At Empire's Edge (33 page)

It took the better part of two hours to transport Lood to a gloomy warehouse, which was owned by an anti-Nalomy businessman. Once the prisoner had been secured in a storeroom, Lucia requested enough resistance fighters to hold off a company of militiamen if necessary. Belok was put in charge of the makeshift prison facility, while Lucia left to consult with her fellow resistance leaders, and Cato set off for the palace. For that was where Usurlus was, and given the plan to assassinate the Legate, that was where he would find Verafti as well.

 

 

Having made her way through the old water pipe to the point where it opened into the pumping station, Alamy had seen Nalomy, Hingo, and Pasayo preparing to have dinner with an alien. Not a Lir, or a Kelf, or a member of some other species who could be seen walking the streets of the X-Quarter, but a reptilian shape shifter who was about to dine on a Uman leg! Persus’s leg! That was when Alamy had been forced to flee.

The horror of what she’d seen combined with raw gut-wrenching fear drove all thoughts from Alamy’s mind as she scuttled through the pipe in a desperate attempt to reach the other end of it before Pasayo’s security troops did. And, thanks to the speed with which she made her way through the pipe, the maintenance room was still empty when Alamy arrived inside the palace. But what to do next?

The rational part of Alamy’s mind had begun to reassert itself by then, and as her bare feet hit the concrete floor, she realized her sandals were back in the pipe! Worse yet, her clothing was stained as a result of kneeling inside the pipe, which would make it impossible to reintegrate herself into the kitchen’s workforce without being noticed.

No sooner had that thought occurred to Alamy than she heard the sound of muffled voices and knew Nalomy’s security men were in the kitchen and about to enter the maintenance room. There weren’t any other doors, so Alamy did the only thing she
could
do, which was to climb upward.

The big intake pipe was only a few feet off the floor. Above that a maze of electrical conduits, insulation-wrapped pipes, and air ducts could be seen, all of which crisscrossed each other, thereby creating spaces in which a relatively small person could hide. So Alamy went straight up by climbing onto the big water pipe, then pulling herself up onto a large air duct. And that’s where she was when two militiamen entered the room.

By peering over the side of the duct, Alamy could see the tops of their heads as the men searched the room, assault rifles at the ready. The red dots from their targeting lasers floated over the big water pipe, the walls, and eventually the area over their heads as the soldiers prowled the room. At one point a ruby red dot came within inches of Alamy’s face as it probed the maze around her. But, not having seen anything out of the ordinary, the security man moved on.

Finally, having satisfied themselves that the fugitive wasn’t in the room, the soldiers were about to tackle the pipe when Pasayo and one of his Section Leaders entered from the kitchen. “Did you find her?” Pasayo demanded harshly.

“No, sir,” one of the militiamen answered. “I was just about to enter the pipe.”

“Well, get on with it,” Pasayo responded impatiently. “She has to be somewhere. Hingo is in the process of assembling the entire staff for a head count. So we’ll know who’s missing within the next fifteen minutes.”

Alamy wanted to whimper but bit her bottom lip instead. Because once they knew who was missing, it would no longer be possible to rejoin the staff, even if she managed to find some clean clothes to wear.

“What about the space above us?” Pasayo wanted to know, as the first soldier entered the pipe. “Have you been up there?”

“No, sir,” the remaining soldier answered. “But we took a look from down here.”

That wasn’t good enough, and Pasayo was about to say as much, when a voice came over his com set. “This is Assistant Section Leader Frolis, sir. I’m on duty at the front gate and what looks like a pretty good-sized crowd is marching down Imperial Boulevard in the direction of the palace. They have torches, sir. And they’re shouting antigovernment slogans.”

Pasayo swore. “Damn it! The rabble are trying to stir up trouble in hopes that Usurlus will see it and sympathize with them! I’ll be right there.”

The door slammed closed as Pasayo left. The first soldier emerged from the pipe a few moments later. “It’s empty,” the militiaman reported, as his boots smacked the floor. “But I found her sandals!” he added triumphantly, and held the sandals up like trophies.

“Well done,” the NCO said sarcastically. “I’ll put you in for a frigging medal the moment this evolution is over. In the meantime, I have a feeling that Centurion Pasayo could use a hero like you out front. Let’s go.”

Alamy heaved a sigh of relief as the troops left, and the minute the door was completely closed, she hurried to climb down off her perch. Thanks to the demonstration in front of the palace, all of Pasayo’s people were going to be distracted for the next few minutes. So the time to make her move was
now
. But to where? Not the dormitory . . . That was the first place they would look for her. And with all of the sentries on high-alert, she would never make it off the palace grounds.

But as Alamy’s bare feet hit cold concrete, an idea occurred to her. A wild, somewhat improbable idea, but one with at least some chance of success. Alamy padded across the room, climbed the short flight of stairs to the kitchen, and opened the door an inch or so. The hiding place she had in mind wasn’t more than a thousand feet away, but given the degree of difficulty involved, it might as well have been a thousand miles.

 

 

It was early afternoon, as Cato’s pedicab took a left onto Imperial Boulevard, and began to weave back and forth as the sixty-three-year-old driver sought to avoid the debris that lay on the road. As he was thrown from side to side, Cato saw hundreds of half-burned torches, dozens of crudely made signs, pieces of clothing, stray shoes, an artificial leg, and bits of paper that fluttered along the ground as a light breeze chased them toward the palace. There were also pools of what might have been dried blood.

A new roadblock had been established half a mile from the palace, where Cato was forced to identify himself. “What the hell happened here?” Cato inquired, as he waited for a tired-looking noncom to run his pass through a scanner.

“Nothing much,” the soldier replied cautiously. “You know how it is. All sorts of rabble come into the city for Founder’s Day. Some of them get liquored up and want to make trouble. But we whupped ’em good! They won’t try that again!”

“No,” Cato said soberly as he looked up to where three bodies dangled from a gibbet. “I guess they won’t.”

Having been cleared through the checkpoint, the pedicab continued to swerve left and right as the driver maneuvered his three-wheeled vehicle between the work parties that had been dispatched to clean up the sprawling mess. Then, once the rickety conveyance arrived at the front gate, Cato was required to identify himself for a second time before being allowed to enter the palace.

After paying the driver twice the normal fare, Cato entered the building through the formal lobby, and made his way to the elevators. Two formally dressed functionaries were on duty behind the reception desk, and having spotted Cato, one of them was busy talking into a handset. It appeared that his arrival was of interest to someone in a position of authority. That was fine with Cato as he rode the elevator up, exited on the fourth floor, and made his way down the hall.

A red LED turned green the moment he palmed the lock outside his room, the door popped open, and he pushed it out of the way. The room was immaculate and had clearly been cleaned during his absence. Cato hadn’t had a shower in two days, was badly in need of a shave, and figured he should take care of both items before paying a visit to Legate Usurlus. Especially if he wanted the official to take him seriously.

So Cato took off his waist-length jacket, and was in the process of removing his pullover shirt, when he heard movement behind him. The shirt was still fluttering toward the floor as Cato pulled his weapon and turned ready to fire.

 

 

As Alamy pushed the door open, and stepped out of the closet, she saw Cato react. But before she could say her name, Alamy found herself staring down the business end of a pistol that was aimed at her head. She froze, held her hands away from her body, and closed her eyes. But the shot didn’t come, and when she opened them again, the gun had disappeared, and Cato was only inches away. “Alamy! That was a dangerous thing to do. I nearly shot you.”

Alamy had been holding her breath. She let some of it out. “I’m sorry, master, but when I heard someone at the door, I had no way to know if it was one of the security people.”

Cato frowned. “Security people? Why? What’s wrong?”

Alamy stared up into his face. She took note of the tan, the look of concern in his bright green eyes, and the serious set of his mouth. What would Cato think when she told him about what she’d seen? Would he believe her? Or call security? Because if he did that, she was as good as dead. But there was no real alternative so she told the truth. “I’m in trouble,” Alamy confessed, as her eyes fell.

Cato put his hands on her shoulders. They felt warm and strong. “Trouble? What kind of trouble? Is Hingo after you again?”

“Yes,” Alamy answered, “but not in the way you mean.
Everyone
is after me because of what I saw last night.”

 

 

Cato listened with a growing sense of concern as Alamy described her journey through the pipe, the horror of what she’d seen in the pump house, and her harrowing escape. “There’s a dumbwaiter,” she said finally. “Located next to the kitchen. We use it to send trays of food up to the fourth and fifth floors. It was tight,” she added. “But I managed to squeeze inside—and send myself upstairs! That allowed me to evade the security cameras, and because I was authorized to enter your room, the door opened right away. I know my story is hard to believe, but I swear that it’s true, and even though I’m a slave, I thought that you would listen to me.”

There were tears running down Alamy’s cheeks by that time, and Cato made use of a thumb to wipe some of them away. Then he took Alamy into his arms. The kiss was aimed at her cheek, but somehow landed on her lips, which were salty with tears. They were also very soft and seemed to melt beneath his as her hands came up to caress the back of his neck.

Cato could “feel” her passion as well as his own, and therefore knew that it was not only genuine but very precious. It was an exhilarating discovery, which would have been well worth celebrating under normal circumstances, but nothing had been normal since the
Umana
had put down on Dantha, thereby triggering all of the events that followed. The latest being the discovery that Nalomy was responsible for the massacre at Station 3 and, judging from Alamy’s story, had been hiding Verafti in or near the palace!

As the kiss ended, Alamy looked up into Cato’s eyes. “So you believe me?”

“Yes,” Cato answered grimly. “I not only believe you, I know who the lizardlike bastard is, and I’m going to arrest the scumbag! But first I need to see Legate Usurlus and warn him. Because there’s a very good chance that Verafti will attempt to kill him.”

Alamy’s eyebrows rose. “Verafti?”

“That’s the lizard’s name,” Cato explained. “He’s a Sagathi shape shifter. He escaped from prison, and my team and I were taking him back, when we were forced to land on Dantha. Nalomy had my team slaughtered in order to gain control of him. I have reason to believe that she’s going to use Verafti to kill Legate Usurlus. Probably at the Founder’s Day ceremony tomorrow.”

Alamy didn’t really know Usurlus, but he’d been nice to her, even though she was a slave. “You must warn him!” she said urgently.

“We’ll do it together,” Cato replied confidently. “But there are a couple of things I need to take care of first.”

But that wasn’t to be, because as Cato turned to head for the bathroom, the door opened and Alamy screamed as two soldiers burst into the room. What happened next was entirely reflexive as Cato drew his weapon and fired low. The bullets hit the militiamen in the legs, well below their body armor, and sent them sprawling. More troops were lined up to enter, but stopped where they were, as Cato triggered two additional rounds. He pointed at Alamy, then at the door to the veranda, before yelling, “Hold your fire! I don’t know what this is all about, but I’m an Imperial police officer, so back off!”

“I know who you are,” Pasayo said contemptuously. “And I know
what
you are. Which is a worthless piece of shit who was busy getting drunk while his teammates were dying out in the desert! I also know that you led an attack on a government-run facility in the Xeno Quarter, assaulted my troops, and freed two prisoners. You may be a police officer—but even police officers are subject to the law! Surrender now or face the consequences!”

But the words were wasted because both Cato and Alamy were outside by then, having left through the door that provided access to a shared balcony, and were already two doors down. The glass door opened to Alamy’s touch, they ran through the empty guest suite, and from there into the hall. Pasayo and most of his troops had entered Cato’s room by then, but a couple of soldiers were still out in the passageway, and saw the fugitives appear. They shouted a warning, and one of them fired a submachine gun. His bullets dug divots out of the wall as Cato and Alamy turned a corner and started down a stairwell.

But more troops were on the way up, and having seen them, Cato was forced to turn, and pull Alamy upward. More bullets riddled the walls as the twosome pounded their way up to the fifth floor, only to discover that it was sealed off behind a locked door, forcing them up onto the roof. A guard was coming down, probably in response to all of the shooting, and Cato was forced to shoot him. The bullet hit the center of soldier’s chest, and even though the projectile didn’t penetrate his armor, the force of the impact was sufficient to put the man on his ass. That was fine with Cato, who pistol-whipped the guard as he ran up the last flight of stairs.