by Chris Bunch
‘Another way is to use light, darkness. Move toward the greater light, the greater darkness, and you’ll remain unseen.’
‘I shit on such mummeries,’ Taen said. ‘This is the Al’ar way.’ He moved to one side, then back, and Joshua’s eyes hurt. He looked away, then back. Behind Taen was a table, and on it was a vase.
Now he could see the vase clearly.
The air shimmered, and the Al’ar returned.
‘That is what I mean. It is harder when someone is looking directly at you, easier when their focus is set elsewhere and then they turn to you. But this is another thing you shall learn.’
Joshua smiled in the darkness.
The Al’ar shuffled toward him, moving in a semicircle. Joshua turned, kept his face toward Taen, moved sideways. The Al’ar’s grasping organ swept out, and Joshua ducked under it, tapped the organ with three knuckles, and felt Taen’s pain. The Al’ar’s leg lashed, and Joshua kicked it away.
Taen tottered, and Joshua snapped a frontal kick into his midsection, sending the lean alien sprawling. Taen curled his legs under himself for the rebound, saw Joshua standing above him, fist ready for the killing knuckle stroke, and let himself down.
‘You have learned all I have. Now it is time for us to go out and seek a name for you. You must then study, but with other teachers. I must consult our Elders and study our codex for permission, but I feel it is time. When - if they agree, we shall go beyond Sauros, out into the dry lands, at night.
‘Someone shall be waiting for us. I shall teach you the words you must use to him. You must study them so you make no mistakes and cause me to look like a blind one.’
A final memory came to Joshua.
He was twenty. He was alone by the green haze that marked the limits of the prison camp. Cross into the haze and you died.
He paid the haze no mind. After almost three years it had become a part of him, as much a part as the long shabby huts, the constant hunger, the torn clothes, and the cold.
And the searing loneliness.
He did not allow himself to think of that.
Instead, he began his movements, as he did every day at dawn and dusk. Slowly, letting his mind be taken away.
‘Hey! You!’
The peace left him. He turned.
There were four of them. One was the son of a man who’d been one of the embassy’s lifter drivers before the war, before internment, and was his age. The second was one of the Marine guards who preferred being with younger men instead of the few survivors of his detachment. The other two he did not know other than that they were always seen with the driver’s son.
All of them were heavier than Wolfe and had found ways to acquire more food than the allocated rations.
Wolfe did not respond.
They formed a semicircle around him, keeping about eight feet from him.
‘We wanted to set you straight,’ the driver’s son said. ‘Teach you we all gotta hang together an’ remember we’re men, not friggin’ slugs. We ain’t gonna be here forever, an’ we’ll need t’ be ready when th’ time comes to fight back.
‘It ain’t right, you doin’ all this Al’ar shit. Tryin’ to be like one a them. We been watchin’, seein’ you study them. Prob’ly wishin’ -’
Joshua was suddenly next to him, less than a foot away. Two fingers touched the young man’s skull just at the angle of his jaw. He screamed in mortal agony and stumbled back.
The Marine was coming into some sort of a fighting stance, but before his hands came level with the ground, Joshua struck him with a backhand and he fell, trying to breathe, eyes popping.
The third and fourth were backing away, hands lifted.
‘Pick up these other two,’ Wolfe said. ‘And do not ever come to me again. Do not speak to me, do not think of me.
‘Am I understood?’
He did not wait for a response but turned his back. Once more he began the slow movements, facing the green haze, letting his mind study it, reach toward it, through it, beyond it.
He barely noted the scraping sound as they dragged the two men away.
The memories faded. Wolfe put his head down and slept.
‘They’re pretty alert, aren’t they, even when the boss ain’t around?’ Libanos said, lowering the night glasses. ‘I count three. Two walking in the open, number three hangin’ back waiting to see what happens.’
‘Four,’ Wolfe corrected. ‘There’s another one about twenty yards in front, keeping just off the walkway. He’s still . . . now he’s moving again.’
‘Mister, you ain’t even used the binocs. How’d you know that?’
‘Good eyes. I lead a clean life.’
The old man snorted and continued examining Edet Sutro’s island. The Dolphin sat, drive idling silently, about two hundred meters offshore, tossing in the surf.
‘All right. I’ve got their cargo lighter. Pretty standard. I make it as a Solar 500. Been on ’em. Run ’em. They’re power pigs but fast. Maneuverable enough to get by. One man can run ’em; takes two if you’re on instruments. Hell if I know what the inside’d be like. Anything from bare cargo space to yacht city.’ He handed the binocs to Wolfe, who examined the lifter.
‘What about visibility?’
‘Normal electronics, night amplification with helmets, maybe screens. Normal vision’d be the windscreen, the four ports on either side, and there’s a screen in the overhead rigged to a pickup in the stem.’
‘Entrances?’
‘Two hatches on either side of the driving compartment, one roof hatch, a big hatch for cargo on port and sta’board.
‘Oh, yeah, there’s two emergency exits. One right in the stern, high up, the other in the bottom of the hull, in case the thing flips.’
‘Very good.’ Wolfe mused. ‘I like something with a lot of doors.’ He fixed the craft in his mind, then handed the glasses back. ‘Shall we go, Mister Libanos? It’s getting past my bedtime.’
Candia shuddered and gasped as Wolfe drove inside her, then lifted her leg up, curling it around him, heel at the back of his neck, bringing her hips up against him.
A moment later she did the same with her other leg, linking her ankles, pulling hard as Wolfe convulsed and spasmed. Moments later she followed him, and her legs sagged down.
They returned together, hands moving on each other’s sweat-slick bodies.
After a time she murmured, ‘You know, Joshua, sometimes I almost think I’m . . .’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Yes?’
Candia sighed. ‘Never mind. I almost said something that would have embarrassed us both.’
‘So that’s what should happen,’ Wolfe finished. ‘When I’m finished, I’ll be gone. What kind of back door will you three be needing?’
‘Depends,’ Libanos said. ‘How many bodies’ll be lyin’ around for the heat to notice?’
‘None, I hope.’
‘It don’t matter, really,’ Libanos said. ‘Me an’ Thetis, we’ll have half Morne-des-Esses swearin’ we were singin’ hymns with them. People don’t realize there’s a whole lot more folks on Trinité than th’ rich an’ putrid.
‘We’ll have no problems, Mister Wolfe.’
‘I didn’t really think you would. Candia, what do you want to do? Since we’ve been seen being together, you’ll most likely have to answer quite a few questions.’
The dancer shrugged. ‘I, too, am not unfamiliar with fooling the law. But is that my only choice?’
‘What would you rather do?’
Candia looked pointedly at Thetis and her grandfather. Libanos took the girl’s arm, ignored her angry glare, and walked out onto the beach house’s verandah.
‘I’d rather go with you,’ the woman said, then held up a hand. ‘Wait. I didn’t mean for it to sound like it did. I meant . . . you’ll be leaving Trinité after you get whatever you want from this Sutro, am I correct?’
‘Yes,’ Wolfe said.
‘I would like a ride to wherever you’re going, if I would not be
in the way.’
‘What about your contract here?’
‘Eh! It had only another month to run, and I am getting very bored of that horrible band’s crash-bang-boom and being dropped by Megaris. I seek other pastures.
‘And as you saw, I travel light.’ She looked away from Wolfe, out the window, the sunlight a white glare on her face.
‘That would be good,’ Wolfe said. ‘It’d leave nothing but questions with nobody to answer them.’ He paused. ‘I’d feel a lot better, as well.’
After a moment Candia turned and smiled at him.
They were on the beach. Candia had her head pillowed on his stomach. He was half-asleep, listening to her tell him about her early days in dance and how hard it had been to choose between ballet and what she did now.
‘But eventually I thought perhaps I might like to live without constant pain and have a credit or two as well, and so -’
The com buzzed. Wolfe picked it up.
‘Yes.’
‘I just heard on my scanner,’ Thetis’s voice said. ‘Edet Sutro’s ship has just been cleared to land on Thrinacia.’
The sun and Candia and the dappled water vanished, and the darkness drew Wolfe in.
THIRTEEN
The man who’d named himself Edet Sutro grinned jovially as the lifter settled at the dock. ‘All right, boys, who plays and who stays?’
One of his bodyguards, whose expensive suit hung like it was still on a store rack, grimaced. ‘Me an’ Pare lost th’ roll.’
‘Look at it this way, Baines. You’re saving your money keeping away from the tables.’
‘Right, boss. Thanks, boss. Three weeks on th’ ship each way, plus sittin’ in that damned jungle waitin’ for a month, and now I’ll get to wait till next time we come to town to spin down. I feel lots better. Thanks again.’
The big man boomed laughter. ‘All right, boys. Let’s go see what kind of mischief we can get into.’
The smooth machine went into motion. Two men went up the companionway, doubled to the far side of the dock, looked over, saw nothing, then ran to each end of the pier, hands hovering inside their jackets. The second two went no farther than the top of the companionway and waited for Sutro to come up the ladder. They and the two behind the fence were as big as the bearded man.
If guns went off, it would be their duty to throw themselves on top of him and take the blast if they couldn’t shoot first.
The last two came up onto the planking, ignored the others, and turned, scanning across the harbor.
Sutro strolled up the dock as if unaware that he wasn’t alone.
‘Man takes care,’ Libanos said. ‘You think we stand a chance?’
‘That’s what makes life interesting, isn’t it?’ Wolfe said. They appeared to be two idle strollers considering the rigging of a yacht that just happened to obscure the line of sight between them and the cargo lighter moored at the casino’s dock a few dozen yards away.
‘Mister Sutro,’ Samothrake said, voice as smooth as his slight bow, ‘it has been too long.’
‘It surely has, Falster,’ Sutro said. ‘It surely has.’
‘I trust your business offworld went well.’
‘My business almost always goes well,’ Sutro said. ‘I spend a great deal of time and care making sure.’
Samothrake looked to either side and came closer. ‘There was a man asking about you.’
‘Ah?’ Sutro beckoned his chief guard, Rosser, over.
Samothrake described Joshua Wolfe, named him. Sutro looked mildly interested, and Rosser’s eyes vacuumed the casino. The other seven men pretended to pay attention to the hotel manager, but their eyes were always moving, always elsewhere, waiting.
‘Is he here tonight?’
‘No, sir. But I do expect him. He is friends with one of our dancers and generally arrives with her before the dinner show.’
‘I see. Perhaps when this Mister Wolfe shows up you’d do us both the honor of introductions.’
‘I would be delighted.’ Again Samothrake bowed, and Rosser, at Sutro’s nod, unobtrusively passed him a bill.
‘Now,’ Sutro said, his voice booming, several passersby turning to look. ‘What first? Drinks, then some action, eh?’
His bodyguards chorused enthusiasm, and the small throng moved toward one of the casino’s lounges.
Candia stepped onto the dock.
‘You’ll be right here?’ she asked skeptically.
‘I’ll be back here as soon as I make the call,’ Thetis said. ‘I promised Joshua. Nobody’ll bother me.’
She opened her windbreaker, and Candia saw she had a pistol stuck in her waistband. ‘Granddad gave me this and taught me to use it, to make sure I’m not bothered. There’s been folks who thought they were buying more’n a run-about when they gave me money. They didn’t think that way for very long.
‘You just worry about being seen and establishing your alibi, like you’re supposed to do. As soon as the excitement starts, you come running.’
The girl and the woman exchanged looks of mutual dislike, then applied smiles, and the dancer hurried toward the casino.
‘Faites vos jeux, messieurs,’ the tourneur said, teeth flashing white under his thin mustache.
‘Passe,’ Sutro said, and tossed credits onto that square. There was a gabble in various languages as other bettors chose their lots.
‘I like a live game like this. I surely can’t stand playing roulette with one of those goddamned robots,’ Sutro observed.
‘Might as well play a vid game,’ Rosser said. The tourneur bobbed his head, indicating agreement as he twirled the wheel’s cross-handles. At the same moment he spun the small ivory wheel against the wheel’s turning.
The ball bounced, skipped, red, black, then red, slowing.
‘Rien ne va plus,’ the tourneur announced unnecessarily - most of the numbers were filled. The ball bounced once more, then came to rest.
‘Sept,’ the tourneur said. One croupier pulled in credits with his rake, and a second paid the winnings. Sutro watched his money depart, expression neutral. He held out a hand, and Rosser put another sheaf of bills in it.
‘Mister Sutro?’
Sutro frowned at the interruption, turned. Samothrake stood beside him.
‘The gentleman you wished to meet will not be in this evening,’ the casino manager said, attempting to sound as if the news were personally tragic. ‘I was advised by his friend that he is ill.’
‘Perhaps another time,’ Sutro said indifferently.
‘Messieurs, faites vos jeux,’ the dapper little man said once more.
Sutro sipped champagne, considered the wheel.
‘Dernière douzaine,’ he decided.
Thetis slipped thin gloves on, put a coin in the vid, touched sensors. She fitted a round filter over the vid’s mike. As the screen swirled into life, she blanked her own pickup with a square of plas.
Wolfe stepped out of his coveralls and was wearing a skintight black plas suit. Libanos stood beside him, holding a very large, very antique projectile weapon.
‘Put it away,’ Wolfe advised. ‘Nobody needs to see you waving that cannon around.’
Libanos muttered, obeyed.
Wolfe took a dart gun from a small pack, clipped the gun to a catch on the suit, put the pack on, pulled the suit’s hood over his head, and went down the ladder into the water.
He entered it without a splash and swam slowly, effortlessly, across the dark harbor, hands never coming above the water’s surface. He swam to the rear of the lifter and then clung to the still-warm drive outlet.
Breathe in . . . deep, deep, diaphragm deep . . . out . . . in again . . .
His heart was a slow, steady metronome.
He reached out, felt the man lounging behind the controls of the ship, breathe . . . breathe . . . found the thin man at the port, eyes watching the dock.
A shadow came out of the water and pulled itself onto the narrow step at the lighter’s stern. Wolfe eyed a pickup m
ounted above him, decided it wasn’t turned on, and found the emergency hatch. It was latched shut on the inside. Wolfe pried at it, tore a nail, flinched. He took a thin-bladed knife from its sheath at his waist and gently probed between the hatch and the hull, eyes closed.
The blade met resistance, and Joshua pushed. The latch’s click was crashingly loud, but only to him.
He looked behind, saw nothing in the harbor that would outline him, and lifted the latch.
Baines grunted. ‘Your turn. My eyes are bleedin’.’ There was no response.
Baines turned away from the port, frowning, saw Pare’s body slumped in the seat, and black blurred at him; a finger speared, touching his forehead, and the thin man folded to the deck.
Wolfe put plas ties on both men’s hands and feet, took a red-shielded flash from his pack, and blinked it once, twice toward the wharf where Libanos was waiting.
‘Calm down, Dorothy. What is it?’
‘A bomb, Mister Samothrake! Somebody planted a bomb here!’
‘Don’t get excited. No matter what’s going to happen, you won’t make it any easier if you get hysterical. How do you know?’
‘Someone just called. They wouldn’t give me a picture. They said there was a bomb - bombs - and we were all going to die for our wickedness!’
Samothrake’s voice remained calm. ‘You’re new here. We get those kind of things all the time. They’re either fruit-bars or kids. What did the voice sound like?’
‘I couldn’t tell. It sounded synthed. Flat. Maybe a woman.’
‘What exactly did it say? Try to remember.’
‘I can remember.’ The woman shuddered. ‘I’ll never forget it. “Ye . . .” That’s what the voice said - ye. “. . . are the spawn of evil, wallowing in your degeneracy. Ye have been called, and there is no escape. I have set bombs to destroy your works unutterably. There shall be one for a warning, then others to destroy everything.” That’s exactly what was said. I was trained to remember things like that.’