The Noise Revealed (21 page)

The Noise Within
, being arrested, his subsequent experiences in Virtuality - he shuddered at that one, and fervently hoped that the craze of establishing virtual worlds hadn't yet spread as far as Arcadia - all had eaten away at his arrogance, leaving a humbler, less cock-sure soul in their wake.

Perhaps someone was trying to tell him something. Perhaps it was time to get out and settle down, to find himself a nice little job fixing cars and tinkering with air scooters, a good wife to look after him in the kitchen and the bedroom, forget about the stars, new worlds and new partners. This Arcadia didn't seem such a bad place. Maybe he'd have a look around while he was here.

Kyle ordered another drink and fell into conversation with the man next to him, who had evidently been in the same spot for a good part of the day and was clearly a good few beverages ahead of him. The man had a balding pate above a wizened, weathered face, and was even older than Kyle, which reassured him. The fellow didn't need much prompting to share his memories and opinions. He could remember life during the war, when the spaceport had been under military control. What he had to say wasn't exactly as encouraging as Kyle might have hoped. "This was a decent neighbourhood in them days," the man insisted. "A real community, with shops - a greengrocer, bakers... even a butchers; 'Samuel J. Westerman and Sons.' Freshest cuts of meat you could wish for. Look at it now - cruddy arcades and knocking shops... No community left, that's for sure, nothing decent at all. There used to be fields, end of this road, believe it or not, trees beyond that and even a small lake..."

"A lake?" Kyle's ears pricked up. "Were there any swans?"

"Swans?" The fellow looked puzzled. "No, can't say as there were."

The man's brows furrowed, as if he wasn't entirely certain what a swan might be. Kyle took a deep breath, relishing the prospect of enlightening him, but it was at that moment he glanced past his new drinking buddy's shoulder and saw them. Two men, loitering by the door. They had drinks, though he couldn't recall seeing either come up to the bar. They were staring straight at him, and he recognised one of them; he'd seen him with Low at the docks an hour or so ago. He met Kyle's gaze and smiled. Kyle would have felt more comfortable had the goon snarled. That smile was one of the most chilling expressions Kyle had ever been subjected to. It seemed to say, "Got you!"

Kyle swallowed on a suddenly dry throat. So much for the idea that separating from
The Peridon'
s crew would take him away from the danger. It seemed that all he'd done was isolate himself, becoming all the more vulnerable in the process.

"Ducks, though," his drinking pal was saying. "I remember there was plenty of them."

"Sorry?" He wondered if there was a back way out of here.

"Ducks, on the lake. Shot a few in me time. Delicious roasted, I can tell you. Been years since I had some roasted duck."

Why would a place with a completely open front
need
a back exit? "Just going to the loo," Kyle said, standing up. Surely it had to have one of those at least.

He made a point of not looking in the two goons' direction, doing his best to saunter towards the back of the room; not bolting, no, definitely not bolting, just a man in need of a leak.

No back door, but he found the toilets; a cramped, tatty room in which the smell of disinfectant fought to hide other, more basic stinks. The place boasted a single window, high up but not as tiny as it might have been. He reckoned he could squeeze through. Bit of a cliché perhaps, escaping through the toilet window, but presumably something had to work in order to become a cliché in the first place. He stood on the loo pedestal, pushed the window open and pulled himself up, feet scrambling on the wall for purchase, conscious of brittle paint flaking off the brickwork beneath the toes of his boots and of the black iron window latch digging painfully into his stomach. God, he was getting too old for this sort of thing. For a moment he teetered, in danger of falling back inside, but he hauled and grunted and squirmed and after a few perilous seconds the balance tipped in his favour. He began to slide forward through the small gap. Momentum took care of the rest.

There's no elegant way to fall out of a window, or, if there is, Kyle had never learned it. He plummeted headfirst towards the ground, legs and feet pulling free of the window. His arms automatically came up to protect his face. Preoccupied with getting out, he only gained a fleeting impression of his surroundings - he was in a narrow alley, not one of the bustling thoroughfares, thank goodness. Even so, there were people here; briefly glimpsed shapes seen as he fell, legs and shoes being the first things to come into focus as his palms and forearms came to rest on the ground. The rest of him followed, and he landed a little painfully. Straight in front of him, a pair of boots, black leather with some fancy stitching on the sides, their pointed toes heavily scuffed.

Let them gawp, these passersby, let them laugh in astonishment at this mad spacer diving out of a window, let them think he was trying to evade paying a bar tab or whatever. He didn't care, so long as he escaped Low's men and the beating, or worse, they were doubtless waiting to administer.

The boots didn't move. In fact, more pairs of feet seemed to be clustering around him. Kyle pushed his face off the ground and sat up, to stare into the smiling faces of Low and three of his cronies. He recognised the two from the bar.

Shit! So much for relying on a cliché. An inherent characteristic of such things, of course, is that
everyone
has heard them before and knows what to expect. Something he'd try to bear in mind next time. Kyle instinctively pushed himself backwards, until his spine came up against the building he'd just vacated in such ignominious haste. Ludicrously, he brushed dirt from his arms, as if that was his greatest concern.

"If you were thinking of auditioning as a gymnast, I'd stick to the day job," Low advised.

"Look, I don't know what your problem is with Buchan and the others, but it's got nothing to do with me," Kyle said, or rather babbled, almost tripping over his words in the haste to get them out.

"Is that a fact?"

"Yeah, I'm new, not really part of the crew at all. Only signed up for this trip."

"That was your hard luck then, or rather your poor judgement, signing up with scum like that. Far as I'm concerned, you're
Peridon
crew, and that makes you fair game."

"But I don't even know what this is about, I wasn't even
there
!" That came out as a whine, even to Kyle's ears.

Low didn't deign to reply. Instead he glanced up and nodded to one of his men before stepping away, while the other three closed in. Kyle scrambled to his feet, back still pressed firmly to the wall. He'd considered staying where he was on the basis that if he stood up he'd probably just get knocked straight back down again, but a defiant part of him wanted to at least start this on his own two feet.

He saw the first punch coming and brought his arms up across his chest, leaning forward, almost hugging himself for protection, but the fist landed below the clumsy defence to sink into his solar plexus. It felt as if he'd been kicked by a mule. Pain exploded through his body, and he doubled up, gagging, wanting to throw up, gasping for breath. The second punch connected with his chin, jerking his head back so that it cracked against the wall. He suddenly realised that the first blow hadn't been so bad after all, not compared to the twin centres of agony that now blossomed in his skull. He slumped to the ground, onto his hands and knees. He knew he shouldn't have bothered getting up. No longer able to move or even focus on his surroundings, Kyle could do nothing but wait for the next blow. He screwed his eyes shut, braced himself and simply willed it to end as quickly as possible.

The sounds of violence continued. Shouts, curses, a scream, the rapid shuffle of feet, an
oomph
of expelled air as a blow connected and the sharp reports of fists on skin. It took Kyle a while to register that nothing more had struck him, that whatever was now going on seemed to be happening around him rather than being directed
at
him.

He risked opening his eyes, just in time to see a limp figure tossed against the far wall, to rebound and crumple to the ground. One of Low's men. The others, including the boss man himself, were already decorating the alley in horizontal fashion, clearly unconscious if not worse. A large, powerful figure stood over them, his back to Kyle, but the man's very posture spoke of violence barely contained.

What now? Some escaped lunatic intent on killing and maiming all he encountered? Was it Kyle's turn to be plucked up next and sent hurtling into a wall?

The breath caught in his throat as the figure began to turn towards him. Kyle squinted up and, when no immediate attack came, dared to hope that maybe this really was a rescue. He tried to see the man's face, wondering if this was someone he knew or just a passing good Samaritan, though he'd have been surprised if anyone would intentionally go to so much trouble on his behalf. Then the figure turned fully round and Kyle got a clear look at his saviour for the first time.

"Oh, hell, not you again!"

"Hello, Kyle. Long time no see," Leyton said, and smiled.

In principle, Kyle had faith in lady luck, had counted on her good grace too often at the gaming table not to, and on occasion he was even happy to accept coincidence at face value. This wasn't one of those.

"Just happened to be in the area, did you?"

"Something like that. How badly hurt are you?"

"I'll live." Kyle replied, gingerly feeling the back of his head and finding a lump already swelling there. His fingers came away sticky with his own blood.

"Good. Come on then." The big man took his arm and tried to pull him to his feet.

Kyle resisted. He wasn't sure he was ready to move just yet. He
hurt
, for goodness sake. Not to mention that he'd had a stomachful of taking orders in the navy and had never reacted well to being bossed around since. Besides, whatever reasons Leyton might have for being impatient, they weren't
his
reasons.

"Hey, what's the rush? Low won't be waking up for a while." He looked at the motionless form of the diminutive captain, reaching out a foot to prod him with the toe of his shoe.

"It's not this lot I'm worried about."

"Who then?"

"People that make your friend Low here look like a sedated kitten with its claws removed; people who wouldn't hesitate to take you apart from the inside outwards simply for talking to me. Now move!"

Kyle sensed that his supposed rescuer meant it and this time he didn't shake off the hand that reached down to help him, though he was still far from reassured.

He found himself stumbling behind the larger man, who led the way out of the alley and into the bustling streets of the market quarter.

"What the hell have you dragged me into, Leyton?"

"What, by saving your butt, you mean?"

"Thanks. That bit was good. It's the bit that comes afterwards I'm worried about."

"I'll explain later."

The streets were no less packed than Kyle remembered. Leyton's bulk forged a path through the crowd as they headed deeper into the market.

Kyle was feeling more and more resentful. "No!" he suddenly said, stopping dead in his tracks. His guts hurt, his head hurt, and he was sick and tired of people knowing more about what was going on than he did.

People stared, perhaps assuming this to be a lovers' spat. Leyton looked nervous, as if he'd prefer not to be drawing this sort of attention.

That gave Kyle some leverage, a bargaining chip. Presumably Leyton had gone to a fair bit of trouble to find him, so he was important for some reason, although he couldn't begin to imagine why. "If you seriously expect me to go with you, you're gonna have to give me more of a reason than that!"

Leyton glared, as if debating whether to simply walk on and leave Kyle to his fate, but instead he drew a long breath and said, "You want a reason? Okay, I'll give you one. You were in the forces, weren't you, during the war? So you must know that a moving target's more difficult to hit than one that stands obligingly still, especially in a busy and confused environment like this." He looked meaningfully around. "Reason enough?"

With that he turned and stalked off.

Kyle paused for a heartbeat before concluding
good point
, and then hurried to catch up. He reassessed the value of his bargaining chip, and reckoned he might have used most of it up. "All right, but once we get to wherever it is we're going I want to know exactly what this is all about."

Leyton didn't answer.

Kyle struggled to keep pace, increasingly conscious of how on edge his companion was and how alert, eyes flicking from side to side, scanning the crowds around them. No attention to spare for small talk, apparently. This was a very different Leyton from the jovial, easy-going brawler Kyle had first encountered on Frysworld.

Without warning, the big man came to an abrupt halt.

"What is it?" Kyle wanted to know.

"Nothing. This way." He headed off at a right angle to their previous course, stepping up the pace even more.

Kyle scanned the crowd, trying to see what had spooked him, but all he saw was a mass of bobbing heads. He thought he spotted them the second time, though; a trio of smartly dressed men moving in their direction. They were definitely looking for something, and paid far more attention to the people around them than to the stalls and their wares. Shopping seemed to be the last thing on their minds. Kyle didn't think that he and Leyton had been seen as they ducked down a narrow alleyway between two rows of stalls bristling with clothes and bags and knick-knacks, but he wouldn't have wanted to bet his life on it, while suspecting that might be exactly what he was doing.

"Are they after me or you?" he asked.

"Trust me, at this point, it really doesn't matter."

Probably true. Kyle was beginning to think he would have been better off taking his chances with Low. As reprieves went, this was hardly ideal. None of which stopped him from shadowing Leyton's every move. The man offered his best chance of coming through this in one piece, whatever 'this' might be.