before they’d begun to take hold. While everyone else was slumping into unconsciousness around her, Leesa felt bright as a button and pumped with adrenaline; but she determined to play dead, to mimic the other victims and see what developed.
The revelation that the doc was responsible shocked her but she continued to feign unconsciousness, wanting to see the extent of his treachery. This was a delicate game she had chosen to play. The poison wasn’t an aggressive one; it had induced unconsciousness by gentle degree and would continue to work at that sort of pace, shutting down the body’s functions slowly. As yet, she was confident that all the crew could be revived, but the longer she left it the greater the risk. Still she waited, praying that she didn’t miss that crucial tipping point.
When Bahira left the galley to welcome his guests she followed on silent feet, only to scamper back as he returned, regaining her seat in plenty of time to resume her previous position.
As she did so, she noted Drake’s genpet watching her intently. Odd, but she almost had the impression that it was about to do something, which was ridiculous.
The doc strolled around, clucking on about making the poison painless and the crew being his friends. It was all she could do not to reach out and strangle him straight away, and eventually, when she’d heard all she needed and couldn’t risk waiting any longer, that was precisely what she did.
He was behind her, close to her left shoulder, and she knew that the other man – the one who had spoken in such haughty, hateful tones – was standing just inside the door. She thought she’d heard at least one more set of footfalls approach, but there was no way of telling for certain until she opened her eyes, and by the time she did that she was already committed.
In one swift motion Leesa surged upwards, twisted around and reached out, her right hand clamping around the startled doctor’s throat so firmly that she lifted him from his feet, her fingers digging into the soft skin and firmer tendons beneath. It felt good to abandon pretence and to be actually doing something; better than good, it felt great. There were two others, she saw, both near the door and close to Haughty Voice and both reaching for guns.
The doc was struggling, kicking his feet and clawing at her wrist and fingers, making a choking, gagging noise all the while. Leesa turned him towards the door as the first goon freed his weapon and fired. She felt the impact but had her elbow locked and held her human shield steady, feeling the heat where the energy bolt hit home, and feeling warmth spatter against her wrist and face as blood sprayed from Bariha’s back. The doc abruptly stopped struggling.
Leesa didn’t hesitate but flung his body towards the two goons, charging after it so that she hit them only a fraction after the doctor’s corpse. There was blood – the doc’s – and a gun which she knocked aside, a knife which she avoided before breaking the arm that wielded it. A knee smashed into her midriff. She rode the blow, jumping upwards so that both feet were off the ground and folding at the waist to lessen the impact even as her left hand reached for the goon’s face and clawed for his eyes. Her opponent screamed as she felt something soft give beneath her fingertips.
She was vaguely aware of the slighter, almost dandified man she’d dubbed Haughty Voice slipping out of the room but couldn’t spare him any attention just yet, as the second thug – the one with both eyes still intact – came at her with the knife. She had to admire that. His right arm was held cradled close to his chest but he still attacked, holding the knife expertly in his left hand and showing little sign of any pain. Drugged presumably; something to block the alarm messages that would normally alert the brain of damage. He was no slouch, either, keeping her at bay for preciou
s seconds in which she really wanted to be going after Haughty Voice. At last he over-extended, his thrust made awkward by the need to protect the injured arm and compromise his balance. She twisted out of the way, grabbed his wrist before the arm could retract, and broke that one as well.
A blow to the neck with the stiff edge of her hand and he hit the floor. She was free, and raced in pursuit of Haughty Voice.
Too late. She arrived at the cargo hold just in time to see a truck lumber forward and disappear down the loading ramp, gathering speed all the way. Part of her wanted to give chase, wanted to leap in the buggy and hunt down Haughty Voice and whoever else was with him, but to do so would mean consigning everyone else on board to die.
After a deep breath and a quick glare at the retreating truck, she turned and headed back up the steps, knowing that she would have to act quickly even now.
“I don’t believe it.” De Souza’s patience had finally run out. A little belatedly perhaps given the circumstances, but he was somewhat pushed for resources out here and beggars couldn’t be choosers. “You couldn’t even get that right.”
Archer’s face reddened. “You can’t go blaming me for what happened back there. I did my part. I got you an established member of the crew, which is something that for all your money and influence you hadn’t been able to achieve. Bariha’s dependency on drugs made him vulnerable and it was me that uncovered the fact that he’s on the run after a wealthy patient died in a botched operation. And that’s what sealed the deal, don’t forget. Threat and reward; carrot and the stick; we had him where we wanted him, and he performed as promised.
“The girl was a wildcard. We never planned for her and had no way of anticipating what she can do. She’s clearly something extraordinary.”
“Extraordinary, my foot. Your friend Dr Bariha botched his end of things, there’s nothing extraordinary about this fiasco. Somehow he must have failed to administer the poison to that girl. Unbelievable! Mind you, given the incompetence displayed in everything else you’ve touched, I don’t know why I should be surprised.”
Archer looked fit to explode. “I’ve had just about all I’m willing to take of your condescending attitude, de Souza…”
He’d had enough of him? The gall of the man. De Souza glanced quickly at Gant, who stood a few paces behind the banker. The bodyguard gave a crisp nod and prepared to step forward. Archer wouldn’t be an irritation for much longer. “I don’t think you have, Archer, not quite yet.”
Then Archer did perhaps the first truly impressive thing he’d managed in the whole of their acquaintance. Somehow sensing Gant’s approach, he spun around… and shot him. No hesitation, no unnecessary drama, just a swift and clinical execution.
De Souza hadn’t even seen the gun until that instant, and had no idea where the banker had produced it from. A burst of energy and a puff of smoke and blood from the vicinity of Gant’s chest; the big man hesitated, glanced down as if unable to believe what had happened, and then collapsed to the ground.
De Souza must have frozen for an instant. By the time his mind had caught up with events Archer had swivelled back around and de Souza found the barrel of the weapon that had just killed his bodyguard pointing squarely at his face. Sleek, black, palm-sized and evidently deadly, the gun monopolised his attention.
“You really are a pompous ass, aren’t you?” Archer said. The sneer was unmistakable now; an expression that was so unexpected in the bumbling banker – always so eager to please, always so inept – that de Souza could hardly credit it was the same person. “How you ever clawed your way up to a position of authority anywhere is beyond me,” Archer continued. “You’re incapable of doing anything for yourself; you rely entirely on others and then delight in criticising their perceived shortcomings… Actually, perhaps I just answered my own question. Maybe that’s the talent that has propelled you to the top: your ability to bully and organise others to do your work for you. A skill, I suppose, though a pretty worthless one in a situation like this, don’t you think?
“What use is being a bully when it’s just you and the angry man with the gun? Nobody else to call upon now; no one to come to your rescue. Your only resource is whatever you can bring to the party yourself, which, when all is said and done, isn’t a hell of a lot, is it, Falyn my old friend.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” de Souza replied, regaining a little composure and determined to keep his body language relaxed and all hint of fear from his voice. “I still have a very great deal to offer.”
“Really? Such as?”
“Money. More wealth than you could ever imagine.”
Archer stared at him for a second and then burst out laughing. “Oh dear,” he said at length, “you really are too predictable. Money; is that the best you can come up with?”
De Souza’s desperation ratcheted up a notch. This wasn’t quite the response he’d anticipated. He struggled to mask his alarm. “Don’t be too hasty. I’m not just talking about your standard fortune, I mean real wealth, of the sort that only the mega-rich usually catch a glimpse of.”
“And this incredible wealth is where exactly?”
De Souza relaxed a little. This was a language he knew well. When it came down to it, everything was always about money.
“Not that it really matters,” Archer continued. “The money is only of secondary interest to me.”
“Oh come, come. You don’t really expect me to believe that, surely?” Bargaining, open gambits and bluffs – familiar territory. De Souza’s confidence recovered a little more with every syllable.
“I expect you to believe whatever you will.”
“We’ll start with my own personal fortune – which is not inconsiderable; it’s yours, every penny. Then we’ll move on to the real wealth. His smile was confident, conspiratorial: they were partners now.
Archer shook his head. “You really don’t get it, do you? Even if you did have access to funds at that sort of level – which you don’t, or you wouldn’t be out here in the back of beyond chasing Elder artefacts – it’s not really the money I’m interested in; it never has been.”
“Of course it isn’t.” De Souza refused to contemplate that this wasn’t an act, that Archer actually meant what he was saying.
“Is it really so hard to grasp? Is the concept that someone could be motivated by anything other than greed beyond you?”
“What then?” de Souza shrieked, losing control despite himself; anger and contempt for the banker overcoming his fear.
“The guardian.” Archer’s words were chilling in the quiet of their delivery. “The creature that was watching over that cache.”
“What? You’re mad, you’ve totally lost it.” De Souza found courage in his rage, channelling it into reckless defiance. For that instant, he didn’t care. Let Archer kill him, just so long as the windbag got on with it.
“There’s more going on here than you’ll ever know. You still can’t lift your gaze from the money trough to see beyond your all-consuming greed and realise that the guardian of that cache is centuries upon centuries old, that here is an alien intelligence stretching back to the time of the Elders themselves. What’s mere money compared to that?”
There was no reasoning with this man; he was a fanatic, de Souza suddenly realised, shocked that he hadn’t seen it before now. Archer was investing the guardian programmes with some sort of mystical significance, which was absurd. “They’re just programmed entities,” he said softly, “sophisticated software, that’s all. Nothing living could survive this long.”
Archer’s head was shaking again. “No, you blind fool, you’re judging them by our standards – in human terms – when they’re so far beyond us that we’ll never understand them; but I realise I’m not going to convince you, even if I felt inclined to try. And, you know what? I really don’t.” The grip on the gun tightened, the arm straightened and the barrel, which had wavered a little during the discussion, pointed straight towards the bridge of de Souza’s nose once more.
“No, wait,” he said desperately, all pretence of calmness gone. “I know where there are more caches. I can lead you to them…”
“I should thank you, all things considered,” Archer continued, oblivious to de Souza’s pleas. “I always knew that someone else must have realised the significance of the guardians, and now I know I was right, and even who that someone is. I should have guessed it before now: Drake, my own dear colleague. A rival in every sense it would seem. Of course Drake is my adversary. How could it possibly be anyone else? Thank you, Falyn, dear friend, for making all this clear to me. Now, I really must be off.”
The breath caught in de Souza’s throat. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from Archer’s trigger finger, which was in motion just below the gun’s muzzle. Time seemed to slow as the finger squeezed, its joints contracting by the tiniest of increments. Fleetingly, irrationally, de Souza wondered whether he would see the beam for a split second before it killed him.
TWENTY-TWO
“The doc, can you believe it?” Nate shook his head. “Damn! I’ve known the man for years, we all have.”
“Yeah,” Bren agreed. “It’s pretty hard to take.”
“Just goes to show that you can never really know anyone,” Pelquin said. “We were all aware of his little dependencies, but I never thought for a minute…”
“None of us did,” Bren said quickly.
They were back on New Sparta, embroiled in all the legal consequences of their departure the last time they were here; but, with a hold bulging full of Elder artefacts, Pelquin was happy enough to let the lawyers earn their keep. He was also glad to see the back of the banker, Drake, who had scuttled back to his precious employer. In fairness, the man had been decent enough for a banker, but it was good to get the ship back to themselves again.
They’d decided to return directly to New Sparta and realise their assets before picking Monkey up at Babylon – which would doubtless please the little mechanic no end, but it had been a unanimous decision. Everyone wanted to get the cache contents safely delivered before anything else could go wrong.