The Machiavelli Interface (18 page)

Khadaji laughed softly. "That's what I thought, old friend. Not that it matters. I can hardly blame anybody else for doing the same things I have done. I just wanted to be sure."

"You were already sure, Emile."

"Yeah. I guess I was."

"And what will you do now?"

Khadaji turned to stare at the surrounding tropical vegetation. "The end is near, I think. The fight will be coming to Earth. I expect some of my matadors soon."

"Some are already here," Pen said.

"You know that, you must know who."

"The one called Red, and his daughter, Geneva. The large one, Saval, and the holy woman, Mayli. There is one who has sustained the loss of an arm, Sleel."

Khadaji nodded. "Dirisha should be with them."

"We have not seen her."

Khadaji focused on a particularly bright batch of flowers, an electric blue color, speckled with yellow. Dirisha. He hoped she was all right.

* * *

Dirisha struggled with the sleepy form of Orsal, half-carrying the woman back from the fresher to the bed. Keeping the three passengers on downchem for four days had been no problem. It was keeping them hydrated and then emptied that was a hassle. Orsal had slipped back into sleep and off the bidet when Dirisha turned away for a few seconds; fortunately, she had finished urinating.

Orsal flopped back onto the bed and began to snore. The three of them would awaken soon, hungover, but none the worse for wear. By then, Dirisha hoped to be gone from their lives and the ship. The port of Volny, the small wheel-world in direct orbit around Svare, was only a few hours away. If things went like she hoped, Dirisha could leave
the Raymond Bartlett
, real space to Kalk, and catch another Bender from there to Earth.

It was no certain task. She had sent the bogus message to draw Massey and his people off at the last stop. With luck, they'd still be searching for her there. They might suspect a trick when they didn't find her on Vul, but maybe not. The major difference, Dirisha figured, was that now the inside of the ship would not be covered as well. She'd had four days to work on the access codes for the escape pods and the lighter, and she had the sequences in hand.

The pods would get her free, but not far; the lighter, on the other hand, would get her all the way to Kalk. It was her best bet, and she decided to chance it.

"Thanks for the company, gang," she said to the sleeping trio as she left the room.

She felt tenseness creeping into her shoulders as she walked the corridor toward the lighter's dock. She wished she had her spetsdöds, but risking her own room didn't appeal. She had her slapcap, a highvolt buckle buzzer, and a small bonus from the passengers in cabin 2322: a close-range stink bomb. The bomb contained a gageant potent enough to make anyone without nares filters want to run. Not the most dependable of self-defense weapons, but better than nothing. It gave her more range than the cap or buzzer. She also had the set of filters she'd found with the bomb, and they were in place. They made her want to sneeze.

Since she had the codes, gaining access to the lighter's dock was no problem. The
Raymond Bartlett
had already shifted from bent space back into real, and Dirisha wanted to steal the lighter and be gone before the liner reached the control net around the wheelworld. She could jive the Kalkian orbit setters long enough to put the ship down, she was sure.

The hatch slid open and Dirisha stepped through, into a domed hangar. The lighter sat in the middle of the launch and landing pad, facing the exit hatches. She wouldn't want to spend six months in the tiny ship, but it would get her where she wanted to go. The hangar seemed to be empty. Good.

Dirisha started toward the lighter, holding the stink bomb loosely in her right hand.

"End of the line, Dirisha," came a voice. Massey!

Dirisha turned slowly, to see the Confed agent move from behind a compressor housing. He held a hand wand, aimed at her. He was maybe seven meters away.

"Let's see the hands, clear and empty."

Dirisha started to move her clenched hands away from her body, slowly.

"I knew you'd still be on board. Pen taught us—"

Dirisha whipped her right hand toward Massey, triggering the stink bomb as she flung it at his face. She followed her hand in a long dive, intending to tuck and roll out. Massey's wand thrummed, and Dirisha's left side took fire, going numb almost instantly. She hit the deck too hard, the tuck only half done. Her left arm was limp and her left hip tingled, but she still had control of her leg.

The bomb exploded with a
whomp
! and a yellow haze burst out. "Fuck!"

Massey yelled. The wand thrummed again, but Dirisha didn't feel the pulse.

She scrambled up from the deck and began weaving the sumito pattern toward Massey.

Massey threw up. He saw Dirisha, spun to face her, but slipped in his own vomit. He threw his arms out for balance, and let go of the hand wand. The weapon sailed through the air behind him.

The Confed agent had caught a hard blast of the stink bomb, but the room was too big for the gas to stay concentrated. Dirisha covered the distance between them quickly, but Massey dropped into his own sumito stance.

Dirisha stopped three meters away. Her left arm was going to be dead for an hour, and her chest, lats, and abs on that side were also impaired. Massey was still retching, but on his feet. She had the buckle buzzer and the slapcap.

If she could get close, she could smoke him.

A glittering blade caught the dome lights as Massey pulled a curved knife from his tunic. Dirisha almost laughed. It was Khadaji's knife; she'd had it in her room.

They stood that way for a moment, neither willing to attack. Dirisha realized that Massey might have help on the way and that if she delayed too long, she'd miss her chance. She edged toward him.

Inside his range and at the edge of hers, Massey lunged. She didn't have time to palm the slapcap or pull the buzzer. The knife flashed by her ear.

Dirisha danced away awkwardly, out-of-balance, and parried the slash.

Massey tried to circle the cut, but was too far to reach her. Dirisha snapped a kick up at Massey's groin, but he blocked it with a punch. They both danced away.

On the next pass, Massey hooked the point of the knife just under Dirisha's left breast. The sharp tip gouged a rib, but Dirisha didn't feel any pain. She slammed an elbow against Massey's forehead, knocking him backward, but not down.

Massey leaped back at Dirisha, screaming a continuous
kiai
! He swung the knife in an uppercut, aiming for her groin. It was a classic strike, and deadly.

For all her years of training, the defense that came back was one she'd learned in her first dojo. She bone-blocked Massey's wrist with her good forearm, twisted her hand as she jerked back, and snatched the knife from Massey's grasp. A showy move, and a dangerous one. Instru'isto would have never approved its use in actual combat; he would have yelled at her, were he here.

Massey backed away. Now she could finish him—

A green beam splashed from the wall between Dirisha and Massey, bringing with it the smell of burned metal. Ceepee!

Dirisha spun, to see a man waving a power pistol at her. It was time to leave this game. She ran for the lighter.

Massey screamed something, and another lance of focused charged-particles winked by, missing by centimeters. Then Dirisha was around the tail of the lighter and at the entry hatch. She punched in the entry code, missed a button, and had to redo it. Footsteps pounded on the deck. Get it right, Dirisha!

The hatch slid up. Dirisha leaped into the little ship and hit the close control. The hatch slid down. Somebody pounded on the outside. Dirisha locked the override control.

She ran to the pilot's seat and fell into it. She taxied toward the exit lock on wheelmotor power. Come on, open, you son-of-a-turd, open!

When the nose of the lighter was nearly touching the lock, the doors split and slid back, revealing the outer hatch. She didn't have time for the automatics to pump the air into a holding tank. She hit her override switch and kept the wheelmotors going. She lit the engines and ran them up to full idle.

The outer hatch slid open and a rush of air going into vac followed. The air turned white and froze as it hit the cold vacuum. There was something else, too—

Massey. His wide-mouthed form flew past the forward viewport of the lighter and into empty space. He must have followed her into the lock, still trying to get the lighter's hatch open. The explosive decompression of the lock had blown him right out....

The body floated away from the ship, now surrounded by a red and yellow crystalline haze of frozen body fluids. Not a good way to die. But dead was dead, and if she didn't get moving, she might well join him.

Dirisha engaged the thrusters and shot out of the
Raymond Bartlett
, a fiery-tailed dart leaving the belly of a whale.

Twenty

THE MARK OF A CIVILIZED MAN was to know when to leave the party.

Marcus Wall certainly considered himself a civilized man. He had been called a spider in a web by some, but this spider knew that when the web snared something too big to eat, it was time to leave. Another web could be spun, another time, another place.

It was not quite time, but it was close. From his precious room with all its comforts, Wall knew it was no longer
if
, but
when
. Khadaji and his cohort hadn't won yet, it was still possible that they might all be destroyed, but Wall would not bet his life on it. Of course, what might happen after they tore it all down was arguable, but that it was being disassembled was no longer open to reasonable doubt. Not to Wall.

He sighed. Who would have thought it? That a small band of fanatics could have done so much so quickly? Of course, history showed that fanatics were always people to be wary of; still, no empire in history had ever approached the size and scope of the Confederation.

Wall rubbed his bare feet upon the delicious carpet. When the proper time came, soon, five men as nearly identical to Wall as surgically possible would depart for five separate destinations. Each would be guarded, each would carry a small fortune in gems and rare oddities, each would be on his own, once he reached his assigned destination. Expensive stalking horses, but worth every stad. If the rabble wanted somebody to chase, he would give them somebody. Five somebodies. Wall himself at that point would no longer look like he did now. Originally, he had planned to leach the skin and hair dyes, remove the droptacs, and with a little specialized surgery, return to what he had once been. Now that Khadaji knew he was an albino, that option was out. It had been so perfect, too. Darkworld albinos stood out wherever they traveled. Who would suspect somebody so in the public eye to be the kingmaker Marcus Wall?

Ah, well. The best-laid plans and all that. His surgical staff would make him into something else, less obvious, perhaps, but just as effective. The staff would then,be disposed of, and the new man would never meet anyone who knew his face. In a few years, a rich miner, say, could work his way back into favor, with no one the wiser. Aided by his cunning, experience and invisible pheromones, the former Tavee, the former Wall, the new Somebody would once again spin his web to gather in the power. Carefully, but surely. The rabble would always need men like him; the sheep never looked up for more than a brief moment.

"Marcus?"

"What is it, Cteel?"

"I have a report from the Bender liner
Raymond Bartlett
, off the Svare wheelworld."

"Concerning...?"

"Your agent, Massey."

"Good news?"

"Not for Massey. He is dead. The outlaw matador he was following has escaped."

Wall digested that rank morsel. Massey was one of them, the best Wall had.

If he couldn't catch them, nobody else was likely to, either. The time was drawing closer.

"My lord?"

"Yes?"

"You have a request for an audience."

"Deny it. I am granting no audiences this week." Or any week, so it seems, Wall thought.

"Yes, my lord."

"Just for curiosity's sake, who was it wishing the audience?" Which of the frightened rats wished succor now?

"Elesas Duvul, my lord."

The name meant nothing to Wall... for a moment. Then he remembered.

Nichole. Her real name.

The pain he felt was almost immediately replaced by a surge of pleasure.

Ah, the fair child would be considerably older now. Perhaps even... haggard.

The thought was too much.

"Rescind that order, Cteel. I find that I can allow myself one visitor to my sanctum this week after all. Schedule her for tomorrow. Do we have a holograph of her as she appears now?"

"In the medical files there is a record entered yesterday," Cteel said.

"Should I project it for you?"

"Yes—no, wait. Don't. I should like to be surprised, I think." How much better that would be!

Wall's com circuit sang its birdlike song. A caller? What now?

"Hello, Marcus."

It was
him
! Khadaji!

"
How did you get this number
?" Wall was both angry and afraid.

"Does it really matter? I know all kinds of things about you, Marcus. Or should I say Tavee?"

To Cteel, Wall said, "Visual!"

The space for Khadaji's holo remained blank, however. Wall faced the nearest of the computer's visual monitors and silently mouthed the words

"Trace this call!"

As if he were also reading Wall's lips, Khadaji said, "It won't do you any good to have your dead friend try to find me. I am three circuits away. It'll take much longer than you've got."

"What do you want?"

"Just to remind you that you reneged on our agreement. There's a price to be paid, Marcus, and you must be prepared to pay it. Soon."

"Listen to me, you godsdamned treasoner—" Wall began.

"He is no longer on com," Cteel cut in.

"
Where is he
?"