Dark World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 9), page 38
“What have you got? What have you figured out?”
“It’s quite interesting,” Floramel said. “At first, I assumed James was attempting to breed with me. However, as the encounter progressed and grew ever more odd, I came to realize that—”
“Uh…” I said, leaning in. “I think she’s asking about the book, Floramel. What did you learn in your lab after you read the book?”
Evelyn’s eyes slid to me, giving me an acid-filled glance. Then, she slid those eyes back to Floramel again.
“Yes,” she said. “Let’s hear about the book.”
“I only had the opportunity to study it once,” she said. “But I possess an eidetic memory. The book is clearly about the Mogwa, I believe. There are too many similarities. An insectile people on an overgrown world—very much like a planet occupied by the Wur—come up with a way to decimate the population of another planet.”
Evelyn squinted at her. “That’s nothing like the synopsis I read on the grid.”
Floramel shrugged. “That puzzled me too, at first. However, it has been two hundred years since the book was published. Possibly, errors or purposeful misinformation has been placed online about it.”
“For what purpose?” Evelyn asked.
“To hide its true nature, of course.”
“Which is what, exactly?” I demanded.
I was tired of hints and half-answers, but when I got the real thing, I was blown away.
“It’s a treatise,” Floramel said, “disguised as fiction. A blueprint for a scheme.”
“A scheme to do what?” I asked.
“To kill the Mogwa,” Evelyn said flatly. “Our direct rulers among the Galactics—doesn’t every rebel want to kill their king?”
Floramel looked at her. “Yes, that’s exactly right. I don’t know how you missed it, James. Perhaps you were distracted by your present company.”
I fell back in my chair, blown away.
A manual on killing the Mogwa? No wonder Claver, Raash, and God knows who else wanted it.
-55-
That night, I went to bed alone in a hotel room. It was hard to sleep for several reasons.
For one thing, I’d spent the day with two of my ex-lady friends. That always got a man’s mind working. But on top of that, I’d learned about something I didn’t know existed—a way to kill the Mogwa.
According to Floramel, the first edition version contained details on creating a biological weapon. It was all disguised as the fiction in the story, but she’d tried it and then experimented on various cell samples down in her secret labs.
Now, we’re not supposed to have Mogwa prisoners, or Mogwa anything—but we do.
The funny thing was, I was directly responsible for the tissue she’d experimented on. Years ago, I’d killed a Mogwa on Earth. That act had nearly gotten me and everyone else on the planet permed, but it also had allowed the spookiest of our science types an opportunity.
From that burnt-out husk of an air car, the one I’d slid down the side of Central before journeying off to Machine World, they’d managed to extract living tissue.
It wasn’t much. It was a lump about the size of a hamburger patty. But they’d kept it alive all these years—just in case.
Floramel had requisitioned a micro-sample, and she’d grown a culture from that. The bio agent she’d cooked up according to the formula in the book had killed it immediately.
Death spores, that’s what they were.
Now, finding a new way to kill a species might not seem like a big deal. There were literally millions of ways to kill any fleshly being.
But this bio-terminator was different. It was harmless to pretty much all life except for the Mogwa. That meant you could dust a planet with it—or even your own troops—with no ill effects.
Only the Mogwa would die.
Under normal circumstances, even learning all this couldn’t keep me from sleeping. I could sleep like a baby while awaiting a nasty execution.
But what had done the trick was the next thought that occurred to my plodding mind after I learned of this substance: What was I going to do with the information?
Should I—or we, since Floramel was involved—go to the lab authorities in Central? Or maybe directly to Drusus?
I just wasn’t sure. I’d been killed repeatedly concerning this topic over a long, long period. That meant there were people around seeking the information, or trying to prevent it from coming out.
Maybe Raash, Floramel’s neighbor, had been such an agent. Maybe he’d been on the book’s trail—I just wasn’t sure.
Claver had certainly been interested, and I was pretty sure Evelyn was—which meant Turov was in the know as well.
Damn it.
What the hell should I do?
With all this on my mind, sleeping was almost out of the question, but I managed to pass out anyway. It’d been a long, long day.
Sometime before dawn a loud snapping sound woke me up.
Surging awake with a snarfing roar, I rolled out of bed onto the floor.
A familiar dirty laugh met my ears. “Now, now, boy—my apologies! I was getting bored waiting for you to wake up.”
Claver was standing at the windows. To make the noise that had awakened me, he’d double-tapped the window. It had simulated the quick rolling up of shades.
The shades were illusory, of course. In fact, the predawn scene depicting Central outside might have been fake as well. It was hard to tell these days, the screens were so good.
“What the hell are you doing in my room?” I demanded, clawing out a gun. I aimed it at him and wiped the sleep from my eyes.
“Settle down,” he said. “I’m just visiting.”
“I should kill you where you stand.”
He shrugged. “You can if you like. It might even feel nice. But then, you’ll have to fill out a lot of forms for the police, and after that, you’ll finally start to wonder…”
“Wonder what?”
“What brought old Claver to your room tonight…? And why was he in such a good mood for the first time in years…?”
My hand twitched. It wanted to shoot him—and my hand usually has good instincts in these situations.
I almost listened to my gut reaction—but I couldn’t quite do it.
For one thing, I knew he was right. I’d seen his operation—wherever it was—with his air-jellies and his obedient clones. He would get a revive, because there were plenty of Clavers of varying types waiting to do it.
“All right,” I said. “What do you want, Alpha-Claver?”
“That’s Prime,” he corrected. “I’m a Prime Claver. Or a Claver-Prime, if you prefer.”
Not caring in the slightest, I shook my head. “Whatever. The last time we met, you killed me.”
“Wrong,” he said. “That’s ingratitude, right there. Makes it hard to do a man a kind turn when he talks like that.”
I snorted. “What kind turn?”
“You were as good as permed out there on Dark World, but I saw the light in my heart, and I arranged a revive for you back here on Earth. If that’s not a good turn, what is? You wanted to go home, didn’t you? Did you expect to take a chartered flight?”
“So… you’re here for the book. Is that it? That was the deal.”
“No,” he said, surprising me. “I’ve already got it. That’s why I’m here. This is a courtesy call, so to speak.”
“You found the book?” I asked in concern. “That means you were digging around down at my place?”
I aimed my pistol into his face. A red dot shined over his nose.
“It’s hard for a man to think when you’re doing that,” Claver complained.
I was angry. I’d left the book down in Georgia, at my parent’s place. If he’d been sniffing around my family’s home—well, that was beyond the pale. But I needed information, and he was here to provide it, so I fought to control my emotions.
“Are you going to put that gun down so we can talk?” Claver asked.
Thinking about that, I nodded, and I set my gun aside.
“All right,” I said dangerously. “Talk. How exactly did you get the book?”
He looked troubled for just a second. That was a rare look on Claver’s face. It concerned me.
“I traded for it,” he said. “I’m a trader, after all.
Snatching up my pistol again, I aimed it at his right nostril. A tiny red dot played there.
“Did you break into my house? Did you molest my family?”
He blinked.
That was it, right there. I knew a tell when I saw one. Whatever he was going to say next, it was a lie.
He did open his mouth. He was about to speak his lie—but I didn’t want to hear it.
I shot him in the face. He pitched forward, gargling and wheezing briefly until all that stopped, and then he relaxed in death.
The next hour or so was a sheer panic for me. I threw my stuff together and rushed for the train station. Every step or two, I tried to call my folks.
But they kept their tappers on silent at night. Too many sales offers, crap like that. It could buzz your arm off all night long if you let it.
Etta wasn’t answering, either. She’d been mad at me before I’d left, but I’d figured she’d be over it by now—but I guess she wasn’t.
It wasn’t until dawn that I got a call back from my father.
“James?” he asked. “What’s all the fuss about?”
“Dad, has anything gone wrong down there? I’m on my way home to Georgia right now on the sky-train.”
“Uh…” he said, and I knew there was something up. Finally, he sighed. “We weren’t going to tell you until you got home. Etta’s left, James. She made us promise not to talk about it right away.”
That stunned me.
“Dad? Are you kidding me? Where’d she go?”
“She went to visit her grandfather. She said he’s been ill, lately, and—”
“On Dust World?” I demanded.
“Yes. It’s supposed to be a short trip, no more than two months. We didn’t think you’d be too upset about it, as she—”
“Dad, where’d she get the money?”
He hesitated. “We asked her that. She said her grandfather arranged the ticket.”
I snorted at that idea. The Investigator wasn’t a sentimental man. I doubted he gave much of a shit what his granddaughter did.
But that didn’t matter. I knew where she’d gotten the money—and that realization hit me hard.
Etta knew my place. She knew my hiding spots. She’d found the book—and she’d sold it to Claver.
I signed off with my dad as quickly as I could.
Feeling a little gut-sick, I sat back in my seat and stared outside the sky-train. The Earth was waking up, with a pink sky lighting up the world under me. The ocean out to the east was slate-gray. A few silvery dots moved here and there below—air cars, mostly.
My own daughter had sold me out. She’d stolen the book, and given it to my worst enemy.
There just wasn’t any easy way for a man’s mind to come to terms with that.
-56-
By the time I got home, it was morning. I met my folks and gave them hugs and all that. They were upset about Etta leaving, but they weren’t distraught. They didn’t understand what she’d done—and I didn’t enlighten them.
Etta wasn’t coming back. I knew that right off. You don’t go and pull a stunt like the one she did and then do a U-turn back to your folks’ house the next week—at least, you don’t if you’re like my kid.
She was stubborn. A mule of a girl, who’d never liked listening to anyone.
I knew that was partly my fault, of course. I’d provided at least half of the genetics that had put the evil in her.
Even accounting for her nature, it was a disappointing betrayal. She’d always been close to me, and we’d always been a tight team. She’d had my back, and I’d had hers. To break those rules, to go against the family—well, that hurt.
Naturally, I didn’t tell my parents jack-squat about what was really going on. When there’s a painful moment of revelation staring me in the face, I always put it off until tomorrow. When I couldn’t dodge any longer, I made up some lies to push the day of reckoning even farther away. I’m not proud of it—that’s just my approach to life.
Months passed. Soon, it was springtime, and Legion Varus was still demobilized for some much needed shore leave. Things wouldn’t stay that way forever, but with luck, my vacation might last as long as a year.
Deciding to enjoy what I could of each day, I did my damnedest to string along my parents. I was full of bright reasons as to why Etta wasn’t calling or writing to us—much less coming back home. One day kind of slid into the next, and it was late May before I knew it.
Then came a night, just before I was about to retire for the evening, when my tapper beeped with a special tone. The sound signified a private call was incoming.
That was unusual as I always set my tapper to allow only emergency calls from high-level people—or my low-level friends.
Glancing at it, I saw the ID, and my face shifted from curious to concerned.
“Galina?” I asked, answering the call.
“Please use my title, Centurion.”
“Of course,” I said quickly. “Sorry… Hello Tribune. What’s up?”
“I… I’ve learned some things. I’d like to discuss them with you.”
“Uh… does this mean I have to fly up to your office?”
“No,” she said firmly. “I’m already here, in Georgia. My God, how hot and sticky your nights are down here, McGill. How can you stand to live in this swamp?”
Frowning, I walked to my window and split the shade with my fingers. My windows consisted of old-fashioned honest-to-God shades covering panes of glass, not some kind of cheap screen that reimagined what the outdoors looked like.
I didn’t see anything, other than the darkness and shadowy trees. The swamp seemed quiet.
“Well, if you’re already down here, you might as well come see me,” I said. “Where are you, exactly?”
“Out on the road. In my air car.”
“Oh, I get it!” I said, relieved.
I’d thought she might have brought an arresting army with her—it wouldn’t have been the first time she’d sent goons to my door.
I walked to my south-facing window and peeped outside.
Now I saw her. A vehicle squatted on the highway. It looked like an air car—even though I could only see the glow of the running lights from here.
“Hey, if you’re right here, maybe I should come out. We could go into town.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never seen your place. It’s been in so many reports of… incidents. I’m mildly curious about it. Do you mind if I come in?”
“Uh…” I said, looking around my dirty shack in alarm. “I guess that would be okay…”
“Good, I’ll be right there.”
Being a long-term bachelor, I wasn’t the finest housekeeper in the world. In fact, I was more of a pig.
Racing around the place, I began scooping and shoving. I sprayed the toilet, the couch, and my dishes with some nano stain-eater. Everything bubbled up with silver foam. Soon, things glistened and began to smell better.
Throwing open the door and the windows, I aired the place out as best I could—but it still was a little ripe by the time she walked up.
Putting on my best Georgia grin, I greeted her and stepped aside so she could enter.
She paused at the doorway, looking around in concern.
I’d witnessed this effect on women any number of times. There was something about my dank lair that set them ill-at-ease. Possibly, they knew in their heart-of-hearts that this was a place that was completely unfeminine. That was reinforced by the dark, the stains, the musk of my shoved-away laundry, and countless other details.
Letting her soak it all in, I didn’t say a thing. Apologies, excuses—they never did a damned bit of good in these moments of indecision. I had to let her decide if she’d made a mistake or not.
Finally, she walked past me and sat on my couch. It was just about the only piece of real furniture that I had, and it doubled as my bed.
Mildly surprised, I gave her a big smile. “Welcome to my home, sir.”
She tilted her head forward, a suggestion of a nod. “Now you can call me Galina. It’s appropriate.”
“Okay Galina. What will you have? I’ve got beer, and… I think there’s some milk left—but that may have gone sour.”
“In that case, I’ll have a beer.”
“Do you want a glass?”
Her eyes ran over my sink full of dishes. The mercury-like shine of the nanites cleansing them was obvious.
“I’d rinse it off first, of course,” I said.
“Um… just give me the bottle.”
I did, and I cracked one open for myself. We sipped our beverages and studied one another.
“Galina,” I asked, “why’d you call? Why didn’t you just come and knock at my door?”
“I’ve heard things…” she said. “I didn’t think it would be a good idea to surprise you at night.”
“Oh yeah… right. Okay, maybe that was good thinking. I wish more people would call first now that you mention it.”
“Your tapper is usually unavailable.”
“Not for you!” I told her truthfully. “You can always get through.”
She smiled and sipped her beer.
For some reason, she seemed awkward and uncertain. That was weird for her. She was a woman who behaved with the utmost confidence most of the time. I wasn’t sure what was on her mind tonight.
Sex? Maybe. But if Galina wanted that, a man could always tell.
She sucked in a breath, making her chest rise and fall. I watched her curiously. I honestly had no idea what she was about to say.
“James,” she said at last, “I’ve learned of some things… Very bad things.”
“Like what?”
“Do you know of a book called, The Eaters of Lotus?”
I blinked.
That was bad—but then I looked down at my filthy carpet before answering and blew it completely,
