by Chris Bunch
Wolfe reached out, felt white smoothness, pushed . . .
The ivory ball clicked to rest.
‘Vingt-quatre,’ the tourneur said. ‘Rouge.’
‘Did you do that?’ Kristin demanded.
‘I’m not sure,’ Wolfe lied. ‘I sure wanted that ball to jump a little bit.’
‘Without a Lumina.’
‘I was probably just lucky.’
‘Joshua,’ Kristin said. ‘I’m not a fool. I know probabilities, and there’s no way you could have won that many times with so few losses.’
‘Sure there is,’ Wolfe said. ‘Igraine had to win that many times to get the club, didn’t he?’
‘Not proven and an example of illogical thinking,’ Kristin said. ‘So now we own a gambling club. That’ll be the trap for Aubyn?’
‘No,’ Wolfe said. ‘It’s just the beginning.’
Kristin yawned. ‘Tell me about it in the - oh my. It is morning.’
‘Gamblers, raiders, and lovers keep late hours, remember?’
‘Not this raider. I’m beat.’
‘Are you sure?’ Joshua asked, running a tongue in and out of her navel.
‘I am. Go to sleep. You’ve got too much nervous energy.’
Wolfe woke suddenly. His sheets were sweat-soaked. He blinked around, then remembered where he was.
It was past midday, and the suite was silent. Kristin lay next to him, breathing steadily, regularly.
Red . . . creeping from star to star, fingers, tentacles reaching toward him . . .
Wolfe shuddered.
Can it sense me?
Impossible.
He lay back, tried to blank his mind, but felt the invader, pulsing like a bloody tumor, out there in the blackness.
Quite suddenly something else came.
It was almost as foreign, almost as alien.
But it comforted.
Light-years away, beyond the Federation, he felt them.
The Guardians, truly the last of the Al’ar, hidden in the depths of the nameless world they’d tunneled deep into. Waiting. Waiting for Wolfe, waiting for him to return with the Lumina.
Waiting for the ‘virus.’
Waiting for death. Hoping it would be welcome.
He was awakened a second time by soft warmth around him, moving, caressing.
Joshua looked down, and Kristin lifted her head.
‘I didn’t want you to think I don’t like doing it with you,’ she said.
‘Never crossed my mind,’ Joshua said.
‘Good,’ she said, sitting up, bestriding him, her hands guiding, then she gasped as she sank down, enveloped him. ‘Oh good.’
‘Preposterous,’ the well-dressed man said.
‘Not at all,’ Wolfe said calmly. He walked to the end of the conference table, looking at each of the ten men in the room, trying to feel their response. ‘I’ve owned the Oasis for two weeks now and have managed to almost double my receipts. I think it would be logical for you gentlemen to allow me to take a minority position in Nakamura’s. Both clubs attract much the same clientele, and it’s senseless to compete.
‘You’d not only see improved profits, but you wouldn’t have any of the problems of running a casino - which none of you, I’ve observed, had any experience doing prior to Mister Nakamura’s death.’
‘Why should we let you muscle in?’ a fat, mean-faced man said. ‘We’ve done very damned well for ourselves in the past year.’
‘We have indeed,’ the first man said. ‘We’ve learned the peculiarities of the trade, and are familiar with who to - deal with, and who to ignore.’
‘Matter of fact,’ the fat man said, ‘whyn’t you let us buy you out? Seems more logical.’
He laughed.
‘That’s very amusing,’ Wolfe said. ‘And I do admire a logical man.’
His smile was thin.
Wolfe’s fingers crept up the doorframe, found the sensor. Violet light flashed. His hand continued feeling the doorway. He found another alarm, neutralized it.
He was one of two dark spots against the dark stone of the alley. Both he and Kristin wore close-fitting black jumpsuits and balaclavas.
Wolfe’s hand dipped into a pouch, then moved swiftly around the door’s lock. There was a sharp click.
He picked up a long, thin prybar, slid it into the crack, and lifted, straining. There was a loud clatter from inside; Kristin flinched involuntarily.
‘Now, if they don’t have a sound pickup . . .’
Wolfe cautiously opened the door, staying well away from the opening. No auto-blaster ravened, no alarm tore the night. Wolfe lifted away the wooden balk he’d jimmied out of its slots.
‘Now, milady, if you’ll hand me the first of those interesting packets we prepared earlier . . .’
FIRE RAVAGES NITE SPOT
Popular Club Destroyed
In Mysterious Inferno
Press for More
PRENDERGAST - A series of predawn blasts rocked the capital, totally destroying Nakamura’s Nightclub. According to fire and police officials, arson is suspected, since none of the casino’s elaborate fire and security alarms went off. The damage is vast, and the well-known club, long a favorite of Prendergast’s monied socialites, must be considered totally destroyed, said a spokesman for the consortium that has operated the club since . . .
‘What comes afterward?’ Kristin asked. She was curled in Wolfe’s arms.
‘You mean tomorrow? They’ll try to make sure I’m a good example of what not to grow up to be.’
‘I know that,’ Kristin said. ‘I’ve already instructed the guards like you told me to. And I think you’re insane. I mean after we get the - after we get what we came for.’
‘If we get it,’ Wolfe corrected.
What?
You Chitet try to kill me?
I try to get out from under, with the ur-Lumina?
Kristin lay in silence, waiting.
‘There is no after,’ Wolfe said, his voice unintentionally harsh.
They took Wolfe just as he was going toward his lifter, just outside the hotel. Three men came out of the shrubbery, guns leveled, and Naismith slid from a parked lifter holding a big-barreled riotgun steady.
‘Anyone moves, everyone dies,’ Henders said calmly as he came up the driveway.
The doorman saw the artillery and became a red-clad statue.
One of Henders’ men moved behind Max and the other two security men with Wolfe, expertly searched them, and took their guns.
‘You ought to get yourself some new punks from the repple-depple,’ Naismith cracked. ‘If you come back.’
‘Shut up, Naismith,’ Henders said. ‘Mister Taylor, if you’d come with us, please? Someone wants to talk to you quite badly.’
They have him, the signal went up to the orbiting Planov.
‘Very well,’ Master Speaker Athelstan said. ‘Continue monitoring.’ He turned to a man sitting at a control board. ‘I am not completely assured the subject hasn’t made an ally of these gang members. Be prepared for instant activation of the device.’
‘Yes, Master Speaker,’ the man said, and rechecked the trigger for the bomb on Wolfe’s back.
They rough-frisked Wolfe before pushing him into the sleek gray lifter that appeared as the thugs hustled him away from the hotel.
Confusion . . . confidence . . . certainty . . .
‘He’s clean,’ the searcher reported.
‘A man with the overconfidence of his congeries,’ Henders said.
Wolfe looked mildly impressed. ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘But how about “A gun limits the possibilities”?’
‘I’d agree,’ Henders said, ‘but only for the sap on the far end of the barrel.’
Wolfe shrugged.
They put him in the middle of the backseat, with Naismith and another thug on either side of him, guns almost touching his sides. Henders got in beside the pilot, turned in his seat, and kept his pistol pointed at Joshua’s head.
‘The he
ad of my organization isn’t pleased with you,’ he said. ‘You’d better have some explanations.’
Wolfe yawned. ‘I generally do,’ he said.
He closed his eyes and appeared to go to sleep.
Henders looked worried, then held the gun ready.
The warehouse was gray, anonymous, on a dingy street close to the spaceport. Henders pressed a button, and a door slid open. The lifter floated in and grounded, and the canopy lifted.
They muscled Wolfe out and took him along a bare concrete corridor, then down steps to a door. A guard stood outside with a heavy blaster.
Without a word, he opened the door, and Henders, Naismith, and the third gunman pushed Joshua inside.
The room was almost big enough to have an echo; dark-paneled wood walls hung with jarringly modern anima-art. There was a door to one side that was closed.
Naismith and the gunman stood to either side of Joshua, guns aimed.
At the far end of the room was an old-fashioned kidney-shaped desk. Leaning against it was a strangely misshapen man. From the waist down, he was tiny, almost small enough to be a jockey. Above that, he had the barrel chest and muscled arms of a stevedore. He wore his thinning hair long, tied into two queues that dangled behind his ears.
He had a strong, determined face, but with the pouty, small mouth of a decadent.
‘You can call me Aurus,’ he said. ‘That’s as good as anything else. It means gold, and gold’s what I am.’
His voice matched his shoulders: deep, full of authority. Aurus went on, without waiting for Wolfe to respond.
‘Taylor, we get a lot of damned fools here on Rogan’s World, of a damned big variety. But you’re something new.’
‘Always nice to widen a man’s experience,’ Joshua said.
‘Don’t crack wise,’ Aurus advised. ‘I don’t give a rat’s ass if you go below with or without your teeth, and it’s hard to talk through a mouth full of blood. A fool,’ he repeated. ‘Of a unique sort.
‘You downplanet with enough pizzazz for a circus, obviously trying to catch somebody’s eye. Fine. I’m good-hearted, there’s always room for somebody else in my organization, so I send a couple of my best operators out to meet you. No problem. Everything goes well; Henders comes back and tells me here’s someone we can do business with.
‘Three days later, you clip poor goddamned Igraine out of his joint. I really want to know, before you die, how you counter-rigged his wheel. I’d ask the croupier, but Igraine fed him to the eels last night.
‘So you’re a fast mover, I now think. Then you go and jump the cits that front Nakamura’s place and tell them you’re the new mensch on the dock. Did you ever consider they were working for me? Did you ever think maybe you should’ve talked to me before you started pushing your muscle around?
‘Not you. Throw a bomb, get the heat worked up, and think you just pulled some sort of brilliant move. Dickhead. Let me be the first to advise you, Mister Taylor. Your flashing around is going to do nothing but cost me money, and get you dead.’
Aurus’ face was getting redder. He went behind his desk, lifted the stopper from an elaborately worked decanter, and poured a drink into an equally fancy snifter. Henders walked from behind Wolfe to the side of the desk, holding his gun steady.
‘Contrary to what you just said, I did think about talking to you,’ Wolfe said, before Aurus could lift his glass. ‘But I didn’t think it was worth my while.’
‘You didn’t . . .’ Aurus shook his head in disbelief. ‘No. You didn’t think. All you did was -’
Wolfe’s hand flashed out, palm up, fingers curled. He had Naismith’s gunhand at the wrist, twisted once, and bone shattered with a sharp crack. Wolfe, now with Naismith’s gun, spun away as the gunman on the other side pulled his trigger.
But Wolfe wasn’t there, and the blast seared into Naismith’s side, ripping through his stomach wall. Naismith screamed in utter agony and fell sideways as his guts spilled, a stinking pile of pink, gray, red.
Joshua shot the gunman in the head, and blood spattered high to the ceiling.
The man who’d called himself Aurus was scrabbling in a compartment behind the desk for a gun.
Henders fired and missed, and Joshua crouched, aimed, fired.
The blaster seared Henders’ arm away, and his gun cart-wheeled across the desk.
Joshua shifted his aim and fired. His first bolt took Aurus in the shoulder, smashing him back against the wall. He flopped against it, mouth opening to shout, to scream, and Joshua blew his chest apart.
The door came open, and Joshua shot through the gap without aiming. He heard a shout of pain.
He ran, crouching, for the desk, and went prone behind it, pistol aimed at the doorway. He heard shouts, running feet. The door crashed open, but nobody came in.
He saw the barrel of a heavy blaster and took aim. A head flashed into sight, was gone before he could fire.
‘Shit,’ the shout came. ‘They got th’ boss.’
Another voice: ‘C’mon, Augie. We’re gone!’
There were more shouts, running feet, and the sound of lifter drives whining to life. It was quiet then except for Naismith’s moans and the whir of the anima-art’s motors.
Joshua went to Naismith and shot him in the head. Then he went to the door and looked out. The body of the guard was sprawled just beyond it. Wolfe went up the steps and found the warehouse deserted, its door yawning.
‘Thieves do fall out,’ he said to himself.
He went back down into Aurus’ office.
Henders was barely conscious, clutching the cauterized remains of his arm.
Wolfe kicked him sharply, and the man screamed, bit if off.
‘I’m not getting soft,’ Joshua said. ‘But maybe somebody’ll be interested in hearing the details from a survivor.’
He reached into a jacket pocket, took a card from a case.
The card read only: John Taylor
INVESTMENTS
He wrote the com number of his hotel, and Perhaps we should talk
He dropped the card on Henders’ chest, took the magazine from the blaster, tossed the gun into a corner of the room, and left.
Henders tried to sit up, collapsed.
After a time, he started moaning.
‘You’re blood-crazy,’ Master Speaker Athelstan said firmly.
Joshua looked around the compartment, meeting hostile stares from Kristin, her duo, and Security Coordinator Kur.
‘I do not believe this,’ he said. ‘Not one of you understands the fine art of making a good impression, do you?’
‘Perhaps,’ Kur said, ‘we don’t have your obviously wide experience in criminal matters.’
‘Obviously not,’ Wolfe agreed.
‘It does not matter whether we understand or approve,’ Master Speaker Athelstan said. ‘A course of action has been determined by you. There is no other choice than to follow it. Joshua Wolfe, what comes next?’
Joshua held out his hands.
‘Business as usual.’
‘You had no gun hidden,’ Kristin asked.
‘No.’
‘Yet you killed five men who did have guns.’
‘Four. Henders should be alive, if a medico showed up in time.’
She stared at him.
‘Perhaps,’ she said finally, ‘we have not been careful enough with you.’
Eight nights later, a message was waiting when Wolfe returned from the Oasis near dawn.
The screen was blank except for six numbers.
Joshua went out of the hotel, found a public com, dialed the numbers.
A synthed voice said, ‘Yes?’
‘This is John Taylor. I was given this number.’
There was a hum for almost thirty seconds, then:
‘At 1730 hours today, leave your hotel and walk east along Fourteenth Boulevard. You will be met. Come alone and unarmed.’
The line went dead.
FIVE
Joshua spotted them as he left
the hotel: two men behind, a man and a woman far ahead, across the boulevard. There’d be other pairs down the side streets. It was a classic box pattern, hard to elude, more likely intended to show Wolfe the opposition’s resources than anything else.
All were pros, and none showed the slightest interest in Wolfe.
He was grateful he’d convinced Kristin not to put a shadow backup, and to play it straight, at least at first.
‘If they’re trying to kill me,’ he reasoned, ‘at least that’ll bring ’em further into the open. I’m pretty sure I can duck another attempt by thuggery, if they’re no better than the late idiot who called himself Aurus.’
But he still felt clammy fingers at his back as he walked. He made three blocks before a long, sleek lifter pulled out of a side street. Its window hissed down.
‘Mister Taylor?’ The driver was young, freckled, friendly looking.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m your transport.’
Wolfe got into the luxuriously appointed vehicle. The driver waited for a slight hole in traffic, then sped across the boulevard. He took a left, two rights.
‘I didn’t bring any backup,’ Wolfe said.
‘Of course,’ the young man said. ‘I’m just careful.’ Two smaller lifters, with four men in each, came from side streets, fell in behind Joshua’s vehicle.
‘Yours?’
‘Mine,’ the driver acknowledged.
‘You are careful.’
‘Sorry, sir, but I’ll have to check you before we go inside,’ the driver said, trying to sound truly apologetic.
Damn them for untrusting bastards and not taking that damned bomb off. Wolfe caught himself grinning. How dare these Chitet think I’d ever do anything nefarious or possibly dare to haul ass without giving them the chance to blow me up. I’m shocked. Shocked, do you hear me?
He got out of the lifter, pretending to be impressed by the looming, colonnaded gray stone building they’d landed in front of, and the forested grounds around it, while he was reaching out, feeling . . .