Homefall: Book Four of the Last Legion Series (13 page)

Gang set him breathless, back in his lift, and Jia Yin, just a meter high, walked up to him, balancing a tray with four bowls, another tray with glasses atop that, four other clear trays with tiny budvases and flowers in them, and, on top of everything, a huge vase almost as big as she held on her chin.

“Lights and mirrors, you said,” she piped. “Would you like me to jump, and all these glasses will land in your lap? You and your liftchair will be very wet.”

“No, no,” the boy protested.

“But I am going to do it anyway,” and she jumped, and glassware cascaded, but somehow was caught, juggled, hurled back into the air and, in somewhat reversed order, balanced again.

The boy watched, fascinated.

“I wish I could juggle,” he said in a low voice.

Jia Yin heard him, leaned closer, still without spilling anything.

“After the show,” she promised, “I will show you how easy it is.”

“Even for somebody who can’t walk, like me?”

“Especially for someone like you, ‘cause you’ll pay closer attention.”

• • •

A thousand meters above the hospital, a Nana-class patrol ship orbited.

“All units,”
Haut
Chaka, who’d taken a three-rank reduction in rank to go with the circus, “I’ve got me a good possible. Illuminating him … now!”

The other Nana boat and two
aksai
watched screens and the laser indicator flashing across them.

“He’s been circling the hospital since we got here,” Chaka went on. “No ID, no big journoh markings, so I put a viewer on him. Zoomed on in, and what we’ve got is a lim full of gunnies. One of the stupid bastards even waved his blaster or whatever it is around a little, enough for me to see. Over.”

“All Safety elements,” Njangu said into his com. “This is Safety Leader. Suspect he’s gonna go strafin’ when this breaks up. Try for us, and if he gets some of the ankle biters we’re being nice to, that won’t matter.

“We’ll take him out now. Lir … hit him. Gently. You
aksai
hot rods, track him. I want more than just a handful of dead punks.
Big Bertha
, get the third
aksai
in the air and homing on the other birds.”

Mikes clicked assent.

Below, hidden behind a clump of brush, Lir checked the sights on her Shrike launcher, set the missile’s fuse to proximity detonate, turned the homing device off, aimed well off the lim, and fired.

The Shrike exploded twenty meters from the goonwagon, and it spun, almost pinwheeled, then the pilot gave it full power, gunning away in panic.

“Tracking,” Chaka said, and the
aksai
followed at altitude, above the clouds.

The lim sped around the city, on north, to a spattering of islands.

“It’s coming in for a landing,” Chaka said, and swept the area ahead first with radar, then with infrared.

“Looks like there’s something down there,” he reported. “Maybe a nice little landing field.”

All three of the
aksai
were orbiting below the Nana boat.

“This is Boursier One. I’ve got a visual flash through the clouds. It’s a field, with, oh, ten or twelve lifters. A couple of them looked like they were armored, or anyway set up for some kind of police or military use.”

“This is Safety Six,” Njangu ‘cast. “Arm ‘em up, troops. I’d like a nice clean billiard table down there. Take out all buildings and anybody you happen to want to shoot at. Clear.”

The
aksai
inverted, and dived, pilots’ fingers/claws blurring across sensors as the attack ships shot downward.

Boursier, firing lead, toggled half a dozen Shrikes.

The missiles blasted across the field as Dill and Alikhan swept in low, chainguns roaring. Lifters exploded, and one of the three hangars burst into flames.

Men ran out, across the field, toward the safety of the jungle or water. Few made it.

Boursier came back in, a solid wave of shells sweeping the field, and the last scattered small antipersonnel firebombs from two hundred meters.

Chaka brought his patrol ship down low and slow, thought two lifters were insufficiently damaged, donated a pair of Shrikes to the cause, then climbed.

“I don’t see anything left to break, Safety elements. Let’s go on home.”

• • •

Both Garvin and Njangu thought it was very interesting that there were no holo reports of the destruction of the airport.

“I guess it’s not in anybody’s best interests,” Njangu said.

“Which says something about this whole damned power structure, doesn’t it?” Garvin said, a bit disgustedly. “I should’ve given Darod and Lir the go-ahead.”

“To do what?”

“Never mind.”

• • •

“Men are nothing but hard dicks and no brains!” Darod Montagna stormed to Monique Lir.

“So what else is new?” Lir said, grinning. “And what has the boss done to piss you off this time?”

“I just saw him walking outside the ship with that … that popsy he went and hired!”

“Isn’t he entitled to walk anywhere with anybody he wants?”

“Not with her!”

“Hoboy,” Lir said. “Darod, my young former Executive Officer, you are getting, like they say, your tit in a wringer. If you’re all jealous that he’s just walking with this Katun, what are you going to do when we get back to Cumbre, and you’ve got to realize he’s sleeping with Jasith Mellusin?”

“That’s different! She was ahead of me in line! She outranks me!”

“Hoboy twice,” Lir said.

• • •

“This Circus Jaansma has certainly paid for itself,” Dorn Fili said. “I know the big rally night after this will get our workers to pour in their last bit of energy. Not to mention how it’ll look on the holos.”

“The offworlders
have
done well for us,” Sam’l Brek agreed. “But we’re getting close to election day, and I keep thinking of all those credits we’re giving them, and how I’d like to have them for a last-minute blitzkrieg.”

“Use the after-campaign funds we’ve got set aside for our supporters,” Fili said.

“I could do that,” Brek agreed. “But that would leave our friends a bit angry. If only we had a way to recoup some of that circus money … mmh.

“You know, I think I’ve got the beginnings of an idea.”

“Could it get back to us?” Fili asked.

“Very doubtful, at least if I set it up right, with the correct people.”

“Don’t tell me any more,” Fili said. “Just do it.”

• • •

“Something interesting,” Njangu told Garvin. “We did a thorough shake on your bimbolina’s gear, and guess what we found?”

“A nifty little sender?”

“Nawp.”

“A serious interstellar com?”

“Nawp.”

“What did you get?”

“Nothing … except that your Kekri Katun has too much in the way of cosmetics, and interesting taste in lingerie.”

“Nothing?” Garvin said, a bit incredulously. “What does that mean? She isn’t a spy?”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Njangu advised. “It just means that she’s been trained a little better than I thought.”

• • •

Penwyth passed the com across to Freron, who heard the automated teller say he now had somewhere over half a million credits to his account.

Freron smiled pleasantly, took keys from his pocket, and gave them to Erik.

“The box is nine-eight-five-four, at the Military Banking Institute. It’s quite large, so you might think of taking a confrere with you.” He gave the address, added that no one would bother anyone carrying the keys.

Penwyth went to the apartment door, opened it, and gave the keys, and where they were to be used, to Ben Dill. Two hulking roustabouts were behind him.

“Now,” Penwyth said, coming back and sitting down, “we’ll just wait here until my friend Ben says he’s back at the ship safely.”

Freron sighed.

“I suppose, in this dirty business, no one trusts anyone else.”

“I trust you implicitly, Kuprin,” Erik drawled. “I’d just like to hear a couple more stories about how it was, serving in a planetary force under the Confederation before I leave.”

• • •

“Everybody’s on an Annie Oakley tonight,” Garvin told Sopi Midt. “All political sorts, so don’t rape them too badly.”

“Hadn’t a thought of it. Naw,” Midt said, “I’m lyin’. Always hated those bastards who think, ‘cause they know which end of a ballot box to stuff, they’re somethin’ special.

“Still can’t figure why you let them put us in their pocket.”

Garvin made a face. “Maybe I was worried about the gate, this first time out for real. Sure as blazes not something I’d be doing over again.”

“Ah well,” Midt sympathized. “So far, outside of that poor showgirl, nothing’s gone awry. I’ll tell you, I’m glad we’ve got their buckos doing security. My people’ve taken a dozen or more guns off floppies in the midway.”

“Any idea who they were working for?” Garvin asked.

“Di’n’t ask. Somebody with a gun on my midway who ain’t workin’ for me is nothin’ but trouble, so we disarmed them, give ‘em a thick ear, sent ‘em on their way.”

Midt leaned closer to Garvin.

“Got a suggestion, Gaffer, if you don’t mind. Are you plannin’ to stick around until election day?”

“I don’t know,” Garvin said. “I’m inclined to think not a chance.”

“Good. Good. Very good,” Sopi approved. “ ‘Cause the minute the tab’s taken, one side’ll be thinkin’ about revenge, believing we somehow turned the tide, and the other’ll be trying to get out of paying us.”

“I’ve had the Social Democrats pay in front.”

“ ‘At’s good,” Midt approved. “Guess you
are
your father’s kid.”

• • •

By dusk, the Social Democrats were thronging in from across the planet, and several ships had come in from other planets in the system. Garvin, looking out from the nose of
Big Bertha
, dimly hearing the band in the great hold below, was thankful for the outer screen of Fill’s security people. This crowd, which promised to be a solid turnaway, was burying the ducat grabbers and circus security.

He looked at himself in a mirror, adjusted his white top hat, curled his whip under his arm, and, the picture of youthful dignity, went to the lift taking him to the center ring.

Overhead, several acrobats were tossing each other around, the
ra’felan
catching them. He saw Lir among them, doing a spinning twist, almost missing her catcher, and being swung back up to the trapeze.

• • •

The man was tall, skeletal, with short hair and neat beard. He wore a shirt blazoned
FILI FOR PREMIER,
as did most of the other entrants. The shirt was too large for him, which helped hide the gun and shoulder stock in his belt. That wasn’t intended for the task he’d hired on for, but to ensure his own escape amid the hoped-for debacle.

There was a metal detector at the gangway, but there was a press around it, and it was easy for the man to sidestep the device and enter the ship’s hold with the happy throng.

• • •

Phraphas Phanon hadn’t exaggerated when he said he might be able to come up with something more spectacular than Sir Douglas could envision.

After much rehearsal, they had a number.

A lion menaced Imp, one of the babies. Imp didn’t see the trunk that took him around the waist, lifted him to safety on the top of another elephant. The lion reared, roaring.

On a howdah on a third bull, Sir Douglas cracked a whip, as two tigers leapt onto the howdah with him. His pistol cracked, and they cowered back, jumped to the back of another elephant, just as three bulls reared, paws together, and a fourth lifted Imp to safety as other cats darted around the center ring.

The audience was agape in amazement.

And that was just the opening.

• • •

Njangu Yoshitaro was prowling the midway, looking for any signs of trouble, when it found him.

He’d ducked behind a wheel of fortune stand, intending to cut back to
Big Bertha
through the back, avoiding the crowd.

Njangu had only a moment to notice a woman had followed him, turning to see what she wanted. The anesthetic dart snapped into his neck before he could draw his gun.

Two men followed the woman, carrying a long canvas roll that looked as if it belonged somewhere in the circus.

Njangu was rolled into the middle of it, and the men picked it up, and, moving without haste, went back down the rear of the midway, into the parking area, and slid the roll into a lifter.

Seconds later, the three were aboard and the lifter was airborne, heading for the capital.

“Welcome, welcome, Social Democrats of all ages,” Garvin chanted, “to the finest show in the galaxy. We’ve got clowns and bears and lions and tigers and beautiful women, and men stronger than oxen … all brought to you by the good graces of Dorn Fili.”

The crowd cheered, and Garvin snapped his whip twice. As the clowns mobbed him, he tried to concentrate on the routine, but kept thinking that now, with Penwyth back with the loot from Freron … or what he hoped was loot, awaiting analysis … they could pull in their horns and get away from this mess.

• • •

“Unroll him,” the woman ordered, and one of the two men in the lifter obeyed. He turned on a small sensor, ran it around Njangu’s neck, held it in front of his open mouth.

“Sleepin’ like a babe,” he reported. “Vital signs just fine.”

“He’d better be,” the woman said. “The man said alive only. And that there’d be paybacks if we screwed up and killed him.”

“Who is he?”

The woman shrugged. “One of the offworld mucketies.”

“So why’d these guys want him grabbed?”

“Hell if I know,” the woman said. “Blackmail, I guess.”

“You got any idea who we’re working for?”

“Yeh,” the woman said. “That’s why I went double on the price. Political types. The ones who’re doing the campaign right now.”

“But that don’t make sense,” the man behind the controls of the lim complained. “I thought this
auzlan
circus was hired out by them.”

“Nothin’ nobody does in politics
ever
makes sense,” the man crouched over Njangu’s unconscious body said. “How long we gotta be nannyin’ him?”

“There’ll be somebody come get him as soon as we get to the dropoff point.”

“With the other half of our credits, I hope.”

“You think I’m some kind of virgin?” the woman growled.

• • •

“Groundnuts, popcorn, candy as soft as your dreams, poppers, everything for the young and old,” Maev chanted, moving through the stands, eyes constantly moving.

An old man waved a bill at her, and she pitched him a bag of nuts, and bill and change went back and forth down the line.

There were other butchers working the crowd — a few real candy salesmen, more security.

• • •

The bear operator turned as the thin man entered his tiny booth, near one of the entrances. He had time to gape before the man’s blade went into his heart. The other operator had been waylaid earlier on the midway, his body dragged out of sight.

The man pushed the body under the console, examined the sensors. He’d come to the circus for eight nights running, watching only the robots, spending his days learning how to operate remote machinery.

This setup, he decided, pulling on the helmet that gave him perspective through the “bear’s” eyes, wasn’t that different from what he learned. He would have no trouble carrying out his mission.

He touched sensors, and a small screen showed him the two bears in their unnecessary cage, just offstage. One, then another, stirred as he moved the controls.

One stood, waved its arms, walked back and forth.

The man was ready.

• • •

Danfin Froude, in his Kelly makeup, looked longingly at Kekri Katun, who smiled. He came closer, and, expression filled with the world’s woes, started to take her hand, did a pratfall, rolled back to his feet.

Katun didn’t notice Ristori, who tumbled into view from nowhere, came up from behind, leering ostentatiously, eyebrows waggling insanely.

He started to touch her bottom, and she spun, caught him by his collar … actually the harness under his ragged clothes … and tossed him high up into the safety gravs.

Froude, looking even more unhappy, was slouched on the bench. Katun went to him, sat beside him, started stroking his hand.

Ristori sank down through the layered antigravs, crept back up on the pair.

This time, Froude moved first, grabbed Ristori, and they had a knockdown battle, hitting each other with fists, padded clubs, a huge ball, anything that came to hand.

Around them other clowns were bedeviling, and being bedeviled, by the other showgirls.

Kekri saw Ben Dill trot past, in his muscleman’s outfit, considered him speculatively, then saw Garvin looking at her from center ring. She slowly, deliberately, smiled at him, and licked her finger. Garvin looked hastily away, and Katun laughed to herself.

These were nice people, she thought. But they weren’t very efficient. Her control had said she would be searched, and so she’d taken nothing aboard
Big Bertha.
She’d used dusting powder, sprinkled here and there, as a giveaway, and found marks that confirmed her baggage had been searched.

This night she’d gone into the midway, as she’d been instructed, and been given a small, compact case by a man who approached her and whispered the code words she’d been given.

The case held a small, powerful com, capable of in-system communication. She wasn’t sure how useful it would be, but assumed she would be signaled at a certain time by the pickup team she’d been promised would be trailing the ship, and given instructions on what she was to report on, besides any information about the circus’s intent and mission she would be able to get from Garvin. There had to be a secret intention, since innocents would hardly have searched her gear.

Kekri Katun turned that part of her mind off, concentrated on cartwheeling and cheering for her champion, Froude.

At last Ristori was down, and Froude, after jumping up and down on his chest, picked up the tall woman, aided by a dropper he had hidden under his baggy coat, and carried her off in his arms, to cheers from the audience.

• • •

On the bridge of
Big Bertha
, a technician glanced at a screen, reacted. One of the tiny locators was moving steadily away, almost off the screen.

He bent over its controls, started tracking the locator, called for the watch officer.

“Have an ID on that?” the woman asked.

The tech keyed a sensor.

“Yes, ma’am. Yoshitaro.”

“Allât in a supporter! I better let the boss know … assuming that sneaky bastard isn’t doing something nobody’s supposed to know about.”

The officer went to another tech, had him key the emergency com that fed into Garvin’s tiny earpiece.

• • •

“Can he lift it? No one has ever been able to press a thousand kilos, and Mighty Ben is going to attempt it here, now, for your amazement,” the talker brayed. “Let’s cheer for him, wish for him, put all our energies behind Dill the Human Powerhouse.”

Dill, wearing pink leotards, a half shirt, and chrome rings around his biceps, leaned over, took a breath, made sure the droppers hidden inside the enormous weights were on, then heaved. He got a couple of centimeters off the ground before the weights smashed down. Again he tried, and again, the crowd moaning in sympathy.

At last, every muscle bulging, he heaved the weights aloft, staggered back and forth, then, turning the droppers off, got out from under.

The weights crashed down, and the noise from this side ring buried the yips from the risley act in center ring.

Dill was about to bow, move into the finale of his act, when his earpiece burped, said, “Post. Emergency!”

The talker gaped as Dill jumped out of the ring and went, at a dead run, toward one of the corridors into the ship, then he recovered and began improvising another spiel on the acrobats in the center ring bouncing each other about on their feet.

Other select I&R people suddenly quit their tasks or performance around the circus and went after Dill.

Security people throughout the ship stood by, waiting to find out what was going on.

• • •

Darod Montagna concentrated on staying on the back of her horses as the animals poured out of the ring, to thundering applause, wondering what the hell was happening.

She reflexively waved to the bear operator in his booth, a nice one who’d helped her curry some of the horses, a bit surprised to see him with his helmeted head in the open instead of glued to the screen in his booth. She was momentarily puzzled she got no return greeting, but guessed he was concentrating on the bears’ turn, which came next.

• • •

“And now, the man who’s brought you all here, the man of the hour, the week, the year, Dorn Fili, soon to be your next Premier,” Garvin shouted, and the workers in the stands were on their feet, cheering. He suddenly froze and cocked his head, eyes going wide as the transmission about Njangu came in.

Fili, beaming, waved to his campaign workers, let the cheers build.

• • •

The thin man touched sensors, and the robot that Njangu had named Li’l Doni got up, pulled his cage open, and ambled through the entrance, then dropped to his four paws, and started toward the center ring, where Garvin and Fili stood.

• • •

“My friends,” Fili said, and his voice rolled around the hold, “and you are my friends. Tonight we’re celebrating, maybe some say a bit in advance, but I say …”

• • •

High above, swinging back and forth, waiting for the acrobats’ second turn, Lir yawned, then saw the robot bear, moving at a run toward Garvin and the politician.

Something wasn’t right, and Lir was cursing that she couldn’t hide a gun in her skimpy tights. She dropped off the perch, fell, tucking, toward the safety gravs below, knowing she was far too late.

• • •

A little girl was looking through Maev’s tray, trying to decide what she wanted, when Maev saw Li’l Doni.

“Here, kid,” she said, pulling the tray’s sling off her neck. “Take everything and have fun.”

Gun in hand, she hurried back to the aisle, and ran down it, toward the circus floor.

• • •

“ … a little premature, but I’m confident that we’ll see victory, only a week distant, and — ”

The bear was ten meters away when Garvin, about to bow away and head for the emergency post, saw him. It came to its feet and shambled toward Fili, arms open for a crushing embrace.

Garvin’s hand slid into his coat, came out with a small pistol. He shot Li’l Doni twice in the head to no effect, then tackled the bear from the side, knocking it down.

• • •

Raf Aterton, the music director, heard the beginning screams and shots, cursed and grabbed a trumpet from a musician, and blasted into “Peace March.”

The other musicians goggled for an instant, then got it, and the ragged music swelled.

And everywhere on the ship the women and men of the circus went to full alert.

• • •

Li’l Doni rolled to its feet and went for Fili, who ran for a trapeze mast, found climbing rings, started up. Then Doni had him in its paws, and was pulling him down. Fili was screaming, and there were roustabouts there, with benches, poles, smashing at the robot.

• • •

Maev was behind the bears’ operators’ booth, pistol out. She snapshot, blowing most of the bear operator’s helmet and head off.

The skeletal man convulsed, fell dead.

• • •

Li’l Doni went suddenly limp and fell, almost on one of the roustabouts, and Fili dropped on top of him.

Garvin checked the robot, saw no signs of activity, pulled Fili to his feet, and made sure the politician’s throat mike was still live.

“Keep talking,” he shouted. “Keep them calm. We don’t need a panic.”

Fili, eyes wide, opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, nothing coming out.

• • •

Erik Penwyth, dragging on a white formal jacket over the dark pants he’d worn to Freron’s apartment, ran into the hold, clipping a mike to his throat.

“Clowns, clowns, clowns, we’ve got ‘em, and we don’t want them,” he shouted.

Behind him ran every clown in the circus, and behind them the tumblers. The clowns ran the length of the ring, then back, peeling off into the stands, the tumblers end-over-ending along the ring banks.

The audience was trying to see what had happened, if Fili was hurt, and finally his voice came back.

“Everything’s … fine,” he said, his voice somewhat squeaky, then steadying. “That was a little stunt that didn’t work out right … I guess I should’ve known I’m not cut out for the circus, but look at my friends around me, who are.”

His laughter sounded almost real, and the crowd settled back a little. A clown lifter zoomed toward Fili, and he was buried in joeys as two men muscled the Li’l Doni’s “corpse” into it, lifted away. Another lifter was bundling the corpse of the thin man into it, unnoticed.

“Clowns,” Penwyth said, as Aterton batted his baton and the “Peace March” died away. “I promised ‘em, you got ‘em. Take one or two home with you, please. Next we’ve got the high-wire artists, and artists they are, braver women and men than I surely am.”

A flyer launched herself out, was passed by another, and a
ra’felan
at each pole caught them, spun them, sent them back the way they came.

Lir, climbing up, grabbed a trapeze, and started swinging, each time higher, pulling herself into a bird’s nest, and the show was back to normal.

• • •

“I have them,” Boursier reported, her
aksai
banking high above the capital’s center. “Landing on the roof of a high-rise. Looks like an apartment building. They’re carrying a bundle, and there’s somebody waiting for them.

“They’re inside. The guard’s still on the roof, though.”

“Maintain patrol,” came the orders. “There’s a civvie lifter on the way with the alert team in it, blue-white, open top, who’ll get close and case things.”

• • •

The ship’s compartment was packed with I&R troops.

“All right,” Garvin said. “We’ll keep this short. Somebody … I don’t know if it’s the same somebody who tried to ice Fili or not … has just grabbed Njangu. We’ve got a location, will have details in a moment, and we’re going after him, right now.”

He looked around the room.

“For starters I want you, Ben, Monique, not you, Alikhan … no, wait, I do want you on this, Jill — we might need a medic.” He hesitated, seeing Darod’s eyes on him, didn’t want to, but knew better: