Rilas steered the skimmer as close to the cliff edge as the directionals allowed. The vehicle’s wake sent dried brush tumbling over the rocks, while its high-pitched hum and the shadow it cast as it coursed over the ground drove small animals to the shelter of shrubs and burrows.
In the rearview, she watched the domes and painted rooftops of Karistos recede, replaced by rocky summits that jutted into the cloudless sky. After driving for a time, she stopped the skimmer beside a tumbled mass of stone, hoisted her slingbag from behind her seat, and disembarked. She walked to the edge of the cliff, then along it, looking out to the bay every few strides.
In the short time she spent walking, three skimmers passed her. All carried humanish, who drove too slowly and watched her as though they had never before seen an Haárin. The cliffs of Karistos and the Bay of Siros had become popular places for tourists, and Rilas knew the traffic would grow as the day proceeded. “Most unfortunate. This would have been a good place.” She drew a small scope from one of the slingbag’s many pockets, held it to her eye, looked toward the bay and the line of cliffs beyond. In the scope’s viewer, she at last caught sight of Thalassa, a scatter of glistening rooftops, blue and yellow in the sun.
Rilas touched a pad on the side of the scope, activating the device so it could read and measure. Distances. Heights. Angles. Depths of rooms and thicknesses of walls. After completing the task, she returned the device to her bag and strode back to her skimmer. Already half the day had been spent searching, as had the entire day before. She did not like to take so long to make preparations, but Karistos had proved a strange place, much worse than nìRau Cèel had described.
She stood beside the skimmer, one hand on the door control, until a humanish male driving alone slowed and asked if she required assistance. She gestured that she could not understand him, then entered her vehicle and drove away. Too quickly—she knew she moved too quickly. She could see the male in her rearview, watching her. Would he remember her? Or did all female idomeni look alike to him, as nìRau Cèel said?
Damned godless place. Never again would she act as a tile broker. As ná Nahin Sela, she had wasted hours at the Trade Board displaying samples and discussing colors and glazes, meeting with prospective customers. NìRau Cèel told me that I must act as that which I am supposed to be. Such was the nature of cover. If I did not act as a merchant among the Elyan Haárin, I would be noticed. But the training she had received in Rauta Shèràa had not prepared her for these Haárin, who ate and drank in the streets as animals, who looked her in the eye even though they were unknown to her.
Then there were…those other. The anathema. The hybrids. She had seen two of them at the Trade Board, a male and female, so much as demons in their misshapen strangeness. Thick limbs. Pale eyes and skin. They had once been as humanish. As humanish, they should have remained.
Rilas drove and studied each passage, each summit. Prayed to her goddess for guidance, and for strength. This place is of your doing, Tsecha. Soon, he would pay the cost of his sacrilege.
The sun passed prime. As it began its downward arc, Rilas passed a rocky slope crowded at its base with rubble and dying scrub. She drove past it as she had so many others, and had traveled quite far along the cliff road before she realized what she had seen.
She turned around and drove back to the place, alert to humanish tourists, or shuttles making their final approach to the distant Karistos port or the Service field. Alert to any sign that someone, somewhere, might see her. She fought the desire to reach into the slingbag and remove and activate the devices that could scan the skies as she could not. Monitor the roads. Watch her back, as a humanish would say.
But she dare not. All around Karistos, craft from the humanish Service traveled, scanned, searched. Her devices, while most useful, were also most illegal, and she could not risk their detection now, while she still prepared. In a day or two, when she completed her task and had gone, let the Service find what they would. Some of it will look most as familiar, as we stole it from them. Rilas bared her teeth at the thought. Humanish did not believe Haárin capable of stealing, just as they did not believe them capable of subterfuge or sabotage. Most foolish of them, and truly.
She approached the pile of rubble, her joy fading. She slowed the skimmer, hunting for the signs that had attracted her attention and compelled her return. At first she could not detect them, and wondered if she had erred.
Then, finally, one by one, she saw them. A glimpse of masonry colored the same browns and whites as the surrounding stone, barely visible through tangled branches. Straight lines where none should exist, the broken edges of a wall smashed to ruins by the rockslide.
She steered her skimmer behind the rockslide so it was hidden from the road. This time, she activated her shooter. Then she powered down the vehicle, hoisted her slingbag, and disembarked.
Rilas savored the heat, the one welcome surprise that Elyas offered. Wondered at the stone, the sparse vegetation, so much as Rauta Shèràa that she felt as though she tracked quarry on her homeworld. The thought upset her, and she struggled to push it from her mind. When nìRau Cèel counseled her, he had been adamant. Assassination or sabotage, what acts she performed could not be committed on Shèrá. Too much risk of discovery, he had told her. Too much danger, for both of them.
She held her shooter at the ready as she approached the house, circling the place once before pushing a rock aside with her foot and passing through the partly collapsed doorway. She stepped around a pile of rubble and into what had once been a room. Remains of furniture, sticks of polywood and scraps of weave, littered the space. Some lay scattered across the floor, the rest wadded in corners, where it served as bedding for the animals whose claws Rilas heard skittering against the cracked and stained tile. She sniffed the air, grimacing at the tang of waste and rotted flesh, the stench of the things which lived in this place mingled with that of the things which had died. An unseemly place, and truly. None would look for even the lowest Haárin in such as this.
Only when her eyes had better adjusted to the half-dark did Rilas explore further. Grit and dried leaves crunched beneath her feet. Sunlight streamed in through a lone window, highlighting dust motes that leapt and fell like sparks from a fire, disturbed by her passage.
She set her slingbag on the floor. A short time spent pushing aside rock and clutter left her with a space through which she could maneuver as well as a path to the window. She hoped that it would look out over the bay, and was pleased to find that it did. “I can just see the water.” And beyond that, the curve of land that held her target.
Rilas recovered her bag from its resting place and carried it to the window, set it on the dusty floor and opened it. She removed wrapped tubes, a small box, a roll of heavy cloth. First she removed the wrapping from the tubes, then laid out the smooth plastic on the floor to serve as a barrier. Lay the tubes atop it, followed by the box and the cloth roll.
She knelt. Picked up the tubes, one short and one long, fitted them together, then set them aside. Unrolled the cloth and removed three items. First, two curves of metal, one large and one much smaller, the stock and the discharge mech. Last, her prize, her most valued thing. A clear glassy cylinder shot through with lines and discs of color. Her sight mech.
She worked with a speed born of practice. Attached barrel to stock. Fastened discharge mech to the underside of barrel, sight mech to the top. Removed the sighting device from her pocket, attached it to the sight mech, and activated data transfer.
Rilas watched the colors in the sight mech brighten and dull, flash and fade. As the last burst of color faded, she detached the sighting device and tucked it back in her pocket. Only then did she rise, turn to the window and raise the rifle. Bracing the stock against her shoulder, she poked the barrel through a gap in the shattered pane and lowered her eye to the sight mech.
Fully assembled, the rifle felt weighty, but balanced, like a finely crafted shooter. She paused to run her hand over the barrel, savoring the s
mooth chill of the dull black metalloceramic. She then resumed her check, studying the bay and the cliffs beyond through the sight mech.
It is as though I stand there. After all this time, after completing so many such tasks for nìRau Cèel, she still marveled at how the mech magnified the distant view, how the micro-lenses moved in concert to sharpen, brighten, provide contrast, expose detail no idomeni eye could detect unaided.
Rilas scanned a road that diagonaled along the cliff face and wound past structures before vanishing at the summit. She moved on to a larger structure, one of the largest she had seen on Elyas, which jutted from the cliff face as though part of the stone. Through windows, she could see figures. The accursed hybrids whose existence pained nìRau Cèel so.
Click—click—click. Her finger twitched on the discharge mech—with each faint whirr of the mechs, she imagined bodies falling, souls destroyed, lives extinguished. She scanned other areas of the enclave—
Click.
Walkways. Verandas. Open spaces.
Click.
Killing, killing. Taking life that had no right to exist.
Click. Click. Click.
A small balcony.
Rilas stilled. Eased the pressure on the discharge mech. Watched.
Jani Kilian. The Kièrshia. The cursed thing. Standing, alone on the balcony. She wore a wrapshirt and trousers in grey, plain and free of adornment save for a thick cording of silver woven into the shirt cuffs.
Rilas released the charge-through and looked away from the scope. Her heart beat strongly—she could feel it pound. Her hands were as dry, her mind, as clear. Such was as they were during the best of times, when Caith blessed her and bade her act as her talents demanded.
She set aside the rifle, then knelt upon the rubble-strewn floor and rummaged through her bag. Small stones dug into her knees; she used the pain as a spur, a sign of favor from Caith that it was right for her to act. She removed the frosty flat container. Opened it. Took out one of the chilled projectiles, inserted it into the rifle magazine, clicked the chamber closed. Heard the cylinder slide into place, the rifle hum in activation.
The payload is typed to Tsecha. Even as the technician’s words echoed in her head, Rilas lifted the rifle to her shoulder and sighted down, capturing the dark head. Edged the weapon one way, then the other, until the scope signaled TARGET CENTERED with a single yellow flash, and she fixed on the face. Skin dark as Pathen, eyes green as Sìah, combined with weak human bones. The face of an overgrown youngish, a mutant, a made thing.
The payload is typed to Tsecha.
“But it might work with her. The idomeni part of her is of Vynshàrau. There could be enough—”
The payload is typed to Tsecha.
Rilas forced herself to breathe. The Kièrshia stood, unmoving as stone, eyes fixed. A target as she had never had, still and quiet and alone. If this one fell, no one would know for hours.
Then Kièrshia shifted her stare until it seemed to Rilas as though she saw her and studied her in turn.
You should die. Rilas’s finger tightened on the charge-through. You must—
Tsecha.
Rilas stilled. Cursed the name that filled her head even as she knew it had been sent by her goddess. Relaxed, drawing in one slow inhalation of stagnant air, followed by another. Another.
“Fool.” Rilas stood still until she calmed, until she could no longer see the strange green eyes in her mind. Then she broke down the rifle and repacked the components.
I will return to Karistos. I will make sacrifice, and pray, and prepare. Then tomorrow she would return to the ruin and kill the one for whom the weapon had been designed. Avrèl nìRau Nema. A name that had once been and was now no more. Ní Tsecha Egri. A life that was now, and would soon not be.
Rilas shouldered her bag and, with careful steps, departed the ruin. No humanish males lurked in wait outside. No tourists. No movement but branches and leaves in the wind, no sound but animals.
CHAPTER 5
Jani heard the French doors open, but didn’t turn to see who her visitor was. She already knew. “It’s so nice and quiet out here.”
Footsteps from behind, soft on the tile. “Ní Tsecha’s over at the never-ending project that is the new meeting house.” Dieter Brondt, her secular suborn and resident spy, drew up next to her. “He’s arguing with ní Dathim about the tilework.”
“Again? And what does he want me to do about that?”
“Make ní Dathim see things his way.” Dieter grinned, the expression lighting his round face. “Because we all know how well ní Dathim listens to you.”
“About as well as he listens to anyone.” Jani paused to rub her eyes. Her head ached from the brightness of the sun off the water, yet the last thing she wanted to do was leave the balcony.
Dieter bent and picked up one of the crystal shards. “I ran into Captain Pascal on the walkway, and immediately directed him to a bathroom.” He examined the fragment, then looked around at the other pieces scattered across the balcony floor. “It didn’t sound as though lunch agreed with him.”
“Heat and brandy.”
Dieter winced. “He’s on his way to Fort Karistos. Got a com from Pierce to report immediately. ‘Scarface blinked,’ was how he put it.” He gave the shard a last look, then tossed it aside. “Is everything all right?”
“John and Val.” Jani beat a cadence on the railing with her fists. “Where are they?”
“The clinic.” Dieter planted his feet and folded his arms. He wore a wrapshirt and loose trousers in patterned orange and white. Hybridization had claimed him late and done little to lengthen his bones or slim his stocky frame, leaving him resembling a fitter than average Buddha with cat-yellow eyes. “Doctor Shroud took Doctor Parini on a tour.” He cocked his head. Concerned Buddha. “Is something wrong?”
“Captain Pascal gave me some news before he went to lose his lunch. I don’t know whether to believe it or not.”
“Would the fact that the good doctors have been holed up in Doctor Shroud’s office for the whole of their tour help you decide?”
Jani shot the male a hard look. “Does anything happen around here that you don’t know about?” She fielded his blank stare and shook her head. “Val’s been sent here to cut John’s heart out.” She stopped, as though speaking the words would give them a reality they didn’t otherwise possess. But they are real, dammit. When it came to digging out the nasty, Lucien gave Dieter a run for anyone’s money. “He’s to buy out John’s share of Neoclona. At two cents on the Common dollar.”
Dieter’s brows twitched skyward. “That’s…a kick in the teeth.” He stroked his chin. “But is it a surprise?”
“Maybe not. Cut off the money, and the Thalassan beast will sicken and die.” Jani turned her back to the water and studied the stark white facade of the Main House. “Maybe the surprise is that they waited this long to do it.” She pushed off the railing and started for the dining room. “I’m going to stop off at John’s office before I go to the meeting house.”
“Jani?” Dieter hurried after her, soles crunching on bits of scattered glass. “There are solutions, surely?”
“They should’ve been put in place already. Assets transfers take time. So do setups of dummy corporations.” Jani stepped out onto the walkway that ringed the third floor of the office-laboratory-apartment complex that was the administrative, social, and medical focus of the Thalassan enclave. “That’s why Val didn’t let John know he was coming. Whoever sent him didn’t want to give John the time to adjust.” She looked over the railing and down to the ground level central courtyard, where the kitchen crew were setting up for mid-afternoon sacrament, jamming and angling mess tables as best they could amid the planters and fountains. “First rule of auditing. Never call ahead.”
“I wouldn’t have.” A little of the old Colonel Brondt, Elyas Station Service liaison and spotter of smugglers and other illicit life-forms, flashed in Dieter’s eyes. “Neither would you.”
“Maybe.�
�� Jani caught a whiff of curry from the dining area below. She’d have savored the aroma normally, but nerves had claimed her gut as their own and she felt the acid rise in her throat instead. “Bit different when you’re on the other end, though.” She headed around the walkway to the lift, nodding to the hybrids she passed along the way while at the same time keeping an eye out for any sign of Lucien.
“Doctor Parini can be made to listen?” Dieter followed after her, a misshapen shadow. “He and Doctor Shroud have been friends for so long.”
“Depends who has Val by the short hairs.” Jani thumped the lift call pad with her fist. The cabin opened—she stepped inside, then turned to face her suborn. “He didn’t come here because he wanted to, he came because he was forced, and by someone who knew just how hard to yank. Pretty select list, don’t you think?” She raised a hand in farewell as the lift door closed in Dieter’s worried face.
The basement laboratory-clinic proved the same low-key madhouse as always, technicians and medicos bustling along the maze of corridors like the white-coated ants they were. Jani negotiated the twisty trail to John’s office, then paused and pressed her ear to the door to check if any yelling could be detected through the combination of sound-shielding and the vibration-dampening door panel. She sensed nothing. Took a deep breath and hit the door pad.
John and Val fell silent as she entered, just-spoken words charging the air like static. John sat at his desk, working a small exercise ball with one hand, rolling it over and over again between his long fingers. Val sat on a short couch set against the wall, arms folded and shoulders hunched.
“Jani.” John glanced at Val, then away. “We’ve just been catching up on old—”
“Two percent.” Jani dragged a visitors’ chair to the side of the desk opposite John and sat. “No more practicing medicine. No more research.”
Val’s mouth dropped open. “How…?” Then his face flamed and he covered his eyes with one hand.
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