Stardogs, page 11
He shook his head again. His voice was strained and high-pitched when it finally came out. “This isn’t the New Sahara system!”
The riders were trained to expertise at system visualisation. The girl rider, Una, had looked up when he had spoken. He signed hastily to her. She studied the growing planet with care. Eventually she announced, “It is not an Empire world.” There was a stolid toneless quality to her voice which made it utterly believable. It distracted the Leaguesman’s attention from the fact that she’d reacted to his speaking.
Deo had walked over to the instrument panel set in the arm of the League-watcher’s throne. “And we are not slowing down either.”
CHAPTER 9
H.E.
It is said that it is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness. But it is still better to tell the electrician that if the lights aren’t on in ten minutes you’re going to shove that damned lighted candle up his butt.
From the collected sayings of Saint Sugahata the Reviled.
Leaguesman Kadar was the first to recover. “Impossible!” He leaned threateningly toward the rider. “You’re lying. And if you’ve brought us out at the wrong world I will teach you the meaning of punishment!”
But she had deactivated hearing-aid, and was locked in her silent world again. She just stared out of the viewpanels. The world they were heading towards was still distant. They had many hours to fall towards its amber and white surface.
Johannes Wienan was sore, and he was of the kind whom pain makes irritable. “Leaguesman Kadar. You have no authority here. You are merely a passenger on this ship. Conduct yourself accordingly.”
“No authority! You… spoiled young pipsqueak! I’m an agent-supervisor in the security section. I am here on Jan-Pieter the nineteenth’s personal orders.”
Johannes felt the cold sinking to his gut. As usual his devious uncle had been playing both ends against the middle. He probably had strings attached to middle too, to make sure it did just as he wanted. But he wasn’t going to back down. “My authority, over this ship, is vested in me by the Wienan Leaguemaster herself. Challenge my authority and I’ll have you put off the ship. Right here. Can you breathe space, Agent-supervisor?”
“Enough.” Shari had put on her imperial dignity again. “You are arguing about nothing. We are in a system beyond the Empire. We have no means of return. Unless the Stardog recovers we’ll be aboard the lifecraft in a few hours. Stop your bickering. Leaguesman Wienan, I suggest that someone accompanies you in search of medical supplies. Leaguesman Shilo. You will go to your stateroom and remain there until you are fetched. Lieutenant Albeer will accompany you and lock you in.”
“Lock me in! You dare…”
“Shut up, Leaguesman.” The Viscount snapped. So this was his opposite number. Incompetent fool, letting his temper betray him like that. “Her Imperial Highness has given you your orders. Move.”
Kadar showed his yellow teeth. “We’re beyond the Empire… she says. Outside her authority.”
Martin Brettan administered a careless backhander across the Leaguesman’s mouth. “You’re not beyond my hand. Next bit of cheek from you and I’ll go through with the other Leaguesman’s suggestion, and toss you out of an airlock. Now, move. I’ll take him down, your Highness.”
“Thank you Viscount. We will meet here again I think in… twenty minutes.”
The handsome and muscular Captain hustled him away down the passage to the main body of the barge.
“Well, Leaguesman Wienan, what are you waiting for? I want the passage clear to take the Countess to her room.”
He bit his lip. Looked down the passage. “Your Highness. Be careful with that man. He is one of my uncle’s assassins. I can only think he was put on board to kill you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And you weren’t party to this, Leaguesman?”
He flushed. “No. I… I was supposed to make the rider refuse to continue crossing trade sectors. I knew nothing of this.”
“Honesty from the League of lies! You knew nothing of the plan to kill the rider?” It was Deo’s seldom heard voice. Accusing. Oddly deep.
Wienan looked confused. The man was a menial — yet speaking thus? “No. I’d never be so stupid as to try something in flight…”
“Then why was the new-rider not tranquillised?” The grey-clad man’s eyes bored into his.
“But…but I saw Kadar give her the injection myself, before we came up here… We stopped on the way. And Kadar’s face when she was pushed in. He… can’t have known.”
Deo nodded. “Truth, Princess. I saw the Leaguesman’s face too. There is another conspirator.”
She sighed. “Surprise me, Deo. Well, get along with you, Leaguesman.”
He bobbed his head. Turned to his servant, “Come on, Lila.”
“Go to hell.” To emphasise her point she cocked the pistol and raised it. “Before the bank took our farm, I used to shoot whistler-ducks with one of these. Keep away from me.”
Johannes Wienan’s jaw fell open. “But…”
“Just go, Leaguesman,” said Shari, tiredly.
He went.
The debt-slave girl bowed low to the Princess “Your Highness, I am an agent of the Imperial Intelligence Service. I am at your service. Don’t trust those Leaguesmen, Princess.”
Shari raised her eyes to heaven. How could she point out to this child that Imperial Intelligence was also probably plotting to kill her? “I’m sure Lieutenant Albeer will appreciate your help. I believe,” she said, with an enquiring tilt of her head, “that he is also in the IIS?” He nodded, reddening slightly. He seemed about to say something, but she turned her attention instead to her wounded companion. “Caro, do you think you can walk, or shall I find a nice man to carry you?”
The countess smiled. It was almost her old, easy smile. “I’m fine. The nice man sounds, well… nice, but I’ll manage without one, I suppose.”
Deo and the bodyguard helped her to her feet. The Princess offered her arm. Shari looked at the ruins of the cockpit. “Deo?” she began.
“I shall remain here, Your Highness. I will see to it.”
She knew that by the time she came back, there would be no bodies, and probably no blood. Deo was terrifyingly efficient.
When she, the countess, Albeer and her newest bodyguard had left, followed by Otto, who would comfort someone while his mistress was there, but would not allow her to leave without him, the ubiquitous servingman turned to the rider and to Lady Tanzo. He bowed respectfully. “Lady. I shall have to take the dead rider’s body. Would you not comfort the living instead?”
For a minute the stocky little woman just stared myopically at him. Then she spoke, her voice unaccustomedly sad. “You know, he died trying to tell me where we were going to. He thought it would make me happy. I didn’t understand at first. But I do now.” She looked at the heavy wavy-bladed knife he was retrieving from the neck of the fallen Camo. “Does the Princess Shari know that she has one of the Kali Ghurka as her servant?”
Deo paused, in the act of retrieving his knife. “The lady is well informed. What does the Lady Tanzo know about the Kali Ghurka?”
She shrugged, showing no sign of fear. “I know you’re a fanatical sect from Arunchal. The product of Earthgov’s dumping of a mutinous Ghurka regiment, a bizarre Hindu religious group and a ministering order of Catholic Nuns together on an isolated planet. The ruins on Arunchal are very unusual. I wanted to do some research work there. I was warned to keep out of your way at all costs.”
Deo almost smiled. “The holy ones would have called for your death for the description of the origins of the Holy Church of the Kali-Dewa. Never-the-less, the Princess knows who I am, Lady. There is no further need for you to advertise it. Please take the rider girl away. I will put your rider in a place of respect, fitting for a brave man. Then I must dispose of the trash.”
Tanzo helped Una to her feet. “Including that one, I trust.” She pointed to the bound and gagged Sam Teovan.
Deo looked at the blade of his knife. Only a man with no further use for his thumb would test the edge in the ordinary way. “Yes. Goodbye, Lady.”
When she had gone, Deo, who had picked up the weapons of the fallen with obvious professionalism, walked over to the wide-eyed Teovan. Deo’s face was, as usual, expressionless. The Kukri edge just touched the gag that the Viscount had tied with surprising professionalism. The material fell aside. “You will tell me who you are, who you are from, and how you came to here.”
Sam Teovan’s famous instincts told him that to lie was to die. Deo’s next statement confirmed this. “I have been trained to tell the truth from falsehood. Speak only the absolute truth.”
“You won’t kill me? I can make you rich.” He really didn’t think it would work. But it was worth a try.
He was answered by a cold stare and no change in expression. It was more terrifying than a threat. Instinct said ‘start talking, and start talking fast’. “I’m a Caporegime of the Yakuza-Syndicate.”
Deo nodded. “True. Who assisted you? The Empire or the League?”
Teovan shook his head. “No one. No one knew. It was Sal. Salvatore Caranzia-Heiki. He’s a Big Capo back on Phillipia. It was all Sal and a couple of other big guys’ idea. They set it all up. It was supposed to be a sure thing.”
“The League knew. You never got those weapons through without them knowing.”
“Hey, that was Kaparov, the Dakada smuggling boss. He organized that stuff.”
“League, probably. Jan-Pieter’s sort of trick to run smuggling past his own customs. Who got you onto the staff? Who recruited Sirian?”
“I dunno. Sal. Sal and that tall, thin Dakada guy.”
“A tall, thin man. Very graceful as he moves. High pitched voice. Slightly slanted eyes?” asked Deo impassively.
“Yeah… I don’t know his name…”
“He would not have used his own anyway. That was Selim Puk. The Emperor’s Security chief. Once his chief assassin,” said Deo with finality.
“You mean it was all a set-up? I’ll kill bloody Sal…”
“He was almost certainly set-up himself. And you will not kill him. You are about to die. It is the custom among my people to give the victim, if possible, an opportunity for a last prayer. Do not waste it by pleading.” The blade of Kukri was set against his throat.
Sam’s little piggy eyes widened. He looked into Deo’s unblinking brown eyes. His dry mouth struggled for words. “The bomb.”
The knife was pulled back slightly. “The bomb?”
“Yeah, look. Blower, the dead guy over there, set a bomb. That’s what he did see. He was our explosives man. There’s the trigger-box on the floor.”
“He was killed before he could use that,” Deo said, looking at the transmitter.
“Yeah. But we was supposed to scram off this boat. Use the bomb threat to get the toxin off the Leaguesman, rendezvous with our ship, an’ leave this one. Take the Stardog and the Princess for ransom, and dispose of the evidence. Blower put a timer in his bomb. Easiest way, he said. Lemme out, and I’ll show you where it is.”
Deo shook his head. “We will just abandon ship earlier than previously planned.”
Sam snorted. “I nearly bust myself laughing when I heard you all talking about that. You think we’d leave the boats in working order?”
Deo looked at him, long and hard. At last he said, “You have earned yourself a temporary respite. Where is the bomb?”
Sam shook his head. “I’ll show you, if you promise not to kill me, and to let me loose.” He was instinctively sure this man could be trusted to honor his word. Which gave him, Sam Teovan, a serious advantage over the sap.
He didn’t even see the grey-clad man’s hands move. Deo was holding the top half of his ear pinna in front of him. “Do not attempt to bargain with me. You live. If the bomb destroys the craft… you die. Show me where it is.”
Sam could feel blood trickling down his cheek and neck. But he was no soft touch. “Look at the trigger-transmitter. It’ll have a timer on the display-screen.”
It was Deo’s turn to shake his head. He picked up the transmitter, deliberately not looking at it, and held it in front of Sam. Liquid crystal seconds flickered away. “Show me.”
Unwilling, but frightened, Sam led off down the passage.
Changes, deep changes, were occurring in the tissues of the Stardog itself. Some cells were developing a gel cushioning. Nutrient, and indeed life, was being sucked from others. The beast was preparing to close the great circle. The intelligent part of its brain had shut down. Gone to roam free in the stardark, with its dead master. Only the almost mechanical reflex sections of the brain functioned.
“So, there is a bomb on board. And the lifecrafts are sabotaged. Well! A day in the life of the average Princess,” said Shari calmly. Having waited for the inevitable death with no way of escape, she was now almost light-headed. For the first time since she was nine, she realized that her future was at last uncertain. The chances of survival were poor, but at least she didn’t know that she would be killed. “Take us to the bomb, murderer.” She said to Deo, “This one and his companions killed the rest of the crew. Martin found their bodies. Tied up and shot, execution style.”
Teovan looked blankly at her. “We didn’t! We tied…”
“Shut up. You nauseate me. Show us the bomb.” Her voice was cutting.
With a prod from Deo, he turned and led them down into the bowels of the ship, to a passage along the one flank. “You’ll have to shoot the lock,” he said sullenly. “Blower turfed the key into the recycler-system. He reckoned it left us in a better bargaining position if the bomb was out of reach. Besides all the keys were numbered, an’ he didn’t want you to know where the explosives were.”
The Princess sighed. “Well. Can we fix the lifecraft?”
“Why?” Martin Brettan already had drawn the heavy calibre automatic from his belt, and was pointing it at the door.
Shari shrugged, “Because you’ll never break that door down. These cabins were built for royalty, assassination scared royalty.”
Teovan stared at her face, reading truth there. “The lifecraft seals are wrecked. Unfixable. The pieces are in space behind us somewhere. “
She looked at the LCD seconds flicking away, flashing the remaining three minutes. “I am going back to my cabin. To prepare myself to die like a Princess. Deo, come with me… please.”
The sound of a nervously cleared throat echoed in the sudden silence. “Er. I believe I may be able to help.” Tanzo came forward, a silver bright section of thin wire in her stubby fingers. She put the wire into the lock and began feeling “I heard the noise, she said, “and Una and I came to see what was happening.” She smiled kindly at the frozen-faced girl next to her. “Ah. One tumbler.” She pulled the wire out and began modifying it. Reinserted it. Another click.
Teovan stared, fascinated. These royal parasites were not supposed to be very proficient lock-pickers. He was no door-tickler himself, but he’d seen enough other practitioners at work to know that she was good. When the kidnapping had been set up, he’d understood they’d have to take on two bodyguards and a bunch of nancy-pants sycophants, who couldn’t even clean their own teeth. The Yak, it seemed, had been badly misled.
The door swung open. Inside was a selection of cooking pots with Blower’s ‘soup’ in them. It appeared Blower had found his position in the kitchen useful after all. The one in the gold and black fancy uniform was first into the room. He might not have known much about lock-picking, but he plainly knew explosives and detonator circuits. He carefully lifted up the entire battery and timer, and the small vial hanging in the ‘soup’, to which they were wired.
Without ceremony he handed them to Deo. “Dump these. You’ve still got 130 seconds.” Deo hurried away. The Viscount smiled, “I wonder, Lady Tanzo, if we could prevail on you to lock this room again… with your rare skills.” The look she gave him would have damaged scorpions, but she complied.
The Viscount turned to Sam Teovan. Teovan knew the man intended to kill him. “Well, murderer? Any more nice little surprises you have for us?”
Sam Teovan kept his mouth closed. He knew that to open it was to sentence himself to death. At all costs he must avoid being taken away from the view of the rest of the survivors. The Viscount smiled at him, catlike. All good even teeth. “I’ll just take this one and lock him up somewhere safe, shall I?”
Sam’s numbed brain scrambled for a way out. But the necessity was taken from him by a sideways buffet, followed by a terrible wrench that sprawled all of them like skittles down the passage. “What in hell!”
“Did we hit something?” Another lesser buffet struck them.
“We’ll have to go up to the cockpit and see.” The group battled its way up the passages. On the way they met with Deo and also with the younger Leaguesman, looking green and attempting to shield his broken arm.
“Was that the detonator?” asked the Viscount. “Did you cycle it?”
Deo shook his head as, like a veteran seaman he navigated the swaying passage to cockpit. “No, M’lord. This is something else, M’lord.”
In the cockpit it was apparent what else it was. They were under attack.
“They look like Stardogs.” The Leaguesman’s voice was incredulous. Stardogs didn’t attack other Stardogs.
“Much smaller,” someone commented. But yet the broken-umbrella shapes were very Stardog like, just perhaps a twentieth of the size. Ripping at the flanks of the huge beast that carried them.
“We must stop them! They’re ripping our beast apart!” Tanzo shouted, anger filling her.
The Viscount raised a sardonic eyebrow, despite having to hold on to a stanchion to stay upright. “How, Lady lock-picker? Go out there and beat them off with sticks?”
