Black Steel (29 page)

A long time ago, Sleel had gotten swacked and tried to move Bork. It had cost him a pulled groin muscle and failed utterly.

Behind Bork the driver of Cierto's hopper hit his warbler again. Bork turned and glared at him.

The inspector looked scared, and well he should be. Bork could probably toss him over the line of flitters waiting for inspection without straining himself at all.

The inspector looked at Cierto's driver helplessly.

The people sitting in their flitters took this all in with some amusement. Nobody likes to wait in line, and whatever diversion Bork offered was more interesting than staring at the tail of the flitter in front of you.

A couple of the drivers got out for a better look, though none moved closer to Bork. Guy looked like he could pick himself up with one hand and beat you dead with the other. Poor inspector.

Sleel moved closer, keeping the hopper between him and the station.

Bork had not raised his voice but it was apparent that he had no intention of giving up his place in line.

In the flitter, Dirisha played her part. Her voice was high and nasal when she spoke. "Come on, Sim, get back inna flitter and let's go, we don't wanna wind up at the cool station again! Remember that last guy you hit, the one who died?"

Sleel chuckled. Right about now the inspector was probably wishing he had an elephant gun. Or a cloak of invisibility.

The door on the right side of the black hopper slid open and the driver stepped out onto the warm plastcrete. He pulled up his belt and tried to effect a swagger as he walked toward Bork and the pale inspector. Probably he wasn't so stupid as to think he could physically challenge Bork, but he did work for the richest man on the planet, so he could scare him.

This was what Sleel had been waiting for. He moved quickly to the hopper's door and slipped inside. He hurried to one of the seats on the starboard side where the driver wouldn't see him when he returned.

Bork said, "Listen, pal, if you want trouble-who are you, friend?"

The driver's voice was loud enough for Sleel to hear it in his hiding place. "I work for the Patron! This is his hopper and you are obstructing it!"

Bork played it perfectly. "Cierto? Oh. Oh, well. I . . . didn't know that. Excuse me. I-I-I'll just move my flitter, I don't want any trouble with El Patron.

Sleel couldn't see it, but he would bet stads to toenail clippers that the driver was grinning as he swaggered back to his vehicle. This is how to get things done; flash the Patron like a magic wand and poof! trouble go away, right?

Not this time.

Cierto called his chief of security. "Anything unusual?"

"No, Patron. No one has come or gone without permission. It is as quiet as a tomb."

"Good. See that it stays that way."

Cierto considered things. Perhaps he had made too big a deal about this situation. What could one man do against him? It was wise to be prudent, but there was no point in overreacting. If the matador ever showed up on his world, he would be dealt with quickly and efficiently. Even luck could only take a man so far.

The hopper's driver was so frightened he was shivering. He had not expected the arm around his throat and the command to land or die. Now he found himself facing four people, including the big man from the inspection station.

"Do you know what this is?" Geneva said. She held up a small glittering object the size of a button. She, like Dirisha and Bork, wore full matador uniforms, including spetsdods. Sleel was not dressed in the dark gray orthoskins, however. Instead, he wore a pale gray coverall with a cotton sash wound around his waist. Inserted through the sash on his left side were his and Kee's sheathed swords.

"N-n-no. "

"It's a microwave-activated popper. Strong enough to blow a man's arm off. Here is the microwave transmitter that will cause it to explode." She waved a tiny rectangle.

The man stared at her.

"Bork, his pants."

Bork grabbed the driver and jerked his pants down. The man was too frightened to struggle.

Geneva approached the man and, as Bork held him still, pulled his underwear to his knees. She bent and stuck the buttonlike device onto the man's scrotum. It clung like a tick where it touched him.

"Skinbond," Geneva said. "Impossible to remove without the proper dissolvant. And if you were willing to give up some of your own skin, it would explode automatically. Dress yourself. "

Bork released the driver, who hurriedly pulled his clothing together.

Geneva held up the tiny object in her hand. "I have now squeezed the activator," she said. "If it should slip from my grip . . .

The already pale man went whiter still.

"Of course, it would not be much of a loss from what I saw," Geneva said, "but surely you would miss them, not to mention the pain involved in having one's penis and testicles blown into bloody goo."

"Wh-wh-what do you want of me?"

"Nothing. You are merely to drive back to the estate as you normally would. Only we will be passengers. You will not speak of this to the guards, or you will be . . . less of a man than you are now."

"Th-the P-patron would kill me for this!"

"Or we can kill you now," Geneva said sweetly. She looked pointedly at the device she still held.

Sleel fought the urge to smile. Geneva looked as if she would not hurt the smallest of insects, which was why she had been given this part to play. Somehow it was more terrifying when a beautiful woman threatened a man. Sleel had agreed to let her convince the driver, and he hadn't known exactly how she planned to do it, trusting Dirisha when she told him not to worry.

"No! I will do as you say!"

As they cruised toward the estate, Sleel, lying hidden next to Geneva, said, "That's an awfully small microwave transmitter you have, lady."

Geneva said, "It's a spetsdod magazine."

"And the bomb?"

"A button from Bork's dress jacket."

"If Bork was a bird last time, you must have been a cat."

"Dirisha tells me that all the time." She smiled, ever so sweetly.

Sleel was glad she was on his side.

The hope was that they could sail past the gate guards, but there was a backup plan. If the guards grew suspicious, they would take them out. They never had managed to get the din codes, but they would have ten seconds to blow the robots once they got the gates open, which ought to be plenty of time. It might get a little noisy and they would prefer to avoid that, but it was there if needed.

They had lucked out on the weather. Climate control had scheduled a rain shower for the morning and the first drops were pattering the ground and windscreen of the hopper as they approached the estate.

The driver brought the vessel down and into the approach lane.

The driver lowered the window next to the guard's kiosk.

"Hola, Bernardo," the driver said nervously.

"Hola, Jose. The Patron's hopper is inspected?"

"SL"

"Clear the windows so that I may look inside. We are having an alert, you know."

"I cannot clear them; the stupid fucking control is not working. You will have to leave your dry shack and come look inside yourself."

The rain was coming down harder, enough so that to leave the kiosk and walk around to the hopper's door would involve getting wet.

The guard considered it for a moment. "I don't suppose you have any assassins in there with you?"

Geneva had crawled forward so that the driver could see her lying on the floor next to him. She waved the spetsdod magazine back and forth. She had been quite specific when giving him his instructions earlier. If the guard should ask anything like that, he was to answer in a certain way.

The driver remembered his lines. He had a lot riding on them; at least he thought he had. "Ah, si, Bernardo, I have a whole hopper full of them. They are going to blow off my cojones if I don't smuggle them inside."

The guard laughed. "You are a funny man, Jose. Go on in."

The rain carne down yet harder.

"One to go," Bork said.

Sleel nodded.

Wu faced herself, watching the mirror in the gym. Probably was one-way plastic, she figured. Surely she was being watched. Well. There was nothing to be done about it. And no point in allowing herself to get physically weaker. She practiced her sword forms, holding an imaginary weapon. All of her invisible opponents looked exactly like Cierto. After she had slain him a dozen times, she felt a little better. Not much, but a little.

At the inner gate, the guard said, "Bernardo tells me you have a hopper full of assassins who are going to blow your balls off if I don' let you in. Maybe I would like to see that."

The driver said, "Fuck you, Aaron."

"You wish you were man enough. You will be at the poker game tonight?"

"Si. I hope so."

"Good. Then I will take more of your wages than I did last time." With that, the guard opened the inner gate.

"Criminal," Dirisha whispered. "Where did he get these guards, from a mental institution? Jesu Damn."

Now to the garage. Once past that, they would be on their own, without the cover of the hopper. Sleel missed his spetsdods. He would have to trust that the others could shoot well enough to get them into the main house. This trusting other people was a scary business. He didn't much like it. But it was too late to turn back now. Time to dance the dance.

Chapter TWENTY-NINE

THE DRIVER LANDED the hopper just outside the larger of the two maintenance buildings, at the end of the row of vehicles already parked there.

Geneva said, "Here, catch."

Before the startled driver could do more than twitch in horror as what supposedly was a microwave transmitter tumbled toward him, Geneva shot him with her spetsdod. Mercifully, the driver fell unconscious.

"Shame on you, brat," Dirisha said.

Geneva had already turned to the gear bag and was assembling one of the pair of assault rifles. The weapon was a 14mm reactionless carbine. A superhigh-density battery and capacitor would put a few hundred thousand volts into a liquid propellant, transforming it into a plasma that in turn would kick a thumb-sized slug of expended uranium up to a muzzle velocity approaching two thousand meters a second. It might not be able to punch through military-grade denscris armor but it should make such armor ring as loudly as a gone-mad giant with a heavy hammer.

Dirisha began assembling the other carbine. It took the two women all of forty-five seconds to finish, then lock and load.

"We ready?" Sleel said. His voice was tight.

"Thirty by thirty," Dirisha said.

"There're the bikes," Bork said, pointing.

"Timers," Sleel said. "Two minutes from . . . now."

"It's gonna work," Dirisha said, slapping Sleel on the shoulder. "No sweat."

"Listen," Sleel began, "listen, I-you people . . . you're-"

"Shut up, Sleel," Geneva said, smiling. "We're on the clock. Tell us afterward."

"All right. Go," Sleel said.

Dirisha and Geneva left the hoppers first, assault carbines slung over their shoulders. They ran for the airbikes Bork had pointed out.

"There's a nice one," Bork said, nodding toward a two-seat sport flitter parked three vehicles down from the hopper.

"Let's do it."

The two alighted from the hopper and ran toward the flitter. Sleel's timer flashed off the seconds, counting from 2:00 toward zero.

Bork reached the flitter first. If there was anybody about, Sleel didn't see them. A little rain was a wonderful thing, if it was timed right. Nice to have climate control on your side, even if they didn't know it.

The big man used the override card they'd bought from a thief. It had worked on several different flitters in practice, but there was a moment of worry as Bork jammed the thin superconductor sandwich into the door slot.

It worked. The master key scrambled the flitter's lock codes in just under four seconds and the doors gull-winged. Bork slid into the driver's seat, Sleel to his left in the passenger's chair. The override card worked on the ignition and power-up as fast as it had on the door locks. The flitter came on line with a throaty rumble.

"Nice machine," Bork said.

"Fifty-seven seconds," Sleel said. He held the two swords in his left hand, feeling the sweat on his palm make the enameled wood of the sheaths yet slicker. Here he was going into a modern attack scenario with weaponry that was nearly the same as a man might have carried four thousand years ago. It was probably as foolish a thing as he had ever done. And absolutely the right thing, as crazy as it seemed.

"We'll just let the repellors mellow out some," Bork said. "No point in trying to lift and getting a stall, is there?"

Thirty of the longest seconds in Sleel's life went by, wallowing like broken-finned fish of iron trying to swim in a sea of mercury.

"Okay. What say we lift?" Bork said.

The sporty flitter bounded into the air.

Wu was in the gym, halfway through her warm-up, when she heard a bone-rattling gong. It was not a sound natural to the house, she knew that immediately, and she could feel the tension in the air following the noise. More, the ringing continued, altering, as if someone were using a hammer on metal.

It was at once familiar and yet not quite like anything she had heard before. What-?

She recognized it. It was the sound of a denscris bell, only much larger than the ones the priests in a zendo tapped with their wooden mallets.

Outside the gym somebody yelled, the sound dopplering as the speaker ran past.

Trouble.

Wu smiled. Trouble for Cierto was something she minded not at all. What was it? Or, more important, who was it?

Wu opened her senses, reaching out, shifting from normal sight and hearing to that elusive state of zanshin.

Sleel! She could feel him.

Sleel had come for her.

Sitting in the control room and watching his prisoner on the monitors, Cierto felt the casa vibrate with the ringing of the external window armor. He knew immediately what was going on, and he could guess who was responsible. That cursed matador had gotten past his defenses! Dammit!