The Machiavelli Interface (7 page)

"This way!" the Lojt ordered. He led Khadaji down a corridor, to a maintenance lock. The soldier thumbed the hatch open and ducked to enter.

Inside, the lock ballooned into a small room filled with robotic dins attached to power grids. The room was dark, save for the glow of the charge diodes on the dins, amber lamps that cast golden light. The air was filled with the rich smell of machine lube.

The Lojt ran through the room. Khadaji followed, the neurological bacteria playing amphetaminic songs upon his nerves as he moved.
Go
, they sang,
go,
go, go
!

* * *

"I'll go," Geneva said.

Dirisha nodded. Any of them could do the job, but Geneva was still the best, as far as Dirisha was concerned. Despite what Khadaji had said about her own skill, Dirisha had yet to truly believe it. She could lead, and she was good, but Geneva was better on her feet.

Red looked as if he was going to say something, but he shook his head briefly and sat back in his seat. Fatherly concern, maybe, but he had trained her; he knew how good she was, too.

"Back in a minute," Geneva said. The door to the military hopper opened and she was gone, a gray shadow that quickly blended into the night.

Dirisha looked into the darkness. So far, nobody had challenged them, being in a military vehicle as they were, but whatever was going on out there, she didn't like it. All the plans they had made were a waste. What in Deep was going on—?

"Here she comes," Bork said.

Dirisha scanned the darkness. "Where—?"

"To the left," Mayli said. "With her arm around the shoulders of a trooper."

Dirisha saw Geneva approaching. She felt a tenseness leave her, accompanied by a small sigh. Sure, Geneva was the best, and Dirisha wouldn't have been worried if she had gone instead of the blonde, but there was no way around it, it had made Dirisha nervous. Mother hen effect? No, more like a rooster....

Sleel opened the rear bay, and Geneva hustled the trooper into the hopper.

The man was a good twenty kilos heavier than Geneva, but his face was pinched and he moved like a man in great pain. Dirisha touched Geneva lightly on the upper arm, and the younger woman smiled briefly. A small touch, but there was meaning attached to it.

"Wh-who are you?" the trooper managed.

"Not your business, Deuce," Dirisha said. "You only have to concentrate on one thing to make it out of here—what is going on at the prison?"

"Stuff it, cunt—ah!" The man tightened as Sleel dug his fingertips into the trap muscle alongside the man's neck.

"Sleel," Dirisha said. Sleel eased his grip.

"Look, Deuce, we can do this any way you want. I can uncork some chem and pop you. I can let Sleel here do his half of the good-cool-bad-cool routine. Or you can tell us what we want to know and take a little nap. Your choice."

The trooper was obviously no virgin. He looked around at the six gray-suited figures and their spetsdöds, thought about it for five seconds, and decided where his best interests were. "It's a break," he said. "Somebody got out."

"Who?" Even as she asked, Dirisha was certain she already knew the answer.

"The guy in the robe. The one who never misses."

"Are you sure?" Red asked.

"It's what my quad leader told me. The guy took out a dozen armed troopers
after
he'd been popped with down-chem. He ain't normal."

"Looks as if our partner stood us up for the dance," Sleel said. "Now what?"

Dirisha nodded at the trooper. There was a whump! as somebody—Mayli, maybe—shot him with a shock dart.

"Put him out and let's go find someplace quiet," Dirisha said.

"Got a problem there," Red said. "Company."

The matadors looked away from the drugged trooper, in time to see four quads heading in their direction.

"What say we—" Bork began.

"Lift," Dirisha finished.

Bork punched a control and the hopper bounded into the air. The com circuit lit with a direct call: "You in the T-l, land and park it! Stat!"

Bork swung the hopper into a tight turn. The com continued to blare commands. "Last warning! Land or we bring you down!"

"Not with Parker carbines you won't," Sleel said.

"One of the quads is probably a heavy," Bork said. "They'd be carrying ground-to-air."

"Enough to bring us down?" That from Geneva. "I thought this cart had belly armor."

"If they get lucky, they could hit a repellor. Wouldn't do us a lot of good."

Dirisha had a sudden vivid picture of the hopper slamming into the ground at a couple hundred kilometers per hour, splashing dirt and metal and blood like a rock dropped into a pond. Her own death didn't frighten her, and even the plan to break Khadaji out of the prison hadn't worried her—maybe it was because she had felt in control. But in the air, locked into the hopper, she was only a passenger; she couldn't protect her friends.

"Strap in," Bork ordered.

A moment later, the big man threw the hopper into a power dive. "Here it comes," he said.

There was a bright flash and an explosion that shook the aircar, rocking it hard. Other than the noise, there seemed no apparent effect.

"Took it on the armor," Bork said. "We'll be out of range in a few seconds. They won't spot us with Doppler or radar, but they might put up some pursuit on visual or infrared. Where to, Dirisha?"

Where to, indeed? Khadaji was gone, and the whole plan suddenly seemed very foolish. In truth, Dirisha hadn't thought past the point of saving Khadaji. Once they got him out, then
he
could take over. As Pen, he had always known all the answers; as Khadaji, he had been a legend. It was all his show, it had been all along. Now what were they going to do?

"Find us a hole, Bork. We've got some thinking to do."

Eight

MASSEY HAD BEEN CONTRITE, but the escape of Khadaji did not weigh upon Wall as heavily as it might have another time. It would have to be dealt with, of course, but there was another snake in his garden, one closer and nastier, and at first, Wall didn't even want to contemplate it. At first. A destroyed fantasy was the worst of all things, worse than some distant reality concerning a man he didn't even know. Far worse.

In his chamber. Wall brooded, while Massey stood at attention, no doubt fearing he was the cause of his master's grief and anger.

"My Lord Factor, I know there is no excuse—"

"Never mind, Massey." Wall waved one hand, as if to dismiss the entire affair of Khadaji and his escape. "We will attend to the matter in due course. I have another service I would have you perform."

Massey's relief was palpable. Wall needed none of his truth-displaying machineries to know that. Good. A grateful servant was a better one.

"Anything, my lord."

"Cteel, give Massey the files we have just been discussing."

To Massey, Wall said, "Read these, memorize them, and find out everything you can about the people named in them. Everything, do you understand? Speak of this to no one, it is for my ears only. I want it yesterday."

"Sir."

"Go. I wish to be alone."

After Massey left, Wall stood staring into the depths of a painting for a time before he spoke. "Cteel, cancel my appointments today. All of them."

"Excluding Nichole?" Cteel said.

"No,
in
cluding Nichole." He sighed. "Especially Nichole."

Wall returned his gaze to the painting. The Fremaux usually cheered him. It was something vaguely Oriental in design, brightly colored in primary reds and blues, full of happy people wandering in a happy land. Today, it gave him no solace. None at all. Fantasy could not be trusted. Not today. Maybe not for a long time. Ah, damn! It was a cruel life, none the less so for all his power.

Damn!

* * *

The Man Who Never Missed sat quietly in a zendo more than a dozen light-years away from where he'd been imprisoned on Renault. Koji was the only habitable world in the Heiwa System, sparsely populated, but the planet was a good place to hide: Koji was the galactic center for religious freedom. A pilgrim to the Holy World might be many things elsewhere, but on Koji, his or her privacy was respected. On a busy street, one might see Buddhists walking with Trimenagists, Siblings debating Jesuits, Tillbedjare arm-in-arm with Libhobers; all manner of Brothers, Sisters, Fathers, Mothers traveled to Koji to learn, to teach, to preach. Much was allowed between consenting adults, but if one did not wish to be bothered, one was not.

More than a few criminals had found their way to the Holy World; some hid, some listened to the various Ways and changed. There was an uneasy and unwritten treaty between the Confed and Koji. Confederation spies searched for particularly wanted fugitives, but no action was taken against such criminals without long and careful consideration. The galactic followers of the various religions on Koji numbered in the tens of billions; for the Confed to tread too heavily upon Koji's toes might spark a religious rebellion, a thing the Confed surely did not need.

Khadaji remembered only too vividly his experience on Maro, when the fanatical followers of one particular holy man had died by the hundreds of thousands to please their leader. They had marched smiling and unarmed into the guns of the Military, cut down like human grain.

No. The Confed didn't want a holy war.

Khadaji sat
zazen
, eyes closed, chin locked, hands folded. A zen master, should one happen to pass, would use the bamboo, for Khadaji was not meditating. He might have the external appearance, but his mind was not peaceful. His thoughts were of war.

Once again, he had managed to stay alive. The plan was still working. He had escaped from the military prison, adding to the legend he had set out to create so many years ago. He was a pivotal figure, just as he had intended.

The Man Who Never Missed. The man who took on the Confed, alone, and died only after crippling an entire planet's military machine. Only he
hadn't
died! He had allowed himself to be captured, and then he had escaped.

Anybody who opposed the Confed, whether in spirit or action, could take heart—a single dedicated man could do miracles: What could a hundred such men and women do? A thousand? Ten thousand?

Even with galactic damping of the news, word-of-mouth would spread the rumor. The basic truth would be inflated, as it had been all along. Khadaji had once talked to a trooper who had told him that the Shamba scum had taken out soldiers in class-three body armor with a spetsdöd, a thing Khadaji knew to be impossible. The man had believed it.

The rumors could not be stopped, Khadaji knew. More, with millions of standards behind a covert publicity push—Did you hear about Khadaji? The rebel? He escaped from a maximum security cell on Renault—vanished into thin air!—the myth would continue to grow, a snowball rolling down a high-gee mountain.

And the rebels all through the galaxy would hear the stories and nod. Look what he did—can we do any less?

Khadaji had taken his lesson from history. Remember the Alamo.

Remember Pearl Harbor. Remember Ho Chi Minh. Remember Jatra. Rallying cries echoing along the martial corridors of mankind. He was now one of them: Remember the Man Who Never Missed.

In his
zazen
, Khadaji sighed. He hadn't wanted to use their methods against them. Fire against fire. Deadly violence was wrong, it was what made the Confed so evil, their quick willingness to use the gun or bomb. But there was no other way, in the end. He had taken as his weapon the spetsdöd, so he wouldn't be lethal, but it was only a small concession.

Well. The time for regrets over methods was long past. He had chosen his path, had walked it, and now was nearing the end. The matadors were trained, the legend was in place, and there were only a few more things he had to do. It could all be undone; he could have spent his life only to fail in the end. There was no way he could know. He might die and never know.

Khadaji arose from the formal pose, stretched, and left the zendo. The tatami under his bare feet was polished smooth by the many thousands of other feet that had walked upon it. The incense burning in the brass brazier filled the air with fragrant sandalwood smoke. The silence within the temple was almost tangible. He turned and bowed as he left the zendo, a gesture of respect for the place and the philosophy behind it. Then he slipped on his dotic boots and walked into the cool fall afternoon. There was a time for contemplation and meditation, and a time for action.

It was time to move.

* * *

The six matadors grounded the aircar with the unconscious trooper in it and stood talking in the dwindling night. They had no reason to return to Earth. Dirisha had told them they could go their own ways, if they wished.

She was going back to the world of her birth. Rajeem Carlos was there, and Khadaji knew how to contact her there, as well. Dirisha was sure he would, eventually.

"Don't be stupid," Sleel said. "We're all going."

"When did you take up mind reading, Sleel?"

"He speaks for me," Red said.

Bork and Mayli looked at each other. "Us, too," Mayli said.

Geneva put one hand on Dirisha's shoulder. "Wither thou goest, love..."

Dirisha grinned. "Okay, fools. You had your chance."

* * *

The boxcar swung from orbit into the bottom of the gravity well that was Dirisha's homeworld. Sawa Mji: Flat Town, a pustulent boil on the backside of a do-nothing planet. The major ambition for anybody born here was to leave, as soon as possible. Flat Town was a spacer port, catering to the men and women who traveled the star lanes to and from better places. Pubs were big in Sawa Mji; whores had a guild larger than most other guilds; violence and death were a part of everyday life. Dirisha had hated the town when she lived in it; she saw no reason to like it now.

Except that Prebendary Rajeem Carlos was there, along with his wife and two children. Rajeem had opened Dirisha to love, after all the martial years without it. Beel, his wife, had added to that love. What Geneva had felt for her at Matador Villa, Dirisha could now return. Love wasn't exclusive.