A sound distracted him. He cocked his head sideways, trying to locate the source. He closed his nostrils against the stink and began moving around the nearest heaps of refuse. He had to go much farther into the room than he wanted to before he found what made the noise—Jheeter followed him, so did Keeda. They came around a pile of blackened bones, charred and broken, and found Kask stomping desperately across the trash. Kask barely glanced up. “He came this way. I saw him.” His tail lashed rapidly back and forth in frantic agitation.
Captain Naye-Ninneya stopped and stared. He held himself back. He had too much anger boiling in him. If he tried to speak, his language would fail him and he’d just end up killing Kask and Keeda both. And probably any other creature who came close before his fury ebbed again. He forced himself to turn away. Keeda started to follow—
“Keeda, help him,” Naye-Ninneya managed to say. He headed quickly back out. If nothing else, the futile pawing through refuse would keep the both of them from causing any more harm. He only wished Lieutenant Jheeter hadn’t seen the disgraceful performance of those two idiots.
“I can spare some troops to help them,” Jheeter said, following him diplomatically.
“No. They earned the right to pursue the animal without help.”
“Ahh,” said the wise Lieutenant. “Yes.”
Naye-Ninneya looked at the smaller Dragon, frowning. Jheeter stared innocently back. They both knew that everything depended on the heavy-duty sniffer now. If Jheeter found the fugitive morsel, the Captain would carry a heavy obligation.
“The dog-child?” Naye-Ninneya asked. “Could it hide in all this mess?”
Jheeter waved its head from side to side like a snake. “I doubt it very much. Intimidating as this refuse may seem, the industrial sniffers do have the sophistication to isolate the creature’s scent out of all this, uh—decay. I apologize for the delay, my Captain. We were all upstairs, unobtrusively sniffing Kernel d’Vashti’s guests for the arrival of the Lady.”
Naye-Ninneya’s tail lashed impatiently. He forced himself into an attitude of patience. “No problem,” he said stiffly. “You sealed the level. The creature can’t escape.” He didn’t dare risk antagonizing Jheeter—not now. And especially not if he succeeded. He hated this—having to let a subordinate plant an obligation on him.
“Ahh,” Jheeter whistled brightly. “Here we go. The unit has arrived. Now, we’ll find your creature for you. This will take only a few moments.”
Jheeter took one of those moments himself to give instructions to his troops, specifically to direct the efforts of the three who carried the heavy-duty sniffer; then he turned back to Naye-Ninneya again. “If I may offer some advice, you should let this creature rest before you eat it. All this exertion, all the strain, will make the flesh taste gamy. I’d give it at least a week myself. A gentle killing preserves the flavor best—”
“The creature belongs to the Lady Zillabar,” Naye-Ninneya interrupted curtly. “A gift for Lord Drydel.”
“Ah. Oh, yes. Of course. My mistake. Nevertheless, if you could suggest to the Lady . . . well, you know. I mean, if she wants to please her guests—”
“The Lady Zillabar has significantly more culinary skill than either you or I—or both of us together, for that matter, will ever possess. Vampires have much more delicate palates and pay significantly more attention to their diets than do Dragons. I have no doubt that the Lady will know how to prepare the creature appropriately.”
Jheeter looked crestfallen. His tail drooped at the Captain’s rebuke.
Naye-Ninneya remembered too late how emotional the lesser breeds had become. A sign of decadence—or latent insanity—no doubt. But he added quickly, “However, your suggestion does have merit. I’ll pass it along to the Lady. She should know that this creature has suffered a good deal of strain today and it could affect the flavor of its blood.”
“Thank you, Captain. You do me great honor.”
“No. You do the honor to yourself when you serve your masters well. Remember that.” A thought crossed Naye-Ninneya’s mind. Maybe he could just kill Jheeter when this situation ended. It would certainly simplify the whole affair.
Jheeter had lowered his head in polite deference. Abruptly, his headset chattered in his ear. “Ahh,” he said. “We’ve picked up the trace.” He pointed. “This way—”
Naye-Ninneya pounded after the lighter Dragon as they threaded their way quickly through the repulsive heaps. The muck squelched under his boots with a queasy sticky sound. He’d probably have to discard them when this affair finally ended.
“Here!” pointed one of the troops. “It went down here—” The bright-colored Dragon pointed through a hole in the wall. The gas-tester kept chiming happily to itself.
“Where does that go?” Naye-Ninneya frowned as he peered into the dark hole.
“I think this space contains nothing but insulation,” said Lieutenant Jheeter. “Who has the map?” One of his troops produced a map-board immediately.
“It looks deep,” said Naye-Ninneya.
“Hmm.” Jheeter scratched his chin worriedly. “On the other side of this insulation, I believe, you’ll find the ruins of the old catapult.” He pored over the map. “Not to worry. It doesn’t seem to go very far.”
Naye-Ninneya grunted. History held little interest for him. The early settlers of this world had carved mountains of ore out of its surface and smelted it into massive ingots. They had carved a catapult right up through the center of the towering MesaPort peak and boosted the ingots into low orbit by magnetic acceleration. When the mines ran out, the catapult fell into disuse and disrepair. Although no reason remained for anyone to stay on Thoska-Roole, life has a peculiar habit—once established, it stays. Sometimes it even thrives. On Thoska-Roole, it just held on and maintained.27
“The launching catapult needed very heavy insulation and shielding,” Jheeter continued explaining. “The mountain provided most of it, so the builders only installed a few access tubes into this space—”
A terrifying thought suddenly occurred to Captain Naye-Ninneya. He turned immediately to Jheeter. “The catapult. The catapult itself. How far down does it go?” He let a hint of menace color his voice.
Lieutenant Jheeter blinked. And then he realized what the Captain had asked. He gasped. “Oh, darkness, no. It goes all the way down. All the way down to the surface.”
Naye-Ninneya groaned.
He knew what would happen next. He could see the whole future laid out like a map. He would send Kask and Keeda down the hole after the vermin—and Lieutenant Jheeter’s troops too. He would mobilize every Dragon in the palace. He would send troops down to the surface to comb the rabbit warren of tunnels at the base of the catapult, hoping to catch the fugitive coming out of one of the outlets. They would set traps and tracers. They would sniff the air and scan kilometers of desert. They would send probes up the tunnels. It might work. It probably wouldn’t. Incompetency fed on itself. His troops had never trained for this. They could win a war—but they couldn’t catch a mouse.
Soon, he would have to tell the Lady Zillabar that he had failed in his responsibility. His elite Dragon-Guards had allowed one of her gifts to escape. The size of the search would not mitigate the failure. The Lady only accepted results, never excuses.
The Dragons had soiled the Lady’s grace. Even if they caught the creature now, it wouldn’t erase the stain.
His life had ended.
Plan B
Finn Markham hung spread-eagled in energy chains, halfway up a bleak stone wall in a cavernous chamber. A drab gray light gave the cave a dank oppressive look. Beside him, his brother also dangled against the wall, pinned in a spider web of soft-glowing beams. The bare rock floor remained tantalizingly out of reach.
“Can you move?” Sawyer gasped his question.
Finn grunted in reply.
“Does that mean yes or no?”
Finn shrugged. He tried to shrug. He couldn’t move. Even the simple act of breathing to
ok a tremendous effort that left him teetering exquisitely between exhaustion and anoxia. “It means no,” he managed to say. He had to whisper to get the words out.
“If you move slowly—”
“—I’ll pass out. Do you have any other ideas?”
“As a matter of fact . . .” Sawyer had to stop to catch his own breath, then he continued, “I do have a plan—”
Slowly—oh, so slowly—Finn Markham turned his head to look skeptically at his brother; his famous raised-eyebrow look.
Sawyer grinned feebly back at him. “Ah, you can move,” he said. “Awright. You overpower her, and I’ll run for help—”
Finn let out his breath painfully.
Below them, a gargantuan shape moved through the gloom. Murdock lumbered among her equipment like a great shambling beast absent-mindedly looking for a pair of misplaced ballet slippers. She moved through a maze of bulky racks and chambers, cylindrical vats, and several luminous work stations, all scattered helter-skelter across the floor of the cave without apparent plan or design.
Abruptly, she found the object of her search, one of the work stations. She studied its screens for a long thoughtful moment, then made a minor adjustment. Abruptly, Sawyer and Finn felt themselves moving higher up the wall, all the way up to the ceiling until they banged their heads against the rough stone roof. It gave them a better view of the layout of Murdock’s installation, but also effectively made the possibility of escape even more remote. Satisfied, Murdock began stripping off her cloak, her helmet, and her body armor.
Sawyer shivered where he hung. “I’ve seen some ugly women in my time, but—oh, God, no. I wish she wouldn’t do that.”
Below them, the titanic figure peeled off the last piece of armor. She wore a dingy singlet that concealed nothing of her true shape. Sawyer blanched and tried to turn his head away. “Oh, my dear God in heaven, whatever I’ve done to offend thee, I heartily apologize and beg thy forgiveness. Please take this abomination away from my eyes.”
“I had no idea you had so much religion.”
“I didn’t—until she started taking off her clothes.” He looked helplessly to Finn. “I don’t think I’ll ever have the courage to touch a woman again. I—I don’t think I could perform with the memory of her in my head. Some things, a man just shouldn’t see, just shouldn’t even imagine—”
Finn understood. “If you decide to go in for homosexual rechanneling . . . I’ll understand. In fact, I might consider it myself. Murdock gives new meaning to the words big and ugly.”
“She can’t have come from human stock, Finn. She can’t possibly—”
“She must have some human ancestry. Remember, I found her with a boy.”
“The poor thing—I hope I never get either that hungry or that desperate.” Sawyer had turned quite pale at the thought.
“I think most normal men would share your reaction. Comfort yourself with this thought. Whatever she’s devolved from, her subspecies can’t possibly last beyond this present generation—because of the total lack of anyone perverse enough to father the next.”
“Do you think she can hear us?”
Finn shrugged. “Do you think she cares?”
Sawyer thought about it. He watched Murdock’s lumbering form in horror. She scratched herself abstractedly, paused to sniff under one armpit, scratched again, tugged her underwear out of her crotch, and then waddled heavily over to another work station.
“Y’know,” Finn said thoughtfully. “I wonder if we haven’t stumbled into a trap. . . .”
“Uh . . . what gave you that idea?”
“No, I mean—even the commission to collect Murdock might not have a legitimate author. The more I think about it, the more trouble I have with the idea that somebody actually wants this—this woman badly enough to pay anyone to track her down.”
“I agree, but maybe the local Dragon-Lord has different tastes. The contract had his seal on it.”
“I remember. This commission had the one of the largest escrow accounts attached to it we’ve ever seen—the single richest, fattest prize, you should pardon the expression, in the Regency. You have to ask yourself, with that kind of a price on her head, why does Murdock still have her freedom? Every tracker in the Cluster must know about Murdock. Can you imagine anyone resisting the temptation of this bounty? I can’t?”
“Actually,” said Sawyer, looking doubtfully downward. “I think I can.”
Finn ignored the comment. “Soy, either no one else has the courage to come after her, or—”
“—or none of them have survived long after capturing her.” Sawyer lowered his voice. “You know what’ll happen next, don’t you?”
“I can imagine. This woman specializes in organ-legging and slave-trading. She sells bodies, body-parts, special-purpose bioforms, and modified androids. We’ll probably leave here in pieces.”
Sawyer took a long slow breath. He called down to the mammoth woman below, “If you surrender to us now, it’ll go a lot easier for you in the long run.”
Murdock ignored him.
“All right,” said Sawyer, dejectedly. “Let’s go to Plan B.”
“Plan B?” Finn raised his eyebrow again. “I thought we already had.”
Murdock stepped to another console to look at the result of her scanning programs. She frowned unhappily; an avalanche of wattled flesh collapsed into a mean and squinty-eyed expression. “Not prime,” she said with audible disappointment. Her voice had a rasp like a bulldozer in pain. She rumbled deep in her chest, a volcano clearing its throat. “Not even choice. Hardly worth the trouble.”
She glanced upward, considering another idea. She assessed the two brothers dispassionately. “Cute—” She nodded appreciatively, a leviathan gesture. “No real market value. But still . . .”
Sawyer looked worriedly to Finn. Cute?
“I think she likes you—”
“No, no. She likes you much more than she likes me.” Sawyer said it hastily. “Trust me. I know these things. She likes you. She doesn’t like me at all. Really.”
Murdock studied them thoughtfully for a moment longer, ignoring their frantic gestures and denials. Eventually, whatever small spark passed for intelligence behind her pig-like features came to a reluctant decision. She discarded the thought. “No—not strong enough.” She shook her giant head in slow ponderous dissatisfaction, and turned her attention back to the screen on her console. She punched a code and a moment later began talking to someone.
“You wanted a tracker? I have two.” She listened, then answered with a laugh like a rusty gate; she wheezed. “Yeah. The same. I catch more trackers that way. They never learn. No, I’ll only sell them as a set. You have to take them both or not at all. Same price. No, not two for one. Each—” She haggled a bit longer, but finally came to terms with the unseen buyer, and accepted the deal.
“To tell the truth,” she added. “I don’t want ‘em nohow. They don’t suit my purposes, but they might suit yours a lot better. Yeah. Yeah. They’ll probably find much more happiness in your arms than in mine—” She laughed again, this time even louder and nastier than before.
The Vampire’s Table
By the time the Eye of God had crossed the sky and commenced settling its glory into the desolate west, Lady Zillabar’s temper had eased enough for her to consider not only refreshment, but the next step of her plans. She returned to her own towers and after several precious hours of dreamtime, began summoning various of her followers, citizens, and servants. She issued orders with crisp detachment, sweeping through the ranks of her clients without regard to their individual problems or concerns. By now, the stories of her day-long tantrum—and the subsequent unfortunate death of the Captain of her personal Dragon Guard—would have gotten world-wide circulation; she might as well make good use of the resulting temerity of her subjects.
She retired to her private chambers for an informal dinner with several of her underlings, all Phaestor. All male, of course. No Dragons. Not after the e
vents of earlier in the day. Too dangerous.
The servants had set the tables with a delicate repast, and as the evening deepened, her guests fed themselves liberally. The Vampires chatted and laughed among themselves, but all took care to keep their conversations light and noncommittal. Lady Zillabar allowed herself to enjoy the graceful beauty of Lord Drydel without, for once, wondering about either his loyalties or his ambitions. Whatever plans her evanescent consort might have laid, they would lie fallow for a long while after today; certainly long enough for her to take steps to neutralize either the plans or the planner.
She pushed the thought aside and shared a goblet of green wine with Lord Drydel. His eyes flashed with desire and she considered the possibility of a shared dream, later in the evening after the last of the guests had left. Perhaps. . . .
A servant-wasp approached to a polite distance, waited for the Lady’s gesture, then presented her with a folded note. Zillabar barely lifted the card off the tray, unfolded it gracefully with one jewelled nail, glanced nonchalantly at the message inscribed inside, nodded to the servant, and dropped the note back on the plate. The servant withdrew.
Drydel looked inquisitively to his mate. She answered his look with a touch to his lips. “We have another guest.” She clapped her hands twice and the table servants began withdrawing the evening’s buffet. Other servants quickly slid a set of ornate panels into place to hide that end of the room. Lady Zillabar moved to a dais and settled herself on its throne. Lord Drydel moved to stand behind her. Her guests had already taken notice; they took their places at the sides of the room to wait politely while the Lady conducted her business.
All conversation dimmed when the High Justice of Thoska-Roole entered behind the servant with the tray. Every dark eye in the room turned to study the corpulent man—a human, fat and filled with hot red blood.
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