by B. V. Larson
Scarn raised his arm, as though pointing out the loathsome brain in Stattor’s head. He reached behind himself and pressed the button that would ignite and fire the welder.
But nothing happened.
The sweet-smelling female agent in white stepped near. The flowers in her hair had slid slightly out of place. She stood in front of him.
“Mr. Scarn,” she said, apparently delighted to meet him. “I’ve heard about you for so long.” She moved very close in front of him. “Sometimes so many people are invited that we just don’t know who we’re going to meet, do we?” She smiled. Her lips parted, showing her thin narrow teeth, perfectly aligned. “You’re being absurd, Mr. Scarn. You’re not killing anyone in here with with your frightening weapons.”
She held a drink high in front of her breasts, cutely smiled, and momentarily turned away from him as she sipped at it. He saw that on one of her palms she wore a pulse plate. The device could fry any circuits that weren’t hardened—and so his welder had been rendered useless.
When the agent turned back, she spoke to Scarn directly. “Captain Stattor wants you to bring him a drink. He wants to speak to you personally. Tonight, he’s drinking something called green pearls, with lots of ice.”
Incapable of feeling deterred, Scarn moved to the bar. His brain scanned his resources. He had the positions of all the security people imprinted, and he was still estimating the unknowns.
The barman was a synth. He approached, white shirt, black bow-tie, short mustache. “A drink for the captain?” he asked. “I know the order.” He turned away and began preparing the drink. “I heard you were dead, by the way,” he said over his shoulder.
“The report was premature.”
The barman selected a glass and held it up to the light to inspect it. As he continued to work on the drink, he rotated his neck farther around than any real human could have done. He continued to speak to Scarn while he worked. “With these new dispensers that Gomax got us, sometimes you can’t tell what you’re going to get out of ̒em.”
The barman rotated himself back so all of him faced in the same direction. He held the green opalescent drink up to the light between Scarn and himself. He studied it a moment, and put it on the bar between them.
“So, we have this thing we use to keep the valves clean.” From a narrow ledge along the inside of the bar, the barman held up a twenty centimeter probe: It looked like an ice pick with a powered handgrip. “It’s specially designed to clean Gomax equipment. It uses an ultrasonic airblast for this crap machine. It pumps out two liters of air in a tenth of a second.” The barman did a confirming head-nod and raised his eyebrows. “I heard a gentleman was killed with one of these a few weeks ago. Two liters of air… imagine that. It blew his heart up like a balloon. It popped, and he died.”
He put the implement on the ledge where Scarn could see and easily reach it.
“There you go,” he said, nudging the drink toward Scarn with another hand. “Good luck with the captain.” He turned away, letting Scarn make his choices unobserved.
The unblinking thing in Scarn’s mind still looked through his eyes. It wanted Stattor’s death above all things, above every consequence.
So alien was this to Scarn’s normal thinking that for a moment, he recoiled from it. What he wanted in normal times was to simply live his life free of Tarassis politics—but if he couldn’t, perhaps others could. Killing Stattor would be refreshing, but what would happen in his absence?
If he were raised a guest, he could probably dial back the emotion. He could put three thoughts together and see the possibilities instead of get swallowed up in his rage.
What would an ice-blooded Scarn do? Always take inventory first. Second, run the possibilities. Third—
It was almost that simple. It only took two seconds of rationality.
His mad brain had his fingers pulling the pheromone ampule out of his pocket and peeling off the seal, revealing the spongy emission end.
He smeared it around the inside of the lip of Stattor’s drink half a dozen times and then touched it to the points of ice. The ice and the cooler air in the glass would lower the temperature of the gaseous pheromones, and if not badly disturbed, they would lie in an invisible layer atop the green liquor.
Scarn stalled as long as he thought he could get away with it, repeatedly wiping the emission tip around the glass and then on his hands, till he saw the woman in white coming his way. He dropped the cylinder back in his pocket, turned, and spoke to her. “I’m ready for the boss.”
He held the drink so that air turbulence would be minimized as he crossed the room to the waiting fat man. As he approached, a cluster of fawning ensigns all bowed and parted, revealing Stattor in his automated cradle.
Stattor’s bodyguards remained near and eyed Scarn like he was wounded prey.
The music dropped in volume. Could Stattor have signaled for quiet? Scarn had missed it, if he had, but it definitely made conversation easier.
“Mr. Scarn, Mr. Scarn,” Stattor said, reaching for the drink, “I was becoming positively parched, and who should relieve my thirst but an ex-dead man!” The fat captain giggled before putting his lips around the edge of the glass. He drank half of it down, snorting between swallows. “Thank you,” he said. “Mmmm... the unfortunate Commander Dallen tried to decompress you. But don’t worry, he’ll be punished.” The captain smiled at Scarn. “I heard it was a case of jealousy. I’m very curious to hear how you got back into Tarassis proper. You must be very resourceful.”
“Why did you pick me to be your excuse when you set up Dallen?”
Stattor shrugged and pivoted his vehicle to face Scarn. “You ran out of luck, I guess.” There didn’t seem to be even the thought of denying it. Through his tiny eyes, he gazed at Scarn over his drink. “I had nothing against you personally, but you ruined some of our finest equipment. You were on enforced leave, and your absence from the workforce hadn’t been a hardship. So, it wasn’t personal, no, no. I don’t let my personal feelings direct what I do. I let my reason do that.” He wheezed a short chuckle. “You know, Commander Dallen was such a chatty man. Chat, chat, chat, entirely too much about the wrong things.” He turned to one of his bodyguards. “He hasn’t been converted to electricity yet, has he? No?” He turned back to Scarn. “I guess we have enough fuel at the moment. What was your first name?”
“Scarn.”
“Oh yes, of course…”
Stattor poured the other half of the drink down his throat and then breathed heavily.
“I have a suggestion,” Stattor said. Sweat streamed down his face into his already-wet collar. “I’ve been needing someone to help me with... details, with the details of my work. And you....”
Stattor rolled his chair next to Scarn, swung one of his short arms around, and took Scarn’s wrist, holding it like a vise. A nearby bodyguard’s attention snapped-to.
“You’re a fit and healthy man.” A chuckle burbled out of him. “You even have the audacity not to die when you’re supposed to—but I can make you safe. You’ll never have to worry about being possessed again.” He pulled Scarn closer and lowered his voice. “There is so much power to be gained—money, prestige. What you make in a year as a psychonaut….” Now he whispered: “...you’ll make that in a day.”
“You know what’s going on in the closed-off areas, don’t you?” Scarn asked loudly. “I saw those living bodies down there, lying in filth.”
Stattor pulled Scarn down against him. The fat man felt feverish, even through the layers of his clothes.
“Leave your pity behind. Be my right hand, Mr. Scarn. I like you. You’re not like these crew and guest fops. You’re an animal. A beast from the depths. I can use a good beast, and I’ll make you so rich you can buy a continent when we land this ship. Consider, Mr. Scarn, what you could give your friends.”
“You’re letting aliens come aboard Tarassis,” Scarn spoke loudly enough for the closer bystanders to hear. “That’s what the whole zerkin
g phenomenon is all about. People are going mad or dying because of possession by alien minds.”
Stattor’s grip tightened on his wrist. His humble happy face had started to turn mean and sour. “Mr. Scarn, my life will become myth. Become myth by my side.” Staring down into Stattor’s face, he was so close he could see his open pores. He felt the flat-eyed thing slither up into his consciousness and sweep away all rationality.
“Stattor,” he whispered only to him, “I hope you die screaming.”
The fat man shook his head sadly. He turned toward his nearest bodyguard: “Weapon.”
A zeta shear was slapped into his big hand.
In a Synadrine rush, like liquid, Scarn put the heel of one hand hard into Stattor’s nose and with the other swept the zeta shear into his own. Then, while still next to Stattor, someone grabbed him from behind, another twisted his arm, but Scarn slipped sideways and fired the zeta at Stattor, missed him, and punctured wall the wall behind him. Air howled out of the fist-sized hole.
People screamed and ran. Scarn rolled Stattor’s chair up to it and shoved his body against the opening onto the outside void. The shrieking noise stopped.
Stattor’s eyes widened, his mouth dropped open, and he appeared about to speak, so his bodyguards held their positions. Stattor seemed to struggle a bit, his mouth opening a bit and seeming almost ready to speak. His bodyguards waited.
“Sir?” asked the woman with white flowers. She walked closer to the captain of Tarassis, a shocked look beginning to appear on her face.
Scarn noted as they watched their captain, they couldn’t even brutalize him without his orders. He wondered if they were conditioned or possessed to maintain this kind of restraint.
Looking quizzical, Stattor raised one of his bulbous arms as though he might make a point—but he hesitated. The music had stopped, the crowd was gone, and there was utter silence across the lounge. Two guards dragged Scarn away from the captain, but their attention was on the fat man, as was everyone else’s.
Was he going to speak? Did he have an order for them?
Then one side of Stattor’s mouth twisted downward. From it came a long bubbling moan and a dribble of blood that trailed off his chin. Gasps and whispers came from the agents.
“Captain Stattor—” someone said, but at that moment, the man’s body shuddered, went still, and his head began to droop.
All at once, Scarn saw that the fat man’s clothes had become loose on his huge body.
He still looked like he might have something to say. Stuck against the exterior wall on his own two feet, his shoulders bobbled a little. His head rocked side to side till it sank, and he seemed to stare at the floor.
Everyone watched silently, without moving, as his body jerked in little spasms. He became less obese with each twitchy shudder, and the clothes hung looser on his frame as if his organs and entrails and fat spewed through the hole into space.
It was impossible, of course. Air pressure in Tarassis was maintained at one atmosphere, fourteen pounds per square inch. That wasn’t enough force to push a man’s guts out.
Scarn’s mind was still in a hyperactive state. He figured it out first, among the crowd of agents, who were already making their third emergency call for medical help.
When Scarn had fired the zeta shear it had penetrated one of the many plasma energy transfer tubes that ran through the station.
That wall… the other side of it was a slip-space lift. Inside the lifts, physics operated differently. It was space shared with matter. A slurry of existence and non-existence that allowed humans and objects to be carried around Tarassis through solid rock.
Part of Stattor’s body had entered slip-space, and it was being drawn away by that moving slurry. It was siphoning him to some unknown destination—out of control, killing him by removing his flesh in an ugly, unstoppable gush.
Although his head, arms, and legs seemed unaffected, enough of Stattor’s mass had been sucked out of his torso that his clothes now clumped like wadded drapes on a rack.
The woman in white stepped nearer and looked into Scarn’s face. She stood between him and the captain’s remains.
“My name is Emma Venner,” she said, studying him. She didn’t offer her hand but instead aimed a zeta shear at him. “Did I hear one of your fellow enforcers mention something about a White Queen? Is that your codename?”
Her eyes glittered dangerously. “You shouldn’t overhear such things, Scarn.”
“I understand.”
“You spoke of the possessions,” she said. “Are you possessed now, Scarn?”
He thought about it. “I don’t think so. Not by aliens, anyway.”
She nodded. She turned to her snarling agents, who were all pointing their weapons at Scarn. She made a lowering motion with her hands, and they all reluctantly let their weapons ease down to their sides.
Scarn realized the woman with the white flowers had been in charge all along.
Had she directed the bar man to give him a weapon? It was a possibility. A synth didn’t aid in an assassination attempt without being ordered to do so by someone.
The agent eyed him for a moment, clearly deciding whether he should live or die. Finally, she gently took the zeta shear from Scarn’s hand. He let her, and she gave it to one of the guards.
“Obviously,” she said, “the captain would have allowed aliens free rein on Tarassis only if he himself were possessed. I suspect he was the one controlled by aliens here—not you.”
“That’s exactly right,” Scarn said, quickly grasping the situation.
“We’ll look into this. Perhaps, we owe you our gratitude… but there will be a thorough investigation. Let me assure you, Scarn, the truth will come out.”
“I’d like to live long enough to see it happen.”
The guard who’d politely taken the weapon looked at it a moment, and then frowned at his superior. “Uh… What do we do now, ma’am?”
“We’ll contact the leaders of the guests and the crew,” she said. “There must be a political gathering. A new captain will be chosen—”
“Hang on,” Scarn said.
They looked at him warily.
“Before you put anyone else in charge,” he said, “you have to save Tarassis. We have to change our course.”
A man, a fourth degree engineer by the colors on his sleeve, stepped out of the crowd. “This ship hasn’t changed course in decades.”
“I know. But Neva Savvan is a navigator. She understands the situation, and she could help.”
“It’s not just that,” the engineer said. “The engines… we don’t even know if they’ll fire up.”
Scarn stared at him. The horror of those words… if Tarassis was ever going to land someplace—anyplace—those engines had to ignite and fly this big ship with precision. The ship would also have to burn an immense amount of energy to slow down—or they’d glide right past it.
“We have to try,” Scarn told them. “It’s either that, or we’re all going to become vessels for alien minds.”
He looked at the captain’s corpse, and they looked with him. The husk of the man who’d ruled Tarassis so harshly for twenty years was shrunken and twisted.
No one’s gaze held an ounce of pity.
A few key officers among the crew arrived. They had medical people and a plasma conduit patch team with them, but the medics were useless at this point. They shrouded the captain and tried to salvage what they could. There would have to be a state burial, after all. Empty caskets were disillusioning.
The officers huddled with the agents and Scarn heard them taking seriously the suggestion of steering the ship on a new course. He couldn’t have been the first one to think of it.
The situation seemed surreal to Scarn. The woman in white pulled him aside for a few whispered words.
“So many times,” she said, “this has been attempted. The attempts have become frequent recently. Something had to be done, and leadership wasn’t taking any legal... or illegal
steps to put him out of our misery.”
“So… you set me up for this? You didn’t have the balls to move on him, even when you knew you should?”
“We went as far as to disarm your welder for general safety,” she said.
“That’s great, but not one of you had the guts to take down an obvious tyrant?”
Emma Venner cast him a brief glare, then dropped her eyes. “When you live with snakes, you have to act like a snake. Once you’re in the orbit of power... Once you’re trusted and known…the kind of break you have to make for something like this is… extreme. It’s also life-threatening to oneself and to others. Even one’s family.”
“So you brought in a breather to do the ugly work and take all the chances.”
Scarn understood what she was saying, but he also saw the agents as spineless and manipulative. Why should any of them take the blame for shooting the captain? All they needed was a hot-head to do the deed and suffer the consequences—and angry people were in plentiful supply lately.
Right now, in the brief moments immediately following the assassination, Scarn could remember enough history to know that the relief following the death of a tyrant was brief—and, often, worse trials were to follow.
“We don’t have much time,” he overheard Venner saying. The other guards nodded, even the crewmen officers nodded.
Everyone felt a sense of urgency. It was time to move quickly, to fix what could be fixed before the next tyrant was chosen.
Neva arrived after another half-hour. By that time, the wall and plasma feed had been resealed. Neva came in looking scared and approached Scarn. They hugged while the agents looked on, sour or bemused. They all knew she had been wrapped up in this as both mistress and wife—and now she was hugging the assassin.
The security chief came over to them and gave Neva a quick up-down inspection. “No one is being arrested. We know you’re aware things have been… strange lately. We summoned you because we need a navigator to plot a new course.”
Neva seemed taken aback. “I haven’t plotted a real course my whole life. At least, none that have been taken.”