Sword of Dreams (The Reforged Trilogy) (7 page)

"Thanks for that,
maasquat
." He crossed huge, tattooed blue arms over his chest. He thrust his chin out at the Talon. "What's the iron for? You a cop?"

"No." Coldhand showed the bouncer his E3 credentials. "Where's a good place?"

The Dailon took in the hunter's stark, utilitarian clothes and his metal hand. "Try Prey," he suggested. "Might be your kind of place, hunter. A Lyran named Vakk owns it. Take a right at the next cross-tunnel and go down two intersections. You can't miss it."

Logan followed the Dailon's instructions, heading deeper into the Sipho underground. In the early days of the colonies, before the cloud seeding took hold, these aqueducts carried water from the polar icecaps down to the habitable zones of the planet. Now they served a new purpose, arguably just as important to the people of Sipho.

Deeper in the tunnels, the dank, ashy scent of old concrete took on a new life. There was musky sweat and the electric smell of ozone. Coldhand tasted the tang of strong alcohol and the thick sourness of smoke. He could pick out individual strains of music, all loud and thumping and warring with one another for prominence.

Other lights lined the curved aqueduct wall, pirating electricity from the city lines. They were dimmer than the construction lights but far more colorful, bunched together in places like radioactive bouquets. Signs in bright lumapaint and holographics glowed all along the tunnel. These gave way to doors, thrown invitingly open to the sources of the booming, conflicting music. Strobes alternately silhouetted and flash-froze dancers in storms of pulsing light.

There were other people now, too. Some dressed as modestly as Coldhand, but most wore no more than shreds of clinging, transparent cloth or a thin layer of body paint. It was too hot – in every sense – for more.

Coldhand turned right at a cross-tunnel hung with tangles of violet light ropes and found himself part of a thick crowd. The curved aqueduct floor forced everyone together, closer to Logan and each other than on the spacious walkways of the city above. The air down here was heavy and humid, pressing in on him from all sides.

Most of the underground bars and nightclubs had blocky doors cut directly into gray concrete walls. But the larger ones had smooth circular entrances framed in lights and advertisements, spouts that led into the huge cylindrical cisterns that used to hold Sipho's precious water reserves.

Prey
, one of them advertised in angular red slashes meant to remind Coldhand of huge claw marks. The hunter separated himself from the throng and paid the ten cenmark cover charge to a black-furred Lyran woman covered in piercings. He went inside.

Prey was packed. Mostly with other humans, but there were Lyrans and Dailons, as well. A bar ran the length of one curved wall, finished to look like rough-cut basalt and painted in glowing tribal patterns. But it was the dance floor that dominated Prey, full of leaping, writhing bodies. The low, flat ceiling emphasized the claustrophobic crowd of dancers. They were all young and beautiful, dressed and painted up for a long night of pleasures. Some had the look of predators searching out their next conquests. Others enjoyed their role as prey, those sought after and fought for.

Perhaps sensing a true predator in their midst, they did their best to get out of Coldhand's way as he crossed the dance floor, but could make little room in the close confines. Logan felt warm, sweat-slicked skin against his. Even this anonymous, uninvited intimacy was… jarring.

He chose a table on the edge of the nightclub and sat. A holographic flame bobbed in the table's center, moving in time with the loud music and twisting occasionally into the stylized shape of a prowling Lyran. The shiny black tabletop lit up at Coldhand's touch and brought up a glowing drink menu. He swiped through the options. Prey sold a wider variety than the bars above ground – including narcohol, which was illegal on Sipho. Coldhand skipped over that part of the menu. He wanted something to wake his leaden and unresponsive body, not put him to sleep. The next screen's offering came not in shot glasses, but in needles and sealed plastic bags. Frag was at the top, in green letters that arced with animated electricity. No, Coldhand decided. He had tried the popular stim a few times, but all it ever did was leave a raw, coppery taste in his mouth, like blood.

None of the other chems sounded any more appealing. He waved his left hand over the display to turn it off, but the sensor beam bounced off the illonium and the confused computer returned a readout of the music throbbing through the club – mostly Lyran hunt metal, full of deep drums beating out an impossibly fast tempo.

A young human woman danced on the edge of the floor, close against her friends. Her lithe body moved sinuously under her filmy dress. Dark hair flared as she spun, then slithered down around her shoulders. The girl licked her red-painted lips. Sweat beaded on her smooth skin.

Coldhand's cybernetic fingers scraped on the tabletop. The music drowned out the unpleasant sound and he could barely feel the hard plastic. Even on a civilized world like Sipho, there had to be at least a few women who could overlook his disfigurement. It was only a hand, after all, easily ignored in the dark. If no one was interested, there were always those willing to do it for money. The touch of metal was worth the feel of plastic cenmarks. But none of the girls dancing in Prey seemed worth the effort.

Logan stared at the dancer without seeing her.
Twenty percent. That's all I have, all I feel. But twenty percent of nothing is still nothing.

Drugs, drink, women… They were the end goals for most bounty hunters, but held no interest for Coldhand. The hunt for Barnes had been just as boring as some corporate desk job. At the first sign of an interested buyer, the self-important little thief practically threw himself into the trap.

The underground club suddenly reminded Coldhand of Stray, of the Nihilist catacombs under Gharib. That place was a true monument to death, dug beneath the graveyard of the black cathedral. The bloated dead hung from the crumbling walls and ceiling like grisly cocoons. Prey was only a pale imitation, the shadow of a hunting hawk while the real thing circled above, far out of reach. For all of their funerary black and powdered pale skin, though they were deep underground, these dancers were not dead. They were alive. So vibrantly and gaudily alive.

It was all so cheap and tacky, but Logan was still jealous. They had no idea how easily it could all be ripped away, chopped off and replaced by cold machines.

Except that that would never happen here. Not in the core, where there were Ixthian hospitals in every city, stocked with cloning tanks and redprints for every organ. Prey's patrons thought themselves rebels, sharp-beaked criminals of the Sipho underground. They had no idea how nightmarish, how empty life could become.

Coldhand turned his attention away from the dancers and back to the tabletop display. He closed the menu and music screens, then called up the general mainstream access. News of the Nihilists was easy to find. The Union of Light's condemnation of rival religions was public and vocal. Though that was not enough to rouse the Central World Alliance Armed Forces to action, the Nihilists' many crimes – assault, abduction and murder – earned each and every one a CWA bounty.

There were some scattered and sporadically investigated stories of new converts told by the frightened families that they left behind. Had Gavriel or Xartasia survived the attack on their cathedral? It was possible and Coldhand could imagine few other Nihilists convincing anyone to join in their twisted death worship.

He tapped his identification into a government node and pulled up the bounty information on the Cult of Nihil. The money for capture of the individual members was no more impressive now than it had been the night before, waiting in the blank white-walled collection center. Coldhand read through the rest of the posting. He was not the only one who suspected that Gavriel and his guardian angel might still be alive. The CWA Lyceum was offering a much more impressive reward for anyone who could hunt down either Gavriel or Xartasia and bring them to face trial – five thousand cenmarks each.

It was good money. Not enough to retire, but enough to keep him flying for a while.

But that's not really the point, is it? Barnes was good money, too.

What would it be like to face Gavriel's Emberguard again? Logan touched his good hand to his chest, felt the thick knot of scar tissue there, even through his shirt. Did the Nihilists hate Coldhand?

Do I hate them?

If Gavriel lived – the irony of a Nihilist fighting for his own survival might have made another man laugh aloud – then chances were good that Xartasia probably had, too. Would Maeve be searching for her cousin?

Coldhand cleared the table terminal and strode purposefully through the tight pack of Prey, back out into the aqueducts. At the stairs leading up, the Dailon bouncer waved and asked if he had enjoyed Prey. But Coldhand stalked past without a word, lost in his own thoughts.

"Ixthians don't believe that lovers have chemistry. They have biochemistry."

- Professor Xen, Vostra Nor University (229 PA)

Everyone on the Blue Phoenix rose before the sun to get to work. The flight to Prianus would be almost a month long. There were many preparations to make and precautions to take.

Xia called each of the crew into her tiny medbay in turn and injected them with tailored immune updates.

"This is especially important for you," she told Gripper as she held the shiny silver injector to the Arboran's huge arm. "You've never been to Prianus. You wouldn't believe how many diseases they have there."

"Have you been to Prianus?" he asked.

Xia shook her head. "No."

"Did you have to take one of these?" Gripper winced as the needles jabbed him and poured a cold stream of chemicals into his blood. The Arboran's skin was too thick for Xia's compressed air injector.

"Me? No. I should be fine. I have seven times the leukocyte count that you do," she told him.

"Why?"

"Good breeding," said the Ixthian simply. She wiped the needles clean and replaced the injector on a nearby tray. "A good immune system is one of the top traits we seek in our mates."

"Um, that's not very romantic."

Xia just laughed and sent Gripper to go find Maeve.

________

Duaal was up in the cockpit, downloading updated astronavigation charts off the university mainstream and mapping out their course. Stars and planets were only a few of the potential dangers between Tynerion and Prianus. At superluminal speeds, a single surprise comet or solar ejection would tear the Blue Phoenix apart and scatter wreckage across half a stellar system.

Tiberius and Gripper spent the morning getting the Blue Phoenix fueled and tuned up, replacing filters and checking seals. With twice the usual compliment of passengers on board, the aged recycling systems would be hard pressed to keep up.

That left the final task to Maeve, who lacked the technical expertise to help with anything else. She surveyed the room and sighed. The spare quarters were closed up and sealed when not in use, which was often – the Blue Phoenix did not have many passengers.

Logan was the last. My hunter.

Maeve pushed up her sleeves and got to work. She scrubbed the floors and walls, changed light tubes and sheets, and cleaned each room's single small viewport. By the time she was done, her clothes were caked in dust and her sweaty black hair stuck to the back of her neck. Maeve carried the dustpan outside the ship to empty it. No point in running more dirt through the Blue Phoenix's recycling system than she had to.

How in the name of the All-Singer can sealed rooms get so filthy?

There was a sharp crash behind her. Maeve turned to find a slender, pretty blonde woman standing with hands pressed to her mouth. She looked like she was going to be sick. There were three men with her. One of them – a serious-looking Dailon with a long dark braid – retrieved the suitcase she had dropped.

"God, Panna. Take your meds next time," said a brown and white patched Lyran. He looked at Maeve. "Is this the Blue Phoenix?"

"It is," she answered. "Are you Professor Xen's colleagues?"

"That's us. Gruth Rommik." The Lyran dipped his chin to indicate that this name was his own, then pointed to a short, round human man with freckles and red-orange hair. "This is our geologist, Phillip Arno. The big Dailon there is Enu-Io Crath. And the girl who can't hold onto her luggage is Panna Sul."

"I was just surprised," Panna said. "I didn't expect… an Arcadian."

The spoiled coreworlder girl had probably never seen a fairy before. Maeve made herself smile at the scholars. They really
did
need paying work. "Where is Professor Xen?" she asked.

"He'll be here soon with the rest of our equipment," Panna answered. "We came early to hand off some of the delicate stuff."

"Let us hope that you were carrying none of it, then," said Maeve.

The Lyran, Gruth, laughed and elbowed Panna in the ribs. "The bird-girl's got you there."

Panna recovered and held out her hand. "Ignore the furball. I'm so sorry. May I ask your name?"