The Albino Knife

by Steve Perry

  "How are you feeling, brat?"

  Geneva was sealed into a Healy medicator, and her voice when it came through the speaker sounded hollow behind the thick, clear plastic of the lid. "I've felt better. I itch all over."

  Dirisha smiled down at her lover, her teeth white against her dark sin. Geneva was naked, and the thin silk sheet put inside to cover her was bunched up under her feet. Even with the wound sealed under an ugly glob of mediflesh, she was still quite beautiful lying there. Dirisha put one hand onto the plastic, pressing down with her palm; inside the machine, Geneva matched her move so that their hands, the dark and the pale, were separated by no more than a half centimeter of the hard clearness. The danger had passed and Geneva would live. The medics had dug the metal shot from her, stapled and glued her punctured lung and torn blood vessels back together, and stuck her into the Healy. The machine's computer monitored every system and adjusted the flow of medicine and ultrasound and coherent healing light and magnetics as needed. Another week or ten days and the blonde could pick up her life where she'd left off, not much the worse for her experience.

  "I thought you knew how to roll without breaking your damned spetsdod barrel."

  "I'll work on it."

  Dirisha's smile beamed down brightly.

  "Hey, Rissy?Thanks."

  "No problem, brat. I didn't have anything better to do."

  "I love you, too. You find out anything about the reason they hit us?"

  "Not really. By the time the cools got there, a couple of them had come out of the shocktox and taken off. The cools got four of them in custody. They are contract workers, anything for money SOF's, and they got paid through a computer drop. Never saw the man or woman who hired them."

  "Why would mercenaries set up a splash on us?"

  "I dunno.Maybe somebody with an old grudge. They were definitely waiting for us—the aircar engine was rigged to blow from a coded pulse and one of them had the button. They knew which way we were heading and they were loaded for battle."

  "I don't remember pissing anybody off that bad," Geneva said.

  "Some people take things real personal."

  Dirisha tried another smile to hide what she wasn't ready to say, but the woman inside the Healy had been with her too long to miss the undercurrent.

  "What is it? There's something else, isn't there?"

  Dirisha shifted her stance a little. Might as well tell her; she wouldn't rest until she knew."Yeah. I got a call from Bork. He sends his best, by the way."

  Geneva nodded, but didn't speak, waiting for Dirisha to finish.

  "Bork got jumped around the same time we did."

  "Is he okay?"

  "Yeah, you know Bork. Drop him off a tall building and he'd just tighten up and bounce a few times.

  Four men, also meat for hire. Two of them survived."

  "Odd coincidence," Geneva said.

  "Yeah.And that isn't all of it. There was an explosion on Earth, in the Siblings compound. Nobody really hurt there. And Sleel has dropped from sight. I couldn't raise him."

  Geneva considered it. "Not good. We got some kind of conspiracy here?"

  "Looks like it. I've got some feelers out, but so far nothing is twitching."

  "What are we going to do?"

  "Wearen't going to do anything. You are staying put until you get well. I'm going to poke around a little and see what I can find."

  Geneva knew her well enough to know there was no point in trying to talk her out of it. So she said,

  "You be careful."

  "I will. You remember Grandle Diggs?"

  Geneva looked puzzled for a second."Starboard?"

  "The same.He happened to be in the neighborhood so he dropped by. He's gonna set up camp in here for a few days until I get back."

  "You think I need a bodyguard?"

  "Probably not, but what the hell, I'd feel better." With that, Dirisha reached down and activated the food tray slot. The small drawer extruded itself from the Healy, and the matadora removed a flat package from her jacket and dropped it into the drawer. As the drawer cycled shut, Dirisha said, "You know where the override in that thing is?"

  "Of course," Geneva said. She gave her lover a disgusted look. Nobody with her training would get into a box like this without knowing how to get out of it in a hurry.

  "Sorry. There's a pair of spetsdods and ammo in that pack. And a personal communicator you can bounce off the comsats to get to me anywhere onplanet, if you need me. If somebody gets past Starboard, you can pop the lid and throw something at them other than your good looks."

  Geneva smiled and peeledopen the package. She removed the two back-of-the-hand weapons and, moving with some care, managed to seat them in place. Another two seconds and both spetsdods were loaded. "Ah. Now I'm dressed again."

  "I ever tell you how beautiful you are?"

  "Not nearly often enough.I could move over and maybe make enough room to squeeze you in here."

  Dirisha laughed. "You heal up, brat. I've got some errands to run. I'll check back with you later."

  "You be very careful, Dirisha."

  "Always."

  The General Power Complex onBantuIsland was not a pleasure club. The men, women and mues sentenced there were not in the same class of hardcore criminals shipped to the Omega Cage for life, but neither could the GPC prisoners be called upright cits. Many of them were violent, most of them were going to spend an average of fifteen years in custody, and all of them would have rather been elsewhere.

  When Sleel was mustered into the system, he was unhappier than most of the population on the island.

  He was set up, by whom and why he didn't know, but he was damnsure gonna find out and when he did, there were folks gonna be sorry they were ever born.

  Sleel was stubborn, but he wasn't a fool. Until he could find a chance to escape, there was no point in making too much trouble forhimself . So he went with the guards quietly once the transport touched down. That all five of them held leveled hand wands helped his decision.

  He was processed, shaved bald and put through chem-sprays and scans, then given a floppy gray coverall, slippers, underwear and a packet of personal hygiene gear. A pair of guards took him to a single-occupant cube that was three meters square. A thin bedpad was drawered into the wall and a toilet and shower occupied one corner. There was a small cabinet to stow the packet they'd given him, and any personal belongings he might have or acquire.

  He pulled the bed out and examined it, pushed it back, and looked around.

  Welcome home, Sleel.

  "Come with me," said a voice from behind him.

  Sleel turned to see a man dressed in a coverall like his own.

  "I'm Brunder," the man said. He was average height, fair-skinned, and had been here long enough for his hair to have grown out to shoulder length.

  "I'm Sleel. Where are we going?"

  "To the converter room.You'll be loading carts for your first rotation."

  "Nice of you to give me time to settle in."

  " 'Idlehands are the devil's workshop,' " Brunder said.

  Sleel followed the other prisoner down a series of interlocked corridors. If there were guards around, he didn't see them.

  The converter room was a high-ceilinged rectangle maybe twenty meters by fifty meters, and a bank of humming rectification units lined one of the long walls. Maybe twenty prisoners, mostly men, worked in the room, moving around the machines, pushing carts full of electronic parts and coils of wire. As Sleel followed Brunder into the big room, he saw a bank of flashers along the doorway, indicating that the door was wired into some kind of scanner. Sleel figured that anybody who tried to take home a souvenir from work, a tool, some cable, whatever, would probably get nailed by the HO scan and no doubt be made to suffer for the effort.

  Sleel turned to Brunder. "Who is the hardest man in the place?"

  "You donetime before?"

  "Not your business.The guy who runs things?"

  Brunder nodded."Truck.
Big man with the spacer's buzz, sitting at the desk next to the dollycrane."

  Brunder did not point and he kept his voice low.

  "This place covered by video?"

  "Sure."

  "How long for a guard to get here?"

  "Thirty-one seconds is the record. Forty-five is average."

  "Okay."

  Sleel walked over to where the man called Truck sat. He was big, not as big as Bork, maybe, but not much smaller, and he had a face that had taken a few shots. The nose was slightly bent, the eye sockets padded with some scar tissue, one ear thicker than the other. Sleel would have been a lot more impressed if the guy had been beautiful. A hard with a pretty face meant he didn't let it get hit and that was worse than somebody who looked like this guy. Still, you never knew what an opponent could do; looks could fool you sometimes. There seemed to be a fair amount of muscle under the tight coverall.

  Truck looked up."Yeah?"

  "I'm Sleel. I mind my own business and I don't take any shit."

  Truck grinned."Yeah?"

  "You heard it."

  Truck stood, and Sleel saw his intent as he did. Might as well have a big flashing sign over his head, the way his muscles tightened, the way his hands curled into fists and his breathing altered.Stupid.

  Truck was still gathering himself when Sleel kicked him. The matador's foot snapped out precisely, smacked into Truck's testicles and flattened them briefly against the man's pubic bone.

  Truck sucked in a quick breath, which was good, because it was the last one he was going to get for a few seconds. Sleel stepped in even as Truck reached for his injured scrotum and put everything he had into a flat punch into the man's solar plexus. The punch stole the man's ability to breathe and drove him back half a meter.

  With Truck now having two things to worry about, Sleel gave Truck a third. He spun, his arms drawn in tight, and when he opened out, his right fist formed a hammer that connected with Truck's forehead.

  Truck fell backward like a chainsawed tree and hit the floor.

  The room got very quiet.

  Sleel took a deep breath, let it out, and moved to sit in the unconscious man's chair. With any luck at all, he'd have almost another forty seconds before the guards came to get him. He smiled at the other prisoners and waved one hand jauntily at them. Good to get that out of the way.

  Now he could concentrate on finding a way out of this pit.

  Chapter Three

  BORK WAS NOT stupid. People sometimes had the idea that all big men with muscles had less on the ball mentally, and Bork had long ago realized that he could turn this into an advantage. A man who was busy patronizing you would often let something slip that he might not if he thought you could keep up with him. That was good, and Bork knew how to exaggerate his normally easygoing attitude to the point where he might seem less than bright. He was doing it now.

  He stood at the front of a long line waiting to do business with the woman behind the counter of the computer message service. As backrocket as Fox was, most people didn't carry personal comps capable of linking into the larger com and info nets. Therefore, such places as this did a fair amount of work requiring personal contact.

  It was nearly lunch time, and Bork was being deliberate in his speech and action.Very deliberate. The place had that stale office smell that came from recirculated air, along with a slightly acrid tang due to overused computer solidstates. The line of operators was busy, and looking forward to a break soon; that was fairly apparent. Nobody really wanted to be here, not those in line, not those servicing them.

  The woman behind the counter was already overworked and Bork was politely making things harder for her.

  The four men who had attacked him had gotten their contract via this compservice; at least, that's what the two who'd survived had said. He hadn't hurt them, only lifted one of them up by his shirt front and held him dangling in a one-armed curl that frightened the other one so bad he was willing to talk. Nothing personal, the man allowed, and Bork had nodded and said fine; killing them wouldn't be personal either.

  The guy had gotten positively loquacious at that point. They were supposed to send a message when Bork was dead, and pick up a response thereafter. So Bork had the talker send the message; that could be done over any comcircuit, but the response had to be obtained in person, and the cools had arrived too soon for that to happen.

  Talk to the cools about this, Bork had said, and I will be displeased with you. Neither of the survivors wanted that.

  "What did you say the name was?" the woman behind the counter asked Bork. She was not far from the edge of her patience.

  "Timmer su Lock," Bork said, allowing a big grin to spread over his face. That was the name of the man who'd been so eager to tell him anything he wanted to know.

  The woman spoke to her computer, giving it the name. "You have identification?"

  Bork nodded slowly. "Yes, I have identification."

  "May Isee it, please?"

  He gave it another two seconds. "Huh? Oh, yeah. Sure." He reached into his jacket pocket and produced Timmer su Lock's credit and ID cube. This was a standard thumbtip-sized chunk of hard black memory plastic with information embedded in it. The would-be assassin hadn't been so unprofessional as to have it on him when he and his friends had tried to splash Bork, but he'd been almost eager to tell him where it was.

  Bork watched as the woman inserted the cube into her computer's scanner slot. The UV lasers played their invisible questions upon it.

  After a second, the air over the comp lit with the holoproj of the cube's contents. Bork could see the back of the image; the words and everything were reversed, but he could easily see that the cube had been damaged: where the picture and eye and brain stats were supposed to be was badly fuzzed, so much so that the computer couldn't rectify it. Changing an ID cube was a tricky business, only an expert could do it and have it pass undetected, but wiping a portion of one was relatively easy. A few minutes with a magnetic inducer and a simplewit computer and anybody with even a little programming skill could do it. Few did, because a damaged cube wouldn't get you very far. In this case, however, it only had to pass this one harried and busy woman. Bork had done the work himself.

  "This cube is damaged," the woman said. The anger peeped through her forced politeness.

  "Really?Gah, it was fine when I used it yesterday. Musta been hit when I fell off the hovertruck this morning."

  The woman looked up at Bork, then back at the bad readout. "I can't give out messages to somebody with a damaged cube."

  Bork counted to three mentally. "Uh, right, I can understand that. What do I do?"

  She shook her head. He could almost read her mind: I don't have time for this shit. "You have to go to the nearest Republic ID Center and get it replaced."

  One, two, three, and, "Will that, uh, take long? I really need this message. I mean, I'm me, you know?"

  He nodded at the partially fuzzed holoproj.

  There was no guarantee it would work, but the psychology of it was sound enough. Surely this giant dooze was who he claimed to be? He didn't look or act as if he had enough brains to tab his tunic by himself, and he was holding up the line. More, he had the look of somebody who would stand happily there and hold the goddamned line up all day!

  The woman made her decision. She rattled off a message number, said, "Hardcopy," and pointed at the line of printers next to the far wall. "Over there," she said, pulling the ID cube from her machine and all but throwing it at Bork. "And get this cube replaced before you come in here again!"

  Bork smiled and nodded. "Yes, fem," he said."Sure thing. Thank you very much."

  Bork moved toward the printers.

  The Siblings' compound had changed little that Khadaji could tell from from the air. They had sent their own lighter to transport him and Veate from the starship; that was new. As the transport, empty save for the two of them and the crew, fell from space towardManusIsland , the air was clear enough of the usual tropical cloud
s so that he could see the place fairly well. From high orbit, it looked like a hooknosed fish with tiny turds dribbling from its tail. As they got closer, the details of the buildings and fenced compound came into view. They had built their own landing pad inside the fence. Three robed figures stood next to it, watching the lighter come down.

  When the door slid open, Khadaji and Veate walked down the ramp to where the three siblings stood waiting. It was summer here, hot and humid, and the smells of flowers and molds and organic decay filled the air. No two planets ever seemed to smell exactly the same, Khadaji thought; even if the climates and gravity were virtually identical, each world had its own distinctive scent. The cloudless sky allowed the sun to lay its hot fingers on the open landing pad, and more heat reflected up from the stressed concrete.

  It was like opening an oven door. Despite the shrouds, which covered everything but the wearers' hands and a strip that exposed the eyes, he knew which one was Pen before they reached the trio. Pen had taught him the Ninety-seven Steps, had been his friend as well as teacher, and had put him on the road to his destiny with the Confed. And like as not, the siblings were cooler under their clothing than he was under his. He had worn the shroud for a time, a special dispensation, even though he had not technically earned the right to do so. The cloth was almost alive. It had been a long time ago.

  Khadaji chuckled as he thought about it. He had thought he was in control, dealing in complicated and twisted criminal and political tactics, running the show, when in fact he had been more like a fly in Pen's web. Circuits within circuits and he still wasn't sure exactly who had been responsible for what.

  "Welcome, Emile," Pen said. He waved at the other two siblings. "This is Moon, and Spiral."

  Khadaji nodded. "This is Veate.My daughter."Still had a strange ring to it, to say that.

  "We've met," Pen said. "Welcome, Veate."