The Szuiltan Alliance (The Szuiltan Trilogy) (7 page)

He was certain this was the man he had come to meet and, although he felt he should say something in greeting, his mouth was dry, his throat constricted. He was in awe and fear of this man, this legend before him.

The man rose from behind the desk, tall and powerfully built, broad shoulders lifting long black hair into gentle curves, a gentleness at odds with the sharp, angular face and long blade of a nose. A deep scar ran from the cleft of his chin, past the corner of his mouth to his left eye, pulling the lid half shut, giving that side of his face a dull, sleepy look. His age was difficult to determine, but he was at the very least in his middle years. He smiled, the smile of a shark, a predator, teeth bared in a greeting that was equally a warning.

"Mr Mayor, glad to meet you at last." His voice was deep and booming in the empty hotel. "My name is Suzex."

Chapter 12

Corridor Twelve had colour.

It was the first thing that struck Jack when he stepped from the travel tube. It might be little more than a few coloured wall panels and the occasional aesthetically pleasing minor work of art but, after the sparseness of Corridor One and the tube, it was a luxury for the eyes.

The day-to-day bustle of the T.I.C. could be seen here, people hurrying from one place to another, armed security guards outside important rooms, small clusters of anonymous but powerful people discussing the outcome of recent meetings. On Corridor Twelve there were no offices, only conference rooms. It was one of several such corridors in the complex, but Corridor Twelve was where the Council met.

Calming his nervousness, deliberately playing down his expectations, Jack submitted to a brief security scan outside 5A and then walked through the now open door.

The walls, floor and ceiling were bare, clinical, clean, the distinction between them hardly apparent, producing a dizzying sense of floating rather than standing on a solid floor. No cameras, no listening devices, no security surveillance equipment dotted the walls. This was truly a
clean
room.

Dominating the floor space was a large, circular table, recently polished, furnished with carafes of water, glasses and a small, digital minute taker, currently, Jack noted, switched off.

The full Trading Council, ten men and women of varying ages, sat around one side of the table, facing Jack.

He recognised Councillor Braben, the leader of the Council and a man who had risen through the administrative channels to his current position; Councillor Chivers, one of the pioneering women traders who had successfully crushed the traditional sexist barriers that had existed in the profession at the time; Councillor Jareth, another ex-trader, and Councillor Smitheson, the only outsider to sit on the Council. The mythology was that Smitheson had first travelled to Sellit as a diplomat from one of the old colony worlds to attempt to persuade Sellit to allow his home world to enter into trade with others directly. The outcome had been his switching allegiance to the traders. Like most converts, he was among the most zealous when it came to protecting Sellit's trading rights. Jack didn't know the others by name, but it was clear they were as much a part of the Council as their more notable companions.

With the full Council facing him, he knew for certain that this was no trivial recall to duty. This was important. He was quietly satisfied. He had not been given a tough assignment for almost a year, having been temporarily 'rested' after a particularly violent assassination attempt had been made by a terrorist group on a visiting VIP Jack and nine other T.I.C. agents had been protecting. Seven had been killed, as had all the attackers. Jack had been badly injured, spending six months confined to a hospital bed. On his release, he had been on an official vacation of indeterminate length. It seemed that vacation was now over.

"Mr Holt. Feeling fit?" Councillor Braben, a broad stocky man in his late forties, was the first to speak. He smiled and indicated a seat by the table.

Jack sat in the offered seat.

"Yes sir. Fit and ready."

"Good." Councillor Braben thrust a bio-chip across to him. "On there are some details of a world called Szuilta. You've heard of it?"

"Vaguely. Unsociable lot aren't they? Don't like humanoids or something?"

"Correct. Up until about four years ago we'd never even heard of them. I'm sure you remember the fuss in the press? A new alien race discovered? Anyway, contact has been a bit hit and miss ever since. No one that we know of has ever seen a Szuiltan. The few dealings we've had with their planet have been done through their computer globes and some ape-like creatures called Bosens, some sort of slaves we think."

"And now there's a problem?" asked Jack. "I presume something's happened otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"We've heard rumours, just rumours mind you, that they are interested in the Aks-Earth war," said Councillor Chivers, her voice slurring slightly with the heavy scar that pulled the right hand corner of her mouth down. "They seem to have a special hatred of Earth and, well, the rumours have it that they're plotting to help Aks in some way. Our agent on Aks was unable to get more details, although she did mention the name Suzex."

"Suzex?” Jack repressed a shudder. Every agent in the T.I.C. had heard of Suzex.

"As you know, he was one of our best agents before he went bad. All some time ago now, in the days of Miar Shrilor, the Lescight." The speaker was one of the Councillors that Jack had not recognised, a tall and rather elegant man in his middle years.

"Apparently Suzex is back in business of some kind," cut in Councillor Braben. "And, unfortunately for us, Miar Shrilor has disappeared into the centre of the galaxy. If past experience is anything to go by, Shrilor's the only one who can stop Suzex, the only one Suzex was ever afraid of."

"Am I to find Shrilor?"

"We have people on that. We have another task for you. We want to know exactly what's going on out there and to do that we want you to go to Szuilta. We've held over one of their few trading orders and you are going to take it. However, you are no longer a registered trader. As far as the official Sellit files are concerned you are no more than a Clerical Officer and those files are not exactly secure."

Jack calmed the churning in his stomach, a flutter of nerves and excitement. To investigate the homeworld of the only truly alien intelligence mankind had ever encountered? He could not have hoped for a better assignment.

“You have agents who are still active traders. Can I ask why I was chosen?”

"You have been off our active lists for the past year,” answered Braben, “so, if by any chance the Szuiltans have access to
our
files, you are not on the rotor of current agents. But we still need to find a trader, someone you could persuade to let you go along for the ride. Someone who would never suspect the real reason for the trip."

Jack nodded and smiled. He knew just the right person.

Chapter 13

The bottle looked good.
Very
Good. Focusing on it was becoming difficult but it still looked good. Steve Drake lifted the bottle to his lips and gulped another mouthful of MBP. He had long ago forsaken the glass for the more direct route.

He sat at a corner table of
The Tradesman's Entrance
, the largest bar on Sellit. It was almost empty, too early in the evening for even the hardened drinkers that many Space Traders were to have found their way there. Two tables away a licensed prostitute was helping her latest trick to his drunken feet and to one of a dozen or so travel-tubes that would take them straight to a private room. Over the far side, almost lost in the gloom that passed for discrete lighting, two traders were engaged in a lively and probably pointless discussion that involved a large number of pointing fingers, shaking heads and an occasional hand slammed onto the table. Steve vaguely recognised them and they paused long enough to return his half-hearted wave. There were a handful of other patrons, mostly sitting by themselves, and three, maybe four, waitresses weaving through the tables, almost predatory as they watched for plates to be finished, glasses or bottles to be emptied. The barman cleaned glasses, arranged bottles, and generally busied himself with whatever it was bar-persons did when there was no one to serve.

Steve took another drink, coughing slightly as the back of his throat burned, a comforting, satisfying burn.

"Life's a bitch, eh Steve?"

He looked up and smiled as Jack Holt sat down opposite him, placing a new unopened bottle of MBP on the ring-stained table.

"And then you die. So true, so true."

He was sure he must be slurring his words by now, but they sounded fine to him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he suspected that meant he was extremely drunk, but if it did he was also too drunk to care.

"At a guess I would say that you met with Suzy?"

Jack poured himself a drink, preferring to use the glass that was no longer of interest to his friend.

"I came, I saw, I screwed up. Or rather I didn't come, I didn't see clearly enough and I still screwed up."

"I gather it wasn't the best of homecomings then."

"I told her the truth. I told her the
fucking truth
! Why did I do that? I never tell women the truth, it's been the rule of my life. Never tell a woman the truth. It just screws everything up."

"So, you told Suzy the truth..."

"...and it screwed everything up."

"Just what exactly was this truth?"

Steve sighed and took another mouthful. He could feel tears welling in his eyes and that angered him. He knew it was just the drink, but it still angered him.

"I told her I didn't love her. I mean, she's a nice girl and all that but I just don't
love
her." He shrugged, struggling to appear nonchalant. "She wasn't pleased. She was
not
pleased. Why is everything so fucking complicated? Maybe I should have stayed on Earth, married Sharon. You know, normal things that normal people do. I bet Martin doesn't have problems like this."

"Last I heard Martin was in the army. Would you really rather be doing that?"

Steve shook his head emphatically. He might hate the complications that women caused him but he hated the thought of military service more. Too much discipline. Too much pressure to conform.

"I just want to do my job and enjoy my life. What's wrong with that?"

Jack smiled, "Nothing. Nothing wrong with that." He paused and took another drink. "How is the work front by the way? I don't suppose you've had much chance to find any yet?"

Steve shook his head. "Saw Suzy, came straight here and got completely wrecked."

"Well, you might have a problem with jobs like I said before. Not much around at the moment. Very tight, and with you being out of it for a while... well, you know the corporates like to play it safe and use the same people again and again, and the independents aren't the greatest of payers, or the most reliable..."

"Cut the shit Jack. Even in my state I can see you're leading up to something."

Steve took another drink, belched, almost threw up, mumbled "fuck" and took another drink to force the last one down.

"What I'm leading up to is that I got wind of a job and I thought you might be interested."

"What kind of job, and why haven't the other traders got onto it?"

Steve lifted the bottle, found it was empty, and reached instead for the new one Jack had brought. He hesitated for a moment, wondered whether he really wanted to open another bottle, wondered why he had even considered such a stupid question and unscrewed the top. He was knocking back the first mouthfuls as Jack answered.

"It pays well, really well, but there's some risk involved. It's a cargo for Szuilta. Heard of it?"

Steve waved a dismissive hand in the air. "Vaguely. Unsociable buggers aren't they?"

"Apparently. Anyway, no one seems that eager to take it on and I managed to side-track it and put it on hold before any did take an interest so..."

Steve put down the bottle and looked cautiously at his friend. He may be drunk but he was not stupid. There was a catch in this somewhere. He wasn't afraid of the risky trade, and neither were most of the traders on Sellit, so what was going on? Why was Jack pushing this his way?

"I could get other jobs," he said finally, after a thoughtful pause. "Might take a while, but you know I could get other jobs, so why are you doing this? Don't say friendship or I might finally puke and I'm pointing in your direction. What's the catch?"

There was the slightest of hesitations before Jack answered.

"I want to go with you on this one."

It was a flat statement, no emotion in the voice, but it almost made Steve choke.

"But you haven't been out on a trade for... well, Larn knows how long. You're a desk pilot. No offence Jack, but are you sure you're up to it?"

"Christ Steve, I'm
bored
. I hate this job, this sitting around while you guys get to do all the glamorous stuff. God knows I've done it long enough. It's time for a change. Time to get back to what I
enjoy
doing. I've still got my licence. Please?"

Steve smiled, as much at his friend's exclamations as anything else. Jack's family had been among the few remaining Christian believers on Earth and, although he had converted to the Larnian faith many years ago, in times of stress his upbringing rose to the surface, particularly in his language. Jack obviously felt very strongly about this.

He tried to think clearly, pushing thoughts through the alcoholic haze that blurred his mind. It meant splitting the fee, but he was sure he could work a percentage favourable to himself, and Jack did say it paid well. It might be nice to have company on the trip for a change, and he'd known Jack since they were kids.

He gulped another drink and smiled.

"Tell me more about this trade."

Baxter was waiting for Jack as he turned the corner of the corridor to his apartment.