The Albino Knife (11 page)

The guard's look at Geneva was admiring enough, and since she wasn't wearing her spetsdods and the thinskins she wore hid very little of her shape, he was probably thinking that the judge had managed to pull off a neat trick to come up with such a shapely twat as this one.

The guard bought it, for the judge and Geneva headed for the exit. Dirisha almost shook her head. Stupid guard was sure wasting somebody's money.

Bork and Dirisha stood and walked to the exit.

Outside, the judge was beginning to worry, and he was voicing it to Geneva when Bork and Dirisha left the pub.

"You can't do this!"

"Sure I can, I alreadydid it."

Dirisha grinned and reached into her jacket pocket for her left spetsdod. She stripped away the backing from the plastic flesh and seated the weapon on her left hand, adjusting the thing before the flesh set. She was reaching for the right-hand weapon when the two guards emerged from the pub.

Not so stupid after all, maybe, Dirisha thought.

The judge saw the guards. "H-help—!" he managed, before Geneva's nerve pinch on his arm caused him to shut off his appeal in a yelp of pain.

Dirisha thought about the best way to handle things. Bork glanced at her and she nodded at him. He moved to flatten the pair.

When they saw Bork coming, the guards stopped. Maybe they were a lot brighter than she'd given them credit for, Dirisha thought. One dug for something on his belt, under his jacket at the small of his back; the other was already swinging a stubby short-range hand wand up from where it had been hidden in a belt holster. Weapons changed things.

"Bork, down!"

The big man dropped flat instantly. Dirisha raised her left arm and the spetsdod spoke twice. Each guard caught a dart, the first one at the base of his neck, the second one on the chin. The one who had cleared his hand wand triggered it as he fell, but the pulse only patterned the dust on the walk harmlessly, forming complex geometric designs from a psychedelic dream. The patterns were destroyed when the guard fell on them. The second guard fell on top of the first one. The shocktox in the darts would keep them out for fifteen minutes.

"What say we lift?" Bork said as he came to his feet and brushed the dirt from his chest.

"Sounds good to me," Dirisha said.

"This is… this is kidnapping!"

Geneva smiled at the judge. "Very good, you get points for that. But don't forget assaulting those two.

And maybe later, even homicide. Let's go."

The four moved toward the flitter.

When Sleel had been a boy, there had been an ancient game of skill called "Wink." It was played with small plastic disks, one of which was used to propel another by pressing the edges sharply against each other over a hard surface. The one lying on the table would snap up in response to pressure from the one in a player's hand, and the object was to try to aim the snapped disk so that it landed in a small cup some distance away.

As the three assassins moved in to kill him, Sleel reached over and flicked the switch on the benchpress field.

The bar, which weighed only a few kilos on its own, suddenly became as heavy as if ten men had leaped on it. The unsecured bench, propped as it was, did just what Sleel had intended. It popped up from the floor at an angle and spun and twisted through the air.

And slammed smack into the woman guard. She was quick; she saw it coming and managed to raise her shock-stik, but it was a futile gesture. The bench was too fast and too heavy and one of the legs hit the woman in an uppercut under the chin. Her head snapped back, her neck broke, and she collapsed bonelessly, certainly paralyzed and likely dying of massive shock.

Before the other attackers could do more than blink, Sleel pulled one of the ferroplastic circles from his pocket and slung it at the mue, figuring him to be the more dangerous of the two. At this range, he couldn't miss, and the weight was heavy enough to knock the mue senseless when it bounced off his head.

Unfortunately, Sleel had forgotten about the field. The ferroplastic started out fine, entered the still-working field, and was spun and jerked down against the floor, hard.Sounded like a hammer swung by a giant when it hit. Damn!

Sleel darted to one side as the mue jumped in, shockstik leading. No problem; he avoided the strike, spun around, and reached out to upend the mue—

Suddenly Sleel was snatched violently off his feet.

What the fuck? The medex was three meters away—!

The mue recovered from his swing and turned.

The weight, the other goddamned weight—it was still in his pocket! He was stuck to the floor like he'd been nailed there!

Sleel twisted as hard as he could. His coverall ripped and he pulled away from the weight holding him down, only he was a half second too slow. The shockstik was coming down as his head—

Sleel raised his arm. The stik hit him on the outer edge, just below the wrist. His hand clenched tight with the charge and the bone snapped under the force of the strike, but he was rolling, out of the way and toward the medex—

The medex was slow; he tried to hit Sleel on the floor, but it was the matador's foot that found the man's belly, knocking him backward and into the wall.

Sleel came up, twisting, and jumped to his right as far as he could. The mue sailed past, swiped at him with the stik, but missed him by a meter. Sleel turned. Stupid mistake had almost got him killed. He was glad nobody was around to see it.

As the medex tried to get his wind back, Sleel slid in and thrust his good elbow into the man's throat, crushing his windpipe. The medex wasn't going to be breathing through that throat anymore unless somebody cut him a new airhole. The man gagged and fell, both hands clutching his ruined larynx.

The mue made his run. Sleel twirled, ducked, and came up. The broken bone in his left arm grated and the throw was off, but the mue did a lazy half flip and slammed into the wall, head down. He slid, hit on top of his head, and peeled back from the wall. He was tough; he shook it off and came up, but too late.

Sleel had snatched up the medex's weapon and now he moved in with the stik cocked by his right ear.

He snapped his arm down, hard, and hit the mue squarely on top of the head.

The stik broke. So did the mue's skull.

Five full seconds passed while Sleel waited to see if anybody was going to get up and come at him again. Nobody did.

He slowed his breathing and checked out the trio.

The woman was dead. The mue was dead. The medex was about to be dead. You're getting old, Sleel.

Five years ago none of these balloos would have touched you. Course you wouldn't have beenso stupid as to leave the field on, either, and fuck yourself up that way.

Sleel wiped clean the broken stik he held and put it into the medex's hand. He turned the benchpress field off, and walked to the exit. Let whoever found these three figure that they killed each other. The matadors didn't hold with killing, but the way Sleel figured it, when someone tried to take you out, they lost their breathing rights. He'd worry about his conscience later. At least he'd be alive to worry about it.

The rented flitter sailed through the ocean of night, Bork at ease with the manual controls.

To the judge, Geneva said, "Do you know what Spasm is?"

The man shook his head.

Geneva took the magazine out of her right spetsdod. She paused,then pulled another magazine from her pocket, carefully clicking the replacement into place. She said, "Spasm is the old military load for this."

She held the weapon up in front of the man's face. "It puts you into tetany, all your voluntary muscles locked, for six months. Can't move, can't eat, you have to be taken care of in a hospital until it lets go.

No antidote; it's some kind of bioelectric virus, I think.Keeps replicating itself, incurable until it dies on its own."

Dirisha watched the judge break into a sweat.

"Of course, it's banned now. Spasm is. The Republic won't allow its use.Says it's barbaric."

"The trial was legal!The evidence—!"

"Was faked," Geneva said. "Let's assume for a second that you are an honest man and didn't know that.

Not that I believe that, but just for the sake of argument. It doesn't matter. Our friend is going to be released on your order; that's the end of the program here."

The judge licked dry lips.

"Spasm is illegal, but you know how the black market is. You have enoughmoney, you can get just about anything you want." She pointed her right spetsdod at the judge's face. Her smile was that of a saint, of an angel, so sweet wasit.

Dirisha suppressed her own smile. The brat must have been a cat an incarnation or two back.

"Wait!" the judge said. "Wait!"

Chapter Eight

THE WARNING CLAXON hooted as the outer gate of the prison slid open. Sleel, bald, dressed in his prison coverall, stood there with four armed guards boxing him. There was a pregnant moment; then Sleel ambled away from the guards, as if he were on a stroll in the country.

In the flitter across the street, Dirisha shook her head. Now that was a swagger.

"He's hurt," Bork said.

Dirisha saw what Bork meant. To somebody without their training, Sleel would have looked normal enough, but to the three of them, the matador was splinting, holding his left arm tighter than he should have been.

"He's alive," Geneva said. "That's the important thing."

Sleel arrived where the flitter was parked.

"Hi, soldier," Dirisha said."New in town?"

"How much you charge?" Sleel said.

The flitter kicked up road grit as the fans came online and lifted the vehicle. Bork put into a tight turn and kept it on manual, heading straight for the port. The judge wasn't likely to be a problem for another day or two, but they wanted to be offworld as soon as possible, just in case.

"I forgot to compliment you earlier on your great haircut, Sleel," Bork said. "Oh, and what happened to your arm?"

"I ran into a door."

"Really," Geneva said. Her voice was dry. "Lucky you're out of that place. The warden didn't want to let you go, you know."

"I'm good company," Sleel said. "I can understand that."

"I think maybe it had more to do with the three people who got killed in there last night," Dirisha said.

"Seems a guard and medex and inmate somehow beat each other to death in the gym around midnight."

"Pretty tough workout," Sleel offered. "How did you manage to get me loose?"

"The judge who put you in changed his mind suddenly. And you're welcome, Sleel; think nothing of it."

Bork chuckled. " Geneva threatened to shoot him with a Spasm dart."

"I did not. I merely explained to him what Spasm was and what it did."

"Yeah, while loading a fresh magazine into your spetsdod."

"Plain old shocktox.Not my fault the man jumped to a conclusion."

Sleel said, "Any chance of paying him a visit before we leave?"

"Probably not a good idea," Dirisha said.

Sleel raised an eyebrow.

Good old Sleel. He never let go. Dirisha said, "The judge is about two hundred klicks from here, in the middle of the Nyoka Game Preserve. He's manacled to a tree about as big as Bork's arm."

Sleel said, "Good. Maybe he'll get eaten by something before he starves."

"Probably not," Bork said. "The only big animals in the preserve are plant-eaters. Besides, we left him a penknife. If he works at it, he could whittle through the tree in a couple of days, easy. Or he could cut his own arm off maybe a little quicker."

"Your idea?"Sleel said, looking at Dirisha.

" Geneva's."

He looked at the blonde. "You might amount to something someday, kid."

"Forget the judge, Sleel. We've got bigger players to find." Dirisha pulled a case from behind her seat and handed it to him. "Why don't you slip into something more comfortable? You look like a trash collector."

Sleel opened the hard plastic case. Inside was a set of gray orthoskins to matchthose the other three wore, a pair of new spetsdods, and a short block of shocktox ammunition magazines.

Geneva came up with a medkit as Sleel slipped the top of his coverall off."That ulna broken?"

"Yeah.About eight centimeters above the wrist.Just cracked; the ends are lined up okay."

"Give it here."

Sleel extended his arm and Geneva put the medkit over the purple swelling. The machine hummed and clicked, and Steel's face tightened as jets popped medication and orthostat glue through the skin and muscle.

"So," he said, "what's the scat?"

"Somebody doesn't much like us," Dirisha said. "We thought we might go find outwho and maybe pay them a visit to find out why."

"I got nothing better to do," Sleel said. He was silent for another few seconds as he dressed. As he seated his spetsdods, he said, "Uh, look,about getting me out. I, uh, well—"

Bork laughed. "Shut up, Sleel. You're gonna ruin your image, you're not careful."

Everybody joined Bork's laughter and Sleel's was the loudest.

It was good to have something worthwhile to do again, Dirisha thought. And these people around her to do it with.

Part Two

Soul Of The Beast

Chapter Nine

THE LARGEST COLLECTION of formerly extinct animals in the galaxy is located in a fifty-kilometer oval of exotic grassland on a plateau in Old Brazil just east ofCuiaba , along the meanderingRio das Mortes. Many of the imported offworld grasses have gone to seed since the fall of the Confed, and the Planalto do Mato Grasso around the zoo has been mostly taken over by the giant variant known asjatte riz , with its unique layered structure that allows it to sometimes reach a height of ten meters.

The people have long memories, so it is said, and so it is, but the group-mind of the people is not infallible. Before he was killed by a poison spew during the revolution, Marcus Jefferson Wall had a particular fondness for the South American zoo and its herds of elephants, mastodons and Spandle curlnoses, and he had spent much of his spare time among them. His visits had not been common knowledge, but there had been more than a few who had known of Wall's fondness for the proboscideans.