Memento Mori

by W. R. Gingell

  He emerged into the engine room, such as it was. It was tiny, cramped, and very, very clean. The sound of voices was louder here, suggesting either that the Upsydaisy’s chambers had very thin walls, or that his principal and her protector were very close now. Vladivostok opened the door carefully, glad to find it a manual open, and went in search of the voices.

  It was almost too easy. The human male had his back to Vladivostok when the Hunter stole softly through the cabin door. There was a gun of some sort in the back of his waistband, but Vladivostok didn’t give him a chance to reach for it. He threw one of his knives, the blood singing in his veins at the kill, and heard his principal say something from a little further in the recesses of the Upsydaisy. There was a stirring of unease at the back of his mind, something barely remembered struggling for notice, but Vladivostok ignored it. He crossed the room at a swift stride and knelt to recover his knife from the human’s neck. It was time to seek the blood of his principal.

  He rose with his knife in hand, sensing sudden movement at the door, and looked up to meet the eyes of his principal. Vladivostok froze in a moment of shock as sudden as it was unpleasantly unfamiliar. The child was simply standing there, a drink forgotten in one hand and something edible in the other. She was white with rage, her eyes as hard and shiny as black pebbles in a stream.

  “You shouldn’t ’ave done that,” she said.

  Vladivostok woke, gasping for air. His heart gave its powerful first waking beat, pumping blood in an exhilarating rush, and he sat up, enlivened. This morning he felt very perilous—and for that reason, immensely alive.

  At first he thought it was still raining. Greenery streaked around him in a confusing blur that could have been liquid but was, Vladivostok discovered in the blink of an eye, actually the result of incredible speed. The Upsydaisy was taking to the sky once more. Vladivostok grinned without humour. He’d spent far too long tracking the Upsydaisy to lose her when he did find her. The first thing he’d done when he found his principal and her protector was key himself into the Upsydaisy’s outer shielding like a small, biological piece of the ship. He had been reasonably certain it would work, though he’d hoped not to have to test it. To his relief, they had only taken to the sky; they hadn’t left the Time Stream. Vladivostok wasn’t sure how his body would react to the Other Zone outside (or was it inside?) the Time Stream.

  Vladivostok closed his eyes against the dizzying effect of the passing scenery and worked his way across the Upsydaisy’s hull by feel. He knew the entry hatch as soon as his long fingers settled on the inverted handle, and his eyes snapped open just in time to see what his hands had already told him; it had cracked open. Through that swiftly widening crack, a human torso was protruding. The mark’s protector.

  “You shouldn’t be crawling on my hull,” said the human. He struck first, but Vladivostok struck faster—a savage spike with his hunting knife that would have gone straight through the human’s ear and into his brain if he hadn’t lunged forward. Taken by surprise, Vladivostok jerked backward with only the human’s clutching fingers around his neck between himself and the fast-moving void below. There was the smallest resistance as the human’s hips cleared the hatch, and then they were both falling…

  Vladivostok woke.

  Between the first deep gulp of air and the next, it was borne in on him that he was no longer under cover. His eyes snapped open, comprehending open space and open sky, and a shadow in the corner of his eyes. Vladivostok rolled swiftly for the shadow, slicking knives from their sheaths, and found himself under cover of…the Upsydaisy.

  So they had shifted during the night, had they? Vladivostok threw a swift glance around and considered his options. If he had to guess, he would have said they were now on Ninth World. There were rolling plains all around the Upsydaisy, but there was also a bulge on the horizon that suggested mining. And through the hull of the ship, faintly, he seemed to hear his principal’s voice, sharp and indignant.

  “Ain’t my fault! You chose the flamin’ planet! If the loo hasn’t caught up again, you go dig a hole!”

  “I’m not the one who needs to squat,” said a male voice, this time a little clearer.

  Vladivostok’s eyes brightened: principal and protector were coming out. He heard the top hatch open, and then footsteps on the hull. A slender coil of reinforced cord slithered over the edge of the hull and crackled in the dry grass. Vladivostok’s eyes fastened upon it, following it up the whole trembling length until two human legs, swiftly descending, came into view.

  The knives were between his fingers. Vladivostok waited, sighted the human’s neck below the hull, and sent his blades hissing through the rarefied air of Ninth World. The human gasped slightly, jerkily descended a foot of rope, and dropped to the grass with a solid thump. Vladivostok, his blood singing, swiftly retrieved his knives and exultantly leapt upon the rope.

  “Marx, wot you playin’ at?” said his principal’s voice, crossly.

  Vladivostok, who had already covered two thirds of the rope, saw her pinched little face look down and past him to where the other human was crumpled, his face to the sky. “Stay still, little child,” he told her pleasantly. “If you do not struggle, I will make sure it does not hurt.”

  Her eyes, dark and hard, narrowed on his face. “Like heck, I will!”

  Then she vanished, and the Upsydaisy vanished, and nothing much mattered because Vladivostok had vanished, too.

  Vladivostok woke.

  Almost before his first, all-important breath, he was moving. Someone was near him—had found him—was close enough that Vladivostok knew exactly where he was. He leaped down through the branches, reaching for the quiver of movement, a knife already between his fingers and his eyes slitting open as he leapt. Human arms caught at him, human torso shifting in an attempt to toss him off balance, but Vladivostok twisted too, seizing the human around the waist and using his weight as a counter-balance. The principal’s protector had found him. How had the principal’s protector found him?

  Vladivostok disengaged with a sharp kick to the human’s knee, his fingers slicking two more knives from their sheaths. One of his knives was already between the human’s ribs: he’d thrown it as he leapt. He flicked the other two after the first, slightly higher this time, aiming for the heart. He didn’t know if he saw or sensed the weapon in the human’s hand, but as the second knife hit home there was a close range crack! that pierced his eardrums as something else pierced his skull.

  Vladivostok woke.

  He knew with his first, gulping breath that he was not alone, and he took his time opening his eyes. There was movement in the air, but it wasn’t close enough for him to pinpoint exactly where it came from.

  A sharp little voice said: “Ain’t no good keepin’ your eyes closed. I know yer awake.”

  Vladivostok pushed out a small breath and opened his eyes. His principal perched on a branch just out of reach, a projectile-type gun in her hand and a look of tight anger on her face. Her skinny legs were wrapped around the branch she sat on. He let his eyes drift gently to the weapon, calculating and comparing angles of attack, and found them all ineligible. She was too far away, and there was a branch in just the wrong place.

  “Wouldn’t try it,” Kez said. Her eyes were black and pebbly. “This thing’ll bust your brain apart. Stomach, too, ’f’I remember right. It’s pretty flamin’ hefty.”

  Vladivostok became very still. His dreams were fluttering through his mind like so many tattered flags, representing—what? He said: “Will you kill me, small child?”

  “’Aven’t decided yet,” said Kez.

  Vladivostok made a minute, instinctive movement, scenting weakness, and saw her stiffen. He froze.

  “Will if you do that again, though. See, Marx usually does this kinda thing—don’t think ’e likes me killin’ people.”

  Vladivostok shrugged. “There is always a beginning, small child.”

  “Reckon that’s wot ’e’s afraid of,” she said. “Reckon
’e’s got an idea of lookin’ after me. Only you keep killin’ ’im, see.”

  “Who is Marx?”

  Kez pointed at the Upsydaisy without so much as blinking, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Vladivostok gave himself up for dead. “’Im. Reckon you’ve killed ’im six times now. I keep goin’ back, and you keep tryin’ again.”

  “I dreamed a dream today,” said Vladivostok. His head was feeling distinctly light. “I dreamed I killed a man six times, in six different ways; and six times he returned.”

  “Yeah,” said Kez. “That weren’t a dream. Had to keep comin’ back exactly in the right spot. Nearly made another flamin’ Fixed Point.”

  “And now you will kill me to keep him safe,” said Vladivostok, with an oddly peaceful sigh. It was an honourable death. He would have preferred not to die, of course—would still avoid death if possible. “There is another way.”

  “Heard about that,” said Kez. “Hunter honour, an’ all that. Only you ain’t like the other Hunters I’ve met.”

  “I am not,” said Vladivostok. “I am unique. But Hunter honour is something that must be taken seriously, small child. This thing that you do, my employer kept from me. Hunter honour will not be satiated without a death.”

  “Yeah, well it ain’t gonna be Marx.”

  “No,” agreed Vladivostok. “My employer did not tell me that the principal could travel through time and space. That is against the rules of the hunt.”

  “You’re really gonna kill him? Your employer? ’Oo’s gonna hire you after that?”

  “My employer has broken his bond with me; his death will be my honour. Everyone knows this.”

  “You ain’t gonna kill Marx no more?”

  “I am not.”

  “Orright,” Kez said. She didn’t lower her gun, but she unhooked one of her scrawny legs from the branch and wriggled carefully backward. “You better stay ’ere until we’re gone, though. I’m only lettin’ you live ’cos Marx don’t like me killin’ people, mind.”

  “I will remember that.”

  The child wriggled a little further away, keeping the branch between them, and stopped. “Oh yeah. What’d you do to link yourself to the ship?”

  “I have keyed myself into your shield. It is thinking that I am an organic part of the ship.”

  “Didn’t know y’could do that. I’ll ’ave to tell Marx. Don’t move, will yer? Or I’ll come back and shoot you from be’ind before you remember what I said.”

  “I shall not move,” said Vladivostok. His heart had begun to slow again, ushering in the peaceful end of the hunt. Usually the end of the hunt was the peace of warm blood and satiation of his desire to kill, but Vladivostok was not unsatisfied. A new hunt was already beckoning him. This hunt, however, would not end in the cool peace of life. “Then, child, would you like to know what else my employer wanted from me?”

  She looked at him suspiciously. “You allowed t’do that?”

  “It should not have been asked of me,” Vladivostok shrugged. “I agreed because I am not bound to the hunt as others, but it should not have been asked. It was an affront.”

  “Orright, orright, you got yer pants in a twist. Wot did ’e want you to do?”

  “There is a box my employer asked me to take from your ship.”

  “Box, eh?” Kez’s sharp black eyes narrowed on him. “’E tell you what it was?”

  “No,” said Vladivostok. “You understand me, then?”

  “Yeah. I’m goin’ now. Don’t move.”

  “Farewell, small child. I thank you for your mercy.”

  “Yeah, wotever.”

  “It shall be repaid with the blood of your enemy.”

  “Orright, then.”

  “We shall meet again.”

  “’D’ruther not, but I s’pose,” Kez said warily. “Kill that bloke for me and we’re golden. No need to come back an’ talk about it.”

  “Then, until next time,” said Vladivostok, and settled once more to sleep. There would be silence, and peace; and when he woke again the hunt would begin anew.

  ***

  Uncle Li was a simple man. He had all the best things that life could offer: unnamed owner of several worlds, named owner of the biggest Deep Space liner in the known twelve Worlds, and able to command every luxury that could be bought. Yet it was the simple pleasures in life that Uncle Li appreciated the most.

  For instance, the simple pleasure of stealing a vital item from his rival business family, the Chengs—or the simple pleasure of killing the child Uncle Cheng had been trying to buy for the last few years.

  The important thing was really the Box, of course. The death of Uncle Cheng’s sought prize was merely a desirable step in the process; adding insult to injury, as it were. Uncle Li had, he was quite well aware, a happy knack for seeing people as movable game pieces rather than aware beings. It was this happy knack that made him able to arrange for the murder of a child for no other purpose than to annoy his rival. It wasn’t the first time he had done so, nor would it be the last. It was the first time he had hired a First World Hunter to do the job, however.

  Uncle Li hadn’t heard from Vladivostok in several months, so he wasn’t surprised that night when a shadowy corner of his office said: “I have come to the end of my hunt.”

  The shadow moved, elongated; separated. Vladivostok emerged unhurriedly, his stride long and easy. As always, Uncle Li was taken aback at how big the Hunter was. He tugged at each of his cuffs, feeling the cool smoothness of his 25th century pearl cufflinks, and allowed the feeling of inferiority to drain away. He disliked having to look up to anyone, but Vladivostok was as good as an employee, after all. Vladivostok might have height and effortless physical strength, but Uncle Li had money—and thus, power.

  He said, “I’ve been waiting to hear from you for the last two months.”

  “The trail was long,” said Vladivostok, still advancing.

  Uncle Li felt a small stirring of unease. Why, he wondered, was that? Hunters never stripped themselves of their weapons, even to meet with their hirers, so it couldn’t be Vladivostok’s knife belts and sheathes that were bothering him. What was bothering him, then?

  It came to Uncle Li with a surge of annoyance, that for all his bristling weaponry and hidden sheathes, Vladivostok was empty-handed.

  “You didn’t bring the Box.”

  “I did not.”

  “Did you kill the girl?”

  “I did not.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I have come,” said Vladivostok, “on a matter of Honour.”

  Notice of Death

  (as appeared in Worlds Wide Press)

  It is with great sadness that the Worlds Wide Press announces the death of its long-time benefactor and charitable partner, Uncle Li.

  Uncle Li died aboard The Chaebol, the Li family liner, two days ago. No further details of his death have been forthcoming, and the family requests that their privacy be respected.

  A private service will take place aboard the Chaebol. Only invited guests will be welcomed, and a WAOF presence is expected to be in attendance.

  The Worlds Wide Press will be accepting public notices of condolence for the next issue.

  A Stitch(up) In Time

  “GOOD NEWS, SIR!”

  Mikkel looked up warily. Arabella sounded cheerful, which was nothing out of the ordinary, but her idea of good news and his were often so radically different that he couldn’t help feeling the first dragging tendrils of dread close around his chest.

  “Don’t look like that, sir; you’ll like this.”

  “Will I? Is it something that’s likely to get me arrested?”

  Arabella appeared to think about that. “I shouldn’t think so, sir. Actually, it’s Marx and Kez who’ve been arrested.”

  Mikkel sat bolt upright. “When? Where? And who managed it?”

  “A small Time Corp cruiser. They were making their normal patrol to show a few new ensigns the routes and stopped to investiga
te something fishy. They’re requesting help because, and I quote: ‘This is too big for us and we don’t want to make a mess of it.’”

  “Wait.” Mikkel’s eyes flicked to Arabella’s face. There was no sign of the prim smile that meant mischief, but he was still suspicious. “What about being hit on the head? Am I likely to be hit on the head?”

  “No, sir,” Arabella said, slightly reproachfully. “Didn’t I promise I wouldn’t let them hit you on the head?”

  “Only because you said you’d knock me out first. I don’t like this.”

  Arabella blinked. “Really? I thought you’d be pleased!”

  “Marx and Kez managed to be captured by a glorified baby-sitting cruiser?”