Eric Flint's Blog, page 263

Raising Caine – Snippet 04

Raising Caine – Snippet 04

Chapter Sixteen

In transit; GJ 1248’s inner system

Caine Riordan rose after checking on the reanimation progress of one of the legation’s coldslept security personnel: an Australian SAAS officer by the improbable name of Christopher Robin who had helped rescue him in Jakarta. Ben Hwang exited the cryobank module as Riordan turned back toward Karam Tsaami. “You okay on your own?”

Karam waved him out. “Yeah, yeah: I’ve got these sleeping beauties.” He glanced at the two rows of cryocell bays behind him. Most had a unit in them, all of which showed green status lights. A few were blinking, the rest were steady. One unit was dark: unoccupied. “I’ve done this more times than I can count on colony ships. You’d just be slowing me down.”

Caine nodded, resisting the urge to stay: he’d never seen anyone other than himself going through the slow process of reanimation. Two days ago, he had helped start it, but other than the automated reswap of nonglycerinated plasma and associated cellular purging, there had been nothing to do other than taking a pre-animation reading, pressing a button, watching each unit’s steady blue light become a steady green light. He suspected that a chimpanzee could be trained to do it as well as he had, possibly better. He nodded at the slightly inclined cryocells. “You know, given the number of times I’ve been in cryosleep, you’d think I’d have more skill managing it.”

Karam cocked a rueful grin at Riordan. “Being in a cryocell doesn’t teach you anything about how to operate one, Caine. Now scoot: you’re cramping my style.”

To Caine’s eyes, Karam — reading a book on his dataslate as he waited to start transferring the awakening cold sleepers to cocoon-like warming couches, IVs at the ready — didn’t seem to be doing anything he could possibly obstruct, but he nodded a farewell and gave the pilot-turned-EMT his requested privacy.

Ben Hwang had strolled halfway back to their habmod. The featureless metal corridor was the only part of the Slaasriithi ship they’d been allowed to access during the twelve long weeks of hopping from one star system to the next. “Hard to believe we’re finally going to get out of these tin cans,” Hwang murmured.

Caine caught up with him at the entry hatch. “If I never have to travel on a shift-carrier again, that will be fine with me. But it’s given me some time to catch up.”

Hwang looked back. “On recent history?” Riordan, having slept through the years 2105 to 2118 thanks to a hyper-vigilant Taiwanese security operative, still had gaps in contemporary references.

Caine shrugged as they moved through the ante-chamber that was also an airlock. “Some history, but mostly, well, personal matters. This is the first chance I’ve had to find out what happened to my family, and to Elena and Connor, when I was out of circulation.”

Hwang nodded, did not inquire further into the matter. Which was odd, since Hwang had been the most personable of his fellow travelers on the voyage into Slaasriithi space.

The compartment beyond the airlock was configured to function as a combination living room, work room, gathering space. The outfitters had attempted to make it look homey; instead, they had achieved a dismal parody of that effect. Reclining in an incongruously stylish easy chair, Bannor Rulaine looked up from the pulp-and-ink book he was reading. Hwang tossed a jocose question toward Riordan’s security XO: “Catching up on your military theory?”

“Catching up on my Milton,” Rulaine replied. And, with a nod at Caine, went back to his reading.

Caine crossed over toward the Special Forces captain turned IRIS striker, sat and glanced at the cover of his companion’s dense tome: Milton: Collected Works. Riordan grinned: “So, passing some time with a ripping yarn?”

“Yeah. Brought it along to read on the beach.”

“Or the fiery lakes of brimstone?”

Bannor looked up. “Are you casting me as Lucifer?”

“Hell, no — to coin a phrase. How could I do that to someone who’s been my guardian angel?”

Rulaine’s lips crinkled; for him, that was a broad smile. “I’m not reading Paradise Lost, anyway.”

“Oh? Which one, then?”

“Comus.”

“So: a journey into a mysterious forest where temptation lurks. Thinking of our current travels?”

“No: thinking of how the title character reminds me of the Ktor.” Bannor settled back: a gentle, if clear, message that his interest in banter had waned beside his interest in the verse.

Caine settled back in his own chair. Ben Hwang might be the chattier and more intimate of the two men, but Bannor was calmer and well-grounded. And a walking contradiction. His dossier was as filled with combat commendations as it was with examples of how, despite his academic brilliance, he was a poor fit for conventional learning environments. Rulaine’s brief Ivy-League career began its final, precipitous decline on the last day of what had been his favorite class: an advanced Shakespeare seminar. When asked what he had done instead of showing up for the final exam, Rulaine calmly reported that he had elected to spend the time rock-climbing. Alone. When pressed to explain this choice, he responded that while he found great pleasure and value in both the substance and form of the Bard’s plays, he simply could not abide rote memorization of passages, which had been a required component of the final exam. When the academic review board suggested that perhaps he shouldn’t presume to judge the pedagogy of his august and much-published professors, Bannor shrugged and replied that while his instructors might be excellent scholars they were poor educators. After offering a further, provocative enlargement upon that opinion, his absences mounted, his GPA plummeted, and he was summarily dismissed. But Bannor’s fateful, final words had even made it into his Army dossier (although they were buried deep): “most of my professors can’t see the wider forest of meaning because they’ve become obsessed with a few mostly meaningless trees.”

Peter Wu poked his head into the common room. “O’Garran tells me that Gaspard is awake and asking questions. Imperiously.”

Bannor shut his book: an annoyed thunderclap. “Does he ask questions any other way?”

“Occasionally.” Ben’s tone was noncommittal. He rose. “Let’s go see the Great Man.”

Bannor grimaced. “I’d rather spend another few hours on the flight simulator.” He did not rise.

“C’mon, let’s go,” coaxed Caine. “It’ll be more fun than crashing during an unpowered landing. Again and again. Bannor.”

Bannor glared at Riordan. “That’s a low blow. If accurate.”

Caine smiled. Of all the distractions that he and his five conscious fellow travelers had shared during their journey, the flight simulator had been the most useful and the most frustrating. An actual training sim used by the Commonwealth space forces, it was realistic in all regards but one: feel. Karam Tsaami, an accomplished transatmospheric pilot, had tried his hand at it early on. He crashed twice, landed in a heap three times, and then finally put the delta-shaped lander on the ground with only a few nicks and scratches. “It’s bullshit,” he’d pronounced as he pushed away from the controls.

“Why? Because you crashed it?” Hwang’s tone had been almost impish.

“No, Mr. Nobel-Winner Wiseass, not because I crashed it. It’s because you can’t feel anything.”

“You mean, like the crushing impact when you stick it nose-first into the ground?” Peter Wu’s dead-pan rejoinders were becoming his trade-mark.

Tsaami glared at the Taiwanese tunnel rat whose cool competence and valor in Jakarta had ensured that he, too, would be recruited into IRIS, “Wu, has anyone ever told you that you are one hell of a funny guy? Because if they have, they’re liars. Look: this simulator isn’t even a good approximation of instrument flying. This is like — like flying a drone. But drones have all sorts of expert systems, which uneducated idiots call ‘AI,’ to compensate for minor stability issues. This thing” — he jerked a thumb at the console — “is the worst of both worlds. You’re flying an authentically unstable platform but without the real ‘feel’ of being in it. And you’re relying on controls that are less sensitive than a drone’s.”

Caine had been curious. “Then why do they use it as a trainer?”

Karam shrugged. “Look, there’s a lot of details to flying, particularly in a lander. This sim is fine for most spaceside maneuvers. They’re a piece of cake if you can do some basic math or know how to tell the computer to do it for you. Atmospheric flight is trickier, but, unless you’re in dirty weather, it’s still pretty straightforward as long as you don’t try to pull any fancy moves. But reentry? Or fast climb to low orbit? That’s where the job gets a lot harder because that’s where things go wrong most frequently, and you don’t get a lot of warning when they do.”

“Odd, then, how all those quaint twentieth-century space capsules managed to land without computer control. Or without any controls at all.” Hwang couldn’t keep the bait-happy smile off his face.

“Yeah, real odd,” Karam retorted, “since reentry and landing was all they were designed to do. Put them in the right place, at the right angle and speed, and they’ll land. But a platform with lifting surfaces and designed to be capable of launch, landing, and flight in both space and in atmospheres? Those increased capabilities mean increased complexity.”

Bannor had put a hand on Karam’s shoulder. “Ben’s baiting you. He knows all that.”

“Yeah?” Karam sounded dubious. “He’s just annoyed that I like Wu’s food better. Sound about right to you, Pete?”

“Peter,” corrected Peter Wu.

“Yeah, yeah, sure — Pete. But Ben’s just jealous of your cooking, don’t you think, Pete?”

Wu sighed. “Yes, I’m sure that’s it.”

 

His Father’s Eyes – Snippet 37

His Father’s Eyes – Snippet 37

Chapter 13

I went first to see Billie, stopping along the way to pick up an order of fajitas. She was better today, though it sounded as though she’d had a rough night.

The last of the anesthetics from her surgery had worn off during the evening, leaving her in a good deal of pain. The doctors were still trying to figure out the right dosages, but already she said that she was more comfortable. And seeing that I had brought her food improved her mood significantly.

She didn’t look happy when I told her that I couldn’t stay long, and she asked the nurses to leave us for a while. They obliged, closing the curtains and glass door as they left.

“Where did you get that bruise?” she asked, once we were alone.

“Lost a fight.”

I expected some expression of concern, but it seemed her thoughts were taking her in another direction.

“I don’t know if I imagined this or if it really happened.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “Did you tell me that the explosion at Solana’s was caused by magic?”

I nodded.

“And that’s why you weren’t hurt.”

“Right.”

“Damn. And so you’re leaving now because . . . ?”

“Because I’m trying to find out who did it. I have a couple of leads. Nothing solid, and there’s a lot I can’t explain right now. But I’m working on it.”

She took hold of my collar with her good hand, pulled me closer, and kissed me on the lips. “Well, be careful. If they can blow up a restaurant and keep you from getting hurt, they must be pretty good at this magic stuff.”

Smart woman.

“I was thinking the same thing last night. I’ll try not to do anything too stupid.”

“Good.” She kissed me again, then smiled. “Thank you for my fajitas.”

“Enjoy. I’ll be back later.”

#

I took I-10 west through the Phoenix suburbs out to Buckeye, a middle class town that had seen unbelievable growth in the past decade and a half as the city and its satellite towns continued to sprawl across the desert. It wasn’t the most scenic town in Arizona, and most of the land around it was pretty flat, some might even say desolate. The notable exception was Skyline Regional Park to the north of the city, which was a nice place to hike.

Amaya’s friend, Gary Hacker, lived about as far from the park as a resident of Buckeye could manage, in a rundown single-wide on the southern fringe of the town. The land near his home made my father’s place seem lush by comparison. The wind had kicked up, blowing clouds of pale dust across the gravel road. Sun-bleached “no trespassing” signs were mounted on posts lining the drive, and the yard around the single-wide was littered with old tires, plumbing fixtures, empty jugs of motor oil and antifreeze, scraps of wood, and just about every other form of trash I could imagine. A beat up Dodge pick-up sat next to the single-wide.

I pulled in behind the truck and climbed out of the car, squinting against the glare and the dust. An air conditioner mounted on one end of the single-wide rattled like an old train and dripped water on the dusty ground. Yellow-jackets swarmed over the moistened dirt.

I pulled off my sunglasses and glanced around, thinking — hoping — that maybe I was in the wrong place. Before I had time to do more, the door of the mobile home banged open, revealing a tall, rangy man who held what looked like a worn Savage 110 bolt rifle at shoulder level.

“I think you’d better get back in your car, mister.”

It was like I’d fallen into a bad Western.

I put up my hands, playing my role. “I’m not looking for any trouble. Are you Gary Hacker?”

“Who the hell are you?”

“My name’s Jay Fearsson. Jacinto Amaya suggested I come and talk to you.”

He’d been squinting into the sights of his rifle, prepared, I was sure, to blow my head off. But upon hearing Amaya’s name, he straightened, his eyes narrowing. “Amaya sent you?”

“Yeah. Would you mind lowering that rifle?”

“Remains to be seen. Why would he send you out here?”

“I’m a weremyste,” I said, assuming that explained everything.

“I can see that. Why’d he send you?”

I regarded the man, shading my eyes with one raised hand. Apparently Hacker could see the blur on my features, which was odd, because I saw none at all on his. Amaya had said he was a myste, too.

Or had he? He’s a were, Jacinto told me. Not a myste, or a weremyste, but a were. I knew weres lived in the Phoenix area, as they did throughout the country, but weremystes usually had little use for them. Were magic was very specific. Just as weremystes went through the phasings, weres changed form on the full moon, and on the nights before and after. But that was all. Weres couldn’t cast spells; they weren’t runecrafters, as Namid would have put it.

Hollywood portrayals notwithstanding, weres weren’t monsters; they didn’t go around biting people, infecting them with a taint that made the innocent into creatures like themselves. But they did have dual natures; they shared their bodies with a totem beast that took control during the nights of the phasing. A werewolf transformed into a wolf, a werelion turned into a mountain lion — or perhaps an African lion in that part of the world. And in their animal forms, they behaved as would any other creature of that species. If Hacker was a were, he would be able to see my magic, but since he possessed none himself, he didn’t appear to me to be anything more or less than a normal person.

“I don’t know why he sent me,” I said after some time. “Maybe you can tell me that. But he did suggest that I come out here; you can call him to confirm that if you want. I have a cell . . .”

“I don’t need your phone. This place might not look like much, but I do have a landline, and an iPhone.”

I grinned. “My mistake.”

He frowned, but after another moment or two, he lowered his weapon. “All right, come on in.” He shuffled back into the single-wide, leaving the door ajar.

The small stairway leading to his door was nothing more than piled cinder blocks, and I expected that the interior would be as trashed as the yard. Inside though, Hacker’s place was far nicer than I ever would have guessed. The carpeting was spotless, and the front room was furnished with a plush couch, a couple of upholstered chairs, and a low wooden coffee table.

Hacker stepped into the kitchen, which was about as big as a coat closet, but tidy.

“You want anythin’?” he asked, his tone conveying that he had little to offer.

“I’m fine, thank you.”

He nodded, came back out into the living room, and sat in one of the chairs, gazing up at me, with an expectant air that reminded me oddly of Namid. He had a long, crooked nose and small, dark eyes. His hair was light brown, shading to gray, and his three day beard was more white than anything else. Deep lines were etched in the skin around his eyes and mouth. Forced to guess, I would have said that he was in his late forties or early fifties, but I wouldn’t have wanted to bet money on it.

“Why are you here? Why would Jacinto send you to me?”

“How well do you know Amaya?” I asked, stalling, unsure of where to begin.

He shrugged. “Well enough, I suppose. I know about the drug stuff, if that’s what you’re askin’. And I also know that he’s a crafter.”

I glanced around the mobile home again.

“You gonna sit down?” he asked. “It’s a little weird, you standin’ and me sittin’.”

I ignored that for the moment. “I’m trying to figure out how someone like Jacinto Amaya would have ended up being friends . . .”

“With someone like me?”

“I’m sorry. That didn’t come out–”

“It’s all right. It’s a good question really. Sit down, would ya?”

I took a seat on the couch, opposite his chair.

“I met him about three years ago,” Hacker said. “I was livin’ in the streets in Phoenix.” He stared at his hands, which were thick, powerful, but incongruously short-fingered. “I was a meth addict at the time.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ain’t nobody’s fault but my own.” He sat a bit straighter, still not meeting my gaze. “Anyway, I was in the streets and I heard that Jacinto was openin’ one of his new drug treatment places nearby. I went over to see the ceremony, and to ask him a question, and the police tried to shoo me away, like I didn’t belong, you know? But I belonged more than anybody.

 

Raising Caine – Snippet 03

Raising Caine – Snippet 03

Brenlor tapped one finger against his bicep as, ten days later, the Arbitrage approached the shift point to their next destination: system GJ 1236. “All systems nominal?”

“Yes, Evolved,” answered Ayana Tagawa, whom they had trained as the second pilot for the Arbitrage. She had good basic skills and very high inherent aptitudes. “Terminal preacceleration energy state has been attained.”

Nezdeh noted the lack of affect in her voice. Brenlor thought she had become the most compliant of all the Aboriginals. Nezdeh wondered if her constrained demeanor and minimal expressions and speech might not indicate the exact opposite.

Brenlor nodded to Ulpreln. “Deactivate the space-normal helm. Tagawa, you are dismissed. Go with the guard.” One of the two dozen Optigene paramilitary clones that they had wakened from cold sleep took a step toward her, waited. She nodded to the Evolved on the bridge and exited with the slow dignity that was her wont.

“Ulpreln, is the shift-drive charged?”

“Completing charge…now.”

“Engage.”

The universe seemed to flutter unpleasantly, as though consciousness threatened to blink off, and every muscle in Nezdeh’s body was preparing to spasm…And then it was over.

“Sensors, confirm destination,” Brenlor ordered.

The Aboriginal crewman glanced at his instruments. “Stellar type: M3 dwarf, main sequence. Emission bands match target star precisely. Stellar field parallax assessment confirms we are in system GJ 1236.”

“Position?”

“262 light seconds from the primary, absolute bearing of 167 by 14.”

“Position of nearest planet and target planet?”

“Nearest planet: small gas giant, absolute bearing 187 by 3, 293 light seconds from the primary…”

So a bit behind us on the port quarter —

“…Target planet: absolute bearing 84 by 2, 99 light seconds from the primary.”

Brenlor turned to Ulpreln. “Plot course for the gas giant. Second sensor operator: contact report.”

“No proximal contacts. Several structures in orbit around the target planet. Two, possibly three, sensors in orbit around the gas giant. Very small. Unpowered.”

“Time to refuel?”

“Five days, presuming typical meteorological patterns.”

Brenlor turned from the forward view ports, drew closer to Nezdeh. “You have confidence in Idrem’s estimate?”

“That we may be able to refuel before the Slaasriithi arrive? Yes. Their shorter range compelled them to shift to another system — GJ 1232 — before they were able to continue on to this one. But remember Idrem’s caveat: GJ 1232 is reserved for Slaasriithi use. It is unlikely but possible that they have a fuel depot here.”

“And so, they could be here in half the time we expect,” Brenlor concluded sourly. He moved to the hatchway and ducked under the coaming as if dodging the possibility that, once again, his quarry might unwittingly frustrate his plans.

* * *

Except the Slaasriithi arrived in much less time, Nezdeh thought forty hours later, recalling and amending her prior cautionary caveat.

Idrem was on hand, having heard the news of the Slaasriithi’s appearance near the other gas giant halfway across the system. And, she realized with a start, her gaze kept returning to Idrem’s broad back.

She wrenched her eyes away. Tender sentiments were vulnerabilities, even among those who had become intimate. Many of the Progenitors had authored axioms warning against them, and she had always heeded them. But now —

When Brenlor entered the bridge, the Aboriginals and Evolveds all straightened in unison. He looked directly at Idrem. “Do we have a reasonable chance of making a stealthy approach to the target?”

Idrem shook his head. “Even if we court the shadows of the other planets and the primary, and coast on battery power when we are not concealed, we will not reach them unobserved before they commence preacceleration.”

Brenlor stalked to the front view ports. He was silent for several moments, looking toward the primary. “Apparently they had access to a fuel depot at GJ 1232.”

Nezdeh was surprised by how calm he sounded. “Almost certainly.”

Brenlor nodded. “Can we continue our own refueling?”

“Slowly,” answered Idrem, “and only when this gas giant is between us and them.”

“So, when we have finished refueling, they will still require four to five days of further preacceleration, correct?”

“Correct.”

“And from that same moment, we too require approximately four and a half days of preacceleration also, yes?”

Idrem nodded. “Yes. So we could be shifting within hours of each other.”

Brenlor actually smiled. “Very suspenseful.” His smile widened. “I like that.”

* * *

Nezdeh glanced at the mission clock located between the two forward view ports: the Arbitrage was in the last thirty seconds of the countdown to her own transit to the system Aboriginals labeled GJ 1248.

As the bridge crew finished calling out the readiness marks, Brenlor leaned forward eagerly: “Engage!” Nezdeh’s stomach sunk as the world shimmered at the edge of annihilation and then, just as speedily, reasserted — but with a new starfield peering in at them through the view ports. “Sensors, report: proximal contacts?”

A tense second before the Aboriginal reported. “No proximal contacts.”

“Expand passive scan footprint. Report all contacts. Ulpreln, shift accuracy?”

“Within eighteen light seconds of the target gas giant, Brenlor. We are behind it, but are situated to rise into clear line-of-sight for observation of the main planet in orbit one.”

Perfect, Nezdeh thought. Now if only —

The oddly strident Aboriginal klaxons began hooting over the senior sensor operator’s report: “Asymptotic energy spike sixteen light seconds out from the main planet.” At the same moment, the green blip denoting the Slaasriithi shift carrier appeared in the navplot.

Nezdeh frowned. They shifted in next to the main planet? Logically, that must mean —

“They have a base at that world, or some other fueling facility,” Brenlor announced quietly. “Sensors, any orbital facilities?”

“Unable to confirm at this range.”

Brenlor thought for a moment. “Sensors, narrow sweep of target planet: inferential spectroscopic analysis of atmosphere. Also, maximum enhanced image.”

The sensor operator’s compliance was swift. “Spectroscopic analysis returns high confidence of oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Image confirms that the planet is gravitationally locked in a one-to-one resonance with the primary, and that it has a habitable band following the approximate terminator line.”

Brenlor leaned back, resigned. “This is precisely the kind of planet that the Slaasriithi would develop. And so, would probably construct a fuel depot.” He shook his head. “We will not be able to surprise them.”

Ulpreln looked sideways at his commander. “But if we do not intercept them here –”

Brenlor nodded. “Yes, I know: they can reach Beta Aquilae in one shift. And so our chase is over and we have failed.”

Nezdeh glanced back over the screens which displayed the Slaasriithi’s prior path. “They might not shift directly to Beta Aquilae, though.” Seeing Brenlor’s surprised stare, she added, “I have no concrete evidence for my speculation; it is pure conjecture.”

Brenlor folded his arms. “Your speculative insights have often been correct, Nezdeh. For the good of our House, employ that skill now.”

“Very well. We know the Slaasriithi are, of all the species of the Accord, the ones most deeply involved in biological development. And we know that they have made all haste to arrive at this place. Yet, look at their progress toward the main planet” — she gestured at the navplot — “an unusually slow pace, almost casual.”

Ulpreln frowned. “And what do you infer from that?”

“That they are in no hurry to get to the fuel there because they are in no hurry to move onward. Not this time. I suspect they mean to visit the surface of this world, possibly to acclimatize the humans to their biota.”

Brenlor nodded. “By pausing here, do you think they will become vulnerable to attack?”

Nezdeh shook her head. “Probably not. But they are giving us the opportunity to refuel and shift much sooner than they do.”

“Are you suggesting that we precede them into their home system and ambush them there?”

“No. That would be utter and immediate suicide. But there is also the possibility that this world is only the first stage in their acclimatization of the Aboriginals. If it is, they might shift here, first.” She extended her finger toward the navplot, put her finger on the orange speck that denoted BD +02 4076. “Their own self-reference indicates that they have been transforming this world for at least eight hundred years. Logically, it might be an intermediary acclimatizing step between this newly shaped world” — she nodded outward toward the unseen planet in this system — “and Beta Aquilae itself. Consequently, if we cannot intercept them here, we might have an opportunity to ambush them in BD +02 4076.”

Brenlor squinted up into the glittering star map. “And if they do not detour there at all, but go on directly to Beta Aquilae?”

“Then we have lost nothing that is not already lost at this moment.”

Brenlor nodded. “Then we shall refuel and watch. And wait.”

 

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 02

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 02

“A Protector? Impossible.” Another warrior, gone a bit fat, came jogging up. He was too old to hold the low rank of havildar — a leader of ten — but of course, a great house would only send the dim and disgraced from among its warrior caste to protect a cursed holding such as this. “Our house has abandoned us. We’re all going to die here. There’s no –”

The ornate armor of the Protector Order should have been a giveaway, but Ashok showed him the token of his office so there could be no question about who was now in charge. The officer’s eyes widened when he saw the silver flash in the firelight. “Take me to the sea demon,” Ashok said.

“I can’t!” the officer wailed.

Ashok couldn’t believe his ears. The Law was clear about both of their duties in this situation. “Are you disobeying my order?” His tone was cold. “Calm yourself and speak carefully before you answer.”

“No, Protector. It was…I don’t know…I saw it reach through old Ravna’s stomach, take hold of his spine, and pull his head right through his shoulders. Such a thing can’t be real! I ordered a retreat because we had to run. I had no choice.”

That babbling didn’t answer Ashok’s question. The havildar was stupid with fear. Demons could shatter even a great warrior’s courage, and he was fairly certain this man had never been counted among House Gujara’s great to begin with. “Calm yourself and tell me, where is the demon?”

The havildar cowered. “Too strong…Too much blood. I can’t…Won’t go back…”

In a time of crisis, some men might shirk their duties, but to a Protector, obedience was everything, and the Law required him to punish this demon for trespassing. He couldn’t do it if they were lollygagging around while it swam back to sea, so Ashok backhanded the warrior in the mouth hard enough to loosen a few teeth from his jaw. The officer fell in the sand, whimpering.

“Where?”

“We saw it in the storehouse!” interjected the young soldier before Ashok could put his boot to the havildar. He was pointing into one of the larger fires. “Past that big building there. Last I saw, the demon was heading toward the casteless quarter, that direction.”

The casteless were not people, they were property, but they looked enough like real men that the sea demon probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Ashok could only assume that non-people tasted the same as real people to a demon.

“It was huge! It had to duck to get through the big storehouse door.” The junior soldier lifted one hand as high as possible, stretching it over his head, and even stood on his toes.

The nayak was tall, nearly as tall as Ashok in fact. Even allowing for some exaggeration from the terror of seeing such a thing, that meant this demon was a big one. The larger demons that bothered to come up on shore were particularly bloodthirsty, and their raiding period could often last an entire season. If it wasn’t stopped tonight, then its rampage would continue, night after night, until it was killed or sated. It would take a few minutes for his fifty-man escort to catch up, and when they did they would be too out of breath to be immediately useful. The demon would surely sense the arrival of that many soldiers and might decide to leave. It couldn’t be allowed to escape.

“Reinforcements are coming. Tell the risaldar in charge that I’ve gone after it.”

“Alone?”

Ashok drew the ancestor blade of Great House Vadal from the sheath on his belt. Angruvadal was eager. The sword retained the collected martial instincts of every man who had ever carried it into battle, all in a length of metal so black that it absorbed the light around it, and so sharp that it could even pierce the hide of a demon. The nayak realized what it was and took a fearful step back.

I am never alone.

* * *

The heat was so intense that it was difficult to even approach the growing fire. A black shape shot between the storehouse and a burning shack. Ashok would have followed directly, but his skin was not nearly as impervious as that of his prey. Despite the fact that they lived their lives beneath the waves, fire didn’t seem to harm demons. Ashok ran along the shore, leaping from rock to rock, looking for a path through the flames. Unclean saltwater soaked his boots, and he cursed the fools who would build a village in such a tainted place.

Most of the residents had fled or died. Now the demon was just toying with the stragglers, feasting before it returned to the depths. They’d always struck him as spiteful that way. He spotted the demon again as it leapt over a rope bridge, but then he lost it in the smoke. The air scorched his eyes as he started up a narrow ramp after it. Ashok paused to tie a scarf over the lower half of his face in a vain attempt to strain the air. It made sense that the creature would have the advantage here. Demons could breathe air or water, and in comparison to that, what trouble was smoke?

Ashok selected a path and pushed on through the maze of connected huts and scaffolding. The bridge was flimsy and rocked wildly as he ran across. He reached a solid platform and a lucky shift of the wind granted him a lungful of decent air and a clear view. A few coughing survivors pushed past him to climb down the ladders. One desperately leapt over the side to fall into the black waves. It was foolhardy to ever touch Hell, but it was shallow enough here that nothing immediately tried to devour that worker. Tonight the ocean’s nightmares were on dry land.

He had been taught that the best way to track a demon was to follow the signs of chaos. Wherever demons went, they left carnage in their wake. They were the living embodiment of destruction. Sword in hand, Ashok moved down the platform, following the trail of blood and discarded body parts. Demons never stopped moving, and they liked to carry their victim’s bodies as they bounded from place to place, gnawing on them until they found someone else to rip into. Once they’d gorged themselves, and their bellies were stuffed full, they would usually pause long enough to vomit up what they’d just eaten in order to make room for more. There was a foot, still wearing a sandal. There were several severed fingers on top of a pile of unidentifiable organs. He was on the right path.

The trail led down another narrow bridge. The cracks between the boards revealed crashing surf below. The only thing separating his body from the evil sea was some rickety stilts and rotting wood. It was strange enough to make even a man without fear pause. How could anyone, even the lowest of the low, live like this? Then the wave retreated, revealing shining sand, and his confidence returned.

This largest group of platforms was kept purposefully separate from the rest. This was the oldest and most confusing part of the village, with huts and structures haphazardly built in layers on top of each other for generations. It didn’t matter which house’s territory he was in. Casteless quarters always felt similar, giving off an air of disintegrating shoddy construction and a general filthiness. The Law mandated that the living area of the untouchables be kept separate from that of the whole men. Bits of glowing ash were falling from the dark sky, and several buildings in the casteless quarter had caught fire. Ashok took cover behind the corner of a hut and listened. Something was screeching. It was a horrible, bloodcurdling sound. He hoped the demon had attacked a piglet because that sound should not ever come out of a human throat, no matter how low in status the human might be.

 

A Call To Arms – Snippet 03

A Call To Arms – Snippet 03

“A ship,” Llyn repeated. He was pretty sure the answer was yes, given the Supreme Chosen One’s hasty departure from Canaan four years ago. But he needed to be absolutely sure. “One that’s sufficiently fueled and stocked to travel to Telmach.”

“Of course we have a ship,” Ulobo said uncertainly, sending a frown toward his boss. “You’re not suggesting we leave now, are you?”

“Not at all,” Llyn said. “At least, not the we part.”

And as Ulobo’s frown deepened, Llyn reached up to his left, brushed aside the flap of his guard’s jacket, and yanked the Paxlane 405 from its holster.

The guard tried to stop him. He really did. He tried to step out of Llyn’s reach, tried to swing his hand down to grab Llyn’s wrist.

But he had no chance. The soporific that Llyn had released into the air through his steaming mug of tea had turned the man’s muscles into mush, his judgment and self-awareness into colorless fog, and his reflexes and entire nervous system into slow-flowing mud. Llyn evaded his fumbling hand with ease before firing off a point-blank shot into the man’s chest that ended any hope of resistance. With the report from the shot still echoing across the room, Llyn tracked the gun in a one-eighty-degree arc, taking out the guard to Khetha’s right, then the guard to his left, and finally the guard to Llyn’s right. All three men collapsed to the floor still fumbling uselessly at their holstered weapons.

Khetha was clawing his own tunic open, his expression that of an angry and desperate thundercloud, and Ulobo was cringing in helpless horror, when Llyn’s final two shots sent them to join their bodyguards in hell.

An instant later Llyn was out of his chair, leveling his gun at the door behind him. If the room wasn’t as soundproof as he’d assumed, Pinstripe and Blue Shirt could be charging in at any second to find out what all the shooting was about.

But the door remained closed. Either the room was soundproof, or else it wasn’t abnormal to hear the sounds of violence coming from inside. Keeping his eyes and gun on the door, Llyn backed around the table to Ulobo’s glassy-eyed corpse. He picked up the tablet, wiped the few stray drops of blood off onto the back of Ulobo’s jacket, and took a close look.

The ever-present danger with this kind of operation was that the soporific’s timetable might have made him jump the gun, that Ulobo might have been rattling off the warship stats from memory. But no. The Volsung Mercenaries file was still sitting there, wide open to the universe, with all the necessary contact names, uni-link numbers, addresses, passcodes, and even copies of the correspondence Khetha and Admiral Gensonne had exchanged across the void over the past couple of years.

And with that, Llyn had everything he needed to open his own negotiations with the Volsungs for Axelrod’s covert operation against Manticore. Best of all, by using Khetha’s contact information, any backtrack anyone might attempt in the future would dead-end here in this room on Casca. There would be no data track that could ever point to Axelrod.

Not that there was likely to ever be such an investigation. The winners wrote the history, after all, and Axelrod had made it a point to always be among the winners. In fact, Llyn had explicitly been informed by his controller that if he had to leave Khetha and his group alive, that would be acceptable. But Llyn’s policy was to always, always cover his tracks.

Speaking of which…

Crossing back to the bodies on his side of the table, he retrieved his uni-link. He’d set up the message template inside the Soleil Azur’s mail packet during the long voyage from Haven, tucked away in the will-call folder. But the final details couldn’t be entered until he knew where Khetha would set up their meeting. He checked his uni-link’s GPS reading — as he’d predicted, they were right in the center of Quechua City — then added the location to his message. After that, it was simply a matter of sending a quick and innocuous code word to the criminal gang he’d hired, which would send them to the message drop and set their part of the job in motion.

And even if they screwed up, it wouldn’t matter. None of them knew Llyn’s name or employer, or who it was they were going to be disposing of. They’d certainly never seen his real face. A few more hours, and there would be literally nothing that could ever be backtracked to Llyn, the Volsung Mercenaries, or Axelrod.

Making a copy of the Volsung file was the work of a minute. Finding the data on Khetha’s private ship, including its parking orbit, access codes, and start-up procedures, took another five. Next on the list was locating Khetha’s private shuttle, which turned out to be stashed away in a private hangar at the Quechua City spaceport on the southwest side of the city.

A shuttle that size typically required a minimum of two people at the controls. A spacecraft was more complex, with anywhere from a ten- to twenty-man crew necessary for safe operation. Llyn had only himself.

But he was confident he’d be able to handle both vessels without serious difficulty. A man like the Supreme Chosen One wouldn’t assume that a crew would be ready when he needed to make a quick exit. For that matter, he probably wouldn’t assume that even his closest advisors and guards would be ready.

And a man living on the edge — a man, more importantly, who would never allow his own skin to be dependent on anyone else — would make damn sure his escape vessels were sufficiently automated and pre-programmed that he could get out completely on his own.

Which led directly to the third tick on Llyn’s checklist: both the shuttle and courier ship were heavily automated, with both the engine and impeller systems as foolproof and failproof as it was possible to build them. In addition, the ship’s helm systems included a menu of pre-plotted courses to a dozen different systems.

Llyn had a fair amount of training in ship operations, including piloting, astrogation, and engineering. He had no doubt that he could handle this one.

And if he reached the courier and found it not quite as much of a one-man operation as he was expecting, that would be all right, too. Over the past week he’d also spend a few hours laying the groundwork for hiring a small crew who could get him to a system where he could touch base with another Axelrod operative and obtain alternative transport.

He spent another two minutes sifting through Ulobo’s tablet at random, letting luck and serendipity guide his search. Khetha had someone keeping tabs on events back on Canaan, he noted with interest, no doubt making a mental list of who he would execute first when the Volsungs returned him to power. An expensive hobby, given the cost of data transference across interstellar distance, but one he wasn’t at all surprised that the Supreme Chosen One had taken up.

Those men and women would be able to sleep better from now on. Not that they would ever know it.

And with that, his mental count-down reached zero. He probably had another ten or fifteen minutes before the criminals he’d summoned showed up, but he had no intention of cutting things that close. Especially not when the instructions were to deal with and eliminate all evidence at this location. The clean-up crew probably wouldn’t include any of the higher-ups he’d dealt with, and he would hate to try to convince a simple grunt squad that he was their employer.

At best, it would cost valuable time. At worst, it would mean more bodies for the survivors to dispose of. Turning off the tablet, he set it back on the table in front of its former owner. Then, crossing the room, he pushed open the door, shot Pinstripe and Blue Shirt before either could begin to register that they were being attacked, dropped his gun beside the bodies, and headed back up the tunnel.

It was still reasonably early, but Quechua City was finally starting to come alive. Llyn took a moment to orient himself — the customs complex over there, the downtown market over there, the Hamilton Hotel over there — and headed off down the street. He could grab a cab later, but it was always best to leave the scene of a crime on foot. Eyewitnesses were unreliable; cab records weren’t.

Besides, he had a little time still to kill. Most of the city’s air traffic hadn’t yet started, and there were few things more obvious and notable than a single vehicle flying through an otherwise empty sky. Another hour, and he could make his way to the airport and fire up Khetha’s shuttle.

Meanwhile, his early-morning activities had caused him to miss breakfast. Smiling to himself, he turned in the direction of Fourteenth and Castillon and headed off at a brisk walk. The pre-opening aromas from the coffee shop on that corner had been most promising.

 

His Father’s Eyes – Snippet 36

His Father’s Eyes – Snippet 36

“Can you tell me who? I’d like to thank this person.”

“Actually, it was another real estate agent who, for obvious reasons, would prefer to remain anonymous.”

Patty’s smile tightened. “Well, there’s nothing more gratifying than the respect of a rival.” She gestured toward the door she’d come through. “Won’t you join me in my office?”

I nodded to the receptionist, pulled open the door, and followed the corridor toward the back of the building. Patty walked behind me, her steps muffled by the thick carpeting, her blazer and skirt rustling softly. The décor remained much the same, but the photos of natural landscapes gave way to aerial photos of more huge estates and sprawling Spanish mission homes.

“Second door on the left,” she said, her voice low.

I entered her office and turned to face her as she came in behind me and shut the door.

“Please,” she said, gesturing toward an armchair. She stepped around her desk, settled into her black leather desk chair. “Can I have April bring you anything? Coffee, tea, a soft drink?”

I sat. “No, thank you.”

“Well, then, why don’t you tell me what you’re after?”

I couldn’t tell if she was talking about real estate, or had assumed, because I was a myste, that I had come for a different purpose.

“I understand that you handled the purchase of Regina Witcombe’s home in Paradise Valley,” I said, unsure of how else to break the ice.

“That’s right. Is that your price range?”

I laughed. “No. I don’t have that kind of money. She must have been pleased with the work you did for her.”

Another tight smile settled on her face, though it failed to reach her eyes. “If you need further references, I can provide them, Mister Jay.”

Yeah, this wasn’t working.

“My name isn’t Jay,” I told her. “At least not my last name.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, though clearly she did. “If you’re not–”

“April misinterpreted something I said. My name is Jay. Jay Fearsson.”

She couldn’t have looked more surprised if I had told her I was from Mars. But it didn’t take her long to recover.

“You’re a private investigator. I read about you online a couple of months ago. And I assume you’re seeking information about Regina.”

Fame wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, especially when exacerbated by my own overly aggressive questions.

“Guilty as charged. But I’ll admit that I was curious about you as well. Your friendship with Missus Witcombe gave me an excuse to come here.”

“We’re not friends.”

I faltered. “My mistake. I didn’t know you were a weremyste. Do you take after your mother or your father?”

Her gaze dropped. “I’m not sure I want to talk about that, either. I think you should go.”

“Mine came from my father. That’s why I ask. I’m wondering if my mother left my father for another myste, or if she found in your father someone who was–”

“I don’t want to talk about it!” She stood. “You should leave.”

I didn’t flinch from what I saw in her eyes, nor did I move. “I’m curious: if you’re not friends with Regina Witcombe, why were both of you on flight 595 on Thursday? Did you go to Washington with her?”

She stared back at me; after a few seconds she lowered herself into the chair once more, perching on the edge of it. “It was a coincidence,” she said. “She was as surprised to see me as I was to see her.”

“You were in Washington on business?”

“Yes. Is your father still alive, Jay?”

I nodded. “Your mother?”

“Yes. She lives in Tucson now.”

“I was sorry to hear about your brother.”

She toyed with her wedding ring. “Michael was always very . . . sensitive.”

The way she said it made me think she meant to call him weak, but thought better of it.

“You must have been very surprised the first time you met Missus Witcombe. I can’t imagine that many of your clients are mystes.”

“Yes, it was quite a coincidence — another one; both of us were surprised. Just as you and I were today.” Her voice had a hard edge to it. Despite the words, she assumed I hadn’t been surprised. I said nothing to convince her otherwise.

I wanted to ask her if she had ever seen Regina Witcombe do any dark spells, but I couldn’t bring myself to pose the question, and I trusted the instinct that kept me from doing so. I didn’t believe for a moment that mere chance had put the two of them on that plane. If Regina was working with other dark sorcerers, so was Patty, and I didn’t want to draw any more attention from their kind. Not yet, at least. But I was there, and Patty would be wondering why. Fortunately, I had the perfect excuse.

“On Thursday, after your aircraft rolled back to the gate and all of you were asked to deplane, where did you and Missus Witcombe go?”

“Are you working with the police again?”

“Yes.”

“Like you did on the Blind Angel killings.”

“That’s right.”

She nodded. “We stayed in the gate area. That’s what the gate agents told us to do.”

“Did either of you leave the area for any reason?”

She shook her head. “Not until the police showed up. At that point, Regina took me to the airline’s club lounge. We knew it would be hours before we took off, so we asked the detectives. They had a few questions for us, but then they allowed us to go.”

“So you didn’t even leave to use the rest room?”

“No.”

That didn’t mean one of them hadn’t killed James Howell, but it did make proving it more difficult.

“Can you tell me why Regina Witcombe would fly on a commercial jetliner? I understand that she owns a jet of her own.”

“She owns two. And her daughters currently have them both, one in Belize, where the Witcombe family has a second home, the other in Anchorage.”

“Leaving poor Mom to fly with the masses.”

Patty’s expression brightened. “Precisely.” She stood once more and smoothed her skirt with an open hand. “Now, I really do think you should go. I’m not going to answer any more questions about someone who was once a client, and may well be again. I’ve probably already said more than I should.”

This time I stood as well. “Thank you for speaking to me. My apologies for surprising you the way I did. It wasn’t really fair of me.”

“No, it wasn’t. But I understand why you did it. Our families . . . well, let’s just say that some bonds can’t be broken, no matter how much we want them to be.”

I held out my hand, which she took. “Thank you,” I said. “Don’t be too hard on April. She made a simple mistake and I twisted it into a lie.”

“You’re sweet to be concerned for her. Don’t worry. Our punishments here at Sonoran Winds aren’t too extravagant.” She said it with humor, but I had to resist the urge to shudder. I wondered how many more of the agents here were weremystes, and how many of them engaged in dark castings.

She led me out to the reception area, shook my hand once more, and wished me a good day. I pushed through the entry and walked back to my car, trying to act casual, and all the while expecting to feel a fire spell hit me between the shoulder blades. I was sure Patty was watching me, and I was equally certain that she would be on the phone to Regina Witcombe as soon as I pulled away from the curb.

That was fine. There was someone I needed to speak with as well: Amaya’s friend out in Buckeye.

 

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 01

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 01

Son Of The Black Sword

Larry Correia

Chapter 1

The familiar dream was always the same. He was on his knees, wiping a stone floor clean. The rag soaked up the red puddle, a mixture of soapy water and blood. When he wrung the tattered cloth out over his washbucket it ran in pink rivulets across his hands, a child’s hands.

A noise intruded on the dream, waking him.

Footsteps.

He moved one hand to his sword, and in the hazy moment between sleep and reality, it still seemed to be a child’s hand, dripping with watered-down blood, but the dream faded and reality returned. Now it was a man’s hand, callused by training and scarred by battle. That hand belonged to Protector of the Law, twenty-year senior Ashok Vadal, and he did not clean blood. He spilled it.

Listening carefully, Ashok decided that the noise had come from just outside his tent. A warrior had approached, then stopped there probably to gather up his courage before waking their honored guest. Ashok relaxed and released Angruvadal’s grip. Reaching for it first was an old habit. If the sword needed to be drawn, it would have told him.

The blood scrubbing dream had come to him many times before, but as usual it held no wisdom, no revelations. It meant nothing. After all, it was only a dream. It was a fabrication of the mind, not a memory. It was not real. The stifling heat was real. The moist clinging air was real. He’d been sleeping beneath hanging silks because the stinging flies that infested this region were all too real. The sweaty discomfort reminded him that he was in the wretched northern jungles of Great House Gujara, and that he’d been ordered here to kill a demon. The waking noises of the temporary camp and the unusual silence of the jungle suggested that the demon had shown itself.

The messenger hadn’t announced himself yet. Ashok was used to low-status members of the warrior caste behaving this way around him, either out of respect for his office or fear of his reputation. He’d been listening to their whispered rumors for two decades now, half of which weren’t true, and the other half exaggerated, but it was no wonder messengers were always so nervous around him. It was always best to cut through the awkward pause. “Is it time?” Ashok asked through the canvas.

“The demon has been sighted, Protector.”

“Where?” He rolled out from beneath the silks and found his clothing in the dark.

“It’s raiding a village on the coast right now.” The warrior was trying to keep the fear out of his voice, and mostly succeeding. “The messenger said it’s already slaughtered dozens!”

“So it’s close then?”

“Yes, Protector. The demon is very close.”

Good. It was too damned hot to have to chase it.

* * *

Ashok sprinted along the darkened path toward the sounds of screaming. His appointed escorts — a paltan of fifty warriors — were behind him, struggling and failing to keep up. The soldiers were on foot because horses didn’t survive for long in the humid, muddy, vine-choked, insect-infested northern peninsula of House Gujara, so their warrior caste had no cavalry tradition here. However, when it came to fighting a demon, being on foot was not a disadvantage. Horses were terrified by demons, and no matter how well trained, could not be relied upon.

Besides, for short distances such as this, Ashok could outrun a horse.

He began to encounter fleeing villagers along the path. There were a few men, women, and children of the worker caste, but most of the refugees were casteless non-people. It made sense, because only the lowest of the low would be condemned to live close to the seashore. Many of those he passed were wounded, mostly from crashing through the thorny brush, but a few were showing the blackened, bloody patches that came from simply brushing against a demon’s hide. Rub a hand against a demon one direction, it was smooth, almost soft, but run it the opposite and leave your palm behind.

There had been no time for the villagers to gather their possessions. Since the demon had struck in the middle of the night, most of the villagers weren’t even clothed, but a few of the casteless were carrying squealing pigs or squawking chickens. Non-people were pragmatic that way. As he drew closer to the village the fleeing crowd became thicker and he had to dodge between them. They were terrified, desperate to escape, but he moved through the crushing mob effortlessly, like a raindrop falling from the sky and rolling between the leaves of a tree, seeking its inevitable path. Behind him there was a great deal of shouting as the warrior caste crashed into and roughly shoved their inferiors out of their way, off the path, and into the stabbing thorn vines.

The village was close now. The breaking of wood and the crack and pop of fire could be heard over the panicked cries. The demon itself would make no sound. They never did. Ashok could smell smoke and blood and spilled bowels, but the demon itself would have no scent. It would be a swift black shadow, with claws harder than steel, a mouth full of razor teeth, and the strength of an elephant.

The orange light from several burning huts cast wild shadows through the trees. The thick jungle parted. There wasn’t much open space between the jungle and the high tide, so the ramshackle buildings had been packed tightly, practically on top of each other, and built on stilts to keep them dry above the rocky beach. Bridges constructed of wood and hemp connected the structures, and they were swaying violently as people ran across, trying to escape the spreading fires and the demon’s hunger. Beyond the village was the vast dark ocean. Nothing came from the sea except for regret, fish, and demons.

There was no sign of the demon yet, but Ashok knew it was in there somewhere. His sword could sense it as well, and Angruvadal was demanding to be drawn in order to dispense death. Not yet. Demons seemed to sense black steel, and he didn’t want to frighten the creature away. If it returned to the sea, there would be no way to follow, and he’d have to wait for another chance to catch it.

As he caught his breath, he noticed several warriors stationed at the end of the jungle path, shouting at the villagers to flee for their lives, as if the encouragement was needed. The soldiers were armed with spears and wearing the simple cloth and hide armor preferred by House Gujara, where rust was a greater enemy than actual enemies. Despite being equipped for battle and raised their entire lives to do nothing but fight, they were in no hurry to enter that burning maze to take on a demon.

“Go back the way you came! There’s a sea demon here!” a very young soldier warned when he saw Ashok emerge from the jungle. “Run away while you can.”

The firelight was flickering and unreliable, so the junior nayak had probably not realized who he was ordering around. Ashok didn’t take his warning as an insult against his courage. He entered the circle of torchlight, and when they saw his armor they shut their mouths. “Which one of you is in command?”

The soldier realized what manner of man he’s been speaking to. “Apologies, Protector! Our havildar is Virata!” It was part explanation, part summons, and then he realized that, demon incursion or not, he’d better bow to someone of such high station, so he dipped his head so fast that his padded helmet fell off into the sand. “I’ll fetch him. Havildar! A Protector is here!”

 

Raising Caine – Snippet 02

Raising Caine – Snippet 02

Idrem nodded. “This is true. But it is in the nature of inferior species to become distracted and indecisive when confronted by unanticipated and unexplained events. While they investigate and remain at arm’s length from each other, months and years shall pass. That alone will disrupt House Shethkador’s plans and reveal both their incompetence and ill-advised preference for guile over direct action.”

Brenlor expanded the starfield display. “And so, our target is GJ 1230. You will observe that almost all the routes from Sigma Draconis to the Slaasriithi homeworld pass through it.”

Vranut’s frown had not diminished. “You seem to have known ahead of time that the Slaasriithi would invite a human envoy to their homeworld. How? Informers?”

Nezdeh smiled. “No: logic. Once the Aboriginals defeated the Arat Kur, the Slaasriithi would have been fools not to ally with them. This conjecture led us to be watchful for signs that the Slaasriithi were making just such overtures. Those signs were detected and confirmed just before Ferocious Monolith shifted to Sigma Draconis.”

Ulpreln frowned. “How could Ferocious Monolith have learned what had transpired in the Sigma Draconis system before she shifted there? Was there an Awakened on board?”

“No Reification was required to vouchsafe us this information,” Brenlor explained. “Half a day before Monolith shifted out, an Aboriginal craft shifted in near Planet Two. It was an Arat Kur prize they seized during the fleet actions in Sigma Draconis. Our servitors on board the TOCIO shift-carrier already orbiting Planet Two — the Gyananakashu — learned of the Slaasriithi invitation from that prize ship. They relayed the news to us using a trickle code protocol: single, seemingly random signals sent over the course of several hours.” He pointed to GJ 1230. “So, knowing that these envoys are making for Beta Aquilae, we can be relatively certain that we shall intercept them in that system, or one slightly further along their path.”

Idrem deactivated his beltcom. “But we must do so swiftly. Our projection of their path could be in error. Accordingly, we must be ready to leapfrog ahead if we miss their ship in GJ 1230. Now, return to your stations.”

Brenlor’s tone and expression changed as soon as he was alone with Idrem and Nezdeh; he glanced at her sharply. “You should tell them you are capable of Reification. It would increase their confidence in our mission and would boost morale.”

Nezdeh shook her head. “It might also undercut their sense of urgency, of the magnitude of the challenges before us. Besides, I am only recently Awakened and have but two Catalysites remaining. No, it is best that the crew assumes we have no special assets and that we are totally alone. Because, quite frankly, we are. Should we succeed, we shall become the symbol and proof of our patrons’ arguments against the lethargy of the Older Houses. On the other hand, if we do not succeed, we shall be glad that I was never in Reified contact with our patrons and that, therefore, they do not know where to find us.”

Brenlor stared through the bridge windows at the small ruby that was V 1581. “Caution and prudence; prudence and caution. It sorely tasks a warrior to think like a fugitive.”

“It does,” Nezdeh soothed. “It surely does.”

Brenlor stared at her. “I return to my quarters. You have the con, Nezdeh.” He stalked out the hatchway.

Nezdeh glanced at Idrem, thought, between the two of us, we shall be able to manage Brenlor. But she only said, “We work well together, Idrem.”

Idrem stared at her. “It seems so, Nezdeh.”

* * *

Standing at the same viewports after completing their shift six weeks later, Idrem observed that GJ 1230 was an even smaller ruby than V1581 had been.

However, that was merely what the eye could show. GJ1230 was a flare star, and the variations in its luminosity were minimal compared to its sudden tsunamis of radiation. The crew sections of the Aboriginal ship were lined by meter-thick water tankage, sandwiched between a comparatively soft outer hull and an armored inner hull: proof against this star’s maximum REM spikes.

Even so, the Arbitrage remained in the shadow of one of the system’s gas giants, but not due to the hazards of radiation. Rather, it was endeavoring to avoid the dangers of detection.

Because the Slaasriithi ship had arrived at GJ 1230 ahead of them. It was already preaccelerating toward its next shift, a dimming particle trail indicating it had refueled at the same gas giant around which the Ktor were now entering a stealthy, unpowered orbit.

Brenlor glanced at Idrem. “Intercept is impossible, then?”

Idrem nodded. “If we pursued them at maximum acceleration, we would still be many light minutes out of range when they shift again.”

Brenlor’s next question did not rise above a faint grumble. “And how soon until we can commence our refueling operations?”

“Their sensor activity is intermittent and, at this range, weak. We would be relatively safe today, completely safe tomorrow.”

“Then we send out the skimmers tomorrow.” Brenlor turned to examine the nav plot. “We will continue to presume their next shift shall be to AC+20 1463-148, and we shall follow their lead.”

Idrem nodded. “The charts for AC+20 1463-148 indicates that if we arrive in the lee of an outer gas giant, we may remain unseen, even during most of our refueling. We may then shift out ahead of them; the gas giant and the photosphere of the primary will be positioned so as to distort and obscure the signature of our preacceleration.”

“Excellent,” Brenlor decided. “That is our plan, then.”

* * *

But it did not work out that way. Early on their fifth day in the AC+20 1463-148 system, Idrem heard Nezdeh enter the bridge behind him. “You are up early,” she said. Her tone had become more familiar.

“I want to be present the moment these accursed Slaasriithi disappear from our sensors,” Idrem responded, not turning toward her. “We must commence anti-matter production as soon as possible.”

Nezdeh came to stand beside him. “It has been frustrating, being delayed this way.”

Idrem managed not to scoff. Brenlor had been on the bridge when they shifted into the system. He had taken one look at the readouts and stalked off to his quarters: a blip denoting the Slaasriithi ship had loomed unexpectedly large in their sensors. Evidently, its refueling in the previous system had taken much longer than predicted. Consequently, the ship arrived at AC+20 1463-148 later and would be in a position to spot them for much longer. And that meant more delay before the Ktor could jump ahead to GJ 1236.

Brenlor had returned to the bridge, asking about the possibility of changing plans and intercepting the enemy craft in this system. Idrem was at pains to point out that the Arbitrage’s tanks were dry and her anti-matter reserves low. And since the replenishment of those reserves required full output from all the available fusion plants, the skimmers would have to harvest even more hydrogen than usual. Brenlor had stalked back off the bridge. The ensuing five days had not been pleasant.

Nezdeh pointed at the sensors. “A power spike from the Slaasriithi.”

Idrem nodded. “Without question, they are preparing — ”

The radiant energy level peaked asymptotically and then dropped to zero. The green blip disappeared.

Idrem immediately brought the fusion plants on both the Arbitrage and the tug up to full power, leaned over to summon the necessary technicians — fuel processors, flight personnel, bridge staff — to their stations. He stopped when he felt something gentle touch his arm.

Nezdeh’s hand. He looked up from it into her eyes.

“You are a great asset to this House, Idrem Perekmeres.”

“My apologies, but you forget, Nezdeh: I am twice removed from the main geneline. Technically, I am Perekmeresuum.”

“I do not need your correction, Idrem,” she said firmly, but not sternly. “Besides, that distinction is now nonsense. There are so few of our lines left, we must salvage everything we can.” She looked out into space. “In which task you are tireless. Now: get some sleep.”

“I shall. As soon as the second bridge crew reports, I will be returning to my quarters.”

“Your quarters on Lurker, or here on the Arbitrage?”

Idrem was rarely confused, but this question disoriented him. “Eh…here. Does it matter?”

Her gaze was unblinking. “It does. I shall see you. Very soon.”

She turned and left the bridge, with Idrem speechless at the middle of it.

* * *

 

His Father’s Eyes – Snippet 35

His Father’s Eyes – Snippet 35

“Actually I never touched the other guy. I deserved this — needed to learn a lesson.”

“Okay.”

I got up, gathered the blanket and pillow. “I’m sorry to run, but I need to go see Billie, and then I have a meeting.”

Dad’s face brightened. “How is Billie? When are you going to bring her out here again?”

I didn’t want to burden him with bad news, but Billie was something of a local celebrity, and if he switched on the TV he would hear about the explosion and her injuries. “She’s not so good,” I said, and proceeded to tell him about the attack on the restaurant as I put the bedding away and got dressed.

“So the rest of the world thinks it was a bomb, but you know it was magic,” he said when I was done.

“Well, that’s . . . yeah. Billie knows the truth.”

“And your partner from the force? The black woman?”

“Kona. She doesn’t know yet.”

“Right, Kona. You need to tell her. They’re looking for a bombing suspect.”

He was right. “I’ll call her,” I said. “But right now I have to–”

“Go.” He waved a hand toward the trailer door. “Get out, vamoose, skedaddle.”

I grinned, and so did he. It was nice to have a conversation with him, rather than just listen to one of his incoherent monologues.

“Dad, did you . . . ?” I stopped myself. I had intended to ask him whether he had ever spoken to Mary Hesslan, Elliott’s widow. But I feared his response; he seemed fine now, but I knew his mental state was fragile. Talking about anything having to do with my Mom might set him off again, especially if she was part of the hallucinations or dark magic attacks that had been troubling him in recent days. And the truth was, I didn’t think I was ready for the conversation my question might provoke.

He was watching me, eyes narrowed again. “Did I what?”

“Did you eat anything at all yesterday?”

His gaze lost some of its focus and he shrugged. “Honestly, Justis, I don’t remember.”

“Well, try to have something today, all right?”

“I will.”

I hugged him and let myself out of the trailer. I had barely enough time to get to the hospital and check on Billie before my meeting at Sonoran Winds Realty. It being Saturday, I hoped that I would have smooth sailing all the way back into the city. An accident on the Phoenix-Wickenburg Highway killed that dream. By the time I was through the worst of the traffic I was too late to get to the medical center, and a bit too early to go straight to my meeting. I stopped for coffee, stalling.

I’d been unsure yesterday about whether I ought to follow through on my plan to speak with Patty, and the intervening day had done little to convince me that this was a good idea. At this point, though, I figured it was too late to back out. I walked back to my car and drove the rest of the way to North Scottsdale.

I had to remind myself that to the folks at the realty office, I was Mister Jay. And, I realized, that gave me an out: I didn’t have to tell her that I was Dara Fearsson’s son. I could ask her questions about Regina Witcombe, and leave without her ever knowing the truth. Provided she didn’t examine my PI license too closely. I blew out a breath, my dread deepening by the moment.

Before I knew it, I was parking the Z-Ster in front of the building, my hands sweating, my mouth dry. You’d have thought I was here for a first date rather than an interview with a potential lead. I wiped my hands on my jeans, got out, and walked to the door.

The place exuded class, as you might expect from a realty company that routinely handled the sales of million dollar homes. Glossy photos of enormous estates hung in the windows, along with fashion-model-quality portraits of the various agents who worked there. I recognized Patty’s photo right away. She was rather plain, as she had been in high school, with light brown hair, brown eyes, and a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. I took a breath and stepped inside.

Predictably enough, the office had been decorated in the geometric patterns and earth tones associated with the Southwest — warm browns that shaded toward red, pale ochres and beiges, and the lapis-like blue of a high desert sky. A pretty blond receptionist sat at a large desk near the door, wearing a white blouse and tan jacket that blended perfectly with the office color scheme. She was on the phone, jotting down notes on a pad. I waited in front of the desk.

After a few more minutes, she hung up, put the note she had written in one of several shallow boxes on her desk, and fixed her attention on me. Blue eyes raked over my bomber jacket, t-shirt, and jeans in a way that left me thinking I ought to go back home and change. I’m sure the bruise on my jaw didn’t help with this first impression. At last, her gaze met mine again and her features resolved into a thin smile that said, You can’t possibly afford anything we have listed. Why are you wasting my time?

“Can I help you?”

“I called yesterday morning to make an appointment with Ms. Hesslan-Fine.”

Her look of disdain gave way to one of disappointment. “Mister Jay?” No doubt she had hoped I would be wearing an Armani suit.

I glanced at my watch. “I’m a few minutes early,” I said, still avoiding a direct lie about my name. “If she’s not ready for me, I can wait.” I waved a hand at the plush couch that sat near the desk, in between a matching pair of glass end tables. I should have known that would get me in faster; receptionist Barbie didn’t want me sitting out here, scaring away her rich clientele.

“No, I believe she’s free right now.” She reached for the phone, punched in an extension number, and after waiting a few seconds said, “Patricia, your ten-thirty is here.” She hung up again, and smiled up at me, lowering the temperature in the foyer. “She’ll be right out.” Which I took to mean, Don’t even think about sitting on that sofa.

I remained where I was, standing in awkward silence, admiring the photographs that hung on the walls: the Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, Petrified Forest, and several desert scenes that could have been taken in the Superstition Wilderness or Sonoran Desert National Monument.

The door along the back wall behind the receptionist’s desk opened. I turned, and felt the world drop away beneath my feet, making my stomach swoop.

I was sure that the woman walking through the door was Patricia Hesslan-Fine. The receptionist wouldn’t have called for the wrong agent. But at first glance I could barely be certain. Because the woman’s face was obscured by a blur of magical power.

I opened my mouth to say something, a thousand questions rushing into my mind. You’re a myste? Was your mother a myste? Or was it your father? Did my mother cheat on my Dad with another weremyste? Is this why Regina Witcombe chose to work with you? But every one of those questions died on my lips. Some of them I couldn’t ask yet, not where anyone else could hear. Others . . . others I wasn’t sure I wanted to have answered.

Upon spotting me, Patty slowed, no doubt seeing the same blur across my face, although obviously without understanding its implications for the history she didn’t yet know we shared. In the next instant she recovered, striding forward, a hand extended.

“Mister Jay, how nice to meet you. I understand you were referred to us.”

I shook her hand; she had a firm grip. “That’s right. A friend recommended your agency, and you in particular.”

 

A Call To Arms – Snippet 02

A Call To Arms – Snippet 02

“My apologies, General,” he said. Slowly, he eased his hand out of the jacket to show the data chip between his first two fingers. “As your time is valuable, I thought it only fair that I compensate you for your generosity in allowing me some of it.” With a careful flick of his wrist, he sent the chip sailing across the table to land in front of Khetha.

The general made no move toward it. “Ulobo?” he said.

With a brief wrinkling of his nose, the plump man carefully picked it up. He pulled a tablet from his jacket and plugged the chip into the slot. “Another lock box combination,” he said, peering at the display. “Purportedly containing another fifty thousand in diamonds.”

“A very generous gift,” Khetha said, eyeing Llyn thoughtfully.

“Merely gratitude for your own generosity,” Llyn assured him. Especially since that gift had also shown him exactly where one of his guards’ weapons was located. Fifty thousand was a very fair price to pay for that kind of information. “May I take it that means you’re granting me a hearing?”

Khetha smiled. “Certainly. You have ten minutes.”

“Then I’ll be brief.” Llyn nodded toward the samovar. “I wonder if I could also prevail on your hospitality to the extent of a cup of tea?”

Khetha smiled again, this one with a hint of triumph flavoring it. By asking for tea instead of waiting for it to be offered, Llyn had lowered his status vis-à-vis his host’s, which had now put Khetha into a stronger bargaining position. If the visitor knew the custom, Khetha had just won a point.

If he didn’t, well, it wouldn’t affect the upcoming negotiations at all. But it would still mean a great deal to Khetha.

And maybe that was all the Supreme Chosen One really cared about. People who’d lost almost everything only gripped what little they still had even more tightly.

The nuances and motivations of this particular bit didn’t matter a frog’s damn to Llyn. All he cared about was getting some tea.

And now, having won the round, Khetha could afford to be a thoroughly gracious host.

“Of course,” he said, gesturing to Ulobo. Scowling some more, clearly still wary of the visitor, the plump man pushed back his chair and headed for the sideboard. “Your minutes are running,” the general added.

“The situation is simple,” Llyn said. “Four T-years ago you were deposed and exiled from Canaan. Ever since then you’ve been looking for a way to return and reestablish your rule. Over the course of that time, you must certainly have made the acquaintance of some large pirate or mercenary groups whom you hope to interest in supporting that effort.”

“We’ve had contact with one or two,” Khetha said. “Most of them are too constrained by legalities or outmoded ethics for my needs. All of the others are quite expensive.” He gestured to the data chip. “I appreciate your contribution to that fund.”

“And therein lies the crux of your problem,” Llyn said. “As you say –” he broke off, nodding Ulobo his thanks as the other set a steaming mug of tea in front of him “– the most effective mercenary groups don’t come cheap.” He paused again, picking up the mug by its top and pretending to take a sip.

Not that he had any intention of actually drinking any of it, of course. Not only was it too hot to touch without burning his tongue, but he had no idea what secret ingredients Khetha or Ulobo might have put into it. Lowering the mug, he set it back onto the table.

And as he did so he dropped the two small capsules he’d been palming into the steaming liquid.

“My problem, on the other hand, is just the opposite,” he continued, casually pushing the mug a few centimeters further from him. “My client finds himself in need of one of these, shall we say, below-the-radar groups. And while he has plenty of money — as you’ve no doubt already noted — he has no idea where and how to contact one.” He pursed his lips. “Nor do I.”

“A dilemma, indeed,” Khetha said. “How do you intend to resolve it?”

“My hope is that you and I can build our respective problems into a pair of solutions,” Llyn said. Was the pounding of his heart starting to ease up a little? “You have contact information. I have access to money. I propose that you offer me an introduction to the most promising of these groups. In return –” He smiled. “My client will provide the funding for your return to power.”

Ulobo sat a little taller in his chair. “The entire funding?” he asked disbelievingly.

“The entire funding,” Llyn confirmed. Yes; his heart was definitely slowing from its earlier frenetic pace.

“You’re very generous with your client’s money,” Khetha said, his expression giving nothing away. “One has to wonder if he would approve.”

“No worries,” Llyn said. “I have his complete confidence, along with a financial carte blanche. He also knows that the timing at our end is critical — the longer we delay in making a deal with your mercenaries, the less profit he’ll realize. Assuming the operation is launched within the next, say, five years, his profit will be high enough that paying the extra fee for the mercenaries to reestablish you on Canaan would be hardly noticeable.”

“It must be a high-profit venture, indeed,” Khetha said thoughtfully.

“It is.”

“And you could easily spend those five years you mention simply exchanging messages with mercenary groups in hopes of finding one which will meet your needs.”

“As you said, my dilemma,” Llyn said. “You, in contrast, have nothing to lose and everything to gain by agreeing to this joint venture.” He smiled. “And the gain won’t just be your return to power.”

“What do you mean?” Ulobo asked.

“He means,” Khetha said, “that if his client pays all costs, then the fund we’ve been building will no longer have to go to the Volsungs.” He cocked an eyebrow. “And no one outside this room would ever need to know that.”

Ulobo’s face cleared. “Ah.”

“Which fund, I’m guessing, already runs into the hundreds of thousands of sols, Solarian credits, or whatever,” Llyn said, suppressing a smile. So now he had a name: Volsungs. One step closer to making his move.

“You’re still asking a great deal,” Khetha said, “on what basically amounts to your word.”

“Not really,” Llyn said. “The worst possible case is that I take the name and contact information and you never hear from me again. In that event, all you’ve lost is a little time before your return. Time, I might point out, which your enemies are using to rebuild Canaan’s economy. Actually, now that I think about it, the longer you wait, the more you’ll have to return to.” He nodded toward the chip still in Ulobo’s tablet. “And you’ll still be a hundred thousand credits ahead.”

Khetha looked at Ulobo. The plump man still didn’t look exactly happy, but he gave a reluctant nod.

“But all this presumes that your merc group has the resources my client needs,” Llyn continued before either of the others could speak. “I’ve laid out my cards. Time to lay out one or two of yours.”

Khetha inclined his head. “What do you wish to know?”

“Let’s start with their location,” Llyn said. “Planet, city — all of that.”

Khetha pursed his lips, then gave a small shrug. “They’re headquartered in Rochelle on the planet Telmach. That’s in the Silesian Confederacy –”

“I know where it is,” Llyn said. Interrupting a despot’s ego was risky, but he had no choice. His heartbeat was nearly back to normal, and he needed to close this off quickly. Any minute now Ulobo or one of the guards would notice that his hands were starting to feel a little numb. “What kind of resources do they have? Specifically, how many warships and what types?”

“They have what you need,” Khetha assured him.

“How many?” Llyn repeated.

Khetha’s eyes narrowed. But he merely nodded to Ulobo, who tapped a fresh access code into his tablet. “They have four battlecruisers,” the plump man reported, peering at the page that came up. “Cruisers — let me count — eight of them, light and heavy, plus ten destroyers and frigates. They also have three troop transports and a handful of other auxiliaries.”

“Excellent,” Llyn said. Yes; Ulobo’s hands were definitely moving slower than they had earlier. Fortunately, his brain was slowing down in the same proportion, which meant that his recognition of his puzzling clumsiness should take another few seconds. “That should do nicely. And you have contact names and recognition codes for someone in the group?”

“Not just someone.” Ulobo tapped his tablet. “Our contact is the head of the group, Admiral Cutler Gensonne himself.”

“I’m impressed,” Llyn said. There was no harm in soothing Khetha’s ego a bit, after his impolite interruption a moment ago. “I presume you also have a ship standing by that can take us to him?”

Ulobo frowned. “Excuse me?”