Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra (2 page)

The gunman jammed a card into the slot above the keypad, and the screen flicked on. A line of blue numbers appeared in the upper right hand corner of the oval screen. Treet watched as his captor entered an alphanumeric code; the screen blanked. Instantly another code came up in the center of the screen. With one hand the man typed in two words: GOT HIM.

For a moment nothing happened. Then as Treet watched, hoping for some clue to the identity of the person or persons on the other end of the linkup, the words HOLD FOR PICKUP appeared below the gunman's entry. With that, the gunman tapped a key, the screen cleared, and his card ejected from the slot. “Okay, move it.”

“Where to?”

“Heliport Six.” The man jerked the gun upward toward Treet's chin. “Let's take our time, shall we? There's no hurry, and I wouldn't want you to get overheated.”

They exited the booth and shunned the people mover, walking instead to a bank of escalators. They jumped on an escalator labeled TO HELIPORT SIX and rode up three levels to the rooftop. Through the tinted bubble, the sky glowed dark green-gray and the sun shone a nauseating chartreuse. Radiating out from the bubble were at least a dozen landing platforms on the end of walkway tubes. Helicopters sat on two or three platforms, their rotors spinning idly.

“Number three platform,” the gunman whispered in Treet's ear. He underscored his words with another nudge from the needle gun. When they reached the tube entrance, the gunman shoved Treet into a sculptured foam chair and said, “Sit.”

Treet sat, his hands atop his knees, his knees beneath his chin. “Who's coming to pick me up?”

“You'll see soon enough.”

“How much are they paying you?”

“Trying to figure out how much you're worth? Forget it—you're not worth that much.”

“I'll pay you more.” Treet thought he saw a glimmer of interest flit across the man's pinched features.

“How much more?”

“How much are they paying you?”

“Thirty-five thousand in metal, plus expenses. I have a lot of expenses.” The man with the gun watched him slyly. “Well?”

“I'll give you forty thousand.” Treet tried to sound as if that were in some way possible.

“You lying filth! I ought to drill you for jollies.”

Treet shrugged. “If you don't want to be reasonable—”

“What makes you think I'd let you go for any amount of money? You pus suckers are all alike.”

“You won't let me go?”

“Never. I'd kill you first, and that's a fact.”

“Why? I've never done anything to you.”

“Principle. How far do you think I'd get in this business if my clients couldn't trust me to deliver the goods? Besides, you've made me look very bad in front of a very influential client. I don't like that—bad business.”

“You've got me now, don't you?”

“I've got you all right. But I lost a double bonus along the way.”

Treet could tell he was getting nowhere and decided to wait and take his chances with whoever showed up on landing pad number three. He slumped back in his chair and tried to think who might value his company at thirty-five thousand plus expenses—and in precious metals, yet. He was still trying to produce a name when he heard the muffled sound of approaching rotors.

“On your feet, grunt-face.” The gunman held his weapon level and pointed down the tube to where the helicopter was dropping onto the pad at the other end. “After you.”

Treet got slowly to his feet and shambled down the tube, watching as the copter's sidehatch opened and two men, dressed in dark blue paramilitary uniforms, scrambled out. They came to stand on either side of the tube exit and waited. Outside, the air was warm and rather humid. As Treet stepped from the tube, a hot wind from the helicopter's twin jets hit him in the face. The uniformed men grabbed his arms and led him forward without a word.

A third man inside the copter held the hatch open. Treet turned. “I guess this is good-bye,” he told the gunman.

“This is good-bye all right.” The gunman raised the needle gun, and his finger pressed the flat trigger.

Treet cringed away from the impact as a little puff of vapor issued from the sharp muzzle. He did not feel a thing. Was the gun unloaded after all?

He glanced down and saw a tiny needle sticking out of his stomach, its red cap pulsating, pumping poison into him. His hands reached for the dart, plucked it out; and threw it before his guards could stop him. Momentarily free, he turned and dived away from the helicopter, hit the rubber surface of the landing pad, rolled to his feet, staggered once, and fell backward with arms outstretched, his head bouncing off the pad on impact. Treet stared upward at the clear blue Texas sky as his eyesight dimmed and the leering faces above him diffused and disappeared.

Waves crashed in his
head and his stomach heaved, as with the ocean's swell. Somewhere nearby someone was moaning, and Treet wished they would shut up—until he realized it was him. Well, perhaps moaning was called for, then.

After several long minutes, the ocean effect subsided and he battled his eyelids open. But the light hurt his head, so he closed his eyes again and listened instead. The moaning—his moaning— had stopped, and silence lay thick and artificial. A synthetic silence, he decided, as if the quiet had been manufactured in some way and layered over the noise that was going on all around him just to prevent him from hearing it.

He sniffed the air and smelled the heavily filtered, oxygen-enhanced stuff typical of a sealed building. Wherever they had brought him, it was at least up to code. But that could be any relatively modern structure anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere. Nevertheless, he guessed there was a good chance he was still in Houston. The copter—had there been a copter?—yes, he remembered something about a helicopter—had come from somewhere close to the skyport. No more than four or five minutes away.

Of course, they could have taken him anywhere after that. He had no idea how long he had been out. A few hours, most likely; less than a day. His stomach gurgled, reminding him he had not eaten in quite a while. Orion, he thought, you've really done it this time.

Close on this thought came a question:
What
had he done? He still didn't know. If he hadn't tried to escape, he would have found out by now. No, that pinhead gunman had shot him
before
he had tried to escape. At least the needle hadn't carried the promised dose of cyanide. His hand went to the spot on his stomach where the dart had stuck him. The wound, though tiny, throbbed mightily and was inflamed.

He was still taking physical inventory when he heard the sigh of a door opening automatically. “Up and at 'em, tiger,” called a cheery female voice. “They're waiting for you upstairs.” She gave the word
upstairs
a subtle rising inflection—as if Upstairs were the name of a foreign territory not altogether friendly to the interests of the sovereign state of Texas.

Treet kept his eyes closed and feigned sleep. The ruse did not work. “I've been monitoring you on my video, Mr. Treet. I know you're awake, although you probably feel a little rocky. The best thing is to be up and moving around. The drug will leave your system that much quicker.”

Whoever owned that dreadfully cheerful voice was now standing directly over him. He could hear her breathing down on him, and then felt a cool touch on his forehead. He opened his eyes to see a rather severely pretty redhead looking down at him. She wore the white-and-blue shift of a nurse. “Temperature and blood pressure normal,” the nurse announced, withdrawing her hand from his head.

“Where am I?” Treet made a move to get up, and his stomach rolled dangerously. The nurse expertly slipped her arm under his shoulders and levered him into a sitting position.

“All will be explained, Mr. Treet. I'm to see that you are up and around as soon as possible.”

“And nothing else. Is that it?”

“I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise now, would I?” She gave him a quick professional smile. “Swing your legs over the edge and try to stand.”

Treet did as he was told. He had a feeling that the boys in the blue uniforms were hunkered nearby, ready to pounce on him if he needed pouncing on again. He decided to go along peacefully for the moment. Keeping his options open was how he described it to himself.

Leaning on the nurse's arm, Treet managed to stagger, like a sailor making landfall after a long storm-tossed voyage, across to the door of the small, single-bed infirmary. The door slid open once again and admitted them to a brightly lit foyer done up in pleasant greens with blue and yellow foam chairs clustered around the cylindrical screen of a holovision: a doctor's waiting room.

“You're doing very well,” said the nurse amiably. “I won't be a moment. Walk around if you like.” She ducked behind a counter and into a cubbyhole. Treet heard her voice speaking low—into a teleterm, he guessed—saying, “He's ready, Mr. Varro. Yes, I will. You're welcome.”

Varro? Varlo? He didn't know anyone named Varlo. The name did not connect. At the opposite end of the waiting room was a window. Treet walked over nonchalantly, pulled the green curtain aside, and peeked out. He looked down several stories into a square courtyard. Blank windows from four facing walls stared into the same courtyard, and none of them gave any clue to where he was. The sky, what he could see of it, was cloudless and greenish with a tint of orange.

“Mr. Treet?” The nurse called him pleasantly. “Your escort is here.”

He turned to see another blue uniform approaching—a different blue uniform than the one worn by the men in the helicopter. Theirs had been dark blue with flashy yellow insignias on the upper arms. This man wore lighter blue, with a white collar and a black belt around the middle. Attached to the belt was a flat brown pouch which, Treet supposed, contained a needle gun or stunner of some sort.

The man beckoned to Treet with a jerk of his head. Treet joined him, fell into step, and was conveyed down a wide, low, vacant corridor, across a pentagonal lobby, and finally down another, shorter corridor to a waiting elevator. The elevator was open; they stepped in, and the guard pressed a button. The doors slid closed, and the elevator rose. There was, Treet noticed, only one button on the panel, marked OPEN/CLOSED. Which meant that the elevator was designed to be run from somewhere else. From upstairs, Treet guessed.

As the elevator rose, Treet weighed the advantages of striking up a conversation with his guard. Since no one else he'd met this day—if it
was
still this day—seemed inclined to enlighten him as to the nature of his predicament, he doubted whether a bolstered elevator attendant would be the one to start giving away free information. So he stood and gazed at a point on the ceiling just over the elevator doors and waited to find out what sort of fate would greet him on the other side.

The elevator ride was longer than he guessed it would be. But finally the doors slid back to reveal a lushly carpeted receiving room of goodly size. Live plants in beaten brass pots lined softly glowing walls. Airy hangings of fabric and metal dangled from the ceiling, which slanted upward just slightly. From somewhere the sound of water splashing in a fountain-pool reached Treet's ears.

The guard lifted a hand like a doorman and ushered his passenger out of the elevator. Treet stepped out onto the cream-colored carpet. The elevator door closed behind him, and he was left alone. He stood waiting for something to happen, but nothing did or seemed about to, so he began looking around.

Large wooden doors—black teak, floor to ceiling, ridiculously expensive—stood on either side of the room. Neither door had any markings. Straight ahead were equally large double doors, but these were studded with gold or brass and were painted bright colors. Closer, he could see that the colors formed a design: two winged men, one on each door, faced one another with outstretched arms—one arm shoulder-high and the other raised over their heads. The images had long hair, braided into a single braid down their backs. They wore long robes or gowns, flowing as if in the wind; the robes were marked with spiral designs and symbols in red, blue, violet, and gold. The men's wings were gold, with long, broad feathers spreading out behind them the length of their bodies. Their faces were in profile—straight, angular faces with large, dark eyes. Upon their chests they wore some kind of copper-colored amulet on a chain; the amulet was in the shape of a symbol or a letter from some alphabet Treet did not recognize. Between the winged men and above them a very round and rosy sun cast down golden rays that wiggled like snakes. The sun was divided equally, one half on each door, and its wriggling rays slanted down across the surfaces of both doors, which Treet could now see were bound in leather.

“You're awake sooner than expected.” The voice behind Treet did not take him completely by surprise. This had been a day for people sneaking up behind him, and he had come to expect it.

Treet turned to see a stiff, round-headed man approaching with hands folded behind his back. A fringe of short-cropped gray hair accented the roundness of his head, as did full cheeks that were thickening to jowl. The head perched on a short neck over sloping shoulders and overlooked a sturdy, short-limbed body.

“I see you appreciate fine things.” The man smiled, glanced at the handsome doors with the approval and detachment of a museum curator, and then offered his hand. “I am Varro, and I am pleased to meet the famous Orion Treet.”