The Albino Knife (8 page)

They started back toward the doorway again. "There are permanent weatherproof sensors under the walk and lawn. The security computer can pinpoint an intruder to within a centimeter and if they don't feel like heating up the tracking lasers, the grounds are covered with overlapping zap fields."

"How do you know all this?"

He grinned. "The windows are two-centimeter-thick denscris and proof against just about anything you can reasonably throw at them from short range. The synstone walls are backed by ferrofoam plate that will stop small arms fire and the odd portable AP rocket that might come to visit."

"The door through which we have just passed is carbonex and you could hit it with an axe or shoot at it with a heavy rifle all day and it would simply absorb the impact of the blade and bullets. The door is covered by cameras, weapon and poison scanners, fluoroproj and I suspect a few other assorted sensors that have probably been invented since I was here last. We were checked and matched against the computer's records and if we hadn't passed, like as not we'd be lying on the floor out cold; there's another zap field in the entryway."

"Howdo you know all this?"

"I designed most of it."

That got to her. "He trusts you that much?"

"I hope not. Like I said, I expect there are other goodies here I don't know about."

Khadaji led his daughter to an elevator and touched a flat panel on the wall next to it.

"The control is a fingerprint sensor," he said."Another little check for anybody clever enough to get past the door."

"Amazing."Veate looked around."Doesn't look as if anybody is home."

"This floor is usually empty," he said.

The elevator arrived and they entered it. The manual control panel showed the President's floor as "3."

Khadaji said, "Emile Khadaji to see President Carlos."

The elevator began to move, but Veate's sense of balance and acceleration told her it was dropping.

"We're going down," Veate said. "I take it that the President's floor is not three?"

Khadaji was pleased."Right. Anybody who goes to three finds himself in a cage, as sturdy as they come.

Rajeem's real office isunderground, I'm not sure exactly which floor or how far down myself. Voice analysis makes sure nobody goes there who doesn't belong."

"I stand corrected about security," Veate said.

After what seemed a long time, punctuated by periods of slowing and brief halts, the elevator came to a stop and the door opened.

A young matadora stood in front of the elevator, a woman in her mid-twenties, Khadaji judged, dark hair cropped short in a working cut. She was dressed in standard orthoskins and gear. She was expecting them, knew who they were, and even so, Khadaji saw her eyes widen and the faint glimmer of a smile appear.

As he and Veate stepped out into the hall, he saw the second matador, a man of about thirty, standing to their left. The man appeared relaxed, but the position of his hands showed that he was ready to start shooting.

Sharp, both of them.Khadaji liked that.

The woman in front of them said, "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir.And fem."

Khadaji nodded. "And you are…?"

"Beryl li Rouge," she said. "That's Tamn Staver to your left."

Khadaji looked at Staver, then back at Rouge. "The pleasure is mine."

"If you wouldn't mind?"

"Of course not," Khadaji said.

While Staver watched, Rouge pointed a small scanner at Khadaji and then Veate. "Clean," she said.

The word had no effect on Staver's alert pose.

"This way, sir."

Rouge moved ahead of them, with Staver behind, and they walked down the hallway and around a corner, stopping at the third door they came to.

"President Carlos is looking forward to seeing you, sir.And to meeting you, fem."

The door slid open. Before he moved, Khadaji said, "You and Staver move well, Rouge."

The young woman grinned and her face flushed a little. "Thank you, sir."

Khadaji stepped into the room, Veate behind him, and the door slid shut. The room was fairly large, had a couch and several chairs facing a large, carved desk of some dark wood. There was a door next to the desk, closed. They were alone in the room.

Veate said, "What wasthat all about? She looked at you as if you were Jesus or Chang come back to life. When you told her she moved well, sheblushed !"

"She's a matadora," he said. "Trained at the school I started on Renault. My, ah, reputation there is somewhat high."

"Oh, that's right.The Man Who Never Missed.Inspiration for the whole set-up. I guess it would be like meeting a god from mythology for her, wouldn't it?" Her voice was dry, but he heard the undertone. Was it contempt?Or just amusement?

"It was a tool," he said."Nothing more. The enemy was a giant; we needed somebody who could rally the small folk to slay him. At my best I was never half as good as the story."

She looked at him, and he saw surprise in her face.

Before she could speak, the door next to the desk slid back and Rajeem Carlos stood there. Next to him was Jarl, his personal matador. Disguised as Pen, Khadaji had trained Jarl. He nodded once to his student, who returned the nod, but looked no less alert for it. Good. The two out front were new; Khadaji hadn't known them personally or that they were on Carlos's staff, but Jarl was almost like family.

Carlos looked much as Khadaji remembered him.Tall, athletic, blue eyes, a light complexion. There was more gray in the red hair, more wrinkles around the eyes, but the last five years had been kind to his looks, at least. He wore a blue thinsilk monosuit and kung fu slippers.

Carlos moved toward Khadaji, a wide smile deepening the lines next to his eyes. Jarl stayed next to the door, watching and listening.

"Emile. It's great to see you!"

The two men embraced warmly. Khadaji noted that the President of the Republic managed to find time to continue working out; there was still muscle under the clothes and little fat.

Carlos broke the hug and looked at Khadaji's daughter. "And you are Veate?"

"Sir," she said. She was nervous, but her poise was solid. She was, after all, an albino. Being a good actress came naturally.

"I am very pleased to meet you. You are the image of your father."

Khadaji stared at his old friend. Had his eyes gone bad? Veate looked nothing like him.

"Come, sit," Carlos said. He gestured at the two form-chairs in front of the desk."Something to eat or drink?"

Khadaji shook his head, "Not for me."

"Nor me," said Veate.

As Carlos moved to sit behind the desk, he said, "I'm sorry about your mother. Pen called me as soon as he heard. I have my best team of Republic investigators looking for her."

"Thank you," Veate said.

"What else, Rajeem?" Khadaji asked.

Carlos measured his old friend with a glance that held within it a calculation not there when last they had been together. Khadaji saw the look and understood how the years had affected his friend. Some of the idealist he had been was now replaced with a portion of cynic.

Before Carlos could speak, Khadaji said, "Are we going to play fugue, President Carlos?Or something worse?"

The measuring look vanished, and Carlos's smile, small though it was, returned. "Apparently you have not grown fat and stupid in your retirement."

"Have your men found me in the five years since I left?"

"No."

"And when did they start looking?"

Carlos chuckled. "About a month after I took office."

"Do you still trust me?"

"My advisors all say I should not.That you have been gone too long to know who you are anymore.

That whateverhelp you might have been before, there is no way to be certain you are the man you were."

"Are any of us the men we were?"

"My advisors mean well, but they are paid to be suspicious. I trust you, Emile. Knowing you were out there somewhere has kept me honest these last few years. If I had been corrupted by the power, you would have come back to remove me, wouldn't you?"

"I would have tried. But I wasn't too worried about it. I trust you, too, Rajeem."

"There was an attempt on my life a short time back," he said. "My ship was sabotaged. It was cleverly done,more clever than the usual would-be assassin. My technicians have not yet figured out how it was accomplished. Beel was with me. The entire ship was at risk."

"And your advisors thought that I—?"

"As I said, they are paid to be suspicious. I did not think it was your style; besides, I haven't botched the job that badly, have I?"

It was Khadaji's turn to smile. "No. I'd give you a passing grade."

"I thought so. I advised my advisors that had you been the assassin, I would certainly be dead. At about the same time, there were several attacks upon some of your students, on different planets. This could hardly be coincidence, and the coordination needed involved careful planning. Juete was kidnapped. It takes only a casual look to see these things are all connected in some way to Emile Antoon Khadaji."

"Agreed, though none of it was my doing."

"So I believe. But something most unusual is happening and we don't understand what. Or why."

Khadaji was about to speak when a soft chime sounded in the room.

Carlos frowned. "I was not to be interrupted," he said.

A voice from a hidden speaker said, "Sorry, President Carlos. You have an offplanet com request from someone on your short list."

Carlos's frown deepened. To Khadaji, he said, "There are only seven people on that list—my wife and children, you, and three others." He raised his voice. "Put the call through."

After a few seconds, a woman's deep voice said, "Hello, deuce."

Khadaji and Carlos spoke at the same time:

"Dirisha!"

Dirisha and Bork leaned against the Healy.

"Amazing," Geneva said, from within her medical hutch."He was there with the President when you called."

"Maybe not so amazing," Bork said. "The boss always had a way of getting into the middle of things."

Dirisha shook her head. Bork was a master of understatement. She said, "They didn't say what was going on, but something else is happening. For Emile to pop up after vanishing so long ago is passing strange."

"And with a daughter," Geneva said. "I never knew he had a family."

"Mostly nobody knew much about him at all," Bork said.

"Anyway, Carlos knows about what happened and he's arranging for the bank's computer operators to smile on us."

"What about Sleel?" Geneva asked.

"He's going to see what can be legally done. He can't just snap his fingers and make them let Sleel go.

One of the first things Carlos did when he took over was to cut out about nine-tenths of the power the old Confed leaders had. He can't pardon anybody without a lengthy process, subject to review by a panel of planetary and galactic judges. It could take six months, maybe as long as a year."

"I wouldn't bet money on Sleel waiting around," Bork said.

"Nor would I," Geneva added. "Sleel can be very single-minded."

Dirisha laughed. Sleel had tried for years to get her to sleep with him and there had been times when she had been tempted. On some level, he was a loveable rogue. "Inever gave in, brat."

"It was before I knew you," Geneva said.

"Did I say anything?"

"You were thinking it."

"We could bust him out," Bork said. "Sleel is a good man to have around when things get fuzzy."

"Bad idea," Dirisha said. "We're on the side of law and order these days, remember?"

"Yeah, but whoever is after us is probably also still after Sleel, too. He's pinned down in a place where he's easier to get to, and he's unarmed."

Bork was right. Dirisha didn't think whoever had set his or her sights on them would have been careless, and the bank's computer probably wouldn't give them much to go on. Whatever had beencause enough for them to start shooting probably hadn't gone away and there was no reason to believe they would stop after one round.

"All right.Maybe we ought to pay Sleel a visit and see if there's anything we can do. They'll let the brat out in a couple of days; Sleel will probably be okay until then."

"Sounds good to me," Bork said. "Bet Sleel'll be glad to see us."

"I wouldn't bet my ass on that," Dirisha said.

Chapter Six

THE SHIP WAS a milk-run passenger liner, one of the squarish, no-frills transports built at the height of the Confed's reign, designed to move people efficiently, but with a minimum of luxury. It was a cut above a troop transport, but not a wide cut.

Bork sat at a table in the dining room, eating some kind of overcooked dark fish, staring into nowhere.

A woman had laughed behind him a few minutes ago and something about the sound of her voice had called up a memory of Mayli. He chewed on the two together, not tasting the fish but unable to avoid the sourness of his recall. This biz with somebody trying to kill matadors had taken over and Bork found himself surprised to realize that he hadn't thought about Mayli much since it had begun. Maybe that meant something.

He finished the meal and looked around. He'd been distracted, had lost touch with what was going on in therestaurant, and that was bad. Inattention could get you killed. If he was going to stay alive, best he sharpen up some. He didn't want to make a stupid mistake and maybe put Dirisha or Geneva in danger.

He owed them attention. There was a gym somewhere on the ship. He'd go and move some iron around.

He usually felt better when his blood was pumping after a good workout.

In their small ship cabin, Dirisha trailed her hand lightly over the mostly healed wound on Geneva's naked chest. Like the blonde, the darkwoman was also nude—save for the spetsdods they both wore.

"Hurt for me to touch it?"

"Nope.It's a little tender if I move wrong, but that doesn't hurt at all."

Dirisha slid her hand down her lover's body, gently scratching with her fingernails.

"Mmm.That feels even better."

Dirisha moved her hand yet lower. After a moment, Geneva's breathing deepened."Ah, yeah.Right there."