“So what happened?” Al asked.
“He was trapped in here by the pressure doors, then someone opened the airlock.”
“I thought that was impossible.”
“This airlock’s been tricked out,” Patricia said. “I checked. The electronic safeties were blown to shit, and someone sliced
through the swing rods.”
“You mean it was a proper professional hit,” Al said.
Emmet was keying commands into Bernhard’s block. There were few coherent responses, small blue spirals of light drifted through
the holographic screen, fracturing any icons which did emerge from the management program. “I think somebody datavised a virus
into this. I’ll have to link it up to a desktop and run a diagnostic to be sure. But he wasn’t able to call for help.”
“Kiera,” Al said. “She did this. Nothing tripped the alarms. They knew he’d be using this corridor, and when. It takes organization
to set up a hit this smart. She’s the only one up here who could pull it off.”
Emmet scraped at the bloody wall with the tip of his stylus. By now, the blood had dried to a fragile black film. Tiny dark
flakes snowed away from the composite instrument. “Several days old, even taking vacuum boiling into account,” Emmet said.
“Bernhard never turned up for his assignment during the victory party, so I guess that’s when it was done.”
“Gives Kiera an alibi,” Patricia said, sullen with resentment.
“Hey!” Al spat. “There ain’t no goddamn federal courts up here. She doesn’t get no fancy lawyer to smartmouth her out of this
by screwing the jury’s mind. If I say she did it, then that’s it. Period. The bitch is guilty.”
“She won’t give herself up easily,” Patricia said. “The way she’s been stirring things over Trafalgar, the fleet is starting
to get jittery about the Navy retaliating. She’s got a lot of support, Al.”
“Shit!” Al glared at the body bag, cursing Bernhard. Why couldn’t the little asshole be stronger? Fight back against the bastards
who whacked him, at least take a couple of them back to the beyond with him. Save me all this grief.
He relented. Bernhard had been loyal right from the moment he swung by in his make-believe Oldsmobile and picked up Al back
in San Angeles. In fact that loyalty was probably what got him whacked. Chew away at the middle ranks, the really valuable
ones, and you erode the power base of the guy at the top.
That motherfucking
bitch
.
“This is interesting.” Emmet was bending down to examine part of the corridor floor at one end of the bloodstain. “These marks
here. Could be footprints.”
Suddenly interested, Al went over to take a look. The splotches of dried blood were roughly the right shape and size of someone’s
boot sole. There were eight of them, becoming progressively smaller as they led towards the airlock.
He laughed abruptly. Goddamn. I’m doing fucking detective work! Me, a cop.
“I get it,” he said. “If they made prints, then the blood was still wet, right? That means it happened around the time Bernhard
was killed.”
Emmet grinned. “You don’t need me.”
“Sure I do.” Al clapped him on the shoulder. “Emmet, my boy, you just made chief of police for this whole crummy rock. I want
to know who did this, Emmet. I really want to know.”
Emmet scratched the back of his head, looking round the grisly murder scene, thinking out what needed to be done. These days,
getting put on the spot by Al hardly affected his bladder at all. “A forensic team would be useful. I’ll check with Avram,
see if we’ve got any police lab people that I can use up here.”
“If there ain’t, get them sent up from the planet,” Al said.
“Right.” Emmet was looking at the pressure door. “The guys doing the hit must have been close; that’s the only way to stop
him from getting out. Breaking through a door like this would be no problem to a possessed, even Bernhard.” His stylus tapped
the glass port in the middle of the door. “See? There’s no blood on this, even though it’s sprayed across the rest of the
surface. They probably took a look at him, make sure he was dead.”
“If they stayed on the other side of the door, where did the footprints come from?”
“Dunno.” Emmet shrugged.
“This corridor got any of those police spy cameras fitted?”
“Yeah. I’ll review all their memories, but it’s pretty doubtful, Al. These guys are pros.”
“See what you can find for me, my boy. And in the meantime, pass the word, I want you guys taking a few precautions. Bernhard’s
only the start. She’s gunning for all of us. And I can’t afford to lose any more of you. Capeesh?”
“I hear you, Al.”
“That’s good. Patricia, I think maybe we should return the compliment.”
Patricia’s thoughts swelled with dark delight. “Sure thing, boss.”
“Hit the bitch hard, someone she relies on. What’s that rat-face SOB always following her round? Got the psychic shit with
the hellhawks?”
“Hudson Proctor.”
“That’s the guy. Bust his ass back to the beyond. But make sure he suffers some first, okay?”
______
There was a bunch of people waiting for Al when he got back to the Nixon suite. Leroy and Silvano, talking in low tones with
Jez; worry hovering round them like a persistent fog. One guy (possessed) that Al didn’t recognize, who was being covered
by a couple of his soldiers. The stranger had a head filled with the strongest thoughts Al had ever come across. His mind
burned on pure anger alone. It deepened a shade when Al came in.
“Je-zus, what is going down here? Silvano?”
“Don’t you remember me, Al?” the stranger asked. The tone was dangerously mocking. His clothes began to change, flowing into
the full dress uniform for a lieutenant commander in the Confederation Navy. His face changed as well, stirring Al’s memory.
Jezzibella gave Al a nervous flicker of a smile. “Kingsley Pryor’s back,” she said.
“Hey, Kingsley!” Al smiled broadly. “Man, is it good to see you. Shit, you’re a fucking hero around these parts. You did it,
man, you actually fucking did it. You wiped out the whole Confederation Navy single-handed. Can you believe this shit?”
Kingsley Pryor produced the kind of wide-eyed smile that troubled even Al. He wondered if the two soldiers were enough to
keep the Navy man down.
“You just go right ahead believing that shit,” Kingsley said. “That’s fine by me. In the meantime, I killed fifteen thousand
people for you. Now it’s time for you to keep your end of the bargain. I want my wife, my child, and I’ve decided I want a
starship, too. That’s a little bonus you’re going to award me for completing my mission.”
Al spread his arms wide, his thoughts the epitome of reasonableness. “Well, hell, Kingsley, the agreement was you blow up
Trafalgar from the inside.”
“GIVE ME CLARISSAAND WEBSTER.”
Al swayed back a pace. Kingsley was actually glowing: a light deep inside his body had flicked on, illuminating his face and
uniform. Except for the eyes, they sucked light down. Both soldiers nervously tightened their grip on the Thompson machine
guns they were holding.
“All right,” Al said, attempting to calm things down. “Jezus, Kingsley, we’re all on the same side here.” He conjured up a
Havana and held it out, smiling.
“Wrong.” Kingsley stuck a rigid finger in the air, preacher-style, and slowly levelled it at Al. “Don’t talk to me about taking
sides, you piece of shit. I have died because of you. I have slaughtered my comrades because of you. So don’t you ever
ever
think you can tell me anything about faith, or trust, or loyalty. Now you either give me my wife and my son, or we settle
this right here and now.”
“Hey, I ain’t holding nothing back. What you want, you got. Al Capone don’t break his word. You understand that? We had an
agreement. That’s like solid greenback currency around here these days. And I don’t never welsh. Never! You understand? All
I got here is my name, that is all I am worth. So you don’t go questioning that. I appreciate how fucked off you are. Okay,
you got that right after what’s happened. But you don’t ever say to no one I went back on my promise.”
“Give me my wife and son.”
Al couldn’t understand how Kingsley’s teeth didn’t shatter, the man was crunching his jaw so hard. “No problem. Silvano, take
Lieutenant-commander Pryor here to his wife and kid.”
Silvano nodded, and gestured Pryor to the door.
“And nobody laid a finger on them while you were gone,” Al said. “You remember that.”
Pryor turned at the door. “Don’t worry, Mr Capone, I won’t forget anything that’s happened here.”
Al sank down into the nearest chair when he’d gone. His arm curved round Jez for comfort, only to find she was trembling.
“Je-zus H Christ fucking wept,” Al wheezed.
“Al,” Jez said firmly. “You have got to get rid of him. He frightened the bejezus out of me. Maybe sending him to Trafalgar
wasn’t one of my better ideas.”
“Too fucking true. Leroy, for Christ’s sake tell me you found that kid of his.”
Leroy was running a finger round his collar. He looked scared. “We didn’t, Al. I don’t know where the little brat’s gone.
We looked everywhere. He just vanished.”
“Fuck-a-doodle. Kingsley’s going to blow when he finds out. It’ll be a bloodbath. Leroy, you’d better start calling in some
of the guys. And no fucking marshmallows, either. It’s going to take a lot of us to pound him.”
“And then he can come straight back into another body,” Jez said. “It just starts over again.”
“I’ll start another search for Webster,” Leroy said. “The kid’s got to be somewhere, for heaven’s sake.”
“Kiera,” Jezzibella said. “If you really did look everywhere for him before, then he’s got to be with Kiera.”
Al shook his head in amazed admiration. “Goddamn, I can’t believe I was dumb enough to let that woman into this rock. She
doesn’t miss a single trick.”
______
Etchells emerged from his wormhole terminus ten thousand kilometres out from Monterey. The asteroid was a small grey disk
traversing one of New California’s sunlit turquoise oceans. Drab, but enormously welcoming. He could almost hear his stomach
growling from hunger.
New California’s defence network locked on to his hull, and he identified himself to the control centre in Monterey. They
cleared him for a five-gee approach. His energy patterning cells couldn’t quite manage that.
Clear a pedestal for me,
he told the hellhawks on the docking ledge.
I need nutrient fluid.
We all do,
Pran Soo replied tartly.
There’s a rota, remember?
Don’t fuck with me, bitch. I’ve been away longer than I expected. I’m exhausted.
And I’m heartbroken.
Pran Soo’s attitude surprised him. Sure, the hellhawks grumbled and quarrelled; and none of them liked him. But this casual
superior taunting was something new. He’d have to get to the reason eventually. But that would have to wait. He was genuinely
concerned for his condition.
Where the hell have you been?
Hudson Proctor asked.
Hesperi-LN, if you must know.
Where?
There was a good deal of puzzlement in Hudson’s mind.
Never mind. Just get a pedestal ready for me. And tell Kiera I’m back. There’s a lot she needs to hear.
One of the feeding hellhawks was ordered to disengage from the pedestal it was using, freeing the metal mushroom for Etchells.
He swung in over the ledge with little grace as the affinity band filled with gibes and derision about his flight path. Service
crews stood well back as the big bitek starship wobbled uncertainly over the docking pedestal. It settled after a laboured
descent, and the feed tubules rose up to insert themselves into its reception orifices. He started to gulp down the nutrient
fluid as fast as it could be pumped in.
His on-board bitek processors datavised the section of the habitat Kiera had claimed as her own. She was in a lounge overlooking
the docking ledge, sitting on one of its long sofas. Her dress was bright scarlet with a tight bodice fastened by cloth buttons.
The skirt was loose enough for her to fold her legs up on the sofa, presenting a feline posture to the camera.
Etchells hesitated for a second, enjoying the small sexual thrill that came from so much young, beautifully shaped female
skin on show for his benefit. It was a rare thing for him to wish he hadn’t possessed a blackhawk. Kiera could do that. Not
many others.
“I was worried about you,” she said. “You are my principal hellhawk, after all. So what happened at the antimatter station?”
“Something odd. I think we’ve got real trouble. This goes way beyond everyone’s little power plays. We’re going to need help.”
______
Rocio accessed Almaden’s net to watch the repair operation. Deebank had kept his part of the bargain, co-opting all the non-possessed
technicians left in the asteroid to work on the nutrient fluid refinery. They had replaced the damaged heat exchanger out
on the ledge, resealed the chamber Etchells’s laser had breached, stripped down the machinery and rebuilt it using new components
manufactured in their own industrial stations. That just left the electronics.
As soon as the
Mindori
’s bulk had settled on one of the asteroid’s three docking pedestals, a team had unloaded the packages from its cargo bay.
Integrating the new processors and circuits into the refurbished refinery had taken over a day. Operating programs had to
be modified. Then start-up proved an arduous task. There were synthesis tests, integral analysis calibration runs, mechanical
inspections, performance examinations, fluid quality reviews. Eventually, the first batch was pumped along the pipes to
Mindori
’s pedestal. The hellhawk’s internal bitek taste filters took a sample, evaluating the protein structures suspended within
the fluid.
“Tastes good,” Rocio told the asteroid’s expectant population. Their cheers at his verdict reverberated out from the synthesis
refinery chamber, spreading like a high-frequency quake throughout the lonely rock.