Dark Intelligence (8 page)

ISOBEL

This area of town was pretty much safe for Isobel, since large parts of her organization were established in the city, but it was a good idea to take precautions. While she waited outside the Crab Chowder, once her favourite bar, Trent and Gabriel went in first. When entering public places like this, she always liked to have her men in position first. They were much less recognizable than she was and, despite their often-violent tendencies, had fewer enemies.

“Okay, I got him located,”
Trent auged her, also sending a feed from inside the bar. He’d laid a frame over a man sitting at one of the tables, along with the facial recognition confirmation.

“Can’t see anyone we might have a problem with,” said Gabriel over his comunit. “But we’re positioned to cover you now.”

“The people I’m concerned about wouldn’t be as easy to see,” she replied, then pushed open the door and entered.

As she stepped inside, she opened out the petals of the sensory cowl behind her head. She located weapons both visible and concealed, plus implanted hardware and augs. She also sought out those hidden behind the surrounding walls to see if they had acquired any weapons since her last external inspection. The situation looked okay so she relaxed a little. As always when entering this place, her attention strayed to a glass crab sculpture, sitting in a niche carved into one wall. The thing was made of rose and blood-red glass and always gave her the creeps, even more so because there were intricacies within that she couldn’t quite fathom—even with her augmented senses. She would have liked to have had the thing scrapped but it was a gift from the indestructible Mr Pace, the Graveyard’s highest crime lord. Shuddering, she dragged her attention away from the thing and closed her cowl. As usual, she found herself having to fight the knotty muscles growing from the bases of its chitin petals where they had sprouted from the back of her neck.

Whenever she entered a room, conversation died. The speed of its death depended on the attention those within were paying to their surroundings. In the Chowder, where some drank heavily, it died a slow death. She paused, running a fingertip over the row of hard spiky growths protruding along her jawbone. Then she touched one of the pits forming below her eyes, before realizing what she was doing and abruptly snatching her hand down again.

She shrugged to herself, concealed within the padded suit she wore to hide her other bodily changes, and slowly headed over to the client, or mark, at the table. As she walked, she concentrated on trying to prevent her cybermotors from conflicting with the new ropy muscles enwrapping her dissolving bones. Finally halting to stand over him, she rested one hand on the gas-system pulse-gun at her hip.

“Thorvald Spear?” she asked.

He auged his ident to her, along with limited permissions, from a state-of-the-art silver snake behind his ear, then replied, “I am. Won’t you take a seat?”

His tone was mild and his demeanour convivial, but his aug security was tighter than an airlock seal. She detected a hard wariness in him, and was that twist to his mouth a hint of disapproval? He certainly knew who she was. He probably knew there were arrest warrants out for her covering kidnapping and murder, and he probably knew those words didn’t sufficiently detail her crimes. But he had no right to judge her—he didn’t know her past. There were prador in the Kingdom who still wanted human slaves and she supplied them. So what? It was a hard universe. She thought about her present acquisitions languishing in one of her warehouses. In another five days, the Spatterjay virus should have toughened them up sufficiently for coring and thralling. Then they would be ready to be sold to the prador. Still focused on this Thorvald Spear, something dark twisted inside her and urged her towards violence, to attack. But, as always, she managed to suppress it. However, she did decide that he would join those due for coring, unless his reason for seeing her turned out to be profitable.

She pulled out a chair and sat down, wincing as her backside settled on the grainy kelp wood, then again as she attempted to relax back. The bone loss in her spine and the growth of chitin plates over her body hurt.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked.

“Just water,” she replied.

She’d tried self-medicating with alcohol and soon learned that method of relaxation didn’t work well with cybermotor conflicts. It had led to torn muscles and further damage to her weakened spine.

He held up a finger and a vending tray slid through the air to hover above their table. It looked like a maple leaf, but with a jointed arm extending from the stalk and terminating in a three-fingered prehensile hand.

“Water for my companion, and another rum for me.” He picked up his glass, drained the dregs and passed it up. The tray plucked it away and held it down on its upper surface as it shot away.

“Those who require my services usually come to me,” she stated.

“But I piqued your curiosity?” he suggested.

She dipped her head in acknowledgement, though his message had first stimulated her avarice and belatedly aroused her curiosity. He was out of the Polity, so probably an easy mark, and he apparently had a profitable venture for her. When he’d added that he could also help her with her “problem,” which was now public knowledge, her inner predator was roused.

“So you want to charter the
Moray Firth?”
Isobel enquired.

“I do.”

“Expensive.”

He acknowledged that with a slow nod.

“So what for?” she asked, wanting to get his first proposal out of the way and move on to her “problem.” It was likely that he was lying, so she could then attack him.

“I have the probable location of an abandoned Polity destroyer,” he replied. “I wish you to take me to where I can first acquire some … necessities, and then I’d like you to take me to it.”

She stared at him calculatingly. A Polity destroyer. How likely was that? Being AI-controlled, such ships usually managed to make it home or call for help unless completely trashed. Either he was an idiot with too much time and money on his hands, or he was something else … Isobel opened her sensory cowl again, noted Trent and Gabriel becoming more alert as a result, and once more scanned her surroundings. Bounty hunter seeking her reward? It was possible, but then why the request to meet here, in what was essentially a domain she controlled? Surely he knew her reputation.

“Both the destroyer and the necessities I mentioned are on the far side of the Graveyard, right on the edge of the Prador Kingdom,” he added.

She continued to stare at him for a long moment, then said, “The likelihood of anyone finding an abandoned, as opposed to completely trashed, Polity destroyer is slightly remote, don’t you think?”

The tray returned with the drinks and, while it was putting them on the table, Spear took a small case out of his pocket and placed it in front of him.

“Well,” he continued as the tray departed, “if it’s not there, I will still pay you the full cost of the job.” He opened the case and slid it across to her.

She peered down at it, searching with her cowl for poisons or a nano attack, but the six etched sapphires were all the case contained. She carefully reached over and picked up one to hold it close to her eye, linking to its microputer through the close-focus scanner in her artificial pupil. The sapphire was good and, if the other five contained the same amount of credit, there was enough here to pay for a complete refurbishment of the
Moray Firth’s
primary fusion reactor. She found avarice beginning to win the battle amongst her internal conflicts.

“This is a down-payment, of course,” he said, “to cover your expenses. There is a netlink to Galaxy Bank here, where you can check on my credit rating.”

She put the sapphire down. “If, as you say, you know the location of a salvageable abandoned Polity destroyer, you will also be aware that you’ll need an AI to fly it.”

“Which is why the location of those necessities I mentioned is a place called the Rock Pool.”

“Shell people,” she stated, without the rancour she had once felt for that kind.

“Yes, shell people.”

“I’ll have to think about that.” She paused, “But you also offered help …”

He pointed down at the etched sapphires. “Net data on me is limited, so I’ve loaded a private file on me to the transaction memory of sapphire T782. I think you will find it interesting. You’ll also see that the balance of the payment could involve something more valuable to you than money.”

Still watching him, she reached down and ran her fingers over the sapphires, sensors in her fingertips identifying the correct jewel. Leaning her elbow on the table, she held the sapphire to her eye, accessing its memory right away. She already knew from her own research that this guy was old, he’d fought in the prador/human war, but there was little beyond that. This file filled in more detail which, after a security scan, she loaded directly to her mind.

“Polity bio-espionage?” she said disbelievingly.

“That’s the one that leaps out,” he said, “but check the others.”

She took a few moments to get it all, then, with slow control, placed the jewel back in its case. Yes, he had worked in bio-espionage during the war, but the more interesting stuff was before then. He’d worked in numerous sciences and had even spent time in partnership with the infamous Dr Sylac. Then there was the other data: a report from a forensic AI on his mental stats. A lot of them were at the top of known scales, while others were listed as non-applicable, which meant the AIs had found no sensible way of measuring them. Something long-suppressed rose up inside her then—hope. To undo what Penny Royal had done required a level of skill beyond anything in the Graveyard. Certainly Polity AIs could have done something for her, but considering her history their first inclination would be to dissect and study her. And if that didn’t kill her, they would execute the death sentence on her directly afterwards.

“You have a nerve conflict problem I can probably deal with immediately,” he stated. “But that’s almost certainly the least of your problems. Your haiman installations are overloading your human body, so you need base-level nanonic upgrade. You’ll require secondary cyber-immune micro-factories inside your bones, to generate nano-machines which can constantly repair the damage.”

“And you can do this?” she asked, trying to stamp on her bitter disappointment at the way he was deliberately circumventing her
real
problem.

“You’ve seen my CV,” he said. “I specialized in surgical adaptation and adaptogenics before I trained under Sylac in cerebral augmentation.”

“You have no idea,” she replied, considering killing him right then and walking out.

“You mean about the change you’re undergoing?” He gave a brief mirthless smile. “I understand that very well, Isobel.”

“Oh really?”

“Oh really,” he replied. “I know exactly what Penny Royal did to you, because I’ve seen similar … changes before.”

He reached up and began scratching at the back of his neck, then snatched his hand down with a flash of irritation.

“Okay,” she said, “we have a deal.”

If he couldn’t help out with her immediate problem, then she would add him to one of her cargoes—core him and thrall him and sell him to the prador. If he was lying about his ability to deal with her other problem, she would probably take her time with the coring, but the end result would be the same. In fact, even if he was telling no lies at all, his destiny was set now. After all, a working or at least salvageable Polity destroyer was worth a great deal of money, so she wasn’t likely to let him just fly off in such an item.

SPEAR

The
Moray Firth
was an old Polity attack ship that had been stripped of its weapons and put up for auction after its onboard AI decided to move on. This AI had apparently acquired a drone shell fashioned in the shape of a giant barracuda. It was loaded with state-of-the-art weaponry and other tech, including a U-space drive, and was last spotted heading determinedly towards the galactic core. Nobody knew why.

The main body of the
Moray Firth
looked like a chunk of metal, one that had been sliced off at an angle from rectangular bar-stock. Two nacelles extended from either side of its flat rear end, in which clustered the throats of fusers. Lastly, a fat weapons turret sat on its top surface—just behind an up-slanting nose akin to the front of a twentieth-century troop-landing craft. With my hover trunk trailing behind me, I mounted the side ramp into its cargo bay, at the top of which stood one of Isobel’s heavies, Trent. I studied him closely, recognizing him from the Crab Chowder. He stood a head taller than me and probably weighed twice as much. His head was an odd shape, decidedly pointed on top, which was emphasized by his black bristly Mohican. His irises were pure white and he wore a purple sapphire dangling from his left ear, with a Miltech Standard aug nestled behind it. His clothing consisted of a long crocodile-skin coat over dated businesswear and heavy toe-tector boots. I knew at once that he wasn’t physically boosted or augmented, but a heavy-worlder with the genetic mods that implied.

“Origin-world Tranter, I would guess,” I said as I approached him. “Probably the HG-92 series adaptogen … Sobel line?”

He just stared at me long and hard, reaching up to toy with that earring, but then had to acknowledge my words with a nod before gesturing me inside. He led me down a carpeted corridor that wouldn’t have looked out of place inside a chateau. The exterior of the
Moray Firth
might have looked plain and utilitarian, but the interior was luxurious. This was clearly Isobel Satomi’s personal ship—she had others she used to conduct her despicable trade with the prador.

My cabin was lavish too, and quite large, but I knew I wouldn’t enjoy it for long unless I fulfilled the first part of our contract.

“She wants to see you now,” said Trent, “in our medical bay.”

“I need some equipment first.”

Again the nod.

My trunk settled on the kelp-wood floor as I took out my key, programmed it and sent the required signal. Rather than the top of the trunk, the side of it opened to extend a drawer. I dipped down and took out all I needed. Here was my microbot factory, the Syban diagnosticer interlink (there was a whole series of technical names that related directly to my old boss “Sylac”) and a selection of other medical tools purchased at Par Avion. It was unlikely that Isobel would have these aboard her ship. As I packed them into an ersatz nineteenth-century doctor’s bag, I felt the ship move. We were on our way—there would be no turning back now.