by Chris Bunch
Frazier’s face was red. ‘That was something I suppose shouldn’t have happened.’
‘Happened?’
‘Yes. It was three expeditions ago, and we’d been out a long time. Too long. I was getting discouraged, and Mikela has always been there for me. She was the one who raises the money, finds compatible team members, keeps everything smooth . . . really they ought to make her the expedition head.
‘But she never wanted that, she told me.’ Frazier caught Wolfe’s expression. ‘Sorry. I veered. Three expeditions ago, things happened between us. The affair lasted until the project’s end.’
‘Why did it end? Tregeagle looks at you like it’s still going on.’
‘It’s enough for you to know it’s ended, isn’t it?’
‘No,’ Wolfe said, voice flat. ‘Talk.’
Frazier swung around in his chair until he was facing out the port, back to Joshua. ‘I’m not worthy of her.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m . . . I’m impotent,’ he said, voice muffled. ‘I caught some kind of virus and . . . I’m completely incapable. No erection, no orgasm, not anything.’
‘So?’ Wolfe was unimpressed. ‘Love isn’t defined by just sex. Or perhaps love wasn’t the reason you let the affair happen.’
‘Who knows why it started,’ Frazier snapped, turning back. ‘But I surely loved her . . . love her now. Can’t you understand, Wolfe? I’m not a man any more. And now you’re shaming me further.’
‘I’ve got a lot more sympathy for four corpses than for your lousy little ego,’ Wolfe growled.
‘You’re right,’ Frazier mumbled. ‘You’re right. But you can sit there all day and tell me I’m a neurotic, but that doesn’t change how I feel.
‘That’s the only reason I can’t let myself object when Mikela does . . . does what she does.’
‘You mean sleep with other expedition members?’
Frazier nodded. His face held a pleading look. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know for sure about that. I couldn’t let myself think about that. Good God, Wolfe. How far down do you have to drag me?’
‘Last question,’ Joshua said. ‘That ring you wear. The diamond’s real, isn’t it? As are the four, no five falera-stones. Where’d you get it?’
‘It was a present,’ Frazier said.
‘Who gave it to you?’
Frazier told him.
Joshua reached far under the desk, touched cold metal. He pulled, and the magnetic clip let go. Wolfe examined the small, rounded-edge square.
‘And you thought you were a friggin’ professional,’ he muttered in complete disgust.
The storeroom door slammed open, and Dov Cherney jerked up from his half-doze. Wolfe was across the small room, and picked him up by the throat.
‘I’ve had enough bullshit,’ he said, his eyes hard, glittering. ‘Now, first I have a question. Then you and I are going to take a little walk and sit down with some nice friendly people.’
‘Get bent.’
Wolfe whiplashed his knuckles twice across Cherney’s face.
‘I said, I have a question. You’re going to answer it, or I’m going to smash that cast and break your goddamned arm so it’ll never heal.
‘Then I’ll start on the other one.
‘Don’t even think you’ve got any legal rights now. I’m so far outside the law I could make you the fifth corpse and walk away without anyone saying one single word.
‘Believe me, brother. You’re going to talk to me.
‘Now, here’s the question. Lorn Ware wasn’t sleeping with you. So who was she screwing?’
Joshua grounded the gravlifter just beyond the last transmission tower and shut off the drive. He clambered out, and walked away from the vehicle into the desert.
He let the silence build around him, entered it.
Again, the past whispered, again he felt the Al’ar presence.
Then it vanished, and there was nothing but the dry wind.
‘Shit,’ he said to himself, almost in a whisper. ‘I should’ve known . . .’
He didn’t finish the sentence, but got back in the gravsled, touched sensors. The drive purred alive, and he brought the lifter off the ground, spun it, and sent it fast along the line of towers, leaving a swirling line of sand behind him.
‘This Joshua Wolfe,’ PA speakers and belt coms blared. ‘All team members will assemble immediately in the messhall. That is an order from Scholar Frazier. I say again, assemble immediately.’
A worried Frazier stopped Wolfe outside the messhall.
‘I went to get it, like you told me. But it’s gone. Somebody took it.’
Wolfe grunted. ‘Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.’
Joshua looked at the twenty scientists. Some looked scared, some worried, some curious. Dov Cherney glowered, Mikela Tregeagle sent a quick smile.
He stood behind a small cardtable. On it was a plas pitcher full of water, a glass, a recorder and something hidden behind the pitcher.
‘We’ll start at the beginning,’ he said. He held up the recorder.
‘This is an official hearing, called by a properly constituted Federation law enforcement official under emergency circumstances.
‘That official is myself, Colonel Joshua Wolfe, Federation Armed Forces.’
There were a few gasps.
‘I was originally sent here by Federation Intelligence to investigate the death of one of their operatives, Lorn Ware.’
He sipped water.
‘The reason for her presence doesn’t need to be hidden. FI monitors all investigations into the Al’ar, for reasons I’m not privy to, but could theorize on. But that’s of no matter.
‘Ware was what we call a contract agent. She’d done some small jobs for FI, and wanted to keep on the payroll.
‘Maybe she wanted prestige. Almost all of you have remarked on her ambition. Maybe she needed the money.
‘Or perhaps she liked playing spy. She was, as some of you’ve told me, quite curious about things that weren’t normally her concern.
‘I don’t know if she was constitutionally like that, or if she suspected something after the expedition reached A- 6343-5.’
‘What the hell was there to suspect?’ Frazier snapped.
‘I’ll get to that in a moment. Ware was, as I’ve said, ambitious. I don’t know, and don’t particularly care what her sexual preferences were.
‘Dov Cherney was attracted to her, and was rejected.
‘Mikela Tregeagle was not.’
‘Joshua!’ Tregeagle was on her feet, her expression puzzled, hurt, the look of a proud mother watching a favorite child forget his recital lines. ‘That’s not true!’
‘Sit down, Mikela,’ Joshua’s voice was gentle. She stared at him, then obeyed.
‘Yes, it is true,’ Wolfe went on. ‘I don’t know what set Ware off. Maybe pillow talk. Or maybe I’ve got it all wrong, and Ware smelled something in the beginning, and Tregeagle decided to find out how much she knew, and seduced her.
‘Like she did me.
‘As a sidenote, I’ll add Tregeagle also put a recorder in her own office after I stupidly decided to use it for my interviews. Mikela isn’t a woman who leaves things to chance, it appears.
‘In any event, Ware started looking for evidence. Evidence of large-scale embezzlement. Embezzlement that I’d suppose goes back for some years. That’s a fairly serious criminal offense, and when the University will learn about it, there’ll be civil trials I imagine.
‘But this was a government expedition, funded by the Federation. And embezzling public funds is right up there with murder.
‘Particularly when the whole investigation of these towers is specious. There’s nothing out there under or near that last tower. I know, even though the way I acquired that knowledge isn’t legally or scientifically admissible.
‘I’ll bet Mikela knew you were working a dry hole. Maybe some others did, too, but didn’t say anything for fear the grant would be cut. Or maybe not.
That’s another paper trail for the lawyers.’
People turned, craned at Tregeagle. Mikela’s eyes held on Joshua’s face.
‘How much was taken, and under what guises, I don’t know,’ Wolfe continued. ‘There’s many, from misreporting your salaries as greater than they are and pocketing the difference to fraudulent invoices from nonexistent contractors to whatever.
‘Of course, the longer the project continued, the greater the opportunity.
‘There are only two possible suspects. One is Scholar Juan Frazier: He probably didn’t take very long for Ware to dismiss, with his poor little dream of someday having enough money to build a house by the side of a lake.
‘That left Scholar Mikela Tregeagle, who somehow had the money to buy Frazier an incredibly expensive ring. Maybe that’s what caught Ware’s eye. I don’t know.
‘Tregeagle had access to all funds, not just the safe with petty cash, but everything. I’d suspect she’s been stealing from the Univee for quite a few years, and this particular dig isn’t her first adventure in larceny.
‘Tregeagle was the one who raised the money from the beginning, and set up the budget for each expedition, unaudited by anyone, least of all by her former lover, Frazier.
‘Their affair, at least physically, stopped some time ago for reasons that don’t matter. But the two stayed together.
‘Perhaps Mikela still loves Frazier. Or perhaps she sees an easily-duped fool. Or perhaps she believes she loves him, and hides the hate even from herself. I’m hardly a psychologist, but that could explain her affairs. I wonder how many of you Mikela “just happened” to encounter at a convenient place and time.’
Wolfe saw eyes flicker in his audience, heard someone sigh.
‘Ware began gathering evidence, snooping in any file, any computer, any fiche, she could access. And Tregeagle caught her out. How much information Ware found, I don’t know, nor do I know if Ware was able to conceal her evidence somewhere or if it was destroyed after her death.
‘When Mikela Tregeagle discovered the prying, Lorn Ware had to die.
‘Now, if Scholar Tregeagle were a common thug, an ordinary villain, she would have simply waited until she and Ware were alone somewhere, maybe underground in the Al’ar base next to a nice long fall, as Acosta suggested, and there would have been a terrible accident.
‘But that was too easy, wasn’t it, Mikela?’
The woman didn’t answer, sat quite still with her hands folded in her lap, looking unblinkingly at Wolfe.
‘She had to get cute. She came up with an elaborate scheme. First to cleverly sabotage the transmission towers to produce backblasts. I don’t know how she learned that could be done, but I assume the prosecutor will find some paper she found.
‘Since Scholar Northover was an acrophobe, and Tregeagle knew, that probably gave her the last piece to the plan.
‘She visited the first tower, made certain cuts to the directional columns, and that produced a backblast to her complete satisfaction. Later she went back and hammered the columns back into place, so her sabotage was nearly unnoticeable. What were the odds of anyone actually landing on top the arms and examining them closely in any event?
‘Three more incidents, and everyone was convinced the power grid was very chancy, and anything could happen. She’d prepared the stage most carefully for her “accident.”
‘She’d already arranged for Lorn Ware to become the team photographer-recorder, and so, on this fifth trial, she no doubt had Frazier tell Ware to record the event, of course specifying that odd monument be in the picture for artistic reasons. Frazier doesn’t remember things that way, but perhaps Federation interrogators will help his memory.
‘Tregeagle waited not far from the monument until Ware arrived and set up her equipment, then shot her, most likely with one of the heavy demolition blasters. I’d guess Tregeagle wasn’t sure of her aim at that range, and wanted to make sure.’
‘Impossible,’ Frazier said. ‘If you’re arguing she used the test-blast as a cover . . .’
‘I am,’ Wolfe said.
‘Then your whole theory falls apart. We were all together at 1700 hours, when Scholar Northover triggered the pulse.’
‘Agreed,’ Wolfe said. ‘But the murder happened a bit before then.’
He pulled the straps of the timesend on his wrist free. The ripping sound was very loud.
‘Nice gimmick,’ he said, turning the device in his hands. ‘Gives everyone a common signal. Or maybe not, if somebody has access to the transmitter in Frazier’s office, and manually transmits a signal to one timesend, and the person on the other end sets up her equipment and moves carefully into the target zone exactly when she was ordered to.
‘Right in line with a nice rock to stand on so there’s no footprints, but a pity that monument’s in the line of fire. Particularly when Tregeagle’s shot cuts a nice hole in the monument that gives a clear line to the real line of fire.
‘But Mikela’s in a hurry, and doesn’t notice. She gets her gravlift airborne, hauls back to base, and is where she’s supposed to be well before the real 1700 rolls around.
‘Cute,’ Wolfe said tiredly. ‘A little too cute.’
He took the hidden object from behind the pitcher. It was his tube blaster. Holding it pointed down at the deck, he started toward Mikela.
Tregeagle jumped up, yanking the team’s missing hand-weapon, an archaic blaster, from a leg pocket of her coverall.
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Oh no. This is all a lie. And I don’t listen to lies. I didn’t listen to them from Lorn, I won’t listen to them from you.
‘Drop the gun, Joshua.’
Wolfe’s fingers opened, and the tube blaster clattered to the deck.
‘Are you going to kill us all, Mikela?’ Joshua said softly. ‘That’s your only other option.’ He took a slow step toward her, then another.
His muscles were fluid, taut. His mind whispered: wind, wind, unseen, unheard, behind you, beside you . . .
A chair clattered. Dov Cherney was walking toward her, face frozen, lips moving silently, reaching for her with his one good hand. Mikela swung the gun on him, then she faltered, her eyes gaping.
Joshua Wolfe blurred, vanished.
She spun back, finger punching the firing stud. The gun bucked and blew a fist-sized hole in the back wall.
A blurred figure became Wolfe, diving forward and Mikela fired again, blast just over Wolfe’s shoulders, and then she spun away, mountaineer’s grace. Cherney had her for a moment, clumsily pulling her against his chest with his free arm.
She drove an elbow back, and doubled him as the blaster went flying. Tregeagle ran for the door. Frazier was up, hands bird-clawing at Tregeagle, trying to stop her. She shoulder-blocked him, and Frazier tumbled back over his chair.
Joshua scooped up his tiny blaster as Mikela slammed through the door. He went after her.
She was at the end of the corridor, at the outside door. She yanked it open, and he shot at her legs, drilled a thumb-sized hole in the doorway, and she was outside.
He ran to the door, booted it open. Tregeagle was running for one of the entrances to the Al’ar caverns.
‘Stop!’ Wolfe shouted. ‘There’s nothing there!’
She veered, seeing the Grayle in the distance, gangplank extended, lock closed.
Wolfe knelt, braced, fired again, trying to wound her, but the close-range weapon sent its bolt a meter wide.
He ran after her, sucking harsh alien air, sand crunching under his feet.
But she was faster, clattering up the gangplank, smashing her fist again and again against the lock controls.
Over her head, unnoticed, one of the Grayle’s weapons bays slid open, and the gleaming barrels of one of the ship’s chainguns peered out.
It traversed downward. The wounded-dragon millisecond roar echoed across the desert as the ship followed Wolfe’s orders and fifty three-quarter-inch collapsed uranium rounds shredded Mikela Tregeagle’s body.
Jo
shua Wolfe stood over the mound that was as much a monument as Mikela Tregeagle would probably have.
The members of the expedition stood knotted together, as if huddling against a winter gale. No one spoke. Then, one by one, they walked back, into the expedition’s buildings.
No one had met his eyes, and no one spoke to him.
Wolfe waited until they were gone, then turned back to the grave.
From memory, he quoted an ancient poem. The dry wind and the silence swallowed his words.
STEN
Chris Bunch and Allan Cole
THE FIRST BOOK IN AN ACTION-PACKED SF ADVENTURE SERIES.
Vulcan is a factory planet, centuries old, Company run, ugly as sin, and unfeeling as death. Vulcan breeds just two types of native - complacent or tough. Sten is tough.
When his family are killed in a mysterious accident, Sten rebels, harassing the Company from the metal world’s endless mazelike warrens.
He could end up just another burnt-out Delinquent.
But people like Sten never give up.
DRAGONMASTER: BOOK ONE STORM OF WINGS
Chris Bunch
THE ACTION-PACKED NOVEL FROM ONE OF THE GREATEST WRITERS OF FANTASY ADVENTURE.
The land between the volcanic kingdoms of Deraine, Sagene and Roche is ruled by the sword and by the outlaw. But the schemes of men and nations hold scant interest for Hal Kailas. For him the only true power in the world is that of the dragons . . .
As a child he loved to climb the high cliffs around his village and watch the dragons nesting there - huge, savage beasts with wings that blackened the sun. His only dream was to grow wings - or learn to ride a dragon.
But when the uneasy peace of the kingdoms is shattered by war, Hal’s dream becomes reality. For this is a conflict such as the world has never seen. For the first time, the fearsome wild dragons have become living weapons, ridden by men of cold daring and ruthless ambition.