Gates of Hell (32 page)

“Done,” he said after long, careful minutes of probing. “And it’s a shame the sensor shielding in this place was too damn good to penetrate from the ship.” The Bucons were the only ones he knew of who’d found a way to build telepathic scramblers into their defense shields. If not for the clan connection, there would have been no way to sense Axylel from outside, and even that had been deflected by the exterior shielding.

“It’s a damn shame Axylel wasn’t in his room,” Pilsane said. “Where is he?”

“Where I’m going,” Pyr answered. He looked from one man to the other, and each nodded, prepared to carry out his own assignment. The door was soon opened. Pilsane and Mik turned left in the corridor. Pyr went right.

He walked alone until he reached a domed plaza where a group of gaudily dressed women were gathered to look nervously up at the dark sky overhead. He glanced up himself, just as much a spacer as these Bucons; like them, he still half-expected to see some evidence of battle in the blackness overhead. Nothing showed above the curve of the dome but stars, and Pyr moved on through the group of women like a black bird through a tropical rain forest. Some of the women looked after him, but not with hostility or suspicion. Their half-interested glances were almost enough to make him smile. Their lives were in jeopardy, but these women weren’t dead yet. Bucons. Sometimes he almost liked and admired them—but the feeling usually passed quickly.

Pyr crossed the plaza with a pirate’s swagger that changed to a purposeful stride as he entered another long corridor. There were guards before many of the doors in this section of the fortress. More moved along the corridor, carrying away the bodies of those he’d telepathically blasted. Pyr squinted and kept his gaze straight ahead, his attention focused on a door at the end of the corridor. He followed the lifethread of his son while giving the appearance of a client pirate on his way to report to his patron. He was aware of the gazes that followed him and the hands that tightened on weapons as he went by. Attentive silence gathered around him; after a few moments, the only sound in the corridor was the firm, fast tread of his footsteps.

He was not surprised when none of the guards challenged him. Pirates were not the most disciplined of people, not even dues-paying members of an official guild, and they certainly weren’t given to wearing uniforms. He looked and acted like one of them, and their minds were on the battle and the mysterious weapon that had silently killed some of their number a few minutes before. They watched, but no one tumbled to the idea that he might be an alien intruder. They knew very well that the defensive shields surrounding the fortress were firmly, tightly, safely in place. He was Bucon to them, unknown but not necessarily an enemy. At least not to their employers.

Most of the guild’s loyal defenders were in the guild ships in the thick of the fight. These left behind were mercenaries, the personal bodyguards of high-ranking pirates. The ones left standing in the hall were the strong-minded ones that had not been affected by his earlier mental assault. But that did not mean they weren’t vulnerable to more subtle, close-range manipulation, at least briefly. Pyr knew that as long as he thought good thoughts and made no move toward the doors that were being guarded, he was safe enough. The closer he got to the wide door at the end of the corridor, the greater the danger. Robe Halfor’s personal bodyguards waited there, gazes locked like laser sights on him. Laser sights were locked on him as well, from large weapons held in steady hands.

He was smiling as he halted before the three men and two women standing in front of the entrance to Robe Halfor’s command center. He was relaxed, glad the time for subtlety was at last past. “Halfor wants to see me,” he said to the tall man who took a step forward to block his path. “Pyr,” he added before the glaring guard could point out that he’d had no orders about visitors. As the Bucon’s eyes widened, he repeated. “Pyr of the
Raptor
. He’ll want to see me.” One of the female bodyguards was running a biosensor over him as he spoke. Normally the sensor deflectors built into his leather coat would have nullified any readings, but this time Pyr let it go. “Same species as the prisoner from the
Raptor
,” he informed the guard before she announced it to her companions.

She nodded. “Not Bucon.”

“Seen holos of Pyr,” one of the guards said. “Looks like him.”

Pyr flicked a finger against his hat rim. “I’m told I’m recognized by this.”

The bodyguards looked at each other, and elected to pass this information on rather than come to any decision on their own. Pyr waited while the leader of the group raised a comm unit to his lips. The attention of the other guards flicked ever so briefly to their leader as he moved.

Pyr grabbed the woman with the sensor with one hand. He held her in front of him while he drew his weapon and fired. The guards all got off at least one shot, but hit the body Pyr used as a shield rather than him. Two of the Bucons wore personal shields. Mik had taken Kith’s shield off the Trin’s dead body, and learned how to nullify the field. The enhancements Mik had come up with let Pyr’s weapon cut like a laser through butter with these standard shield models. The guards all wore body armor, but faces and throats were still vulnerable.

Pyr continued to smile as killed the remaining bodyguards. He was still smiling when he blew open the heavily shielded door with another of Mik’s little toys and walked into the room beyond through a billowing cloud of white smoke.

“Too dramatic?” he asked as two more guards came at him from the sides. Pyr barely noticed the men as he killed them. There were only two living people left in the big, bare room now. His gaze fixed on the young man seated on the floor across a wide expanse of black tiled floor.

Axylel raised his head, showing bruises and drug-dulled eyes. He was disheveled, his body slumped dispiritedly. He did manage the faintest of smiles as his eyes met Pyr’s. “Maybe a little dramatic,” he answered, voice a low, pained rasp.

“I thought it might be you when people started dying mysteriously,” the man standing beside Axylel said. “I’ve learned quite a bit about your telepathic talent from Axylel. The history of The People. All sorts of things. There are things he hasn’t told me yet, but we’re working on it. Aren’t we?” He touched Axylel’s long red hair, an affectionate, possessive gesture, and Pyr saw his son try not to flinch. Axylel’s clouded gaze stayed as focused as possible on Pyr.

Pyr tilted an eyebrow at Axylel, but didn’t bother reacting to the Bucon. He hated having conversations with the bad guys before killing them, but Bucons made such melodrama hard to avoid.

“The boy has such useful information,” Halfor went on. “I certainly intend to use it. It started with his trying to trade his knowledge of your operation for what I know about the plague and Rust, but the rules changed quickly.” He gave Axylel a pat on the head. “Ridiculous of you to bother showing up for him, really,” he added as Pyr walked forward. “Waste of resources to go to so much trouble for one offspring. You could always make more, you know.”

“I like that one,” Pyr told him. “Why start over when I haven’t even paid off this one’s education yet?”

They spoke to each other in casual, conversational tones, like any pair of Bucon traders—with bodies and twisted metal around them and a battle raging overhead. Robe Halfor stood with his back turned to a holo display showing the guild moon and the firefly flicker of defending and attacking ships as cloaks were unmasked and then remodulated to escape detection. Pyr could not tell who was winning from the projection. Not his problem, as long as Linch kept the
Raptor
safe. He concentrated on Robe Halfor.

Halfor was a small, skinny man dressed all in gray, with a thin patch of pale hair, his features sharp and forgettable. The only thing that looked dangerous about him were his eyes. And the long fingers that casually stroked a jeweled pendant that hung from around Halfor’s neck. It was a pretty thing, and Pyr had no doubt that it contained a deadman trigger that would kill Axylel if anything fatal were to happen to Robe Halfor. His seeing the pendant before taking a shot at Halfor was the reason they were having this conversation. He was going to have to get very very close to the Bucon in order to get his son out of here alive.

Halfor waved his other hand at the holo behind him. There was a tinge of anger in his bland voice when he said, “You brought a lot of friends for a family matter.”

“Perhaps I should have called.”

Halfor nodded, eyes narrowed. “I would have accepted the call.”

Pyr shook his head. “You’ve been trying to have me killed for weeks.”

Halfor shrugged. “You keep too much of the business beyond the Rose border to yourself.”

“I keep all of it.”

“Which is a little bit too much. Your death seemed like a good way to open up trade.”

Pyr gestured toward his son. “What was the plan? To replace me with him?”

“Seemed like a good idea. Axylel has been persuaded to tell me a great deal about your people. And having a telepathic assassin on staff will also prove useful.”

“I can see that.”

“But…” He shrugged again. “I’m certainly open to negotiations. I want what you have, and I have what you want. We can still come to a deal. After you tell your friends to leave.”

“Who says I’m with them?” Pyr told Halfor. He spread his hands before him. “I came with Manalo’s force, but I wasn’t given much choice. Besides, this was where I was heading anyway. I could have led an invasion force in here.” He spread his hands. “But all you see is me.”

Halfor petted Axylel’s hair. “For your little boy?”

“And to bring you some good news, Robe, my friend.”

Halfor let out a long breath. “You do want to deal? What’s your news, alien?”

“That’s alien ally, Your Majesty. Glover’s dead,” He went on without waiting for a reaction. “I know all about his mercy mission to the emperor, and I put a stop to it. Manalo offered me your job,” he added, as Halfor watched him closely.

The Bucon sneered, and it suited his sharp features far better than a smile would have. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking behind that cynical expression, unless you were a telepath of exquisite skill. Pyr wasn’t even trying very hard. The man thought he was wearing a brand new prototype League-designed telepathic shield. He was wearing it, but it was no longer functioning. Pyr knew that by now Mik had bypassed and disabled every type of shield—personal, defensive, telepathic, medical—in the fortress. The Bucons simply weren’t aware of this bad news yet, or that you could never trust the Pirate League to give you every technotrick you needed to survive. They would become aware of their misplaced faith in the League as an ally when the Bucon navy started bombing the pirate guild fortress in the next few minutes. Pyr didn’t have much time to safely conclude the conversation.

“I might be interested in your current job,” he went on, taking a step closer to Halfor. “If Emperor Halfor were the one offering it.”

“I’m not offering you the Bucon pirate guild, alien.”

“You’re not emperor yet, either.” Pyr took another step, and aimed an exquisitely seductive thought to Halfor. “Why limit your ambition to taking the Bucon throne? I’ve learned a great deal from living among your people, Bucon.” He carefully came closer and Halfor still didn’t notice. “The People disowned me, did Axylel tell you that?” Halfor nodded. Pyr went on. “I owe them nothing, and I like the Bucon life.”

Halfor’s sneer turned into a wide grin. “We’ve corrupted you?”

“I prefer to think that you civilized me.” Pyr carefully sheathed his weapon and spread his hands. “Taught me a certain sophisticated outlook. I see no reason why I shouldn’t betray a small group of paranoid telepaths for the sake of greater riches. My son might be able to help you with the People, but I can do the job better and faster.” His gaze flicked briefly to his son. “But I do like your idea about a telepathic assassin.”

Not that it’s a particularly new idea
, he thought at Halfor as he rushed forward. He didn’t bother wrenching Halfor’s hand away from the pendant. There were many things that Bucons did not know about the People, including their physical strength.

He tore Halfor’s arm away from his shoulder instead. A shower of blood spurted into Pyr’s face, blinding him as he pressed his own hand around the fist that still clutched the pendant. Pyr was aware of footsteps rushing up behind him.

He turned and thrust the bleeding arm at the nearest man. “Do
not
let that fist open.”

Halfor screamed and Axylel screamed and Halfor fell to his knees in his own pooling blood and barely had time to look up as Pyr grabbed his head, and twisted. Pyr had an odd, fleeting thought about what basketball must be like as he tossed the dead man’s head through a circle of ships outlined by the holoprojector. He wondered if Roxanne would approve the shot. The head hit the far wall with a meaty thump and Halfor’s body fell forward across Axylel.

Pyr snatched his son from under the corpse and cradled the long, lean body in his arms as he turned to face Pilsane and Mik. “We have what we came for,” he told them. “Let’s go.”

“I don’t see what you have to pout about,” Roxy said to Martin, who didn’t answer.

Martin was seated cross-legged on one of the nearby beds, watching her work at the computer station rather than helping her. The time since Pyr left sickbay had dragged by, though she’d gotten . some significant work done. In fact, she should be dancing around and howling in triumph. Instead, she had the small pharmaceutical synthesizer cooking away while she continued to run tests and simulations.

Every now and then the ship veered a little, but that was the only outward sign that they were involved in the space battle. To her, this indicated that Linch was a very good pilot, and that the
Raptor
was somewhere on the fringe of the battle. She could feel the occasional prick of individual deaths against her empathic shielding, deaths of strangers, far away, but she sent up a prayer for the dying each time.