by Steve Perry
"Veee-et-tay?"
"Yes."
"Kaahhh-dah-jjee?"
Khadaji grinned at the gravellike tones of the thing's voice chip. "Yes."
As the door slid open, Veate said, "The security system functions just fine, but the vocals have always been like that, slow and stupid-sounding. It amused my mother so she never got it fixed."
"She would find that funny."
The young woman glanced at him sharply. "How would you know? You haven't seen her in more than twenty years."
"I can see her now," he said. "In my mind, and in your face. I lived with her; I loved her."
"You left her!"
"I really had little choice."
"Right.You had to save the galaxy, to become a hero, to be the Man Who Never Missed!"
He looked around the room, feeling the emptiness and at the same time feeling Juete's presence. This is where she lives, he thought. He turned back toward his daughter. "Does your mother hate me that much?"
She had promised herself she wasn't going to do this, Veate thought, that she wasn't going to lose control. Fuck it. "Yes!"
She was breathing quickly and her face was flushed, as flushed as it could get. Now he could feel the pheromonic pull she put forth for the first time. Had she been able to keep it from happening before? Or was it that strong emotion intensified it so? It had been that way with Juete. He said nothing. Years of meditation had given him the ability to resist a lot of things.
Her breathing slowed, her color faded back to its fragile, translucent white, and the hormonal attraction ebbed. When she had regained control, she said, "That's not true. She doesn't hate you. She never has.
She said you asked her to go with you, all those years ago.After a fashion."
He sighed."After a fashion, yes. I was young and stupid and I tried to protect my ego and I insulted her.
But she knew I wanted her, knew I loved her."
"How could you go, then?"
He drew himself back from the past, refocused his time-stare, and looked at the woman who was the image of her mother and the child of them both. He said, "Have you had many lovers?"
"What is 'many'?Ten?Thirty?Fifty? And is it your business if I have had a hundred?"
"Do you keep several going so that if one bores you another is waiting patiently in line to step into place?"
"Yes, of course."
He smiled. "Those last two words are more easily spoken by an Albino Exotic than anyone else, aren't they? It's taken for granted that you will have people fighting for your favor. It's who you are, isn't it?"
"You lived with my mother. You know that it is. We were genetically engineered to be sexual toys for the rich. We can't help what we are!"
"Certainly you can. There are albinos who take chem to suppress their pheromone output, use skin dyes and lenses, dress to conceal rather than reveal."
"Passing for tintskins, you mean.Denying their true nature."
"That's what I mean. You can change what you are. You don'twant to change it. Neither did your mother."
"What are you trying to say?"
"Albinos take others' desires for them for granted. It is a given, like the sun coming up in the morning, a constant."
"Yes," she said. "It is. One of our few advantages and something we would be foolish to ignore.So what?"
"Your mother would not give that up for me," he said. "She knew what she was and she enjoyed it. I could only be a small part of her life, only another in the long parade of lovers who was interesting briefly, but not worth concentrating all of her love and energy upon."
"So?"
"So how can you be angry at me for doing the same thing that she did? I loved her more than she did me, but you would have had me give upmy life to worship her. Where is the fairness in that?"
"She birthed your child," she said. "If she hadn't felt something for you, why would she have done that?"
"I don't know. If she had felt something for me, why is it I never knew you existed until you walked into my pub a few days ago? If your mother had not been kidnapped, would I have ever known I had a daughter?"
Veate closed her eyes. "I don't know," she said.
Khadaji moved to a table and picked up a hand mirror lying there. The mirror was an antique, set into a frame of some hard, dark material carved into an intricate likeness of a serpent coiled around the small circle of glass. The frame substance escaped him, some kind of plastic, and for a moment, it seemed familiar. Where had he seen it before?
"It isn't your mother who is angry with me, is it?"
She opened her eyes and stared at him. "I wanted and needed a father and you weren't there. You know how it is with my kind. The galaxy is full of dangers for us."
"And it's my fault that I didn't know you even existed?"
"Yes. It's your fault. You sent her money, but you never came back. Your revolution ended five years ago. You could have found her then. Why didn't you?"
It was a question he had asked himself more than a few times. He'd told himself during the revolution that it would have been dangerous for Juete to be connected to him. But after it was over, the danger was much less. He had gone to hide, but he could have called or even looked her up. Why hadn't he? He didn't have an answer. "I don't know."
He started to put the mirror back onto the table.
"Wait," she said, and he could feel a change in her, a sudden tension and alertness different than before.
"I don't recognize that. Let me see it."
He tendered the mirror. "A gift froman recent admirer, perhaps. I would think that Juete would still have many."
"She does," Veate said. Her comment was matter-of-fact, and he heard the cruelty in it.
She looked at the frame, scratched at it with one short fingernail,then held it closer to the lamp on the table.
"What are you—?" He stopped, as he finally recognized the material. "Put it down," he said.
She put the mirror onto the table and the two of them moved quickly toward the door. Khadaji didn't relax until they were fifty meters away from Juete's room, and even then he was shaken. She had seen it first, he would have missed it altogether if she hadn't noticed, and such mistakes on his part could be fatal. He'd been away from it too long; he felt old, slow,stupid , he'd lost the sharpness he'd had when he'd been living on the edge. It scared him.
The mirror's frame had been made of the same substance as the oxidation bomb that had exploded in the Siblings' compound on Earth.A perfect match. Damn!
As they were heading toward the hallway's exit, half a dozen figures suddenly appeared from around a turning. Three of them wore full softsuits, gloves and helmets, and while the rest were unarmored, all six were carrying handguns. Khadaji knew in an instant they weren't friendly. There was no place to hide, no cover, and they were too close to run. The only advantage he and Veate had was that the six had apparently expected to trap them in Juete's cube, and their weapons were still holstered.
How could six armed men or women elude the hotel's security system, the cameras,the sensors?
"Behind me!" he ordered.
The first of the six saw them and reached for his weapon.
The supervisor of the bank was most helpful, primed as she was by the request from the Republic's President. Once Dirisha had presented her ID and had it verified, full access to the bank's computers was available.
Dirisha had what she wanted in a matter of seconds. The laser printer chirred quietly and spat out a flimsy.
Outside, Bork, Geneva and Sleel waited, standing next to the hopper they'd rented. The vehicle had hard plastic tires, three on each side, for riding around on the road system, but could make flights over rough ground or water, if you didn't mind paying for twice as much fuel. It was midmorning and the local sun was keeping the air temp around half that of body heat, so it was crisp out. A faint tang of fossil fuel hung in the air, something more common to frontier worlds than to the older, civilized planets.
Dirisha wave
d the flimsy at Bork. "Know where this is?"
He took the thin plastic sheet and looked at it."Yeah.In Oldport, across the strait on theBigIsland .Looks like the address is down in the Dogtown Docks."
"Sounds like a great place to have a good time," Sleel said.
"I never heard of the Perimeter Corporation," Bork said.
"Probably a dummy," Geneva said. "But these are the people who were going to pay to have you killed."
They looked at Dirisha.
"So get in the hopper," she said. "Let's go visit our friends in Oldport."
"Dogtown," Sleel said, shaking his head. "Great."
The docks in Oldport were constructed in the days when waterships were cheaper than hoppers or orbital boxcars.
There was still a fair amount of hovercraft ferry traffic back and forth among the five main islands to keep a few of the docks active, but many of the seafront properties had either been converted into storage or shops, or boarded up and left vacant.
Back when she'd walked the Flex, Dirisha had been beaten pretty badly on a dock on one of theHothouseIslands on Aqua, and the sight of such places brought up unpleasant memories. As the four of them left the parked hopper in front of the address printed upon the flimsy, the air held that same salt-and-wood-preservative stink that she remembered as shelay curled into a broken-legged ball on that long-ago and faraway dock. The guy who'd damaged her had been worse off, but it hadn't been much consolation at the time.
The building was old, mounted on thick pilings that went down into the bay. The everlast coating had bleached to a pale green mostly, and was torn through in spots, revealing the dead-gray wood under it.
The windows were cheap nonshatter plastic, scratched and eroded by salt spray, and caked with city effluvia. The whole place had a grimy look to it. Water sloshed below and sea birdscrowed and sailed back and forth in the cool air. There were no vehicles parked anywhere close, save their own, and the building appeared quiet. No people around.
"Looks like a major corporate operation to me," Sleel said.
"Let's go," Dirisha said. "And don't let the look fool you. We don't know what's on the other side of the door."
"Yeah, it's probably a pleasure palace."
"You are so predictable, Sleel," Geneva said.
The four of them moved toward the structure's entrance. Sleel was likely right; the place was empty and another dead end. Still, they had to check it out.
Halfway across the street, Dirisha stopped.
"Hold up," she said.
The others looked at her. "I think maybe we need to get back to basics. We're taking a lot for granted here."
"You want me to check for another way in?" Bork asked.
"Yeah.I think we should all do that. But nobody goes inside yet."
"You know something we don't?" Sleel said.
"Probably not, but maybe we are being a little slow. Somebody did try to splash us all. What say we remember they are still running around somewhere? Let's pretend they are in there and know we're coming."
Five minutes later, the four were back on the street in front of the building. "What do we have?" Dirisha said.
Sleel said, "Two doors on the back, one a sliding cargo door big enough for a good-sized hovertruck."
Bork said, "Five doors on the sides, two on the left,three on the right."
Geneva said, "Two portals on the roof, but there are also half a dozen skylights I could pop off and wiggle through."
Dirisha thought about it for a second."All right. Everybody waits here. I'm going up on the roof and in through one of the skylights."
"Why you?" Geneva asked.
"Because I'm harder to see in the dark.I might swagger but I don't glow like a halogen tube." She smiled and fluffed Geneva's short, almost-white blond hair.
"It was a joke, Rissy. And you're never going to let me forget it, are you?"
"I got a better idea," Sleel said. "Let me go. I mean, if there's company inside, I should get first shot at them, right? They only tried to kill you; they put me in prisonand tried to kill me."
Dirisha laughed. "Can Sleel get through the skylight?"
"If he doesn't breathe too deeply, yeah.I dunno if his ego will fit."
"Funny woman."
"Okay, Sleel. Go."
Five minutes later the front door opened, and Sleel stood there holding something that looked like a crooked red boot in one hand.
"Looky here," he said. "Nobody home, but they left us a gift."
"Chang, Sleel, that looks like—" Bork began.
"It is," Sleel cut him off. "A tightbore guillotine bomb. There's one mounted over each door, including the two on the roof. Anybody coming to visit would be tokamaked, if they weren't clever enough to use the skylights."
Dirisha took the bomb from Sleel and examined it. "This is top-grade hardware," she said.
"Nice to think we're worth the best," Sleel said.
"Can we trace it?" Geneva said.
"I don't see why not."
"Should we check out the building still?" Bork asked.
"Very carefully.They might have left other little presents for us. Got your sniffer?"
"Yeah."
"Then let's go."
The three without protection were easy enough. He was slower than he'd been at his peak, but it was amazing how fast the adrenaline surge brought it all back. Khadaji fired both spetsdods twice each and took out the three, two darts for the leading man, one each for the other pair. He'd stood still for the second that took, but he started running toward the remaining three before the first trio hit the floor. A softsuit would stop a whole range of projectile weapons, including a spetsdod's dart. He had to get to the armored attackers for hand-to-hand and he had one hope of keeping them from blasting him before he could cover the distance.
He pointed his handguns at their protected eyes, extended his forefingers rigidly into full auto, and charged.
Five meters away.Four meters.Three. He hoped Veate had enough sense to turn and run while he had the attackers busy.
The first of the three softsuiters dropped his hands from his helmet and snatched at his weapon. Too slow—
Khadaji barreled into the figure and drove his elbow into the man's throat, hardly an elegant move, but effective anyhow. He twisted away from the falling man?woman ?and stepped into the first moves of Bamboo Pond. The second softsuiter had managed to clear her weapon— definitely a woman, even the softsuit couldn't hide those contours—and was swinging it around oh-so-slowly toward him. She was in too much of a hurry and she triggered the gun—he heard the hardtwang of a spring pistol—and the missilethwiped past to his left. As he drove his knee into her groin, a strike effective for men or women, he saw with his heightened perceptions the line of spetsdod darts embedded across the protective plastic of her face shield, heard the impact of his knee and her grunt,smelled the sharpness of his own sweat. No time, no time! The third softsuiter was two meters away, he had his gun out, it was aimed right at Khadaji,he'd never get to him in time to stop the shot—
Another figure blurred into view.
Veate!
As he watched in that syrupy flow of time that often accompanies life-or-death battles, he saw his daughter snap her foot out, kicking thegun free of the softsuiter's grasp. The man jumped away and turned, dropping into a defensive posture, fists knotted,legs wide and bent.
Veate did not pause. She hopped forward, kicked with her leading leg twice—-fakes, both shots—and drew a left downward block from the softsuiter. She pivoted and swung the same leg around in a spring kick at the man's head. He jerked his right hand up wildly and blocked, but this kick was also a fake, without real power, and the foot was snapped back quickly, leaving the softsuiter with both hands wide of his body. Before he could recover, Veate set herself, both feet on the ground, and thrust a back kick upward from a crouch with her other leg,heel leading. Her boot caught the softsuiter square on the chest, and the kick was powerful enough to lift him from his feet,
slamming him into the wall behind.As his back hit the wall, Veate stepped in and sidekicked, the edge of her foot taking the man on the forehead. The clunk as the back of his skull hit the wall was quite loud. He slid down, knocked senseless.
Veate turned to look at Khadaji.
He blinked. He was impressed. He didn't know the style, but whatever itwas, she was very good at it:
"We'd better go find security," he said.
His daughter nodded, and let out a ragged sigh. "Yes. My mother would hate it if we let her room blow up."
As he moved ahead of her, Veate fought the urge to shake her head in wonder. He was good. He'd taken out five of the six attackers and she wasn't sure but that he could have gotten the last one if she hadn't. She'd studied fighting for three years, two hours every day, and watching him move made her feel like a cripple. He was better than Mother had said.
What else about him had changed since he'd been with Mother?
Chapter Eleven
THE HEAD OF the casino's security was abashed. That six armed intruders had bypassed the state-of-the-art wards was unthinkable.But obviously not impossible. As the apologetic leader had his guards haul the six injured attackers away, Khadaji told the man about the mirror bomb in Juete's cube.
"If you can get to it before it explodes," Khadaji told the security man, "sealing it into an inert gas cannister will render it harmless."
"Our EU is on the way," the security man said.
"Do you have a courier service?"
"Yes."
"I want the bomb sent to Earth." He gave the man the shipping coordinates for the Siblings' compound.
"I'll tell them it is coming."
"The local authorities—"
"—are perfectly competent, I'm sure, but this is an interplanetary problem and I'm working on it for President Carlos. Get it to Earth and let me worry about it."
Veate watched and listened as the tone of command washed over the security officer and cleaned away his doubts.Right. Somebody was in charge; that was all he really needed or wanted to know, it was obvious from his quick nod.
Her father was not only fast with a weapon, he could focus his will sharply to move people with words, too. Why was she surprised? This was, after all, a man who had once taken on an army by himself. A single security guard would hardly worry him. Still, it was one thing to know it in theory and another thing to see it in practice.