by Steve Perry
Full kendo armor covers most of the upper body, the head and neck from the front, the shoulders and the hands and wrists. But there are gaps where the chest and stomach protector, the tare, is pared away to allow the arms free movement. When an attacker raises his arms for a cut, the axillae are exposed.
Wu shifted and pivoted and drove her shinai into Ells’s right armpit as hard as she could.
The point of a shinai is dull and rounded, covered with a thick leather cap that holds the four springy “blades” of the split bamboo together at the end. The padding and flexibility of the shinai normally make it unlikely to inflict damage; it is designed to deliver full-power strikes without causing damage. It is not a deadly weapon as is the sword it represents.
Such was the power of Wu’s strike that the shinai bent, shattered, and the jagged ends of two of the pieces slid between Ells’s third and fourth ribs and deep into his flesh.
Ells tumbled, literally knocked sideways off his feet. He slammed into the floor, tried to come up, but was unable to rise.
Wu’s students stood staring at her and Ells in amazement.
Surely, Wu thought, their wonder was no less than her own.
Chapter SEVEN
THE BOXCAR DROPPED toward the surface of Mtu from high orbit, heading toward the port in northeastern Ua Ngumi. Not where Sleel wanted to go, but the main port at Bandari was currently experiencing the effects of a Force Three tropical cyclone, with winds gusting as high as two hundred and thirty-five kilometers per hour. They didn’t give them cute names on Mtu, only numbers; this was the ninth hurricane of the season and the biggest.
Even the lumpy boxcar would be hard pressed in such winds, so all traffic from offworld was going to Mende, almost eight hundred klicks away from the border of The Brambles. The big whirlies would beat themselves to exhaustion on the plateaus and mountains of Ua Ngumi long before reaching the border, and only the dregs of rain would wash down upon the precisely planted trees, doing them little harm.
Even if the storms could somehow manage to hang together long enough to get that far, the deep-rooted and flexible trees would hardly suffer. They had been designed to be hardy, and probably would not lose more than a few leaves in the worst winds.
Sleel leaned back in the cushioned seat and flicked on the holoproj image picked up by the boxcar’s external cameras.
It had been twenty years since he’d been here, but it didn’t look any different from this high up. He couldn’t see the briar patch from this glide path, but there were other land-and seamarks he recognized. The Cape of Misery, looking like a smashed thumb off the coast of Churaland; the warm, reddish waters of the Damu Sea current where. it met the cooler blue of the Samawati Ocean. The Hook-and-Eye of the Jino Mountains, free of cloud. Twenty years, half his life, and it came back as if no time at all had elapsed since he’d last made planetfall here.
Welcome home, Sleel.
Damn.
Next to him, Reason said, “Last time I visited here was probably thirty-five years back.”
“A theft?”
“Yes. One of the dozen or so perfect jobs I ever did. There was a rare document, a paper letter written by Abraham Lincoln, at the museum in Jangwa City.”
“The old capital, on the edge of the Great Desert,” Sleel said. “Who’s Abraham Lincoln?”
“Pre-space politician or king of some kind, as I recall. Gave women the vote or somelike. I had a collector who fancied such things, so I got it for him.”
“Just like that.”
He chuckled. “Well, no, it wasn’t quite that easy, but I was hot in those days. I’d just built the second generation of my electronic suppressors-”
“Reason’s can opener,” Sleel put it.
“Not my name for it, but yes. The museum’s security was pretty good, but they didn’t really expect anybody to put out major energies to steal the letter. You could only ransom it, or sell it to a collector willing to hide it-it was hardly something you could take to the neighborhood pawnshop. So I got in and out without working up a big sweat.”
Sleel nodded. “And what makes it ��perfect job’?”
“They had the thing sealed inside a polarized thincris container full of inert gas so the paper wouldn’t decompose any more than it already had. I had one of my ops pix it and then had a duplicate made of the case and letter. A very good duplicate. When I took the real one, I left the fake.”
Sleel got it. “You mean they never even knew the real letter was gone?”
“Far as I know, they’re still showing the copy around.”
Sleel laughed. A perfect theft, sure enough, if nobody knew it happened.
The boxcar attendant approached them. Sleel watched the man carefully, but he only wanted to deliver a message to Reason. He passed the thin wafer of the White Radio text to the old man, smiled, and went on his way.
“That from Earth?”
“Yes.”
Sleel had okayed the transaction, since they were traveling under their own names and not trying to hide.
More bait for their unseen enemy.
Reason slipped the wafer into the seatback reader in front of him. The holoproj lit up, white words on a blue background. “Ah. Apparently Officer Bligh survived the attack. She is recovering inside a Healy at the, local medical center.”
Sleel shook his head. “So I see. We can zip all over the galaxy, we got tech gear that would have made us demigods a few hundred years ago on Earth, and here we are getting attacked by guys with fucking swords. Iron Age stuff. It’s unreal. “
It was Reason’s turn to nod. “Yes.”
Sleel leaned back as the boxcar started a slow turn to the right. There was nothing else helpful in the message from Earth. Well. He had some contacts. People who waved swords in this age were likely to show up in certain places.
The Musashi Flex was one. Maybe it was time to give Dirisha a call. Just for information, of course, not for help.
During the early days of Mtu’s settlement, an old-style maglev train system had been extensively used.
The feeder lines were mostly gone, but the main tracks were still in place and still used, mostly for moving cargo though there were also a few passenger trains working. The trains had been designed to run at high speeds and the wind didn’t bother them, even a hurricane wasn’t much of an impediment. A falling tree large enough to overcome the low-powered repel fields installed to keep odds and ends off the tracks would be a major problem, but crews were employed to make certain such things did not end up crossing the path of the trains.
As Reason and Sleel entered their private compartment, the older man said, “So what if the crew misses a tree blown over by the winds?”
“We hit it at four hundred klicks an hour and it does some damage. “
“Pleasant thought. It doesn’t worry you?”
“Nope. I worked as a safety tech two summers when I was a teener. We never missed one. Anything big enough to get through the field is real visible. If the sensors don’t spot it-and they never missed one when I was working-a din or a human will eyeball it. If the track doesn’t read clear before the train starts its run, it doesn’t leave. It falls during the run, the train slows down so somebody can remove the problem.”
“All well and good,” Reason said, “but what happens if something blows over onto the track right in front of the train?”
“What happens if you get hit by a meteorite crossing the street? Life is full of risk.”
“Odd, coming from a professional bodyguard.”
He grinned. “I don’t do earthquakes or tsunamis either.”
After they were seated it was only a few minutes before the train lifted and began its run. The trip would take less than two hours to reach the border of The Brambles. That was as far as the train went. People who had business past that would have to find other ways to travel-assuming they could pass the entrance strictures.
Sleel felt a flutter in his belly, as if something alive there were sudde
nly made unhappy. Getting into The Brambles wouldn’t be a problem; his status as a matador alone would probably pass him, plus he was a native, plus his parents were who they were. That didn’t worry him.
Seeing his parents again after twenty years, though, that was something else, even though he was pretty certain he had chosen to come back here for that as much as anything. There were lots of places to hole up and see trouble coming, but none of them would let him show his parents what he had become. Sure, he wore the orthoskins of a hired guard, but there was more to him than met the eye. Much more.
Not enough to satisfy himself, of course, but maybe enough to satisfy his parents. It was the “maybe”
that made him nervous.
A little voice laughed inside his head. Hell, Sleel, they probably haven’t even noticed you’re gone yet.
How about you just shut the fuck up, okay? That’s not funny.
Oh, but it is!
Kildee Wu had to think and to look at the situation before the local medics arrived to take her attacker away. So she hadn’t yet called the medics—or the cools, even though the attack had been intended to do her deadly harm. The shinai Ells had used was more than it seemed at first glance. The bamboo slats, normally sanded so that they would be smooth and not catch on an opponent’s bogu, had instead been cut in such a way as to leave sharp edges. And something darker than the pale bamboo glistened on the edges, something that had a dank smell when held close to an inquiring nose. Chem, she guessed, and whether it was deadly or not was hard to say, but, given Ells’s try with the knife after he lost his shinai, she would bet it was poison dabbed on the sharpened edges. One of her advanced students was a medic with access to scanning gear; she could have him analyze it for her.
Ells had meant to kill her.
Why?
More important than the attack, since it had failed, was the motive behind it. People didn’t just up and kill other people without reason, not unless they were mentally disturbed. Ells had planned this in advance; Wu was certain that he had joined her dojo with the intent already formed, and that kind of premeditation might spring from madness, but it didn’t make sense. It took intent to prepare a practice sword as a killing weapon, especially as carefully as Ells had done it.
Before the medics arrived, best if she could determine why Ells wanted her dead.
She’d had her students carry the wounded man into her office, where he was sprawled now upon the couch. The class had been dismissed and she and Ells were alone. He was not particularly comfortable, one lung collapsed as it was, and having trouble breathing, but she didn’t think he was in imminent danger of dying. The shards of shattered bamboo were still buried in him, sticking out of his side.
Wu squatted next to the couch. Why?”
Ells managed to shake his head. Was not going to tell her.
She reached out and lightly touched one of the bamboo spears embedded in him, wiggling it with her fingertip.
Ells groaned. “Don’t, that hurts!”
“If I hit this with the heel of my hand, I expect I can drive it all the way into your heart, if it isn’t touching it already.”
His already pale face seemed to go whiter.
“I haven’t called the medics yet. I could have com problems and you could bleed to death and get cold enough so they couldn’t bring you back.”
“You … wouldn’t.”
“Tell me why.”
Ells stared at her, looking for truth. He must have found it. He started to talk. What he said was most interesting. When he was done, Wu called the medics. She watched him carefully until the medical team arrived and took him.
Well. It looked as if she would be leaving Koji for a time. An ancient score had come to light. An old story from long before she had been born, materializing out of the past like a ghost to haunt her. She would have preferred that it had not, but there was no help for it. She would have to attend to it.
It was a matter of honor.
Chapter EIGHT
IN THE HOUSE of Black Steel, Cierto the Patron considered his recently collected data. Most of it was straightforward enough: his quarry had fled Earth for the world of Mtu, in the company of the matador identified as Sleel.
Once there, they had boarded a train-a train, how quaint!-and traveled across the continent to the border of the scientific station colloquially known as The Brambles. Local records showed that the pair had been admitted into the station-an achievement of no small difficulty, Cierto was able to determine. From there, there were no more specifics as to where the two men had gone, at least nothing available to Cierto’s stealthware.
The master of the casa stood alone in his private gym, facing a stolid-looking oversize lac generated for wrist-strengthening exercises. The lac shuffled in and brought its blade-a two-handed Mtian broadsword-down in a headsplitter cut.
Cierto stepped back and brought his right hand up with his own sword in an upward block, absorbing the force of the blow. It jarred his wrist, arm and shoulder. As the lac lifted its heavy weapon for another cut, Cierto shifted his sword to his left hand, tossing it easily without looking. He caught the handle and turned his body slightly, sliding his right foot back, leaving his left foot forward.
So. The thief had run, not unexpected. But surely a man who had lived most of his life looking over his shoulder for pursuit by various authorities should be more adept at hiding his trail?
The lac whipped the broadsword down.
Cierto blocked.
The clang was realistic enough, as was the vibration that tested Cierto’s grip and arm. The lac shuffled forward for its next attack, a lunge for the heart. Cierto tossed the sword back to his right hand.
The lac thrust the point of its sword at the man.
Cierto used an inward block, holding his sword point up and snapping it across his chest. The lac’s stab was deflected; it passed harmlessly next to Cierto’s left shoulder. Cierto shifted grips once again for the next attack, the balancing sinister to the previous dexter.
Thrust—
Inward block—
The next attacks were high, a looping slice to Cierto’s neck, first on his right, then the opposite side.
Outward blocks stopped both.
The final attacks of the programmed series were low, stabs at the man’s groin, identical moves on the lac’s part, but once again requiring that Cierto switch hands to meet them. Upward, outward, inward, downward. In theory, a man could cover his entire body with just these four blocks; they were basic to nearly all martial arts, armed or empty-handed. Since a sword was merely an extension of the hand, the moves looked similar to those of a karate player or Sengatist. The difference was that a missed karate block would be cause for a damaging blow from a fist, whereas a miss here was worth death from a razored edge.
The lac bowed slightly and assumed a defensive pose, so that Cierto could become the attacker.
“Off,” Cierto said.
The lac shimmered and was gone.
No, he did not need to practice these skills on an artificiality. He had wasted enough precious ammunition on this old thief who continued to live and plague his house. It was time indeed for the Patron to take the field and demonstrate what must be done.
As the ground cart rolled through the lanes toward Prime, Sleel felt the pressure of the sameness around him. Occasionally there was a break in the trees, where one had died and been replaced with a younger one, but by and large the continuity was there. They didn’t seem to have grown very much in twenty years, he’d expected that.
Sleel and Reason were alone in the cart, a programmed unit supposedly sealed until it arrived at its destination. As a teener, Sleel had learned how to reprogram the carts; most people who lived in The Brambles knew how to do that. The carts had originally been a Confederation safeguard, designed to ferry outside people to and from the various guarded locations, not allowing them to stop and poke around on their own. When the Republic arose from the ruin of the Confederation, the carts
were left in place, since they worked well enough, but the penalties for misusing them had gone down.
The little vehicles continued to roll on their cushioned wheels, the plastic exteriors age-worn, the seats inside sagging and hardly comfortable. Still, they were a lot faster than walking. The tops were hard and clear plastic, so a good view-such as there was to see—could be had, save when the yellow-brown pollen from the trees accumulated on the carts and blurred things. Locals who had money could buy flitters or hoppers if they wanted, and many had, but the carts were still used because they were free.
“Amazing,” Reason said. “I had no idea how extensive these things were. A whole country of giant sticker bushes.”
“Yeah, well, if the stuff works, they’re gonna want a lot of it. It’s a big galaxy.”
“You have an insider’s knowledge; you think the longevity chem won’t work?”
Sleel shook his head. “No, it’ll work. My parents don’t make that kind of error.” Yeah, they’re great with plants, it’s people they can’t handle.
“Do they know we’re coming?”
“I thought I’d surprise them.”
Sleel shifted to stare through the pollen-dusty plastic. No, he hadn’t called them. Probably even if he had, they would have forgotten about it within a few minutes. They were both still fairly young, early seventies, but they were also narrowly focused. An only son coming home after more than two decades would hardly rank in the same category as a patent graft or a new theory about enhanced photosynthesis.
“How much farther?”
“Another hour,” Sleel said. “I think I’ll just grab a little sleep. Wake me if a webbit tries to attack the cart.”
Sleel closed his eyes and deepened his breathing, but he was not about to drift into sleep’s welcome oblivion. Just as well, given his dreams of late.
Going home. Well, it hadn’t been home for a long time, but it was one of the few constants in his life.
Maybe they’d be glad to see him. Maybe he could impress them with what he’d done. Yeah. Right. And maybe he could learn to fly by waving his arms.