The Night's Dawn Trilogy (102 page)

The first blow from Dariat’s wooden cudgel caught him on the side of his head, tearing his ear. He grunted and dropped to
his knees. The second blow smashed across the crown of his skull.

Stop it!

Dariat aimed another blow; laughing at the surprise on the man’s face. Nobody does that to my girl. Nobody does that to me!
A cascade of blows rained down on Mersin Columba’s unprotected head. Rubra’s furious demands were reduced to a wasp’s buzz
at the back of Dariat’s raging mind. He was vengeance. He was omnipotent, more than any realm Lord. He struck and struck,
and it felt good.

The water pushed at Mersin Columba’s inert body. Long ribbons of blood wept from the battered head, turned to tattered curlicues
by the current. Dariat stood over him. The bloody length of wood dropped from his fingers.

I didn’t realize what I’d created with you,
Rubra said. The silent voice lacked its usual conviction.

Dariat shivered suddenly. His heart was pumping hard.

Anastasia is mine. Well, she certainly doesn’t belong to poor old Mersin Columba any more, and that’s a fact.

The body had drifted five metres downstream. Dariat thought it looked repugnant, sickly white, bloated.

Now what?
he asked sullenly.

I’d better get some housechimps to tidy up. And you’d better make tracks.

Is that it?

I’m not going to punish you for killing a Starbridge. But we’re going to have to work on that temper of yours. It can be useful,
but only if it’s applied properly.

For the company.

Yes. And don’t you forget it. Don’t worry, you’ll improve with age.

Dariat turned and walked away from the river. He hiked up out of the valley and spent the afternoon wandering aimlessly around
the savannah.

His thoughts were glacial. He had killed a man, but there was no remorse, no sense of guilt. No sense of satisfaction,

either. He felt nothing, as if the whole incident was an act he’d seen on an AV recording.

When the light-tube began to dim into brassy twilight he turned and made his way towards the Starbridge village.

Where do you think you’re going?
Rubra asked.

She’s mine. I love her. I’m going to have her. Tonight, always.

No. Only I am for always.

You can’t stop me. I don’t care about the company. Keep it. I never wanted it. I want Anastasia.

Don’t be a fool.

Dariat detected something then, a strand of emotion wound up with the mental voice: anxiety. Rubra was worried.

What’s happened?

Nothing’s happened. Go home. It’s been a hellish day.

No.
He tried to use the sensitive cells to show him the village. Nothing, Rubra was blocking his affinity.

Go home.

Dariat started running.

Don’t, boy!

It was over a kilometre back to the valley. The pink and yellow grass came up to his waist in places, blades whipping his
legs. He reached the brow of the slope and looked down in dismay. The village was packing up, moving on. Half of the tepees
were already down, folded into bundles and put on the carts. Animals were being rounded up. All the fire pits were out. It
was a crazy time to be moving. Night was almost here. His sense of calamity redoubled.

Dariat sprinted down the steep slope, falling twice, grazing his knees and shins. He didn’t care. Faces turned to watch as
he dashed towards Anastasia’s tepee.

He was shouting her name as he shoved the entrance flap aside.

The rope had been tied to the apex of the tepee. She must have used a stack of her wicker baskets to stand on. They were scattered
all over the floor.

Her head was tilted to one side, the rope pressing into her left cheek, just behind the ear. She swayed slightly from side
to side, the tepee’s poles letting out quiet creaks.

Dariat stared at her for some immeasurable time. He didn’t understand why. Not any of it.

Come on, boy. Come on home.

No. You did this. You made me leave her. She was mine. This would never have happened if you’d stayed out of my life.
Tears were pouring down his cheeks.

I am your life.

You’re not. Not not not.
He closed out the voice. Refusing to hear the pleas and threats.

One of the wicker baskets had a piece of paper lying on top. It was weighted down by Anastasia’s goatskin bag. Dariat picked
it up, and read the message she’d written.

He loosened the thong at the top of the bag and spilled the six crystals onto the dusty rug. The five which were carved with
runes landed with the blank face uppermost. He slowly picked them up, and threw them again. They came up blank. The empty
realm, where lost spirits go.

Dariat fled the Starbridge village. He never went back. He stopped taking didactic courses, refused to acknowledge Rubra’s
affinity bond, argued a lot with his mother, and moved into a starscraper apartment of his own at fifteen.

There was nothing Rubra could do. His most promising protÉgÉ for decades was lost to him. The affinity window into Dariat’s
mind remained closed; it was the most secure block the habitat personality pattern had ever known, remaining in place even
while the boy slept. After a month of steady pressure Rubra gave up, even Dariat’s subconscious was sealed against subliminal
suggestions. The block was more than conscious determination, it was a profound psychological inhibition. Probably trauma
based.

Rubra cursed yet another failure descendant, and switched his priority to a new fledgeling. Monitoring of Dariat was assigned
to an autonomic sub-routine. Occasional checks by the personality’s principal consciousness revealed a total drop-out, a part-time
drunk, part-time hustler picking up beer money by knowing people and where to find them, getting involved with deals which
were dubious even for Valisk. Dariat never got a regular job, living off the starscraper food pap, accessing MF albums, sometimes
for days on end. He never approached a girl again.

It was a stand-off which lasted for thirty years. Rubra had even stopped his intermittent checks on the wrecked man. Then
the
Yaku
arrived at Valisk.

The
Yaku
’s emergence above Opuntia six days after it left Lalonde never raised a query. None of Graeme Nicholson’s fleks had yet reached
their destination when the cargo star-ship asked for and was granted docking permission. As far as both the habitat personality
and the Avon Embassy’s small Intelligence team (the only Confederation observers Rubra would allow inside) were concerned
it was just another cargo starship visiting a spaceport which handled nearly thirty thousand similar visits a year.

Yaku
had emerged a little further away from Valisk than was normal, and its flight vector required a more than average number
of corrections—the fusion drive was fluctuating in an erratic fashion. But then a lot of the Adamist starships using Valisk
operated on the borderline of CAB spaceworthiness requirements.

It docked at a resupply bay on the edge of the three-kilometre-wide disk which was the habitat’s non-rotational spaceport.
The captain requested a quantity of He3 and deuterium, as well as oxygen, water, and some food. Spaceport service companies
were contracted within ten minutes of its arrival.

Three people disembarked. Their passport fleks named them as Marie Skibbow, Alicia Cochrane, and Manza Ba-lyuzi; the last
two were members of
Yaku
’s crew. All three cleared Valisk’s token immigration and customs carrying small bags with a single change of clothing.

The
Yaku
undocked four hours later, its cryogenic tanks full, and flew down towards Opuntia. Whatever its jump coordinate was, the
gas giant was between it and Valisk when it activated its energy patterning nodes. No record of its intended destination existed.

Dariat was sitting up at the bar in the Tabitha Oasis when the girl caught his eye. Thirty years of little exercise, too much
cheap beer, and a diet of starscraper gland synthesized pastes had brought about a detrimental effect on his once slim physique.
He was fat verging on obese, his skin was flaky, his hair was dulled by a week’s accumulation of oil. Appearance wasn’t something
he paid a lot of attention to. A togalike robe covered a multitude of laxities.

That girl, though: teenaged, long limbed, large breasted, exquisite face, bronzed, strong. Wearing a tight white T-shirt and
short black skirt. He wasn’t alone in watching her. The Tabitha Oasis attracted a tough crew. Girl like that was a walking
gang-bang invitation. It had happened before. But she hadn’t got a care in the world, there was an
Élan
to her which was mesmerizing. All the more surprising, then, was her table companion.

Anders Bospoort: physically her counterpart; late twenties, slab muscles, the best swarthy face money could buy. But he didn’t
have her youthful exuberance, his mouth and eyes smiled (for that money they ought to) but there was no emotion powering the
expression. Anders Bospoort was in almost equal proportions gigolo, pimp, pusher, and blue-sense star.

Strange she couldn’t see that. But he could pile on the charm when necessary, and the expensive wine bottle sitting on the
table between them was nearly empty.

Dariat beckoned the barkeeper over. “What’s her name?”

“Marie. Arrived on a ship this afternoon.”

That explained a lot. Nobody had warned her. Now the wolves of the Tabitha Oasis were circling the camp-fire, enjoying her
elaborate seduction. Later they would be able to share the corruption of youth, sensevising Anders Bospoort’s boosted penis
sliding up between her legs. Have her surprise and pleading in their ears. Feel the ripe body molested by powerful skilled
hands.

Maybe Anders wasn’t so stupid, Dariat thought, bringing her here was a good advert. He could ask an easy ten per cent over
the odds for her flek.

The barkeeper shook his head sadly. He was three times Dariat’s age, and he’d spent his every year in Valisk. He’d seen it
all, so he claimed, every human foible. “Pity, nice girl like that. Someone should tell her.”

“Yeah. Anywhere else, and someone might.” Dariat looked at her again. Surely a girl with her beauty couldn’t be that naÏve
about men?

Anders Bospoort extended a gracious arm as they rose from the table. Marie smiled and accepted it. He thought she looked glad
at the opportunity to stay close. The gazes she drew from the men of the Tabitha Oasis weren’t exactly coy. His size and measured
presence was a reassurance. She was safe with him.

They walked across the vestibule outside the bar, and Anders datavised the starscraper’s mechanical systems control processor
for a lift.

“Thank you for taking me there,” Marie said.

He saw the excitement in her eyes at the little taste of the illicit. “I don’t always go there. It can get a little rough.
Half of the regulars have Confederation warrants hanging over them. If the navy ever comes visiting Valisk the population
on penal planets would just about double overnight.”

The lift arrived. He gestured her through the open doors. Halfway there, and it was going so smoothly. He’d been a perfect
gentleman from the moment they met outside the Apartment Allocation Office (always the best place to pick up clean meat),
every word clicking flawlessly into place. And she’d been drawn closer and closer, hypnotized by the old Bospoort magic.

She glanced uncertainly at the floor as the doors closed, as if she’d only just realized how far from her home and family
she was. All alone with her only friend in the whole star system. No going back for her now.

He felt a tightening in his stomach as the anticipation heightened. This would all go on the flek; the prelude, the slow-burning
conquest. People appreciated the build in tension. And he was an artiste supreme.

The doors opened to the eighty-third floor.

“It’s a walk down two floors,” Anders told her apologetically. “The lifts don’t work below here. And the maintenance crews
won’t come down to fix them. Sorry.”

The vestibule hadn’t been cleaned for a long time and rubbish was accumulating in the corners. There was graffiti on the walls,
a smell of urine in the air. Marie looked round nervously, and stayed close to Anders’ side.

He guided her to the stairwell. The light was dim, a strip of electrophorescent cells on the wall whose output had faded to
an insipid yellow. Dozens of big pale moths whirred incessantly against it. Water leaked down the walls from cracks in the
polyp. A cream-coloured moss grew along the edge of every step.

“It’s very kind of you to let me stay with you,” Marie ventured.

“Just until you get your own apartment sorted out. There are hundreds of unused ones. It’s one of life’s greater mysteries
why it always takes so long for the Allocation Office to assign one.”

Nobody else was using the stairs. Anders very rarely got to meet any of his neighbours. The bottom of the starscraper was
perfect for him. No quick access, everyone stayed behind closed doors to conduct their chosen business in life, and no questions
were ever asked. The cops Magellanic Itg contracted to maintain a kind of order in the rest of Valisk didn’t come down here.