Authors: Deborah Christian
Tags: #Science Fiction, #Fiction, #General, #Assassins, #Women murderers
Vask was out
of the longhouse and back inside his snow-shrouded crawler before the second game of castle-stones was through. He felt a tremble in arms and legs at closer and closer intervals, and that was no state to sideslip in. By the time he checked in to his resort hotel he knew he'd cut it close. Shaking, he palmed the room door, then had to reset the door lock twice before he got it right. With leaden, palsied limbs and blearing eyes, he punched up a scramble code on the comnet.
"Systems Control," came the cryptic voice-only ID. It was one of Internal. Security's com centers, networking agent traffic through twelve systems and numerous sublight relays. Vask didn't know its precise location, and didn't care. It was what Control could do for him that mattered.
"This is Kastlin, code Selmun-niner-three. Got a dump for you, cross-ref Tyree Longhouse. Debrief later." He fumbled with the console probe for far too long before securing it in his wrist jack, a dumb neural interface wired only for data transfers to or from the recording devices in his head. He pressed on a tooth in a certain way with his tongue, and the uplink began.
"Need some arrangements, Control." Vask was not normally terse, but exhaustion was about to slam down on him and end this conversation. He fought the slur in his words. "When you monitor coms from Tyree Longhouse, let me know when they book into a resort for kria hunting. Book me same place and message me about it."
The datadump was done. He tugged the jack from his wrist with an effort. "New news in that uplink," he added. "We got a line on the Holdout. Shiran Traders, House Arleon."
"Acknowledged, Selmun-niner-three.''
Vask didn't sign off. He barely managed to tap the disconnect before passing out in his chair.
Alia Lanzig
's
profile
and activities were common knowledge, easily tracked on newsnet and library files. It was not hard for Yavobo to discover that she was the only surviving blood kin of Albek Murs. But when he journeyed to Bolan Dome, she refused his services, and erupted at his persistence.
"I tell you again, sir, I have no need for a bodyguard!"
"Then I will sleep upon your doorstep," Yavobo assured the Councilor, "and follow where you go, with or without your permission. If you go places where I am not permitted to follow, then I will find ways in, or wait for you outside like a faithful keshun. For I must protect you, and serve you, and that is all that is to be said in the matter!"
Yavobo was unaccustomed to having his word questioned, and angered at having his honor debt dismissed out of hand by the one he intended to aid. His determination was finally coming clear to Councilor Lanzig.
"Why me?" she demanded again.
Again, Yavobo began his explanation. "I entered a contract with your uncle to-—"
"—to keep him safe, yes. You are under no obligation because of a vehicular failure."
"I say again, I do not believe it was a natural failure. And I am in debt, Councilor. It is to you I must discharge that debt."
Alia sat in a net chair, her webbed feet slightly splayed on the nubbleflooring before her. There was a sheen of blue-green luminescence to her skin on arms and thighs, and on the closed gill slits visible on her neck. Soft curves spoke of subcutaneous fat, helping to insulate body heat in the ocean depths.
"You realize I do much of my work in the water?" she finally asked. "At this depth a human would need protection, at least a special dive suit."
Yavobo bowed slightly at the concession. "I would suffer some discomfort in the ears, otherwise I believe I have no problem. I am more hardy than an unprotected human."
"Well, I can't have you going deaf, can I?" Lanzig groused. "Get a suit, keep your pressure and air right, and you can stay. Get my daily schedule from my secretary console and we'll see how you can fit into my routine."
Alia's lips pursed as if she tasted something sour. "I want none of this carrying on like with my uncle, you hear? You're not going to piss off every pilot who works for me or get my people thrown in the autodoc with your tactics. You can be a chauffeur or doorguard for all I care. I want you out of my way and in the background. Is that clear?"
"If there is a danger—"
"I'm not in any danger. Stay unobtrusive. Can you do that?"
She spoke with the authority of an Aztrakhani matriarch. Yavobo bowed again, respectfully, this time.
"We understand each other, then. Now go get that suit."
Alia felt she was in no danger, and to Yavobo's practiced eye, it seemed she might be right. Her enemies were forthright and vocal, and the Aztrakhani knew those were seldom the ones you had to watch out for. Yavobo followed her movements in a separate skiff and Lanzig had no protest, nor did she care how he executed his self-appointed duties.
It was altogether the strangest escort duty the warrior had ever performed. All the while, Albek's death continued to niggle at him, and when he could find time, he did what he could to investigate the sinister mishap with Advisor Murs' skiff.
Yavobo soon found his investigation severely limited by circumstance. There was no way to recover the wrecked hydroskiff, now a piece of compact, crumpled debris in an unmarked location deep in the Alauna Abyss. Even if the wreckage was found, what was the point? It would reveal pressure-tortured metal, almost impossible to pinpoint the one spot that must have suddenly given way....
One spot. Suddenly.
Maybe he could attack this from another direction. If he had wanted to take out the skiff, how would he have done it? The answer to that was easy. A torpedo, possibly tracking on a homing button attached to the hull.
Yet the warrior knew there had been no explosion when the skiff's hull breached. There was only the sudden pressure drop. A missile would have been felt; a laser or ion pulse would at least have been noticed by the crew, and required a firing platform of some sort, although there had been no other vehicles nearby. If the failure were caused by a physical flaw, dock inspection by the pilot or Yavobo should have revealed it. Nothing he invented fit the pattern of destruction that had downed the Advisor's skiff.
Maybe something he
didn't
know about was responsible. Something the effects and operation of which he couldn't imagine. Fortunately, he had a footprint, a way to trace this mystery thing. He knew its characteristics.
Hard to detect. Capable of sudden, very destructive damage to a ship's hull, short of an explosion.
That was a brief description and to the point. Yavobo had purchased his share of contraband weaponry from smugglers in the past. That was the place to start. "
I need to do sudden, destructive structural damage,''
he would say, '
'maybe at a particular time but can't risk an explosion. Can't use a laser, no phase weaponry and it has to work underwater. What do you suggest?"
Yes. That was the tack to take.
When Councilor Lanzig attended a three-day retreat, his opportunity came. Praying for understanding from his gods, he abandoned his charge and traveled to Amasl. The Aztrakhani needed to do a very special kind of shopping.
Reva
's
interlude at
Tyree Longhouse was a strange idyll, the sort of break the assassin was unaccustomed to. Days spent reading, lounging, talking with another; it was an odd feeling to get to know someone over days of friendly conversation. She learned more of Lish, not facts so much as quirks of personality: what made her laugh; how she talked easily about her feelings and took care to speak precisely, so her meaning was not misunderstood. Her dry sense of humor was like Reva's own, but the glee she took in the occasional practical joke was not. It took a controlled effort to sit through a custom-coded prank at the computer, then accept her light dismissal of the assassin's ruffled feelings, as if to say, "Don't take yourself so seriously." And that forced Reva to smile, because she did take things so seriously.
She hadn't planned on being a storm-bound houseguest for so long, and realized with chagrin that the enforced closeness was slowly causing their acquaintanceship to grow into something more.
If this is heading toward friendship, she cautioned herself, then it's just something else to lose. So get ready for it now.
That harsh reminder made it easy to shelve the fledgling attraction she had felt for Lish. And it helped her view their time together as a surreal slice of life out of some noontime vidshow. Seen in that light, the leisure soon palled and she welcomed the change when the storm finally broke.
A glorious day full of diffuse white light and ice-blue shadows dawned, revealing the frozen edge of Varlek Water at the base of Tyree Ridge. After a snowbot cleaned the east terrace, Reva went outside to admire the view. The inland sea bore thick sheets of ice out into the middle distance, remaining wet in the center where thermals kept the waters too warm to freeze.
Lish followed her outside, but spared little attention for the bright-shining ice sea before them. "You ready?" she asked.
"Ready?"
"To hunt the kria? I am. Been reading up on them. I'm ready to go."
"Reading?" Reva smiled. "They're a little different in person than what you read." "Then let's go meet one. I've already got the reservations made."
Reva nodded agreement. A crawler picked them up an hour later.
Keshnavar Resort featured
a view of Varlek Water to the north and the wooded, snow-covered folds of the hunting preserve to the south. Lish and Reva checked into a private villa there, and were soon headed for the gun shop.
A scalp-shaven youth lounged behind the counter, watching a holovid on flipped-down visors. At the sight of customers he came hastily to his feet, tossing the holovisor beneath the counter. "Domnas?" he asked helpfully.
"We're going hunting," Reva said.
"Then you'll want the Safari Set—" he began, reaching for a rack of equipment behind the counter.
"Save it for offworlders," Reva interrupted. "Two sets of air-shoes; two Lingon 58-50s—you have motion-sensor attachments for those?"
"Yes, Domna." The youth nodded hastily.
"Add the sensors, then. Lift beacons, two camietarps, a fight squaller, and twenty rounds for each rifle."
"Only twenty?" The young man hesitated. "A case is just—"
"Only twenty. You only need three to drop a kria."
"I suppose you don't want a guidepack, either?" he asked, shaking his head sadly.
Reva shook hers in return, passing on the robotic guide that steered tourists toward the safer nature trails within the safari preserve. The gun shop clerk assembled the goods on the counter, going into a back room for most of them. It was quickly charged to the villa account, and the pair went outside to equip.
Reva guided Lish through the outfitting. Airshoes, to lift them above the snow and eliminate tracks the kria could follow. Air beacons, to summon gamekeepers to dress out a kill. Camietarps, a chameleon synthetic used for shelter if evading a hunting snowcat. Ammo packs attached to shouldertabs, holding twenty large-caliber explosive darts. Lish affixed hers while Reva added motion sensors to the dart rifle scopes.
"Make sure you use your range finder," Reva commented. "Once propellant burns out in these darts, they drop like rocks."
"All right."
"Use the motion sensor, too. It'll blip movement in the brush up to about seventy-five meters, in a ninety-degree arc in front of you. You can see the sensor screen if you're carrying the rifle, or watch the blip track through the scope if you're aiming."
Lish handled one of the 58-50s. Reva waved her hand in front of the barrel to demonstrate the motion tracking. Lish looked up.
"Isn't this a bit of overkill for a game hunt? So kria are clever trackers." She motioned to her feet, resting on air two fingers' width above the ground. "We won't even be leaving tracks. What about a sporting chance?"
The assassin gave a mirthless laugh. "You want sporting, try this on wooden snowshoes with a crossbow. You'll appreciate the edge."
"No, really," the Holdout persisted. "Why is this necessary?"
Reva rested the Lingon butt-first on the snowpack. "You've been reading up on the kria, right? Did you come across the statistic about how many first-time hunters are killed by the snow-cats?"
Lish shook her head.
"They keep that stat out of the public record if they can. It would scare off tourists. Look." She motioned to the dished relay antennae that topped the wire-mesh game preserve fence. "They run sonics along the fence line to keep aggressive cats from jumping the barricade. The few kria in there can't roam like they want to. They get cranky about that."
She waved at the preserve beyond the fence and frequency barrier. "There are probably only three or four adult kria in there, all in a nasty mood. If you stray off the tourist trails and try some real hunting, those cats will be very ready to welcome you. An angry full-grown kria charges about five times faster than you can run."
Lish was puzzled. "What about all the cats that get bagged here? You hear about it on the sportsnet."
"They're shooting adolescents, brought in to stock the park. Not the wily adults." Reva patted the dart rifle. "Use the motion sensor, Lish. It can make the difference between dead and alive. And I don't mean the kria."