“Found something, Lieutenant,” one of them said, peeling back a patch of loose, flaking paint on the bathroom door.
“Give it to me,” the lieutenant demanded as the man liberated a tiny record chip from beneath the paint. “The Colonel wants to see anything we find before we make our report."
Chip in hand, the lieutenant moved quickly to the library where Colonel Tazh was digging through Villers's files with the impatience of a starving shagrat on the trail of a Neather's recently tossed garbage.
“Sir?"
“What?” Tazh snapped.
“We found this microchip on the bathroom door. It had been painted over, sir,” he said, and extended his open hand out to Tazh.
Tazh snatched the chip and turned it slowly in his fingers as if he could read its contents. An out-of-place thin smile briefly interrupted the rock-hard face, and he chuckled.
“This has to be it. Painted into the bathroom door, eh? Clever,” he said and sauntered to the computer in Villers's bedroom, stepping casually over the cooling corpse. He flicked a spot of the coating off the chip and slid it into the slot on the side of the machine. Tazh's expression soured as the chip's contents scrolled across the screen.
“Ancients be damned,” he said. “Lieutenant, we have a big problem here."
“What is it, sir?"
“Oh, not much. We've termed a special investigator from Law Apps, that's all. Damn it, man, I thought this guy had been checked out thoroughly."
The young lieutenant moved in closer to get a look at the display but didn't say a word.
“Wait a minute. What's this?” Tazh said, stopped the computer on a section where the word ‘Cadre’ appeared several times, and rammed his fist into his palm.
“The rotten gaf had a line on us, too, Colonel,” the wide-eyed lieutenant exclaimed.
“Yes. Yes, he certainly did. This means changes. Look, I don't have time to go through this now, but I want to be sure I see it before I talk to the Old Man. Not a word about this to anyone, Lieutenant—and clean up this mess. No body, no stains, no gentracs. Just ... just make it all disappear. You got that?"
* * * *
Alone in his apartment, Tazh turned on the computer and inserted the chip. “Now, you shagrat son of an untrac, let's see what you thought you had on us,” he mumbled to himself as the first page rolled up on the screen.
Nine hours later Tazh pushed his chair away from the console and rubbed at his tired eyes. The chip was loaded with damning data on every member in the upper echelon of the Cadre, and it contained detailed info about membership numbers, armament—every damned thing. He reached for the link pad and stabbed in the numbers.
“General Lang,” he said to the woman on the screen. It went blank briefly, then lighted with the image of a somewhat heavier-than-is-healthy face that was showing signs of advanced age, but with a fire in its deep-set eyes.
“What is it, Tazh?"
“Two items of interest, sir,” Tazh responded. “First, we have termed a Law Apps man. Name, Villers. It was an honest but grave error. The crew cleaned it up, so it may go unnoticed for a few days. No longer than that, though."
“Yes—an unfortunate mistake. One that could cost us. Second?"
“We uncovered top priority information in last night's action. If you will remain hooked in, I'll transfer it when we've finished.
“Yes, Tazh, I'll do that. Bad news about Law Apps. I was hoping to avoid any direct confrontation with them until we had the Delta in our possession. What is the scope of the material you picked up?"
“In a word, General, we are ... exposed. It is not clear if Law Apps has the information yet, but, from the way they work, I'd rather play it safe and assume they do."
“Recommendations?"
“Put our search for the Delta aside, or at least reduce those efforts and proceed to the next stage. If we happen to find the Delta in the process, good, but I think the idea of being defeated before we begin is, at the very least, totally unacceptable. I don't believe we should wait, sir."
“All right, Tazh,” the General said, drumming his fingers on the console. “If it is as you have indicated, I believe I agree with your assessment. I'll study the information and get back to you right away. Go ahead with the data transfer."
Not good—not good at all, Tazh thought as he poked at the transfer key. Knowing the General couldn't get back to him for at least a day, he decided to take the initiative and tapped up another number on the link. A drawn, bespectacled face shrouded in an unkempt mop of silver hair appeared.
“Dr. Kadin,” Tazh said. “We have trouble."
“Oh? And what trouble might that be?” Kadin removed his overly thick glasses, a reward for experimenting with the venom of the golden, and wiped at them with a soiled rag he'd yanked from his shirt pocket. It was one of those absent, nervous habits—like tapping your fingers on a surface, or scratching an ear in the belief it was conducive to clear thought.
“Law Apps is on to us in a big way, Kadin. Last night we termed one of their operatives. It's time to begin repositioning ourselves."
“And who was responsible for this concentrated burst of stupidity?"
Tazh examined Kadin's image and thought he saw amusement.
You sick son of a shagrat, this is serious.
“Forget the responsibility. There's no time for that now, just gather up all your records, and I mean all of them, and meet me at your office at twelfth hour. Don't be late."
He cut the connection with Kadin and began emptying his desk. Apps might have his name, but as long as there was no hard evidence they couldn't touch him. Not directly, anyway. Not openly.
On his way to Kadin's office Tazh pondered the possibilities, weighing one thing against the other to reassure himself that his plan of action was the best course to follow. Nothing could be left lying around anywhere. Not one person could remain who would be able to link him to the Cadre.
By the time he had separated from the track, he had decided his only potential problem revolved around one man. He pulled into the rear docks at the bottom of a towering building in the heart of Southwest Quarter. To avoid having his presence recorded by the dock reader, he landed his transport in the center of the maneuvering lot and braced himself against the cold as the door opened. A light on the fifteenth floor told him Kadin was already there.
* * * *
Kadin rose from his desk and twisted his mouth into an unnatural half smile, half grimace—perpetually nervous—and extracted that nasty rag of his. He wiped furiously at his glasses. The act made him feel better.
“Ah, welcome, Tazh,” he said and flopped back into his chair. “And what kind of repositioning were you talking about, Colonel?"
Tazh seated himself across the desk from Kadin and folded his hands under his chin before answering.
“I'm assembling our forces for the assault here, Kadin. I want to make absolutely certain all of our records are destroyed—those that are of no particular consequence to our future efforts, that is. Other records, such as yours, are to be moved to the Keep. Absolutely nothing can be left around to jeopardize my coming victory over the Council of Paz."
“Your victory, Tazh? You have become the supreme commander overnight?"
“Our victory, then."
“Come, come, Tazh. I've known for several years you have no intention of allowing the General to live beyond Phase Three."
“Maybe so."
“Aha! Am I to assume that you have found the Delta?"
“No."
“We don't have the weapon, then. You intend to go up against the combined forces of the Council? Apps, Enforcement, and the Militia? And you don't have the weapon? Astounding, Tazh. Such audacity. Such ego."
“That's right. In my opinion, we will be victorious without it. Apps and Enforcement are poorly prepared for any major engagement, and the Militia—the militia is a ... fun tag. Most of the Militia is ours—you know that. Plus, we have surprise working for us."
&nbs
p; “But we don't have the weapon, Tazh."
“No."
“Tazh, surprise will be gone after the first shot. Without the weapon and the Delta your forces will be evenly matched—and you expect to be successful? You amaze me."
“We will triumph, Kadin. Apps and Enforcement have never been under fire, and I doubt their resolve after the first blood runs in the streets."
“Listen to you, Tazh. Just ... listen. None of your forces have ever been under fire either—and that includes you. Isn't it interesting how we play with titles and believe them. You are a colonel in the Cadre, yet you have never been on the dealing or receiving end of a weapon, except to play games in the backlands and shoot at imaginary targets that can't defend themselves—that won't shoot back.” Kadin, wiping wildly at his glasses, looked up at Tazh through the milky film covering his eyes and squinted to see. “I ... I call myself a doctor, but I don't deal in cures. I mete out pain, instead. What kind of a doctor is that? What I call myself and what I am are not the same. You call yourself a colonel, but what are you—really?"
“I am the man who is going to lead the Paz Cadre to victory in New London, Kadin—of that you can be sure. The search for the Delta has not been abandoned, just de-emphasized. We will find him, and the weapon will be ours."
“I suppose. Has the General approved this—this move you want to make? I mean, are they aware of the problem, and do they concur with what it is you intend to do? I recall the last time we did a little something without proper authorization—it's not going to be like that, is it?"
“Yes, they are aware of the problem and no, it will be nothing like the last time, I assure you. At this very moment the General is reviewing all the information. So, my old friend, have you brought all your records?"
Kadin raised a small chip case off the desk and said, “It's interesting to me how much of the collected guilt of the human race fits into one of these. Did you know that in here there are over—"
He saw the muzzle blast. The dull orange flash of a popper was unmistakable—he'd just never seen it from this point of view before. He heard the muffled pop that gave the nasty little pistol its name as the expanding gas of the low-energy propellant escaped between the wad and blunt barrel, but he didn't feel the twenty small darts enter his body.
The effect of the venom was almost instant and sent searing flashes of white light through what little vision he had remaining to him as the poison went to work on his central nervous system. A scorching heat was building throughout his body. He tried to stop it—the twitching—but his body would not respond. His lungs filled to near bursting with a sudden, involuntary gasp. He couldn't move, couldn't speak...
Tazh pried the case from Kadin's trembling, rigid fingers and smiled a thin, cold smile. Tazh picked up Kadin's glasses and slipped them onto his contorted, agony-filled face. His skin felt as if it were stretching tighter and tighter over his bones and was about to rip itself free. Kadin wanted to curse Tazh, but he was unable to make his lungs work. He knew he would be term in a matter of minutes. Tazh spoke to him and it was like hearing a voice from the end of a long tunnel.
“Strange I've never noticed that before, old friend, but those glasses make your eyes look twice as big as they actually are. So, as I said, this time will not be like the last—not at all."
Tazh turned and walked calmly out the door, chuckling in his low, animal-like growl, then began to laugh as the door closed. Kadin lay convulsing on the floor while darkness closed in on him.
* * * *
Shan awakened, but not with the feeling that accompanies a good night's sleep. He was spinning, falling out of control on a cot in a cold, empty room lit by a single bulb against a ceiling so dingy it absorbed most of the light before it could escape to the rest of the room.
While searching to be certain all his parts were still attached and in their proper places, he discovered a tender spot on his neck and couldn't recall why it was there. Satisfied that his body was still intact by actual count, he then launched into trying to remember why everything was numb—a memory that returned slowly, grudgingly. Shan thought he should be angry, but, instead, he was giddy, almost foolishly happy—a too-much-spayberry-wine light-headedness without the pain. He tried getting up from the cot and laughed himself back down to its relative safety. The floor was moving more than was safe for standing.
The security surrounding Niki had convinced Shan that he need not be so concerned about the man's safety. He was also certain that Niki was aware of the danger that sought him. He relaxed to enjoy the effects of whatever it was they had given him and began to contemplate what a fantastic story was within his reach. Niki would not have done this to Shan if he were not going to provide him with the story—a story maybe worth a book. Maybe a series with enough impact to net that literary prize Shan had been chasing all his life. A broad smile formed as the potential sank in.
* * * *
“Have all the leaders arrived, Trina?"
“Yes, Nikisha. Dolf of Nuperz has not come in as yet. He should be here before you are ready to begin, however."
Pasha stood behind Niki, her arms draped over his shoulders, her hands stroking his chest gently.
“You know, I think I should be a little jealous,” Pasha said. “I mean, you couldn't even give me a hint of what this is about before the rest?"
“My love, to tell it true, I wasn't completely sure of that myself before my sleep on the way here with Shan. Now ... I know. Now ... I know.” He smiled up at her and patted one of her hands affectionately, then cradled his head in her bosom.
“So, what is it?"
“Not now, love."
“But—"
“No, not now. I want Shan to—um, speaking of Shan, he should be coming around soon, shouldn't he?"
Niki attempted to stand, but Pasha pushed him back into his seat and resumed stroking his chest.
“Luto,” she said to a young man leaning against the door. “Go see if Mr. Shan is conscious. If he is, and he is able, bring him here, please."
Luto nodded politely and disappeared into the hallway. Before Niki could speak, Pasha whispered into his ear, “It's called delegation, my sweet. Sometimes you do it and sometimes—you don't. You need to learn to do it all the time, or this enlightenment will prove to be your ruin ... and I don't want you ruined."
She spoke it true. He always tried to do too much at once, and it had begun to take its toll. He knew more as things came into his mind faster with each passing day. Niki no longer needed the dreams and visions, though they remained the most concentrated source of his growing knowledge. He had changed—but it wasn't just him. All of them moved to a different rhythm than the society into which they had been born. They had become something new to Paz, something alien to their one-time brothers and sisters—a people apart—and much more than they had been. It could be seen without looking. Especially true for the younger ones, like Lira and that fellow Luto. They spoke about things in which none of them had experience or training.
They all had been given something different, something beyond the general process of the enlightenment, something that both excited and frightened the recipients. Awesome gifts handed to them over the centuries by their Ancients. Gifts that mirrored to some extent what they had been doing in their ordinary lives—as if they had been working, from the day they were born, for a shadowy program that crawled around in their unconscious minds, trying to blossom, attempting to take control of the animal in which it lived. As if the trends of their daily activities were influenced by hidden instructions, difficult to read plainly but strong enough to guide the program's host. What made the young ones different from the rest was the fact that they had no life experience to build upon—the image in the mirror had not yet formed fully, but dance in the glass it did, nonetheless.
Niki had discovered that even his life as a fisherman had been somehow associated with that dark program. As Niki the fisherman, he had to be a voyager—a loner to a large extent, disconnected
from the people, his kin—traveling into the unknown each time he cleared his mooring lines from the dock by the breakwater. Each time he and his little ship slipped out into the Southern Sea to struggle with things bigger, stronger, more dangerous than he in their natural element, he became an intruding alien from another world. What the Fathers expected of him now was largely the same—on a grander scale and in an element far more alien and dangerous, true, but it was equivalent. The thought intrigued Niki.
Niki's attention was drawn from his private musings as Luto entered, supporting a shaky and weak Albo Shan.
“Niki, Mr. Shan is awake and angry," Luto announced.
“I am not—angry,” Shan responded instantly. “I may be a little warm about being treated like a side of shako, but I am not angry."
Niki sent Shan a friendly, apologetic smile.
“I'm sorry, Bo. I tell it true, and if I'd thought there was any other way, I wouldn't have done this to you. Luto, get some food and drink for my friend. Please, have a seat, Bo, before you fall."
“I'll fall if I damned well please, thank you very much."
“Suit yourself, but I think the wiser course would be to sit."
Shan started to take a seat, then stopped in a stooped position, waving like tall salgrass in a strong breeze. His eyes narrowed as if trying to see something against a bright light.
“Where is this place and who ... who the hell is that person?"
“You're in the North Coopersland common shelter, Bo. To which person are you referring?"
Shan lifted himself into as upright a position as he could manage, raised a drooping arm toward Niki and tried to point, but sagged slowly back into his original bent-grass stance.
“That one. The female with the ... no, no, never mind. I know that one. Yeah ... I know you. You're good, you know that? You're really good. That's ... that's Pasha Valdar, everybody, and the man with her is Niki ... Niki, the simple fisherman from Nurusha. By my Ancient, if that isn't the best one yet."
The wind blowing Shan around changed direction, and he fell back into a seat, his arms hanging limply by his sides, his chin bouncing on his chest as he said, “So, is anybody going to tell me what the hell is going on?"
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