Stardogs (9 page)

And there were disquieting signs that, despite the League’s efforts, some form of organization or at least communication must exist between the riders. Yet a spy, one who was capable of emotional bonding with a Stardog, had yet to be found.

Artificially breeding riders seemed to be the answer. But, as the Stardog cloning-project had revealed, the supply of competent bio-techs was limited. Between the Empire and the League, the sciences at Universities had been quietly strangled, especially in the fields that could pose a threat to either. The League had the best they could recruit for the avenues they wanted pursued, but still it seemed that research was not very successful as a unidirectional thing. There was a need for supporting disciplines.

Back in his apartment Johannes Wienan stirred uneasily in his sleep. The girl had slipped quietly back into the bed. In less than a week he would be riding the shuttle up to the space-station. Then on, across the open spaces between the stars. He would be carrying the deadly silicon life form nerve-toxin, attached to a heart-monitor. A dead-man switch that had never been needed in the last five hundred years.

Lila still did not know if he was going to take her with him. She hated him, but at least he wasn’t depraved like some of the other Wienans. She was a debt-slave, her contract sold to pay off her father’s debts. The contract still had seven years to run. Then she would be free, and with the money earned by her second job, independent. But seven years could be a long time to survive in this place.

“
In the well-ordered garden it is always the weeds that grow fastest. So too in an ordered society, it is the weeds that grow with astonishing rapidity. You can either spend all your energies pulling up weeds, or you can learn to use them.
”

The Upanishad of the Gardener-Dewa Celine.

Sam Teovan was five years old when the newborn Princess Shari was wrapped in the softest of coverlets with its border delicately embroidered in gold thread and carried to her jeweled cot for the first time. He had been wrapped in old newspapers and destined to be thrust into a bin behind a dingy night-club when he’d been born. It hadn’t quite happened, and he’d received the food and warmth he craved from the mother who’d been nearly desperate enough to kill him. But he did have something in common with the Princess. At four and a half she’d abruptly lost her mother, and so had he. But while she had been taken from her palatial apartments and a small army of servants and handed over to a peasant-nursemaid with a solitary, crippled, too-old security man to obey the forms of giving her a bodyguard, he had had to flee to the dumps. She’d at least gone on living in the palace, if under far less opulent conditions. You could get killed for being an out-of-favor Princess in the palace, but children in the dumps seldom lived past a few weeks. For Sam it had been a stark choice of the dumps or being sold to the paedophile market. The preternaturally sharp child had known that the dumps, grim though they were, were the better option. Sam always knew the best option.

The Imperial city boasted of having the largest of many things, buildings, baths, subways. It also had the largest dump in human space. Nobody boasted about this, not even the scarecrow people who lived their entire, usually short, lives in the fifty hectare gradually infilling valley. It is said that you could find anything in the dumps, from lost jewels to tetanus or poisoned food. Somehow Sam always knew how to avoid the latter.

The Princess had gone from being an item to be pampered without fondness to gradually becoming the utter darling of two people who loved her unstintingly and eventually gave their lives willingly for her. Sam Teovan had gone from a loving but hopelessly drug-enslaved foolish mother, whom he had tried to save with all his too-old-for-four but too-young-to-understand ability, to the dumps. Here he had never again allowed himself to get close to anyone, not even the others of dump-urchin gang he’d run with, and eventually come to lead. Most of those who came here that young just died, but not Sam. He made the right choices, joined the right gang. To the gang he became a near-sacred oracle. When the Muti-men prowled at night, looking for body-parts for their foul trade, his lot were always elsewhere. Gang-fight traps somehow failed on Teovan’s bunch. He was also infallible about poison.

Then, late in the afternoon, just before the police death squads had moved in, he had told them to come with him into the city. They’d balked. The dumps were home, their life, their turf. He walked away from them, away from leadership and the power that had cost him the razor-slash across the cheek to win. He didn’t want to go either. But somehow he knew that to stay was to die.

Sam had gone from being a dump-picker to being a mugger and a second-story man, sleeping and living in the dank alleys of the poor, half-warehouse part of town. The scrawny wire-tough boy grew to be a scrawny wire-tough man working independently in the back streets of an area where you didn’t even pick a pocket without permission and a cut to the organization. The Yak.

Humanity’s diaspora into space had brought about a terrible fusion of some of the various aspects of organised crime. These hybrids, particularly the Corsican-Japanese-Russian blend, had grown explosively. The last hundred years or so, as the Empire became more stable, and gradually more corrupt, had been particularly good to them.

Of course various families contested for turf. Only Teovan could have found the one fence that was secretly working for another family in Caranzia-Heiki territory. The man was thus prepared to buy Sam’s wares, which no loyal Caranzia-Heiki would have. Somehow, Sam’s instincts had drawn him to visit the fence on the day that the Sakhalin-Carrisi family planned to move on their rivals. The moment he walked into the pawn-broker’s shop he knew something was wrong. It had taken him seconds to spot the two hidden men with automatic rifles. Behind him Salvatore Caranzio-Heiki walked in. He had only one bodyguard with him. This was the heart of his own turf, and he was secure in it. Sam took one brief look at the beefy head of the Caranzio-Heiki Family and knew what was coming. His instincts told him where the choice between life and death lay.

A wealthy businessman had, some ten years ago, disposed of his partner and his unfaithful wife one dark night. He’d used an antique .22 target pistol, and a cunningly made silencer. Afterwards he’d put the weapon, and several boxes of ammunition, into a plastic bag, driven thirty miles and tossed the bag into a passing dumpster. Sam Teovan had unearthed it. After that his gang had always been able to feast on roast rat when nothing else offered. Sam didn’t miss. Stationary targets, like the two waiting men, were just about too easy.

Afterwards, the meaty Caranzia-Heiki had slipped his own weapon back into his shoulder holster. His bodyguard had absorbed the whippet blast that the fence had directed at him. He looked at the sprawled bodies of the ambush team, and at the scrawny, stunted man with the .22 still in his hand. “Roll up their left sleeves, boy,” he said to Sam, his gravel-crusher voice unperturbed.

Sam Teovan did, exposing intricate tattoos.

“Ah. Carrisi. The bastards will pay a deep price for this shit. Now, let’s see your arm, boy.”

Sam pulled up the ragged sleeve. A few scars showed, but no blue and red tattoo. Sal Caranzia-Heiki frowned. “You not with the Families, boy?”

Sam shook his head warily. “No, San.”

Salvatore took a look at the two hit-men, each with a neat hole exactly mid-forehead. He took a ring off his pinky finger. “You are now. You know where the Salomar Hotel is?”

Sam nodded. Drunks from the place were soft targets.

“You go to the desk. You give Gio this ring. You tell him Sal says to give you a room, food, an’ get you some decent clothes. And have a bath. You smell like you haven’t had one for months.” Actually, Sam couldn’t remember ever having had one.

Sam looked briefly at the heavy ornate gold ring the man pressed into his hand. Briefly he thought of what it would fetch, and then knew with absolute certainty that selling this particular item would be terminal.

Sam Teovan’s upward progress within the family was meteoritic. He was a major factor in the rise of the Caranzia-Heiki family to supremacy on Phillipia, and to enormous power elsewhere. He was also a major factor in the demise of the Sakhalin-Carrisi family. Sam’s operations never went wrong. Salvatore always said he was fanatically loyal to the Caranzia-Heiki because they had taken him in, given him the family he needed. But it must be remembered that Sam Teovan knew instinctively which were bad options. Perhaps the alternative to loyalty to Sal was worse.

He sat in on the big meeting and was part of the plan. At least he didn’t say anything against it. But when he left his mouth was dry and his head full of a distant thunder. He was one of the privileged few who rode in Sal’s own groundcar. When they were clear of the carefully chosen neutral site Sal relaxed. “Well, Sam? What you think, huh?”

Sam shook his head. “If we can do it San, it’s good. The fuckin’ League have had their foot on our necks for too long. But I don’t like that
Caporegime
from the Dakada-clan.”

His master’s eyes narrowed. He knew of Sam’s instincts and used them. “We need the bastards. This thing’s too big for one family. The Dakada’s smuggling connections are important in this thing too,
paisan
. But afterwards…. “ he drew a thick finger across his throat. He put a big hand on Sam’s slight, wiry shoulder. “Sam. This one I want you to take.” And Sam once again had that feeling which had driven him to save this man’s life. His own life, he knew, stood at a cross-road. And none of the choices felt good.

The next meeting was held in one of the clubs in the red-light district. The Green Door was not a Heiki place, but the family who owned it were old and trusted allies. Salvatore was at ease here. Sam was not. Prostitution was the norm in his world. Even so, this place gave him the creeps. It dealt explicitly in boys, drugs and pain. In the Imperial city, there was a niche market for almost any form of vice, and the Yak serviced all those niches.

Sam moved around the back room like a stepping razor, eyes never truly still, hand close to the infamous .22. He watched that almond-eyed Dakada bastard in particular. That willowy individual was smoothly at ease however. He was the one who got the game of cards started while they waited. Sam didn’t play, but although he couldn’t swear to it, he thought the man cheated… with the intent to lose? Sam couldn’t figure it out. Eventually the one they waited for came.

He was a footman. A man in Imperial service, even if he had carefully shed his livery. That morning he had been waiting on Princess Shari. His unpleasant tastes led him to frequent places like the Green Door. Indeed, these depraved tastes had left him putty in the hands of the Yak, who had pandered to him… and then enmeshed him.

The cauliflower-eared waiter pushed him through the hidden doorway of the sound-screened back room. “He got caught up in watching the floorshow, boss.” A thin scream came down the passage. “He’d still be there if I hadn’t hurried him along.” The disdain in the waiter’s voice was unmistakable.