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HUNG OUT
MARGARET WEIS & DON PERRIN
A ROC BOOK ROC Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand Penguin Books Ltd,
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Registered Offices:Harmondsworth , Middlesex, England First published by Roc, an imprint of Dutton NAL, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. First Printing, August, 1998 10 987654321 Copyright © Margaret Weis and Don Perrin, 1998 AH rights reserved Cover art by SteveYoull No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings. —William Blake, "Proverbs of Hell"
CHAPTER 1
The use of a trick or stratagem permits the intended victim to make his own mistakes. Carl von Clausewitz,On War The buzzing was annoying, seriously annoying. Annoying because the buzz was letting Jafar el Amadi know there was something he should do and he didn't want to do it. He wished the buzz would stop, and it did for a moment; then, just as he was starting to drift back to sleep, the buzz began again. His wife, stretched out in the bed beside him, gave him a punch in the back. "It's the phone," she said drowsily. "Answer the phone." Amadi woke up, peered bleary-eyed at the phone on the nightstand beside his bed. "What time's it?" his wife mumbled. Amadi rubbed his eyes, brought the clock into focus. "Two in the morning." The buzzing continued, insistent. "It's probably a wrong number," he said. "Uh-huh." His wife pulled the blanket over her head, rolled away from him. "Tell them you're retired." Amadi lifted the phone. "Yeah?" "I'm calling about that order you placed, sir," said a female voice at the other end. "Do you know what time it is?" Amadi snapped. "It's two o'clock in the morning!" "Sorry, sir. I just thought you'd want to know, sir, that the item you requested has been located."
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"What item? What the hell are we talking about? Is this some goddam vidalog company? Because if it is—" "I have the order here, sir. Your authorization: Delta 750-6711-9." Good God! It was the Bureau. "Oh." Amadi was now very awake. That was his authorization code, but what the hell were they talking about? "What's it in regard to?" "Body parts for a cyborg, sir. Would you like to go ahead and place your order, sir?" "I need more details—color and sizeand all that." "Very good, sir. I'll give you a number to call for customer service. Ask for order number 7/66/807/9. Sorry I woke you, sir, but this was marked 'urgent.'" The other end clicked. The connection was broken. Amadi sat and frowned at the warm green glow of the clock for another moment,then he slid his feet into his bedroom slippers and eased himself out of bed. His wife was used to late-night phone calls, used to him roaming about the house at all hours, used to him leaving in the middle of the night. Of course, that had been before he had retired, when he had still been with the Bureau. It had been years since he'd received a late-night phone call, probably one reason it had taken him such a long time to respond. In the old days, he would have been wide awake at the first buzz. But at age seventy, he'd come to relish his warm bed and a good night's sleep. Giving his wife a customary reassuring pat on the shoulder—a pat she probably didn't feel because she'd gone back to sleep already—Amadi grabbed his robe, threw it on. Yawning, he left the bedroom, visited the John,then went downstairs. The dog, lying with his back pressed up against the front door, opened one eye, thumped his tail against the floor, and raised his head to see if he was needed. "Go back to sleep, Charlie," Amadi said, moving through the hallway, heading to the kitchen. The dog obeyed gladly. He was an old dog and he, too, appreciated his rest. In the kitchen, Amadi brewed coffee, freshly ground, made the old-fashioned way in a drip pot; none of that muddy water the replicator turned out. He mulled over the cyborg matter as the coffee brewed. The risk was immense, but he had already considered and discounted all his other options. He cut himself a piece of pound cake—gone were the days when he could drink six cups of coffee on an empty stomach—then carried cake, a cup, and the coffeepot down another flight of stairs to the rec room. Behind the vid, mounted on the wall, was a sensor device. Amadi considered briefly attempting to juggle cake, cup, and pot in one hand while he activated the sensor, but rejected the idea. His wife may have been patient with late-night phone calls and her husband vanishing for weeks at a time on some secret assignment, but she took a dim view of coffee stains on the rug. Amadi placed his breakfast on an end table, passed his hand twice over the sensor device, which was no more than a tiny hole in the wall. A door disguised to look like part of the oak paneling slid aside. Amadi retrieved his breakfast, making a
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mental note to himself to bring the cup and coffeepot out of the room when he was finished. His wife would be extremely irritated if one of her best china cups went missing, as it had upon one occasion, only to turn up two weeks later with a fine growth of mold on what was left of the coffee. The door slid shut behind Amadi. The room was small, soundproofed, fireproofed. It contained a desk, a chair, a computer. Seating himself in front of the computer, Amadi gave it his password. Once he and the Bureau were linked and each had admitted that they knew the other, he went through more security procedures. At last, the Bureau conceded that he had the right to be where he was and to acquire the information he needed. He gave the "order" number, which he had—from habit— committed to memory as the agent rattled it off. He munched cake while he waited, drank his coffee, and yawned. A woman's face appeared on the screen. He didn't know her, but that wasn't unusual. He'd been retired for ten years. He knew few people in the Bureau anymore. She was human, mid-twenties, lean and mean, with skin the golden color of olive oil, short-cut black hair, high cheekbones, an upturned nose, full lips. Adjectives came to Amadi's mind: new, pert, hungry. The voice belonging to the face was the same voice that had spoken to him on the phone. She was seated at a desk in an office cubicle, probably her own cubicle, for there were pictures stuck to the fabric wall behind her. Family pictures. Mother and father. Three young men standing together grinning at the cam with wide smiles. Probably brothers. A white fluffy cat. "Agent Rizzoli, sir. Petronella Rizzoli." "Rizzoli." Amadi nodded, swallowed pound cake. "What do you have for me?" "We've located former agent Tambam ... Tampambulos, sir," she replied, stumbling over the name. "Good work, Rizzoli. He's not an easy person to track down. You have the warrant? Is all in order?" "A few local problems, sir." Amadi frowned, displeased. "The reason I lured him to that planet was because the locals promised there would be no trouble. Where's he staying?" "Where you said he would stay. He's at the home of his ex-wife, MarjorieTambamp ... Tamp—damn that's a hell of a name to pronounce. And any rate, that's where he is, sir. At her home." "Excellent. That's where I was hoping he'd go." "We could never have removed him from Olefsky's world," Rizzoli agreed. "Not without a fight." "And they don't have the death penalty on Solgart," Amadi added. "So what's he doing with his time in his ex-wife's house?" "We intercepted several calls made to various parts of the galaxy. They were all encrypted, unbreakable, but we believe that he's assembling the Mag Force 7 team. He's also been in contact with the Royal Navy, one of the lord admiral's adjutants, a Commander Tusca."
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"Probably doing a job for them." "Will that present a problem, sir? When we arrest him?" "The Navy won't like it, that's for damn sure, but they'll drop him like a hot rock if we threaten to go public with the facts. Especially when they hear the charge. How does the warrant read?" "Murder, sir. First degree. The murder of his former partner, Dalin Rowan." Amadi closed his eyes. He wished he hadn't eaten the pound cake. "Heis a murderer, after all," Rizzoli continued. "And while the Navy may hire murderers with impunity, they don't want it broadcast on the six o'clock news." "Is the Navy keeping an eye on him?" "No, sir." "Are you sure about that?" "Yes, sir. It's a quiet neighborhood, sir. Our agents have him under surveillance, of course. We could spot one of their agents easily." "And I'll bet that Tampambulos has spotted you," Amadi observed. "He was a good agent, you know. One of the best." "I doubt it, sir." Rizzoli was confident. "We've never even been near the house. All visual surveillance has been carried out by our system of satellites. We're monitoring everything going in and out of that house from a base twenty-five kilometers away. We pick up every signal, every phone call. And if a mouse crawls underneath the garage door, we see it on the satellite report. "The new orbital spectral analysis system allows us to 'see' to a resolution of one centimeter, even through solid objects, such as the roof. We could tell you if former Agent Tampambulous has a problem with irregularity, sir. Which he doesn't. Every morning at around 0830, after he has his coffee, he takes the morning paper into the John and—" "Spare me the details," said Amadi. "I get the picture and, frankly, I wish I hadn't." He had seen Xris when they'd first brought him to the hospital, seen what was left of him. "If you want my advice, Rizzoli, you'll arrest him now, this minute. Don't wait until his friends show up. They're a dangerous bunch." "We'd like to, sir, but there's a problem with the warrant." Amadi had forgotten. He was going to have to start doubling up on his old-age hormone injection shots. "Local police force giving you grief?" "No, sir. They're eager to cooperate. The chief wants to see her name on GNN. It's the legal system. We can't arrest him on a Crown warrant alone; we have to have a local warrant as well." Amadi dumped the remaining pound cake in the trash. "They want to review the case, I suppose."
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"Yes, sir. We've provided them with all the files, but they're taking their own sweet time over it. The chief is putting pressure on the prosecutor, though. She told us to expect the warrant by Monday." "And when the hell is that? I'm half a universe away, you know." "Sorry, sir. Twenty-four hours, sir." "Twenty-four hours. Time enough for his whole blasted personal army to show up. Well, it can't be helped." "We plan to go in at about 0400, sir, when everyone's asleep. We'll use the standard flash-bang—" "No, absolutely not!" Amadi said firmly. "These people are trained mercenaries. They're armed and they're experts. What do you think they're going to do if they wake up to find they're under attack? Especially if you surprise them!" "Well, sir, what do you suggest?" "It's a suburban neighborhood," said Amadi. "Upper middle class. Kids playing in the front yard next door. Tampambulous won't want to endanger innocent civilians. He's not the type of person to start gunning down toddlers. Go to the front door, ring the bell, hand him the warrant. He'll come along peacefully. I guarantee it. I want him alive, Rizzoli. Alive. He's no good to me dead." What was her first name? Amadi wondered. Petro-something. He'd forgotten that, too. Damn odd first name. "Yes, sir." Rizzoli was all business, cool and professional. "Don't worry, sir. We're taking extra care on this one. He killed one of our own. We want to see him in the disrupter." "Keep me posted." Amadi ended the meeting. . He finished off the entire pot of coffee, then sent a memo to a man he knew well—Andrew Robison. Formerly Amadi's boss in charge of the Hung investigation, Robison was now head of Internal Affairs for the Bureau. Robison was investigating Amadi, an interesting development and one that Amadi wasn't supposed to know about. The memo to Robison was headed,Tampambulos. Warrant issued. Arrest imminent. "There," Amadi muttered to himself. "That should make the son of a bitch happy."
CHAPTER 2
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…there is something about him, which even treachery cannot trust. Public Advertiser, 22 June 1771, "Junius"
"So the message he sentme is accurate? Are you certain?" "Yes, sir. I'm certain." Petronella smiled. "He assigned the grunt work to me: issuing the warrant, arguing with the locals, all of that." Head of Internal Affairs Andrew Robison frowned at the electronic notepad he held in his hand, a pad that held all the details of a murder case. After almost ten years, there'd finally been an arrest. "I recorded our conversation, sir," Petronella told him. "Secure?" "Yes, sir. Of course, sir," Petronella replied coolly. She was not accustomed to having her work questioned. Robison gave a grunt that was tantamount to an apology. Petronella, knowing her boss, accepted the grunt and went on. "Here are the codes to the encryption." Robison pulled up the encrypted file, observed the conversation with Amadi from Petronella's viewpoint. Robison frowned most of the time during the conversation. Petronella nodded. "Amadi thinks I'm a bumbling fool," she told Robison. "As do most of my co-workers." She gave a sigh that, fortunately, Robison didn't hear. He was replaying the vid. Petronella liked her co-workers and respected them. They were, for the most part, hardworking, dedicated, and loyal. They liked Petronella, but they considered her young, inexperienced, and, on top of all that, a Talisian who could not control the weird energy surges common to those born on her home world. What they didn't know was that she could control them, but chose not to do so. The fact that wherever Petronella Rizzoli went chaos followed added immeasurably to her cover and it was one reason she'd been recruited to work for FISA Internal Affairs. With all the assignments she'd handled over the past five years, no one had ever suspected she was a plant. Petronella regarded Robison, her boss, with affection and a certain amount of sympathy, though she was careful to reveal neither to him. Robison was strictly professional and he expected his people to be the same. But she was aware that this particular assignment must be tough on him. He had once been Jafar el Amadi's chief superintendent. Robison and Amadi had been close friends as well as co-workers. And now Robison was placed in the position of exposing as a traitor a man whom he had once admired. There could not be two more different men, Petronella thought idly, as she watched Robison watching Amadi. Jafar el Amadi could trace his ancestors back to the Bedouins who had roamed the deserts of Old Earth. Amadi was intensely proud of his heritage. His home was filled with Arabic artifacts, decorated with paintings of men in flowing robes riding magnificent and long-extinct Arabian stallions.
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Looking at Amadi's face, with its hawk nose and fierce black hawk eyes, Petronella could easily picture him riding among the dunes and she thought it a pity that he should have betrayed such a noble lineage. Robison, by contrast, was far more suited to an English tea room than the wind-blown desert. Blond, with blue eyes and a thin face marked by a very handsome aquiline nose, Robison was younger than Amadi by ten years—a fact that some men might have resented, considering that Robison had been Amadi's boss. If Amadi did, he didn't show it, although perhaps that could have been the reason why he'd gone over to the enemy camp. Watching Amadi on the vid, listening to his voice, Petronella wondered again what had driven him to commit such heinous crimes: marked his own agents for death, aided and abetted in the deaths of thousands of innocents, worked for one of the most ferocious, cruel, murderous criminal organizations in the history of the galaxy. For what? Money? Jealousy? Ambition? No one knew. No one had been able to prove Amadi's complicity, although, according to Robison, the Bureau had long suspected him. "Amadi was clever enough to lay low when his bosses were going to prison," Robison had told her at the beginning of this investigation. "He took retirement soon after that. We could never prove anything. The only person who might have been able to tie Amadi into the Hung was a roan named Dalin Rowan. The victim of the murder." "What I don't understand," Petronella said, after Robison had played through the vid a second time and was sitting, frowning, at the frozen image of Amadi on the screen, "is why Amadi is risking exposure by bringing this to light again after all these years." Robison's thin lips, outlined by a pencil-thin mustache, tightened. He regarded her speculatively, as if making up his mind whether to tell her or not. Petronella might have been offended at this seeming lack of trust, but she had become accustomed to going into cases without knowing all the details. Andrew Robison never fully trusted anyone. The joke among his staff was he entered data into his computer with his eyes shut, so that he wouldn't reveal anything to anybody, himself included. "I'll tell you why," Robison said finally. Petronella regarded him in astonishment. She hadn't really expected an answer. "Dalin Rowan isn't dead." "He's not, sir?" Petronella was amazed. "No, at least that's what we suspect. Why? Because the Hung are looking for him. We know that much from our informant. And Amadi's looking for Rowan, too." "But..." Petronella was momentarily speechless, gathering her thoughts. "But Amadi has a witness, a nurse..." "Fake. Phony."
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"Then why is he having Tampambulos arrested for something he knows he didn't do?" "Because Rowan's in hiding. Naturally enough," Robison said dryly. "The number of people who would like to kill Dalin Rowan would fill a football stadium. Amadi hasn't been able to find him and neither have the Hung. He figures this way he'll force Rowan to come out in the open." "From what I've read about Xris Tampambulos, he's not that easily intimidated." "He won't be. I can guarantee it I knew him in the old days. He was one of my agents. And Amadi knows Xris as well or better than I do." "So finding Rowan isn't the only thing Amadi's after?" "That's what Amadi's going to make it look like. But I don't believe flushing out Rowan's the reason he's after Xris. Here's the file on Dalin Rowan." He passed over a disposable electronic file pad. Petronella activated it, scanned swiftly through the contents until she reached the end. "Good grief," she said, gasping. "Yes." Robison had no need to ask what she'd come across. "But he's ... she's..." "Yes," Robison said again. "You see why it was so difficult to locate him. Her." "Good grief," Petronella repeated, dazed. "She's now going by the name of Darlene Mohini. Here are your instructions...."
CHAPTER 3
The family—that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape. DodieSmith,Dear Octopus
Xris hadn't meant to sit down. He hadn't meant to sit down and he hadn't intended to remain sitting after that. He hadn't meant to sit here doing nothing. Doing nothing when he had a hell of lot to do.
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"It can wait," he said aloud, startling a seagull that had hopped up onto the patio in hopes of stale bread. The bird gave a squawk of irritation, "then settled down on the edge of the deck, hope springing eternal. Xris eyed the seagull, which was eyeing him, not the least bit afraid, confident in the possession of strong wings and an offshore breeze. Xris knew this gull. It had only one foot, probably a congenital defect. The lack of a foot didn't bother the gull, although the deformity made its landings real nose-bumpers, as Harry Luck would say. Beak-bumperswould be a better term, Xris decided. He had taken to feeding the one-footed gull, though feeding one meant that twenty more always showed up and now the deck was covered with gull sh*t. Marjorie wouldn't like that, not in the slightest. Xris would clean it up before he left. "At least," he told the gull, "they didn't stick you with a metal foot." He looked down at his own metal foot, propped out in front of him. The bird didn't seem to appreciate its good fortune. It ruffled its feathers and turned its head rapidly from side to side, as if as to say,Cutthe chatter, buddy, and bring on the bread. I got things to do, even if you don't. Xris had things to do. The house was a mess, for one, but he hadn't had time to clean. The Mag Force 7 team had been hired for a job, mercenary work. High pay, with only a moderate amount of risk. He had decided on the basic plan, but he had to work out details. The rest of the team would be arrivingsoon, traveling in from the various parts of the galaxy they called home, to hear his presentation. It had better be complete. If Dr. Bill Quong asked a question Xris couldn't answer or if Jamil caught Xris in a miscalculation, he'd never hear the end of it. And if Raoul discovered a wet towel on the bathroom floor ... well, Xris didn't even like to contemplate that eventuality. But it could wait. The plan. The housekeeping. The grocery order. It could all wait. He couldn't remember the last time he'd done nothing. He was always doing something and he liked it that way. He liked keeping his mind occupied. When it was thinking about useful things, interesting things, it didn't have time to brood on things over which he had no control. Things such as the fact that he couldn't sit and listen to his heart beat, like most people. He had to listen to his heart hum, like the fine-tuned machine it was, which then reminded him that most of the rest of his body needed a lube job and an oil change every fifteen thousand kilometers. Xris lounged in a chair on the back deck and watched the sunlight ripple over the surface of the water. He wouldn't think about his heart or anything. The ocean was calm today, almost flat, the offshore breeze smoothing the waves. The teenage surfers stood around in gloomy knots on the beach, but the younger children were happy, paddling in the gentle waves that washed up on the shore— waves that would usually knock them over when the wind blew in from the sea. Three pelicans flew in perfect formation, like a squadron of spaceplanes on maneuvers. The seagull, a supremely independent bird with a mind of its own, cast the pelicans a scornful glance. Growing impatient, it hopped over on its one foot to remind Xris of its presence. He hadn't brought the bread with him, not having intended to stay out here in the hot afternoon sunshine. He'd come out on the deck to rearrange the furniture in preparation for tonight's barbecue. Instead of lifting a chair, he'd sat down in it.
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If he had to put a name to what he was feeling, he'd have to name it peace. He was at peace, with himself and with the universe. The feeling of peace was a rare one and he intended to prolong it, luxuriate in it as much as possible. It wouldn't last. He was surprised to find himself feeling peaceful here, for by rights he shouldn't. This place should be painful for him, which was why he'd first turned down Marjorie's invitation to use her beach house while she was away. His turn-down had been an automatic, knee-jerk response. He and Marjorie had once dreamed of owning a house like this on this very stretch of beach. They used to vacation here, and for fun on rainy days they'd walk up and down the beach, pick out lots,plan their dream vacation home. The dream had ended in a nightmare of flame. The explosion in the illegal Hung munitions factory had left Xris half metal, half man—and he was the lucky one. His partner had ended up half bone fragments and half charred flesh. Marjorie had made the decision to keep Xris alive, to turn him into a walking soup can. And then the first time he touched her with his fake hand, she'd flinched. Xris had walked out on her. But he hadn't divorced her. And she hadn't divorced him. He told himself she was after his money, for Xris was now a very wealthy man. But he knew deep inside, somewhere around his plastic heart, that this wasn't the reason. She still loved him. This beach house—which was built exactly along the lines they'd planned—was the proof. He'd turned down the invitation because he knew it would hurt her. He'd turned it down because he was afraid it would hurt him. And that was the reason he'd called her back to accept. It was pretty darn stupid to be scared of a beach house. This was the ideal place for the Mag Force 7 team to meet to discuss the new job. The security wasn't as tight as he usually liked it; not as tight as the Exile Cafe, or his own home on Bear Olefksy's planet Solgart. But this job didn't require tight security. The team wasn't doing anything illegal; they weren't planning to assassinate a Navy officer, for example, or plotting to steal an antique robot. They were merely going to help overthrow a government. Xris had accepted Marjorie's invitation and he had expected to be uncomfortable, hadn't planned on staying long. He now realized he was going to be sorry to leave. He was already looking forward to coming back. Maybe even when Marjorie was home. Except that, in many ways, shewas home. Her presence was everywhere, in the books in the bookcase, in the sea paintings on the walls, in the feather pillows that she liked but which always made him sneeze, in the perfume on her dressing table, in the heavy old ratty bathrobe—the same bathrobe, he'd swear to it—hanging in the closet. The scent of her bath oil that clung to it. Ten years and she still used the same fragrance; something to do with the sea. Xris couldn't ever remember the name. But he remembered the scent. It brought her back to him in full color, brought back her smile, her laugh, her voice... There had been a day when that picture of her would have hurt him, angered him, infuriated him. But time heals, time and therapy and the grudging acknowledgment that maybe Marjorie hadn't reacted to the ugly metal on the outside as much as she had reacted to the ugliness deep inside him. He enjoyed having part of her around. It was rather like entertaining a friendly ghost. Maybe, once he got used to this part of her...
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The doorbell rang. The melodious sound drove away the seagull, which flapped off with a croak expressive of its extreme disappointment. Xris rose from the chair, his own feelings similar to that of the gull. He had enjoyed the brief interlude of doing nothing and was sorry to see it end. Returning to the house, he entered the living room, which faced the beach. French doors opening onto the patio provided a spectacular view of the ocean. He left the living room, walked into the front hallway—picking up a half-read newsvid on his way and depositing it in the recycler. Reaching the door, he glanced at the vidscreen on the wall to see who it was before he opened the door. Xris wasn't particularly worried that a person or persons unknown might be waiting on the porch to accost him. This was a secure community; the guards at the front gate would stop anyone who didn't have a pass. But he was afraid Raoul might have arrived early and Xris had just realized that he was tracking sand all over the living room rug. Prepared to swear that he had been interrupted in the act of turning on the cleaning 'bot, Xris was relieved to see that it wasn't Raoul. A woman in a rumpled skirt, a plain blouse, and a well-tailored suit jacket stood smiling into the cam. Her shoulder-length hair had been brushed at least once today, but no more. She had apparently started to apply her makeup and had then been interrupted in the process, for she had penciled in one eyebrow but not the other and she was only wearing one earring. Glancing at her feet, he saw that both shoes matched, which meant that she'd actually taken a certain amount of care with her appearance. He opened the door. "You were supposed to call me from the spaceport. I would have picked you up. It's too dangerous—" "I was fine, Xris." Darlene waved away his concerns. "Not an assassin in sight. I rented a hover. It's great driving in civilized lands again." He shook his head, frowned to show he was angry. She grinned to show she knew he wasn't, and the two shook hands. "Were you followed on Adonia?" he asked as he ushered her inside the house, taking her overnight bag from her. He knew better than to offer to carry her computer case. "No, but that's not surprising," Darlene said, smiling at him. She shook her hair out of her eyes to see better and glanced around the house with approval. "You should try following someone in Adonia. It cannot be done. The Adonians have no concept of air lanes. They float their hovers all over the sky, going every which way, mainly because they're not paying the slightest attention to what they're doing. Either they're putting on makeup, fixing their hair, changing their clothes, drinking champagne, admiring the view, entertaining guests, making love, or a combination of all those. If someonewas tailing me, my guess is that he either died in a midair collision—I've seen some beauts— or that he just went quietly insane. Not that anyone would noticethat on Adonia." All of which, thought Xris, is her polite way of telling me that she has the situation under control, that she would know if she were being followed, and that she'd know how to handle it. I should butt out. Fair enough. He was about to ask if she'd been followed from the spaceport, changed that to: "Do you like the house?"
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Darlene gazed around with approval, nodded. The beach house was small. From the front entryway, she could look left into the kitchen, straight ahead into the living room and down a hallway to the three bedrooms on her right. The view of the ocean from the living room was worth the hefty price Marjorie had paid. "This place is great, Xris. Really wonderful." Darlene shifted her gaze back to him, studying him closely. "The sea air appears to be good for you. You should visit here more often." "I'm thinking about it," he admitted. "Really, Xris?" Reaching out, Darlene gave his good hand a squeeze. "I'm glad to hear it. I'm very, very glad." Of the Mag Force 7 team, Darlene was the only person who'd known Xris back in the days when they had both worked for FISA. Darlene had been his partner and his best friend. She hadn't been Darlene back then; she hadn't even been a she. She had been Dalin Rowan. She—or rather he—had known both Xris and Marjorie, liked them both. Rowan had been truly sorry to hear that they had split up. "I'm so glad," she said again. "I've put you in the back bedroom. I'll show you." Xris started down the hallway. "I can stay in the hotel with the others—" Darlene began to protest. "Nothing doing." Xris was firm. "I only agreed to let you come here on the condition that you live in the house where I know it's safe. Unless, of course, you'd rather have Harry sleeping across your hotel room door with his beam rifle in his lap?" "No, thank you. The back bedroom will be fine. Dear Harry. How is he? It's been two months since I saw him— or any of the team, for that matter. Not counting Raoul and the Little One, of course. Though they've been out of town for the last two weeks. There was some sort of vid festival and Raoul's favorite actor—Rusty Nails—" "Rusty Love," Xris corrected. "Yes, that's it. Anyway, this Rusty Love was going to be attending in person and Raoul went in hopes of meeting him or stealing his underwear or something along those lines. I'm not clear on the details. I didn't like to ask too many questions." "Good idea," Xris agreed. "Raoul might have supplied you with the answers." The doorbell rang. "I'll take care of this. Thanks." Darlene retrieved her overnight bag and flung it on the bed. "You mind if I take a shower? I must smell of at least twenty different brands of Adonian perfume. The transport was crowded as hell." "Is that what that smell is? I thought you'd been mugged by a gardenia bush. Sure, go ahead. Down the hall, last door at the end. If you need a robe, there's a couple in the closet in my room."
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Darlene gave a vague nod. She was busy setting up her computer. In many ways, she was moremachine that he was. Darlene never truly came to life until her computer screen did the same. The computer had been packed with tender care, while her clothes—which were leaking out of the partially un-Velcroed bag—had been tossed in haphazardly. Xris took one look at the untidy, wrinkled, and confused mass of jeans, shirts, and sweaters poking out of the sides of the bag and hoped again that he wouldn't soon find Raoul on the doorstep. The doorbell rang again and this time whoever it was kept his finger on the bell. Xris had no need to look at the vidscreen. Only one of the team members would not have patience enough to wait even a few seconds for a response to the announcement of his arrival. "Hello, Doc. Good to see you." Xris and Dr. William Quong shook hands. Quong brought in two traveling cases—one for his clothes and one for the instruments of his trade. He gave a perfunctory glance at his surroundings, a glance that took in the hall, the living room, the kitchen, and the bedrooms. If Bill Quong turned around and walked out now, he would be able, twenty years later, to provide a detailed diagram not only of the house but of the placement of the furniture, down to the kitchen trash-masher. He made no comment on the beach house, which didn't really interest him, but focused on Xris, who did. "How are you feeling?" "Fine, Doc. No complaints." Quong grunted and frowned, clearly not believing his patient's diagnosis. "We will see. You look flushed." "I've been out in the sun—" Quong ignored him. "My guess is that your thyroid levels are off. I will need to take a blood sample. Where may I set up my equipment?" "Doc, I don't—" "In the kitchen? The table is small, but I suppose that will have to do. Where is your disinfectant? And don't tell me that you don't have any." "Fine, Doc, I won't tell you," Xris muttered, and left Quong opening and shutting cabinets and poking around beneath the sink, all the time making comments about proper hygiene and the strong likelihood that they were all going to come down with salmonella poisoning. Quong's personality was irritating, his bedside manner a bit too abrupt and calculating for most of his patients to tolerate. He was easily and often offended. But he had kept Xris alive and well and firing on all cylinders for a number of years now. For all his irascibility, Quong was an excellent medical doctor. He was also a genius with mechanics, mainly because he preferred machines to people. A fanatic about diet and exercise, he was also deeply and occasionally annoyingly religious—and he was a damn good shot with a beam rifle.
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Xris went to answer the doorbell, which was ringing again. He noted, in passing, that Darlene was hunched over her computer, a familiar, intense, interested expression on her face—an expression rarely seen except when she was working. She had forgotten about taking the shower. Xris opened the door to find Jamil and a delivery man— a delivery man that second glance revealed to be Harry. "What the hell?" Xris stared. "Harry's been thinking again," Jamil said in grim tones. "Harry." Xris was disappointed. "I thought you knew better." "The guards at the gatehouse wouldn't let him in," Jamil continued. "He'd been standing there arguing with them for fifteen minutes." "I thought I should come in disguise," Harry mumbled. Xris shook his head. "I gave the guards your name and description, Harry. Well, what I thought was your description. All you had to do was present your passport. I didn't realize you'd found a new line of work." Harry looked sullen and aggrieved. He was the team member who'd been with Xris the longest. One of the best pilots in the galaxy, the moment Harry Luck set foot inside a spaceplane, he became a different person. In essence, he became a spaceplane himself. But on land, as Xris was wont to say, he'd been hit in the head with a stun gun once too many times. The delivery man's uniform was a size too small. He'd already burst a button on his broad chest and a seam was splitting out on his thick thigh. He had actually put enough thought into his disguise to bring along a beaten-up-looking package, which was tucked under one arm. Unfortunately, the FASTER-THAN-LIGHT INTERPLANETARY DELIVERY SERVICElabel on the package didn't match theGALAXY AT YOUR DOOR insignia on his uniform. "You gave them my real name?" Harry asked accusingly. "Well, yes. What name was I supposed to give them?" "An alias! Suppose someone's after us?" "No one's after us, Harry. We're clean for a change. Well, most of us are. Darlene still has to take a shower." He paused,then added, "That's a joke." Harry wasn't laughing. "Come inside," Xris said. "I let it be known among the neighbors that I was having a barbecue for some old friends." "Maybe they'll think Harry's with the caterer," Jamil said, and entered the house. He glanced around appreciatively. "Nice. Very nice. Mind if I give myself a tour?"
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"What about Darlene?" Harry continued stubbornly, as Jamil walked out the back door to view the deck. "Is she okay?" "She's here," Xris said, gesturing into the bedroom. "Safe and sound. See for yourself." "You didn't give themher real name?" Harry asked anxiously. "No, of course, not, Harry! For God's sake—" Xris pulled out his golden cigarette case—a gift from His Majesty the King—and removed a particularly strong and obnoxious form of tobacco known as a twist. Putting the twist into his mouth, he bit off the end, also biting off the words that would have hurt Harry and done little good anyway. "Look, Harry, for the tenth time, if the job requires you to put on a disguise, I'll let you know! And I'll supply the disguise. What's in the package?" Harry handed it over. "Cookies. My mom sent them. Did you check for bugs?" He peered worriedly up at the light fixture. Xris opened his mouth, shut it again,clamped his teeth down hard on the twist. "No, Harry. I didn't think of it. Go ahead and take a look. Doc's got the equipment." Harry brightened. "Sure thing. I'll get right on it." He wandered into the kitchen, bent down on his haunches to converse with Quong, who was still searching for disinfectant. "Is Xris okay?" Xris heard Harry ask in what he probably considered to be an undertone. "His thyroid levels are off. I am certain of it," Quong replied. "Oh, gee." Harry cast Xris a glance of alarmed concern before he began wandering around the house with a frequency analyzer looking for any sort of miniature transmitter. "Charming," said Jamil, coming back from the bedrooms. "I'm thinking of building one of these vacation houses myself. Larger, of course, and not so close to the water, with a better view, a bigger garage, and located in a more upscale neighborhood. But other than that, this is very close to what I was considering." "Glad you like it," Xris said, chewing on the twist. A former officer in the Army, Jamil had been relegated to the job of teaching recruits how to prepare for zero-G combat. Xris had spotted Jamil's true talents and had suggested early retirement from the military, a suggestion Jamil was glad to take. Handsome, charming, with ebony black skin and melting brown eyes, he was now second-in-command on the Mag Force7 team . He was attractive to women and extremely good with explosives. Darlene emerged from the bedroom. "What the hell's Harry doing?" she demanded. "He told me I had to shut down!" "He's checking for bugs," Xris said dryly.
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"But didn't you—" "Sure I did. But it keeps him occupied. Unless, of course, you have any packages that need to be delivered." "I'm going to take a shower," Darlene muttered. Retreating to her room, she grabbed her robe and marched down the hallway. The next moment they heard her say firmly, "I don't care if there are bugs in the bathroom, Harry! They can wait until I've had my shower!" "Gee, Darlene's in a bad mood," Harry commented on his return. "I didn't find any bugs in the house, Xris. But then I haven't checked the bathroom yet. You want me to look in the garage?" "Sure, Harry. Jamil, I— Ouch! What the devil?" "Blood sample," said Quong, walking off with an extractor and a tube filled with Xris's blood. Xris swore softly, rubbed his arm. The doorbell rang. And rang. And rang. A vision in a purple vest, a frilly blouse, and purple satin pants slit up the sides to reveal his shapely legs, Raoul stood on the porch, his finger pressing the bell, an expression of ecstasy on his face. His eyes, beneath purple eye shadow, were dreamy and unfocused. A strong smell of citrus and rose wafted from the Adonian; his was a race noted for their beauty, their love of pleasure, and their lack of morals. Standing beside Raoul, a drab planet to Raoul's gorgeous sun, was his partner, known only as the Little One. A large fedora covered the Little One's head, the brim shading his face. He wore a long raincoat that dragged the ground, and he kept the coat collar turned up. All that could be seen of the diminutive figure were two bright eyes. The Little One never spoke. An empath and a telepath, the Little One was Raoul's friend and constant companion. The two made a good team. The Little One sheltered beneath the umbrella of Raoul's habitual, drug-induced euphoria, while the Little One's intelligence gave direction to Raoul's butterfly mind. The Little One offered his hand to Xris, who shook it gravely, and then entered the house. Raoul remained on the porch, enjoying the synthesized music of the doorbell. "Raoul," Xris said loudly between rings, and at last the name penetrated. "Xris Cyborg!" Raoul cried, recognizing him with surprise and delight. "Whatever are you doing here?" "I live here," Xris said patiently. "I was the one who invited you here. Remember?" "No, but then why should I?" Raoul asked lightly. "Don't kiss me. You'll smudge my makeup." "I wasn't going to—" Xris began, but gave up. Raoul had wafted past him into the hallway. "Greetings, all! Jamil. I love your suit. Sardoni, isn't it? You can always tell. William Quong. I hope and trust that you are not conducting your ghastly experiments on the kitchen table.
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"Darlene, my dear." Raoul kissed the air near her chin. "Don't ever wear that style bathrobe. It makes you look pudgy. Or maybe it's those chocolate éclairs you've been having for breakfast. Sorry, I'd love to stop and chat, but I really must visit the little boy's room. Where is it? Down the hall?" He headed that direction, paused a moment to gaze with horror at one of the paintings on the wall, shook his head—gently, so as not to disturb his long black hair— shuddered, and disappeared into the bathroom. Quong emerged from the kitchen. "Your thyroid levels are fine, Xris. The white blood cell count is slightly elevated, however. I'd like to take another—" "Xris," Harry shouted from the back door. "Is there any way to get under the house?" "I amnot pudgy!" Darlene stated indignantly. She looked at herself worriedly in the hall mirror. "Am I?" "The patio's all wrong," Jamil was saying, "and the kitchen's much too small. I'd add a second story—" A shriek came from the bathroom. "There's a hair in the sink! You people are barbarians!" Xris grinned. It was great to have the family back together again. They watched the sun melt into pink and gold and slide into the ocean. Couples walked along the beach, picking up shells. Children poured salt on a jellyfish. Xris's seagull returned, was introduced to the group, and accepted potato chips from Darlene's hand. Raoul emerged from the bathroom, still upset over the state of the sink, but determined to bear his hardships bravely. He had changed his clothes—purple satin not being considered appropriate for barbecues—and his new outfit had done a great deal to console him. Dr. Quong did eventually discover some sort of chemical imbalance—not with Xris, but with Harry. Quong held forth about half an hour on the value of proper nutrition, bombarding Harry with a barrage of references to folic acid, antioxidants, glycomates, zinc, and beta-carotene. Harry sat listening dumbly, looking shell-shocked, and only said, at the end of the lecture, "Thanks, Doc. But Ilikefrench fries!" Xris fired up the barbecue. Jamil brought out a platter of steaks. "I told the doc they were a soy product," he said. "Did he buy it?" "Hard to tell. He's still furious over the french fries." Jamil was silent a moment, fidgeting, his hands in his pants pocket. "Look, Xris, maybe I'm getting as paranoid as Harry, but you see those two men walking along the beach?" Xris glanced out. "Yeah. What about them?" "Have you ever seen them around here before?" "No, but then I haven't really been looking. Why?" "Because they've passed this house four times now."
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"Probably just out walking off dinner," Xris said. "But just in case, ask Darlene to stay indoors, will you? Don't let on why. Say the mosquitoes are bad. She hates mosquitoes. I'll keep an eye on those men." The afterglow filled the sky, but shadows were gathering on the beach and it was difficult to see. Adjusting his cybernetic eye for night vision, Xris studied the two men. They were dressed in sweatpants and sneakers, wearing sweatshirts, big and bulky. They were in their late thirties, maybe, and engaged in conversation. One bent down, picked up a shell, and chucked it into the sea. Both paused to look with interest at the shriveled-up jellyfish. One patted a child on the head. They continued on down the beach. Xris couldn't say positively that they weren't Hung assassins; those oversized sweatshirts could have concealed anything from a beam rifle to a small missile launcher. But he put the odds against it, at about seven to one. Hung assassins didn't stroll about in the open before making a hit. And why would they wait to attack when Darlene was surrounded by friends, instead of catching her alone, as she had been on the way from the spaceport? "Ten to one against," he said to himself, and stuck a fork in the steaks.
CHAPTER 4
Fear and Hope are—Vision
William Blake, "The Gates of Paradise"
Harry Luck didn't like it. Not one damn bit. He squirmed in his chair on the deck, looked over his shoulder, peered back into the house. Standing up, he tried to see over the pink-flowered hedge that circled the house on three sides, but he couldn't manage it. Imagining assassins lining the block, laser weapons taking aim, he slumped back down disconsolately in the chair, only to start up again when a bell dinged. "Egg rolls are done," said Jamil, giving Harry a soothing pat on the shoulder as he walked past him into the kitchen. "Drink this," Raoul said, skimming by in a flutter of pink silk. He handed Harry a drink the same color, with clusters of frosted grapes. "It will settle your nerves." Harry took hold of the glass automatically, but he didn't drink it. He made it a practice never to eat or drink anything the Loti handed to him if he could help it. Not that Raoul would poison him deliberately,
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but there was always the possibility that something lethal could have slipped in by accident. Raoul was always fully stocked wherever he went. He had lipstick that could kill a full-grown man inunder three minutes, while the contents of his pillbox could have served to instruct a graduate-level class on toxicology, and there was no telling what was hidden underneath his long, fashionably painted fingernails. Harry didn't know what to do with the drink. He didn't dare pour it out; Raoul was frightfully sensitive. Harry sat with the icy, fruity drink freezing his hand until the Little One shuffled up and switched the pink drink with the grapes for a cold beer. Harry was grateful for the beer, but he still didn't like the situation and he didn't know what to do about it. He wandered into the kitchen, where Darlene sat, avoiding the mosquitoes, a pink fruity drink in her hand, a drink she was obviously enjoying. Harry, with a nervous glance at the pink concoction, offered to bring her a beer. "Thank you, Harry," Darlene answered with a smile, "but I've never tasted a pink flamingo before. It's really good. Would you like a sip?" Harry shook his head. He spent a few anxious moments expecting to see Darlene double over, clutching her throat, her last words, "There's something wrong with this drink!" Instead, she sucked on an ice cube. Harry thought Darlene one of the most attractive women he'd ever met. The fact that she had once been a he didn't bother Harry, who had only the vaguest concept of how that had all worked anyway. So Darlene was a miracle of modern science? Big deal. Harry's own mother, often mistaken for his sister in dim light, was the product of a prominent Dorasian plastic surgeon. In Harry's mind, the two were much the same. He was fond of Darlene and he worried about her. Hung assassins had tried twice before to kill her. The Little One's telepathic abilities, Raoul's pharmaceuticals, and her own wit had saved her. "What's wrong, Harry?" Darlene asked. Harry would have liked to have answered her, but he couldn't put his feelings into words. It was all wrong, that's what it was. From the waves crashing on the beach, which was practically in their backyard; to the flowered hedge, the patio, the sliding glass doors; to Jamil serving hot egg rolls, Raoul mixing drinks from the wet bar in the living room, Xris flipping steaks on the barbecue outside. Harry cast another anxious glance at Darlene and said in a low voice, fearful of being overhead, "What kind of a place is this for us to meet?" Darlene smiled. "I think it's a very nice kind of place, Harry. The weather is beautiful. Our swim this afternoon was outstanding. And those steaks smell wonderful." "It is amazing what they can do with soy products these days," Dr. Quong observed. Harry was not to be lured off course. As Jamil had once remarked rather caustically, once a thought finally wandered into Harry's head, he clung to it as if it might be the last one ever. "There's no protection," he restated. "We're out here in broad daylight—" "It's evening now," Jamil corrected.
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Harry ignored him. "The neighbors have seen you, Darlene. They've seen all of us." "Sometimes the best hiding place is out in the open," Quong stated, helping himself to an egg roll, having first ascertained that it was baked, not fried. "Relax, Harry, my friend. I'm going to have a fruit juice. Would you like anything?" Harry shook his head. "I think I'll go with Doc," Darlene said. Pausing, she stared out the front window. "Looking for snipers?" Jamil asked. Darlene laughed a little self-consciously. "Yes, I guess I was, to tell the truth. You know how it is—if someone says it's Monday and they keep sayingit's Monday, even if you know for a fact that it's Tuesday, you check your calendar. Harry's making me jumpy,that's all. I'll go help Raoul with the drinks." Jamil walked over to Harry, bent down, tray in hand. "Egg roll?" "Are there snipers out there?" Harry asked. "Unless the Hungare employing toddlers, no," Jamil answered. "Tycho should be on the roof with his rifle," Harry said, and scooped up a handful of egg rolls. "Tycho's dead, Harry." Jamil frowned down at the now empty tray. "Did you get enough?" "Are there more?" Harry asked. "No." Jamil sounded cold. "There aren't." "That's okay, then. Thanks. And I know Tycho's dead. I was there when he died. It's just that we're stuck here out in the open with no protection. No security cams, no shields. Anything could hit us." "We're in a house, Harry, not a Stiletto bomber. Very few of these homes in this neighborhood are equipped with blast shields. We have a smoke detector, a carbon monoxide detector, a radon monitor, and an excellent burglar alarm system. You should know. You checked it out yourself. We're perfectly safe." "Tycho should be on the roof with a rifle," Harry maintained glumly. "Someone should be on the roof." "I'm sure the neighbors would love it. We're supposed to be blending in with suburbia, not scaring the hell out of them." "He could wear a disguise," Harry suggested. "As what? A vid receiver? Santa Claus? Eight tiny reindeer?" "Thereare eight of us," Harry said, intrigued. "No," he amended after a moment's thought. "I guess there's only seven, now that Tycho's dead. Even so, I don't think the roof is big enough for all of us. Thanks, Jamil, but I don't believe that will work."
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Jamil muttered something it was just as well Harry didn't hear and tossed the empty tray into the sink. Harry roamed outdoors, onto the deck, where Xris was cooking and Dr. Quong was looking on with displeasure. "It has been determined that charring food over an open flame has caused cancer in laboratory mice." "That's why I didn't invite them over for dinner," Xris said. Quong appeared puzzled. "The mice, I mean," Xris explained. "It's a joke, Doc." "Uh, Xris, don't you think it would be a good idea if you wore your weapons hand?" Harry asked, gazing down at the steaks sizzling on the grill. Xris was a cyborg. His right side was mostly human, his left side mostly metal. It was hard to tell his age for that very reason. He was one of those men who looked old at twenty, young at sixty. He was bald, his head scarred, one of his eyes was his from birth and the other came from a factory. A twist dangled almost perpetually from his mouth. If he wasn't smoking one—which he usually didn't, out of deference to his friends—he was chewing it. His left hand was detachable; he had specially made weapons and tools that fit onto his arm. But today he wore only the plastiskin, fleshfoam hand that looked and felt real; would even bleed fake blood. He held nothing more deadly than a long-handled fork in one hand and a can of beer in the other. Xris took a swig of his beer. "It's kind of hard to flip steaks with an anti-tank rocket launcher, Harry. Don't worry. This is my ex-wife's house. It's a lot safer than my own, mainly because no one's looking for me here." "Safer, Xris?" Harry repeated, dumbfounded. "In your house you've got more security than the king has in the whole f*cking Royal Palace. How can this be safer?" "Language!" Raoul admonished in shocked tones, pointing to the children playing in the waves and feeding the seagulls. Harry stared down gloomily at his empty beer mug, wondered what had happened to the beer. He couldn't remember drinking it. "Jamil says to tell you, Xris Cyborg," Raoul continued, holding a hand over his face, shading his complexion from the ravages of the moonlight, "that the hors d'oeuvres went faster than he expected." Raoul cast an accusing glance at Harry, "You can serve dinner anytime." Xris stuck his fork in one of the steaks, lifted it,peered at it. The meat was blackened; blood ran from the prongs of the fork. Raoul glanced at it, made a retching sound,covered his mouth with his hand. "Cut the dramatics. Go tell everyone the steaks are done, will you?" Xris said, sniffing appreciatively.
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"For those who want to add unsightly bulges to their hips and tummies, the burned animal flesh is ready," Raoul called, traipsing back to the patio, his high heels making small indentations in the lush green lawn. "I have, of course, made one of my special olive, goat cheese, bean sprout, artichoke, and anchovy salads for those of us who are concerned with our appearance. I hope you'll have some," Raoul said to Darlene. "I made it'specially for you." "I am not pudgy," Darlene insisted irritably. "Flesh?" Dr. Quong repeated incredulously, coming to stand beside the barbecue. He regarded the steaks with deep suspicion. "What does he mean, 'animal flesh'? Jamil told me this was a soy product." He shook his finger at Xris. "You know your cholesterol count!" "Yeah, Doc, I keep it written on the back of my hand," Xris said, winking at Harry. "I guess I was mistaken. These are real beef. Must have picked up the wrong package. Sorry about that, everyone." "We forgive you," said Jamil, grinning. "Trust me on that." "Grab a plate and line up," Xris ordered. Harry juggled his plate nervously. "Xris, I really think—" "Harry, stop it," Xris said. His tone was stern, his expression grim. "For the last time, there's nothing wrong. There's no one watching us or bugging us or tailing us. You're making Darlene nervous. Hell, you're making me nervous! Now sit down and eat your dinner." "Yeah, Xris. Sure. Sorry." Harry carried his plate inside. "Your problem is clogged pores," said Raoul, accosting Harry as he walked past. "Try my salad. There's nothing like goat cheese to open the pores." Raoul heaped salad onto Harry's plate. Blood running from the rare meat mingled with the anchovy salad dressing. Harry sat down at the table, stared at the pink swan napkin in front of him, wondered what he was supposed to do with it. The Little One, seated to his Harry's left, flicked the napkin open with a deft hand and flung it onto Harry's broad lap, then dumped most of his salad onto Harry's plate when Raoul, his attention captured by the wind chimes, wasn't looking. "So, what's all this about?" Jamil asked between mouthfuls. "What's the job, Xris?" "No business discussed during meals," Dr. Quong said sternly, tapping his finger on the table. "Bad for the digestion." Xris glanced around at the others, winked, and started on his steak. The talk became general—a discussion of Rusty Love and his latest vid, the current problems facing the Prime Minister, an argument over the changes made in the wing configuration of the new model Rapier spacefighter. Harry gave a deep sigh. He stared down at his plate. He had eaten not only the steak but the salad as
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well. He had a vague impression that the anchovies had been disgusting, but he didn't remember any of it. At least he'd won Raoul's heart. "I'm so glad you liked my salad!" Raoul gushed. "I've gotlots made up! I'll send some home with you." "Sure," said Harry, not paying attention. "Thanks." He knew now what was really, truly bothering him. He didn't know how he knew, he just knew. Xris was wrong about them being safe. Someone was out there watching them, stalking them,waiting to nail them. For the first and only time in all the years they'd been together, Harry knew that Xris was wrong. Harry could only hope Xris wasn't dead wrong.
CHAPTER 5
If the lion was advised by the fox, he would be cunning. William Blake, "Proverbs of Hell"
"We'll have our coffee and dessert inside," said Xris. "And then we'll talk business." Jamil and Darlene served coffee and cheesecake as the rest of the group gathered around a vidscreen. Xris slid in a memory cube. A space map appeared on the screen, complete with locator numbers and names of prominent stars. An arrow pointed at one tiny planet orbiting one of the stars. Xris zoomed in on this planet. A cityappeared, a dot of white floating on green, surrounded by blue. Xris began his briefing. "For those of you who don't recognizeit, and I don't expect any of you do, this is the planet Del Sol, located in the Osiris system. The planet is small, but it has a large population, mostly gathered in one major city. This is the capital." They flew closer, viewed, from space, a large grid configuration. "Three-fifths of Del Sol's population lives in this city, known as Rianus. The other two cities are on a different continent and are mostly agrarian in nature. Basically they exist to feed Rianus. They're ruled by governors appointed by the
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dictator of Rianus, a man called Kirkov. Harry, what the devil are you doing?" Harry jumped, dropped the phone, which he had been dismantling. "Uh, nothing, Xris. I forgot to check the phone for bugs—" Xris looked grim. Quong put the phone back together. Harry slumped unhappily on the sofa. "Now, here's the plan," Xris said, when order had been restored. "Del Sol is ruled by this guy Kirkov. He's a dictator, a psychotic who thinks he's a god. Because he thinks he's a god, he has decided that he outranks King Dion. Kirkov's formed a small hegemony in the Foravis Arc, which is here, next to the Hormel Cluster. They call themselves the League of Nine Sisters. The league, led by this nutcase, has pulled out from under Imperial control. They refuse to let the Royal Navy in their sector, which, as you can see"—Xris brought up the map of the galaxy again— "is a sector that has a certain strategic value." "The Royal Navy should go in and kick some ass," Jamil stated. "Send a few big cruisers in there like the King James and this Kirkov would come out yelping with his tail between his legs." "The Royal Navy would like nothing better," Xris said. "There is a problem, however. Darlene, would you care toexplain?" Darlene Mohini bad been a high-ranking officer in theNavy, a part of RFComSec, involved in handling all the secret codes, making them and cracking them. Her departure had been abrupt and unexpected, causing the Navy considerable alarm and inconvenience. All that was behind her now. The Navy, if not thrilled that she was now a civilian, was at least no longer threatening to have her shot on sight. "This sector doesn't just have acertain strategic value," Darlene told them. "It hasmajor strategic value." "What's that?" Jamil argued. "It's far from the Void, which means it's far from the Corasians. Of course, if the information's classified—" "It is. How can I put this?" Darlene's brow furrowed in thought. Raoul shook his head sadly and whispered recommendations for cream of cucumber. "Let's imagine that there's a sector in the galaxy where some very delicate scientific experiments are being conducted—" "The Bulgarvian wormhole!" Quong said, snapping his fingers. "I recall reading about that. Nothing was ever discovered, however, and it was all discounted as so much theoretical nonsense. I had no idea anyone was still pursuing that. So the reports of its nonexistence must have been—" "Delicate scientific experiments," Xris said loudly, overriding Quong. "Of a most important nature. Believeme, the Royal Navy does not want to draw the galaxy's attention to this particular area of space." "If they have to send in the big guns, they will," Darlene agreed. "But they'd rather try other means first." "The 'other means' are where we come in, I take it," Quong said. "The people of Del Sol are not keen on being ruled by a psychotic god. But Kirkov has a very effective, highly efficient force of secret police. It is said that you can't take a crap on Del Sol without the secret police barging into the stall to hand you the toilet paper."
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"I could make the god go away," Raoul offered, and licked his lips suggestively. "Like the wretched Madame President on ... where was it?" He held one of his silent conversations with the Little One. "Yes, Modena. Thank you, my friend." "I know you could," said Xris. "That was my first idea. Unfortunately, the politics aren't as simple as they were on Modena. Kirkov has his people in every level of government. Not only that, but they also run the banks, which means that he controls the economy. And he has a successor chosen, ready to step in when he attains godhood. These people of his have things very good right now and they won't be easy to dislodge." "It would take me some effort, but it could be managed," Raoul said. "Don't you think a bunch of bureaucrats all dropping dead at the same time would tend to make people suspicious?" "It's been done before," Raoul observed with a flutter of his eyelashes. "Yes, but not by us and not by the Royal Navy. We want to avoid bloodshed, if possible," said Xris firmly. "Now, there's another factor at work on Del Sol. The planet's original inhabitants, a race known as the dremecks—" "Dremecks. I have never heard of them," said Quong, whipping out his electronic notepad. "Let me have all the details." "Sorry, Doc, but I wasn't able to acquire much advance information. What I do know is that they're gentle and peace-loving and they are now enslaved. And while the scientists and military experts are concernedover the wormhole that they won't admit exists. His Majesty is concerned about the dremecks. Not just the fact mat they're slaves, although that's bad enough. They're about to be-come dead slaves." "Genocide? In this enlightened age?"Quong was skeptical. "It's been done before in enlightened ages, Doc," said Xris. "His Majesty's intelligence has uncovered a plot by Kirkov to load all the dremecks on to transports, haul them off into the next quadrant, and space them." "What a waste," Raoul lamented."He could sell them to the Corasians for meat and make several million quite easily." The other team members stared at him. Raoul blinked. "Sorry," he murmured. "Did I say that out loud?" "Is Intelligence certain of its information?" Darlene asked. "I'm afraid I agree with the Doc. It seems impossible to imagine." "You were in Intelligence," Xris said. "You tell me." Darlene bit her lip, shook her head, and sighed. "The humans on Del Sol may live in a police state, but won't they be just the least little bit upset when
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they wake up one morning to find an entire population missing?" Jamil demanded. "Kirkov's got that figured out. He's already starting to talk about 'relocating' the dremecks to 'an environment more suited to their needs.' He'll probably put out fake reports showing the dremecks frolicking on a beach somewhere." "Not to disparage Intelligence"—Dr. Quong bowed to Darlene—"but I tend to agree with Raoul, the Master forgive me. It seems a terrible waste of resources. This Kirkov has a cheap labor force. Why get rid of them?" "Because dremecks are running Del Sol," Xris answered. "That is not logical, my friend. If they are running the planet, then they are in no danger." "I don't mean running as in controlling. I mean that they are literally running it. The dremecks are very clever people. The humans have been turning over all the 'menial' labor tasks to them, along with a lot of low-level tech jobs. The dremecks have become essential to the workings of the nuclear power plants, the electrical substations, the commlinks—you name it. Kirkov is afraid that one day the dremecks will shut Del Sol down, hold the planet hostage. If he gets rid of them himself, sure, things'll be chaotic for a while, until the humans can figure out what the dremecks have been doing, but at least Kirkov will be in control." "Poison," said Raoul, tapping his perfectly manicured nails against a small golden case he had removed from his purse. "No," said Xris. "Revolution. Mag Force 7 has been hired to aid a rebellion. The humans are afraid to rebel against Kirkov, but we have word that the dremecks are not. The dremecks need weapons, training. That's where we come in." "Tune frame?" asked Quong. "We're—What's the matter with him?" Xris spoke to Raoul, but he was referring to the Little One, who appeared distraught "He is picking up on disturbing emotions," Raoul said, and looked accusingly at Harry. "Harry," said Xris severely, "you're thinking again." "Sorry." Harry ducked his head. "Time frame. The dictator plans to space the dremecks on the night of his birthday, a little present to himself. Twenty-one space-time days from today." Jamil raised his hand to indicate he had a question, and without waiting for Xris to acknowledge him, fired it in. "What's our take on this?" "A small amount up front, with a promise,in writing, for more when the job's done." "Who's hiring us?" "I can't say," Xris hedged. "As you can imagine, this has to be handled with extreme delicacy. Certain
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people can't be known to be involved." "You can't tell us who's hired us and they're paying us with promises. No offense, but I think Doc's right. You've got a chemical imbalance somewhere." "If we pull off this revolution, this person will make the payment," Xris said confidently. "What if we don't pull it off? What happens then?" Xris shrugged. "When have we failed?" Raoul raised his hand. "That time doesn't count," Xris snapped. Raoul lowered his hand. Xris continued. "First we train the dremecks into a disciplined, crack fighting force—" "Did you say we're fighting for King Dion?" Harry interrupted. He had been thinking of something else, but thought he should say something to make Xris think that he—Harry Luck—hadn't really been thinking at all. "No, Harry, I didn't say that," Xris said patiently. "I didn't say anything about His Majesty, or if I did I didn't mean to and so you just forget it. All right?" Harry nodded. "Good. Jamil, you and Harry will be in charge of training the dremecks. "Raoul, you and the Little One will infiltrate the Ministry of Internal Security and keep them from finding out about our rebellion. If they do catch on to us, your secondary mission is to pass along the warning." "Internal Security," Raoul said, tasting the words on his tongue. He evidently didn't like the flavor, for he came as close to frowning as he possibly could without actually harming his complexion. "They sound frightfully ... secure. Are you certain I am going to enjoy this?" Xris took this opportunity to put a twist into his mouth, which also allowed him to count to whatever number he currently required to restore his patience. "You're not being paid to like it," Xris said finally, chewing on the twist. "I'm not?" Raoul was agog. "Then why ever am I doing it?" The Little One gave his friend a thump on the thigh with his fist. Raoul massaged his leg. "That may do wonders for cellulite, my friend, though thus far—thank the gods of thigh cream—I do not suffer from that malady. But I take your point." Raoul gave a magnanimous nod and subsided. Xris waited a moment to make certain he wasn't going to suffer from further interruption,then proceeded.
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"Darlene, you will be in charge of subverting the local media. The population has to believe that there's the rebel equivalent of four Imperial Marine Divisions ready to take the city, and you're the one who's going to make them believe it. In addition, you'll plant a few bugs in the communication system of Kirkov's Army, make it tough for them to put together a military response to our actions." Darlene nodded, smiling. Xris shifted the twist from one side of his mouth to the other. He looked grim. "Doc, I saved the messy, dangerous part of the job for you." "Of course," Quong said calmly. "You know that I am the most capable of handling such assignments." Jamil snorted. Quong cast him a disparaging glance, sat up even straighter. "I want you to gain entrance into Del Sol high society, Doc." "Yes, and then whom do I assassinate?" Xris took the twist from his mouth. A corner of his lip twitched. "You don't assassinate anyone, Doc. You get chummy with the rich and thepowerful, find out who's discontented with the current regime, who would be willing to provide influence and backing when our brave rebel forces march down the streets of Del Sol." Xris waved the twist. "Promise them a share of the next government, if you want." "Dangerous assignment, Doc," said Jamil, chuckling. "Watch out that your black tie doesn't strangle you. And think of all the champagne you'll have to drink to keep your cover! I'm sure Raoul can teach you the latest dance steps—" Raoul was patting the air with his fingertips, a sure sign that he was distraught. "Champagne! Black tie! The rich and the powerful! And you are sending in a man who wears cranberry-colored socks with a red cumme*rbund! I protest most strongly—" "I told you, I dressed in the dark! And no one could see my socks anyway!" Quong returned, offended. "Iknew they were there," Raoul replied in sepulchral tones. "And they ruined my evening." "Well, as long as we're being honest"—Quong bristled— "the feather boayou were wearing made you look like a—" The doorbell rang. Jamil looked at Xris, silently asked if he was expecting someone. Xris shook his head. The living room was located in the rear of the house, provided no glimpse of what was happening in front. There was no way they could see who was out there. The doorbell rang again. "Aren't the gate guards supposed to notify you if anyone is coming?" Jamil asked softly.
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Xris nodded. "Unless someone told them not to. Doc, check out the back." Quong padded soft-footed through the darkened living room to the sliding glass doors overlooking the deck and the beach. Xris turned to the Little One. "Who is it?" The Little One grabbedhold of his fedora, pulled it down over his ears almost to his small shoulders, and shook his head violently. "He says that whoever is out there is surrounded by what I can only describe as a ... a mental dust storm," Raoul said. "The dust storm prevents my friend from obtaining any sort of reading." "Dandy. Just dandy," Xris muttered. "I told you we should have set out the security cams," Harry pointed out. "Thank you, Mr. Luck. You can be team leader next week, okay?" The ringing was repeated, more forcefully. "Xris," reported Dr. Quong, returning from his reconnaissance mission, "there are two men walking slowly along the beach." "Sweatshirts? Sweatpants?" "Yes, those are the ones." Xris swore softly, rose to his feet. Raoul reached languidly and casually for his purse, which contained his special lethal lipstick. Jamil drew a .44-decawatt gun from a holster he wore on his belt in the small of his back and padded soft-footed into the hall, positioninghimself for a clear line of fire out the front door. The Little One placed his hand inside his raincoat, brought out a blowgun—his favored weapon—and crept behind the couch. Quong drew his .44 and placed his back against the wall, keeping a watch out the patio doors. "Harry, you're with Darlene!" Xris whispered. He looked at the vidscreen, which provided a view of the porch, but all he could see were wavy lines: some sort of interference. "Sorry, I can't come to the door right now," he said through the speaker. "I just got out of the shower and I'm dripping wet with no clothes on. Who is it?" "I'm a friend of your wife's," was the response in a cool, feminine voice. "Sorry. Marjorie's out of town. Leave your name and I'll tell her you called." "I know she's out of town," the voice returned. "I know where she is, in fact. Do you?" Jamil sucked in his breath, let it out in a low whistle.
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Quong frowned and pursed his lips. "What is it? What's wrong?" Raoul whispered. He turned to his friend. "Do you know what's wrong?" The Little One made a low, feral growling sound in his throat. Xris said nothing for a moment. He removed the twist from his mouth, stared at it, then tossed it into an ashtray. He was on the intercom again. "Look, give me a moment. Let me put some clothes on." He turned, issued orders. "Harry, take Darlene to the garage. The hover's parked inside. Switch on the computer, but don't fire the engines. Just be ready to if I give you the word. You and Darlene might need to make a fast departure." Xris tapped his head. "Listen for my orders over the commlink. Got that, Harry?" "Commlink?" Harry was puzzled. "The one behind your ear! The one Doc implanted! Tap it twice to activate it!" "Oh, yeah. Sorry, I forgot. Sure, Xris. You can count on me." Harry drew his handgun from its shoulder holster. "The two men have changed direction." Quong was keeping an eye out the back. "They are now approaching the house." "Weapons?" "None in sight." Xris looked back at Darlene, who was standing stubbornly in the middle of the room, not wanting to leave. "Harry, carry her if you have to," Xris said grimly. Darlene glanced at Harry, who was quite prepared to carry out Xris's least order, and she stalked off to the garage. The hover, a newer model, stood on its pads. Harry went to take a discreet look out the garage's front windows. Expecting to see the street lined with helo-tanks, he was astonished to see only one vehicle parked outside, a hover painted an unassuming gray. Unfortunately, the hover was parked directly behind Harry. "Don't worry, Darlene." Harry eased himself into the front seat, studied the instrument panel as Darlene climbed into the passenger seat. Harry was pleased with what he saw. This was a good machine. He located the control that would open the garage door, considered whether or not it would be best to use it or just blast his way through. "We'll get you out of here." "Sure, Harry. Thanks," Darlene said quietly. She was nervous, but not for herself. She was worried for Xris. "We're all set here," Harry reported in.
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No answer. "Tap it," Darlene reminded him. Harry tapped the communicator device—a small metal commlink inserted beneath his skin behind his left ear. He could now hear what was happening back in the house. "Everyone in place?" Xris was asking in low tones. Soft responses from Jamil and Quong. "Just putting on my lipstick now." That was Raoul. "Here goes." The squeak of the front door hinges. Xris sounded grim. "Who are you and what do you want?" "Xris Tampambulos?" This was a man's voice. "Who wants to know?" "Agent Jonathan Fisk, FISA. This is Agent Rizzoli. I have a warrant for your arrest." "What's the charge?" "The murder of Dalin Rowan, senior agent with the Federal Intelligence Services Agency." "Oh, dear God!" Darlene whispered.
CHAPTER 6
The fox condemns the trap, not himself. William Blake, "Proverbs of Hell"
Xrishad experienced a lot of unpleasant surprises in his life. The time when a munitions factory had blown up in his face. The time when he had discovered there were two assassins out to kill the king, when he'd only expected one. The time a deadly antique robot that wasn't supposed to work, worked. This unpleasant surprise ranked right up there with the worst of them.
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"What was that remark you made about my wife?" Xris demanded. Two agents stood on the porch. The two men approaching the house from the beach were undoubtedly connected with the Bureau as well. Standard procedure, in case the suspect tried to escape through the back. The Bureau didn't expect trouble from Xris, however. Fisk didn't have his gun drawn. Neither did the agent behind him, an attractive, energetic-looking, and excited young woman, who was trying hard to look cool and professional. This was probably her first field assignment. Fisk was obviously an old hand at this. Middle-aged, with a roll of fat around his middle, he didn't look cool and professional. He just looked bored. By now it had occurred to Xris what was going on. Amadi—that son of a bitch! So this is how he's going to get to Rowan. He knows darn good and well I didn't kill Rowan because he knows dark good and well Rowan's not dead! I hand her over to prove I'm innocent. Nice try, ex-boss, but it won't work. So what to do? The team was ready. Xris knew without looking that Jamil had moved to a better location, was now taking aim through the kitchen window. Quong was guarding the rear with a beam rifle from the cedar chest in the bedroom. Xris had only to say the word and Fisk and the pretty, perky agent would be smoking corpses on his front lawn, with two smoldering agents on his back deck. And what then? Fisk cheerfully filled in the details. "This is a nice house," he stated. "Nice neighborhood. I'm sure you wouldn't want to do anything that would upset your neighbors or damage your wife's reputation. She teaches school near here, doesn't she? They're very particular about the people they hire to teach our kids. And I hear she's been accepted by some high-powered university for graduate work. Universities like publicity, but not that kind. Not GNN interviewing a student who's also the wife of a murderer—a cop-killer." Fisk's voice grated. "So tell your people to put down their guns." "Xris!" Darlene spoke urgently through the comm. "I'll turn myself in. I'll explain everything." "Nobody fires!" Jamil ordered. "Nobody moves. Everyone stays put until Xris gives the word." Give the word. And what happens? Xris knew well what would happen. Four bodies. Four dead federal agents. Sir John Dixter would renounce him. The king himself would be forced to sign the order for Xris's execution. And not justhis execution. Jamil, Quong, Harry... "You're a clever bastard, Amadi," Xris muttered to himself. "Choosing the one place where you knew I wouldn't be able to put up a fight. How did you know Marjorie would invite me here? Unless..." No, Marjorie never would have agreed to trap him. He knew that. But what if she didn't know? What if she hadn't been the one to send the invitation? What if, after all, she didn't really give a damn... Stop it!he ordered himself. He couldn't be distracted. "I'll come to the Bureau with you," he offered. "Just promise me that my wife won't be involved. You can make that promise, can't you?"
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He stared hard at Fisk, who didn't blink an eye. "Yeah, I can promise that." "I don't want her name on the vids or splashed all over the mags." "We don't want publicity over this case any more than you do, Mr. Tampambulos," the woman stated. "Rizzoli's right," Fisk reiterated. "We don't want anything about you on the nightly news. We don't want the public to know about a rogue agent, a traitor to the force. A man who murders not only another agent but one who was his best friend." His voice hardened. "Not the type of publicity the Bureau wants. And just so you know, Mr. Tampambulos, I can call in all the firepower I need, have it here the moment I touch this button. I repeat, tell your mercenary pals to put away their guns." "Give the word, Xris." That was Quong. "I have a clear shot." "My people are not involved in this," Xris said. "They had nothing to do with any of it." "We're aware of that, Mr. Tampambulos. They'll be asked to come down to the office for routine questioning, but after that they'll be free to leave the planet. They'll be encouraged to leave, in fact," Fisk added dryly. Harry's plaintive voice came over the communicator. "What's the deal here? Xris didn't kill Rowan. Rowan's sitting right next to me." "Cut the chatter," Jamil returned tersely. "Jamil, Quong, put down your weapons," Xris ordered. Harry was baffled. Darlene Mohini, who used to be Dalin Rowan, was pale and shocked and distraught, but she was most definitely not dead. He started to say something to her, but she pinched him on the arm—hard, it hurt—and gestured to the commlink. Harry went back to listening. "You have the right to remain silent," Rizzoli was saying. "You have a right to retain counsel. Anything you say may be used in evidence against you. Do you understand these rights?" "Yes." Xris sounded tired. "I understand. Look, I'll make a deal with you." "You're not in much of a position—" "Yeah, Fisk, I know all that. I used to be on the other side of that badge. But I also figure you'd like to wrap this up without any trouble. If you've read my files, you know the reputation of the people in this house. You know that if I decide to refuse to cooperate, my people will back me up. You might capture me—might,I say—but I guarantee you'll lose some good people in the process, not to mention the fact that this lovely neighborhood will look like a war zone when we're finished." "Are you threatening us, Mr. Tampambulos?" Fisk demanded. "I have to warn you that this will be taken into account at your trial—"
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"What the hell didyou do to me? That business about my wife! Oh, yeah, it was a good ploy. It got my attention. But wait untilmy attorney hears about that one! Can you spellcoercion?" Fisk was silent a moment, then said, "What's the deal?" "Let me walk out of here without restrainers—" "You're a goddam murder suspect—" "A murder that happened ten years ago!" Xris returned. "Look, Fisk,if you've read my file, you know that there aren't any restrainers made that can hold me if I want to bust loose." Harry could hear the whine of machinery and guessed that Xris was flexing his fake hand. "I don't want the neighbors to see me being hauled off like a common criminal. My wife has to live here." "Anything else we can do for you, Mr. Tampambulos?" Fisk had gone from cold to sarcastic. "Maybe we should send for a limo." "Let me have one minute to talk with my people." "Absolutely not—" "We'll hold our conversation right here on the front porch. You can see everything, hear everything." The sound of a crash exploded in Harry's communicator. "Xris!" he shouted, then drew his gun and jumped out of the hover. "Harry, stop!" Darlene made a grab for him, but missed. Harry could move with surprising speed for a man built along the lines of an armored bunker-buster. "Harry!" He ignored her. Noise and confusion were the only sounds coming over the commlink now. Harry dashed through the door into the kitchen, gun raised. Quong had his beam rifle aimed at the patio doors. The two beachcombers were nowhere in sight. They had disappeared, probably run around the sides of the house. Jamil, his back against the wall, held his .44-decawatt lasgun in both hands. At the word, he'd turn and fire down the hallway. The Little One had his preferred weapon, a blowgun that fired poisonous darts, in his hand. He was deadly accurate. Raoul was applying a second coat of lipstick, either to enhance its deadly effectiveness or because he thought the color was a shade too pale. It was hard to know. And then Xris's voice, strong and urgent, came over the comm. "Stand down! Everyone! It's only a broken flower urn. Stand down! That's an order."
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Jamil glanced at the others, shook his head peremptorily. He and Quong maintained their positions. Catching sight of Harry, Jamil motioned him to keep back out of sight. Harry did as he was told, flattened himself—and there was a lot of himself to flatten—against the refrigerator. "What the hell did you do that for?" Xris demanded angrily. "You nearly got us all shot!" "Sorry about that," said Fisk, chagrined. "It's Rizzoli. She's a Talisian. Why don't you go wait in the car, Rizzoli? She's great with computers," he said, by way of apology. "The Bureau will reimburse your wife for the damages, of course." "Since when did the Bureau start hiring Talisians?" Xris demanded. In an undertone, he spoke two words into the commlink, "Rizzoli. Computers." "His Majesty's new nondiscrimination act," Fisk was saying. "Talisians can supposedly control their weird kinetic energy field with medication, but that doesn't seem to work with Rizzoli." He sounded resigned. "I'll give you your minute's meeting, Tampambulos. Right here. Where I can keep an eye on you. And I'll invite my friends to join us, if you don't mind." He lifted his wrist, spoke into a commlink. "Move in." Harry looked to Jamil. This was their chance. Jamil jerked his head toward the patio door. Harry sneaked a peek around the fridge and through the pass-through window that opened into the living room. Two men could be seen coming from around the side of the house. Dressed in sweatsuits, they looked like ordinary tourists, except for the guns in their hands. Harry lifted his shoulders slightly. There were only two of them. "Xris?" Jamil asked over the commlink. "No!" was Xris's urgent response. "Come out here on the porch. I've got instructions for you. Put your weapons down and come out. All of you." "He's got a plan!" Jamil whispered. "Follow orders." Replacing his gun in the holster he wore at his waist, gun at his back, he smoothed his shirt and walked down the hall. Quong tossed the beam rifle he'd been holding on the sofa and followed Jamil. Raoul came after, being quite careful not to lick his lips. The Little One shuffled along in Raoul's perfumed wake. Darlene entered through the garage door. She had regained some color in her cheeks, looked almost relieved. Harry couldn't figure it out for a moment,then the light dawned. "Ah," he said to himself. "We're going to take them out bare-handed." He shoved his gun back into its holster and moved from the kitchen into the hallway. The team gathered on the porch, grimly eyeing the agents, who stared just as grimly back. The team formed a ring around Xris, with the Little One crowding close to his legs. They were silent and dour, except for Raoul, who took a mincing, fluttering step forward. "What a very charming friend you have. Please introduce us, Xris Cyborg." He pursed his lips. His eyes,
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usually dreamy and drifting, were sharply gleaming, alert, focused. "No, Raoul!" Xris said. Jamil strong-armed Raoul, dragged him back. "You don't need to be introduced," Xris said. "Not now." "I don't! Are you sure?" Raoul asked with dangerous sweetness. "I'm sure." "If you say so." Raoul shrugged his shoulders delicately. "By the way, Jamil, you're hurting me." "Sorry." Jamil loosened his grip on the Adonian's wrist. "Don't be," Raoul said softly. "You have one minute," Fisk barked. Xris faced the team. "First, Jamil, contact the team's attorney. I want Parker himself, not one of his flunkies." Jamil nodded. "Second"—Xris's gaze encompassed all ofthem—"carry on with the job. Looks like we might need the cash to fund my legal expenses." "It's not funny, Xris," Harry said. "I know," Xris said, adding lamely, "I'm sorry." Jamil glowered. Quong looked stern and severe. Raoul's lashes were lowered, but he kept his gaze on Fisk. The Little One, holding tightly on to Xris pants leg like a child about to be parted from its mother, peeped at the agents from beneath the fedora. Harry waited for Xris's signal. He would take out Fisk with a shoulder to the gut. Jamil and Quong could deal with the other two agents. Then— "Good-bye. Good luck." Xris gave them a final glance. "Xris!" Darlene took a step forward. "I'm going to—" Xris caught her in his arms, gave her a kiss, and hugged her to his chest. "Good-bye, sweetheart," he said loudly. In a harsh whisper that could only be heard over the comm, he said quickly, "Listen to me, all of you. Someone's set me up and he's done it for a reason. My guess is Amadi. He knows Darlene's not dead. He told me so." Fisk, on the sidewalk, rolled his eyes. "C'mon, Tampambulos. Your minute's over. You can send your girlfriend a postcard from the lockup."
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Xris held on to Darlene a moment longer, speaking through the cover of her hair. "Darlene once discovered someone high up in the Bureau was tied into the Hung. This may be our chance to find out who ! Not a word until you hear from me. Promise? Rowan?" "I promise, Xris," Darlene said reluctantly. Xris released her with a kiss on the cheek. "All right, Fisk. I'm ready." His jaw set, his face colder than his metal body parts, Xris walked down the stairs. His feet crunched on pieces of the broken stone urn. Watchful and wary, Fisk accompanied him. Harry tensed, ready to jump. He expected Xris's "Now!" to explode among them like a grenade, wrecking havoc. A gray hover vehic, unmarked, was parked on the landing site. Rizzoli, looking embarrassed, stood near the door on the passenger side. She held the door open. Xris entered the hover without a backward look. As he was climbing into the vehic, sliding across the seat, he spoke very low, but with such vehemence and force that every syllable was clear. "None of you knows any connection between Dalin Rowan and Darlene Mohini. Remember that! I'll be in touch." Rizzoli climbed into the hover, seated herself next to Xris. Fisk climbed in the front, next to the driver. The two agents in sweatshirts, who had been guarding the back of the house, came around to the front. "Sorry for the disturbance," said one politely. "We'll arrange a time for you to come downtown tomorrow"—he glanced at his watch—"make that today—for questioning." "Just routine," said the other. "And if any of you were thinking of taking a trip, I should tell you that your passports have all been revoked. Don't worry. They'll be reinstated as soon as we have all the information we need. Then you'll be free to go. Good morning." With a cool nod, the two sauntered, at a slow pace, down the sidewalk. Harry cast a pleading, stricken glance at Jamil. Jamil shrugged. "We have our orders," he said bitterly. Turning, he walked inside the house. The others followed, with the exception of Harry, who waited on the lawn. Harry watched the hover lift up, make a graceful turn in midair, and glide at slow speed along the marked hover routes that ran between the houses. He had a fleeting memory of his old neighborhood—all the would-be teenage space pilots buzzing the housetops, flying under bridges, playing chicken with occasionally disastrous results. The hover sedan flew sedately around the corner and that was the last Harry saw of it. Head down, his feet kicking at bits of broken urn, Harry returned to the house, slamming the door loudly on his way inside.
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The sun was starting to rise, shining in the sky like a hot pink penny. Hard to believe it was dawn already. They stood staring at each other. No one moved or spoke. "I don't know about the rest of you," Jamil said at last, "but I could use a walk on the beach." Harry blew up. "A walk on the—" Jamil flashed a warning glance at him. "Oh." Harry subsided. He understood. A little late, but he understood. "I'll go remove my lipstick," Raoul said. "And change into my beachcomber outfit. I won't be a moment." "Wait a minute, Loti. Did the Little One get anything out of Fisk?" The Little One growled and pounded himself on the head, making a dent in the fedora. "Fisk was using a mind block," said Raoul. "Damn," muttered Jamil.
CHAPTER 7
A dead body revenges not injuries. William Blake, "Proverbs of Hell"
The team reassembled out on the beach, about a mile fromI the house. The early morning breeze blowing off the ocean was pleasantly cool. Jamil built a driftwood fire, over Raoul's indignant protests that now his clothes would reek of smoke. "Sit upwind," Jamil snapped. He was not in a good mood. "It won't help," Raoul protested. "Smoke follows beauty, you know." He drew a fan from his purse and plied it frantically. "Xris and Harry both checked the house for bugs," Jamil said, "but we've got to assume they missed one."
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"Satellite surveillance," Quong said. "Yeah, you're probably right. I didn't think of that." The fire danced among the driftwood, the salt in the wood causing the flames to burn with vibrant colors of blue and green. "We have to tell them the truth," Harry said. "We have to tell them that Darlene Mohini is Dalin Rowan!" "We can't, Harry," Jamil returned. "You know what will happen to Darlene if her cover is blown." "Her cover's already blown," Harry argued stubbornly. "The Hungknow who she is. They've tried twice to kill her. Her cover doesn't matter now. We can't let Xris go to the disrupter for Dalin Rowan's murder when he—'scuse me, Darlene, I meanshe —is sitting right here!" Darlene said nothing. She stared into the flames, seemed not to have heard. "We have thrown the Hung off Darlene's trail," Quong observed. "They don't know where she is at the moment." "But they sure as hell will know where she is if she shows up on the vids!" Jamil said. "Besides, you heard Xris's order, Harry. Or at least I assume you heard it. Youdid have your communicator on this time, didn't you?" "I had it turned on," Harry said defensively. "I keep telling you guys, the one time that happened I had popcorn caught in my tooth and it interfered with reception. This time there was nothing caught in my teeth. I heard his order fine." Jamil frowned dangerously. "Then are you saying we disobey it?" Harry couldn't imagine disobeying Xris. He'd been with Xris a lot of years, more than anyone else on the team. Harry admired Xris. Harry thought Xris was the smartest man he'd ever known, the smartest and the bravest and the best. Harry had once even thrown himself on a grenade to save Xris's life. The grenade had been filled with sleep gas and Xris had not been in any danger—except of taking an unforeseen snooze—but, as Xris himself had said, it was the thought that counted. "Xris wasn't himself. He wasn't thinking straight." Harry looked up hopefully. "Maybe he could plead temporary insanity." Jamil rolled his eyes, turned to Darlene. "What Xris said at the end—about you discovering that someone high up in the Bureau was working for the Hung—what was that all about?" Darlene continued to stare into the fire. She had her knees drawn up to her chin, her arms resting on them. And though she was wearing a sweater and sitting close to the blaze, she shivered. "After the explosion at the factory, the explosion that killed our partner Ito and maimed Xris, I went undercover and infiltrated the Hung's operations. I knew that one of our agents, a man named Armstrong, had been working for the Hung. He was the one who set up Xris and Ito to die in the explosion, and he tried to kill me. He thought he'd succeeded. "I managed to get enough evidence to prove that Armstrong was on the take. He was about to be
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arrested, but someone beat us to him. Armstrong was murdered. The official word was that the Hung had been afraid he was going to turn on them, and killed him before he could talk. But I knew better. I was working for the Hung at the time and I knew that no orders had been issued by them. "Armstrong had been taken out because he was going to reveal someone higher up in the Bureau who was being paid by the Hung. Someone who had a lot more to lose than that wretch Armstrong. "I couldn't find out who it was, though. Not with Armstrong dead. I guessed that whoever it was knew I was on his trail. He would take care of me the same way he had taken care of Armstrong. That's when Dalin Rowan died and Darlene Mohini came into existence. "Xris thinks—and I guess I have to agree with him—that this is why he's being arrested. The person I suspected then and the person I suspect now is a man named Jafar el Amadi. I still don't have any proof, though." Darlene sounded discouraged. "Who's this Amadi?" "Our former boss. He was in charge of the Hung investigation. Amadi worked against the Hung for years. He knew more about them than anyone. He retired, but his boss, a man named Robison, brought Amadi back on the case. Despite the fact that their leaders are in prison, the Hung are still in business. And they're afraid of me, as evidenced by the fact that twice they tried to kill me. The Hungknow that Dalin Rowan is still alive and they now know that he's not Dalin anymore, but Darlene." She glanced around at all of them. "Amadi knows that, too. He knows that Dalin Rowan isn't dead." "The hell he does!" Jamil exclaimed, startled. "Then why arrest Xris for a crime he knows he didn't commit?" "Because Amadi knows Xris can't tell the truth!" Darlene said helplessly. "If he did, as you said, he'd blow my cover. He wants something from Xris and he figures he'll use this to pressure it out of him." "If Amadi was working for the Hung," Dr. Quong said, "why did he permit you to go undercover and expose them? Why did he let the Hung leaders go to trial and then prison?" "There wasn't anything he could do to stop it. Not without revealing his hand." Darlene shrugged. "And let's face it, the Hung were only put out of commission temporarily. Someone saw to it that the Hung leaders were transferred to a high-class, luxury prison known as Jango. Their operation is ongoing, even expanding. And because they're in prison, no one hassles them. It's a pretty sweet setup." "What do you think this Amadi is trying to gain by arresting Xris?" Quong asked. "My first guess was that Amadi was going to use this phony arrest to pressure Xris into giving me up," Darlene said slowly, thinking out loud. She rested her chin on her knees, stared into the fire as if, like the ancients, she could read the answers to her questions in the flames. "Just what is it you know about the Hung, anyway?" Jamil asked. "It's not what Iknow, exactly." Darlene hedged. "It's what theythinkIknow . They think I know the location of the Hung's secret bank account. The one they're using to fund their operations." "Do you?" Harry blurted out. "Where is it?"
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Darlene avoided his eyes. Biting her lip, she picked up a stick and started poking at the fire. Sparks flew up in a shower that caused Raoul to squeal in protest. "She can't tell us, Harry," Jamil said shortly. "In fact, sheshouldn't tell us. I certainly don't want to know." "Nor do I," Quong agreed. "They will be asking us questions today, and the less weknow, the better." He frowned. "In fact, we probably know too much already. They will be giving us truth tests." "Not to worry," Raoul called out, having removed himself as far from the conflagration as possible yet still hear what was being said. "I have a little concoction of my own that you can take with your orange juice this morning. You will be so relaxed during their questioning that you can lie without the least possibility of their detecting it. If they ask you if Xris Cyborg is your mother, you can answer yes with a clear conscience and no perceptible agitation in the brain waves." "Check it out, Doc. If you thinkit's okay and it won't turn us into mindless zombies, we'll take it," Jamil instructed. Raoul took offense. "Mindless zombies!" He sniffed. "I assure you it will do nothing of the sort. I take the drug myself on occasion, such as when Darlene and I go shopping for clothes." Jamil grunted. "All right. We never heard of Dalin Rowan. We never heard of this Amadi guy and we never heard of the Hung. Got it, everyone? You got it, Harry?" Harry frowned. "Yeah, but I don't want it." Darlene looked up. The fire had been of some inspiration, after all. "There might be a way to work this," she said. "When that Talisian broke the urn, Xris spoke two words into the commlink." "Rizzoliandcomputers. Yeah, I heard him," Jamil said. "That's right. If this Rizzoli is the office computer hound, then there might be a way to use her." Darlene hesitated. "I'll have to think about this. I'm not sure...." "What's wrong? Sounds like a good idea to me," said Jamil. "There's one aspect to this that doesn't make any sense," Darlene explained. "The Hungknow that Dalin Rowan is Darlene Mohini. If Amadi's working for the Hung, he must know that, too!" She spread her hands helplessly. "Why not just arrest me along with Xris? Amadi wants Xris and he wants him for a reason. I thought it was me, but now I'm not so sure." "There's the death penalty on this planet," said Harry Luck. Startled and alarmed, they all stared at him. "Where the hell did you come up with that?" Jamil demanded. "I read about it in one of the vidmags on the transport," Harry said loftily. "I'm not stupid. I do read. I read lots, as a matter of fact."
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Darlene had gone extremely pale. "Could that be the reason?" Jamil asked uneasily. "Xris wouldn't let matters go that far," Quong predicted. "Iwon't let it go that far," said Darlene. "Yeah, well, it's a little late now, isn't it?" said Harry angrily. "We should have done something when those buzzards showed up on the doorstep! We never should have let them take Xris. We've been in tougher spots than that! We escaped from a Corasian mothership, for the love of God! We should have done something." "Whatcould we have done?" Jamil retorted. "The agents had the drop on us. So we start a firefight. What about those kids outside playing on the beach? What happens to them when the lasguns and beam rifles start blasting? Not to mention Xris. He would have been the first casualty. Remember what Fisk said about pushing a button? They had backup somewhere. You can bet on that. Snipers, most likely." "Satellite prowlers," said Quong. "They could have incinerated the house—" "All right, all right. I get it," Harry mumbled disconsolately. He poked a stick in the fire. "What's the plan now?" Quong asked. Jamil scratched his jaw. "I'll contact our lawyer, arrange for him to see Xris—" "A lawyer!" Harry cried furiously. He jumped to his feet, kicking sand on Raoul, who bleated in irritation. The Little One shriveled up in the heat of Harry's rage, curled into a ball on the sand, and pulled his hat over his head. "A lawyer? A f*cking lawyer? We should be planning to break Xris out of the Feds' lockup right now! A lawyer? What the hell is the matter with you people?" "Harry," Jamil began, exasperated, "this isn't the time to go in with guns blazing! There's a time for subtlety—" "Jamil is right, my friend.Look, Harry," Quong added, "let us suppose for the sake of argument that we succeed in breaking Xris out. Let us suppose that we get him away safely. This Amadi will simply say to the world, 'See there. We were right! He is guilty!' As it is, with a good attorney, Xris may win the court case. Then he will be cleared of these charges for life. And Darlene will be safe." "And if he's not?" Harry demanded. "If they send him to the disrupter? Or maybe they won't even wait for that! Maybe he'll be 'shot while trying to escape.' Then what?" No one had an answer to that. Harry glared at them, sitting around the fire, so damn complacent and smug. They didn't care about Xris, none of them. "You and your subtleties and your f*cking attorneys andyour friggin' satellites." Harry coughed, had to
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pause a moment to clear his throat. "Goddam smoke," he muttered. He rubbed his eyes, wiped his nose. "All I know is that Xris wouldn't let one of you sit for five goddam minutes in a prison cell without trying to do something! And it wouldn't be hiring a goddam lawyer! You people disgust me." Harry turned on his heel, heading for the house. "Harry, where are you going?" Quong demanded. "Back to the hotel." "Harry, remember!" Jamil said sternly. "You can't say anything about Darlene!" "I won't," Harry retorted. "Her secret's safe with me. As for the rest of you, call me when you grow some balls." "Certainly not a very tactful thing to say under the circ*mstances," Raoul admonished, with an arch of a finely plucked eyebrow and a glance at Darlene. Harry stomped off, trudging through the soft sand, slipping and sliding. He could still hear the rest talking, and wondered why for a moment. Then he realized he had his commlink on. "You know," Jamil was saying in quiet, thoughtful tones, "Harry's not as dumb as we think." "He has a certain native perspicacity," Quong agreed. Harry paused on his way into the house, waited to see if they might change their minds and decide to do something besides insult him. All he could hear were the waves, rushing into the shore,then rushing back out. Goddam cowards. Harry stomped through the house, slammed the front door on his way out. And as for him having perspicacity, he knew better. He showered every morning.
CHAPTER 8
This ain't the shop for justice.
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Charles Dickens,Oliver Twist
"You've got to give me more to work with, Xris. You had the motive—God! Did you have a motive! You had means. You had the opportunity. You've got to respond with something more than just 'I didn't do it'!" Nathaniel Parker, attorney at law, paced about the small prison room where prisoners were permitted to meet with their attorneys. Parker was in his fifties, short, thin, gray, and balding. He and Xris were old friends, having met years ago on a case, when Xris was with the Bureau. Parker had been doing legal work for a local private detective, a big fat guy with an ego to match. The detective had earned his ego; he'd steered Xris right on the case. It was during dinner at the detective's house—a gourmet dinner so marvelous Xris had never forgotten it—that Xris had met Parker. When Xris formed Mag Force 7, he'd hired Parker as his attorney. Nathaniel Parker had a gentle demeanor and a soft voice, which he used to his advantage. Juries liked him immediately, tended to trust him. His mild, unassuming appearance said to them,Look, would I be defending this person if I didn't believe him? In reality, Parker was as tough as a frozen piece of beef jerky. "Look, Xris, I'm used to my clients protesting their innocence, whether I believe them or not, but I'm not used to a client protesting his innocence and then going silent as hyperspace on me." Xris, dressed in a lime-green prison uniform, sat awkwardly propped up in a chair. Since he was a cyborg, the authorities had taken extraordinary precautions with him. They had made him remove his cybernetic leg—aleg that could easily kick through a wall, a leg that held an assortment of weapons in its many compartments. They had taken off his cybernetic left hand for the same reason. They had considered forcing Xris to shut down his entire cybernetic system, but the prison doctor, who'd been brought in on consultation, maintained that this would imperil the prisoner's life. The authorities contented themselves with taking his leg and his arm and forcing him to turn off his enhanced-vision eye. Now crippled and partially blind, Xris felt like a bug that had its wings pulled off or a turtle tipped upside down. On top of this, he was dead tired. He'd spent a day in prison unable to talk to anyone, unable to find out what was going on. This was followed by a restless night. The cells were noisy, with men all around him snorting and snoring. A security light in the corridor shone right in his eyes. Since he hadn't been able to sleep, he spent the night wondering who was doing this to him and why. Xris's thoughts paralleled Darlene's, if he had only known it. He reached very nearly the same conclusion she had. Amadi. It had to be Amadi. But what did he want? Surely not Darlene. If the Hung knew Darlene was Dalin, Amadi most certainly knew. He could have picked her up as a material witness (to her own murder!) at the same time he arrested Xris. But then, of
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course, if Amadi had Rowan, he couldn't have Xris, because that would mean Xris hadn't murdered anybody.... Xris finally fell asleep when it was almost morning, only to be roused out of his slumbers by the call to breakfast or what the prison termed breakfast. He dragged himself down to the cafeteria on crutches and sat where he was told to sit. He stared at the coagulating oatmeal for thirty minutes, ignored all attempts by his fellow inmates to make conversation, then dragged himself back to his cell, where he sat stoically, silent and bitter, waiting to talk to his lawyer. "I didn't do it," Xris said again. "I didn't kill Rowan." Parker snorted in frustration. "You said that. Twenty times. And, of course, you don't have to say even that much once we go to trial. You have the presumption of innocence. It's up to the Crown to prove you are guilty. But I've told you what evidence they have. You have to admitit's damning." Xris shifted the stump of the leg to which the cybernetic unit was normally attached. The empty pants leg dragged across the floor. The guard had pinned his empty shirtsleeve across his chest. "You haven't got a twist on you, have you?" Xris asked quietly. "They took mine." Parker glared at him in exasperation. Standing up, he began to repack the notepads and his portable computer into his briefcase. "When you decide to take this seriously, let me know. I'm beginning to think youwant to walk into the disrupter!" Xris waved his hand—his good hand, his only hand at the moment. "Sit down, Nate. I'm sorry. I didn't get much sleep last night. As for the evidence, it's all circ*mstantial. Dalin Rowan died in a hospital undergoing routine surgery. He wasn't murdered. I've seen the file. He died on the operating table." "He died in the same hospital where you were a patient. And hewas murdered. The files you saw were phony. Doctored, if you'll forgive the pun." Xris sat in silence, digesting this. Amadi. It all keeps corning back to Amadi. "Files were inserted into the hospital's computer to make it appear as if Rowan had died on the table," Parker explained. "In reality, his body was discovered in his room. There was an autopsy—" "Body? Autopsy?" Xris gave an incredulous laugh. "Yes, what about it?" Parker eyed him, but Xris said nothing more. Shaking his head, Parker continued. "According to the autopsy report, Rowan died of an overdose of his pain medication. He had enough in him to kill three people. An empty injector was discovered under the bed." "They're lying," said Xris. "It didn't happen like that. Not according to what the detective told me, anyway. It was Rowan who screwed with the files. He inserted his own death notice." "Did he?" Parker was intrigued. He took out a notepad. "What proof do you have?"
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"I can't tell you." Parker closed his eyes, massaged his temples. "Very well. Give me the name of this detective agency and give me permission to look at their files." "No, sir. I can't." Xris was adamant. Parker tried a different angle. "Rowan was working on a top-secret case for them just before he died, wasn't he? He was working on the Hung case." "Yes." "Perhaps he found out something that would have been very embarrassing to the Bureau...." Parker watched Xris intently. Xris shifted his position again. It was damn uncomfortable, sitting in that chair. His torso was part metal, part flesh and blood. He was off balance. The crutch they'd given him wasn't much help. The pad on which he rested his weight dug painfully into his armpit. He'd tossed it, in a fit of temper, into a corner when he entered the room. Now he couldn't reach it and he wasn't about to ask for help. "There could not have been an autopsy, because there wasn't a body," Xris said at last. Parker looked startled. "But therewas a body, Xris. We have the certificate from the funeral home. The body was cremated." "That's not possible." Xris shook his head. "They're framing me." "Good. Now we're getting somewhere." Parker sat down in the chair. He switched on the computer's recording device. "Tell me. What really did happen to Dalin Rowan? Why do you think they're framing you?" Xris shrugged. "I don't know why they're framing me. And I can't tell you what happened to Rowan." "Oh, for the love of—" Parker switched off the recorder. Standing up, he walked once around the room, came back and sat down. "All right, Xris. Have it your way. I'll go over their evidence with you again. Maybe we'll find a crack." He pulled up the files. "You were a patient in the same hospital where Dalin Rowan was a patient—the Kurt Lens Hospital. You'd been a patient in that hospital for many months. You knew your way around, knew the routine. You knew most of the staff. You could have easily gained access to a uniform." "Yes, I was in the hospital, but I was in rehab! I was still weak from the accident." "Were you? Then explain this." Parker turned the computer for Xris to read the file. Xris glanced at it. "Yeah? So what?" "You will see that you checked out of the rehab ward at 1500 hours on the afternoon in question and didn't check back in until last rounds at 2330 hours. According to the Bureau, Dalin Rowan died at 1800
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hours. You had plenty of time to get the job done. "And"—Parker brought up another file—"your doctor's report from the previous day indicates that your cybernetic implants were functioning very well for such a short time in your body, and that you showed a very good range of motion. But here's what's really damning. A psychiatrist says that while your body was recovering, your mental state was not. All you could talk about was revenge for the death of your partner. All you could talk about was how much you wanted to kill Dalin Rowan." Reaching out, Xris tapped a key on the computer, shut down the files. "Who the hell are you working for, Nate? The prosecution?" The attorney slammed his hand on the desk. "No, damn it! I'myour attorney. But the prosecution is going to bring up these facts and I'm going to have to refute them. You've got to tell me the truth." "Sorry, Nate, but that's the one thing I can't do." Parker sighed. "Let's start at the beginning. Where did you go that day?" "How should I know, Nate? That was over ten years ago! I was in the hospital for damn near a year. The days were all alike with the exception of sometimes my body worked and sometimes it didn't. And sometimes I hurt like hell and sometimes I only hurt like a little piece of hell." "Xris," Parker said gently. "I'm trying to help." "Yeah, sorry. I could have been anywhere. It was routine for me to check out for an afternoon or an evening. I went to bars, I went to the vids. I went to the Bureau to see if they'd turned up anything on Rowan." "If you had gone to the Bureau, you would have logged in, right? That was standard procedure. They'd have a record, wouldn't they?" "If they did, I'll bet they don't anymore," Xris predicted. "Well, I'll check it out." Parker made a note. "Did you know then that Rowan had gone undercover to take out the Hung?" "No, I did not," Xris said emphatically. "I only found that out when I hired the private eye to track down Rowan. The Bureau knew where Rowan was, but Amadi—" "Who's that?" "Jafar el Amadi. He was my boss, the big boss. There was only one guy above him and that was Robison. Andrew Robison." "The current director of Internal Affairs?" "Yeah, that's him. Amadi's retired now, but he used to be in charge of the Hung investigation. He lied to me about Rowan. When I went looking for my former partner, Amadi said they had no idea where Rowan was. According to him, they suspected that the Hungwere putting Rowan up in a tropical paradise as a thank-you for all his help. In reality, Amadi knew Rowan was sitting in a courtroom behind laserproof glass ripping the heart out of the Hung operation."
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"So they lied to you about Rowan's whereabouts. I'm afraid that doesn't help us much. The Bureau had good reason for keeping him undercover. What happened after that?" "When I was discharged, I quit FISA. I searched for Rowan for a year, then I ran out of money and I had to find work. Because of my special 'talents' I was offered a job in the old Democracy. A corrupt senator had been kidnapped and it was my job to either rescue him or, if I couldn't do that, I was to see to it that he didn't spill what he knew to his captors. "I put a team together, some people I'd come across during my years in the Bureau. We handled that job to the satisfaction of all parties, with the exception of the senator, and our reputation spread. In the meantime, I invented some missiles that were effective against the energy-sucking Corasians. Then I joined up with Lady Maigrey Morianna and Lord Derek Sagan. I helped bring King Dion to power and made a fortune in the process. "Now I had the cash necessary to hire the best agents in the galaxy. They tracked down Rowan, told me that he had died in a hospitalduring routine surgery." Xris emphasized the words. "They gave me the death certificate. I have it at home. I framed it." Parker was grim. "Say things like that and the jury won't even have to leave the jury box to deliberate. They'll just pronounce you guilty on the spot. So you quit searching for Dalin Rowan?" "Yes," Xris lied calmly. "There was no reason to search anymore. I knew where he was." Parker gave a wry smile. "I think that's the first completely true statement you've made to me." Xrissmiled, a smile that warmed the shadowed eyes, if it didn't quite make it all the way to his mouth. "What more do you want me to tell you?" "I want you to tell me the truth," Parker answered, frustrated. "The whole truth! Not a bunch of half-truths and evasions. Even if it looks damning. You claim you're being framed. All right. Perhaps I can find a witness or—" "Iam telling you the truth!" Xris said. His shoulders slumped in fatigue. His body sagged, a spasm of pain contorting his face. He clenched his jaw, braced himself on the table with his good arm,forced himself to sit up straight. "Look, Nate, I wassearching for Dalin Rowan! Don't you think if I'd have known he was in the same hospital I would have met with him, talked to him—" "Killed him." Xris was silent, then said, "Yeah, maybe." Parker rubbed his hand over his face. "The Bureau has a witness who says that youwere in the hospital that night, Xris." "Of course they do," Xris said bitterly. "Not only that, but this nurse swears that she saw you going into Rowan's room. Fifteen minutes later, Rowan was dead."
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"Planned it out real well, didn't they? Have you read the witness's statement?" "Yes. I've got it, if you want to see it. The prosecution provided it." "What sweethearts! Doesn't that strike you as odd, Nate? Since when does the prosecution hand over all the incriminating evidence to the defense?" "Sure it's odd! This whole blasted case is odd!" Parker stood up again, walked around the small room again, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. He turned to face Xris. "Damn it! Tell me what you know." Xris met the attorney's gaze straight on. "I can't." "You'll go to prison. You could end up on death row." "So I'll go to prison." "What about execution?" Xris was silent. Parker sighed, shook his head. "Whatever you're hiding, whoever you're shielding—it had better be worth it." "It is." The attorney sat back down. Bringing up another file on the computer, he activated the file for Xris to see and hear. "This is her statement." A middle-aged woman appeared on the screen. She was stout, with iron-gray hair cut short. She looked very competent, very professional,very believable. She sat stiffly upright and glared into the vidcam as if she dared it to contradict her. Some unseen person began asking questions. The voice sounded like that of Agent Fisk. "Are you Ms. Ella Rothschild, age fifty-seven, currently head ward nurse at the Lester Smith Mercy Enlightened Hospital?" "I am," she replied. "Now, then, Ms. Rothschild, I want you to understand—" "The next few minutesis all legal stuff." Parker fast-forwarded the file. "This is it." The nurse was nodding her head. "Yes, sir. I was a shift nurse then, working at the Kurt Lens Hospital for Corrective Surgery. I was doing my rounds when a man—well, I call him a man, but he was really moremachine than man— entered the ward." "Go on, Ms. Rothschild," Fisk said.
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"He was dressed in a janitor's uniform and he was repairing one of the cleaning 'bots. I remember thinking to myself that he was new—I didn't know we had any cyborgs on staff. Also that he was there ahead of the time the janitorial staff normally came on duty. I didn't pay much attention to that, because I just assumed that since he was new he wanted to make a good impression." "Look at this vid shot, Ms. Rothschild. Is this the man?" "Yes, that's him." "Note for the record that the witness has identified Xris Tampambulos. Please, go on. What did the cyborg do, Nurse Rothschild?" "He worked on the cleaning 'bot, made a few adjustments to it. Then he said he wanted to watch the 'bot operate for a while, to make certain it was okay." "Just a moment, Ms. Rothschild. Had you noticed the cleaning 'bot malfunctioning before this?" "No, I had not." She stared coldly at him. "But then I wasn't being paid to notice the cleaning 'bot at all, was I?" "No, I suppose not, Ms. Rothschild. Please continue." "He escorted the 'bot down the hall and I heard it start up. I finished my rounds and was entering the patient's files into the computer when I noticed that the janitor—I mean the man I thought was the janitor, the cyborg—" "We know who you mean, Ms. Rothschild. Please continue." "Anyway, I noticed that he wasn't around. And the cleaning 'bot had gone completely out of control! It was spewing water and disinfectant all over the floor. I went to find out what was going on and that's when I saw him come out of the patient's room." "Who did you see come out of the room, Ms. Rothschild?" "The janitor! The cyborg! That man, there!" She pointed. "Please note that the witness has again identified a vid of the suspect Xris Tampambulos. Now, Ms. Rothschild, what happened then?" "I told the cyborg to take the 'bot down tomaintenance, then come back and clean up the mess it had made." "How did the cyborg react when you saw him coming out of the patient's room?" "He seemed agitated, upset. His face was flushed as if he had a fever and he was breathing heavily. I thought perhaps he was upset because the 'bot was misbehaving. Perhaps he thought he was going to be fired." "What did he do?"
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"He grabbed hold of the 'bot and lifted it up off the floor with one hand. Those 'bots are heavy! I don't mind telling you I was frightened. He looked so wild and fierce and he acted so strangely. He mumbled something I couldn't understand and then he left, hauling the 'bot into the elevator with him." "What did you do then?" "I was shaken. I sat down at my desk to recover. I'd only been sitting there a few moments when the alarm went off in the patient's room, the alarm which indicates cardiac arrest. We reacted stat, but there was nothing we could do. The patient was dead." "Do you recall the patient's name?" "No, I do not. That was a long time ago. I suppose there are records." "Does the name Dalin Rowan sound familiar?" "It might. I don't know. I don't remember." "I see. What makes the cyborg stand out in your mind, Ms. Rothschild?" "First, he murdered my patient. I knew that the moment I entered the room. The patient had been recovering nicely, no problems. The next moment, he was dead. The cyborg murdered him." "But there was no murder investigation. The police have nothing on their files about this case, Ms. Rothschild." "That was the other reason I remembered it. I wanted to go to the police, but I was told by the hospital administrator that if I did, my job would be in peril. I needed that job. I was a single mother with two children to support." "Yes, Ms. Rothschild. What did you think had happened?" The nurse stiffened. "It was my guess that the hospital administration was afraid that they'd be sued. After all, it was one of their own employees who'd gone berserk and murdered a patient. So I kept quiet. It wasn't any of my business anyway. I wasn't about to lose my job over it." "Let the record note—" Fisk began. Parker shut him off. "Well?" "She's a damn good actress," Xris said. "It's obvious. The Bureau hired her, told her what to say. Do you think I'd do something that stupid? Be that clumsy? I was a trained government agent, for God's sake! I was trained to—" He saw where that was going and stopped. Parker finished for him. "You were trained to kill people. Now, there's a wonderful defense! And if that nurse is a liar, she's a good one. The jury will believe her, no doubt about it. That was a nice touch, her not wanting to lose her job. The jury will be able to identify with that in a heartbeat." "What do you mean,if she's a liar?" Xrisasked, his tone hard.
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"Let's say I believe you. Let's say that after ten years or so the Bureau decides to track you down and prosecute you for a murder that never happened, only now they say it did happen and they've cooked up files and hired actresses to prove it. Why are they going to all this trouble, Xris? Just to put you under the disrupter? A guy standing on a street corner with a blaster is cheaper and easier." Xrissmiled, a smile that touched both his eyes and the thinly drawn lips. "Yeah, I can see your point. Sorry, Nate. I guess if I can't present a case solid enough for my own attorney to believe me, then it'll be pretty tough for me to convince a jury." "We can try. The Lord knows I'll give it my best. But I have to be honest, Xris, it doesn't look good. And this is a capital offense and this is a planet that uses capital punishment. You still refuse to tell me what you know?" Parker regarded him hopefully. Xris sat in silence. Parker sighed. "Very well. Here's the way I see it. If we take this before a jury, the odds are good they'll come back with a guilty verdict and they'll recommend death." "I understand," Xris said. "I hope so," Parker said coldly. "They don't fool around with the death penalty on this planet. They allow one appeal and it goes through the judicial system at light speed. Most people sent to death row are put to death within three months of sentencing. Tell me what you know, Xris! Whatever you say to me is confidential. Who are you shielding?" Xris smiled again. "You'd be surprised to hear me say I was shielding the corpse, wouldn't you?" "All right, if that's the game you want to play—" "What about a plea bargain?" Xris asked abruptly. "On a murder charge?" Parker frowned. "I've been doing some thinking," Xris said. "It's just a hunch, but my guess is that the Bureau doesn't want me to go to trial. They don't want me dead. Hell, like you said, they could've taken care ofthat themselves years ago. They want information. I'll agree to provide it, but it has to be on my terms." "I don't know...." "First, I talk, but only to Amadi. Not to Fisk or that kinetic whirlwind Rizzoli." "You said Amadi had retired." "Yeah, well, I know for a fact that he isn't spending all his time on the golf course. I talk to Amadi or I talk in open court and to the press. See which they like better." "It can't hurt to ask. How do you spellAmadi?" "Like it sounds. Next," Xris continued, "tell the Bureau to reduce the charges. Manslaughter, maybe. Or murder second degree. If they do, I'll plead guilty."
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"So you did kill Dalin Rowan?" Parker asked. "In a manner of speaking," Xris said quietly, "yes, I did."
CHAPTER 9
Lastly, even the ultimate outcome of a war is not always to be regarded as final. The defeated state often considers the outcome merely as a transitory evil, for which remedy may still be found. Carol von Clausewitz,On War
"Hullo, Jamil. This is Harry." "Where have you been?" "Never mind. This line secure?" "Probably not." "Oh." A moment's silence. "Oh, well. This is important." "Harry—" "Listen, Jamil. Xris is being sentenced tomorrow. You know what that means?" "I'm no lawyer, Harry, but yes, I know what that means." "It means he's going into the toilet!" "Harry—" "We got to bust him out of there, Jamil." "No, Harry! Absolutely not! That's an order! Do you understand me, mister?" "Jamil—" "Listen to me, Harry, and try to get this through the cornmeal mush you term a brain. First, the security in the courthouse is tighter than Raoul's girdle." From the background, in indignant tones, "I have never worn a girdle!"
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"Second, if we went in there, as the Doc said, with guns blazing, we'd lose half the team and probably get Xris killed in the process. Third, you heard Xris's orders. Do I have to repeat them?" "Naw, Jamil." A moment's pause. "So what are you guys gonna do?You going to show up for the sentencing?" "No, Harry. The fact is,we're getting off this planet as soon as our passports come through. I advise you to do the same." "Isthat an order?" Harry demanded, belligerent. "No, Harry. It's not an order." Jamil said. "It's advice. Good advice." "I want to go the sentencing, Jamil. I want to be there for Xris." Jamil sighed. "Fine, Harry. You do that. We're going to Adonia. To Raoul's place. A little R&R." R&R! With Xris in the slammer. From the background Harry could hear Raoul's voice. "Is Harry thinking of traveling to Adonia by himself? Without my guidance and supervision? The gods ofhaute courtier help us! He'll never get through customs! Oh, dear. This is awful! Give me a moment. I'm trying to think what he has in his wardrobe.... I know! Let me speak to him! Harry! Harry! Wear your—" Harry ended the transmission. He liked Raoul, he truly did. But he just didn't feel like having a discussion on menswear. Not right now. Xris was being sent to prison or the disrupter for a crime he hadn't committed and there was nothing Harry could do to help his friend. Nothing at all.
The courtroom was ugly, cold, and sterile, designed that way purposefully as if to assert that justice was blind to everything, including a sense of style. The judge's desk, on its raised platform, was encased in plastisteel—there had been several attacks on the judiciary in the courthouse— and looked like an artillery bunker. His Honor sat behind his fortifications, lobbing judgments onto the accused below. The jury—when a jury was empanelled—appeared to be engaged in trench warfare, for little more than their heads could be seen peering above the high walls of the shielded jury box. Those people admitted to the public viewing area were searched and questioned and generally treated as if they were prisoners of war, caught in the act of spying on the enemy, rather than citizens exercising their rights. Harry answered as a prisoner of war would, giving them nothing more than his name and the license number of his rental hover, which he'd left in the public lot across the street at the exorbitant rate of twelve credits per hour. The audience in the gallery was at least safer than the attorneys and the accused, who sat in the middle of no-man's-land on open, level ground with no cover, other than their desks. Occasionally, if the verbal shelling from the front bench was heavy, the attorneys had been known to drop an electronic stylus behind the desk, duck down in order to retrieve it, and gain a brief respite from the barrage. The public gallery was shielded from the action by a laserproof shield of plastisteel.
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Harry was the only person in the gallery that day. The seats reserved for the press were empty. Had this trial gone to the jury, it might have garnered some interest, but it hadn't. The murder had happened ten years ago. The prisoner had confessed and was said to have made a bargain with the Crown. He had escaped the death penalty, though what good his life would be to him, spending the next twenty years on Sandusky'sRock, was subject to debate. He was to appear in court today for sentencing and wasn't expected to put on a show. A murder in the courtroom down the hall—a murder involving aliens, prostitutes, a food processor, and the possible bribery of a high public official—was of much more interest to viewers of the nightly news. Harry glanced around the courtroom, hoping that perhaps some of the other team members would change their minds and show up. The last time he'd seen them had been at the questioning. Although they'd come in together, they were all questioned separately. Harry had been extremely nervous. He was a terrible liar. Fortunately, Quong had solved his problem. Catching him in the hallway, the doctor had drawn him to one side, given him some advice along with a bottle of orange juice. "What's this?" Harry had asked, referring to the orange juice. "You need your vitamin C," Quong had replied. "To prevent scurvy." "Oh, uh, sure. Thanks, Doc. I read about scurvy once. Your teeth fall out and—" "Look, Harry," Quong had impatiently interrupted, "I want you to think about something for me." "Sure, Doc." Harry had been pleased. People were always telling himnot to think. "What do you want to know?" "When you first met Xris, he was already a cyborg, wasn't he?" "Yeah, Doc," Harry had replied, disappointed. "Is that all?" "You didn't know him when he was with the Bureau, did you?" "No, Doc. What's all this about?" "Be patient with me, Harry. You never knew Dalin Rowan. You never met Dalin Rowan, did you?" "I know Darlene—" "Listen to me, Harry." Quong had frowned at him most severely, had repeated sternly, "You never did know Dalin Rowan, did you?" Harry had considered the matter and the more he considered it, the more he liked it. He had never known Dalin Rowan. He could be completely honest about that when they asked him. "Just concentrate on that, Harry," Doctor Quong had whispered, his frown easing, "and you'll do fine." "Sure, Doc, but how's that going to help Xris?" Harry had asked anxiously. "Follow his orders, Harry," Quong had replied. "That's all we can do. Just follow his orders. And drink your orange juice."
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Whenever Doc was stern like that, it usually meant he was covering up because he was nervous, so the conversation hadn't been of much comfort. Harry had followed Quong's orders, however, although he didn't drink the orange juice. Scurvy or no scurvy, orange juice gave him gas. Harry had come through the questioning fine, however, perhaps because the investigating agent—the Talisian, Rizzoli—hadn't been all that interested in what he had to say. Once she had established the fact that Harry had met Xris two years after the alleged murder, that he hadn't known Xris while he was with the agency, and that he'd never known Dalin Rowan at all, Harry had been free to go. Harry had made an unsuccessful attempt to visit Xris in prison. Xris wasn't being allowed visitors, except his attorney. Having found out the name of the attorney from Jamil, Harry camped out in Parker's office, which he used when trying a case on this planet. Arriving wearing a new suit that he'd bought just for the occasion, Harry looked so unhappy and bereft that the receptionist took pity on him, and though she wouldn't let him see Mr. Parker, she had brought Harry replicated chicken soup and had given him what information she could. Which was how he had found out about the date of the sentencing. Harry had again dressed in his new suit, which, after four days of constant wear, was wrinkled and stained with mustard and looked even worse than when he'd first put it on, if that was possible. He had made the trip to the courthouse. He had found a seat in the front row, close to where he thought Xris might sit. Harry was half an hour early. The room was empty, for this was the first case on the docket. The chairs were uncomfortable, had evidently been constructed for some alien race not blessed with a tailbone. Harry's tailbone was well cushioned, for he was a big man, but even he could not sit in the same position for long without his legs going numb. Despite the discomfort, he doggedly held his ground, stayed at his post. Eventually the courtroom came to life. Technicians wandered in and switched on the vids that would make a recording of the proceedings. The prosecution entered; Harry glared balefully at the enemy and made a loud snorting sound expressive of his disgust. Prosecuting counsel gave him a bored glance and turned away. Mr. Parker entered, accompanied by an assistant. Harry sat up quite straight and nodded his head violently several times, to let the attorney know that he, Harry Luck, was present and could be relied upon in an emergency. Mr. Parker glanced at him in some astonishment. The guards brought in Xris. He was wearing prison lime-green coveralls and they had permitted him to use his cybernetic leg, although they had not let him have his arm. He wore restrainers around his ankles. Controlled by a guard, the restrainers would shut down the nerves in Xris's good foot if he tried to run and at the same time short out his cybernetic leg. He wore another restrainer on his good arm. He looked grim and dangerous and the guards were taking no chances. They held the restrainer controls in plain sight. At Xris's entrance, Harry stood up and began yelling and beating on the plastisteel shield. "Xris, I'm here—" A guard 'bot that had been hovering nearby zipped through the air andcame eye level with Harry. The 'bot was dish-shaped, about twenty centimeters in diameter, and was referred to affectionately among the courtroom staff as Frisbee. It was armed with small lasers known as nerve poppers.
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"You are not permitted to speak to the prisoner," said the 'bot, fixing Harry with a glassy eye. "Please sit down or you will be forcibly escorted out." Harry was fond of robots. He could get along with any 'bot in the galaxy, generally because he didn't patronize them or treat them as nonentities, as did some humanoids. "Oh, hullo there, little fellow." Harry was polite. "I just want to say a few words to my friend—" "You are not permitted to speak to the prisoner," the 'bot repeated, and a grinding sound in its workings gave the words a menacing tone. "But I just—" "Sit down," said the 'bot, "or you will be forcibly escorted out." "Now, look—" The 'bot was finished arguing. It emitted a brief but brilliant burst of laser light and Harry sat down in his chair, sucking the back of his wrist where a red welt was forming, and trying to force his fingers to stop twitching. The 'bot hovered near him a moment, making certain he had seen the light, so to speak. "All right," Harry muttered. "I'll be quiet." Assured that the malefactor would cause no further trouble, the 'bot returned to its post. But it was definitely keeping its optics on Harry. Xris must have heard the altercation; Harry was certain of it. The attorney, Parker, turned back around to stare, then leaned over and spoke a few words to his client. Xris shook his head, did not turn around. Parker went back to his notes. Harry hunched down in his seat, his rumpled and ill-fitting suit collapsing around him. He was desperately unhappy. Harry knew Xris had seen him. Xris had looked straight at him when he'd entered the courtroom. Looked at him. Then looked away without apparent recognition. "All rise!" A bailiff 'bot brought everyone to their feet. The near empty courtroom echoed with shuffling sounds and the scraping of chairs. The 'bot alerted the combatants to the arrival of the judge at his bunker. Everyone sat back down. The judge began to talk, shooting them with big legal words. The lawyers for both sides took turns standing up in the line of fire and, as nearly as Harry could make out, were almost always gunned down. There was some talk about "waving"; Xris was doing a lot of waving, apparently, which Harry found difficult to credit since Xris was missing a hand and the other was clamped down tight in a restrainer. Harry sought refuge in a small nap, indulging in a pleasant dream. Jamil was driving a Devastator into the courtroom. The tank was crunching up the chairs; Quong was firing his beam rifle at the guard 'bot, who was hunkered down behind the judge; and he, Harry, had just picked up Xris in one strong arm (Xris being conveniently comatose at this juncture), while firing a lasgun. Harry was carrying his friend out the door— "Sentence you to twenty years' penal servitude on Sandusky's Rock. Case dismissed."
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A gavel slammed down with a bang like an exploding mine and jolted Harry awake. He jerked upright in his chair to see Xris rising painfully and awkwardly to his feet. His attorney was saying something, whispering in his ear. Xris wasn't paying attention. The guard 'bot, anticipating trouble, hovered near Harry. He didn't care. It could pop every nerve in his body. Standing up, Harry bellowed out, "Xris!" in a battlefield shout, meant to be heard over the whine of lasguns, the crunch of cannons, the cries of the dying. Everyone turned to look, including the judge, who stuck his head up out of the bunker. Xris looked, shrugged, and smiled wanly. Then he looked away. The guards led Xris out of the courtroom, guiding his shuffling, hobbled footsteps. His attorney followed. Harry remained in the room, alone and unhappy, until the guard 'bot, who had a vengeful nature, zapped him in the rear end, burning a hole in the new suit. Wounded, outnumbered, and outgunned, Harry was forced to retire from the field.
CHAPTER 10
It is quite a three-pipe problem. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, "The Red-headed League"
Petronella Rizzoli leaned against the pliant backrest of her office chair and regarded her computer screen in perplexity. Automatically, without thinking about it, she hooked her foot under the leg of her rolling chair to keep the chair in place. She'd done this ever since the time one of her kinetic shifts had sent her chair rocketing backward out into the hallway, where it had run down a passing secretary. Petronella had just risen from the chair prior to its unexpected performance, and so had escaped injury herself. The secretary had not been quite so fortunate. She was off work for three days with bruised shins. Petronella came from the planet Talisia, which had been colonized by humans in the midyears of their explorations into space. Talisia was rich in minerals, ores, particularly iron and uranium, as well as gold and silver and diamonds. The planet's value was such that its inhabitants overlooked the strange fluxes and shifts that occurred in the kinetic energy, completely defying Newton's Three Laws of Motion and sending physicists scurrying to the planet to investigate.
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Objects at rest did not necessarily stay at rest on Talisia, but whizzed through the air, rolled along the ground, or tumbled from the skies. Scientists eventually discovered that the problem was not with Talisia itself but had been brought to the planet by its human colonists. Their own small energy fields clashed with the Talisian fields, resulting in eddies and whirlwinds that swirled around the humans, doing little harm to them—in the eye of the storm, as it were—but wreaking havoc on the world around them. Scientists developed the means by which those early humans living and working on Talisia could do so without bringing down a hailstorm of pots and pans on their heads or sending complex mining equipment into a mechanical arm-waving frenzy. The treatment proved effective on the Talisian home world. Unfortunately, when the treated humans left Talisia to venture out into the rest of the galaxy, their altered kinetic energy fields were likely to send luggage skimming over the heads of hapless hotel clerks. Later, scientists discovered that, given the human propensity to adapt to their surroundings, the third generation of humans born on the planet had the peculiar kinetic energy field encoded into their systems. They were able to live and work on Talisia without having to take the treatment. But they hit the rest of the galaxy like small tornadoes. There are not many opportunities on Talisia for employment, if one does not want to work in the mining industry. Young Talisians looking for other career opportunities have to seek them in the galaxy beyond. Medication helps some to function normally, but it does not work well with all and Talisians were often the victims of discrimination. Antidiscrimination acts had made it illegal to refuse employment to aliens in the human workplace, humans in alien workplaces and Talisians anywhere. Thus Petronella, who had wanted to go into law enforcement since the days of her childhood—when she had been punished for locking up the neighbor boy in the closet until his parents could produce bail—had applied to FISA and had been accepted. She had worked for Internal Affairs for five years now, ferreting out bad apples, although, according to her cover story for this particular job, she was a new recruit, eager to prove herself. She let it be known that the medication she took controlled her kinetic fields fairly well, but sometimes a tendril of energy would escape, whip out, and fling a wastebasket at someone's head. Such an infirmity tended to limit her social life. Petronella didn't care. She was interested in her career, not in relationships. The reason she often worked late was to obtain advancement in her chosen field, not to go home to an empty apartment—literally empty; Talisians don't indulge in knickknacks, for obvious reasons. What furniture they own is solid, heavy, and bolted to the floor. Following the explosion of the flower urn at the suspect Tampambulos's house, Petronella had voluntarily removed herself from field assignments, offered to return to the job of systems operator. Since her strange energy fluxes had no effect on computer operations, and maintenance had seen to it that the machine itself was firmly fixed in place, her superiors had been only too happy to accede to her request. The hour was late, so late that most of her co-workers had already gone for the day. Petronella hadn't noticed the time,nor the fact that she hadn't eaten anything except a bagel snatched at lunch. She had come across an oddity that aroused her curiosity, and with her characteristic tenacity, she was determined to find a solution before she left for home. On her terminal were displayed the contents of her most recent search on the transmission logs of the FISA satellite uplink. She had backed them up, as customary. The problem was,the backup had taken
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less time than usual. A lot less time. The backups always took the same amount of time, give or take a second, because there was always a similar amount of data to back up. Why was the time shorter— significantly shorter—today? Petronella soon discovered the answer. The transmission log for the satellite uplink was only a twentieth of the size that it should have been. The report should have contained a complete list of Bureau activities for the day. Instead, in essence, all it said was:Today, nothing happened. Unless the whole damn Bureau had suddenly taken an unscheduled holiday, that wasn't likely. Petronella saved the file, removed it from the disk, and then tried to recover the file as if it had been accidentally erased. She succeeded in bringing up a second log file that had probably been the original file—it was about the same length as normal. But why had it been overwritten? She studied the file. Buried deep amid transmission requests and routine permissions was a request from aNaval shipyard for high-level permissions access. The request had been denied immediately, but while the error routine for the denial had been running, a second attempt by the same shipyard had come in. The system should have kicked this second attempt out as well, but apparently it hadn't. Petronella investigated further and discovered a bug in the system that allowed only one subprocess to access the error routine at a time. Since the subprocess was already busy denying the first request, the other request slipped by unnoticed. The second request spawned another subprocess, and then left before the first subprocess was completed with the error system. When the error system finally came back on-line, it found nothing there. The second request from the shipyard was gone. Everything went on as normal. Petronella had been about to sign off when she discovered that the system had sent out a series of data files to a particular net access, requesting a certain number of named files. These files had been sent. Since the system itself had requested the new files, the permission system allowed them to come in. Petronella tracked themdown, found to her amazement that the names of the newly transferred files had been erased. Feeling a stabbing pain in the back of her shoulders, Petronella realized that she'd been sitting hunched and tense over her computer for so long that her shoulder muscles were in knots. She did a few stretches, rolled her head from side to side,tried to ease the stiffness. All the while she wondered: Why bother to erase data from a log that had been erased and hidden anyway? There could only be one reason. She was peeling off layers of an onion, had gone through two and found a third. Yet another log had been overwritten. There could only be one explanation. Someone outside the Bureau had hacked into the system, inserted new files,then was trying to cover his or her tracks. This was the first time Petronella had ever run across a real computer break-in.Excited, she forgot the pain in her shoulders and told her growling stomach to go get a life. She tried the same trick of recovering the originallog, found that the area of the halo-array used to store the file had been partially reused. She could only reconstruct a small amount of the original log. She compared the two logs. There was only one area in which the two logs differed. One of the logs contained a name for a file and the other didn't. The new file was labeled: HUNG ACTIVITIES FOR THE PERIOD 1412232D TO 1412266D.
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Petronella did a search for the file and found it easily. The file was a deep archive, used only for retrieval of out-of-date information on closed cases. Petronella brought up the file. It had been declassified, but no one had requested the file for perusal since de-classification. She read it over. The file detailed the movements of weapons from a factory in the TISor system to Hung operatives on other worlds. The information contained in the file was nothing but tracking data and appeared to be of no significance. Unless, of course, you had just happened to have arrested a former agent who had been caught in the explosion of that very factory. "Curioser and curioser," Petronella muttered. Just to make certain, she asked for the names of the agents working on the TISor weapons factory case and cross-referenced them with any recent activity for the Bureau. Two names came up. Dalin Rowan and Xris Tampambulos. Petronella already had Xris's file on hand. She called up Dalin Rowan's file. It was labeledDECEASED. Dalin Rowan had been a brilliant computer expert, Petronella read. He had worked for the agency to crack the crime syndicate known as the Hung. Xris Tampambulos had been the lead field agent on the case. Just to refresh her memory, Petronella brought up Xris's file and read through it. She reached the end—or what should have been the end. But it wasn't the end. Not anymore. Something had been added. Startled, she reread the last paragraph, realized it sounded familiar, and went back to Rowan's file. Yes, that was it. The last two paragraphs were new and they were identical. Typed in neatly, concisely, at the end of both files was the fact that Xris Tampambulos had pleaded guilty to the murder of Dalin Rowan in return for a plea bargain of twenty years' hard labor on Sandusky's Rock. Petronella considered the possibility that she herself had typed in that information and, due to lack of sleep or PMS, didn't remember having done so. That was possible, she supposed, though not very probable. Besides, she knew darn good and well that she hadn't added that paragraph to Dalin Rowan's file. That wasn't her job. Whoever handled records in the main Bureau would take care of that. Further investigation convinced Petronella that she wasn't crazy, wasn't suffering from a nutritional imbalance or hormonal changes. According to the time stamps, the files had been appended within a second of each other, yet the files had been housed in two separate computers in different areas of the building in which she herself was working. Petronella rubbed her eyes. She'd been staring at the screen so long the letters were starting to blur. She left the computer, went to the break room to pour herself a cup of coffee, absently pausing on the way out to right an overturned potted palm. The break room was dark, the coffeepot empty. Petronella brewed another pot; the agents liked their
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coffee real, not replicated, though Petronella thought personally that this was mere affectation. She couldn't tell the difference and she didn't see how anyone else could, either. Still, waiting for the coffee to brew gave her time to think. This was all very strange. Damn strange. Someone had gone to an awful lot of trouble just to insert two innocuous paragraphs at the end of two files. Why? What was the reason? To prove that they could crack FISA's security? Well, they'd done that, all right. Petronella would see to it that the bug in the system was eliminated.... "Wait a minute!" Petronella said aloud. She set down the coffeepot and hurried back to her office, ignoring the crash that sounded in the break room after her departure and the peeved voice of security demanding to know what the hell was going on up there, ending with, "Is that you, Rizzoli?" Petronella was back on her computer, pulling up text-book files from a high-level course she'd taken on computer security. And there it was. Fifteen years ago, an agent had discovered a bug in the main terminal access system of the Model 233. He had found a way to confuse the error-handling system and, in so doing, gain access to the main file, which would otherwise have kicked him out. He had discovered that the error-handling system could only deal with a single error at a time. While its attention was fixed on the first error, a second illegal command could be given and the system would honor it. The error system that should have caught it was busy with its first job and would never notice. This was exactly what had happened to her transmission log. The agent who had originally discovered the bug had come across it in a mainframe computer system. Apparently the agent had not checked to see if the security risk would be the same for a transmission system. Either that or he'd known all along that it was the same, that he'd left this door open in case he ever needed to use it. And there was the name of the agent who had discovered this bug. Not only discovered it but had received a meritorious citation for research excellence from the Gibbons Foundation for Computer Security. Dalin Rowan. By God, Petronella thought, exultant. Robison was right! Rowan's taken the bait.
CHAPTER 11
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Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes; For treason is but trusted like the fox. William Shakespeare,Henry IV, Part 1
All she had to do was reel in her fish. Her hands were on the keyboard preparing to do another search when hot coffee sloshed over her fingers, deluged the keyboard. "sh*t! Ow!" Petronella snatched her hands back, sucked on a burned knuckle, and swore. She righted the overturned cup, regarded the soaked keyboard in dismay. The system had shut down—safety precaution. She would have to dry out the keyboard, find another, replace it,retrieve all the files.... The hell with it. Obviously, the gods were trying to tell her something. Go home, Rizzoli. Go to bed, Rizzoli. You're too tired. The medication's not working anymore. She had learned long ago that exhaustion seemed to have a pronounced effect on her kinetic energy fluxes. She wondered what time it was, guessed it was probably close to midnight. She looked at her watch, but couldn't read it. The numbers were a green blur. She rubbed her eyes. She had just enough energy left to clean off the keyboard and leave it upside down to dry. Keeping a tight grip on her kinetic energy field, she moved carefully down the hallway, trying not to leave disaster in her wake. Her boss's office was next door. Sometimes he worked late. She supposed she should report this break-in. He'd be certain to find out about it and it would look strange if she hadn't told him first. No one in the department, not even her boss, knew she was working for Internal Affairs. Petronella knocked on the cubicle door, but no one answered. Glancing outside, she saw that it was pitch-dark. No hovers zipping past. Not even a cop. She squinted at a clock on the wall. 0330. She tapped her watch, spoke into it. "Connect me with voice mail for Senior Agent Tom McCarthy, Computer Operations." She waited a moment,then heard a faint beep. "Agent McCarthy, this is Agent Rizzoli. I found some strange inconsistencies in the log tonight during backup. I think someone tampered with our transmission logs. It looks like the work of one Dalin Rowan, a former agent. I'd lay odds of a thousand to one that it was him, but then I'd guess I'd lose. He's dead, you see." Petronella laughed at her own joke, realized it wasn't particularly funny and that Agent McCarthy would think she'd been out drinking. "Look, sir, I've been awake for twenty-four hours now, and I have to get some sleep. Look over the files I've saved in my home directory. See what you think. I'll be in again when I wake up, which may be next month." As an afterthought, she added, "If you need me, call me. Only please not before noon!" She tapped on the watch, ended the transmission. Ten minutes later, she exited the building through the
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last security checkpoint. The guard at the main gate stopped her. "You look like hell, Rizzoli. No offense." "Thanks. I love you, too, Henry." "You know that we got other agents on the payroll, Rizzoli. You don't have to crack every case yourself. You ain't gonna drive home, are you?" he added in concern, seeing her fumble for the remote that would send her hover skimming up from the parking garage. Petronella rubbed her red eyes, trying to clear her blurred vision. "Yeah," she said carelessly. "I have to. I gave the chauffeur the night off." "And we'll end up picking pieces of you off the transmission tower." He took the remote from her hand. "Let me get the duty driver to take you home." "No, please. Don't bother—" "No bother. He's got nothing to do this time of night. Just sittin' around watchin' the sports mags." A minute later, a hover pulled up. Petronella climbed in, gave the driver her address, made certain he knew where it was. Then she sank back thankfully into the leather cushions. This was real luxury, usually reserved for the higher-ups. "I could get used to this," Petronella said, and prepared to enjoy the ride. A microsecond later, the driver was jostling her shoulder. "Wake up, ma'am. You're home." There was an irritating buzzing sound in her ear. A childhood experience involving a bee and a doctor with long pincers disturbed her dreams. She could still feel the bee flying around inside her skull. Except it wasn't a bee. It was her watch. She'd fallen asleep with her wrist beneath her head. Rolling over, she tapped the watch. "'Lo?" "Good morning, Rizzoli," came a damnably cheery voice. "McCarthy here. We're sending a hover to pick you up." "Huh? Wait! I—" The connection ended. Petronella climbed out of bed, noticed that she was still dressed. She had no memory of entering her apartment, much less going to bed. The buzzing started again. This time, it was the front door. She peered through the security hole. "Yes?" "Driver from the Bureau, ma'am." He flipped his identification.
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Interesting. They weren't wasting any time. Petronella opened the door, invited him inside. "I just woke up," she said apologetically. He glanced at her rumpled clothes and tousled hair and the red marks on her cheeks, marks left by her blanket "Yes, ma'am. McCarthy sent me. He figured you'd need a ride, since according to the log you left your hover in the parking lot." "What time is it?" "It's 1430, ma'am." Petronella sighed. Well, at least he'd let her sleep past noon. "I can't go into the office looking like this. I'm going to take a shower and change my clothes. Help yourself to coffee or whatever you want." She waved a vague hand in the direction of the kitchen. A standing floor lamp, perhaps taking her gesture as an invitation, wobbled about two meters that direction. The driver looked at the meandering lamp and said he thought he'd wait in the car. "Suit yourself." Petronella headed for the shower.
Twenty minutes later, the driver dropped her at the front entrance to the FISA building. She thanked him and went inside, feeling much better than she had when she'd left. She passed through the two security points, rode the lift to her level, reported to Senior Agent Tom McCarthy's cubicle. He was sitting behind his desk, reading a report. Petronella stood quietly, not wanting to interrupt him. A chair slithered across the floor, making an odd scraping sound. McCarthy didn't even look up. "That you, Rizzoli? Have a seat." She retrieved the errant chair. "I take it you got my message." He looked up from the report. He was in his forties, had curly red hair, freckles, and wore thick-lensed glasses, either for effect or because there was something wrong with his eyes that lasers couldn't cure. "You sure as hell stirred up a hornet's nest, Rizzoli. The head hornet himself buzzed in this morning. Chief Superintendent Amadi wants to see us both as soon as you're here, and, well, you're here." "Amadi? He traveled all that way?" Inwardly, Petronella grinned. Outwardly, Petronella sighed and said wistfully, "Am I really in that much trouble, sir?" McCarthy shook his head. He patted her hand sympathetically. "No, nothing like that. Amadi used to be the case supervisor for the Hung Syndicate job years ago."
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"I know, sir. I've been making my reports on the arrest of Tampambulos to him. But I never thought he'd come here in person. Especially since the case is wrapped up. Why now?" "Who knows? He's a chief supe. He doesn't have to have a reason." Rising to his feet, McCarthy shrugged. "Maybe there's a golf course on this planet he likes and he's using us as an excuse. They've stashed him in Entworth's old office." He glanced at her. "Youdid take your medication today, didn't you?" "I'm tired, sir," Petronella returned irritably. "It doesn't work well when I'm tired." McCarthy shook his head. "Just try not to drop a potted plant on the head of our boss's boss's boss's boss, will you, Rizzoli?" The lift took them up four more levels to the executive offices. Real offices up here, with carpet and wood and a flesh-and-blood receptionist, who asked them to be seated while she informed the chief superintendent they were here. Amadi didn't keep them waiting. He walked out of his office personally to meet them. He was every bit as attractive in person as he was on the vidphone. Attractive for an older gentleman, Petronella corrected. His black brows were an interesting contrast to his iron-gray hair, which was thick and wavy. The brown eyes were cool and penetrating, his handshake firm, his greeting cordial. Attractive ... for a traitor. Amadi ushered them into the office, indicated two cushy chairs,then walked around to seat himself behind his desk. As Petronella sat down in the chair, a potted plant on a brass and glass stand beneath a window tipped to the side, fell over, dumping dirt onto the carpet. Amadi stared at it. "That's damn odd. What made it do that? You're not subject to tremors on this planet, are you?" McCarthy shot Petronella a glance. "No, sir." At least the pot didn't fall on his head,her look said back to him. Aloud she said, her voice strained, "It's my fault, I'm afraid, sir. I'm a Talisian—" "Ah!" Amadi appeared highly gratified. "That explains a great deal! No, don't worry about cleaning it up, Agent. I'll send for the maintenance 'bot when we're finished." He glanced around his desk. Picking up a heavy brass paperweight, he slid it in a drawer. "Possible lethal projectile. Now ... Agent McCarthy, is it?" "Yes, sir." "You found this security breach—" "Uh, no, sir. Actually it was Rizzoli here who first ran onto it. She passed it up to me—"
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"I see. Thank you for coming, Agent McCarthy. You can return to your duties. I don't need to tell you, of course, that this is all highly confidential. We don't want word getting to the press that we've had a security breach." McCarthy looked startled. He sat in his chair a moment, thinking Amadi might change his mind. Amadi regarded him in polite silence. McCarthy stood up. "Yes, sir. I understand, sir." He looked uncertainly at Petronella. "If you need me, sir ..." "Thank you, Agent. I know where to find you." McCarthy left the office, closing the door quietly behind him. Amadi accessed a computer, brought up a file, presumably the file on the security breach. He studied it intently. Petronella sat in her chair, stared out the window at the vast panorama of the city of Guarma. She worked hard to appear nonchalant, confident, at ease. The minutes slid by and Amadi continued to read in silence. The room was cold. Petronella's hands and feet grew chilled. A hovertaxi flew in too close. Red flashing lights on the building warned the taxi driver he'd ventured into restricted airspace. The taxi veered, made a steep, diving turn that must have piled his passengers one on top of the other. No tip for him. Amadi finished reading. He looked up, leaned back in his chair. Petronella tried a smile, didn't like the way it felt—too frivolous. She twitched her mouth to serious, attentive. "Good job, Rizzoli. I'm impressed with your skill and even more with your tenacity. Not many people would have been conscientious enough to track this down." Petronella would have taken that for a compliment, except for the deepening of the frown line between Amadi's black brows. She'd struck a nerve. The saliva in her mouth dried up. Her heart rate increased. The empty chair beside her made a skittering motion. Quickly, Petronella put out a hand to halt it. "It wasn't right, sir. It was my job to track it down." "Certainly it was, Rizzoli." Amadi smiled at her. "I'm very pleased. I'd like to hear your account in person. Go ahead, Agent. When did you first notice the anomaly? And how did you find it?" Amadi was affable now, but Petronella wasn't fooled. "Yes, sir. It began when I was downloading the transmission log last night. I noticed that it was shorter than usual. And so I..." Fifteen minutes later, she wrapped it up. Amadi was a good listener. He didn't interrupt, watched her attentively and, from what she could see, approvingly. At the name "Dalin Rowan," however, he frowned again.
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"Are you certain, Agent?" "Yes, sir," Petronella said, carefully respectful. "I know it doesn't make sense, but Dalin Rowan is known for discovering this particular method of breaking into a supposedly secure file and altering data. We learned his technique at the academy." "And so did several hundred other agents," Amadi pointed out. "That's true, sir, but what reason would another agent have for breaking into our files?" Petronella argued. "Hard as it is to imagine, Agent Rizzoli, we do have our share of discontented employees." "Sir, a copycat would have followed Rowan's original plan and broken into a LoadMaster 2800, because of the error-handling routine. This person moved a step further, took advantage of the same weakness in the transmission log handler. Someone had to really work at that, sir. Someone who knew all about the first minuscule crack in thearmor, knew that it had been fixed, and knew enough to look for and to find a second, even smaller crack. And what did that person do when he found it?" She answered her own question. "He went after the files directly pertaining to Xris Tampambulosand Dalin Rowan." "Tampambulos, then. He could have broken in before we arrested him." "No, sir. The break-in occurred yesterday. Tampambulos is sitting in lockup, awaiting transport. He couldn't have had access to a computer. Besides, according to his files, he doesn't have the know-how to pull this off. Of the two of them, Rowan was the only one who could have done this." Amadi smiled again, indulgently. "Nice detective work, Rizzoli. Fine deductive reasoning. The only problem we have here is that Dalin Rowan couldn't possibly have been the one to break into our files. He has the galaxy's best alibi. He's dead." "Yes, sir, I know." Petronella shook her head, unconvinced. "But if it's not Rowan, thanwho could it be? And why go to all the trouble? Whoever it was didn't erase the files or damage them or alter the data. He made a little addition. That's all." Amadi considered the matter. "Here's a suggestion, Agent. Let's say that some stressed-out entry-level clerk is told to add this attachment to the files. He forgets about it. That night, he wakes up at 0200 and remembers. He figures he better take care of it before the boss finds out. He uses this way of correcting his oversight, imagining that no one will be the wiser. How do you like that as a solution to your little mystery?" Petronella thought she should make an effort to try to like it. He was supposedly her superior, after all. But she figured she shouldn't give up too easily. "It's not very plausible, is it, sir?" she said with a show of reluctance. "He could have just added the data in the morning when he came to work. There was nothing of an urgent nature about it." "Well, well. I think our poor stressed-out entry-level clerk is more conscientious than you give him credit for, Agent. Maybe he has a terror like me for a boss."
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Amadi chuckled to show he didn't mean it and stood up. The interview was at an end. Petronella rose quickly, her chilled feet prickling. She wondered what she was supposed to say in answer to that, finally decided that the best she could do was keep her mouth shut. "Thank you for coming, Agent," Amadi said, escorting her to the door. "We'll take over from here. Delete those files and don't worry about it As I said, I don't think we've got anything more serious than a little lapse in efficiency, but I will ask that you keep this confidential, especially since this information affects a recently completed Crown trial. The press is always looking for a chance to make us look bad. You understand?" Petronella nodded sympathetically. "Yes, sir." He shook hands with her again. The brown eyes were shadowed by the heavy brows, but even so there was an odd light in them as he gazed at her. She was reminded uncomfortably of the light the ophthalmologist uses to see through the eye into the brain. "Good work, Agent," he said, and shut the door. Thoughtful, she headed for her cubicle, hoping to be alone. McCarthy was lying in wait for her, however. "Hey, Rizzoli. How'd it go? Who's the crazed lunatic messing with our obituaries? This gonna bring down the government?" She entered his cubicle. Muzzy from lack of sleep, strung out with the tension of the interview, she was in no mood for jokes. "Amadi thinks it was some overworked and underpaid clerk who screwed up, got nervous, and diddled with the file in the middle of the night. You buy that?" McCarthy wrinkled his nose, which caused his glasses to wobble up and down. He shoved them back. He was always fooling with his glasses. "I suppose it's possible...." "Anything's possible," Petronella said tiredly. "Including the fact that I might fall sound asleep in this chair." "Take the rest of the day off," McCarthy said magnanimously. He glanced at the clock. "You've only got another couple of hours until you're off duty anyway." "No, thanks. If I sleep now I'll wake up at midnight. I'll be in my cube, if you need me." Petronella made a wry face. "I have some files to delete." Jafar el Amadi stood for long moments staring out the window. He was not contemplating a carefree afternoon of golf. He was wondering what to do about Rizzoli. She was lean and she was hungry and, as Caesar had so astutely noted, the lean and hungry types were trouble. His plans were balanced on a knife's edge; a breath could topple them. And Rizzoli wasn't a breath, she was a typhoon. As yet, she hadn't done anything to impede him. She'd been a help to him, in fact, and he couldn't really justify dismissing her or having her transferred. Such a move would call unwanted attention tohimself . It would also make Rizzolisuspicious, give her cause to dig deep.
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Digging reminded him of the overturned plant. He strolled over to gaze down at the plant stretched out on the carpeting, its roots exposed, surrounded by moist dirt. What a mess. Amadi made up his mind. In some cases, inaction was preferable to action. Pick up the ball and throw it and you could break out a window. Let the ball go and, if you're lucky, it'll roll down the street and fall into the sewer. A knock on the door interrupted him. "Yes," Amadi called. A janitorial 'bot rolled in, looked to him for instructions. Amadi pointed to the potted plant. The 'bot trundled over, began sucking up the mess with its vacuum system. This finished, the 'bot dumped the pot's remaining dirt onto the floor, sucked it up as well, then thoughtfully and tenderly replaced the already wilting plant back in the empty pot. The 'bot set the pot carefully on its stand and, task completed, trundled out. 'Bots. Amadi had no idea why people put up with them. Probably the entertainment value. He buzzed the receptionist. "Arrange for me to meet with convicted criminal Xris Tampambulos. He is being held on the Umbra Detention Transit Point, in preparation for delivery to the maximum-security facility on Sandusky's Rock." After a considerable delay the receptionist was back on the line. His tone was apologetic. "Sir, your meeting with the prisoner is arranged for 0800 hours two days from now." "Why so long?" Amadi demanded irritably. "I can be there today. I'll take one of the Bureau shuttles." "I'm sorry, sir, but no Bureau shuttles are available at this time. I've booked reservations for you on the midnight shuttle to Zeta Orbital. From there you will make the daily prison run to Umbra." "Is that the best you can do?" "Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir. One of our shuttles is in maintenance and the other—" "Never mind. Extend my reservations at my hotel." Amadi started to leave his office. Remembering the doomed plant, he picked it up and carried it out, made a mental note to purchase a bag of potting soil. Petronella drove herself home this time, landing the hover without incident in the garage attached to her apartment building. Yawning, she entered her apartment, went straight to the replicator, and pushed a button.
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A cup of black coffee appeared. Petronella drank a sip and looked at the clock. She planned to force herself to stay up until 2000 hours,then she would go to bed. If she went to bed now, as she longed to do, she'd be up at 0300. She sat down at the computer, intending to check her E-mail—she was expecting a note from her mother—when the phone buzzed. "Oh, God! Please don't let it be work," she said as she answered. "Yes?" She invested the word with grumpiness, hoping that if it was McCarthy, he'd take the hint. A voice said, "It will be to your advantage to complete the daily quiz." "What?" Petronella demanded. No answer. A click ended the call. A phone scam, Petronella figured. They were illegal, but a good con artist could always find a way around the law. She should report this, except what did she really have to report? What daily quiz? The caller hadn't said.Which was odd, for a con. She would have expected the usual: Pay two thousand credits and win a free trip to the center of the galaxy. She filed the incident in the back of her mind, under the heading "Strange occurrences, save for future reference," and sat down at her computer. She brought up her E-mail, read the note from her motherHer brother had been accepted to the university on Talisia. Petronella wrote back, adding congratulations. She scanned the rest of the mail: a note from her college roommate, some junk mail which she deleted, and the daily quiz. Petronella stared, startled, excited, and gratified. First thephone call . Now this. Hurriedly she brought up the message. Complete the daily quiz and win a free, all-expense-paid trip to Adonia, vacation paradise! "How very interesting," saidPetronella. A lamp tipped over, then righted itself due to the strong spring attached to its base. She ignored it, scrolled down to the first question. Name the twenty-fourth letter of the English alphabet in use during the twentieth century. Petronella had flunked ancient history. She brought up her encyclopedia, entered the requisite information, and there was the answer. X.The same as in their current alphabet. She supplied the letter, and a yellow circle with eyes and an insipid smile appeared on the screen. Congratulations! You have answered the first question correctly. Move on to Question 2. Well, at least she'd learned something today. She went to the next question.
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Definition: Of persons: Doing no evil; free from moral wrong, sin, or guilt (in general); pure, unpolluted. What is the word? Petronella pondered a moment,then typed inInnocent. Again, the grinning yellow circle. You have correctly answered two questions: X, Innocent. Proceed to question three. The first letter of the Roman alphabet. Even Petronella knew that one. She typed inA. Her screen lit with starbursts and, appropriately, Roman candles. Question Four:A word that describes Benedict Arnold. Soldier in North America, Earth, late eighteenth century. Petronella typed inGNN news reporter, but no fireworks erupted. The yellow circle appeared again, but this time the mouth was frowning. It looked gravely disappointed in her. Wrong. Try again. Petronella again had to retreat to the encyclopedia, where she located Arnold. She typed inAmerican, but the unhappy yellow circle informed her she had once more chosen incorrectly. Studying the information, she at last triedTraitor. She made the yellow circle very happy. The next two questions were back to the alphabet. Fourth letter in the alphabet, it originated in an Egyptian hieroglyph that represented a hand. That turned out to beD. The next question was rather puzzling. What is the first initial of your name? Petronella enteredR, and apparently that was correct At least the yellow circle thought so. And finally, the last question. Ifyou are not dead, you are? Alive,typed Petronella. Fireworks burst on her screen in dazzling colors. Rockets whizzed past. Bombshells exploded. You're a winner!appeared, followed by a summary of the winning answers: X, Innocent A, Traitor D, R,AlivePetronella sucked in a breath.
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"Well, well, well," she murmured. "Imagine that." And there on the screen was an E-ticket for a first-class seat on the next space transport leaving for Adonia. Petronella typed a single word to a special code known only to her and Andrew Robison:Success. Then she put in a call. "McCarthy? Petronella here. I'm not feeling very good. I'm going to take a few days' leave...."
CHAPTER 12
... I have heard the key Turn in the door once and turn once only We think of the key, each in his prison Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison. Thomas Stearns Eliot,TheWaste Land
"I said I didn't want any visitors." The guard grunted. "In case you hadn't noticed, X447/990, this is a prisoncell, this is a force field, this device"— he exhibited a stun-stick—"is my little persuader. Not one of us gives a damn what you want. You got a visitor. On your feet." The guard grinned maliciously. "Or should I say, foot? Hurry it up." Xris leveraged himself up from the metal cot form on which he'd been lying. He moved slowly, not out of defiance—defiance doesn't quite come off when you have only half a body—but because it was impossible for him to move fast. "I said hurry." The guard waved the stun-stick close to Xris's shoulder. "You want me to hurry, give me back my leg and turn my juice on." Xris reached out his good hand, fumbled for the metal crutch leaning against the wall. The crutch slipped out of Xris's grasp and fell to the steel floor with a clang, landing just out of Xris's reach. The guard wasn't a total bastard, apparently. He shoved the crutch with his foot, sent it scooting
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toward Xris. "Thanks," Xris said as he leaned over to pick up the crutch. A jolt of electricity tingled painfully from his shoulder down his good arm, causing the hand reaching for the crutch to jerk spasmodically. "What the hell was that for?" Xris demanded, rubbing his shoulder. "Just in case you had any ideas about using that crutch for a club," the guard responded. "I didn't until now," Xris muttered. "Much obliged." The guard didn't respond. He waved the stun-stick. "Move it, X447." Xris slid his cybernetic arm through the rings of the crutch, grasped the handle, and, after a few misses and with no help at all from the guard, managed to struggle to an upright position. He lurched forward awkwardly, lost his balance, and came crashing up against the wall. He hadn't yet become accustomed to the crutch. He'd be damned if he was ever going to become accustomed to it. At last Xris managed to hobble out of his cell. The guard followed him. When he didn't think Xris was moving fast enough, he sent another jolt sizzling into Xris's right butt cheek. His good leg went frighteningly numb for a split second. He teetered, fought to retain his balance, determined not to give the guard the satisfaction of seeing him fall, not if it took every ounce of strength left in his body. He held on. "Cut the sympathy act," said the guard, growing bored with his game. "And get moving." Xris limped along the tubelike corridor of the holding center, blinking in the bright blue-white fluorescent light that beat down from the ceiling and shone up through the floor grates. The same blue-white sterile light lit the prison cells that lined the corridor. Darkness was a privilege, one that the prisoners were denied. They learned to sleep with the light on or they didn't sleep. The other prisoners awaiting transportation looked out their cells as Xris stumped past. Most of the other prisoners were too preoccupied with their own miseries to pay any attention to his, but as he was walking slowly and painfully past one of the last cells in the block, the prisoner stood up, moved over to stand close to the force field that kept them inside. "Hey, cyborg," said the prisoner in a loud voice that carried clearly up and down the corridor. "I hear you were a cop." This news had every man in the cellblock on his feet, peering out his cell, trying to see. Xris ignored them, shuffled ahead. "Hey! Maybe you still are a cop, huh?" the prisoner called out. "Maybe you're a f*ckin' spy!" "You know what happens to f*ckin' spies, cyborg?" another prisoner shouted. "They get their f*ckin' necks broke!"
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"Yeah, you better be real careful, cyborg. You might trip and have a nasty fall someday. A real nasty fall." Xris reached the end of the cellblock. He was now out of sight of the other prisoners, and their threats died off to mutterings and harsh laughter. "Good thing you're shipping out of here tomorrow," observed the guard. "It won't matter," Xris said. "The news will get to Sandusky's Rock." "Yeah, you're right." The guard was laconic. "I wouldn't want to be in your shoes. Make thatshoe." He grinned, gestured with the stun-stick. "In here." Xris entered another tube, this one vertical, and so small that he could barely squeeze his broad shoulders into it. The door slid shut. A light came on. He was being scanned—inside and out—for weapons. The scan complete, the door slid open on the opposite side of the tube. Two guards were waiting for him. They took hold of him, helped him step out. These guards were armed with beam rifles, not stun-sticks. They entered another tubelike corridor. Xris expected to be taken into the visitors' tanks, so called because they were designed like fish tanks, with the prisoner and his visitor peering at one another through steelglass, talking via commlinks. The guards marched Xris right past the tanks, however. "What gives?" Xris asked. "Where are we going? I thought someone said I had a visitor." The guards didn't answer. No snappy foot jokes from these guys. They were all business. They exited the cell-blocks, moved down a quiet, more soothingly lit corridor, and entered the administrative wing of the facility. Judging by the curious glances and a few startled looks from the employees, it was not customary for prisoners to be in this part of the complex. Xris passed a window, glanced out to see a grassy lawn, sun shining,trees . A picnic table was set up on the lawn. Several employees were basking in the sun, taking their coffee break. He tried to steer close to the window, which was open a crack, hoping for ... what? Not escape. The very idea was ludicrous. The window was likely made of steelglass. It would take a missile to smash through it. What was he after? Nothing much. Just a whiff of fresh air. A need to smell something besides sweaty bodies, urine, and disinfectant. The alert guard spotted the move, was having none of it He stepped between Xris and the window, shoved Xris back brutally and impersonally, using the butt end of the beam rifle. "Wrong way," he said. The guards marched Xris to a room that was probably not normally used for meeting visitors, but had obviously been chosen with great care. There were no windows, no vents, and only one door. All the furniture had been removed, except for two metal chairs. Escorting Xris into the room, the guards pushed him down into one of the chairs. They took his crutch from him, placed a restrainer on his good leg, another on his good hand, then left. The restrainers
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short-circuited all nerve impulses in his foot and his hand. Xris tried wiggling his fingers, but they refused to obey. Helpless, he sat alone in the room and waited. The wait wasn't long. The door opened. A man entered, accompanied by a guard. The man looked at Xris. Xris looked at the man. Neither said anything. The man glanced around the room, nodded once in satisfaction. "This will do." The guard nodded, left the room. The door shut behind him. There was a slight thump as he and the other guard took up positions outside the door. The man walked over to the other chair, moved it around so that it faced Xris. But instead of seating himself, the man reached into the pocket of his expensive suit and took out a small device, which he placed on the floor at his feet. Xris recognized the device—a sonic scrambler. Within a two-meter circle around the device, sound traveled normally. Outside of that, the device would distort sound waves. Someone might hear their conversation, but no one would understand it. The two regarded each other in silence, then Xris said, "Hello, Amadi." "Hello, Xris," Amadi returned with a tired smile. He blinked his eyes against the light. "It was a long flight." "My heart bleeds," Xris said. "The blood's fake, but it's the thought that counts." "Always the smart-ass. How are you? Anything you need?" "A twist. You haven't got one on you, by any chance?" "Sorry, smoking's not allowed. Smoking's not allowed on Sandusky's Rock, either, I hear. But then, smoking's a bad habit. It could shorten your life." "So could a lot of things. Disrupters, for one. My fellow inmates, for another. Have you come all this way to talk about my bad habits, boss?" "I've come to talk about murder," Amadi replied. "The murder of Dalin Rowan. Mind if I sit down?" "You can fly around the room backward for all I care," Xris said, adding, "You know I didn't murder Rowan. You know that nobody murdered Rowan—although the Hunghave tried. Twice. So why have me arrested? If you think you'll make me turn over Rowan, forget it. I'll do twenty years on Sandusky's Rock before I tell you where to find him." "Don't you mean her?" Amadi asked, with a quirk of his eyebrow. Xris didn't answer. "Twenty years," Amadi mused. Leaning back, he asked conversationally, "Do you know anything about our penal colony there?" Xris shrugged, noncommittal.
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"Let me tell you. It's an asteroid. They don't mine ore on Sandusky's Rock. They mine ice. Which means it's cold on that asteroid, Xris. I hear that you never get used to the cold. You always feel it. "You want to know how they treat cyborgs there,Xris? The guards hand you your leg and your arm when you go out to the mines. The guards remove your leg and your arm when they put you back in your cell. There you lie— alone, defenseless. How long do you figure you'll last on Sandusky's Rock, Xris?" Amadi regarded him reflectively. "Now that they know you were once a cop." "So that's how the word got out." Xris snorted. "Thanks a lot, Amadi, you bastard. Well, before you transport me, maybe you should know something. "There's a file on a certain computer we've left with Bear Olefsky. You know him? Friend of the king? This file has information in it pertaining to the Hung and one Agent William Armstrong. You remember him? Agent Armstrong made everyone think he was working for us, when all along he was really working for the Hung, handing them all kinds of key information, which they used to build their criminal organization into one of the richest, most powerful syndicates in the galaxy." "Armstrong's dead," Amadi said coolly. "The Hung murdered him." "So everyone would like to believe," Xris said. "We happen to know differently—Rowan and I. Rowan and Iand Bear Olefsky. Armstrong was murdered, but not by the Hung. Oh, I don't doubt that he was on their list. His cover was blown. His usefulness to them had run out. But someone else got to him first. Someone inside the Bureau. Rowan was there. He saw the body. He's got proof. If this proof is handed over to the press—and I've left instructions for Bear Olefsky to hand it over if anything happens to me—how are you going to look, Amadi? "You were Armstrong's boss. Either you didn't know he was a traitor, in which case you look like one of the guys who goes prancing around in pointy-toed shoes, wearing a cap with bells on it, or you did know he was selling secrets to the Hung, in which case you and I might get to be cell mates." Xris attempted to scratch his shoulder by rubbing it on the back of his chair. "You don't snore, do you, boss?" Amadi regarded Xris with unblinking eyes for long moments. Then he said quietly, "I killed him." Xris stared, startled. Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't this. "I'll be damned," he said. Amadi stood up. Turning his back, he walked across the room until he reached the wall. He stood there, staring at the paint,then he pivoted. "I had no choice. He'd hung us out to dry!" Amadi said bitterly. "No pun intended." "You had a choice," Xris countered. "You could have arrested him, brought him to trial—" "Break the news that one of our own agents had been handing our plans to the Hung? Tell the press that this one agent had thrown a laser spanner into I don't know how many operations, that a number of agents had been killed because of him? And that this had been going on right under my nose for about five years? You're right. I could have done that. Maybe it's what I should have done, but I didn't. "My career—thirty years—shot. My pension shot. And where the hell was I supposed to get another job? At my age?"
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Xris didn't respond. There didn't seem to be any answer for that one. He stared down at the restrainer on his good leg and thought about Amadi losing a comfortable retirement; about Ito, losing his life. "And then there'd be the trial." Amadi shoved his hands into his pants pockets. His fists were clenched into tight balls. "Much of our evidence against the Hung had passed through Armstrong's hands. We brand him a traitor and where would that leave us? We'd have to toss out everything and start over! Flush an investigation that had been ongoing for years down the toilet. "I looked at those two roads, Xris. I saw one road filled with crap and muck, leading exactly nowhere, and I saw the other road as clear, as bright as ... as ..." "A single shot through the head?" "Yes." Amadi was grim. "A single shot to the head. That's all it took. One shot and you were avenged. Mashashiro Ito was avenged. All those others who gave their lives were avenged. The trial went on. It was successful. The Hungwere put away." "And your afternoons on the golf course were assured," Xris said. Amadi regarded him coldly. "And what would you have done if you'd gotten to him first, Xris? Tell me that." Xris looked up, smiled. "The same, boss. I'd have done the same. Except I wouldn't have made it so clean and quick. I would have pulled his legs and arms off first, so he would have known what it feels like." He was quiet a moment, thinking. "So that takes care of Armstrong. That's one of my questions answered. The other is: Why am I here? If it was to hear your confession, you ought to know that I've been defrocked." Amadi returned to his chair. The room was growing uncomfortably warm and the smell of disinfectant wafted from Xris's prison uniform, mingled with his body odor. He was only allowed to shower once every other day. Amadi leaned closer, a truly heroic gesture. "The Hung leaders are in prison, but their organization's doing business as usual. Even better than usual. You know that for yourself." "Yeah," Xris said. "I know. So does Rowan." "We thought we had taken them down, but we were wrong. They had financial resources tucked away somewhere. The Hung leaders laid low a couple of years—long enough for us to look the other direction—then they started up operations again. They began small, but they're not small any longer. They had good people after Rowan, didn't they? Experts? Spared no expense?" Xris nodded. "I told you last time we talked that I thought Rowan knew the location of the Hung's stash and—"
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"I asked her," Xris said, interrupting. "She doesn't." "Maybe I believe you. Maybe I don't. The fact is, the Hung do. They think that Rowan either knows or could find out. She's a threat to them and their operation and she'll be a threat as long as she's alive. And there's not much you can do to stop them, is there, Xris? You and I both know that if someone wants to kill a person and he works at it actively, with a modicum of intelligence and luck, he'll succeed." Xris kept silent. "My guess is that you must be feeling pretty helpless about now," Amadi continued. "You can't protect Rowan while you're in here. Oh, they may have lost her trail for now, but sooner or later they'll find her. And she's not helping matters by playing 'tag, you're it' with one of my agents." "Oh, yeah?" Xris thought he should look surprised. Amadi scratched at his left eyebrow. "You remember that Talisian agent, Rizzoli?" "The human hurricane?" "That's her. She discovered someone had hacked into the Bureau computers, tampered with a few files—you can guess whose. The hacker left his, or should I say her, footprints all over the place. You never want to take Rizzoli shopping for good crystal, but she's got brains. She latched onto Rowan right off." "What did she do with the information?" Xris asked, though of course he knew. If his heart hadn't been surgically glued in place, it would have sunk down to his shoes. Make that shoe. Amadi smiled. "She gave the info to her boss—me." "And you did—" "I handled it. I had a talk with Rizzoli. I told her to drop it. I said she was getting all worked up over nothing more ominous than a forgetful file clerk. I was nice to her. She's young, eager. Wants to make Bureau chief. I didn't tromp all over her illusions." "You'll be canonized someday, Amadi," Xris assured him. "I only hope I live to see it. Did she drop the case?" "Of course." Amadi appeared amazed that Xris would even consider otherwise. "I'm her superior. What else would she do? She deleted the files." Well, so much for that idea. Still, it wouldn't be like Rowan to give up. He just hoped she didn't stretch her neck out too far. Xris tried to sound sympathetic. "I'm sorry Rowan's bothering your employees during business hours. If you'll drop the charges and get me the hell out of here, I'll have a talk with her." Amadi was shaking his head. "I can't do that, Xris. I wish I could, but I can't. There's a reason you're in here, a reason which you've probably already guessed."
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"You want to help me stop smoking? Thanks, Amadi, but—" "Would you quit being the comedian and listen for one goddam minute?" Amadi shouted. Xris had never before heard Amadi raise his voice, had never before seen him lose his cool, calm demeanor. Amadi was stressed, stretched good and tight. Here it comes, Xris thought. He shut his mouth, thinking he'd never wanted anything as much in his life as he wanted a twist right about now. Amadi rose abruptly, paced the length of the room, one hand rubbing the back of his head. He looked like someone trying to steel himself to jump into a pool filled with sharks. Xris would have been only too happy to give his former boss a shove. What the hell did Amadi want? Not Rowan; that much was clear. Amadi spent perhaps five minutes pacing the room. Suddenly he stopped, turned,faced Xris. "I want you to do a job for me." Xris cast a glance at his restrainers, the stinking prison uniform,the crutch. Shaking his head, he grinned. "You could have just hired me, Amadi. I admit that I don't come cheap, but I would've given you a cut rate. For old time's sake." "No, I couldn't hire you, Xris. Not for this job." "Why not? Hell, I'll do just about anything for money. Provided it's legal, of course." "Of course." Amadi smiled sourly. "Like stealing robots. Never mind. You wouldn't have done this, not for all the money in His Majesty's treasury. That's why I had to set you up. I need you, Xris. You're the best. You're the only one I can trust." "What's the job?" Xris was wary. "Breaking the leaders of the Hung out of prison."
CHAPTER 13
Don't fight forces; use them.
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Richard Buckminster Fuller,Shelter
So.We were right, Rowan and I. It is you. You're the one at the top. You're the one holding hands with the Hung. And now you're going to spring your buddies from prison. What's the excuse? So they'd be killed in the escape? So they'd lead you to the money? This should be entertaining. Careful, Xris, careful, my friend. This is your chance. Your chance to expose Amadi and take care of the Hung all at the same time. But he's got to believe you.... "How much?" Xris asked. Amadi looked surprised, then disappointed. "What's the matter, Amadi?" Xris's mouth twisted in a bitter smile. "Did you think I'd do this for love of king and country? You're asking me to spring the slugs who killed Ito and made me into the Tin Man. I'll squat on Sandusky's Rock until my innards rust before I'll do that unless ...unless you make it worth my time.Well worth my time." "You've got it all wrong, Xris! I swear it. At least listen to what I have to say." Xris thought he should allow himself to be persuaded. He glanced pointedly at his restrainers. "You have a captive audience." Amadi sat down across from Xris. Amadi tried his hardest to look at Xris, but his eyes didn't find the view to be particularly pleasant, for they kept shifting. Sometimes to a point over Xris's left shoulder, sometimes to the blank wall, sometimes to Amadi's own hands, resting white-knuckled on his knees. "The Hung leaders were sentenced to a labor prison—not Sandusky's Rock, but one like it. That was back in the days of President Robes, when anyone and everything in the government was for sale. The Hungwere able to purchase an upgrade. They managed to get themselves transferred to Jango—a white-collar, executive prison designed for the 'right' sort of criminal who doesn't hurt anyone. Like accountants who've embezzled money from their firms and left a couple thousand of their fellow employees to stand in unemployment lines. Or crooked stockbrokers who swindle the elderly out of their pensions. Those who aren't a real danger to society." Xris snorted. "You can save the righteous indignation for your interview with GNN. Don't waste it on me." Amadi smiled, shrugged. "All right, Xris. Plain and simple. The three Hung leaders are living in a comfortable penthouse cell, complete with vids, mags, and monthly conjugal visits from their wives and/or girlfriends. They have access to a library. They attend classes taught by university professors. One of the gentlemen even went for his Ph.D. at taxpayer expense. They have their secret stash of funds. They're conducting business as usual. Better than usual, because they have the perfect alibi. They're in prison. Who can touch them?" "And now they want out?" Xris was skeptical. "Why? Doesn't the Ph.D. want to wait until he completes his thesis?" "I don't know," Amadi said, looking worried. "I'm not sure. A combination of circ*mstances, maybe."
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He knows damn well why these men want out. Xris had no choice, however, but to appear helpful. "Rowan," he said. "Undoubtedly," Amadi agreed. "The Hungknow their agents failed to take her down. They believe that Rowan knows the location of their funds. That means Rowan could ruin them, put them out of business, this time for good. Their lieutenants have botched the job. Maybe they figure that it's time they got personally involved. Maybe theywant to do thatand move their stash to a new and safer location." "Why not have their contacts on the outsidedo that?" "Would you give a subordinate—a subordinate you know to be crooked because he's working for you—access to forty billion golden eagles?" "That's what they're worth?" "A conservative estimate," Amadi said dryly. And how much of that is lining the pocket of that expensive suit you're wearing? Xris wondered. "Then they won't miss a couple of million," he said aloud. "Which is what I charge for breaking bastards out of prison.One question: Why don't they use their own people to bust them loose?" "This job requires specialized training and equipment. The Hung employs smugglers, drug traffickers, murderers, thieves, and corrupt politicians. Not the sort who can disable the surveillance satellites surrounding Jango or fly the spaceplane that has to outrun Navy gunships or provide the muscle and brains, skill and resources that's going to put this plan together. They have to look for outside talent. Your name happened to come up in conversation." Xris was polite. "Thanks, Amadi, but you shouldn't have gone to all that trouble. Here's what I want. Six million gold eagles. Cash. Nontraceable. Half up front. Half when the job's done." Amadi appeared uneasy. "That's alot of money, Xris." "Damn right it is! This job will cost a lot of money. And I get a certain satisfaction out of thinking that the Hung will pay for it. That's the deal. Take it or leave it. By the way, my lawyer thinks I've got a real good chance of getting out on appeal." "All right," Amadi said reluctantly. "Give me an account number. The money will be there. I'll be honest with you, Xris—" "Yeah, you do that, Amadi. And hurry it up, will you? My butt's going to sleep." "The Hungare a thorn in our side. Thorn?" Amadi sighed. "Make thata plasma burst torpedo! These three have murdered enough people to populate a small planet. The drugs they sell have left others wishing they were dead. The Hunghave screwed up the economies of any number of nations with their counterfeiting operations. Wehave to shut them down." "You don't need to sell me, Amadi. I'm highly in favor of the idea. So how about this? I go into Jango with a small quantity of a very deadly substance that a friend of mine makes—"
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Amadi laid his hand on Xris's good arm. "Don't even think about it, Xris. Three important prisoners turn up dead in their cells and you think no one's going to ask questions? Once they discover your connection, youwill be walking into the disrupter." "Accidents happen," Xris argued. "More people are killed slipping in their bathtubs every year—" "Oh, stuff it!" Amadi was growing impatient—also exceedingly nervous. He kept glancing at the door. "The Hung leaders have heirs, people all set to step in and take over. They're like a damn troll in my grandkid's vid game. Cut off the head, the body still keeps going, and eventually it even grows a new head! We have to kill the entire body. And the way to do that is to shut off the blood supply to the brain. "You help them escape, Xris. They lead me to the money. I arrest them." "You? You're going to be there?" "I'll be on the same spaceplane with you.And them." So that's the plan, Xris said to himself in satisfaction. The money. Nice to know I haven't lost my touch. "And you put them right back in their cushy cells." Amadi smiled, but the eyes were shadowed. "Not necessarily. I don't think they'll let themselves be taken alive." Gee, I was right on both counts! I'm a f*cking genius. Xris had to restrain himself from laughing in Amadi's face. "So that's why you didn't pick up Rowan," Xris said, pretending to have just figured this out. "She's of no use to you now. You don't need her anymore." Amadi shrugged, noncommittal. "I have a date for the breakout arranged. Nineteen days space-time from today. Can you be ready by then?" Nineteen days. Xris did some calculations. "Kirkov's birthday, huh?" "Who?" Amadi appeared puzzled. "Come on, boss. Listen to your surveillance tapes again. You know damngood and well the team's got a job to do and—surprise, surprise—they go into action on that day. What a coincidence. Are you afraid my friends will interfere?" Amadi didn't reply. "Oh, I trust you're keeping what you overheard confidential. You don't want to piss off the Lord of the Admiralty." "Dixter and I have spoken," Amadi said. And that was all he said. Obviously whatever lie he'd told Dixter, the Lord of the Admiralty had believed, otherwise a troop of Marines would have arrived to haul Xris's ass out of jail.
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"I'll give you a minute to think it over." Amadi stood up, walked to the opposite end of the room, and stared at a fly crawling up the wall. So Dixter's written me off, too. I can see the headlines now, Xris thought.CYBORG'S HEAD BLOWN OFF HELPING CONS ESCAPE. You can't think I'm that stupid, Amadi. But maybe you think I'm that greedy.... Amadi turned back to face him. "Did you say something?" "Yeah. I'll take the job." "Good! Glad to hear it." Amadi was pleased. "On my conditions." Amadi wasn't so pleased. "I'm paying you six million in gold already—" "This has nothing to do with money. Condition one: Move me from that death trap of a cellblock. I'm in with two other guys—one who's made a crossbow out of bed springs. He's a psychopath who happens to have a grudge against cops. He was real interested to hear that I'd been one." "A crossbow." Amadi shook his head. Pulling out his electronic pad, he entered a notation. "Just think what these people could do if they would only put their energy into honest pursuits." "Be grateful, Amadi. He'd probably have your job." Amadi glanced up, startled. Xris grinned,then went back to business. "I want my own cell, nice and private, maximum security, until the transport to Jango arrives. Condition two: I want to be reassembled. Leg, arm, hand, hearing, eye, full power." "You can't have your own cybernetic limbs," Amadi stated. "Even I couldn't get you inside Jango with that armaments warehouse you call a leg. The guards will turn you inside out when you arrive, looking for weapons. And if you get past them, you go through a body scanner every tune you leave or enter your cell." "I thought this was a luxury joint, filled with refined gentlemanly types. I thought we attended literature courses in the morning and made pottery in the afternoon. Jeez, Amadi." Xris was aggrieved. "I was counting on getting my high school diploma!" Amadi was not amused. "Jango may not be the ice mines, but it's still a prison." "All right. Furnish me with a leg off the rack, but I want my own personal physician to fit it. I need a proper fit," Xris explained. "Otherwise it rubs. You wouldn't want me to chafe, would you?" Amadi noted—with a fine show of serious attentiveness—the name and the intergalactic vid number of one William Quong, M.D., a show Xris watched with cynical amusem*nt. Amadi knew Quong as well as or better than Xris by now. FISA probably had an agent tailing the Doc this very moment. Xris could have made a smart remark, but he owed Amadi, who was handing out presents like it was Xris's
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birthday. The least Xris could do was to play the party games. "Anything else you want?" Amadi didn't bother to hide the sarcasm. "That's all for the moment. If I think of anything, how can I contact you?" "I'llcontact you." Amadi rose to his feet. "I'm glad we could work together on this case again, Xris." He held out his hand. Xris hesitated; the Hung's money wasn't the only thing that had blood on it. Forgive me, Ito, Xris said silently. I have to play along. But soon, buddy. Soon.... He tried to reach out, but the restrainer wouldn't permit it. Amadi clasped Xris's limp hand, shook it solemnly. "I'll send in the guard," Amadi offered. "By the way, what's my story? What have you told the guards about me?" Amadi's smile broadened. "That you're a cop. Take care of yourself, Xris. Oh, by the way." He half turned, glanced at Xris over his shoulder. "You or the members of your team might get a visit from someone in Internal Affairs." "Oh, yeah?" Xris was careful not to appear too interested. "Who's head of that now?" "Robison. Andrew Robison. You remember him?" "Our boss. Former boss. Used to head up our division." "That's him. He's been promoted. He's now head of Internal Affairs, and between you and me, he's become one hell of a nuisance. Just now, he's sticking his nose into this matter of the Hung. Pass the word for your friends to be careful what they talk about, Xris. People do slip in their bathtubs every day, and as you said yourself, we don't need Dalin Rowan anymore." He switched off the scrambler, thrust it into a pocket, and knocked twice on the door. "Guard!" Amadi shouted. "I'm finished." That's right, you treacherous son of a bitch, Xris told Amadi's backside. You are. "One more thing, Amadi," Xris said. He hadn't been going to ask this; he'd made up his mind he wasn't and he was startled and disappointed inhimself to hear the words come out. "Did Marjorie ... did she know about the setup? Was she in on it?" Amadi turned to look at him and Xris saw the pity in the man's eyes, saw it before Amadi could hide it.
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He didn't reply, but then he didn't have to. Xris knew the answer. Marjorie hadn't invited him to her house. Probably she'd be furious to hear he'd invaded her privacy. "Yeah, well. I just wondered." Xris shrugged it off. Amadi had the grace to look away.
CHAPTER 14
Beware of robbing a wretch. Of attacking a cripple. Amenemope, The Instruction of Amenemope
"Lights out," came the announcement over the loud-speaker. "Settle down, you men." The voices that had been talking loudly dropped to mutters, mumbles, and whispers, punctuated by the occasional harsh laugh. Xris wondered what anyone could find to laugh about in here, wished they'd shut up. Trying to sleep was hard enough. Xris didn't sleep all that well under ideal conditions. It's difficult to curl up in a nice, comforting fetal position when half your body is metal. And there was no cuddling close to another warm soft body in the darkness. Cuddling with Xris would be tantamount to cuddling with some ancient refrigerator; about as cold and about as noisy. He thought of Tess, a woman he'd met during the ill-fated mission to steal that dratted robot. He'd spent an enjoyable two weeks in the sun and surf of a very romantic hideaway with her. She'd been jolted out of a sound sleep every time the machine that maintained the correct balance of chemicals in his body hummed into action. Tess had been honest and open about it, they'd laughed about it together, and for once in his life Xris hadn't felt bitter, hadn't let the laughter hurt him. But he could have, if he wanted to. He could do so now, thinking backon it. Hurting would be easy. Of course, now he didn't have the problem of sleeping with his cybernetic body parts. He didn't have to worry about rolling over the wrong way onto his metal arm and bruising the hell out of his ribs or accidentally shoving his metal foot through the bedboard during a bad dream. Although he was in a private cell, as he had requested, and they had permitted him to activate his eye and his hearing, they still hadn't given him back the use of his cybernetic limbs.
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"But we won't charge you for the crutch," the guard had assured him. "Damn generous," Xris had sneered. He couldn't sleep. Not in this cell, lying on a metal bed that still had metal springs. Lying in the darkness that wasn't really dark because of the security lights. Lying here with the smell of disinfectant in his nostrils, the smell of disinfectant trying to mask the smell of urine. Lying here listening to the grunts and coughs, snores and whispers of the men in the cells around him, the measured footsteps of the guards and the whirring sound of the 'bot that passed by every thirty minutes, taking a body count. Xris could do something about the noise, at least. He could shut down his augmented hearing. Imagining the sweet silence washing over him, soothing him into much-needed rest, his right hand was reaching for the minuscule controls located behind his left ear when his instincts rebelled, ordered him not to be a damn fool. He closed his eyes and tried to drown out the sounds by remembering Tess's laughter, reliving the fun of those two weeks. Nothing would come of the relationship. They'd both known that going into it. Neither of them was looking for anything to come of it. Tess was an undercover operative, working out of the Lord Admiralty's office, with a brilliant career ahead of her. She had put serious relationships on hold. "Some people plan to spend their old age on the golf course," she had told Xris. "Others plan to travel. Me— I'm going to fall in love!" "I'll wait for you," he had said. "No, you won't!" She had laughed. "You'll be with your wife, chasing after grandkids." That picture was one he'd torn up, ripped into shreds, ten years ago. But Tess had given him confidence; she had let him know that he could love and be loved. He had thought about trying to paste the picture back together again. And that was why, when the E-mail had come from Marjorie, he'd decided to spend some time in the beach house the two of them had dreamed about together. Except that Marjorie hadn't sent the invitation. So much for… So much... He was sitting on the deck. The waves rolled in. Broke against the shore. Rolled out. It was actually comfortable, lying in bed without the cybernetic limbs, he thought drowsily. He'd never tried it before, mostly because it made him feel like the helpless cripple he was. But now he could roll over, curl up. Nothing dragged on him, nothing weighed him down,nothing poked him or prodded him. The waves rolled in and out, but their roar was receding. All he could hear were footfalls in the sand.... Xris was awake, suddenly, completely.
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Footfalls in the sand, my ass! Footfalls in the corridor. Footfalls trying to be as quiet as feet walking on sand. They would have been, to the normal ear. But Xris could hear the slight whisper made by tiptoes creeping along the tile floor, the faint whiff whiff sound caused by the stiff fabric of the prison uniform rubbing against itself, the sound of breaths indrawn, exhaled. Pad, pad. Whiff whiff. Breath. Of course, Stealthy Feet could be looking for anybody in this cellblock. Perhaps he had a boyfriend. Pad, pad. Whiff whiff. Breath. Snick. Xris knew that sound. Only one thing made a sound likesnick. Arming a bolt gun. Unless this was a lover's quarrel, the boyfriend theory was out. The security light bathed the bed, a large patch of floor, the wall opposite, and Xris in bright white light. One hell of a beautiful target. And if he wasn't in bed, if he was, say, flopping about, a helpless cripple, on the floor, the assassin would simply readjust his aim. A man moved into Xris's view, halted outside his cell. Xris could see the man in detail. He was tall, stocky, dressed in a prison uniform, and he carried an all-plastic eighteen-micron bolt gun in his right hand. Reaching out with his left hand, the man hit the controls that operated the force field. The red light, which let the guards know at a glance that the force field was operational, winked out. Xris grit his teeth, forced himself to lie still when his instincts were urging him to crawl through the metal wall of his cell. The man stepped inside, raised the gun... Xris lurched off thebed, fell heavily onto the floor as the assassin fired the bolt gun into the bed. He knew the moment he pulled the trigger that he'd just killed a mattress. "Son of a—" Xris rolled across the floor, barreling his body into the man's legs. The assassin toppled forward. He was an agile bastard, unfortunately. His head missed the metal bed frame by a centimeter; he landed on his hands and knees and managed to maintain his hold on the gun. "Guard!" roared Xris, lying on his back on the floor. His metal crutch was in the corner next to the bed—an arm s length away. He could reach it, but the assassin was in front of him, already back on his feet—both feet—twisting his body as he moved, the gun coming to bear. Xris swung his leg. His foot connected with the man's hand, sent the gun flying across the cell. It landed on the floor somewhere behind Xris. "Guard!" Xris shouted again. The assassin dove for the gun.
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Xris had a split-second decision to make. He could either go after the gun or his crutch. He could see his crutch, which was right in front of him, and he had no idea where the gun had landed. From the scrabbling sounds and muttered curses, the assassin wasn't certain himself. Still on his back, Xris lunged across the floor, propelling his body with his good leg. He grabbed the crutch by the toe, hefted it like a club. The assassin had found his gun. He turned, aimed it at Xris. Xris swung the crutch, hit the assassin in the jaw. The man fired; his shot went wild. A bolt slammed into the floor next to Xris's head. The man staggered backward, blood running from his mouth. But he wasn't stunned, as Xris had hoped. The assassin raised the gun again. Xris lashed out. The crutch smacked the gun from the man's hand and this time the gun was gone for good, skittering underneath the bed. The attacker reached for something under his arm—a backup weapon, probably a knife. Rolling onto his side, Xris leveraged himself up on his right arm. He used the crutch like a battering ram, thrust forward. The toe of the crutch smashed into the man's groin. Xris jabbed and twisted, making sure. The assassin had only one thought and that was to try desperately to ease the white-hot pain spreading up from his groin and flaming out the top of his head. Clutching at himself, he dropped the knife and toppled to the floor rolling in agony. Xris struggled to his feet. Make that foot. Thinking it was only right to put the poor bastard out of his misery, Xris punched him. The man's head struck the hard concrete wall. He slumped to the floor and didn't move. Silence, throughout the cellblock. No more grunts and coughs. He couldn't even hear anyone breathing. They might have all died in their beds. "Any more of you?" Xris shouted between gasps for air. His shout echoed through the hushed corridors, came back to him. Xris drew in a breath. "Guards!" Again, no answer. He didn't step out of his cell, even though the force field was shut down. He knew better than to try to escape. They'd be waiting for him. "Guards!" he yelled, and when again no one came, no one responded, Xris picked up the bolt gun, aimed, and fired at the security cam in the corridor. Shattered glass rained down on the concrete floor. Xris tossed the bolt gun onto the pile. Someone in another cell laughed.
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The guards came then. On the run. Red lights glared in the cellblock.Alarms sounded. Now the prisoners were up and talking, yelling and shouting and tossing objects against their force fields to make them sizzle. Guards filled the corridor. The head guard arrived and everything quieted. He came to stare at the shattered cam. Reaching down, he picked up and pocketed the bolt gun. At his orders, another guard held a beam rifle on Xris, who was sitting on the bed, waiting for his heartbeat and his breathing to return to normal. His cheek stung. Putting his hand up to it, he felt blood and realized just how close the bolt had come to smashing through his head. Two more guards bent over the assassin, decided to call in the medics. The head guard entered the cell, glanced around coolly. "So... what happened here? A lover's quarrel?" "You know what happened," Xris returned, wiping blood on his uniform. "You saw the whole damn thing. And what took you so long to get here? Firing that bolt gun must have set off every security device in this building!" "Malfunction," said the head guard impassively, shrugging. "System's always malfunctioning." "Yeah, right. I want to talk to the warden." "Sure. In the morning." "Now," Xris grated. "In the morning," the guard repeated. "Believeme, you don't want to wake up the warden. Puts him in a real bad mood. And why'd you shoot the cam out?" He sounded personally hurt by the incident. "Now I got to activate a guard 'bot, all 'cause you shot out the f*cking cam." "I don't see that it'll make all that much difference," Xris returned. "You weren't paying any attention to the cam anyway." He glanced up at the man. "Or maybe you were. Maybe you were watching and enjoying the show. Except it didn't end likeyou'd planned. So who gave you the popcorn, huh? Who paid you to sit there on your fat ass and do nothing while this creep puts bolts into me?" "You were a cop. Everyone knows it." The head guard shrugged. The medics entered, examined the assassin, and after a brief consultation they rolled him onto a stretcher 'bot, ordered the 'bot to haul him to the infirmary. "Some of the boys don't like cops," said the head guard. Xris opened his mouth, shut it again. Might as well save his breath. One of the medics came to examine Xris's cheek.
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"It's pretty deep. You better come to the infirmary. I'll seal it for you." Xris shook his head. "It'll leave a scar." Xris looked up at the man. The medic glanced at what was left of Xris's body, muttered something unintelligible, and left Xris's cell. The head guard stepped outside, reactivated the force field. "Excitement's over, fellas," he called harshly. "Go back to bed. You know 0500 comes pretty damn early." The guards departed. A robot trundled over to stand in the ruins of the security cam. The light of its optic sensors glowed yellow, while a red beam moved from left to right and then back right to left. Xris was familiar with the model. Its armor could supposedly withstand a direct rut from a Devastator cannon. It was armed with electronic stunners that could fell a man in nanoseconds, leave him writhing on the floor in nerve-jangling agony. The 'bot could also release sleep gas, enough to flood the entire corridor in less than five seconds. "Where were you when I needed you?" Xris asked the 'bot. It looked disdainful, didn't reply. Xrislaid back down on his bed. At least, with the 'bot standing right outside his cell, a 'bot who couldn't be bribed or threatened, he felt relatively safe. But sleep would be a long time coming. Someone had tried to murder him. Andnot because he'd been a cop. That attack had not been made by a prisoner with a grudge. A prisoner with a grudge uses crossbows made from the bed springs. He doesn't have access to the codes that operate the force fields. He doesn't have the cash needed to bribe the guards. He doesn't use a new model eighteen-micron all-plastic bolt gun, a weapon that had to have cost several thousand credits. Specifically designed to be smuggled inside secure areas, the gun would make no blip on a routine metal scan. It was obviously a piece of a well-planned-out puzzle. Whoever ordered this had money and clout and access. "Amadi," Xris said to the darkness. But that didn't quite feel right. Why would Amadi go to all the trouble of coming to meet Xris, setting up this job with the Hung, if he just wanted him dead? Why wait until now? Whoever wanted him dead had decided to see to itafter his talk with Amadi andbefore he left for Jango. The Hung? No, he was going there to help their beloved leaders. Sure, Amadi had claimed that this was a trap, but Xris didn't believe it and he was certain that the Hung wouldn't believe it, either. Amadi was in their
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pocket and had been for so long he'd never be able to climb out. If not Amadi and if not the Hung, who? "Oh.hell , it had to be Amadi!" Xris muttered, and, rolling over, he made a determined effort to get some sleep. But before he dozed off, he'd ruled Amadi out.
CHAPTER 15
Expect poison from the standing water. William Blake, "Proverbs of Hell"
Petronella set the autopilot of her rental hover to take her to the address she had been provided, along with the round-trip ticket to Adonia. She had traveled to Adonia before, once to a convention and once on assignment. The first time she'd visited the paradise planet, she'd been moved to tears by the beauty. After she'd been there twenty-four hours, she'd been moved again—this time in another part of her anatomy—by the ugliness she'd seen lying, rotting, beneath the surface. Petronella was not at all surprised, therefore, that her mysterious correspondent had chosen Adonia for a clandestine meeting. No one on Adonia gave a damn about what anyone did on the planet, as long as they did it with style. The graceful palm trees, the azure sky, the pink-tinged clouds, the rainbows over the green mountains, the glistening black cliffs, the white sand beaches—none of these could tempt Petronella from her serious musings. Neither could the incredibly gorgeous women and the equally beautiful men of Adonia, who were seated beneath colorful umbrellas in quaint cafes, drinking chocolate coffee and shading their faces from the sun. Adonian laws against ugliness are strictly enforced. Adonians do not permit ugly people to live on their planet. Ugly people are allowed to visit—tourist money is life's blood to the Adonians, who deem all other kinds of work as being bad for the complexion. Ugly people were therefore welcome, provided they wore masks over their faces, so as not to offend the sensibilities of the populace. The unfashionably dressed were often held in quarantine until their wardrobes could be adjusted. Petronella had passed through customs quite easily, with only a hint from the customs agent that
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cucumber cream would help deal with the unsightly bags under her eyes. The bags came from not sleeping well. Petronella hadn't slept well since she'd taken this assignment. I should be used to it, she admonished herself. I should be used to the idea that some people, who look so fine on the outside, are filled with maggots on the inside. A person loses her innocence fast in this job, her innocence, and her illusions. I've become cynical, even paranoid. I can never trust anyone. Petronella had once discovered herself thinking about McCarthy, dear honest-to-a-fault McCarthy. How much would it take to buy you?she had wondered, and she knew for certain that he would have his price. Everyone had a price. Sometimes she felt nervous about herself. The hover broke in on her gloomy musings with the announcement that she had arrived at her destination. The hover lowered itself to the landing pad, tucked in its legs, and settled down carefully onto the ornamental rock set in a mosaic pattern. Petronella climbed out of the hover. "Are you sure this is the right place?" she asked the hover. The hover rattled off the address. Petronella checked. Yes, this was it. She stared at the magnificent chateau on the picturesque cliff overlooking the stunningly beautiful ocean. The view was gorgeous, but then every view in Adonia was gorgeous. Expecting a back-alley rendezvous, she wasn't sure how she felt about this. Petronella took her time walking to the front of the mansion. She admired the hanging gardens, the swimming pool, the white columns of the porch against the pink marble of the chateau, the red-tiled roof, black shutters, clinging ivy, splashing fountains. Admired them and looked the locale over carefully, marking exits in case she needed to make a quick getaway. Ascending the stairs, she entered the shade of the ornate portico. Delicate scents of hibiscus drifted over her. The doorbell played a few bars of a Mozart concerto. The carved wood double doors, decorated with a sun's beaming face, were opened by a man so handsome, elegant, and refined that Petronella assumed he must be the owner of the mansion. She was nonplussed to discover he was the butler, Hoskins. Hoskins ushered her inside. Cool shadows washed over her, soothing after the brilliance of the sun. She had an impression of green marble, huge, wonderfully colored vases, whispering silken curtains. "Petronella Rizzoli," she said. "I'm here to see..." She paused, looked suitably helpless. Presumably, she had no idea who she was here to see. During the pause, a vase teetered on its stand. Hoskins, acting quickly, steadied it with a hand. "I'm terribly sorry," Petronella began. "No need to apologize," Hoskins said smoothly. "Itb not Madam's fault. This area is subject to tremors. If Madam will accompany me, they are waiting to receive you on the patio."
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The house was charming, the decorations perfect. She stopped to examine a particularly fine statue of a nude woman and a swan, until she saw what it was the two were doing. She had considered herself past the age of blushing, but apparently not. She moved on, carefully avoiding looking too closely at the rest of the statuary. French doors opened onto an exquisite patio. Several people were seated at a table beneath a large umbrella. "Ms. Petronella Rizzoli," the butler announced. The people rose to their feet. Petronella blinked in the bright sunlight, tried to focus. And here they all were, just as she'd expected. She located an exit, put her hand over the lasgun hidden in the pocket of her suit jacket, and waited. One of them, the woman, came to meet her. Thewoman kept her hands in plain sight. She wasn't carrying aweapon, that Petronella could see. The woman extended her hand. "How do you do, Ms. Rizzoli?" said the woman. "My name is Darlene Mohini." "Yes," said Petronella coolly. "I recognize you from the files. I recognize the rest of your gang, too. What is it you people want with me?" "Only a little talk," said Darlene, squinting up at Petronella in the bright sunshine. "Won't you sit down? Raoul, I think our guest might be thirsty." "I have never been referred to as a 'gang,'" said Raoul. Smoothing his black hair, so black that it glistened in the sun with rainbow hues, he remained seated. "The term has such a very common quality about it." He glanced at her, glanced away. "I don't believe I like her." "I'm sure Ms. Rizzoli didn't meangang in a negative sense," Darlene said in soothing tones. "She's just a bit nervous. New surroundings. She doesn't know us, after all. Perhaps one of your pink flamingos. They are so refreshing...." "They are, aren't they?" Raoul said. He was dressed in white diaphanous garments that flowed around him, and was so incredibly beautiful, and looked so very hurt, and so little like the professional assassin and expert poisoner that he was according to his file, that Petronella found herself apologizing before she quite knew what she was doing. "The trip was very tiring. And going through customs can be so stressful—" "Very well, my dear," Raoul said, coming closer to her and enveloping her in a breathless wave of gardenia perfume, "I forgive you." He kissed the air near her cheek and drifted off. "Anyone else want a flamingo?" Everyone assured him that they did, which appeared to gratify Raoul immensely and put him in an excellent humor. Darlene introduced the other members of theteam, laying emphasis on the word.
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Petronella knew them from their files. Jamil Khizr, the ex-Army officer and far more good-looking than even his file photo. "Petronella," he said, with a charming smile. "Do they call you Pet?" "Only once," she assured him. Dr. William Quong, who bowed politely, then asked if it was true she was a Talisian. "I've done a cursory study on your people and I have a few questions—" "Not now, Doc," Darlene said. The last person was a small figure enveloped in a raincoat and fedora, who peered up at Petronella from beneath the brim of his hat with a pair of exceedingly bright and intelligent eyes. This was the telepath. Petronella didn't have to worry about him, her, or it—the file didn't offer much information on the personage known only as the Little One—because whatever it was about Talisians that caused the strange energy fluxes also scrambled their brain waves, making it impossible for telepaths to read them. "We're expecting one more team member," Darlene said. "Harry Luck. In fact"—the Mozart concerto was playing again—"that may be him now." "I'll answer the door, Hoskins!" Raoul could be heard calling. "You refill the ice bucket." "Very good, sir," was the butler's response. The next moment, a piercing shriek cut through the air. The shriek rose to a high-pitched wail, ending in a strangled gurgle. Jamil's lasgun appeared in his hand with a rapidity that impressed Petronella, who was still reaching for hers. "Keep her here, Darlene," Jamil ordered. "Maybe she brought friends. Doc, you're with me." The two ran for the house, stopped short at the sight of Raoul staggering through the French doors. His hands covered his eyes, as though he'd been blinded by a disabler. Giving a moan, he collapsed at their feet. Petronella took a step forward, only to feel a lasgun pressed against her side. Darlene smiled at her apologetically. "I think you should stay here with me, Agent Rizzoli. Hand me your gun, will you?" Petronella handed it over. "What's the matter with him, Doc?" Jamil asked, beading over the prostrate bundle of white. "Has he been shot?" "No. He has merely fainted. He has received a severe shock of some sort." Hoskins, the butler, appeared in the doorway. He was as pale as was considered fashionable and trembling in every limb.
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"What is it, Hoskins?" Jamil demanded. "What'shappened. " "Oh, sir!" Hoskins said faintly. "It ... it's coming this way...." A large blond man dressed in a polyester suit that was much too small for his portly figure crashed through the French doors. He had his lasgun drawn and was looking around wildly. "What's the matter? Are we under attack?" Harry Luck, according to his file. Jamil looked at Harry, especially at Harry's suit. Sighing, Jamil holstered his weapon. Dr. Quong also looked at Harry. "Ah, now I understand." Quong lifted Raoul gently in his arms. "Where can I put him?" "In his bedroom. Where he can see his wardrobe on awakening. The master always finds that soothing. I will show you, sir," said Hoskins, delicately raising a hand to shield Harry from his view. "It's all right, Hoskins," Quong said. "I know the way. You don't look too well yourself. Perhaps you should go lie down." "I think, sir, under the circ*mstances," said the shaken butler faintly, "if you are quite certain that the master will be all right, I will retire to my quarters for a brief restorative." "Put the gun away, Harry," Jamil said in exasperation. "We're not being attacked. It's your suit. Come out here on the patio where you can't hurt any innocent bystanders. Where did you buy that thing, anyway? Murphy's House of a Thousand Suits?" "Yeah, I did!" Harry was impressed. "How'd you know that? There was an outlet right next to my motel. Murphy's offers a real bargain. You get two pairs of pants with the jacket. Your choice. I picked these out myself. The salesmen said the plaids didn't match and the colors clashed, but I think they look fine." Harry gazed down at himself admiringly. "I could take you there, Jamil, if you're interested. This suit attracts a lot of attention." "I'll bet that's true," Jamil said. "Let me hazard a wild guess—you didn't wear that through customs, did you?" "No. I didn't want it to get wrinkled on the ship. I changed in the men's room." "You walked through the spaceport wearing it?" "Sure, Jamil. You have to walk through the spaceport if you're going to get to the rental agencies. What's the problem? Oh, I get it. You think I was followed. I wasn't. I kept a lookout." Jamil sighed. "Hoskins! There you are." The butler was tottering by with a large snifter of brandy in his hand. "Yes, sir?" "Just check with the police, will you? See if they've put out an arrest warrant for Harry yet? If they have, tell them we have the suspect in custody and we'll deal with the matter."
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"Yes, sir. May I say, sir—the sooner, thebetter. " Hoskins continued on his way, adding pointedly, "Garbage pickup is every Tuesday." "Sorry about that, Agent Rizzoli," said Darlene, returning her lasgun to the holster she wore at the small of her back. "This is Harry Luck, one of the best pilots in the galaxy." "Aw, I'm not that good," Harry said modestly, his face flushing. He was a big man and might have been handsome, but for the tiny frown line in the center of his forehead, as ifhe were continually perplexed by life in general, and his cheerful grin which said that he'd given the matter a lot of thought and declined to accept responsibility. Blinking in the sunlight, he peered at Petronella. "Who's your friend, Darlene? You know, it's funny, but I think I've seen her before." Suddenly his expression hardened, darkened. "Hey, do you know who that is?" "Yes, Harry—" Jamil began. "That's the bitchwho arrested Xris! What the hell isshe doing here?" "Harry—" Darlene tried to explain. "Oh, I get it!" Harry relaxed; the grin was back. "We're holding her hostage." He rubbed his hands. "That's great! When do they release Xris?" "Hostage!" Petronella exclaimed. "Listen to me! If you think that for one moment—" "He didn't mean it!" Jamil assured her. "The fumes from the polyester must have affected his brain. We're not taking you hostage. You can leave now, if you want to." "And I must admit I wouldn't blame you," Darlene added with a wry smile. "You haven't exactly seen us at our best. We don't intend to harm you in any way. In fact, we have some information that will be of interest to you. Please, won't you sit down?Oh, and here's your gun back." Petronella accepted the gun. According to the files, the team was a strange bunch, but they'd pulled off some pretty impressive feats, such as rescuing a group of humans being held hostage by the Corasians, and saving His Majesty the King from an assassin. There was the rumor that they had even managed to break into a top-secret, heavily guarded Navy base, but that was unconfirmed. "What information?" Petronella said, thinking it wise to maintain the appearance of suspicion. "My name is Darlene Mohini now. But, in a former life, I was Dalin Rowan." Petronella did her best to look astonished. She wasn't supposed to know this, after all. "But... Dalin Rowan ... is ... was a man. And anyhow, he is dead. Was dead." "It's a long story. I think you better sit down, Agent Rizzoli. I'll try to explain everything." "Just in case anyone cares," Harry Luck interrupted, glowering, "Xris got twenty years on Sandusky's Rock." "Yes, Harry, we know. Parker called us," Jamil said.
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"And you're all sitting here drinking lemonade! With her!" Harry glared at Petronella. "Take a seat, Harry." Darlene's voice was crisp, whip-like, and Harry, though red in the face, meekly obeyed, looking like a recalcitrant lion being put through his paces by his trainer. "I'm trying to explain." But before she could start, Mozart was playing once again. "What now?" Darlene demanded, exasperated. "Maybe it's the cops coming to arrest Harry," Jamil said. "I'll take care of it." He pointed a dictatorial finger. "Mr. Luck, you stay here, out of sight!" Harry sat down, plainly unhappy. Darlene fidgeted, drumming her fingers on the table and glancing often in the direction Jamil had taken. Petronella caught herself staring at Darlene, trying to see if she could detect any male features—Adam's apple, rough-cut chin. Realizing that this was simply voyeuristic curiosity and had nothing whatsoever to do with her job, she shifted her gaze to two swans circling an ornamental pond. "How is Xris, Harry?" Darlene asked, either trying to fill the awkward silence or perhaps elicit Petronella's sympathy. "Did you see him before you left? Did you have a chance to talk to him?" "I tried." Harry sulked in the shade of the umbrella. "But they wouldn't let me. You should have seen him at the trial, Darlene," he added abruptly, glaring again at Petronella, who suddenly felt unaccountably guilty. They were using the cyborg, after all. Tampambulos was nothing but bait to lure Amadi into Robison's trap. "Xris looked real bad. He had to use a crutch to walk. They wouldn't even let him put on his hand." "Heis a murderer," Petronella said loftily. "Not if I'm the one he murdered," Darlene said dryly. "That's true," Petronella conceded, looking confused. "Ifwhat you say is true. And if it is true, then why didn't he tell someone? Why would he let himself get locked up for a crime he didn't commit?" "That's part of what I have to tell you. You see—" Jamil emerged from the house carrying a tray of drinks. "Well, was it the cops?" Darlene asked. "Perhaps Harry can plead temporary insanity." "Very funny," Harry growled. "Naw, it was the pool cleaner. I couldn't find Hoskins, so I told the guy to go ahead. Here, I fixed iced tea." "Iced tea," Harry said gloomily, staring into his glass. "Xris is probably chopping away at ice now himself. And none of you give a damn."
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The pool cleaner walked by, carrying his equipment with him in a bag. He wished them good afternoon and sauntered across the patio toward the pool. He was wearing swimming trunks and a white T-shirt that accentuated his golden tan and showed off his well-developed muscles. Like everyone else on Adonia, he was gorgeous. Petronella allowed herself a moment to admire the view before returning to work. Darlene clasped her hands on the table, was looking at Petronella earnestly. "I know this is going to be hard for you to believe, Agent Rizzoli, but Xris and I are convinced that our former boss, your current boss, Jafar el Amadi, is a traitor. We believe that he is working for the Hung and has been working for them for years." Good God! Whatever Petronella had been expecting Rowan to say, it wasn't this! She was caught off guard, didn't know how she should react. Fortunately, her stunned expression could be taken for shock at the information. "You're right," she said at last. "I don't believe it." "Then why did you come here?" Darlene smiled. "One of the answers to the daily quiz was, 'A—traitor.' Don't tell me that Amadi didn't cross your mind." Petronella was noncommittal. "I'll listen to what you have to say." "Fair enough." Darlene leaned back, madeherself comfortable. "Here's the story." Half an hour later, Darlene was describing to Petronella how Dalin Rowan had found Xris and what was left of Mashahiro Ito in the burning ruins of the Hung ammunitions factory. She went on to explain how Armstrong had tried to kill her in the shuttle and told how Amadi had ordered her to keep quiet about the entire affair, how all the records had disappeared. Petronella listened in silence. Everything tallied exactly with what she already knew. Darlene told her story calmly, but with pain in the eyes that were watching her past rewind. Petronella could hear the anguish in Darlene's voice and she could see, through those pain-shadowed eyes, the blood-covered, mangled body of Xris in the wreckage of the factory, could see the bits of charred flesh that were all they ever found of Ito. Anger stirred in Petronella again, just as it had when she'd first read the file. But she couldn't let them see that she believed them. Not yet. Darlene interrupted her story for a long swallow of iced tea. Petronella discovered that she was stiff from sitting so long in once place without moving. She sat back in the shade and sipped at her tea, which had gone tepid. Dr. Quong emerged from the house, in company with the Little One. Jamil looked around. "How's Raoul, Doc?" "He has suffered a severe shock. I trust there will be no damage to the central nervous system, but at this point it's too early to tell." "You're kidding, right?" "He is an Adonian. What more can I say? I've given him a sedative. Now, my friend." The doctor
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reached for Harry's wrist to take his pulse. "You look terrible. What's the matter with you, beyond a deplorable lack of fashion sense?" "I've just come from Xris's sentencing," Harry said, his voice high-pitched and strained. "They've given Xris twenty years. On Sandusky's Rock. He—" The Little One suddenly lifted his head and twisted around to gaze in the direction of the swimming pool. Turning back, he reached out and grabbed hold of Darlene's arm. He made a stabbing gesture with his stubby finger. "That? It's the pool cleaner," said Darlene. The Little One shook his head with such violence that the fedora fell down over one eye. Darlene looked at Jamil, who looked at Quong. "He says it'snot the pool cleaner." Jamil was on his feet. "This has been a busy day. Doc, you're with me. Harry, you stay with Darlene. Careful, Doc. Don't tip him off that we're on to him." "I understand perfectly the finesse required for this particular situation," Quong returned, nettled. The two strolled casually across the patio in the direction of the pool. "I don't need a retired Army officer to explain it to me." "Fine, Doc, fine. Keep your voice down and if you haveto shoot, shoot low. We need to talk to him." "Harry!" said Darlene, exasperated, "I appreciate your concern, but there's no need to use your body as a shield. Could you please move out of the way? I can't see!" Harry shook his head. He had planted his large body in front of Darlene and seemed prepared to take root and flower. According to the file, Hung assassins had tried twice to kill Darlene Mohini. Petronella drew her own lasgun, hid it swiftly beneath her purse. Harry Luck regarded her with narrowed eyes, but Darlene said softly, "It's all right, Harry. She's on our side." "If you say so," he muttered, and turned to keep a close watch on the alleged pool cleaner, who was down on his hands and knees, taking water samples. Petronella didn't argue. She wasn't exactly on their side, but she'd be damned if she'd let some Hung assassin kill her star witness. Jamil and Quong were sauntering over to the pool. The pool cleaner, intent upon his samples, was bent over his work. At that moment, Raoul wandered out the French doors — doors that opened almost directly onto the swimming pool and brought him into close proximity with the bent-over pool cleaner. Cheek by jowl, as it were.
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Delightfully relaxed from the sedative, which would have put most humans into a sound sleep for a week, but which merely gave the Loti a feeling of pleasant euphoria, Raoul gazed directly at a most interesting and attractive portion of the pool cleaner's anatomy, perfectly showcased in spandex swimming trunks. "Ah!" cried Raoul, staring at this vision which, after the paralyzing shock of Harry's suit, seemed a gift from the gods. "You're not theusual pool cleaner!" The man leaped to his feet. "Damn!" Jamil cried, and broke into a run. The pool cleaner took one glance behindhim, saw Quong and Jamil coming for him. Reaching into the water, he grabbed hold of something,then sprinted for safety. He shoved Raoul roughly out of his way, scaled the wall that encircled the pool, was up and over the side and had dropped down to the ground below before Jamil could fire his lasgun or Raoul could get his name and phone number. They heard the roar of a hover engine firing and by the time Jamil had pulled himself up onto the wall for a look, all he could see was the back end of a truck soaring over the tops of the palm trees. Jamil dropped to the ground, brushed the dirt from his hands, and gazed ruefully at the stains on his good trousers. "Did you get the name?" Quong asked. "Yes," Jamil began. "Except—" "Oh, good!" Raoul cried, clasping his hands. "But," Jamil continued, glaring at Raoul, "you can be damn sure that the truck was stolen. Ah, Hoskins." The butler appeared, looking much more relaxed, though he swayed slightly on his feet and the air was tinged with the strong smell of brandy. "Yes, sir. I heard the commotion—" "That was the pool cleaner, making a quick exit." "Yes, sir. I was just going to say,sir, that he was not the usual pool cleaner and that today is not the day when the pool is customarily cleaned. The pool cleaners are not scheduled to come until tomorrow, and while I have known them to be late on countless occasions, I have never once known them to be early." Quong went to examine the pool equipment, which the man, in his mad dash, had left behind. Jamil, in no very good humor, returned to the table. "We lost him," he lamented. "He left in a van that was probably stolen. He's likely ditched it by now. Should we report it?" "On Adonia, they'd only arrest him if he left the van parked in a flower bed," Darlene said dryly. "Maybe we could tell them he was the one who sold Harry that suit," Jamil growled. "Except that then
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they'd shoot to kill." Raoul joined them, keeping his hand carefully over his eyes, avoiding looking at Harry. "Why did you frighten him away?" Raoul complained "Because he was a Hung assassin, that's why," Jamil snapped. "Nobody's perfect. Just part of him." Raoul smiled sadly at the memory. "He wasnot an assassin, my friends," said Dr. Quong. In his hand, he held a boom microphone electronic listening device disguised inside a vacuum hose. "He was a spy. There was probably a microwave recording unit attached to it. See where one would fit in here? He recorded our conversation and when he was exposed..." Raoul gave a wistful sigh. ". . .he fled, taking the recording with him." "But that's not very plausible," Darlene argued. "Why would the Hung send someone to spy on me when he could just as easily have killed me?" The Little One shook his head, sending the fedora toppling into his eyes, and pointed a jabbing finger. Everyone turned to Petronella. "The pool cleaner was not spying on Darlene," Raoul said, after he and the Little One had held one of their silent and eerie communications. "He was spying on Agent Rizzoli."
CHAPTER 16
The easiest person to deceive is one's own self. Baron Lytton, The Disowned
Are you sure?" Petronella demanded. She didn't need to act startled. Shewas startled. "Why? How? No one knew I was coming here.... It doesn't make sense....
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A patio chair skittered across the flagstone, landedwith a splash in the swimming pool. "Did I really see that?" Raoul asked. The Little One nodded the fedora. "I had to make sure. These days, it's so hard to tell," Raoul said. Dr. Quong brought out his notepad. "I assume that you are taking the standard medication prescribed for Talisians off-world? Obviously the medicine's not working all that well for you. My guess would be that, in your case, unlike other Talisians I have treated, the kinetic fluxes do not roll off you in waves, but rather they whip out like tendrils. Perhaps that's why. Now, if I could check your blood pressure—" "Not now, Doc," Jamil said impatiently. Petronella tried to figure out how to play this. Of course, they'd staged it, but why? For what reason? "But who could be havingme followed?" Petronella asked, glancing at them all uncertainly. "You don't think—" "Amadi," Darlene said coolly. "It has to be." The Little One caught hold of the sleeve of Raoul's blouse and tugged on iturgently, drawing his friend back reluctantly from whatever world he was currently visiting. "What is it? Oh, yes." Raoul gazed at Petronella with dreamy, unfocused eyes. "The Little One says that the pool cleaner was, in reality, an Adonian private detective hired by someone—he's not clear who it was—to keep watch on you and to record what you said and to whom you said it." "Which explains why he ran at the first sign of trouble," Jamil said. "An Adonian detective. His biggest case before this was probably trying to track down smudgy mascara." "If it was Amadi, wouldn't he have sent his own people?" Quong wondered. Both Darlene and Petronella shook their heads. "The Bureau doesn't station agents on Adonia," Darlene explained. "The local authorities are afraid that the Bureau's presence might interfere with bribery, kickbacks, roll-overs, and the Adonian good life in general. "If there's a reason for the Bureau to be on Adonia, they can either send in agents good-looking enough to pass through customs, or they hire Adonians. That's a last option, because they're not terribly efficient. As it was," Darlene admitted, "this one was pretty damn good. He was here for almost an hour, caught us telling Agent Rizzoli everything there is to tell." "And you couldn't get any reading on who hired him?" The Little One opened his hands, smacked himself on the forehead. "The agent was not thinking about who hired him. Why should he?" Raoul asked. "He was thinking about the loveliness of the clouds in the sky, the beauty of the swans reflected in the pool, the spicy
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fragrance of the hibiscus, so conducive to love, how attractive he found his reflection in the water, his blond hair tousled just so...." Raoul sighed. "We could have been soul mates!" A Beethoven violin sonata began to play. "The phone," said Raoul, looking up hopefully. Hoskins emerged. "For me?" Raoul cried. "No, sir. I fear not. It is for Dr. Quong. His answering service." "Excuse me." Quong left them. Why were they going to such lengths? Petronella wasn't certain. They were probably hoping to trap her into revealing something. Quong emerged from the house. Walking straight up to Harry, he rested his hand on the big man's shoulder. "You do not have to worry about Xris anymore, my friend." "I don't?" Harry sprang to his feet. "He's been released!" "No, they have not released him," Quong said. "But he has been transferred. He is not going to the ice mines on Sandusky's Rock. He is being sent to the correctional facility for antisocial behavior on Jango. He has asked to see me and the authorities have given me permission to attend to him. I must go pack my things." "Jango," said Darlene, startled. "That's..." She let the sentence hang. "That's what?" Jamil asked. "Interesting," said Darlene lamely. "Not to me!" Harry protested. "Why's the Doc going? Why can't I go? What about me?" "Shush, Harry," Darlene said softly, with slight tilt of the head in the direction of Petronella, a glance and tilt that Harry missed, but which Petronella caught and which further increased her suspicions. "I think I should go," Harry said stubbornly. "Shut up, Harry, and sit down," Jamil ordered. "You need any help, Doc?" "Thank you, but no. Agent Rizzoli," Quong said, turning to her, "it has been a pleasure meeting you." Petronella gave a cool, curt nod and stood up. She had a call to make. "I have to be going as well. Good-bye," she said. "It's been... interesting. Of course, I think you're completely mistaken about Jafar el Amadi. He has an exemplary record. But I'll keep what you told me in mind. If you receive any more information, you know how to contact me," she added wryly.
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She walked off, conscious that she had made an abrupt exit and that she had left them all staring at her. "Very rude,"came Raoul's voice. "She never even said thank you for the vacation, and after we purchased tickets for her and everything. Itold you I didn't like her." Entering the living room, Petronella nearly knocked over Hoskins, who must have sprung up from the marble-tiled floor. As Hoskins gravely and silently escorted her to the front door, the vase that had teetered earlier now lurched off its black marble stand and crashed to the floor. Gulping and looking stricken, Petronella gasped. "I'm so sorry. I'll pay for the damages—" Hoskins was gracious, though haggard. It had been a difficult day. "Never mind, madam. The master was not particularly fond of that Ming vase anyway." "If you're certain—" "Quite certain," Hoskins said firmly. Taking hold of her elbow, he steered her rapidly to the front door. "Next time Madamvisits , perhaps Madam would be kind enough to warn us in advance. I could then pack away all the breakables." He shut the door on her. Petronella ran down the stairs. As she climbed into the hover, she heard a piercing scream come from the mansion. Well, she wouldn't be invited back here again. Departing in haste, Petronella returned to her hotel by a circuitous route, keeping watch. No pool cleaner trucks were in pursuit. No one was following her. Not that this proves anything, she said to herself. If that manwas following me, then he must have picked me up at the hotel. Why didn't I check like I usually do? That was careless. Damn careless. Theymust have staged it, she repeated. And the very fact that she repeated it meant that shewasn't believing it. Motive. The Bureau was very big on motive. And for the life her she couldn't figure out any motive for why the Mag Force 7 team would try to convince her that she'd been tailed by a pool cleaner in disguise. Amadi.then . He was on to her. Once she reached her room, she did a quick calculation of the time difference. It was late, but Tom might still be in the office. "McCarthy here," he answered, sounding harassed. Petronella wasn't fooled. He always sounded that way, a method he used to get rid of annoying callers.
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"Hello, Tom,it's Rizzoli." "Oh, hi, Rizzoli. How are you feeling? Any better?" "Yes. Well, no, not really. Say, Tom, could you do me a favor? I heard on a news broadcast that the prisoner Tampambulos is being sent to Jango. Could you check that out for me? It sounds fishy." "I'll say. Since when do convicted murderers go to a resort spa like Jango? Unless they can afford it, of course. Just a sec.... I'll be damned, Rizzoli. You're right. Here's his transfer authorization. He's being sent to Jango. Well, isn't that a kick in the face." "Who authorized the transfer, Tom?" Petronella asked. "The chief supe. Amadi." "Thanks." Petronella ended the link. She kicked off her shoes and lay down on the bed, having first taken the precaution of moving the table lamp to the floor and making certain the vid set was bolted to the dresser. Jango. It sounded familiar. Why? She couldn't recall where she'd heard that name before. Petronella called room service, ordered dinner. No cheap in-room replicators for this fancy hotel. Lying on the bed, she activated the long-range and extremely sensitive listening device she'd placed under the table when the team had been distracted by the chair tumbling into the swimming pool. The first voice she heard was Darlene's, and here was one of Petronella's answers. "The Hung leaders are in prison on Jango."
CHAPTER 17
O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost,come back again. Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel
"The Hung leaders are in prison on Jango," said Darlene.
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"This is starting to make sense." "Not tome ," Harry grumbled, hurt. "Why does Doc get to go see Xris and I don't?" "Because Doc's going to fit Xris with a new cybernetic leg and arm, made to spec, if you take my meaning." "Oh, yeah. I get it." Harry brightened. "A new leg with files and stuff inside so he can cut through the bars of his cells." "Somethinglike that," Darlene said gravely. "You knew that, too, Jamil?" "Yes, Harry. I knew." "But how did you guys figure that out?" Harry's brow furrowed in deep concentration. "Logical deduction, Harry. Inferences," said Darlene. "Do you understand?" "No," Harry said bluntly. "I thought inferences were what you used to see in the dark." Jamil and Darlene exchanged glances. Darlene hid her smile, but Jamil was forced to leave hurriedly, mumbling something about checking to see if all the snooping devices had been removed from the pool. "I don't see what's so funny." Over the splash of the fountain, Harry could hear Jamil laughing. "I'll explain, Harry," Darlene said kindly. "You said yourself that they'd taken Xris's cybernetic limbs. Doc gets a call to his service. Xris leaves a message saying he needs a new leg and a new arm and can Doc come and fit them. Any cybertechnologist could have fit Xris with a new leg. The fact that he asked specifically for Dr. Quong indicates that he would like a little something extra." "But we don't know what," Harry protested. "True. My guess is that Quong is on my computer right now, researching the security devices at Jango and trying to figure out how to get around them." "You're really smart, Darlene," Harry said. "Thank you, Harry." She smiled at him and rested her hand over his. Night was coming to Adonia, bringing with it cool air, the perfume of night-blossoming tropical flowers, and the sounds of merriment from the chateau belonging to one of the neighbors. Raoul wandered onto the patio, looking distraught, disheveled, and tragic. "What a ghastly day," he said faintly, and sinking down into a chair, he rested his forehead on his hand, gave a heart-melting sigh. "Raj Vu is giving another party, and did he invite me? He did not. The Little One is in bed with a severe headache. He says he feels as if he has been pelted with bricks. And we must make do with leftovers for dinner. I had to give Hoskins the night off and he has threatened to give notice if that tornadic female returns."
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Raoul gazed with pleading eyes at Darlene. "You don't consider it likely, do you?" "I doubt if Agent Rizzoli will be back to see us," Darlene replied somberly. "I don't think we did a very good job of convincing her." "What about the guy tailing her?" Jamil asked, returning to the table. "That would have convinced me." "She probably figures we staged it. We could have, you know," Darlene replied, shrugging. "Hopefully we've given her something to think about, at least. She's the type who likes to ferret thingsout, that much is obvious, since she tracked down the files I altered. And she's energetic and she doesn't mind taking risks." "She's a menace to society," Raoul said in a low, tremulous voice. "And should be locked up." "What happens if she doesn't come through for us?" Jamil asked. "Then it's up to Xris," Darlene replied. "He has something in mind or else he wouldn't be where he is right now. You ready to go, Doc?" "I have booked a flight for 2200 this evening. I am to meet with Xris at 1200 day after tomorrow." "Do you know what he wants?" "I do not care what he wants," Quong replied stiffly. "I intend to provide him with what he needs. I—" Mozart sounded with damnable cheeriness through the night. "The gods save us!" Raoulproclaimed, his face ashen. "Maybe it'sher again! Don't answer." "It might be her," said Jamil, with a wink at the rest of them. "Or it could be Raj Vu with a party invitation." "I'm coming!" Raoul cried. "Harry, go with him," Jamil ordered. "Absolutely not!" Raoul said, turning on them. Fire flickered in the depths of his usually drug-drowned eyes. "You would scare poor Raj Vu into fits. In that suit, you would frighten Death himself. I will call you if I need you,"be added, and left to answer the door. Jamil removed his lasgun from its holster, laid it out on the table, Quong, who should have been leaving for the spaceport, had drifted over to where he could see Raoul through one of the windows. Darlene drummed her fingers nervously on the glass tabletop. Harry scratched his head. He had more important matters on his mind than unexpected visitors in the night. "What does Raoul mean by leftovers?" he asked worriedly. "Those icky toadstools we had to eat for lunch?" "Truffles," Darlene corrected.
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Mozart played again. "What the devil is Raoul doing?" Jamil demanded impatiently. "Why doesn't he answer the door?" "He's fixing his makeup," Quong reported, peering through the glass, "and brushing his hair." Jamil muttered something beneath his breath. Quong continued to watch. "He is opening the door—" A piercing scream shattered the night, split their eardrums, and probably would have finished off the Ming vase if Petronella hadn't gotten to it first. "In the name of the Maker!" Dr. Quong gasped, staring, wide-eyed. He dropped his briefcase. "I knew it!" Jamil was on his feet, lasgun in hand. Harry was right behind him and Darlene was behind Harry, although Jamil ordered her repeatedly to keep back. They found Raoul prostrate on the marble floor of the entryway, picturesquely composed, his hair flowing around him, apparently unconscious. The Little One, his hat tossed on his head backward, was bent over his friend, but his gaze was riveted in astonishment on the being standing in the doorway. The being was a tall—well over two meters—humanoid, with skin that had been as dark as the night through which he'd traveled, but which now was gradually lightening, taking on the taupe color of the walls in the entry hall. "Tycho!" Jamil gasped. The chameleon, for that's what his people were called.due to the fact that their skin changed color to match their surroundings, looked at them all and grinned with pleasure "You know me!" he said, speaking through a translator. "I wasn't certain you would remember!"
CHAPTER 18
BERNARDO:It would bespoke to. MARCELLUS: Speak to it, Horatio. William Shakespeare, Hamlet,Act I
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"Tycho—you're...you're dead!" Jamil was the only member of team able to find his tongue. The rest were still searching through the general astonishment for theirs. "You were blown to bits by a grenade! I saw the body." "Yes, of course," said the chameleon. "An immeasurable sorrow. Why are you pointing that lasgun at me, Jamil?" Jamil was suspicious, grim. "All right, you knowmy name. Who the hell are you?" The chameleon appeared confused. "I am Tycho. You must knowme. I know all of you. Quong, Darlene, Harry Luck, Raoul,the Little One. But"—he glanced around— "where is Xris Cyborg?" Keeping the lasgun trained on the alien, Jamil grabbed hold of a handful of the Little One's raincoat and shook him. "Who is this bastard really?" The Little One slapped himself back and forth on the sideof his head several times and performed a shuffling dance step. Jamil watched in frustration. Raoul, the only one who could understand his friend, was only semiconscious, making low moaning sounds and fitfully requesting that someone bring him a dry sherry. "Doc," Jamil asked, "can you translate? What's the Little One saying?" Quong joined the rest of them in staring in amazement at the stranger who claimed he wasn't. Then he looked at the Little One. "I have no idea." "Wake up sleeping beauty, then," Jamil said harshly. "You, Tycho, or whoever you are, don't move. Do what you can for him, Doc. We need Raoul to translate." Quong kept his gaze on the chameleon,who was now starting to appear uneasy, his skin color fading from taupe to a sort of sickly gray. The doctor knelt beside Raoul and gave him a not very gentle slap on each cheek. "The rubber hose," Raoul murmured, smiling beatifically. "Don't forget to bring the rubber hose to suck the..." His eyelids fluttered. He looked up and his smile froze. "You're not the pool cleaner." Quong grunted, shoved Raoul to a seated position. Raoul took one look at the chameleon and promptly screamed. "Don't faint! And that's an order!" Jamil motioned to the chameleon. "Who is this?" Raoul and the Little One looked at each other. Both looked at the chameleon. Both looked at Jamil. "Tycho," said Raoul, and the Little One nodded. "But that's not possible!" argued Jamil.
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"Why, sure it is, Jamil," said Harry. "We learned about that in church. 'On the third day he rose again from the dead.' Maybe it took Tycho here a little longer, but hell, he's an alien! Cut him some slack!" "I am not questioning Harry's theological beliefs," Quong said, confronting the chameleon, "but I saw Tycho die. I pronounced him dead and I do not make mistakes. Yet you claim to be Tycho, our former team member, an expert sniper—" "I am not a sniper," said the chameleon, anxious to make certain there was no misunderstanding. "That was Tycho's specialty. I, Tycho, am trained in field engineering, with expertise, if I may say this without appearing prideful, in improvised detonators. I am also adept at acquiring access to secure environments." "Field engineering. In other words, an explosives expert," said Dr. Quong. "And he can break into buildings. I think I'm beginning to understand." "Then explain it to the rest of us," Jamil demanded. "I cannot do so yet," said Quong with maddening imperturbability. "I require more facts." "I'm not sure which of you to shoot first," Jamil muttered. "I have the contract, if you wish to verify my nonentity," offered the chameleon. "Identity," murmured Quong to Darlene. "Apparently he has the same translator problems that afflicted our other Tycho." Blissfully unaware of his mistake, Tycho brought forth an electronic contract pad—the type Xris always used—and handed it to Jamil. Darlene peered over his shoulder as Jamil activated the device. "That's Xris's DNA signature, all right," Jamil said. He looked up, frowning. "But this contract is made out to Tycho." "And that is why Tycho is here," said the chameleon with a tentative smile. "To fulfill the contract. According to my elder brother—" "Ah-hah!" cried Dr. Quong. He turned, gazed at the others triumphantly. "Jamil,put the gun away. Tycho is afamily name. Like Luck, as in Harry Luck." Quong elaborated: "For example, Harry, your older brother—" "I don't have an older brother," Harry corrected him. "I got a sister, though, if that helps." "Your older brother," Quong repeated loudly, frowning, "would be known as Luck—" "I beg your pardon, Doctor, sir." The chameleon broke in apologetically. "You are nearly correct, but not quite. I had assumed that my elder brother would have explained this to you, but apparently he did not. Tycho is the name given to the senior male member of the family. My elder brother, Tycho, is dead, and I am now the senior male. I am now Tycho. The contract was made with Tycho, the senior male member of the Tycho family. As Tycho, I am here to resume service under the contract with Mag Force 7."
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Jamil lowered the gun. "You mean you're Tycho's little brother?" Tycho nodded. "In human terms, that would be a correct assumption. According to my own culture, I am Tycho." "How many male members of the family are there?" Quong asked. "Thirteen," said Tycho with a pleased smile. His skin color had changed to a rosy hue, matching the floral pattern on the drapes. "And all of them are trained soldiers?" "The elder seven. The other six are too young. But they will take the training when they are of age, for we are a soldier, yes." "Asoldier?" Jamil was having a difficult time with the concept. "The entire family is considered a single entity," Quong explained in didactic tones. "In "sociological terms, this would be—" "Don't you have a spaceplane to catch, Doc?" Jamil interrupted. "Ah, yes! Thank you for reminding me." Quong shook hands with Tycho. "Welcome to the team. Remember, all ofyou, that we have only seventeen days left to complete our mission in Del Sol. I have rescheduled my flight to arrive at approximately the same time as yours. I will meet you at the Del Sol spaceport." The doctor hurried off. Raoul retired for a long, soaking bubble bath, necessary to soothe his shattered nerves. The Little One went back to nursing his headache. Jamil marched the new Tycho off to the study, intending to assess his technical expertise. Darlene was heading for her bedroom when she came across Harry, standing in the now-darkened living room, staring despondently out the window. Darlene laid her hand on his arm. "We're eight again, Harry," she said, hoping to cheer him. He only shook his head. "Not without Xris, we're not. I don't care how manyTychos come back from the dead." Darlene wondered whether she should try to explain to Harry that Tycho was not a messiah, but decided that she was too tired. She went to bed and, eventually, so did Harry. Dr. Quong was the last person to board the transport. He arrived at the gate at a dead run, was hustled on board by an irritated gate attendant, who slammed shut the door after him and departed, muttering something about passengers who thought that regulations about arriving at the spaceport early applied to everyone else except them. Petronella watched him board in some surprise, verified his destination, and said grudgingly to herself,
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"Well, at least one of their stories checks out."
CHAPTER 19
The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship. William Blake, "Proverbs of Hell"
"You have a visitor," said the guard. "Name of Quong. I Do you want to see him?" "You didn't give me a choice last time," Xris said, reaching for his crutch. "Yeah, well, the last visitor seems to have done you some good. I figure the trend might continue. How's that crutch working for you?" "Fine, just fine," Xris replied. His new accommodations might have been termed luxurious by comparison with his old ones. The new cell had its own shower, its own vid machine. He had access to the prison library and had kept himself occupied by reading some ancient Earth literature that had been recommended to him by Lady Maigrey during their brief time together. Puzzling through the archaic language and studying the voluminous annotations and footnotes accompanying the text diverted his mind from jumping on its hamster wheel and running around and around, going rapidly nowhere. Who had tried to kill him, and why? Xris didn't trust Amadi. No surprise there. But Xris had ruled Amadi out as the assassin—at least he wouldn't be until Xris's usefulness to Amadi was ended. Xris had no doubt that Amadi was playing a deadly, dangerous game.that he was using Xris as a pawn in that game, and that Amadi fully intended to sacrifice his pawn in order to win. Xris was perfectly willing to be moved around the board, especially if that meant gaining easy access to the enemy's stronghold. Vengeance is sweet. Rotten, but sweet. The guard solicitously offered a helping hand, a hand which Xris found great satisfaction in ignoring. He
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hobbled out of his cell on his own, followed by the guard, who was no longer carrying the stun-stick, but a weapon known as the "sneezy," useful in quelling unrest among the inmates. When activated, the "sneezy" emitted an ultra-high-frequency sound that triggered sneezing fits of such violence that all those afflicted were immediately incapacitated. "Tampambulos here." The guard reported to the guard at the infirmary. "To see his doctor." Prisoners in the infirmary, under constant watch by security cams, could supposedly hold private consultations with prison doctors. And while the termprivate might actually have some meaning for the majority of prisoners, Xris was under no illusions. His first night in his new cell after the attempt on his life, he'd discovered the listening device that had been planted in his new crutch. Bill Quong was there, waiting for him, along with the cybernetic limbs, packed in two specially designed carrying cases. As Xris stumped in, he watched Quong's almond eyes widen in shock. "By the Maker! Harry was right!" Quong exclaimed. "You look terrible! I will give you a complete physical. What do they feed you here anyway?" "The food's okay, Doc." Xris glanced at the crutch, tilted his head slightly. Quong nodded and punched in the code that would allow him to open the cases. "I just haven't had much appetite," Xris continued. "I don't need a physical, Doc. I'll feel a damn sight better once I have a leg to stand on." "I am glad you can still make jokes," Quong said stiffly. "The rest of us do not see much humor in this situation." "It's important for me to keep up my spirits." Xris eyed the leg as Quong removed it from the case. "I take it that passed inspection?" "The guards went over every centimeter. That is why I am late. I was forced to spend an hour reassembling it." The leg and the arm certainly looked plain and ordinary, so plain and so ordinary that Xris was worried. Quong hadn't had much time, after all. "Are you sure these are going to work for me, Doc? They look pretty cheap. I won't pay for shoddy workmanship. I can't afford to have them break down on me." Quong drew himself up, offended. "They are not as fine as the custom-made models to which you are accustomed, my friend, but I believe that you will find them quite satisfactory." His tone was cold. "Especially for a murderer." "Don't go all righteous on me, Doc," Xris returned. "Or I'll bring up that malpractice suit they nailed you with on Vangelis II. Just shut your mouth and hook me up, will you?" Removing his prison uniform and his underwear, Xrislaid down on the examining table and prepared to undergo the painful and humiliating experience of having his limbs reattached. He was well aware that this
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operation was being viewed on the security cams, could imagine the guards watching with interest and ribald jocularity. He set his jaw, conjured up the ghost of Mashahiro Ito, and endured. He and Quong spoke only when necessary, the doctor asking terse questions about fit or movement, Xris keeping his answers brief. But it was all worth it when he sat up and, for the first time ina over a week, was able to stand without assistance, to flex the fingers on two hands. "Thanks, Doc," Xris said. "Do not thank me," Quong said curtly. "I am being well paid for my work. I will forward your records to the Jango medical facility. Herewith, I tender my resignation as your personal physician." He tapped on the door, shouted, "I am ready to leave!" The guards entered the room with such alacrity that it was obvious they'd been watching the entire proceeding. "I assume you have a chapel in this prison?" Dr. Quong said sententiously. "If you would tell me where it is, I would like to pray for the soul of this unfortunate man." "Yeah, you do that, Doc!" Xris sneered. "Say a few prayers for yourself while you're at it." Back inside his cell, Xris turned on the vid machine, set the volume on high, and sat back to listen to a commentary on the poetry of William Blake. He trusted whoever was eavesdropping on him would find his mind improved. "Let us examine this line fromMarriage of Heaven and Hell," said the professor. "'Note: The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angles and God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it.' "Blake refers, of course, to Milton's poemParadise Lost, presumably the story of man's banishment from the Garden of Eden, but one in which many readers, Blake among them, have come to see Satan as the hero, not the villain, as can be seen in the above verse. According to Blake, the poetic imagination and the energy of human desire are near allied...." Xris scratched his head, bemused, and managed at the same time to tap the commlink behind his ear twice. He waited; no response. He tried again and after about half an hour, during which he wondered if Quong had gotten lost or been hijacked, he heard Doc's voice in his ear. "Blessed Maker," Quong was praying, "do what you can to salvage the blood-stained soul of this wretched human—" "I can hear you, Doc," Xris said, speaking from the back of his throat, not allowing his lips to move. This meant that some of his words were a bit slurred, since it was difficult to speak words with consonants such asb orm in them, but Quong would understand him well enough to get by. "Cut the crap. You alone?" "Yes, finally. Sorry it took so long. The chaplain wanted to comfort me. He has at last left me to my prayers."
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"Let's hope you can answer mine," Xris said. "Tell me about the leg." "First tell me what happened to your face." "Oh.that ." Xris was nonchalant. "Some lunkhead tried to kill me. Fortunately for the future of mankind, I doubt if he'll be making contributions to the gene pool anytime soon." "A hired gun?" "Yeah." "Who hired him? This Amadi person?" "I don't think so," Xris said. "I've just agreed to do a really dirty job for Amadi. Why would he pay to have me eradicated? It doesn't make any sense. Any suggestions will be gratefully received." "I'll take it under consideration. In view of this, do you consider it wise to continue? Darlene has already told Agent Rizzoli the truth—" "I'm staying," Xris said firmly. "This is too good to pass up. Finally I'll be able to look into the eyes of the bastards who ordered Ito's death. Not only am I staying with the job, Doc,I'm looking forward to it. We don't have a lot of time." Xris cut off any argument. "They'll come to get me for dinner in about an hour. Now tell me about the leg." "I've placed a universal lock opener, a very precise magnetometer, and a micro-sized light source in behind the servo central control panel in your calf. The magnetometer is the only item with which you won't be familiar. You can use it to find metal sensors either buried in the ground or embedded in the walls. Is all that clear, my friend?" "Yeah. Thanks, Doc." Xris started to say he appreciated it, but realized that any word with twop's would never be understood. Quong knew how he felt anyway. "Any news from the front?" "Agent Rizzoli paid us a visit after receiving an invitation from Darlene. Rizzoli brought company with her, only she didn't know it. We thought it was someone dropping by to see Darlene, but the Little One said no, he was interested in Rizzoli. We tried to hang on to him, but he got away." "Amadi's having her followed," Xris observed. "With what Darlene toldRizzoli, that should have convinced her that she should be suspicious of her boss." "I don't think we convinced her of anything except that we are bungling idiots," Quong returned acerbically. "I am ashamed to say that we did not handle ourselves in a professional manner. There is more news. Tycho is with us." "What?" Startled, Xris spoke the word aloud. However, itfit in with what the professor on the vid was saying, and so he hoped no one watching or listening would get suspicious. "You started believing in ghosts, Doc?" "I have always believed in supernatural manifestations," Quong replied. "This does not happen to be one of them.
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Our current Tycho is actually our former Tycho's younger brother. It seems that the senior male of the family takes on the responsibilities of those who precede him. His hobbies are blowing things up and breaking into banks." "I like him already. You might need him for this job." "Then it is okay if we go ahead with the assignment?" Quong said. "We had planned to do so but I wanted to check. We have lost a great deal of time." "Yes, we signed a contract. We have, what—sixteen days from today to overthrow Kirkov? Can you handle it?" "We have, of necessity, revised our plan. But we believe that we can accomplish our goal." "Fine. Oh, and you'll have to give up Harry. I'm going to need him. Stash him on a planet near Jango. Tell him to find a spaceplane with room for five passengers and that has EVA, stealth and jamming capabilities, and is fast and maneuverable both in planet atmosphere and in outer space." "Certainly," Quong returned. "Perhaps we can pick one up at Rummage-O-Rama. Along with a new suit for Harry." "Talk to Olefsky," Xris suggested. "The Wolf Brigade probably has a couple of spaceplanes they're not using. Tell Harry someone will be in touch with him. The code word isHogan. Got that?" "You should spell it." Patiently, Xris spelled it. "Harry is not taking this well," Quong observed as he prepared to depart. "Yeah, I figured as much. I saw him at the sentencing. This job should make him a lot happier." "What do we do about Agent Rizzoli?" "Keep her nosepointing at Amadi. Eventually she's boundto get a whiff of something foul." "How do we do that if we are busy overthrowing a small government?" Quong demanded. "Beats me, Doc," Xris said cheerfully. "You'll figure out something. I have every confidence in you." "I must go. The chaplain is approaching. Good-bye, my friend. Take care of yourself." "You, top, Doc," Xris said, realizing at that moment how much he missed being with them, how much he hated being shut up in this cell, how much he hated being alone. "Give my best to everyone." There was no reply.
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CHAPTER 20
Man needs to suffer. When he does not have real griefs he creates them. Griefs purify and prepare him. Jose Marti, Adultera
The prison trip to Jango Wasn't any luxury cruise, but it I wasn't bad, either. Their transport had been a passenger freighter and, once upon a time predating the Revolution had probably been a pretty classy lady. She was old now, slow and shabby, but her crew took pride in the ravaged beauty—the transport was practically an antique—and had gone to great lengths to refit her and keep up with maintenance. The prisoners were held on the lower decks, not permitted to come anywhere near the bridge. All access to the upper decks was sealed off, except for one lift that was guarded twenty-four hours by living, breathing guards as well as guard 'bots. Due to the fact that this ship had once transported passengers, the prisoners' quarters were much better than the prison cells, the food was really quite good, and the guards were at least polite. Xris was locked up in a large room— it had once been a gym—along with the five other prisoners being taken to Jango. They showered in what had once been the men's locker room and slept in bunks bolted to the walls. Vids and mags were provided for their entertainment,but the vids were old, the mags outdated; Xris found one that featured an interview with the late and unlamented President Robes. Three of the men played bridge, however, and when they found out that Xris knew something about the game, they badgered him into being a fourth. Of the other two prisoners, one spent most of his time napping in his bunk. He woke up only for meals. The other was hunched over a small computer. He said he was writing a book. Xris appeared almost human in his new cybernetic leg, arm, and hand. Covered with fleshfoam and plastiskin, his limbs looked and felt like real flesh and blood, muscle and bone. They were even warm to the touch. His companions had no idea he was a cyborg. He agreed to play bridge with them, not because he particularly enjoyed the game—he had learned it only to please Marjorie—but because he needed to know these men. One of them might be an assassin, sent to finish the job. After their first morning together, however, Xris determined that his fellow incarcerees—as they preferred to be called—were petty crooks, not assassins. If there was a hired killer in the group, he was such a consummate actor that Xris would never penetrate the disguise and he might as well quit worrying about it. The five had names, presumably, but Xris didn't pay any attention to them. He didn't intend to entangle himself in the lives of any of these men. He wasn't going to be around them that long.
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Xris would have liked to have continued in solitary. Company grated on his nerves, interrupted his thought process. But he was well aware that loners tended to lead short and miserable lives in prison. Even in a so-called white-collar institution like Jango.it was generally advisable to have someone watching your back. Xris went out of his way to be accommodating, therefore, although given a choice, he would have preferred to pace the floor, stare out the window at the passing stars, and try to sort through this mess. "Jango has one of the top-rated golf courses in the galaxy," said his partner, a young man of about twenty-eight, lean and tan with blond hair of which he was obviously very proud, for he kept drawing attention to it by affectedly shaking it out of his eyes. "My attorney showed me a brochure," said the man to Xris's left, who was forty and a bit on the pudgy side. "They have two swimming pools, an outdoor and an indoor, and a sauna. There's a weight room and a putting green, daily aerobics classes, and a jogging track." He patted his rotund stomach. "I promised the wife I'd lose a few kilos. It cost me some extra to get sent here, but I figure it's worth it." "Not only the amenities," agreed Pudgy's partner, who sat to Xris's right, "but you want to make certain you get in with the right class of people. I've heard that the business contacts you make in places like this can be of immense benefit." Xris listened, sorted his cards. "What are you in for?" Pudgy asked his partner. "Embezzlement." The man was in his mid-thirties, with skin the color of cappuccino and shapely hands with long deft fingers. "I had a girlfriend with expensive taste. Yourself?" "Tax evasion." Pudgy grunted. "My accountant assured me it was all perfectly legal,then he skips the planet." The other two made sympathetic murmurings. "Securities fraud," Blondie said, adding, aggrieved. "Everyone was doing it. I just happened to get caught." The other two sighed and nodded in understanding. "What about you?" Cappuccino turned to Xris with a pleasant smile. "Murder," Xris said. "My open? Two hearts." Silence. One might say dead silence. Xris looked up. "Anyone else bidding?" "Pass," said Pudgy, staring. "Pass." Blondie gulped. Xris frowned at him. "Two hearts is a demand bid, partner."
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Blondie paled, looked distractedly at his cards. "I ... I beg your pardon. Two diamonds." "Three diamonds," Xris corrected. "They're a minor suit." "Yes, you're right," Blondie said faintly. "I don't know what I was thinking. Three ... three diamonds." "Pass," said Cappuccino, exchanging glances with Pudgy. Xris took the bid to game in diamonds and they played the hand out in silence. Xris made the bid, despite the fact that his flustered partner had named a suit in which he was void. The hand completed, Xris excused himself to go to the bathroom. Activating his augmented hearing, he was amused to listen in on the frantic, whispered conversation that took place in his absence. "Maybe he's joking?" "Are you kidding? Did you see his eyes?" "They must be sending him to another prison. What's he doing on our transport?" "Shouldn't he be in leg restrainers or something?" "I'll speak to the captain." "This is an outrage! My attorney will hear about this." "Perhaps we could ask him. I don't think he'd be offended...." Xris returned. The conversation took a sudden lurch. "You played that very well," Blondie said, desperately casual. "Thanks." Xris looked politely at Pudgy. "I believe it's your deal." Pudgy dealt the cards, sneaking sidelong glances at Xris's partner, urging him to ask. Xris sorted his cards, pretended to be absorbed in his hand. "Uh, Xris..." Blondie smiled in a ghastly, friendly manner. "I was wondering if you'd mind answering a question." "Shoot," said Xris. Blondie flinched. "Just a figure of expression," Xris said, apologetic. "What do you want to know about? My conviction?" "Manslaughter, was it?" Blondie asked hopefully. Xris shook his head. "First degree. Premeditated. Whose bid is it?"
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"Then this transport's taking you to a different prison?" "Nope. Jango. Same as you. Maybe we'll be cell mates." Xris gave them a friendly wink. "That's not possible!" Blondie cried, losing control. His voice was tight, constrained, and squeaked. "They don't send violent offenders to Jango! My attorney told me so!" The other three regarded him in shock. Realizing what he'd just said, Blondie took out a pillbox, threw several capsules into his mouth. He swallowed them with a grimace. "I'm sorry, Xris," he said. "It's my nerves. Ever since the trial. If I said anything to offend you—" "Sit down," Xris ordered. "And let daddy explain the facts of life. You two." He glanced over at Sleepy, who was now wide awake, and at young Hemingway, who was no longer writing. "Listen up. "You've all been suckered. Get that into your heads right now. Jango's a nice place, sure. But it's not filled with nice people likeyourselves . You paid extra to get sent there, right?" They nodded. "So didI ," Xris said. "And so did half the other inmates in Jango. It may look like a country club in the brochure, but they average about twenty killings a year in Jango. Twenty unsolved killings." "Oh, God!" Blondie whispered. "In fact, you'd probably be safer in a maximum-security prison like Sandusky's Rock, where the guards keep close watch on all the inmates and everything they do." "Then why didyou arrange to come here?" Cappuccino asked, clearly not believing a word of it. "Like you said—business connections." Xris smiled. "Oh, God!" Blondie repeated, leaning his head on his hand. Pudgy's jowls sagged; his skin had a gray tone. He didn't look well. Blondie was a nervous wreck; his pills weren't helping. Cappuccino's mouth twisted derisively. His thin fingers deftly sorted andresorted his cards. "All right, Xris, you've managed to scare the crap out of these gentlemen with your stories. But I don't buy it. The government wouldn't allow it." "The government has a hell of a lot to do trying to clean up the corruption left over from the old Democracy. His Majesty's making headway, but let's face it, cleaning up the prison system is on the bottom of his list." "But we're not murderers! We didn't hurt anyone!" Blondie whined. "No of course you didn't," Xris said, his sympathetic tones mocking theirs. "What about the company
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whose funds you embezzled? What happened to it? Did it fail? Were its owners ruined? Did people lose their jobs? And the securities fraud racket. How many poor saps fell for your slick line and lost everything they've worked for? They're destitute and you've got money enough to pay a high-priced lawyer to get you off with a couple of years in a cushy prison." He snorted in disgust. "No, you fellows aren't a bit like me." "What do you want from us?" Cappuccino asked, frowning. "Money? Is this some type of extortion?" "I don't want anything from you," Xris replied. "I don't need anything from you. I can take care of myself. I'm just giving you a friendly warning. You don't believe me?" He shrugged. "Fine. Let's play bridge." He glanced over at Pudgy. "Your bid." The game continued, but nobody's heart was in it anymore. As a matter of fact, Xris was exaggerating about the horrors of Jango. He knew nothing at all about unsolved killings, would be surprised if they had even one. From all Xris had ever heard,Jango wasn't a bad place to spend your five to ten with no time off for good behavior. But these bastards were so damn smug, with their brochures and theirhandicaps, he figured a few sleepless nights would be good for them. Unfortunately, Xris would prove to be one heck of a prophet.
CHAPTER 21
Shades of the prison-house began to closeUpon the growing boy... William Wordsworth, "Ode, Intimations of Immortality"
The three days aboard the prison transport passed pleasantly enough. After the initial shock, the other came to the conclusion that Xris was lying. They discussed it often in private whispering sessions, whenever Xris was in the head and they assumed he couldn't hear. Cappuccino maintained that Xris was just attempting to intimidate them with a view to extortion. The other men agreed, although just exactly what Xris might extort and his motive for extorting it were rather vague in their minds. They read over their brochures, talked about golf, and, after some whispered discussion, continued the bridge games. They didn't like Xris, but they did like playing bridge and were desperate for a fourth. They played for money to be paid on account, and by the end of the trip Xris and his partner were the big winners; when Blondie recovered from his scare, he was a good bridge player and more than made up for Xris, who was merely adequate. Sleepy slept and Hemingway worked on his novel with, he said,
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a new twist. On the third day, the transport left hyperspace and entered into orbit around Jango. Even Sleepy woke up enough to take a look out the viewscreen, where the others were crowded, peering down at a grayish green ball of a planet that was rapidly growing in size as they descended. The sight had a sobering effect on the little group. Jango had been a colorful brochure up until then. Now they were about to see the reality and more than one was thinking about what Xris had told them. Even Cappuccino looked unusually thoughtful and grave. "Is it true that there aren't any cities on Jango?" Blondie asked. "That the only people who live on this planet are the socially maladjusted?" "You mean convicts?" Xris grunted. "I don't consider myself a convict," Cappuccino said sharply. He glanced at Xris, seemed about to add something, but politely refrained. Xris shook his head. It would be funny if it wasn't so damn tragic. "Yeah, it's true. Unless you count the guards. No cities meanno people, and that means no support— willing or otherwise—for an escapee. The land surrounding the prison is nothing but swamp and forest. You might manage to live on your own for a day or two, especially if you've had survival trainingand you can avoid the surveillance satellites that home in on the microchip they'll shove up your butt on your arrival. But what's the point? You're just as much a prisoner out of prison as you are in. There's nowhere to go on the planet and no way to get off. "You see those satellites? Not only do they help keep track of the prisoners, they also detect the approach of any unauthorized plane or ship. Those spaceplanes that came to take a look at us earlier were patrol planes. If we'd been anything else except this transport they'd have either escorted us politely out of the area or—if we caused trouble—shotus down." As Xris spoke, he was taking a good, long look at the satellites; made a mental note that he'd need the access code to bypass the early-warning system. "You certainly know a lot about this facility," Cappuccino remarked caustically. "I did my homework," Xris returned. "Gentlemen,"came the announcement over the comm, "we will be boarding the shuttle to the surface in half an hour. Have everything packed and ready to go." They gathered up the few possessions they'd been allowed, and then returned to stare out the viewport. The men talked lightly about how soon they might be on the green, bemoaned the fact that they hadn't been permitted to bring along their own golf clubs, but would have to use the prison's—undoubtedly inferior. The lighthearted talk ceased when the guards entered. The others watched in shocked silence as one of the guards placed restrainers on Xris's hands and ankles. "We'll get Tampambulos settled,then we'll be back for the rest of you," said the guard. "Everyone have their gear packed?"
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The others nodded. No one spoke. "Move it along, Tampambulos," the guard ordered. Xris headed for the door, moving slowly and awkwardly with the metal restrainers around his ankles. One guard followed him, holding a beam rifle. The other guard kept the remote control for the restrainers in full view. With a touch of a button, Xris would be lying helpless on the floor, unable to walk, unable to use his hands. Xris winked as he passed the little group. "My God," said Blondie unhappily. Cappuccino frowned, worried. Pudgy looked away.
The shuttle was older than the transport and not nearly as clean. The passenger compartment was a cylindrical metal tube with benches oneither side and no windows. It smelled of vomit, which gave some hint of what the trip down through the atmosphere was going to be like. Xris sat at the rear of the tube. In addition to the restrainers, his legs and arms were bolted to the shuttle's bulkheads. He watched the others being herded on board. Cappuccino wrinkled his nose. Blondie gagged anddapped his hand over his mouth. They sat down on the benches. "Put your right hand up," ordered the guard. "What for?" Cappuccino asked, startled. The guard jerked his thumb in the direction of a metal clamp attached about shoulder height to the shuttle's bulkhead. "Is that necessary?" Cappuccino demanded. "Regulations," said the guard. Cappuccino looked for a moment as if he were going toThe guard brought the beam rifle up with a snap, aimed it at him. Cappuccino glowered defiantly, but he lifted his right hand. The guard thrust Cappuccino's wrist into the clamp and fastened the clamp over it. The rest submitted to the shackling in silence. "I guess you boys must feel like prisoners about now," Xris called out cheerfully. Outside of a few bitter glances cast hisdirection, no one had the heart to respond. The shuttle was not equipped with any inertial dampening devices over what they used for launch, unlike those aboard the commercial shuttles, and the ride was as bumpy and uncomfortable as the smell had
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forewarned. Xris was reminded of the trip he'd reluctantly made aboard a military drop ship. The ride in the drop ship had been terrifying—rocketing through the atmosphere, the drop ship engulfed in flame. Compared with this ride—jouncing and bouncing off the metal walls of the shuttle, watching his fellow prisoners turn sickly green—Xris would have traded places with himself in a nanosecond. The guards had handed out barf bags before theyre treatedto the front of the shuttle, ensconcing themselves behind a steelglass barrier. Soon nearly every prisoner on board had lost his lunch, with the exception of Xris, who would have given—and could have given—his left arm for a breath of fresh air. The landing was bone-jarring, further shaking the already demoralized incarcerees. Blondie struck the back of his head against the bulkhead, a good solid hit that brought tears to his eyes. Xris expected him to complain of whiplash and threaten to call his attorney, but he was apparently too weak to do anything at the moment except groan. The shuttle door opened. Rain-freshened, cool air filled the cabin and Xris sucked in a welcome breath. Two guards entered, accompanying a man in a business suit. Broad-shouldered, neatly dressed, the man cast a disparaging glance at the disheveled, smelly, and half-dead inmates,then launched into his speech, which he rattled off by rote in a rapid-fire monotone that left the prisoners blinking. "I am Deputy Warden Montieth. Welcome to the Jango Rehabilitation Facility. You men will be assigned to a blockhouse, where you will live and sleep. You men will be assigned to a cafeteria, where you will eat. You men will be assigned to a work detail, where you will work. Work is needed in the following areas: the plastic-injection molding factory, the garment factory, the hydroponics farm, the offices, the kitchen, and the laundry. You men do not have a choice of jobs. These jobs will be assigned to you. You men will be paid wages, what is known around here as Jango dollars. This currency has value only on Jango and can be used to purchase sundries, toiletries, candy, and snacks from the commissary. The currency is not to be used for gambling. Gambling is prohibited on Jango. Anyone caught gambling or wagering will have time added onto his sentence." Montieth paused, fixed his gaze on each one of the men in turn. Xris admired the warden's style. He had accosted the prisoners at their lowest point psychologically. Now he was using his eyes to intimidate them. Only two people met and held the warden's gaze: Xris and Cappuccino. It was to these two that Montieth, his voice hardening, spoke next. "I can't imagine that any of you would be so foolish, but I am required to issue this warning: If any of you are thinking of trying to escape from Jango, please disabuse yourselves of the notion. The prison is surrounded by swamps and a jungle that is filled with various life-forms, most of whom happen to be carnivores. There is no way off the planet. These shuttles are the only vehicles permitted to land on Jango. We don't rely on supply ships. We are completely self-sufficient here on Jango, producing the food, the clothes, and other items we need on site. "All shuttles are attached to their transports, like this shuttle that brought you here. The shuttle pilot is not permitted to either land or depart unless he receives an 'all clear' from Prison Control. Prisoners are not permitted to come anywhere near the landing platform. You will be fitted with a monitoring device that will allow us to pinpoint your location at all times. If we notice your blip in a restricted area, you will be brought before me and then you'll see my unpleasant side. "Further, there will be no fighting, brawling, threatening, intimidating, pandering, stealing, swearing, fornicating. We have a complete list of regulations, which you will be expected to follow, or, again, you will be brought before me."
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He smiled, a thin-lipped smile, ice-coated. "But I'm sure I don't need to worry about you gentlemen. Five of you are serving five-year sentences. You'll find that the time passes quickly. Before you know it, you'll be on this shuttle on your way back home. Don't make things hard on yourself. Don't screw up. It's not worth it." He shifted his gaze to Xris and the smile disappeared. "You're going to be with us a bit longer, I understand. We'll be keeping an extra close watch on you. Just don't say I didn't warn you." "Any questions?" Cappuccino raised his left hand. "According to the brochure—" "What brochure?" Montieth snapped. "The ... uh ... brochure my attorney showed me, which had information about Jango...." Cappuccino's voice petered out. "Thatbrochure," said Montieth with a slight sneer and a nastyemphasis. "It's outdated. We've made some changes." "The golf course?" Blondie spoke faintly. "Is currently closed," said Montieth. "We've been having a problem with snakes. Any more questions? Fine. The guards will show you to the blockhouse." The shuttle guards removed the restraining devices from everyone, including Xris,then herded them out of the shuttle. They walked down a ramp onto a broad tarmac just as a rain squall ended. The clouds were beginning to break up. In the distance, a reddish sun gleamed, bathing the landscape with a pink tinge. The air was humid and hot, tropical. Teams of inmates could be seen mowing, pruning, and weeding the manicured lawn, which was crisscrossed with sidewalks. The lawn and the sidewalks came to an abrupt end when both neared the jungle, which was partitioned off from the prison by an electric fence. According to what Xris had read, the fence was there more to keep the jungle predators out, as opposed to keeping the human predators in. A quadrangle of tall buildings rose from the center of the rolling hills. Resembling dormitories, they reminded Xris of his university days. In fact, the entire complex might have been an educational facility. The buildings were painted white with black trim, looked clean and well-kept. A large office complex, probably the administration buildings, stood on a higher hill. A series of domed buildings with glass walls that reflected the red sun with blinding intensity must be the greenhouses. There were no walls, no guard towers. Nothing but jungle and what looked like an air-traffic control tower in the very center. "This doesn't seem so bad," Pudgy said, brightening. "It matches the brochure, even if the brochure is outdated. And like he said, five years goes pretty quickly," Blondie agreed. "All those regulations, it sounds as if they run a real tight operation," Cappuccino said, with a glance at Xris.
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"We'll see," was all Xris said. The guards, dressed in gray, each with an I.D. card attached to his uniform and a beam rifle in his hand, marched them off toward the Quad. As they walked past one of the work groups, the men looked up from digging weeds, regarded the new arrivals with curiosity sprung from boredom, glad for any break in the routine. Their uniforms were soaked. They'd obviously been working in the rain. A wet, bored-looking overseer ordered them to quit gawking and get back to business. The guards led Xris and his companions to the third blockhouse on the quadrangle. "Each blockhouse has a central monitoring station," announced the guard, halting his prisoners so they could have a good, long look. A guard sat in what appeared to be a bunker surrounded by monitors that provided a view of every cell in the blockhouse, shifting from one cell to another every few seconds. "A security cam located in each cell keeps its eye on you and the guard keeps his eye on the cam," stated the guard. "Any questions? Move along." They were marched halfway down a corridor on the first floor and here the guards stopped. Using their badges as a passkey, the guards opened two doors, one on either side of the corridor. Inside were two sets of bunk beds, two desks, four chairs, two closets, and two chests with four drawers each. Another door opened into a minuscule shower stall. There were no windows, and no door to enclose the sink and toilet. "These are your quarters. Four to a cell, each cell with a separate wash facility. It's your home for the next few years, so keep it clean. Inspection and head count at 0600 hours. You will stand here, at the foot of the bunk, neatly dressed, with your bed made and the room spotless. Head count at 2200 hours, which is 'lights out,' and again at 0200 hours. If any man is found missing from his bunk during head count, the alarm will sound, lockdown will occur, and that man will be found." Pudgy, Xris, Cappuccino, and Blondie were assigned to one room. Sleepy and Hemingway were assigned to a room across the corridor. Xris entered, looked around curiously, opening drawers. While he was checking out the shower, he could hear Blondie speaking in a low voice to one of the guards. "That man is serving twenty years for murder. I'm certainhe doesn't belong with us in our room. There must be some mistake." The guard shrugged, answered in a loud voice. "You four arc assigned to this room and that's all I know. You got a problem with aroommate, take it up with the warden." Xris returned. Blondie glanced at him, saw that he had heard, and flushed deeply. The guard indicated a keypad next to the door. "There are two keypads, located inside and outside. These lock and unlock your door. Punch in five numbers in sequence and the door opens. This is during the day only. After 'lights out,' you will be denied access. "You men decide on the code you want to use. We suggest that you change the code at least once a month. Control Central can lock or unlock the doors at any time. Don't forget your code! If you do and
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we have to let you in or out, it's five Jango dollars the first time, twenty dollars after that, plus twenty demerits. All of us guards have our own code that can open the doors at any time. "All rooms are subject to random inspection at any time, day or night. You will note the security cam in each room. That is there for your protection. If the view of the security cam is obstructed or if the security cam is disabled, an alarm will sound and the guards will investigate." He handed each of them an electronic scheduler. "Here's your job assignments, work times, mealtimes, table numbers. You will be on time for work and for meals. Five dollars and five demerits fine for every five minutes you're late. Twenty-five demerits and you start losing privileges, starting with free time. You each have two hours of free time per day, from 2000 to 2200 hours. You may use this time to attend classes, visit friends, go the gym, rent a vid, or participate in team sports. Twenty-five demerits, you lose one hour of free time. "You may go anywhere in the facility with the exception of the shuttle pad, which is off limits; the administration buildings, unless you have a work permit; and the Control Tower. "Turn in the clothes you are wearing. You will wear prison-issue clothing. It's there on the bed. Lose any article of clothing andit's twenty-five demerits. Here's the doctor to inject the monitors. Drop your drawers and bend over." Once this humiliating procedure was done—with Pudgy, Cappuccino, and Blondie now looking very much as if they deeply regretted their life of crime—the guards left them. They had the rest of today to look around and become acquainted with their new environment. Tomorrow they would start to work. The four stared at each other in uncomfortable silence, until Blondie felt compelled to offer a lame explanation for trying to ditch Xris, an explanation Xris didn't want to hear. He turned his back, walked over to one of the unmade bunk beds, and selected the lower one. He didn't figure either of the other threewere going to argue with him and he was right. Blondie stammered on for a few minutes,then dried up. Stacked neatly on the ends of the beds were two piles of clothes and linen. One pile contained bedsheets, pillow-cases, and towels. The other pile was made up of two sets of cotton knit track pants, a pair of denim work overalls, two T-shirts, four pairs of underwear and socks, and two pairs of vacuuform adjustable sneakers. A sweatshirt and a pullover nylon jacket completed the wardrobe. Xris moved the clothes from the bed to one of the drawers, leaving out the track pants and shirt, which he intended to wear. He was going to undress in a moment and his roommates would discover that not only was he a murderer, he was also half machine. This should just about finish them off, he was thinking, when a voice came from the door. "So, look at our new little jailbirds. Ain't theycute. " Xris turned to see four men standing in the corridor outside their room. Xris had seen some big men in his tune, but the man who'd made the comment was certainly impressive. He stood taller than Xris, was broader than Xris through the shoulders—and Xris was no shrimp. The man had no neck to speak of, what neck he'd started out with at birth having been swallowed up by the muscles in his shoulders. Given the dull, mean look in his little squinty eyes, that muscle extended well up into the man's head. Bleached
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hair flowed in a mane down his back. The three flanking him were obviously his flunkies. They stood grinning, prepared to enjoy the show. In their arms, they held four pairs of shoes and a couple of sweatshirts. Xris's three roommates stood gazing at the apparition uncertainly, not knowing how to respond. Xris ignored the comment, began to roll his socks into neat balls. Muscle Head sauntered into their room, pivoting sideways to fit his massive bulk through the door opening. "Meand the boys here want to welcome you fellows to Jango. My name is Slovenski, but you can call me Master. I run a charitable organization here on Jango and I know that you boys will be happy to donate your shoes and sweatshirts to the needy." "Needy? What needy?" Blondie made the mistake of asking. The Master came toe to toe with Blondie, whose nose was level with the huge man's breastbone, barely visible beneath his swelling pecs. "The poor fellas who ain't got any shoes," said Slovenski, looming over him. "But that will be us, if we give you our shoes," protested Blondie. He took a nervous step backward, ran up against his bunk. "Yeah, ain't it a shame," Slovenski jeered. "But you can buy 'em back. Fifty dollars for the shoes and one hundred dollars for the sweatshirt. Real money. Not this Jango crap." The others gawked. Blondie went whiter than the bedsheets. Pudgy broke out into a sweat, while Cappuccino looked as if someone had mixed his coffee with green Jell-O. Xris put his socks in the drawer, along with his sweatshirt and the extra pair of shoes. "Uh, Master, look there." One of the flunkies pointed to Xris and giggled. "I guess this one don't hear too well." Slovenski rounded just in time to see the drawer close on the sweatshirt. Glaring at Xris, Slovenski leered down at him. "Are you deaf, boy? Is that your problem? I guess you must be, since you're putting on those shoes." "I heard you," Xris said pleasantly. Smoothing the Velcro strap around his ankle, he stood up. "I just didn't hear you say anything particularly intelligent." "Yeah? Well, maybe your ears need cleaning." Slovenski lashed out with an enormous hand, aiming a blow at Xris's head. Xris caught hold of the man's fist in his left hand, his cyberhand, and began to squeeze. It was interesting to watch the varying expressions onthe Master's face. First there was laughter, as he figured he'd easily break Xris's hold. The laughter darkened to anger when he found he couldn't. Anger increased to fury. He brought up his other fist.
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"Don't even think about it," Xris warned, and markedly increased the pressure on the clenched fingers. Slovenski crumpled. "Ow! Oooow! Hey! Aaaagh. Let the hell go of me, you son of a bitch! Let go!" "I prefer giving to a charity of my choice," Xris said, maintaining the pressure. "I'm keeping my sweatshirt my shoes. The same goes for my friends. Right?" The Master cursed and spluttered. The flunkies stared, aghast. None of them seemed inclined to come to the rescue of his leader. Xris increased the pressure. Something snapped. The Master gasped and gave a little gurgle. "Right?" Xris repeated. "Right! Right!" Xris released his grip. Slovenski groaned and fell back, nursing his bruised fingers, which were already starting to swell. His squinty little eyes regarded Xris with inveterate hatred. "f*cker," Slovenski snarled. "You'll pay for this." "But not today," Xris said, smiling. "Hey, Master!" one of the flunkies hissed. "The guard!" Slovenski backed out of the room, nursing his injured hand. He and the flunkies departed, the Master moving with as much dignity as he could muster, considering that four of his fingers were now turning an unbecoming shade of purple. The guard looked in the door. "What's going on?" He cast a grim glance around. "This has always been a quiet floor. I hope you boys don't plan on being troublemakers. One more incident like this"—he glared at Xris—"and you'll find yourself in solitary." "Us!" Blondie cried. "It wasn't us! That maniac—" "Be quiet," Cappuccino said, seeing the guard's eyebrows pull together in a frown. "You're only making things worse." "But..." "We're sorry, sir," Xris said contritely. "It won't happen again." "See that it doesn't." The guard departed. Blondie collapsed onto his bunk. "What's going on?" he demanded plaintively. "I don't understand!" He pointed to the security camera. "They saw that monster try to steal our shoes! They saw him threaten us. He was going to hit you, for God's sake! Andwe're the ones who get into trouble."
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"Welcome to Jango," Xris said, putting sheets on his bunk. Across the corridor, Sleepy emerged from his room, wandered disconsolately down the hall in his stockinged feet.
CHAPTER 22
LavaQuodestsordidum ...Wash what is dirty... StephenLangton , Archbishop of Canterbury. "The Golden Sequence"
The inmates ate together in one large room, sitting at assigned tables, twenty to a table. On entering the cafeteria, they walked down a line of steamer tables, made their selections from a variety of nutritional and unappetizing food, which was cooked by the prison staff, served by inmates. During dinner, the inmates were allowed to talk freely. The room was a hubbub of voices that all stopped when Xris entered. Word had spread fast, apparently. Heads turned, men craned their necks to catch a glimpse of him. Xris wondered if he should tip his hat to the crowd, like the laser-ball players. Ignoring the stares, he took his place in the food line. Xris watched closely and noted that his tray was shoved out just a bit too enthusiastically by the prisoner at the end of the line. Xris picked up his tray, bobbled it clumsily, and managed to spill most of the food on the floor. He earned a five-dollar fine, which was marked against his name by the guard on duty, and another tray of food. He doubted if the meal had been poisoned, though that was a possibility. But it probably had some other nasty surprise, like ground glass in the hash or needles in the apples. Xris moved off, thinking that if he had to dump his food every night, he would soon have to file for the prison version of bankruptcy. All eyes were on him as he walked through the hall to the assigned table. Some regarded him with respect, though they shook their heads as he walked past, predicting in low voices that within a week he wouldn't be holding his head so high. Most seemed to find him amusing. He'd taken their minds off their own misery for a moment and they were grateful. The Master entered, with his hand bound in an inflatable splint. All eyes turned his way and, at his scowl, the eyes quickly found something else to look at. One of the flunkies carried the Master's tray, since he was incapacitated. Xris felt almost friendly toward the poor Master, who had inadvertently made Xris's job in this prison a hell of a lot easier. Everyone was talking about him, which meant that the Hung leaders would be listening and they'd be impressed Xris just had to make sure that one) they stayed
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impressed, and two) he stayed alive. Not necessarily in that order. His fellow prisoners weren't the only ones talking. When he sat down, his roommate, Blondie, blurted out, "You're a cyborg! I found out! The guard told me." "Pass the catsup," said Xris. "The doctors did a very nice job on you," Pudgy added politely. "I couldn't tell." Xris shoveled in food, eating rapidly on the theory that the less time the bland and tasteless mass spent in his mouth, the better. "You're in danger," Cappuccino leaned over to whisper, under the pretense of grabbing a hunk of bread from the basket in the middle of the table. "I've been doing some listening. It seems that this Master bastard has already sent three guys to the infirmary. One of them had to be airlifted to a special hospital on Firma Prime. His spine was broken in three places." "I can take care of myself," Xris muttered through the overcooked corn and lima beans. "Yes, I know you can. It's just..." Cappuccino paused. His lips tightened. He seemed to find the words he had to say tasted worse than the food. "I've been a fool. I should have known the truth about this place, but I guess I didn't really want to. I may be a crook"—he smiled thinly—"but I'm not a coward. If you need help ... well, I know you don't think much of us and I guess I can't blame you. We must seem pretty soft and, well, naive, to you. Though why I should care what a murderer thinks ..." Sighing, he shook his head. "Sorry. No offense. It's just..." He glanced sidelong at Xris. "I get the feeling you're not exactly what you seem to be." This was getting too close to the truth. Xris chewed the stringy meat, swallowed,then said, "What's your name?" "Huh?" Cappuccino looked startled. "But you've been with us..." He stopped, smiled slightly,then said, "I'm Malcolm. This is Alan" — he indicated Blondie — "and Kenneth." That was Pudgy. Xris nodded. "We'll talk later," he said and set himself resolutely to the task of finishing his meal.
During recreation time that evening, Xris sat down with his new "team" in their cell and laid out their strategy. "The 'Master' as he calls himself won't take this lying down. He can't afford to. He'll be after me. The rest of you may come in for some harassment, especially if you're determined to stick with me." Malcolm, formerly Cappuccino, looked determined; the other two, unhappy and resigned. Apparently it had occurred to them that they didn't have much choice. "Okay, here's the plan. We change the code on the lock every day. You, Blon — I mean, Alan. You good with numbers?" Alan nodded.
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"Fine. Can you figure out a code sequence that we can change every day, but which is easy to remember?" Alan thought a moment,then said, "Yes. We pick a five-number random sequence: 4, 96, 32, 75,16 . That's the code for the first day. The second day, the code changes to 96, 32, 75, 16, 4. The numbers move up one digit, the first number moves to the last. The third day the code is 32, 75, 16, 4,96 .And so on. After each number rotates through once we change all the numbers and start again." "Good." Xris approved. "I take it everyone can remember that. Now, you can bet your shoes that the Master either owns one of the guards' security passkeys or he has access to one, which means that he can waltz in here any-time he pleases. We also know the guards are pretty damn slow to respond. It won't matter so much during the day— even the Master has to take his work shift. But it will at night." "Do we keep watch? One of usstay awake?" "A good idea, Ken, but we've all got to go to work in the morning. What I propose is to set up an alarm system. Something simple that would alert us to intruders." Metal wastebaskets would have been ideal, but the cells were all equipped with trash compactors, so that was out. Eventually they ended up removing, with much difficulty, a metal slat from underneath one of the bunk beds. They balanced the slat across the seat of a chair, which they placed next to the door. Any movement of the door would bump the chair, jostling the metal slat and sending it clanging to the floor. Xris figured the noise alone would frighten off any intruder—the first time, at least. His cell mates agreed and went to bed feeling safe and secure. Xris didn't tell them what might happen the second or the third time. He didn't tell them about zip guns or cross-bows or knives made from the verysame bed slats they'd used. Let them enjoy one night's peaceful sleep at least. The metal slat hit the floor around 0200. Xris was up and out of his bed and across the floor before the vibrations had ceased, but there was no one in the room. The door, which was automatically shut and locked at 2200, had been pulled shut again. Xris couldn't open it to look outside. "You see, it worked," he told the others. "Go back to sleep." It would not work the next time. Lying in the darkness that smelled of three other bodies, listening to Malcolm snore, Xris faced the undeniable truth that he'd made a dangerous enemy. But then, he'd known that the moment he'd decided to keep his shoes. He'd also known at that moment that he was using the Master, that if the Master hadn't taken it upon himself to be a jerk, Xris would have been forced to invent one. If he was lucky, the Master would continue to play into Xris's hands. And, before he broke out of here, Xris would probably have to kill him.
Wake-up call came at 0530. They had thirty minutes to shower—all four of them—and shave. By 0615 they were expected to be standing in line for breakfast. Xris grabbed his food, gulped hot coffee and downed a couple of hard-boiled eggs, bacon, and biscuits. Breakfast was the best meal of the day. The inmates were expected to be on the job at 0700.
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Xris had been assigned to laundry detail, a job which required heavy manual labor. The prison authorities knew he was a cyborg and had apparently decided to take of advantage of the fact. Two of his cell mates were working in the administration building—the job Xris had been hoping for, since it gave him access to the prisoners' records. Xris knew the names of the Hung leaders, but he had no idea what they looked like, what cell block they inhabited, or how to gain access to them. There were over ten thousand prisoners on Jango, which ruled out a door-to-door search. He didn't want to arouse suspicions by asking around. Amadi was scheduled to visit the prison in the next day or two. Xris would ask to be reassigned. He had two weeks to the day to bust out the Hung leaders, according to Amadi's time schedule. Right now, Xris would have been happy to have moved that timetable up by about fourteen days. He had never loathed anywhere as much as he was starting to loathe Jango. The laundry facility was located in the basem*nt of the dining hall. No windows, no ventilation. The washing machines took up one entire wall, the dryers—which used the old-fashioned method of heat drying as opposed to evaporation—lined another wall. The laundry room was hot, humid, and noisy. Xris was given the task of loading clothing into the enormous industrial washers. Each prisoner's laundry was placed in a net bag, which was tossed straight into the washer. In addition, there were bed sheets and towels and the guards' uniforms, plus the clothes of the prison administration and hospital staff. "This morning's workload is light," said the foreman, after showing Xris how to load and operate the machines. "Only one blockhouse sends their laundry in on Mondays. This afternoon will be busy, 'cause we get the stuff from the dining halls and the infirmary. Tomorrow is sheet day." Xris faced a mountain of bags and more were being trundled in on carts. He couldn't wait to see a heavy day. He grabbed the first bag and it was then that he realized he'd hit pay dirt, so to speak. Each bag was marked with the prisoner's name, cell number, and bunk number. Xris didn't need to ask to be reassigned. All he had to do was keep a lookout for the Hung leaders' dirty shorts, and he'd find out everything he needed to know. The physical labor—hefting the bags, tossing them into the machine, reaching for another bag—was mind numbing—'bot work as it was known in the industry. Robots could have performed the task, but that would have deprived the prisoners of something to do. Xris wondered just exactly how loading washing machines was going to help a hardened criminal such ashimself lead an honest life. Probably it had something to do with the symbolism of cleansing—washing the soil from his darkened soul. In the meantime, he bent and lifted, swung and threw until the machine was filled. Closing the door, he hit the soap and water buttons and watched as the giant machine started its cycle. Moving to the next machine, pushing the cart filled with bags, Xris blessed the need to look for names on the bags. If he hadn't had that diversion, he would have soon been as empty-headed as any ordinary work-'bot. Twenty other inmates were on laundry detail, some shifting the wet clothes into the dryers, others helping to load. Conversation was permitted, but it was futile. The huge metal washing machines knocked against
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each other when they were in operation, water splashed and frothed. The dryers made a high-pitched whining sound, similar to an artillery shell in flight. Those inmates who needed to talk did so by shouting. Xris finally turned off his augmented hearing, and occupied himself by reading name tags. The routine continued all morning. Xris was accustomed to physical exertion, but not the constant, repetitive movement required by this job. By lunchtime, his back muscles were ready to stage a revolt, while his shoulder muscles were seriously considering dissolving parliament and calling for new elections. On the good side, he was too tired and too hungry to notice the taste of the food. He was delighted to find, on his return, even more laundry than when he'd left. According to the tags, the load in this cart contained laundry from Blockhouse Five. Gritting his teeth against a shooting pain which had developed in his right shoulder, he grabbed a bag and automatically glanced at the name tag. "By god," Xris said, catching hold of the bag in the act of tossing it.MACDONALDwas the name on the tag. Macdonald was one of the names of the Hung leaders. Macdonald was also a fairly common name. There were probably kilos of Macdonalds in Jango. Xris glanced around to see if any of the guards was watching. Apparently it was time for their afternoon naps, for there were nowhere in sight. He set the bag aside, reached for the next.MAIR.This was better. There couldn't be MAM and, according to the tag, this Mair was in the same cell as Macdonald. The third bag clinched it—BECKING. Xris started up the washing machine. Under the cover of its splashing and banging, he ducked behind the half-filled laundry cart, knelt down, and dumped out the contents of each bag onto the cement floor. Macdonald's clothes showed him to be a man of nearly two meters in height, on the thin side, to judge by his waist size, but with a heavy upper body, to judge by his shirt size. Becking was about one point eight meters, and a little stockier. Mair was the shortest, at about one point six meters. Lifting Mair's T-shirt, Xris whistled in surprise. Blood, Blood stained the front of the T-shirt and the front of the sweatshirt which was also in the bag. Either Mair was the clumsy type or he wasn't a regular contributor to the Master's shoe fund. Xris committed the cell number to memory and was about to start shoving the clothes back into the bag when he felt a heavy hand grab hold of his sore shoulder. Checking the reflex that had his cybernetic hand grappling for the man's throat, Xris pivoted to his feet. The guard was glaring at him. "I'm talking to you, 97602!" "Sorry, sir," Xris said and tapped his left ear. "Hard of hearing. What did you want with me?" The guard pointed to the clothes on the floor. "What the hell are you doing? Looking for something in your size?" "No, sir," Xris said politely. Reaching down, he picked up one of the bags, held it out for inspection. "This one's defective, sir. So are the other two." He indicated a large rip in the netting, a rip he'd made
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himself , just in case. The guard peered at it, peered at the other bags. He had the brains the size of a piece of space dust, for he didn't bother to check the cell numbers on the bags, or he might have thought it odd that three defective bags came from one cell. "You'll find replacements in that bin over there. Transfer the name, number, and cell block. Indelible ink pens are on that table." He walked off. Xris replaced the bags, carefully printed the names and numbers on each one. MACDONALD, BECKING, MAIR. Xris went back to work.
CHAPTER 23
Freedom has a thousand charms to show, That slaves, howe'er contented, never know. William Cowper, "Table Talk"
"Oh, ick!" cried Raoul, on entering the terminal building on Del Sol. Shuddering, he drew back. "What are those creatures?" "Keep your voice down!Those creatures," Jamil said, "are the people we've come to save." "Save from what?" Raoul wondered. "If it's ugliness, there's not a thing to be done." "Tycho and I will see to the luggage," Quong offered. "Everyone, give me your baggage tags." They had cleared customs and immigration on the cruise ship itself. Their luggage, including Raoul's twenty-six suitcases, two trunks, and seventeen hat boxes, had been searched and had passed inspection, though there was some question by the officials as to the quantity and type of "medications" brought along by the Adonian. Raoul couldn't understand the problem and it appeared for a few tense moments that he would be barred from entering the world.
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Jamil had spent three days with Raoul aboard the cruise ship, endeavoring to keep him from insulting most of the other passengers by offering to give them advice on their makeup or making disparaging remarks about their attire. Lastnight Jamil had been forced to haul Raoul off the stage when he felt like he needed to "join the dancers!" Jamil had been quite willing to toss Raoul to the drug-sniffing 'bots. Wondering how and why Xris put up with the Loti, Jamil had spent four hours explaining matters to the Del Solian officials. He assured them that Raoul was a danger only to himself. Considering Raoul's true occupation, this was not precisely true, but the officials, after spending an hour talking with Raoul, were ready to believe anything. Eventually Raoul and his "medicine" were allowed to enter the planet. The weapons, which would be used by the dremeck revolutionaries, had been previously smuggled into the world disassembled, the cartons labeledTOYS. "If our friend Jamil ever had any ambitions for taking over Xris's leadership role, I will wager that he has since abandoned them," Quong said in a low voice to Tycho, who nodded and smiled. Tycho's older brother Tycho had given the younger Tycho one piece of advice: The only way to live among humans and retain your sanity was to keep your translator turned off as much as possible, nod and smile if anyone said anything to you, and don't drink the water anywhere, ever. Consequently Tycho had no idea what the doctor had said, but he nodded and smiled. He understood from Quong's gesture that he was supposed to accompany the doctor and so hewent, a bundle of plastic chits in his thin-fingered hand. Jamil, in the meantime, was arguing with Raoul. Or rather, arguingat Raoul, since Raoul never permitted himself to become involved in an argument. Arguing, he said, caused wrinkles. "I briefed everyone on the situation on this world on board the cruise ship," Jamil was saying, his voice rising with increasing anger. "Weren't you listening?" "No," Raoul replied complacently. Removing the mirror from his handbag, he looked anxiously at himself to make certain the rigors of travel had not ruined him utterly. Tenderly patting down a few wisps of misplaced hair, he assured himself that he was still beautiful,then he closed the compact and returned it to his purse. "But please do not take offense, Jamil," Raoul added, on seeing that Jamil resembled one of the more picturesque thunderclouds that were occasionally allowed in the skies above Adonia. "I rarely listen to Xris Cyborg, either. My friend"—he tapped the Little One on top of the fedora— "keeps me apprised of developments. Just now he tells me that we are here to save these people from being massacred and also to free them from tyranny and oppression." At that moment, a group of the "creatures" was being marched past. They were manacled hand and foot, chained together with old-fashioned leg irons around their ankles. There were about twenty of them and they were being escorted by two humans carrying stun-sticks. "Adonians have heard of slavery, I presume," Jamil said, his voice cold and harsh. "Oh, yes!" Raoul was enthusiastic. "At the age of eighteen, all Adonians enter a period of enslavement. It lasts about a year—" "What?" Jamil demanded, incensed.
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"Don't pursue this," Darlene cautioned. Jamil ignored her. "What do you mean, you Adorians practice slavery? That's not possible! Adonia is officially a member of the Empire and slavery is illegal—" "The enslavement lasts a year," Raoul continued gravely, "unless both parties mutually consent to continuing the relationship. It's all part of our education system." A blissful, nostalgic shimmer glistened in his unfocused eyes. "My own master was a remarkable woman. Such a hand with the paddle. I was her favorite. She had a golden collar made for me, with rubies and a golden chain. The gold looked quite stunning against my bare skin. When she took me for walks, everyone we met was quite insanely jealous—" "That's enough!" Jamil said hurriedly. "I understand. And I'm sorry I do." "I warned you," Darlene murmured with a wry smile. "But not soon enough." Jamil tapped one of the Del Solian spaceline employees on the shoulder. "Excuse me, but those people who just passed us—are they prisoners?" "What people?" The Del Solian glanced around. "Those people." Jamil pointed to the chain gang, which was clanking its way through the spaceport. "Oh, those aren't people," the woman said with a laugh. "Those are dremecks. Luggage handlers. It must be lunchtime." "They go to lunch chained like that!" Jamil glowered dangerously. "Jamil..." Darlene said in a low tone, tugging on his sleeve. She started to add that they weren't supposed to draw attention tothemselves , but since everyone debarking was looking at Raoul and either glaring or waving—the entire troop of showgirls showered him with kisses—she abandoned that as useless. "It's for their own good," the woman explained. "Dremecks are very easily distracted and they don't have much common sense. If we permit them to roam free, they become a nuisance to the passengers. And they'd never return to work. We had a terrible time with them wandering out onto the tarmac to watch the cruise ships take off. A great many of them were killed and that caused flight delays. It annoyed the pilots. We've found this solution is best all around." "Chaining them up like animals!" Jamil said savagely. "Jamil, please..." Darlene attempted to intervene. "You off-worlders are always very quick to judge us," the woman said coldly. "Wait until you've been here awhile. You'll see what it's like." "Patience, Jamil," Darlene said softly. "Put racial memory on hold, will you? You're not going to help these people by antagonizing their rulers. Remember this is a police state. Don't look now, but those two women in dark clothes with the wires running into their ears are taking a great deal of interest in us."
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Jamil glanced at them. The women were indeed watching them; one was speaking into a headset. Jamil rearranged his face into a carefree smile and retrieved Raoul, who had been about to depart with the showgirls. "We're supposed to meet Doc down in the baggage area." The team followed a trail of icons symbolizing suitcases, and soon caught up with the dremeck chain gang, shuffling and clanging its way through the spaceport. Another chain gang being led in the opposite direction passed the first. The dremecks smiled and nodded to one another in passing. They looked remarkably cheerful as they marched along, each with one three-fingered hand on the back of the shoulder of the dremeck in front, their manacled feet swinging in time so that they did not trip each other with the chain. Their human guards, herding them from behind, were grim-faced and serious, obviously taking no chances with their charges. Jamil gave the dremecks a look of eloquent sympathy as he walked past them. He would have raised his clenched fist in a fierce expression of power and solidarity, but Darlene, guessing his intention, took hold of his arm. "Now isnot the time," she said firmly. The men and women with the wires running into their heads were everywhere. Highly visible in their dark suits and white shirts, with the emblem of Del Sol emblazoned upon their left coat pocket, they kept watch on everything and everyone in the spaceport. Their faces were cold, impassive, forbidding. Anyone who laughed, sneezed, coughed, or spoke drew their attention; they seemed particularly offended by laughter. Anyone who deviated from the marked routes was approached and questioned. New arrivals, who had debarked with cheerful faces and eager looks, were already starting to wilt in the dark shadows cast by these denizens of Kirkov's authority. It was easy to tell the Del Solian population from the tourists. They kept their heads down, glanced up only occasionally to see where they were going, and never, never spoke to or looked directly at any of the people with wires in their heads. "Two of them are following us," Darlene said softly. "Probably because of Raoul. We should send him to the hotel while we meet with the dremecks." "I don't suppose we could send him to the Void while we meet with the dremecks," Jamil said gloomily. "He does come in useful sometimes," Darlene re-minded him. Jamil grunted. Raoul was giving the luggage handlers a wide berth; they had a most peculiar smell. He held a hankie to his nose and clutched his floral print duster close to his body, fearful that the blue tones of their skin might rub off on the fabric. The Little One made a sound that might have been a laugh and made a motion with his hand in Raoul's direction.
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"What do you mean, they thinkI'm ugly?" Raoul cried, staring down at his friend, appalled. The fedora nodded up and down emphatically. "Ah, poor things," Raoul said softly, much affected. He favored the dremecks with a pitying glance. "Jamil is right. It is our duty to free them. From those dreadful clothes, if nothing else."
Perhaps due to the deplorable fact that the luggage handlers were forced to work chained to one another, the unloading of luggage from the cruise ship was taking an interminable amount of time. Aware that allowing oneself to become stressed in a situation over which one has no control is a contributing factor to elevated blood pressure, with the possibility of stroke or seizure, Dr. Quong refused to allow the delay to annoy him. He sat down in a metal chair, which was chained, like the dremecks, to a line of metal chairs. Two men with wires in their heads strolled past. Quong smiled at them politely, wished them a good day. Not only did they fail to return his pleasantry, they seemed to find it highly suspicious. After a searching perusal, they continued their walk. Tycho had gone off in pursuit of chocolate, to which, he had admitted, he was particularly addicted. Quong had begun to issue his standard warning on the subject of sugar and caffeine when it occurred to him that he had no knowledge of how these substances might affect chameleons. The other Tycho, the first and original Tycho, had never shown the least proclivity for anything other than spaghetti. Quong allowed the new Tycho to eat his chocolate, though the doctor made a mental note to consult certain scientific journals on the subject. Sitting in the chained chair, Quong watched the dremecks good-naturedly untangling themselves from their chains. He took this opportunity to study the race, which was a new one in his experience. The doctor had, of course, done his research and, unlike Raoul, Quong was prepared for the odd sight of the small, stocky humanoid beings with their blue-gray skin. What he had not been able to ascertain from the vids he had watched was the unique texture of the skin, which appeared to be the consistency of bread dough and which flowed in soft folds around their large eyes, their most prominent facial feature. A dremeck's mouth was completely enveloped by the folds of skin and was visible only when he or she smiled. The smile completely rearranged the skin folds, making a startling difference in the expression. When a dremeck was not smiling, it appeared to be in the depths of gloom, because the folds of its face all flowed downward. A dremeck smile acted like a mud slide, causing the folds to expand outward in all directions. The dremecks' teeth were small and very blunt; they were not meat-eaters, but subsisted entirely on a diet of plants and fruits native to their world. Young dremecks did not have teeth at all, but attained them when they reached maturity. Dremecks burrow. They have always lived underground, not for any special reason—the air on their world is not poisonous, the sun is not too hot. The dremecks live underground because they like living underground. It makes them feel more* secure. It was therefore theorized that the dremecks had once been the food source for large predators. The dremecks had escaped this enemy by going underground and had apparently out evolved this enemy, for there were no large predators left on Del Sol.
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Unfortunately, the dremecks could not escape their current enemy—humans—so easily. The fact that they were excellent burrowers had proven their downfall. Early space explorers had found no signs of life on the surface of Del Sol—no cities or towns or villages, no cultivated fields, no oceanfront resorts, and therefore the dremecks' planet went unnoticed by the rest of the civilized galaxy for any number of centuries. The dremeck world was finally discovered by human scientists searching for the Bulgarvian wormhole. They named it Del Sol, after the noted philanthropist Ferdinand Del Sol of Mengus Seventeen. It should be noted here that the dremecks had their own name for their planet. The dremecks believed that their world was responsible for giving them life; therefore, the name they called their world had come across to human translators as "uterus." This name was deemed unacceptable by map makers and travel agents. GNN said they could not report on such a planet during the "children's hour" of vid viewing. The Navy pointed out that, should war prove inevitable, they could not possibly attack with dignity a planet called Uterus. The name was therefore changed officially to Del Sol. Further investigation by the scientists revealed that Del Sol was a treasure trove of minerals, including precious and semiprecious gems, gold and silver. The amounts discovered appeared so vast, atfirst, that the discovery was kept secret for fear that gold prices would plummet. Later it was found that the gold was of inferior quality, its molecular structure being just a tiny bit off, making it brittle instead of malleable, and so the currency standard was saved. Diamonds and emeralds, rubies and sapphires, silver and uranium were discovered in abundance, however, and more man made up for the brittle gold. Early entrepreneurs were especially pleased to find that the ignorant dremecks had no idea what these minerals were worth. The dremecks used the gems to make body adornments, worn by both the males and the females for no particular reason sociologists could determine except that the dremecks thought they were pretty. The dremecks willingly traded baskets of precious jewels for their most valued commodity—vegetables, which the humans were only too happy to provide. The humans were baffled, however, to discover that the dremecks left all the vegetables they'd been given to rot. The report came back that the dremecks didn't like the vegetables because they were "dead," which led scientists to discover that the dremecks ate only living vegetation. They grazed. It was undoubtedly this unfortunate resemblance to cattle that gave the first humans to visit the planet the idea that the dremecks were subhuman, ranking somewhere above rats and rock-and-roll singers in intelligence; equal, perhaps, to those other herd animals, politicians; but below the rest of humanity. Comforted by the knowledge that they were saving the dremecks from themselves, the humans moved in during the time of the corrupt Democracy. Using the dremecks as miners, they looted the planet of its mineral wealth, becoming very rich themselves in the process. Almost overnight, Del Sol emerged as one of the galaxy's financial capitals. Not being particularly scrupulous people themselves, the bankers were not much interested in the scruples of others, particularly if such scruples could adversely affect profit. Advertising for Del Solian financial institutions read: "The bank where nobody knows your name." As for the dremecks, they were easily subjugated. Enslavement was made all the easier by the fact that the elder dremecks were an extremely gentle people and didn't believe in resistance—ever. The younger dremecks were, according to reports, becoming restless. Dr. Quong mused on all this as he watched the dremeck baggage handlers unload the metal
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bullet-shaped suitcases of the passengers, standing them on end so that the phosphorus lights flashing the baggage numbers were visible. Quong had mentioned the dremecks' nonaggressive trait to Jamil, suggested that this might be a problem in training them as soldiers. Jamil merely brushed the information aside, thereby offending Dr. Quong. He said no more about it, but was looking forward with perverse pleasure to the first meeting of the gung-ho mercenary and the grazing revolutionaries. Quong was startled from his reverie by a touch on his foot. Looking down, he saw a dremeck crouched on the floor, polishing the doctor's boot with a rag. Embarrassed, Quong started to draw his foot away. "No, really that's not necessary." He fumbled for a coin. The dremeck lifted his head. His eyes, which were round and black and very liquid, protruded slightly, causing the folds around the eyes to flow backward like a receding tide. He had a flutelike voice and spoke Standard Military—taught to them by the humans—with a lilting accent that was really quite enchanting. "Please permit me to continue my work, sir. This is the only way we will have a chance to talk without arousing suspicion." The dremeck paused,then said carefully, "It is a very sunny day outside, with not a cloud in the sky." That was the code which meant that all was going well, they were not being watched, were not in any danger. If the dremeck had said, "It is a very sunny day outside, but rain is predicted tonight," then Quong would have known that someone was on to them. At the words, "There is a terrible storm raging," the Doc would have made certain his weapon was fully charged and close at hand. Since the weather was sunny, Quong relaxed. The dremeck proceeded to shine his boots and talked at the same time. "I recognized you by the description given me. It was said you had shifty eyes." "Shifty eyes!" Quong repeated heatedly,then suddenly realized what was intended. "Ah, perhaps you mean slanted eyes? Yes, my eyes are slanted—a natural and, to my mind, quite attractive feature of my race." The dremeck lifted its own incredibly round eyes. "Have I offended?" "No," Quong said, smiling. "Well, maybe.Shifty means... But that is not important." He glanced around. No one, including the wire-heads, was paying any attention to them. Leaning forward as if to study the dremeck's work, Quong lowered his voice to ask, "What is the plan?" The folds of the dremeck's face melted like sand dunes at high tide. "Plan?" he repeated in a tremulous voice. "Where are your headquarters?" Quong pursued. "And how do we arrive there without arousing suspicion?" "We don't really have a 'headquarters,' if Iam understanding the word correctly, but I assume that you will want to discuss matters with the One who guides us. He awaits you in the Xynx Burrow, which is
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located about three hour's foot journey from here. The One says thatyourselves , the Army leaders, should travel to the burrow on the Uglies train. You will notbe noticed. Many Uglies visit our burrow, which is also what we have been told is the galaxy's largest diamond mine." "By Uglies, I assume you mean humans?" Quong said mildly. The dremeck's round eyes widened,then vanished as the folds of its face crumpled. His hands holding the rag began to tremble. "I forgot! I am sorry, Overseer. I did not mean it. Please forgive me—" "There, there." Quong would have laid a soothing hand on the dremeck's shoulder, but the human guards overseeing the luggage handlers were starting to take an interest in him. He knew enough about this world to understand that any friendly overture to a dremeck would be viewed with suspicion and perhaps hostility. "I feel much the same about many members of the human race myself. Especially now. And please do not call me Overseer. I am Quong. Dr. Quong." He rose to his feet. The luggage was at last sorted. People from their cruise ship were already gathering to retrieve their possessions. Quong made a show of taking the change from his pocket, picking through it. "The guards are watching us. We will retrieve our luggage and take the Uglies train to the Xynx mine. Is that correct— I beg your pardon. I do not know your name." "My what?" The dremeck was startled and uneasy. "Your name. I told you mine. It is Quong. William Quong. And you are?" "Remer," said the dremeck in immense confusion. "I— I am called Remer. Forgive me for seeming startled, but no human has ever before asked my name." "Hopefully that will change," Quong said, and pressed a coin into the dremeck's hand. He noted, scientifically, that the body temperature of the dremeck was apparently quite low, judging bytouch, and that the blue-gray skin had a certain moist quality to it. Clammy, the Uglies would term it "I look forward to meeting you again, Remer. Ah, there is the rest of the team!" Quong waved to draw their attention. Jamil waved back. The dremeck, clutching his rag in his hand, stared at the small group. "Is that all of you?" Remer asked, dismayed. "Another member of the team, Tycho, is standing over beside the juice machine." Quong peered that direction, squinted. "At least I think that is where he is. It is difficult to tell. He comes from a race known as chameleon and at the moment he is blending in with his surroundings. That may be him beside the water dispenser. And now I must go. Farewell for the moment." Quong started to walk away, but the dremeck made a frantic gesture with the rag. Quong glanced at the guard, who was saying something to his companion and pointing at them. "What is it?" Quong said softly. "Be quick! They are watching!" "Where are the rest of you?" Reiner asked, his words tumbling over each other in his haste. "Where is
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the army?" "Army?" Quong frowned. "What army?" "The army you promised to bring! The army that will save our people." Quong looked at the dremeck. He looked at the guards and he looked at Jamil, who was walking, unsuspecting, down the corridor. The doctor understood. Chuckling, he rubbed his hands together. He could hardly wait to break the news.
CHAPTER 24
Other Voices, Other Rooms Truman Capote, titleof novel
"Hello, Sam," Petronella greeted the secretary guarding Robison's office from behind a massive oak desk. "How're things going?" Sam shrugged. "Same as always." He glanced at his calendar screen, whichglowed a faint iridescent green. "You have an appointment?" "No, but I was hoping I could see him," Petronella said in wheedling tones. She glanced significantly at the open door, peered inside. "There doesn't seem to be anybody with him...." Sam was shaking his head. "Sorry, but he has an appointment in—" "Rizzoli? Is that you?" Robison yelled out from the office. Sam lifted an eyebrow, gave a wry smile. "Go right in, Agent." Petronella entered the office, which was habitually darkened. Robison disliked bright light, held that semidarkness was more conducive to thought. The windows in his office were tinted a dark charcoal gray and even then he generally kept the shades activated. Computer screens glowed eerily from dark corners. The only light was above Robison's desk and he had it situated so that it shone brightly on the face of the person in the chair opposite his desk. The odd shadows cast by the single bright light and the
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glowing computer screens gave the room a secretive air, or so Petronella had always imagined. The darkened room always gave her an adrenaline rush, always made her work—which was usually mundane, often uninteresting, and sometimes just plain grubby—seem more exciting than it really was. She shut the door behind her and walked quickly to stand in front of Robison's desk. "I know you have another appointment, sir. This won't take long. I didn't want to send it through the usual channels—" "Sit down, Agent Rizzoli," Robison said affably. "My next appointment can wait a few moments." He grew more serious. "What is it? What have you found out?" "A lot, sir," said Petronella, sitting in a chair across from Robison's desk. She kept her voice low, despite the fact that the room was sound proofed, and drew her chair closer. "For starters, you were right. Dalin Rowan is Darlene Mohini. I met her, talked to her." "Excellent. Where is she?" Robison activated his electronic notepad. "I met her on Adonia, along with the rest of the team, at the chateau of one of the team members, Raoul de Beausoleil." "Expert poisoner," Robison said, bringing up the file with a touch of his hand on the nearby computer console. "Used to work for the late Snaga Ohme. We suspected him in the poisoning of the wife of the president on Modena, but we couldn't find enough evidence to make a case." He paused, lips pursed, staring at a vid shot of Raoul, who would have been highly flattered by the attention. "I assume you have Rowan stashed away somewhere safe. I'd like to talk to her. If you could—" "Sorry, sir," said Petronella, "but Rowan refuses to cooperate with us." "The devil she does!" Robison frowned. "You can't really blame her, sir," Petronella said. "There've been two attempts on her life. Which reminds me, sir, did you have me followed?" Robison snorted. "Why would I have you followed, Agent? No, of course not. What made you think that?" "Someone came to de Beausoleil's house, pretending to be a pool cleaner. The Adonian spotted him and he ran—" "Probably another Hung assassin." "Yes, sir. That's what they thought at first, but that telepath of theirs claimed that the man was following me." "Did you spot him when you drove to the house?"
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"I ... uh ... forgot to check, sir," Petronella said, flushing. "It's just that ... no excuse, sir. I'm sorry." "What made you believe this telepath of theirs?" Robison asked acidly. "Well, sir, Rowan suggested that it might have been Amadi, and I must say that I agree with her. After all, I did discover those files—" "If you were followed, which I very much doubt, then that must be the answer.Which means that Amadi suspects you. You'll have to be more careful from now on." Petronella swallowed the rebuke in silence. "Now," Robison continued, "as to Rowan, we could offer her protection—" "Begging your pardon, sir, but Rowan knows that someone high up in the Bureau is tied in to the Hung. She knows that we can't guarantee her protection and that she's a lot safer with her mercenary friends than she would be with us. She knows about Amadi, sir," Petronella finished. Robison shook his head and swore softly. "Son of a bitch. They're all in this together." Petronella was troubled. "That means that Rowan and Tampambulos set up their friend Ito to die. I find that hard to believe, sir." "Don't be naive, Agent!" Robison snapped. "Ito found out about them and they had to get rid of him. Just like they got rid of Armstrong." "But Tampambulos was in that factory, too, sir—" "So their plan went awry." Robison was impatient. "Consider this. Tampambulos is carrying the bomb. He plans to stash the bomb in the factory, knock Ito unconscious, leave him there, and escape. Tampambulos explodes the bomb, blows up his partner, and claims that Ito was caught in a booby trap. Instead, the bomb goes off before Tampambulos can escape and he ends up critically injured. Rowan feels the heat and decides to turn on her former employer, the Hung. She doesn't do any real damage, however. Maybe she and Amadi and the Hung had it all arranged. When the heat's off, she and Tampambulos get back together again. Amadi's there to welcome them home and they take up where they left off." Robison gave her a shrewd look. "We have information that a large sum of money has been deposited in the Mag Force 7 account." "Tampambulos was transferred to Jango, where the Hung leaders are imprisoned," Petronella said reluctantly, still not wanting to believe the ugly picture that was taking shape on her mental screen. She had found herself liking Darlene Rowan. She could still hear the pain in Rowan's voice when she talked about Ito's death. Hard to believe it was all an act. But what other explanation could there be? "I'd say that clinches it," said Robison coolly. "He's there to break them out. Amadi suspects that you're on to him and he had Rowan try to throw you off the track." "I suppose you're right, sir," said Petronella. "What do we do to stop them?"
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Sam's voice came over the comm. "Sorry to interrupt, sir, but the Home Secretary is here—" "I'm in an important meeting," Robison told him. "I'll be with her when I can break free." He was silent a moment, marshaling his thoughts, then said, "Get a Crown warrant and return to Adonia. Pick up Rowan. I want her in my office—" "We can't arrest Rowan, sir." "Why not?" Robison glared at her. "Rowan's not on Adonia now. The team left on an assignment." "You know where they went?" "Yes, sir. I planted a listening device." "Then get a warrant for whatever planet they're on!" Robison rose to his feet. The interview was at an end. "Thanks for bringing this information to me, Agent. You have your orders—" "It won't be that easy, sir," Petronella protested. The chair beside her hopped and skittered. She laid a hand on it. "Rowan's gone to a planet called Del Sol. It's outside our jurisdiction." Robison frowned. "Del Sol?" he repeated. His eyelids with their sandy lashes flickered. "Never heard of it." "Not surprising, sir," said Petronella. "It's this little dinky planet in the Rotarian Sector, a part of a hegemony known as the Seven Sisters. The trouble is that it's not part of the Empire. It's independent. We have no jurisdiction on that planet—" "What are they doing on Del Sol?" Robison demanded abruptly. "Apparently it's a job they took on before their leader was arrested. I'm not certain what they've been hired to do. They didn't discuss it." "You're sure that's where they went?" "Yes, sir. I followed them to the spaceport, saw them board the liner. It's a nonstop flight. I plan to check again to make certain they disembarked—" "Don't bother," Robison said curtly. "It's too much trouble. We could never justify the expense. We'll find some other way of dealing with Amadi." He smiled at her. Thank you, Agent Rizzoli. You've done a fine job on this case. I have something else in mind for you. I'll be transmitting the facts in a day or two." "Is ... is that... it, sir?" Petronella stammered, shocked. "Am I being taken off this case?" "It doesn't seem that we have much of a case left, does it, Agent Rizzoli?" Robisonreturned, his tone cool with an irritated edge. "On your way out, tell Sam to connect me with the Home Secretary, will you?" "Yes, sir." Petronella stood up, walked to the door. Halfway there, she halted. "If I've done something wrong sir—"
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She stopped talking. He was looking at the computer screen, deliberately ignoring her. Petronella turned and continued to walk across the floor, which suddenly seemed to be as long and wide and empty as a spaceport tarmac. She was dazed by the suddenness of it all, puzzled and confused. Her face felt flushed; she was unsteady on her feet. All she could see was her career swirling around and around in the toilet, then vanishingdown the drain. And as far as she could tell, she'd done nothing wrong! The door slid silently open. Petronella stumbled through. She needed to sit and calm down, but not with the sympathetic eyes of the secretary on her. She managed a smile that felt tight enough to snap like a rubber band and stalked, straight-legged and straight-backed out of the office. She made it out of the building, found a small coffee bar, and sat down to recover from the shock. Only then did she realize she'd forgotten to give Sam the message about the Home Secretary. Screw it. Petronella ordered coffee, but by the time she got around to drinking it, the liquid inside the cup was cold. She was listening to voices, a great many voices, yammering in her head. Robison's dismissal, over and over. Her own voice, repeating everything she'd said, trying to determine just what the hell she'd said wrong; and another voice, saying something in the background. The voice was trying to tell her something and she had to make all the other voices inside her head shut up so she could listen. She wasn't certain whose voice it was. Robison's? She went through his explanation of the facts again. Her own voice? She hadn't said anything all that intelligent. Darlene Rowan? Jamil? Dr. Quong? Petronella closed her eyes, relaxed, and concentrated, and suddenly all the other voices fell silent. One voice spoke. Raoul's voice, interpreting the Little One, and it came to her with the scent of gardenia. "...the pool cleaner was, in reality, an Adonian private detective hired by someone—he's not clear who it was—to keep watch on you and to record what you said and to whom you said it." That was it! That was what had been nibbling at her, like mice in her brain. "If someone went to the trouble of hiring an Adonian private detective to spy on me," Petronella said to her coffee cup, which now held extremely cold coffee, "then someone had to have knownin advance that I was traveling to Adonia. Amadi didn't know that! I didn't tell him. I didn't tell McCarthy or anyone in the office where I was going on my 'vacation.'" Only one person had known she was going to Adonia.
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Her superior. Andrew Robison.
CHAPTER25
You know my methods, Watson. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Crooked Man
Petronella knew the moment she walked into her apartment that someone had been there, someone had searched it. The place was just too neat. The dwelling of a Talisian appears chaotic to most non-Talisians. Why bother to pick up articles and put them away when a whirlwind could strike at any moment? Whoever had searched her apartment and riffled through her drawers had left most of her things in standard Talisian disorder. The mags were still strewn about
