by IIsa J. Bick
And then I’m outside, as silent as a shadow. I can barely make out my father; he’s like a creature scissored out of the fabric of night, as insubstantial as air. The air is just this side of chilly, and I’m shivering, gooseflesh stippling my arms. Gravel pricks the soles of my bare feet, and they hurt, and I wish I’d remembered my sandals, or even a pair of socks.
Another skip: cool, dewy grass that shushes under my feet, like slippers on carpet, and the tall, straighter forms of trees. I’m crouching behind . . . a rock? A wall? My fingers skid over something cold and hard; my knees are damp with dew.
Ahead, there are men: all in black skinsuits, faces obscured, each with the twin swords of the samurai. I know my father by his silhouette: square, solid. Proud. But I also remember (dream?) two others standing to either side of my father. I don’t know them, can’t see their faces. Yet a finger of fear pokes my chest.
Danger! That’s what my mind screams, and then a whispered afterthought: Blood and enemies.
The circle parts the way a curtain opens, and even though it’s night, everything’s clear as day. There, in the center, is a man in a loose white kimono. His silver hair’s done in the elaborate mitsu-ori topknot of the ancient samurai, and I recognize him at once: Uncle Kan. Not really related, but my father’s best friend; a man who followed Akira Tormark—O5P agent, lord, samurai—when my father left the Combine to pursue Devlin Stone’s dream. Uncle Kan kneels on a black tatami, and he beckons the rest to sit, sit. They kneel, and then they eat rice and pickles from ceramic bowls. I know with absolute certainty that their chopsticks are anise, just as I know that each of the men has three slices of pickle on his rice, mikire: three portions. Cut skin.
There’s a tray with a sake jug and one blue ceramic cup. My father carefully pours twice with his left hand from the left, filling Uncle Kan’s cup, which Uncle drains in two sips twice done. Two plus two makes shi. Death.
Another skip: There’s the sambo tray with Uncle Kan’s kazuka, the blade wrapped in paper but leaving the last two centimeters bare. Uncle reaches for the tray; his kimono falls open; the kazuka is in his hand . . .
And then—he’s cutting. No, not cutting. Slashing. Ripping. Grunting with the pain, the tip of his tongue clamped between white teeth. Left to right, unzipping his belly, and suddenly, there is black oil on his hands, his blade, his skin, his kimono. Only it’s not oil; I know it’s not oil. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I’m frozen in time, and the dream—memory?—slows to that nightmarish pace where the monster’s right behind, and you know that it’s only a matter of time.
Somehow, Uncle’s still conscious. Not screaming. Grunting, then hissing as his blade snags. My father stands at Uncle’s left side, as his kaishakunin, long blade drawn. He’s waiting for something, for Uncle to do something . . .
And then Uncle does it—jerks his kazuka free. Long, oily tongues of blood spill from Uncle’s belly. I see it all: pearls of sweat beading his forehead and upper lip, his face twisted in agony. But still he says nothing. Instead, he replaces his kazuka on the sambo tray and nods. Once.
Quick as lightning, my father brings his blade up and then down: a whip of light slashing through darkness—and Uncle’s neck. Two dark ropes of blood pulse in arcs; Uncle’s head flops forward, lolling on his breast the way a marionette goes limp when its strings are cut. But it doesn’t fall off. My father’s been a superb kaishakunin, slicing through bone and muscle until Uncle’s head is, literally, hanging by a thin flap of skin: the perfect daki-kubi.
And now . . . I scream. Loud. Long. Terrified. The men whirl; my father, horrified, blood dripping from his blade, reaches for me. But I’m screaming, flinching away. “You killed Uncle Kan, you killed Uncle Kan!”
Here’s what’s weird. One of the two men who’d flanked my father peers at me strangely, head cocked like an inquisitive spaniel. His visored face is totally black, but I feel his eyes, hot as lasers, raking my body. And then he asks my father, “Is that her?”
Three simple words: Is. That. Her. Question mark. But what the hell did that mean? I didn’t know then. I don’t know now.
The rest is memory, a little hazy but real. My parents talking, clipped, terse sentences shot in rapid-fire staccato. Mother was angry; her skin feverish and pale. But my father wasn’t. He was . . . sad. Not quite broken, but resigned. He laid Uncle’s katana and wakazashi upon the table, and then he said something to my mother I’ve never forgotten: “Kan chose the wrong master.”
Then my father reached down and touched my cheek; I remember that my cheek was wet with hot tears. I felt his rough, horny thumb on my skin, and I thought: He’s going away.
And he did. I didn’t see my father again until seven years had passed, when my mother died in a hovercar accident. By then, he was a stranger. We shared a house. I didn’t even pretend that he was necessary; I could take care of myself, thanks. We never really talked. Instead, we argued, flinging words that stung like the quick, lightning strikes of a perfectly honed blade. Ours was a relationship that died from a thousand small wounds. Then, two years later, I turned the tables, and I left him. I didn’t care what he did, where he went. Akira Tormark simply ceased being my concern—and now he’s gone. Probably dead; my God, he’d be past ninety by now. So he’s just like that dream now, a tissue-thin flap of memory like the flesh that held Uncle’s head to his lifeless body. Nearly severed, but not quite.
Okay, fine. Maybe I’m crazy. But here’s what I figured out. My father spent all his time extolling the virtues of The Republic, but when push came to shove? He went the way of the warrior—even if he tried to deny it with every fiber of his being.
And me? Hell, I don’t know. The Republic’s not my home, not really; and the coordinator is, what, indifferent? Incapable? I don’t know. There’s only silence, and that silence reminds me of that icy, hard, awful chasm between my parents, and my feeling that if I tried hard enough to please them, they’d stop, and we’d be a family again.
Whoa. I had to stop there, look away, then read that last bit again. What, I’m some snot-nosed kid demanding, “Notice me, notice me, I’m here?” I guess there are worse motives, but I’d kind of like to think there’s more to it than that. But I’m on my course now, claiming worlds for the Dragon. People might think I’m nuts, tempting a power as awesome as the coordinator’s.
And if Vincent Kurita demands my death? I’d do it. Gladly. Because then, finally, I’d belong. I’d be someone’s daughter, not a ghost’s or a memory’s, but a real, flesh-and-blood daughter: a Daughter of the Dragon.
2
Ludwig Nadir Jump Point
Benjamin Military District, Draconis Combine
1 October 3134
Katana Tormark.
Marcus wasn’t sure what to do first: put his fist through a window, or murder his brother. Both were impossible. For one thing, the windows (or portals, or portholes, or whatever was JumpShip-speak) were triply-reinforced ferroglass, virtually indestructible. For another, infinitely more important reason, Jonathan was much more likely to kill him first, not because Jonathan was necessarily stronger or more cunning but because Jonathan had legs that worked and a lot more practice. So what Marcus did instead was turn aside and stare out at all that deadly, silent, beautiful space.
From the outside, his personal JumpShip looked like any other Magellan-class vessel: a stout tube with a bulbous nose collared with six capsule-shaped fuel tanks. Nothing special. (Unless you figured in the windows: they cost. Marcus was nearly as wealthy as Jacob Bannson, but while Bannson’s billions funded his quest for the holy grail of respectability, Marcus bought the thing that revenge demanded: discretion.)
Inside, the Omega screamed wealth. Besides the lack of a grav deck—something Marcus missed not at all—and the addition of an onboard medical facility (sadly, a necessity), the ship was a lavishly appointed home stretched end to end and all around. There were computer workstations positioned at desks along the “floor” and illuminated by specialized full-spe
ctrum UV-blocked lights from “above.” There were rich, handwoven Shirara rugs on grippads; teak and cherrywood furniture bolted to the deck; beds sheathed in satin. Marcus even had a real library: actual leather-bound books with marbled edges and gilt lettering. Worth more than their weight in platinum, the books were held in place by specially made retention belts, and Marcus spent hours reveling in the sensation of cool, smooth leather. And there was ferroglass, whole sections given over to elegant, transparent curves that gleamed with a buttery yellow incandescence, or displayed millions of hard, diamond-bright stars glittering like sequins sewn onto black velvet.
Now Marcus stared out, and his reflection stared back. Space had been kind to him even if life had not. At fifty-four, he still possessed a lean, wolfish face with high cheekbones and sable-colored eyes that took off ten years. He wore his camel-colored hair military short. Weightless the majority of the time, he’d escaped gravity’s fingers, the way they dragged through the putty of a man’s face. His shoulders were broad, his arms bunched with cords of muscle, his abdomen washboard flat, and his hands powerful enough to crush walnuts.
But if space had been good to Marcus, time had been better to Jonathan. Marcus’ moody gaze slid to the reflection of his younger brother floating with infuriating nonchalance on the other side of the room. Jonathan was more than handsome. He was beautiful. Sensuous lips, a lush mane of black hair shot through with silver that might look ridiculous in zero g but cascaded in silken rivers under gravity, and a pair of hooded, smoke-gray eyes that suggested the pleasures of the bedroom. Even before the accident, Jonathan was a quarter meter taller and had a leopard’s sinewy grace.
Marcus scowled. “Why do you insist on taking risks?”
“Because I can.” Sighing, his brother unfurled like a cat working out the kinks. “Where’s the sport in a fast kill?”
“Sport,” Marcus grunted. Pushing off from the window, he twisted left, hooked his left hand into a handhold strategically located just shy of the curve of the room’s “ceiling.” His scrawny, paralyzed legs drifted behind like wind socks snatched by a weak breeze. “This isn’t a game, Jonathan. Katana Tormark must die. Getting rid of the Bounty Hunter was a necessity; we needed to put you in her camp. But toying with ISF agents, that business on Towne . . . “
“Not business.” Jonathan peered through his lashes. “Practice.”
“Eight murders seems excessive.”
“Nine. Shu’s daughter was a bonus.”
“She wasn’t a bonus. Shu just didn’t know how to finish what he’d started.”
“Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport, Marcus. You’re just angry because you couldn’t do the little twat yourself.”
“That’s beside the point.”
“Really,” Jonathan drawled. “So why did you insist I record them? Don’t tell me you haven’t enjoyed those data crystals. You think you’re the only one who knows how to access a computer and see who’s been listening to what?”
“Jonathan,” Marcus began, then stopped, mortified. What Jonathan said was true. Listening to the women plead for their lives, promise to do anything for Jonathan, and then watching, mesmerized, as they did . . . even thinking about them made Marcus’ pulse jackhammer in his veins, his mouth go dry. Marcus was fabulously wealthy, yes, but he needed his brother to be his eyes, his ears. His body and the women . . .
“That’s not the issue,” he managed tersely. “You can’t go around . . . recruiting people on a whim, then going on a little spree.”
“And why not? What’s a little murder between friends?”
“Shu wasn’t your friend.”
“No,” said Jonathan, frowning in mock solemnity. “You’ve got a point there. He was just in love with me. But what a stroke of luck, eh? Stumbling onto Shu and his lovely daughter during one of their naughty little games . . . the poor girl was half-dead by the time I cut that scarf.” Grinning, he tucked, rolled, then planted his feet against a slim bulkhead and shot across the room, sailing for a high corner. There he wedged: a human spider at the center of an invisible web. “You know, I’m beginning to understand what you see in zero g. Sex must be quite the experience.”
“Don’t change the subject,”
“Spoilsport.” Then Jonathan sighed. “I had to give the police someone, and dear little Shu was so eager. It was like having a cocker spaniel.”
“He was inept. What about that girl he let run off?”
Jonathan tsk-tsked. “Yes, well. Everyone’s nervous the first time. But if I told him once, I told him a thousand times: No, Shu dear, you cut out their tongues after they’re dead.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“I never said it was. I have to admit that when those idiot police only wounded and didn’t kill him, I had a nervous moment or two. Very obliging of him to die in hospital.” Jonathan dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Actually, between you and me? Shu was on the mend, going to regain consciousness any second, that was the gossip amongst the nurses, and I thought, well, that won’t do. So I slipped a little something into his intravenous, a tiny bit of succinylcholine. Paralyzed his diaphragm just like that.”
Marcus jabbed a finger at his brother. “And that’s what I’m talking about. You poison the son of a bitch, and then you think that the police won’t come looking?”
“Succinylcholine is virtually untraceable. I know what I’m doing.” Jonathan screwed up his features the way a petulant child wrinkles his nose at lima beans. “You think it’s easy imitating a good serial killer? Dreaming up a novel signature took me a week. There were so many details, like remembering that blood spatters in—”
“I heard the news feeds. In fact, I couldn’t find anything but for weeks. But here’s what I don’t understand. You plant clues. You lead the police on this wild goose chase before remembering that, oh, yes, there’s this government official I’ve been sent to assassinate—for which I’m being well paid, thank you very much. You even give yourself a damn name!”
“Well, I didn’t like the one they chose.” Jonathan folded his arms and dropped into a cross-legged squat, like a sultan on a flying carpet. “Little Luthien. Sounded like a troll living under a bridge.”
“But Kappa? Why not just take out an advertisement? Better yet, why not send the ISF an itinerary?”
“Marcus, Marcus,” Jonathan sighed, wagging his head from side to side as if his brother were a dull little boy who just didn’t get it. “Don’t you understand? It’s only an advertisement for the prepared mind. I wanted the ISF to sit up and take notice.”
“Oh, they noticed all right. Sent an agent out to assassinate you.”
“My point, exactly: Three little agents, all in a row, one on Northwind, one on Procyon,” said Jonathan, ticking the planets off on his fingers, “and the last on Devil’s Rock, all in a nice straight line leading right into Prefecture VII. Let the ISF and Bhatia spin their rotors a bit, maybe send a few agents to Castor or Connaught. It’s immaterial, really, so long as they’re looking in one direction while I go another. Anyway, things are going quite well. Getting rid of the Bounty Hunter was inspired, if I do say so myself. What better way to infiltrate Katana’s camp than by assuming the identity of a man no one’s ever seen face-to-face?”
Marcus wasn’t ready to let go of things quite so easily. “I’m not sure I’d call Devil’s Rock working out well. That agent got too close.”
“I let him get close. It was fun watching him watching me. Besides, I wanted to try out my new toys.” Jonathan paddled over to where Marcus still hung, fuming. “Stop fretting, Marcus. You worry too much.”
“Because there’s a lot to worry about.”
“No, there isn’t. Everything’s under control.”
Marcus didn’t answer because things weren’t under control anymore, and Marcus knew it. Oh, it wasn’t that he worried they’d be caught. Jonathan was good, very good. The problem was . . . Marcus wasn’t sure he could control Jonathan.
Their objective was clear:
Katana Tormark must die. But would Jonathan do the job? Marcus stared into Jonathan’s eyes, gray as storm clouds and hard as flint, and saw something he didn’t like. There was an odd gleam, as if Jonathan really was Kappa: not the code name he’d taken but the actual monster, a creature from ancient Japanese mythology; a chimera of monkey, frog, turtle and human. According to legend, a kappa drew strength from water set in a bowl-like depression atop its head. The ancient Japanese had been so terrified of kappas that they’d developed the ritual bow—a way of getting a kappa to tip its water and lose its powers.
And kappas were arrogant, sometimes fatally so. Kappa no kawa nagare, the saying went: Even a kappa can drown.
But Marcus didn’t say any of this. There were things you didn’t say to Jonathan, not when you caught that glint of something else beneath his skin and behind his eyes—not if you wanted to continue to enjoy what was left of your life.
So Marcus said the only thing he could. “You know best. Where to next?”
Jonathan’s lips peeled back: not quite a grin and just short of a snarl. “Junction. And after that? Whichever way the wind—and Katana—blows.”
Well, now. Marcus might be a problem.
It was nearly midnight ship’s time, a time when Jonathan did some of his best thinking. So, as he peeled out of his clothes, he decided it was high time to do some heavy-duty thinking right now—about Marcus.
Naked now, cool air drawing sensual fingers along his skin, Jonathan hovered over his bed, inspecting his toys. He always stripped when he took inventory. He couldn’t explain it, but handling certain pieces made him, well, warm and tingly all over. His hungry eyes roved over makeup, syringes of silicon to change his features, contacts for his eyes, and his lovely, wonderful weapons: detonators, flechettes, an assortment of pistols, the ever-popular needler, frangible explosives.