Stardogs (46 page)

Nothing is truly forgotten. Memories may drown in later events, or grow dim, but given the right stimulus they will revive, and old hatreds return as fresh and sharp as vinegar. Thus it is best to bury your mistakes if you cannot rectify them.

Suttulej Subramoney Mercy, high priest of the Holy Church of Arunachal; His Epistle to the church at Brahmasville, where St. Sugahata had taken up his teaching.

The leaves parted. Mark Albeer and Martin Brettan came through. Shari looked carefully at them. How history repeated itself. Two of her murderous brother’s killers. Yet the bodyguard was an uncertain quantity. He had, she was sure, been party to Selim Puk’s plottings, yet he was very unlike the usual material Selim recruited.

“Just came to see if you were all right, Princess,” said the bodyguard. He was watching Deo uneasily.

“We found what I presume is a fake stream,” said the Viscount. “The water tastes a great deal better than what we’ve had for a long time, although it’s not exactly Chateau Lafitte. I’ve brought you some.”

She felt guilty. They had been tarred with history’s brush. She took the cup of water gratefully. “Thank you, Martin. We’ll pretend it is wine anyway. We need to drink a celebratory toast. Deo has recovered his memory.”

The assassin nodded. “It is still patchy… Viscount Brettan. But my wits are with me again.”

“Well, have a drink to them staying with you,” said Brettan dryly.

Shari smiled radiantly. “We’ll drink to that,” she drank, and handed Deo the cup.

A rare smile spread across his face. “I will drink to your courage, my Princess.”

They walked back to the others. Shari noted that the two Leaguesmen had also gone off somewhere. Sam was pacing about looking worried. He looked relieved to see her. She found herself answering his greeting with an unstoppable cracking yawn. It was pleasant there among the dew-pear trees, to sit down on the soft grass… the two dormantin tablets that the Viscount had carried and crushed before adding them to the water were singularly effective. She did not see the return of the Leaguesmen with their drawn weapons. A Tarbin mark III machine pistol in Kadar’s fist and a nine mm Kessel Flat in Johannes Wienan’s. They’d come for Juan, Una and Caro Leyven.

“We need a rider, and the boy to give the computer instructions. He is the only one who speaks Denaari,” said Shilo Kadar. “You, Countess, are coming too. Step over that way.”

“We’ll have the rest of your weapons. You won’t be harmed in any other way if you co-operate.” Johannes said quietly.

Nobody moved. Deo and the Princess were dead to the world anyway. “Just what are you playing at, you idiots,” snapped Tanzo. “We’ve a real problem. The Princess and Deo are unconscious for some reason.”

“They are irrelevant. You are all staying here with them. Now, one by one, your weapons, or I will shoot one of you as an example. You, Baroness, will be that example. You don’t show the proper degree of respect.” Kadar was ready to kill.

Sam was sure that he
would
kill some of them. But the man was like a cat. He liked to play with his prey. The Yak stepped forward, deliberately obscuring the leaguesman’s line of fire on Tanzo. Slowly he drew the chisel from his waistband. Dropped it. “What do you plan to do with us?” His instincts said to keep them talking. Perhaps that computer voice would speak or something. Any distraction would do.

“Don’t worry. You’ll all be fine. There is water, food, safety and shelter here. We’re sorry to have to do this, but it is in the interests of peace and stability of the whole human race. Really, we are doing this for the best.”

“Doing what?” asked Caro, genuinely puzzled, and not letting go of Mark Albeer’s hand.

“Control of the Stardogs must remain with the League, Countess. This computer system must control access to them. So we must take it over, get it to give us the Stardogs. There would be chaos and war otherwise.” Johannes did it well. He sounded sincere, plausible.

“Oh. But why can’t we go home? I mean, the Princess is sick, and needs a doctor. She doesn’t just pass out like that.”

“Enough chatter. Come. Weapons or I start making an example. Step out of the way, Yak or it’ll be you. Brettan, you next.” Kadar lifted the machine pistol.

The Viscount stepped forward slowly, coolly. Carefully he took out his automatic and dropped it next to the chisel that Sam Teovan had patiently turned into a knife. “Why are you doing this, Johannes? The League had your mother and nearly all of her family murdered, you know.”

Johannes Wienan nearly dropped the Kessel Flat. “How do you know about…?”

“I’m your uncle. Your mother was my older sister. They killed her. They killed my parents too, all because she brought you with her.”

“Shut up, Brettan. Shut up or I’ll shoot you,” said Kadar, thumbing the machine-pistol off rapid fire to single shot. The Tarbin was notoriously inaccurate on rapid.

Martin Brettan shrugged. “Very well. But the Emperor would reward you well, Shilo Kadar. Very well indeed, for a supply of Stardogs. Kadar, you’re not a Wienan. You won’t get anywhere in the Wienan League. And Johannes has a place by birth in the Empire.”

“Shut up, I said!” snarled Kadar as he drew a bead on him. “Get back with the others. Move!”

He moved. But he was satisfied. Johannes was wavering. Staring at him, gun-pointed at the ground.

Juan was frightened by the guns, by Kadar’s barely leashed violence. But it didn’t make sense. I wouldn’t work. And Una was more frightened than he was. It wasn’t right to frighten her, just when she’d been starting to get over all the terrors she’d had. “I have to tell you something,” he said, wishing his voice had no tremble to it.

“Shut up, boy. Come over here.”

Juan went. Una went too, clinging on to him. “It’s important.”

“Let’s hear what he has to say, Kadar,” said Johannes. “He knows about the Denaari.”

Kadar did not like Johannes’s interference one bit. For a minute it was touch and go as to whether he shot his fellow Leaguesman or not. Then he shrugged. “Be quick.”

“Well, Central, or what you are calling the computer system, is not a machine. It is alive. It thinks and decides for itself. You can’t make it do anything.”

“You made it do something. You spoke to it in its language and it obeyed you. That’s why we’re taking you along.”

“But it speaks English now,” burst out Una. “You mustn’t take Juan! You can talk to it.”

Johannes stared at her. “How come,” he said slowly, “you heard what was said?”

“Leave her alone. I’ll go with you. Just leave her alone.” Juan defended the wide-eyed girl.

“Oh no. She’s coming too. Even if we didn’t need a rider, I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” said Kadar, his gimlet eyes boring hard into her. “The Emperor’s spies are behind this, I swear.”

His mention of the Emperor darted Johannes’s eyes to Martin Brettan. Brettan was equally surprised, but was quicker on the uptake. He nodded, cocked his head briefly at the other Leaguesman. The moment’s distraction had also been sufficient to allow the bodyguard to begin to draw his weapon quietly. Mark had slipped himself into a shielding position in front of Caro. Another second…

Then Lila botched it. She attempted to get her weapon out fast. She was a good shot from youthful experience, but not practiced at a quick draw. The front-sight hooked on her waistband. She ripped it clear, but it cost valuable fractions of a second. Kadar’s eye was caught. The heavy-caliber bullet knocked her backwards. The .22 fell to the ground. His second shot was aimed at Mark Albeer. The bodyguard was already diving, pushing Caro down beneath him. By pure fluke the shot hit the trigger-guard of the bodyguard’s pistol, breaking his finger, and plucking the weapon away.

“You shot her! You shot Lila!” Johannes’s voice was high with shock. He pointed a wavering gun at his compatriot. She had served him for five years. Somehow… he’d come to feel that she was a piece of his permanency. She might have treated him with disdain since the hi-jacking, but he didn’t want her dead.

“I had to, you fool. She was going to shoot me.” The man stood like a marksman, his eyes flaming, and pistol still at the ready. He thumbed it to rapid fire.

“You hated her! You promised you wouldn’t kill anyone… I’m going to
kill
you!”

Kadar swung to face to him, bringing his weapon to bear. “You couldn’t,” he said scornfully. “You Wienan’s are bred out. I’m going to take over.”

Johannes laughed. It was high pitched and hysterical, but it was still a credible effort. “Half Imperial, half Wienan. And as that, I
order
you to drop that weapon.”

It nearly worked. It also distracted the man long enough for Sam to finish wriggling across to his fallen faithful .22. He dropped Kadar with his trademark head shot. It was still not quite quick enough to save Johannes.

The pyramidal structures which the Denaari had used for their bio-zoos, and botanical storehouses were complex colonial organisms. Like icebergs only the tip of the organism was visible. The area above the surface was essentially merely the shop-display window. Below lay the endless cryo-chambers, where the vast treasure-hoard of genetic material was stored. Even the frill-snake hydra had only successfully invaded a tiny proportion of the whole bio-zoo, and never penetrated the storage area. This was a smaller unit, but it still had the necessary cryo-units. A surprising volume of carbon-based animal life had turned up with the botanical material over the years.

Central did not entirely understand the drama being enacted above. But it did respond to Juan’s muttered appeal for help. The memories from the mnemonic crown, as well as the alien’s behavior in returning it, suggested its conduct would have been approved of by the Masters. That was clearer than the reams of data about water-based theocracy coming from Bio-zoo 23 anyway.

“Stop the bleeding.”

“I can’t. It’s pumping out between my fingers.”

“My God, she’s going to die!”

“So is Johannes Wienan. I don’t think there is anything we can do for him.”

The first cryo-unit arrived on hissing jets of self-generated steam, closely followed by a second, and a third unit.

“What the hell?”

“Keep it away from her!”

Central’s Juan-voice responded. “Stand clear. The cryo-unit will preserve the organism. Several hundred valuable specimens have been successfully repaired and revived.”

“Juan. Do we trust it?” demanded Tanzo, still pressing the pad made from the ripped remains of Caro’s skirt against the wound.

He nodded, feeling too sick to speak.

“She’s dying. We don’t have any alternative,” Mark Albeer was white-faced with pain. None of Caro’s ministrations were going to save that finger.

Tanzo bit her lip and stepped aside. The unit dropped over Lila, who was mercifully unconscious. Johannes wasn’t. He managed a brief bubbling scream as the second unit enclosed him. Both units began to rise on their jets again. The third unit picked up the dead Kadar.

“Where are they taking them?”

Central spoke again. “The main cryo-units are below. The mobiles are merely snap-freezers and transporters.”

“You… froze them?”

“No. The organisms are still receiving buffering solutions. They will be at -170 o Celsius before they reach the storage units. Should it be impossible to revive them the material will be stored for future gene-splicing. We have considerable reservoirs of genetic material from carbon-based species. Unfortunately the same system is not practicable with silica-based organisms. Material from those can be maintained for cloning and regrowth only for a matter of weeks.” It had meant that while the gene-banks held specimens of long-extinct animals from hundreds of worlds, specimens of humans, and even of the Sil, which Central could regrow at will, the Denaari, the beloved masters, were forever lost.

Central continued after the briefest pause. “Had they been wearing mnemonic crowns, we could recreate them. I have dispatched a mobile unit with crown-beasts which have been adapted for your species.” Central had utilized part of Juan’s memories of lies he’d told himself, and been told, to justify making this false statement. If lying was a human norm, then Central too could lie to these aliens. Had they, as Denaari would have, worn the mnemonic since hatching then the statement would have been the truth. As it was, Central was merely hoping to gather more data. It was heading towards momentous decisions, and it wanted more information about these aliens.