Authors: Steve Perry
"Not gonna happen, amigo."
Bork and the cool slid into a wresting hold, arms locked, and their hands on each other's shoulders. The cool strained to his left, Bork in the opposite direction. The cool's bald head flared red with the effort, and the men shook as though afflicted with some nerve disease. A long second passed,then Bork said,
"Sorry," and tossed the cool into a lazy sideways flip that sent him sailing into a card table three meters away. The table shattered under the man's weight and the players scattered, yelling.
"The other one is to the right," Geneva said.
"I got him," Sleel said. He snapped his arm out in a backfist and pointed his index finger at the second cool,who was dropping into a gunner's crouch, his hand wand clear of its holster and coming up. Sleel's spetsdod coughed once.
"Right between the eyes," Sleel said.
Bork had the door open and was halfway through.
The cool with the muscles rolled free of the destroyed table and, still on his back, went for his hand wand.
Geneva shot him.
Two seconds later, all four of them were out in the street.
"There he goes," Bork said. "He's got a flitter."
Dirisha looked. Sure enough, the one called Cteel was piling into a brand-new shiny machine half a block away. Their own hopper was fifty meters in the opposite direction. Dirisha didn't need to say anything. All of them ran for the hopper.
Bork got there first. Despite his size, he was faster for short stretches than any of them. He had the repellors lit and cycling up by the time Dirisha brought up the rear. They strapped into their seats as Bork lifted.
Cteel's flitter flashed by, climbing sharply, breaking speed and level laws.
The hopper was slower off the ground, but would be able to keep up with the other craft once it reached cruising speed. Automatic alarms blared over the com as the local traffic control simadams screamed at them.
"Come on," Sleel said. "He's getting away."
"He can run but he can't hide," Bork said. "I got his signature locked in. We can doppler him from now until doomsday."
"Unless he's got a confounder."
"Don't matter," Bork said. "I got him. I can follow the blank spot just as easy.Watch."
Bork touched a series of controls, and waved his hand over other light-sensitive switches. The hopper shook.
"What are you doing, Bork?"
"I just launched our copydrone. We'll pull back far enough so he can't make us on visual, like so…"
The hopper's speed decreased. Thirty seconds later the flitter ahead disappeared in the distance.
"Then I light the drone, like this…"
Bork waved his hands over his board. "He thinks he's lost us," he said. "The drone kicked in and took his radar lock with it, so his scopes'll show that we turned. And our confounder will keep him from picking us up again. As long as we stay back a few klicks so he can't eyeball us, he'll never know we're here."
Sleel shook his head. "That's not bad."
"Watch it, Sleel," Geneva said. "You're being nice again."
"Oh, fuck you," Sleel said.
"That's a clever one. Can I write it down?" Dirisha said.
Sleel smiled. "Better I should show you."
"You wish."
"Faint heart ne'er a fair lady won," Sleel said.
"Chang, Sleel, is thatpoetry ! Are you reading poetry these days?"
Sleel looked uncomfortable."Uh, no. I—uh, I heard it in an entcom vid."
"Sure you did."
Dirisha arid Geneva gave each other looks of mock amazement. "By all the gods, Sleel is a poet," Dirisha said. "Who'd have even thought it?"
"Fuck both of you."
"You wish," they said together.
Bork's laugh was the loudest, but barely more than Dirisha's and Geneva's. Sleel didn't even crack a smile. But they all knew he wanted to.
Chapter Twenty-Three
VEATE CAME out of a light sleep to the sound of her father calling her.
"What?"
"That was Dirisha on the com. They've found the man who kidnapped Juete. They're following him."
Veate sat up on the bed. "Do you think he'll lead them to my mother?"
"No way to be certain, but, yes, I think so."
Veate felt her pulse quicken. "Still think this fits in with what you told me?"
"Yes."
"What now?"
"We'll have to be sure about where Cteel is going, though I have an idea about where that might be. I've got to go see Jersey Reason for some rather esoteric supplies."
"May I come along?"
"Sure."
Wall sent an order to Cteel, still in flight. "Land at Uberlandia and spend the night," he said.
Cteel flashed puzzlement at him. "Why? I told you I lost them in Rio. My screens are clear, nobody is behind me, there's nothing else in the air but farm-wagons."
"I'm sure you are right, but humor me."
"Well, okay."
"And tomorrow, I want you to put down at Golania and spend the night.The day after that, Jetai, and the next day, Poxereu. After that, you can return to the zoo."
"You're the boss."
"Indeed."
Wall broke the connection. It was time to finish this. True, his tame genius was not yet ready, but Wall had assimilated all of the research, even that which Jambi had taken such pains to conceal, and he realized that the man was stalling. The doctor was afraid of failure where even the smallest chance of it existed, so he was duplicating and triplicating every facet of his work. Wall had the information and he knew it was so; he also knew that it was unnecessary. And by eliminating the scientific rigors and the cover-one's-ass mentality, the experiment could be completed in a mere three days. The miniature implant could be, no itwould be, finished in less than seventy-two hours.
Not by Jambi, of course. The man would not allow himself to be rushed that much. But certainly one of his able assistants could be persuaded.One with more greed than principle, or one with more survival characteristics.
Jambi would have to go. Wall had something in mind.
Between the combineag stations, small patches of thick, tropical woods remained or had been reforested, a testament to a somewhat late period of land use planning. There were rumors, according to infocom, that certain native peoples had thrown away most of civilization's implements and returned to some of these new forests, to live as had their long-ago ancestors. There were reports of nearly naked tribes who lived off the land, drove small internal combustion engine scooters run on petroleum analogs or alcohol, and who would kill any outsider who came looking for them. The matador's hopper had just passed over another of these mini-jungles, a mere thousand meters below.
"Hope they can't throw their spears this high," Sleel said.
"Surface-to-air doppler spikes," Bork said."According to some reports."
"That's back to nature, huh? Great."
"So our boy is landing. What'd we have here?" Dirisha asked.
"According to the net, a little farming town calledUberlandia . The main crop is a hardy offworld grain that grows well here,rizvete , a kind of cross between rice and wheat."
"Good place to hide, you think?" Geneva said.
"Good as any," Sleel said. "What's the plan?"
"We put down under cover, hike in, and see what's what. If Juete's there, we get her out."
"Just like that," Sleel said.
"Whatever it takes.Unless you have a more pressing appointment?"
"Not me. I came to dance."
"That's nice."
Since a stranger in such a small town would surely stand out, the matadors stayed hidden until after dark.
The old stealth skills might be a bit tarnished, but it was not as if the farmers here were particularly expert in spotting intruders, and the four matadors had no trouble sneaking in and through the village. Apparently nobody here liked dogs ormbwa, for none barked or howled at the four as they slipped through the night. Made it even easier.
"There's his flitter," Bork said.
"Looks like he's got a house.Not much of a place. We should be able to spot her if she's in there," Sleel said.
"I'll go," Dirisha said. "I blend into the dark better."
She worked her way through the warm night toward the house, a cheap blue-plastic prefab box, faded from its time in the tropical sunshine. Insects buzzed around her; they'd still need those for pollination of things in such a backrocket operation, she guessed.
Through an uncovered window, she spotted Cteel sitting on a beat-up couch, fondling a naked woman.
The woman had black hair and swarthy skin, was maybe twenty-five T.S., and she laughed too loud at whatever Cteel was saying. It didn't take a particularly bright observer to recognize a local whore.
Dirisha circled around the house and peered in through the windows, but there was no sign of anyone else. Since Cteel seemed occupied and since there were no signs of a security system, either, the matadora slipped the latch on a back bedroom window and entered the place. She moved quickly and quietly, checking each room. The laughter had stopped, but it was replaced now by the sounds of a woman pretending coital passion. Dirisha left before the counterfeit orgasm noises began.
"Nope," she said when she got back to the others. "Our boy is in there with a woman, they're playing dork-and-bush, but no sign of anybody else around. No stray white hairs in the fresher, no clothes. I don't think she's been there."
"So he stopped just to get laid?"That from Sleel.
"Funny, coming from you," Dirisha said.
"I guess we hide and wait to see what he does, right?" Bork said.
"You called it."
As they left Jersey Reason's house, Veate asked, "What did you get?"
"An old memory," Khadaji said."In this." He held up a tube the size of his little finger's tip. He explained.
"Will it work?"
"Reason says so. I hope I'm wrong and don't have to find out."
"Now what?"
"A few more pieces of the puzzle,then we need to go see Pen."
There was a small stone building not far from the main complex of the zoo; inside was a room upon which Cteel and his assistant had spent much time and effort. Aside from a chair in front of a comp terminal set into the wall farthest from the door, the room appeared empty. It had no windows or doors save the one.
Into this room came Elbu ra Jambi, a brilliant man who had made, however, one bad mistake.
"Have a seat, doctor," Wall said. He allowed a holoproj image to appear over the com.
"I know your voice, but the face is different," Jambi said as he moved to the chair.
"The real me," Wall said. "I resorted to a subterfuge before; I hope you'll forgive my little deception."
Jambi shrugged. "It is of no importance. I do find it somewhat interesting that you are an albino."
"In my first incarnation.Later, I looked like this."
The holoproj swirled once, like a stirred drink, and cleared to show the face and body Wall had last worn, when he had been Marcus Jefferson Wall, Factor, adviser and puppetmaster controlling the Confederation President.
Unlike some men in his profession, Jambi was not politically illiterate. He recognized the face.
"Really?I had heard that you died during the revolution."
"Alas, it is so."
"Then how—?"
"Surely you are not unaware of the theory of encoded information transferral from organics to viral matrices?"
"Stevenson's Practicum," Jambi said.
"Precisely.And the simpler side of the coin upon which you have lavished so much admirable work."
"Ah. So that's why you hired me. You want the process reversed forpersonal reasons."
"You speak that word as though it were blasphemy, doctor."
Jambi shrugged again. "Your reasons don't matter, I suppose, only the end result."
"True. And I have it on the best authority that you are dragging your feet on your experiment."
"I beg your pardon? Who has lied to you about this?"
"It's true enough. You could finish the implant within a few days; is this not true?"
"It is not. I could complete thedevice , but this is not the same as finishing theexperiment . There are protocols that must be adhered to, tests that need to be run. To proceed without them would be scientifically absurd. I'd never be able to publish; I'd be laughed off the planet."
"I'm afraid I'm in a hurry and must insist, though."
"I won't do it."
"Not under any circumstances?"
"That is correct. And you must be aware that I hold the trump card here, sir."
"You would think so. Still, it's a pity. Ah, well."
The image of Wall raised its hand and pointed its forefinger at Jambi.
"What are you doing?"
"Adieu, doctor."
Wall's finger seemed to explode.
The frangible ceramic pellet hit Jambi square on the left eye; on impact, the thumb-sized bullet shattered into thousands of corkscrew-shaped fragments that sliced and carved the man's brain into mush. He was hurled clear of the chair by a final muscular spasm. He wiggled on the floor for a few seconds,then died.
The holoproj vanished, and the tracking gun retracted into the wall, hidden by a permanent projection that looked like the rest of the stone.
There came a hydraulic whine, and the floor of the room split down the middle. Jambi's body and the chair slid toward the center of the room as the trapdoor mechanism widened. Beneath the building, some five meters below, a large vat of contact-activated acid received the mortal remains of Jambi and the chair upon which he had last sat. The acid hissed and roiled. In ten minutes there would be no identifiable part of Jambi or the chair remaining, only a slight organic thickening of the soup in the special denscris vat. The organics would eventually be boiled off and then vented through special pipes into the swamp some kilometers away, the pipes then being flushed and cleansed with a different kind of acid brought to a hard steam and sprayed through them several times.
Elbu ra Jambi's transition in the way of nearly all flesh was thus greatly accelerated. Somebody looking for him would really have to work at it to find any identifiable trace.