Stardogs (48 page)

Think of the death of a revolutionary as compost production. The death of one can give rise to many others.

Nicola Para-Machiavelli: Obliterating a Prince

Ideas are somewhat like globe-artichoke seeds. They are difficult to germinate, but the plants are nearly impossible to destroy.

The Upanishad of the Gardener-Dewa Celine

The ridergirl moved like an automaton. A deadly automaton. She had taken the weapon from Martin Brettan as if she had handled one for years. Indeed she had, back then, if not one quite like this. Her eyes were empty, terrifyingly empty.

The Viscount smiled. All teeth and no humor. “In a few minutes we’ll be heading off-planet. Myself and Una, or should I say, Celine. The rest of you have had the brief privilege of meeting the man who will control human destiny from now on. And now it is payback time. There are some little scores I have to settle.”

Of the five people watching him the most horrified was Juan. A few minutes ago he had been exploring a most intimate world of tenderness with the slim girl. He’d been experiencing things his fantasies had totally misled him about. Sharing them with someone, a gentle loving someone who had only not been terrified… because he was. Now suddenly she was transformed into this… deadly stranger. “What have you done to Una?!” he burst out.

Brettan smiled, cruelly catlike, enjoying the boy-man’s distress. “Celine. Una never was. She was just a persona created by our psychologists. Your girl was an Imperial sleeper, a way to penetrate the League’s ridercorps. She was a good imitation of a rider. She would have been one if we hadn’t got her first. Now that I have woken her, she has forgotten that and become the perfect slave. She’ll do exactly what I tell her to. If I told her to, she’d kill you, too. Eh Celine?”

“Yes Master,” she agreed unemotionally.

He looked at her, his eyes suddenly narrowing. “Which reminds me. How come you can hear me?”

“I am not to remember that part of my life,” she said unemotionally.

“I order you to remember it, but not be influenced by it. I want to know why you haven’t been deafened.”

The girl stood stock still for a moment. Juan saw a brief spasm of pain wrack her elfin features. “I was deafened, surgically. Stationers provided me with a bone-induction hearing-aid which restored my hearing.”

Brettan stared at her and then at Juan. Sam knew that if he dived then he could be out of the room before they could shoot him. He was certain of this. He was equally certain without any resort to his precognitive skills that Tanzo couldn’t do it in time. He stayed.

“Stationers! Why?”

“I was told that it was vital to the rebellion that the Princess be protected. The stationers were aware that something was planned for this voyage. I was to gather information by eavesdropping on the Leaguesmen.”

You could have knocked Brettan over with a feather, just then. “Well, I’ll be damned! This alone would get me at least an earldom from Turabi! Shari plotting right under my damn nose. I’ve a good mind to take her along and make her suffer for that!”

“Don’t you dare touch her,” Caro Leyven said, protectively.

“Don’t tell me you were involved too? Countess Screw-me Hair-wit! God!”

“I didn’t know what she was doing. But I know that she is brave and… And good. I would have helped her if I could. And I won’t let you hurt her. You’ll have to shoot me first.”

“That is going to be arranged, believe me.”

Mark Albeer balled his fists.

The Viscount laughed at him. “Huh. You’d be fool to try it. Believe me, you wouldn’t last five minutes.”

The bodyguard was not a fast thinker, but he saw the window of opportunity. “I’m not afraid of you! You’re a coward who needs to hide behind a gun. Otherwise I’d whip your ass.”

For a moment, a long moment, Brettan nearly shot him. Then he looked at his watch. “I’ve still got more than an hour and this isn’t going to take ten seconds. Celine, disarm them. Then I’m going to teach this stupid peasant trash some manners.”

“Don’t you want me to tie one hand behind my back?” The scorn was palpable. Brettan was unaware that he was being professionally baited.

“Bah! What sort of martial arts skills have you got, cock-of-the-whoop?”

“None. But I don’t need them for a wind-bag like you.”

As this was being said, Una-Celine was relieving them of weapons. Quietly, professionally and without a word. She did start when her hand found Rat. He recognized a familiar smelling food-provider and gave her a friendly nuzzle. For an instant an expression of bewilderment and despair flighted across her features. Then they froze again, and her eyes became empty once again.

“Take the machine-pistol, Celine. Shoot anyone who attempts to run or interfere. I’m going to kill this peasant-born scum with my hands. Maybe he’ll learn his place before he dies.”

Mark Albeer shrugged off his jacket. The broken finger was going to be a problem. “At least my mother knew who fathered me.” He stepped forward, raising his hands.

Viscount Brettan was a third dan black belt in the reformed Funakoshi School. He was prepared to slaughter this innocent. He was not prepared for an open-handed slap from the bodyguard’s still bandaged right hand that left him staggering, tasting blood, with a head full of smoke.

The sweeper kick he aimed was dodged with ease. Mark Albeer was no martial arts expert, trained in an expensive and exclusive dojo. He was, however, the federation amateur middle-weight champion of Carab. The club where he’d learned to box had been anything but exclusive, and somebody losing it and putting in a kick at your balls was par for the course.

Within a minute the Viscount had realized that if anyone was going to be killed in this fight it would be him. The only thing that was keeping him alive was that the bodyguard was using his injured right hand only in defense. And there wasn’t much need of that. Albeer stayed close, hitting him trip-hammer style, with that solid left smashing into the bigger man’s ribs.

Brettan tried to back off, but Albeer followed closing with him. The Viscount tried to hit the injured hand. Succeeded. Pain slowed the bodyguard. Brettan managed to follow it up with a kick to the man’s stomach. Albeer staggered, but he did not fall. The bodyguard knew he had to finish it now. He feinted with his left, and, as the Viscount ducked and blocked, he gave the scion of the nobility’s chin his Sunday punch with the injured right. It was agony. But Brettan went down. He sprawled on the floor, eyes half glazed. The bodyguard came in, big hands reaching for the Viscount. Brettan scrabbled backwards. “Celine,” he screamed: “Shoot him!”

She did. The Tarbin machine pistol is known for its lightness, its tremendous rate of fire, and its inaccuracy. Even on single shot. It had not been a weapon they’d trained the sleeper with. Which is why she shot him in the shoulder and not the chest. It was enough for Brettan to escape and take the weapon back from her. Caro had run forward to the injured man.

“Back off!” shouted the Viscount, backing off himself. He tripped over the low-bed creature that held the drugged Princess. Otto barked angrily at him.

He stood up, swaying. Furious. He pointed at the barking dog. It epitomized all that had gone wrong. “Celine. Kill it!”

She walked up, pointed the Viscount’s own automatic at Otto.

The small hairy animal looked at her. She was a friend. He gave a tentative friendly, what-is-the-matter whine.

“Shoot it, I said!”

Her hands shook. Otto walked forward, and turned his head slightly on one side. Her hands quivered so much it was unlikely that she could have hit a barn door from inside. “No.” It was barely a whisper.

“I’ll shoot the damned thing then!”

She dropped the automatic and flung herself on the dog, shielding him. With Otto wrapped in her arms she screamed, “No! No! NO!”

“Shit! Don’t you try and move towards that weapon, Yak. Back off, all of you. Back off I said!”

“She needs help.” Tanzo and Juan were coming forward. Sam hadn’t moved. He felt the weight of the moment to be pressing on him. ‘Stay still’ his instinct clamored. But she would be hurt… He could not hold himself back. He was going to die, but she wasn’t! She was NOT!!!

“I’ll shoot her…”

“You won’t. You can’t fly a Stardog without her,” Tanzo snapped.

“Then I’ll kill
you
.” He fired. But Sam was already in front of her, pulling her down beneath him…

There was a silence. She pushed herself up from the floor and picked him up with a strength she never knew she had. Held him against her breast, his lifeblood pumping out onto her.

“I chose…” Sam’s voice was barely audible.

Tanzo stared at Martin Brettan, and then at something else behind him. Then, with deep satisfaction, she said a ritual phrase in Ghurkali. It was something she had picked up on her abortive trip to Arunachal. Everyone who had served in the Imperial forces in that hell-spot knew what it meant. She knew Martin Brettan had spent a month there, before his family had used their influence to have him transferred elsewhere. He would know the phrase. It was right he should know what was coming.

Translated it meant ‘You are already numbered among the dead.’ It was the message given to those whom the holy assassins had been dispatched to kill.

Juan was almost unaware of all of this. All of his being was focused on the sobbing girl he held in his arms. She was fortunate in having found the one man on this planet who understood exactly what it meant to have two people sharing one body.

The nanomech surgeon had forcibly roused Deo for another far more cataclysmic purpose. But the ancient words triggered deeply conditioned responses. The Viscount was no match for the Dagger of the Goddess. Even the surgeon-beasts of Denaar, creatures skilled beyond any possible human attainment, could not have put the Viscount Brettan together again. But the assassin didn’t even pause for the ritual cleansing. He didn’t even retrieve the one knife. Instead he left at a dogtrot. The nanomech surgeon would have made him move even faster if it had had that bit more control.

Descent from the roost-tower was difficult but not impossible. The nanomech drove the host creature towards the mountain. If it could get to the base of the geosynch line, and get past the inevitable defenses, it could strike a blow against the enemy which would cripple them. The host, and therefore the surgeon, would of course be destroyed but that was a small price to pay.

Shari awoke from her sweet dream to chaos. The remains of a man cut into several pieces lay scattered about the roost. Caro had staunched the bleeding and was attempting to bandage Mark’s shattered shoulder. Juan was still attempting to comfort the hysterical Celine-Una, and Tanzo…. Tanzo was staring at the Denaari mnemonic helmet she held in her hands. Her own helmet lay discarded on the ground beside her. Of Deo and the little Yak there was no sign.

Tanzo stared at the Princess. “He chose… He chose to get killed for me. If only…”

“Sam?”

Tanzo couldn’t speak. She just nodded.