The Assassin's Salvation (Mandrake Company)

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  For the first time since the lavatory incident, Jamie smiled slightly. “Lauren. She’s our microbiologist. She’s a little obsessed with her research. And her lab. And her lab equipment.”

  Sergei finished his coffee and debated asking Jamie what she intended to do. But she had glanced at the surveillance display and slid out of the booth first.

  “Looks like they’re done,” she said. “We should get back.”

  “Yes,” Sergei murmured, though he would have liked to stay and talk with her for a while longer. Maybe learn more about her instead of spewing out his own sordid past.

  But to what end? He had known from that first minute he had seen her that he wasn’t right for her. The best he could hope for was that she didn’t mention his dalliance with Zhou to Sergeant Hazel and that she didn’t stop talking to him forever, wondering what kind of mentally disturbed crazy man shared all of that with a woman he barely knew.

  Sergei scooped up the surveillance display and followed her out of the cafeteria.

  * * *

  Jamie stood next to Ankari on the moving sidewalk, glad she didn’t have to use her legs. They felt numb. All of her did in the aftermath of Sergei’s… sharing. Why had he told her all that? Oh, she knew why. Because she had snooped and overheard that conversation, and he had worried she would tattle. But the whole thing had been so awkward. She grimaced, wishing she had simply stayed in the office. Sergei had looked miserable the whole time they had been sitting in the cafeteria, and even now, as he stood behind them on the sidewalk, his expression was more saturnine than usual, that cloak of gloom she had sensed around him when they first met more like a blanket now, a blanket that threatened to smother him. She resisted the urge to look back. He probably wanted his privacy.

  “They took all of the specimens and the instructions for the transplants,” Ankari said. “They couldn’t pay much, but we’ll make a little profit on the deal. In the meantime, we have some more affluent private clients coming to the shuttle this afternoon and in the morning.”

  “More affluent on the backs of the farmers downside?” Jamie asked.

  “People lucky enough to be born up here, rather than down there, yes. Have you read any of the history of the planet?”

  Jamie shook her head. She shouldn’t be judging when she knew so little about the world, but she couldn’t help but feel an affinity for anyone who worked the land. She shouldn’t be snide about it to Ankari though. Ankari had grown up in a slum on overpopulated Novus Earth and dug her way out of poverty with her entrepreneurial streak and hard work. She could doubtlessly understand the lives of those on the planet below even more than Jamie could.

  “Two of the original colony ships from Earth landed here fifteen hundred years ago—from China and North America, I think it was. Each colony claimed one of the major continents, each on different hemispheres. They figured there was space enough for everyone, but within a couple hundred years, the American continent was struck by an asteroid and experienced some climate issues that were hard to deal with all around. The other continent had some troubles but had been better prepared. The Americans decided to move in. There was a war that ended up decimating a lot more of the planet. The Chinese won, but there wasn’t much left. That’s when they built the cloud cities, and they forced the losers of the war into serfdom down below, not caring how they lived their lives but demanding tribute by way of food, since growing space was limited up here. This worked more or less, if with strife, for centuries, until the Galactic Conglomeration formed, putting the first real system-wide government into place. They demanded their share of the food too. Now it’s a struggle for everyone downside. We’re a business—” Ankari lifted the briefcase, “—but we heal people too. Maybe we’ll at least be able to help some of the ill down there.”

  “The more I see of the system, the more I’m realizing that we had it pretty good on Mercruse,” Jamie said. “Are we—”

  A touch on her shoulder interrupted her.

  “I don’t like the look of those downsiders waiting at our stop.” Sergei pointed between Jamie’s and Ankari’s shoulders to the platform they were supposed to disembark on. A big flashing Docks and Shops holosign hung over the heads of four gaunt men in the same grimy clothing those in the hospital waiting room had worn. “They’re watching us intently. You,” he added, speaking to Ankari.

  “Is it possible they know about Viktor’s bounty?” Ankari murmured.

  “Unlikely.”

  Jamie hadn’t seen many downsiders on the way into the city, not that she had been looking then. Were they allowed up here unchaperoned? As far as she could tell, there wasn’t anyone accompanying these men.

  “They don’t appear to have weapons,” Sergei said.

  “This is the last stop,” Ankari said. “We have to get off here, or we’ll have a long walk back to the shuttle.”

  Indeed, the sidewalk was already slowing, readying for its turn toward another side of the city.

  “Don’t mind walking,” Sergei said, but he brushed past Jamie to stand in front of them.

  He stepped onto the platform first, leveling a cold stare at the group of men. They shifted to the side to let him pass. Jamie waited for Ankari to go first, then hopped off the sidewalk last. Two of the men headed past her, as if to get on, and she started to relax. They were going somewhere else.

  But the other two men lunged for Ankari. One grabbed onto her briefcase.

  Sergei spun, launching a side kick at the man. Ankari reacted, too, leaping back and blocking a snatch from the other downsider. She turned the block into a wrist grab, pulled him off balance, then kicked him in the stomach.

  Jamie wasn’t sure whether to try to help—maybe she could call the city security?—or just get out of the way. Someone grabbed her arm, and she belatedly remembered the other two men. They hadn’t gotten onto the sidewalk after all. She tried to pull away, but the grip was too strong. She was hauled backward and pushed to the ground. The two men ignored her after that, jumping over her to deal with Ankari and Sergei. They also tried to get the briefcase, but Ankari wasn’t letting it go. She used it as a weapon, slamming it into the side of one attacker’s head. Sergei had already dropped one man, and he plowed into the second, his arms pumping faster than pistons, smashing punches into his target’s face and abdomen. The man staggered back, almost stepping on Jamie.

  She scooted out of the way and rolled to her feet. Though she didn’t have any weapons, she dug into her pocket for the electronic multitool she always carried. She had a vague notion of hitting someone, but all four men were already down. Ankari had finished the one, and Sergei had knocked the fight out of the others. One tried to crawl for the sidewalk. Jamie flexed her hand around the tool, though at this point, she doubted she would need it.

  Sergei hauled one of the men to his feet, even as the thunder of footsteps came from the sidewalk. Four men in the greens and grays of the city police were racing toward the platform, their body armor gleaming in the afternoon sun, laser pistols and batons bouncing at their waists.

  “What do you people want?” Sergei asked, his eyes boring into his prisoner’s face, though he flicked a glance toward the oncoming police too.

  The downsider, his nose and lip bleeding, shook his head as if he didn’t understand. Sergei shifted his grip on the man’s shoulder, digging his fingers into the man’s flesh, eliciting a gasp of pain. Jamie winced and looked away. Even if these people had attacked them, she hated to see them hurt further.

  “What do you want?” Sergei repeated. “Answer me.”

  “Help for our people,” the man said through gritted teeth.

  By then, the police were flowing off the sidewalk, surrounding the downed men and snapping flex-cuffs onto their wrists. Sergei was slow to release his prisoner, even after a policeman fastened the cuffs and dropped a hand onto the downsider’s shoulder. Sergei looked at Ankari before releasing the man.

  “We’ll handle this,” one of them told Ankari, picking her o
ut as the leader. “We apologize for your inconvenience.”

  Ankari hesitated, then nodded once. Sergei let the man go.

  Ankari watched the downsiders being hauled off, a puzzled expression on her face, as if she would have liked the answers to a few questions too. She frowned down at the briefcase that she hadn’t relinquished, even though two of those men had desperately tried to steal it. “I don’t get it. It’s empty.”

  “Maybe they thought it was still full of specimens,” Jamie said. “That it could help them somehow.”

  “How would they even know about that meeting and our business?” Ankari gazed back down the sidewalk, though the hospital had long since disappeared from view, dwarfed by the skyscrapers and floating houses all around.

  “Unknown.” Sergei was giving Ankari a curious look. “Mandrake didn’t say that you were a mashatui practitioner.”

  Ankari waved a hand in dismissal. “My father taught us all some when we were kids.”

  Jamie felt a twinge of envy at Sergei’s appreciative nod and looked down at the multitool she was still clutching. When it came to skirmishes, she didn’t have a clue how to help. What she had told Sergei about her father was true, but he had never shown his daughters how to fight, having some notion that ladies shouldn’t have to defend themselves, that some man should do it for them, not that a lot of battles had broken out in their quiet community.

  Jamie stuffed the tool back in her pocket, lest she look foolish for holding it as if it were a weapon.

  “It’s good that you’re able to defend yourself, Ankari,” Sergei said, then lifted a hand toward Jamie. “Are you all right? Were you injured?”

  Jamie resisted the urge to dust off her backside—everything in the city was clean, so it wasn’t as if she had gum or dirt sticking to her coveralls now. “I’m fine. They just surprised me.”

  Sergei nodded. At least there wasn’t anything dismissive or disappointed in his eyes, not that Jamie could read.

  “We should return to the ship,” he said.

  “No objections here,” Ankari said and led the way. If the attack had rattled her at all, it didn’t show.

  Jamie sighed, wishing for some of that composure. She wasn’t a shaking mess, but the incident had disturbed her. She wanted to know why those people had attacked her, why anyone would want to attack her. No, she hadn’t been the focus. It had been Ankari. An odd number of people seemed interested in her. Jamie didn’t think this attack had anything to do with her relationship to Captain Mandrake, either.

  “I’m going to call Viktor,” Ankari said when they turned onto the wide promenade where the ships were docked. “See if he’s done with his visit to the planet yet.”

  “Do you think he would have mentioned our business to someone?” Jamie asked.

  Ankari looked sharply at her. “I hadn’t been thinking that at all, actually, but maybe someone who went with him did.”

  “Striker?”

  Ankari snorted. “Striker does have a big mouth, but I don’t think he understands the business—or cares enough to try to understand it—so I doubt he was the one getting the natives excited about the idea of microbiota transplants.”

  Someone had set up carnival games at the far end of the promenade, and two mechanical elephants tramped around, giving kids rides. Vendors hawked smaller versions of the elephants, along with flying parrots, some real and some mechanical. Robots selling ice cream and cotton candy rolled through the area. It all seemed ludicrous compared to the poverty that must exist on the continents below.

  The ramp to the shuttle was down, so the earlier client must have left. Ankari headed straight up to access the comm. Sergei stopped at the bottom, apparently intending to stand guard from outside. Jamie paused, wondering if she should say something to him, but she didn’t know what. She was still feeling useless over her role—her lack of a role—in the fight and wished she had a way to prove that she could do more than fly the shuttle and build toy robots.

  One of the mechanical parrots chirped as it flew past. Seeing it reminded Jamie of the camera Sergei had shot down earlier. Maybe she could prove herself useful after all.

  Sergei was standing, his hands clasped behind his back, watching her. There was a hint of wariness in his eyes. He must be wondering if she would share any of what he had spoken about. Not likely. That wasn’t the sort of thing one gossiped to one’s friends about.

  “Do you still have the remains of that camera?” Jamie asked. “I can try to trace its origins for you.”

  “Yes.” He trotted into the shuttle and retrieved it.

  She met him halfway up the ramp and said, “I’ll get to work.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She could feel his eyes on her as she walked inside and wondered if he was humoring her. Did he truly need the camera researched, or was that something he could handle on his own? He doubtlessly had experience dealing with all manner of security systems. But had Mandrake told him about Felgard? Would he know to specifically look for people who had a tie to the dead finance lord? She resolved to spend the rest of the day researching, not just the camera, but Felgard’s cloud city buddies, as well. She would show Sergei that she was useful, even if she didn’t know the difference between a side kick and a roundhouse kick.

  Chapter 5

  Sergei intended to remain at the bottom of the ramp, watching the outdoors again, giving the businesswomen their privacy to do their business things, but when the low rumble of Mandrake’s voice drifted to him, his curiosity got the better of him. Whatever was happening on the planet might affect Ankari and the others, so it would be wise to stay abreast of the news.

  He padded up the ramp. Ankari was sitting in the pilot’s seat, a hologram of Mandrake live in front of her. Jamie sat in the other seat at the console, her own displays showing network searches.

  Sergei leaned against the wall inside, his back to the curtained area, his face toward the promenade. From here, he could listen to the conversation but still see everything that went on outside. He was aware of Lauren in the clinic behind him, humming softly and clattering about, but he could still hear Mandrake when he spoke.

  “…arrived this morning local time,” he was saying. “It took some fancy flying to get by the cloud city patrols, but when we made it down, the people here were oddly interested in talking to me. They directed us right to the secret underground bunker of an organization dedicated to the betterment of the downsiders’ lives. This is where the fighter originated. They have a couple other space and aircraft down here that they’re not supposed to have, but I’m not saying anything.”

  “Did you find out what they want from Mandrake Company yet?” Ankari asked.

  “Freighter service.”

  “Er, what?”

  “They’ve managed to stockpile some gold, and they put in a big order for food and medicine for their people. It’s sitting in a warehouse on Orion Prime. They want Mandrake Company to pick it up.”

  “This planet’s primary export is food, and they want you to import food?” Ankari asked.

  “This food would be for the people down here to eat, not for the cloud people and not for GalCon. They want it done on the sly, said it would be taken from them if the planetary government figured it out.”

  “So… Mandrake Company.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to do it?” Ankari asked. “That’s a week, round trip.”

  “They’re paying enough to make it worth it.” Mandrake lowered his voice—so nearby subordinates wouldn’t hear? “We’d do it, regardless.”

  “Yeah.” Ankari sounded as if she was of a like mind. “We have client meetings set up on two more cities, so we need a week here, anyway.

  Mandrake didn’t answer right away. He probably wasn’t thrilled about leaving Ankari in potential trouble.

  “We could pick you up before we leave to get the shipment,” Mandrake said, and Sergei nodded to himself. “Then bring you back next week. You can reschedule you
r appointments.”

  “There’s no need for that. It’s not like it’ll take you long to drop off a box of food. Better if we’re already done when you get back, and then you can scoot off to your next mission.”

  “It’s more than a box,” Mandrake said dryly.

  “A crate?”

  A long silence followed. Was Mandrake glaring at her? He wasn’t known for his sense of humor, but being teased wasn’t the sort of thing that usually piqued him. Sergei doubted Mandrake was truly irritated at Ankari—more likely at the idea of leaving the area when she might be in danger.

  “There been any trouble up in the clouds?” Mandrake finally asked.

  “Nothing we couldn’t handle.”

  “I’m noting that’s not a no.”

  “Noting?” Ankari asked brightly. “On a piece of paper? That’s quite secretarial of you.”

  Sergei was tempted to lean around the curtain to check the expression on Mandrake’s face. But he reminded himself that he was watching the crowd for threats. Of course, if he were to simply raise the ramp and secure everyone in the shuttle, that wouldn’t be necessary. After the call, he would ask if the women were expecting any more clients today.

  “How’s Zharkov working out?” Mandrake asked. He didn’t sound irritated. Long-suffering perhaps.

  “He’s been fine. Helped us with some of that trouble we handled earlier.”

  “Any injuries? Fatalities?”

  “My briefcase took a dent, but otherwise, no,” Ankari said. “Our business didn’t come up when you were chatting with people on the planet, did it? Some downsiders seemed to think we might be able to help them. Or that my briefcase, once removed from my person, might be able to help them. I guess nobody told them it was empty at the time or that it would take a trained clinician to do the transfers. Unfortunately, the police hauled the downsiders away before we could question them.”

  “Odd that someone would try to steal openly from you,” Mandrake said. “Your specimens aren’t that valuable.”