“Because... because I remembered it from leaving the house, not arriving.”
“Yeah, but that’s not what you said earlier. Your excuse for being unsure was that it had been dark the first time. Originally, though, you’d said you woke up in the house, implying you had no memory at all of getting there.”
“Ah. I didn’t get my story straight, did I?”
“And all that ‘Is it a left turn? No, it’s a right’ business – that was just a bit too much. Too stagey. You shouldn’t have tried so hard. That’s why you contradicted yourself: you were getting too comfortable, making things more elaborate than you should have. The best kind of lie is the simplest. I’d already begun to have my doubts about you, and that clinched it. I knew I’d made the right decision in giving you that MPA pistol.”
Banerjee laughed. “You mean this MPA pistol? The one aimed at you right now?”
“The one whose ammo load you didn’t think to check when you got it. Would have checked, maybe, if you knew anything about handling weapons. There was only one flechette in it when I handed it to you – the one in Stegman’s leg. That means there aren’t any now. The magazine’s empty.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“Perhaps,” said Dev. “Want to put it to the test?”
Banerjee squared his jaw, narrowed his eyes...
...and pulled the trigger.
Click.
He looked at the gun. The ammunition counter read 00.
Trundell made his move at the same time as Dev. The scientist swung his head backwards, with force. Though he stood a few centimetres shorter than Banerjee, he still was able to make contact with the moleworm expert’s face. His occipital bone whacked against the bridge of Banerjee’s nose, breaking it.
Banerjee reeled back, blood spurting from his nostrils.
Dev was on him in less than a second. Overpowering him was no challenge. The zoologist was in poor physical shape and, anyway, no fighter.
Dev spun him round, arm twisted up behind him. He grabbed a chair and rammed it into the back of Banerjee’s knees, forcing him to sit.
“I could have had him,” Stegman grumbled. “He didn’t know I was going for my gun-stun until you told him.”
“Point’s moot,” Dev said. “A gun-stun wouldn’t have made any difference, in the event. Besides, my way meant Trundle got his moment of glory. Didn’t you, Trundle?”
Trundell gave a nod. He looked shaken but quietly pleased with himself. “Felt good, that,” he said. “You’re a bad man, Professor Banerjee. A traitor. You shouldn’t have made that crack about scroaches, either. They may not be much to look at, but they’re as interesting as any moleworm. There was no need to be so snooty about them. Nor to hurt them.”
“Oh, piss off, you weird little nobody,” Banerjee sneered. His swollen nose made him sound like he had a severe head cold.
“Now, now, prof,” said Dev. “No call for rudeness.”
“You can piss off too, Harmer, you moron. You don’t honestly think you stand a hope of stopping Ted, do you?”
“I fancy my chances, yeah.”
“That only goes to show how misguidedly imbecilic you are. Everything is already in motion. Ted’s plans are so well advanced, it’d take a miracle to derail them.”
“I’m good at derailing. Ask Stegman.”
“Why do you suppose I was happy to give you all that information about the moleworm pup? It wasn’t just to convince you of my bona fides. It was bragging, in a way. Proving to you how little you know and how little you can do.”
“I know more than you realise,” Dev said. “I know Ted has been ’porting himself into the moleworm, overwriting its consciousness with his own. I can’t say I’ve heard of a Plusser doing that before, putting himself inside an animal, but I can see how it would work. Back when, they used human host forms, and remote-controlled animals. This is like a combination of the two.”
“But so much more. So much better and deadlier. You’ll see. Ask yourself why he had me take those samples from the elderly moleworm we captured, what he would want them for.”
“I could ask myself,” said Dev, “but making you tell me will be a whole lot more fun.”
He snatched up the hiss gun.
“Threatening me, Harmer?” said Banerjee. “That won’t help you. I have nothing to lose. My life is already over.”
“Not threatening, no.”
“I see. Torture.”
“Kind of. All right, yes. If you want to be pernickety. Torture. What I’m going to do is change the setting on this here hiss gun from lethal to knockout. Twist this knob. Lower the compression. Widen the aperture so that what comes out is less stiletto, more blunt instrument. Hey presto, we have a jet of air that hits like a baton round.”
He aimed the gun at Banerjee’s crotch.
“This may sting a little.”
Banerjee winced, bracing himself.
“Harmer,” said Stegman. “Hold on. You can’t do this.”
“Can’t use enhanced interrogation techniques on someone who is withholding crucial, perhaps life-saving information?”
“Yes. It’s illegal.”
“That’s as may be, but it’s efficient and saves time. And haven’t we established that time is at a premium?”
“I can’t be a party to this. Nor can Zagat. There are rules, and we have to abide by them.”
“Rules,” Zagat agreed, somewhat unconvincingly.
“So go outside,” Dev said. “Don’t be present. What the eye doesn’t see...”
“You have just expressed the intention to commit an offence, the causing of bodily harm,” said Stegman. “I can’t in all conscience, as a policeman, let you continue.”
“You’ll stop me? With that gimpy leg?”
“If I have to.” Grimacing, Stegman hopped towards him. “And Zagat’ll help.”
“Fuck’s sake!” said Dev. “At a time like this we’re suddenly sticking by the letter of the law?”
“I appreciate it’s hard for an ISS man to understand, but yes.”
“We’re not even in Calder’s Edge. You’ve been carrying a gun. Haven’t you already broken one of your precious laws?”
“Haven’t fired it yet.”
“Zagat has.”
“That’s his lookout.”
“He helped kill Jones. And you’ve watched me kill people, too, and not said a peep.”
“In self-defence. This isn’t the same.”
“What do you want me to do?” Dev gesticulated at Banerjee, who was savagely amused by the turn events had taken. “Ask him nicely? Tickle him ’til he can’t take any more? Whose side are you on anyway?”
“The side that protects the rights of civilians.”
“This is a joke!” Dev exclaimed. “Are you telling me you’ve never roughed up a suspect?”
“Never. I may have had to subdue troublemakers now and then. Sometimes people get hurt when they’re being violent and you’re restraining them. But I’ve never resorted to beating anyone up when they’re pacified and in no position to fight back. Captain Kahlo would never allow it. She’d have my hide.”
“I don’t see Kahlo in this room. Do you? Why don’t we just agree that what happens in Lidenbrock stays in Lidenbrock? I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Stegman limped closer. “Why don’t you agree that there’s some other way of getting Banerjee to spill the beans without intimidation or the inflicting of suffering? It’s unacceptable to use pain to eeyarrgghhh!”
Banerjee had kicked Stegman’s injured knee. The police sergeant collapsed onto his side, and in that moment Banerjee leapt to his feet and darted for the front door.
Dev fired after him, but the hiss gun, on knockout setting, was markedly less accurate. It punched a saucer-sized crater in the wall beside the door jamb, just as Banerjee was making his getaway.
On the point of exiting the habitat, the zoologist came to a dead halt. His eyes goggled.
There was a gunshot.
Banerjee
staggered backwards into the house, tripped over his own feet, and sprawled to the floor.
A deep ragged cavity had appeared in his chest. Blood blossomed around it, soaking his tattered clothes.
He shuddered, coughed out a crimson froth, and died.
“This is Mayor Major, leader of the Kobolds,” a voice called from outside. “We know you’re in there. We have you surrounded. You can come out, or we’re coming in. You decide. Either’s fine with me. You have to the count of three. One...”
33
“I CAN’T BELIEVE this,” Dev said. “Life is just showering me with middle fingers today.”
“Two!” said Mayor Major from outside.
“What are you going to do?” said Trundell.
“Three!”
“All right! All right!” Dev called out, staying just to one side of the doorway so that he couldn’t be seen from the street. “You want someone to come out there? I will. One condition, though. You hold your fire. Nobody shoots. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” came the reply.
“Promise? Because the last person who walked out of this door, it didn’t end so well for him.”
“That was one of my guys getting a little trigger-happy,” said Mayor Major. “Shouldn’t have happened, but at least now you know we mean business.”
“So I have your word for it I’m not going to be perforated the moment I show my face?”
“You do.”
“You better stick to that. I’m going to be kind of pissed off if you don’t.”
“Harmer,” hissed Trundell. “Don’t do it! They’ll kill you.”
“There is a distinct possibility of that,” Dev told him. “But I have to see what we’re up against, and this is the best way to go about it. It also buys us some time. Stegman, Zagat: put Trundle somewhere safe – bathroom would be my suggestion – and find the best defensive positions you can in this room. I can’t pretend that when I go out there it’s likely to end well, so let’s prepare for assault. Got that?”
Nods from both policemen.
“And Stegman?”
“Yes?”
“Sorry about the leg. I’d have preferred to give Banerjee a gun with no ammo in it at all, but I couldn’t have emptied out the mag without a chance of him twigging that I’d started to mistrust him. It was a calculated risk, and it didn’t pan out, and you got to pay the price.”
“I’ll live,” Stegman said.
“There’s that. At least he didn’t go for the head. Or even a vital organ.”
“Har-har. Just get out there and find out how many of these Kobold clowns there are.”
“We’re waiiiting!” Mayor Major said in a singsong voice.
“I can fight,” Trundell said. “You don’t have to treat me like I’m some sort of fragile cargo any more.” He glanced at Banerjee’s body. “I can do what it takes.”
The little xeno-entomologist’s face was brave and resolute, even if his body language, right down to the hunch in his shoulders, said shit-scared.
“Fair enough,” said Dev. “Why not? We can always use an extra pair of hands. Stegman, give him your mosquito. Show him how to use it. It’s non-lethal, which is probably a good thing as far as Trundle’s concerned. Instant immbolisation is just as effective, for our purposes, as shooting dead.”
“Come on!” Mayor Major shouted. “We don’t have all day. What’s the holdup?”
“Just smartening myself up,” Dev replied. “It isn’t every day you get to meet a genuine mayor, is it? Got to look one’s best for civic dignitaries.”
Mayor Major’s answer was a hearty, rugged laugh.
“I’m ready now,” Dev said. “No gunfire, remember?”
He steeled himself with a deep breath and stepped outside, his hands thrust into his pockets.
Immediately he saw what had made Banerjee’s eyes goggle: men and women, twenty or thirty of them, ranged around the front of the habitat in a semicircle, all armed with handguns. Looking up, he saw more people leaning from the windows of several of the houses opposite. They too had guns. Kobolds, all of them, and at that moment, every single one of their weapons was trained on him.
His mouth went dry.
He fixed a smile into place and carried on.
“Here I am,” he said. “Which one of you fine folk is Mayor Major?”
“That’d be me.”
A large man stepped forwards – the largest man Dev had yet seen on Alighieri. He was tall even by Terratypical standards, and broad too, his torso double the size of an average person’s. His arms were as thick as legs, and his legs were like two sturdy children attached to his pelvis.
He was, put simply, massive. Bald. Hairless all over. Barrel chest bare. Intimidating.
He was also extensively body-modified. The other Kobolds around him sported their fair share of piercings, subdermal implants, bone outgrowths and tattooing, but Mayor Major was in a league of his own.
He had steel shoulder plates fused to his deltoids, like bulky silvery epaulettes. More steel ribbed his abdomen and thighs in bands. He had knobby protrusions running down each arm, as though the limbs were embossed with rows of studs. His knuckles and finger joints were capped with rivets.
As for his face, it was a mass of ridges and crenellations, so distended that it was barely a face any more. It seemed to have been warped and moulded into shapelessness by a mad sculptor.
Rings and bars transfixed his nose, ears and lips. As he approached Dev, he broke into a big grin that revealed solid tungsten teeth and a snakelike bifurcated tongue.
“Wow,” Dev said. “That is one impressive look you’ve got there.”
“Thank you,” said Mayor Major. “Are you going to make the obvious joke?”
“About setting off airport metal detectors?”
“That’s the one.”
“Perish the thought. I am curious, however, about the amount of tarnish remover you must get through in a week.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that one a couple of times too. Usually I let people get away with a wisecrack about my appearance once, and once only. After that I lose my sense of humour.”
“I imagine, when you’re no longer laughing, things get very serious.”
“Oh, they do!” A jovial guffaw. “Who is it I’m talking to, by the way? I’ve run a facial comparison search and can’t find you on any Alighierian insite.”
“You can call me Dev.”
“Dev. Short for?”
“That’s between me and my mother, no one else.”
“Not ‘Devil,’ by any chance?”
“Nah.”
“If it was, you’d fit right in here.” Mayor Major swept an arm around at the assorted members of his gang. “We’re all of us a little devilish in our way, we Kobolds, in looks as well as deeds. Not least that comrade of ours you treated so impolitely – Harvey.”
“Harvey with the horns. I remember him well. In my defence, he wasn’t exactly treating us politely.”
“I watched you break his arm. Quite some piece of footage it was. You were merciless. Ruthless. I almost admire you for it.”
“I just like to be thorough, that’s all. When I put someone down I want them to stay down. Listen, your honour...” He frowned. “Is that the correct way to address a mayor? ‘Your honour’?”
“I think so. Funnily enough, nobody’s ever done it before with me. I like the way it sounds. I’m going to insist on it in future.”
“Well, your honour, what I was going to say was, we had an unfortunate run-in with some of your people back at the arcjet docking bay, that’s true. Can’t be denied. I know it wasn’t a super-clever thing to do, getting on the wrong side of the Kobolds, biggest and baddest gang in Lidenbrock City. It’s one of those mistakes you don’t really get to come back from. Now you’ve finally caught up with us, as I was scared you might...”
“I have. We put out a general-public bulletin for people matching your descriptions, with a reward attached. Lidenbrockers are known for tu
rning a blind eye, but they can also be incredibly vigilant when there’s cash up for grabs.”
“Well, I was hoping, somehow, you’ll see your way to letting it go. Bygones and all that. If it’s a question of money...”
“Money?” said Mayor Major. “I don’t think so. I have money. I’m mayor, aren’t I? I get plenty in tributes, tithes and such.”
“Tithes?”
“You know what a tithe is?”
“I do. I just didn’t know anybody still used them.”
“They’re a noble tradition. A good system of getting what you’re owed as arbitrator and governor of a city district.”
“And ‘tithe’ sounds so much better than ‘kickback’ or ‘protection racket.’”
“That too,” said Mayor Major with a chuckle. “So you can’t buy me off, Dev. Not a chance. What we’re looking at here is a case of restorative justice.”
“An eye for an eye.”
“Precisely. And a life for a life. There are how many of you altogether? Four? I’ve lost many more of my people than that today, thanks to you. So the best recompense you can offer is all four of your lives. It doesn’t cover the full cost, but I’m willing to write off the shortfall.”
“Very generous of you.”
“I know.”
“And this is non-negotiable?”
“Afraid so.”
“Your best and final offer?”
“You won’t get a better one.”
“Okay. Well, then. Nothing more to be said.”
Dev’s hand whipped out from his pocket.
In it was a nano-frag mine.
He slapped the mine on one of Mayor Major’s shoulder plates. Automatically it affixed itself into place, immovably.
Then Dev ran.
Ran like crazy back to Ted Jones’s habitat.
Behind him, Mayor Major was bellowing in fury. He was trying to prise off the nano-frag mine, levering his fingernails under its rim, to no avail.
The other Kobolds were too bewildered to open fire on Dev. They were staring at their leader, wondering why he was so frantic and enraged. What was this object he was making such desperate efforts to wrench from his shoulder?
One or two of them recovered their wits in time to loose off a few shots at Dev before he dived through the habitat doorway. They missed.
World of Fire (Dev Harmer 01) Page 21