“Anything to report?” he asked casually, but his hands moved surreptitiously in the mercenary’s hand signals he and Topaz had carefully taught their men. His voice was routine, but his hands said, We’re being watched. One man. Four o’clock. Find him.
“Haven’t seen anything, Sergeant,” said the most senior of the Watchmen, nodding slightly.
“Okay,” said Gunn. “Keep looking.”
The Watchmen faded back into the fog, and were gone. Topaz looked at Gunn.
“Do you think they’ll find him?”
“I doubt it,” Gunn admitted. “Whoever’s out there has to be bloody good to have got this close without either of us catching on earlier. But who the hell would be that interested in us?”
“Empire agents?”
Gunn shook his head slowly. “There’ll always be some Empire spies in Mistport, but we were never important enough to justify any of them coming after us here.”
Topaz looked at Gunn thoughtfully. “So why is there somebody out there watching us?”
“Hounds! Ware the hounds!”
Topaz and Gunn drew their disrupters at the Watchman’s shout and moved quickly to stand back to back. Watchmen boiled out of their hiding places and peered quickly about them, swords and pikes at the ready. Somewhere out in the fog a man screamed shrilly, and the sound was cut suddenly short. And out of the curling mists the Hob hounds came howling.
Their white fur blended into the fog, so that it was hard to tell where the one ended and the other began. Only their bright emerald eyes showed clearly against the mists, together with the steaming scarlet maws that gaped wide to show long, vicious teeth. The hounds moved through the fog like wild, demonic ghosts, and their cry was full of an endless hunger and an endless hate. They leapt among the Watchmen, rending and tearing, and blood flew on the freezing air. Men and hounds rolled together on the hard-packed snow, sword and fang searching for a dropped guard or a bared throat. One Watchman thrust his pike deep into a hound’s side, spiking it to a sturdy wooden door. The hound screamed and struggled, refusing to die until the Watchman cut its throat with his dagger. Two hounds pulled down a Watchman and tore him to pieces almost before he had time to scream. Gunn took careful aim with his disrupter, and the searing energy beam shot out to burn clean through a lunging hound. It fell silently to the snow and lay still, its fur burning fiercely. Gunn slipped the disrupter back into its holster and drew his sword. The gun was useless until its energy crystal had recharged, and that would take at least two minutes. A lot could happen in two minutes. Gunn hefted his sword eagerly, and headed for the nearest hound.
The snow and slush were stained with crimson and littered with the dead and the dying, and still the Hob hounds leapt and tore among the milling Watchmen. Steel flashed in the lantern light, and the air reverberated to the savage howling of the hounds. Gunn and Topaz moved with deadly skill through the thick of the fray, guarding each other’s back. Topaz shot a hound as it leapt for her throat, and then threw herself to one side as the burning body crashed past her to slam against the boundary wall. Another hound came flying out of the mists towards her, and Topaz knew there was no time to draw her sword. She opened her mouth and sang a single, piercing note. The tightly focused beam of esper-backed sound smashed the hound into the snow. It quivered once and then lay still, blood seeping from its ears and muzzle.
Topaz holstered her gun and drew her sword. She looked quickly about her, and her heart missed a beat as she realised Michael Gunn had become separated from her in the fighting. She relaxed a little as she saw her navy blue cloak moving among the purple-cloaked Watchmen, and forced herself to concentrate on the matter at hand. Gunn had been a mercenary for over ten years; he could look after himself. Her sword sheared clean through a hound’s rib cage, the keen-edged New Damascus steel barely jarring on the splintering bones. The hound collapsed and scrabbled helplessly on the bloody snow. Topaz killed it quickly, and then a heavy weight slammed into her from behind, and she and the attacking hound fell together in a clawing, struggling heap. Topaz swore viciously as a flailing paw raked across her thigh. She pushed the pain to the back of her mind, and thrust her sword deep into the hound’s guts even as its jaws reached for her face. The hound howled with rage and pain, and then fell limply across her, soaking her furs with its steaming blood.
Topaz pulled herself out from under the dead weight, and staggered to her feet. Her wounded leg ached fiercely. She looked down and saw her left thigh was slick with blood, only some of it the hound’s. She shrugged, and looked away. The muscle was still intact, and the leg still held her weight. That was all that mattered. She looked down at the dead hound, and shivered in spite of herself. Nine foot long, if it was an inch. The eyes were already glazing over, but its paws still twitched, as though searching for the enemy that had killed it.
Topaz hefted her sword and looked about her, but the fight was over. The Watchmen were finishing off the last few wounded hounds with their pikes, and the air no longer reverberated with the howling of the hounds. The only sounds now were the ragged breathing and occasional moans of pain from the surviving Watchmen. Topaz did a quick head count, and found that although they’d been facing a full dozen Hob hounds, she’d lost only nine Watchmen from her company of twenty-five. Topaz grinned harshly. The Hob hounds were certainly impressive, but muscles and claws and fangs were no match for handguns and cold steel. She looked round for Michael Gunn, to share her triumph with him, but he was nowhere to be seen. A sudden chill wrapped itself around Topaz’s heart.
“Michael? Michael?”
There was no reply. Topaz gestured quickly to the Watchmen, and they spread out through the surrounding back streets and alleyways, calling their Sergeant’s name. It didn’t take long to find him. Topaz saw the answer in the Watchman’s face as he came to tell her. She followed him into a narrow alleyway, and stared silently at the unmoving body of her husband. Michael Gunn lay face down in the blood-soaked snow, his sword still in his hand. A dead hound lay only a few feet away. Topaz knelt beside her husband, her face as cold and composed as ever. She reached out a hand to take his shoulder and turn him over, and then stopped when she saw the ragged hole burned through the navy blue cloak. A cold and deadly rage surged through her as she realised the Hob hound hadn’t killed her husband. Michael Gunn had been shot in the back with an energy gun.
There’s someone out in the mists, watching us.…
Topaz placed her hand gently on Michael Gunn’s shoulder, and squeezed it once. “Rest easy, my husband. I swear upon my heart and upon my honour that I will avenge you. I promise you blood and terror, Michael; blood and terror to our enemies.”
She paused a moment, almost expecting him to repeat the mercenary’s curse after her, but the only sound in the alleyway was the distant moaning of the wind. Topaz patted Gunn’s shoulder once more, as though to apologise for leaving him, and then she rose slowly to her feet and walked out of the alley to rejoin the silently waiting Watchmen.
“The Sergeant is dead,” she said quietly. “Carry him back to his home. I will notify the Council that the Hob hounds have been dealt with.”
Her voice was calm and perfectly composed, and if she cried any tears, they stayed locked inside her. Topaz was an Investigator.
CHAPTER FIVE
* * *
Balefire
STEEL sighed, and put down his cup. They’d forgotten the sugar again. Eleven years he’d been Director of Mistworld’s only starport, and they still couldn’t remember to put sugar in his coffee. It wasn’t even real coffee. He leant back in his specially reinforced chair, and stared sourly about him. Computer banks and monitor screens lay spread out to every side of him, piled one on top the other as often as not. Less than half of them still worked at any given time. The heavy wooden desk before him was overflowing with reports and schedules and inventories, but for the moment he couldn’t work up the energy to deal with them. Steel felt tired and sluggish and irritable, and the Balefire worried at hi
s nerves like a nagging toothache.
All around his soundproofed glass cubicle the starport control tower worked on with its usual air of grim urgency. There was always more to be done than there was time to do it in, and everybody knew it. The technology broke down faster than it could be repaired, work piled up as deadlines were constantly shortened, and every year the damned winter blizzards arrived out of nowhere and buried the landing pads under seven feet of snow. The command centre carried on as best it could, and prayed for better days.
Gideon Steel sat slumped in his chair and gnawed thoughtfully at the last piece of sweetbread. He reached for the console keyboard built into his desk, and tapped in a code. The command monitor screen lit up, and after a moment the swirling colours slowly formed into a clear image. Looming out of the curling mists like a great steel mountain, the Balefire lay brooding on the main landing pad; the last ship out of Tannim before the Imperial Fleet scorched the planet lifeless. Steel’s chair creaked in complaint as his two hundred pounds stirred uneasily. As Port Director, Steel was personally responsible for every ship that landed at the port, and the Balefire was a mystery. Steel disliked mysteries. He scowled at the screen, and scratched absently at his bald patch, as if to stir his thoughts into action. As the only surviving planet to break free of Empire rule, Mistworld was the end of the line for those the Empire Outlawed; you either made your way to Mistport or your scalp hung from a bounty hunter’s belt. Normally, when the Iron Empress Outlawed a whole planet there were thousands of refugees caught offworld. Strange that no other ships had come calling.…
The screen flickered, and the picture broke up into a mass of swirling colours. Steel cursed wearily, and heaved himself up out of his chair. He moved quickly over to the command monitor, and slammed a meaty fist down onto the top of the set. The screen flickered again, and then cleared reluctantly to show the Balefire. Steel shook his head slowly, and returned to his chair. The sooner the first assignment of spare parts arrived from the Darkwind, the better. The command centre’s systems were becoming increasingly jury-rigged and improvised, and therefore, not surprisingly, increasingly unreliable. The whole damn place was falling to pieces around him, and there was nothing he could do about it. Steel picked up the latest smuggler manifests from his desk and leafed disgustedly through the flimsy papers. Typical. He needed memory crystals and solar energy converters, and what had the smugglers brought him? Lightspheres, heating units, and flush toilets. Steel threw the manifests down, and squeezed his eyes shut a moment. He had no right to complain. The smugglers risked their lives every time they braved the Empire blockade; it was only to be expected they’d concentrate on goods they knew they could get a good price for. And anyway, as the smugglers so often pointed out, beggars can’t be choosers.
Steel opened his eyes and looked out of his glass cubicle at the surrounding command centre. Technicians and espers moved purposefully back and forth from level to level, tending the machinery and keeping alive the complex beast that the starport had become. Thick swirling fog pressed close against the vast steelglass windows of the control tower, isolating it from the rest of the landing field. Only the espers and the monitor screens kept Mistport functioning, and there were never enough of either. To Steel’s left lay the navigation systems, and to his right, the communications net. Directly before him, where the main computer banks had once been, there were now a row of camp beds. Lying on those beds were fifty men and women with blank faces and empty eyes. Each one of them had an intravenous drip strapped to his arm, feeding them nutrients. Steel flinched at the sight of them, but didn’t look away. They were his responsibility, like every other part of Mistport. In a sense, they were his children; a fact that never ceased to torment him. When the computers had first started to break down, he had sought out and gathered together the only kind of people who could replace a computer: lightning calculators and idiot savants, all of them with just enough esp to link up with a telepath. Take enough of these people and put them together with a handful of espers, and you ended up with a rough equivalent of a computer. A thinking machine. It was a poor substitute at best, and every now and again one of the units would have to be replaced. The weaker minds tended to burn out.
“Director.”
Steel looked back at his command monitor. The Balefire’s image had disappeared from the screen, and in its place was the worried face of the duty esper. He was barely into his twenties, but already his face showed deep-etched lines of care and worry. We’re starting them too young, thought Steel. And asking too much of them. How long before we’re reduced to breaking in children, as long as they’ve got the esp we need? He sighed, and shook his head wearily.
“Yes, lad. What is it?”
“The Captain of the Balefire has given us access to his flight computers, Director. Apparently, just before his ship dropped into hyperspace, his onboard cameras were able to catch the last few moments of Tannim’s Outlawing. I thought you might want to see the recording.”
“Of course. Run it.”
Steel keyed his command monitor into the main system, and watched impassively as the screen showed him the death of a planet.
Hundreds of Empire ships surrounded Tannim, pouring down destruction. Refugee ships trying to flee the planet were blown out of space almost before they left the atmosphere. The searing disrupter beams showed stark and bright against the dark of space, and the planet writhed beneath them like an insect transfixed on a pin. The oceans boiled, and volcanoes and earthquakes ripped apart the land. The ice poles melted, and the air was churned into an endless maelstrom of storms and hurricanes. And still the Imperial Fleet grew larger as more and more ships dropped out of hyperspace and into orbit, and still the disrupter beams stabbed down, scorching the planet lifeless.
How many millions dead, how many millions…
The monitor screen went blank, and Steel sat for a long while in silence, staring at nothing. It was one thing to know that a planet’s entire population had been destroyed; it was quite another to watch it happening. And yet he couldn’t let it affect his judgement. He daren’t. He had to be true to his duty; the protection of Mistport. He reached out and slowly tapped a code into his console. The command monitor lit up again.
“Duty esper.”
“Yes, Director?”
“Have you any more information on those strange readings your people picked up from the Balefire?”
“Nothing definite, sir. Our sensors detected a concentration of energy levels which suggests that most of the ship’s passengers are being carried in cryogenic units, but even so, our espers are still picking up some very unusual life signs. There’s something strange aboard the Balefire, Director. Something cold and powerful and… alien.”
“Alien? You mean an alien life form?”
“I don’t know, Director. None of us have ever come across anything like this before. Whatever it is the Balefire’s carrying, it’s well shielded. It could be anywhere aboard the ship.”
“Do you think this creature’s dangerous?”
“I couldn’t say, Director. But it is disturbing.”
Steel pursed his lips thoughtfully and tapped them with an index finger. “Get me the Balefire’s Captain.”
“Yes, Director.”
There was a pause as the screen went blank, and then a slow, grim voice issued from the monitor’s speakers.
“This is Captain Starlight, of the Balefire.”
“Welcome to Mistport, Captain,” said Steel.
“Never mind the damned amenities; my hull’s breached in a dozen places, my ship’s systems are falling apart, and my cargo hold’s full of refugees. How long before I can unload and get a repair crew in here?”
“I’m sorry, Captain. Until the Balefire’s been fully inspected and cleared, no one will be allowed to leave your ship for any reason. My security people are armed and have been given orders to shoot on sight.”
“What?”
“Mistport’s already suffered one Empire plague ship
, Captain. We don’t take chances anymore.” There was a long silence.
“How are your crew, Captain?” asked Steel politely. “What condition are they in?”
“Pretty bad. Most of them are dead, back on Tannim. I had to raise ship while I had the chance; I couldn’t wait for them.… The few I have with me are exhausted. They’ve each had to do a dozen men’s work. They need medical attention, Director. I take it you will at least allow a doctor to come on board?”
“I’m sorry,” said Steel.
“You can’t be serious, damn you! My crew needs a doctor. They could die!”
“Then they die.”
The words seemed to echo endlessly on the silence.
“If just one of my men dies needlessly… “
“Save your threats, Captain. I’ve heard them all before.”
“Aye. I’m sure you have.”
“My espers did a thorough scan on your ship, Captain. They picked up some… interesting readings.”
“Is that it? Is that the reason you’re keeping us cooped up in this death ship? Just because a few bloody freaks have a bad feeling about us? I’ll have your head for this!”
“I doubt it,” said Steel calmly. “But I may have to take yours. We’ll talk again later, Captain.”
He broke the connection without waiting for an answer. Everyone on Mistworld understood the concept of the Trojan horse. For those with short memories, Mistport’s cemeteries were full of reminders. There was a sudden blast of noise behind him, and Steel winced as he turned quickly round to find Jamie Royal leaning nonchalantly against the open cubicle door. The young esper grinned at Steel, and trimmed an immaculate fingernail with a wicked-looking dirk.
“Gideon, how are you doing?”
“Close the door!” Steel roared. “Can’t hear myself think with all that noise!”
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