Brother Death (8 page)

The shotgun spoke again, and the carbine shattered into plastic and spun fibers and crystal.

"Wrong one!" Taz heard herself yelling.

The last trooper in the quad had more time to work with, and he used it. A short burst from his carbine stitched up from Jerlu's right hip to his sternum, ten or maybe a dozen rounds on full auto. Blew fist-sized holes through the cool's back, shoved liquefied bone and globs of muscle and internal organs through the holes as the explosive rounds went off inside him.

Taz screamed something, she would never know what, and pulled her pistol toward the trooper, still firing. She wasn't counting shots; the spring gun held eighteen rounds in the triple-stacked magazine and she was putting them into the air as fast as she could pull the trigger.

By the time she lined up on the trooper, he was almost lined up on her with his carbine. Her pistol fired a final time and ran dry just as she saw his startled face over the end of the barrel.

It was enough. The needle caught him somewhere unseen and he crumbled, his weapon firing, chipping craters in the wall behind her a meter over her head.

Jesu Christo!

She had fired all eighteen shots, pulled the trigger each time, in something under maybe three seconds.

Six shots a second. She'd never been that fast in practice before.

The troopers were all dead or dying. Jerlu was certainly dead.

Taz sagged against the wall. When she breathed in, it was a sigh, almost a sob.

"Hey, point?" came a voice from her earphone.

She took another breath, let it out raggedly. Forced herself to as much calmness as she could muster. She had never fired at a living person before, only lacs in practice. But she'd just killed three people and nearly been killed herself. She had to pee so bad she thought she was going to explode. She might just pull down her pants and squat right here. Piss on the walk. Nobody would care if she did, why not?

"Point?"

"Clear," she said. But gods, she had to pee . . .

Her full bladder woke her from the dream, and Taz rolled out of bed and the dream, headed for the fresher. She could see how old people might start wetting the bed. She had been going to urinate in her dream and there must be a fine line between knowing you were asleep and dreaming and thinking you were in some appropriate place to spring a leak.

Saval's being here must have triggered the memories of the revolution. She couldn't really consider herself a heroine or anything, but she had drawn blood, been part of it. She and her brother had never talked about it before, not in any depth. Maybe this was a good time, during his visit here, to see how he'd handled being shot at and shooting back. To see if sometimes he dreamed about the things he had done.

She went back to bed, took a while to fall asleep again. If she dreamed again, she did not remember it when the morning came.

Chapter NINE

SNAKE ROAD BEGAN at the cutback edge of South Leijona and meandered to the southwest in a lazy S-curve through an old-growth forest spared by the treecutters and now a national park. The road could easily have been named for its shape as viewed from the air; could have been, but was not. In the early years of the colony on Tembo, more serpents lived in this region than did everywhere else on the planet combined. In those times there thrived Bloat Adders, green, orange and blue Neons, Black Tigers, Birdheads, Queen-and-Jacks, Water Rollers, Hilt Ring Asps-and scores of other legless reptiles from a few centimeters long and thin as spaghetti to ten meters and thick as a big man's thigh. From harmless to dead-before-you-hit-the-ground toxicity if one bit you. Snake Road had been a herpetologist's orgasmic dream, a place where an active scientist could spend years simply identifying and cataloguing new species.

Many of those species were gone now, killed out of fear or for their unique hides or simply by passing vehicles and the press of civilization, but hikers were still advised to carry repellors when walking along Snake Road and warned to be careful even with the electronic protectors. A man squatting to defecate in a stand of flametrees had been bitten on the buttock last month by a doubtlessly surprised Grassmaster and had died before his companions could com for aid. And a tourist heading for the ruins only last week stepped on a kitani, a variant of the local Linen Snake, and lost his foot from the poison despite immediate first aid and aggressive medical treatment begun within five minutes of the strike.

Civilization might be able to fling humans across the galaxy in ships that bent the fabric of space and time, but it still paid to watch where you put your feet when walking in snake-infested bush.

Kifo smiled at the thought as he walked along the edge of the plastcrete road. The morning sun was halfway to its midday perch, but the humid air was still considerably cooler than the body temperature it would achieve in the afternoon unless one of the local rain showers stymied it. Pollen and mold and other plant detritus hung fecund in the air and the smells were tropical and damp. He was far enough away so the airwash of passing vehicles didn't bother him much, close enough to stay out of the chemically stunted brush that lined the pedestrian path. He carried a repellor, of course, the small device even now uttering silent but jangling and harsh electronic pulses that supposedly made the average reptile wish to hurry and seek its fortunes elsewhere. And his vouch rolled along behind him on its rugged and fat all-terrain silicone wheels. The vouch was Healy's top-of-the-line model and could, so Kifo had been told, climb a wall or a tree with special grapples to reach its master should the need arise.

The little suitcase was also supposedly full of antitoxins proof against any known venom the local slitherers carried.

The repellor and the vouch were helpful, of course, as was the wide-beam hand wand secretly built into his walking stick, but Kifo did not really think any of them were necessary. The gods would hardly allow their Unique to be taken down by a common snake or passing cutpurse unless they were mightily displeased with him, and he didn't think he had given them any reason for such displeasure.

It never hurt to check, though. Which was why he hiked the ten-kilometer stretch between the outskirts of South Leijona and the Zonn Ruins. He could have ridden, of course, but walking allowed a man the time to put himself in the proper mental and spiritual state before reaching his destination. The ruins were the reason that the Snake Road had been built, and rightly so. The stupidest tourist was impressed at the sight of the remains of the Zonn culture even when thinking of the vanished race as merely aliens.

To one who knew the truth, the ruins were much, much more. They were holy, for the Zonn had been and were more than simply a long-vanished race of strange beings who had gone from the galaxy before man had crawled out of the water on his homeworld. Gone where, no one knew. But a few men did know one thing of monumental importance:

The Zonn were gods.

The Zonn had attained heights men could not hope to reach; the Zonn had risen as far above humans as humans were above the snakes in this forest. Men were as nothing to them, which was why Kifo's church was called the Temple of Despair, why he was named for death, his brothers and sisters given similar, less than joyous names. Because men were dogs to Them, and only through demonstrating loyalty could men gain even the smallest bit of reflected glory. It was sometimes not an easy thing to deal with, man's relative status in the scheme of things, but at least there was the knowledge of where one stood. Better to know one's place, even if it were low. Along that path lay security; a great strength lay buried under the trail-one did not have to be responsible. Somebody else was in charge, and that lifted a great deal of weight from mankind's shoulders-provided one was lucky enough to be aware of it.

A passing hovertruck blew grit up from the hard surface in a fine spray; some of it stung the side of Kifo's face, got into his eyes. He blinked the dust away, but even that small a discomfort was enough to hurry the vouch closer.

"No," Kifo said. "Override. I don't need medical attention."

The vouch dropped back two meters.

Yes, men were as the dirt beneath the feet of the gods, but some men were less so. Those who gave the Zonn their proper due, those who respected and worshipped them, paid proper obeisance, those who formed a dedicated line behind the Unique, the believers who knew their place, they were better than the rest.

We are better.

Too, there were some men who were less even than the dirt. Those who impeded the will of the gods, those who blocked the path, knowingly or not, those who refused to bend the knee to a force that could, if it wished, smash them like the worthless rodents they were.

Of course, the gods would not sully their hands with such work; rat-killing was so far beneath them.

That's what dogs were for.

"Morning!" a walker going the other way called out.

Kifo glanced at the man, a short and heavyset balding local, tanned and smiling. "Morning," he called back. He waved his walking stick as the man drew closer.

"The ruins are beautiful today," the fat man said. "Yesterday's rain has washed everything clean."

Kifo nodded. Smiled. The fat man had no idea of what the ruins really represented. And he was not among the chosen to ever know, either, but still Kifo smiled. He was not intolerant of some things.

Ignorance was not in itself evil. With a few words, he could offer the man a status he could never hope to achieve on his own, could break through his shell of not-knowing and haul him out into the light, did he but choose to do so. But, no. He did not wish to offer that pearl to this swine. He could almost feel sorry for the hiker. No, ignorance was not necessarily evil, but it certainly was a lack, and why disturb this man's foolish bliss, unfounded though it was? There were three kinds of people in the galaxy: those who worked for the gods, those who worked against them, and those who did neither. The first must be cared for, the second removed, and the third group was of no interest. Dogs were supposed to worry about the rats in their master's compound, not those in the far fields, was this not so?

Ahead of him a panicked shrew scurried out onto the pedestrian walkway, right behind it a red treesnake, gaining. Kifo watched with interest as the snake, moving much faster than he would have thought possible, lunged and sank its fangs into the shrew. The little mammal spasmed, went rigid, then limp. After a few seconds the snake dislocated its jaws and began to swallow the shrew.

Kifo moved a bit nearer, treading carefully so as not to make too much noise.

The snake turned, the shrew half-eaten, and regarded the man. Perhaps it was his size, or maybe the vibrations from the repellor. Whatever, the snake slithered away into the bush quickly, winding its coils over the hard surface like a sine wave on a holoscope. In two seconds it was gone.

Kifo smiled. Some lesson here, he supposed, but he couldn't quite put a finger on it. Ah, well. Perhaps later when he sat to meditate it would come to him.

He continued his walk toward the ruins. Behind him the vouch hummed to itself and tagged along, ready to do its job at any hint of need.

When Taz padded out of the fresher from her shower, the call light was lit on her com, on the personal number. Someone had called while she was showering. She was pretty sure it wasn't anybody from work; they'd have used the priority code. She regarded the light for a moment. Turned away from it.

She dressed. Silks under her loose-weaves and flexboots. She tucked her short double-charge backup hand wand into her boot pocket, put on her belt and holster, but left the spring pistol on the night table.

Stared again at the com and its tiny blue light. Chewed at her lip. Picked up her pistol. Began to leave the sleeproom. Stopped at the doorway, turned back, moved to the com. Sat on the bed and stared at the light for ten seconds.

"Fuck it," she said, reaching for the control.

"Hello, Tazzi. I love you."

The recording chip beeped once, indicating the end of the message, then gave her the date and time stamp. The caller hadn't identified himself, but there was no need.

Ruul. God damn him. She'd known it would be him.

This was going to have to stop. She couldn't stand it. Her heartbeat was too fast, her breathing too shallow, she felt as if she were in a fight-or-flight situation, her hormones flowing in danger mode.

Damn, damn. She sat and made an effort to slow her breathing. When she was calmer, at least on the surface, she stood.

In the kitchen, Saval prepared breakfast: soypro links, eggs, toast, cereal, fruit, juice.

"Hey, I'm the host," she said. "I'm supposed to fix the meals."

"I got here first. What the hell, I can cook as well as the next man."

Taz looked at the meal. "Better than most, actually," she said.

They ate, and Taz didn't say anything about Ruul's call.

"So, what's on the agenda for today?" he asked, as he polished off the last of what had to be a dozen eggs.

"Well, there's not much direct investigating we can do until we get lab results or more input. It's about time for my monthly weapon qualification. I thought we'd go to the range and do that. Give me a chance to see if you can hit the side of a warehouse with those toys you carry." She waved at Saval's spetsdods.

He shrugged. "Sure. I'm not in Geneva's class or even Emile's, but I might be able to keep you up with you."

Taz grinned. Saval was in for a little surprise at the range. She'd been combat pistol champion for the Leijona police force the last three years, had scored third in the planetary peace officer games last summer. And would have tied for first had not a magazine malfunction cost her six points during the final round shoot-off. She'd never mentioned any of this to Saval before.

"Hey, I'm just a small-talent local cool," she said. "With a beat-up spring pistol. I hardly ever practice."

He chuckled. "And your wrist is sore and your eyes are tired and you've been sick, too, right?"

Her laugh joined his. Good old Saval. Still sharp as a needle. "Come on, brother. Let's go places and shoot things."