Читать книгу Vortex (Sten #7) - Allan Cole - Страница 12

CHAPTER FIVE

“I WOULD LIKE,” Sten said formally, “to request the pleasure of your company this evening.”

“The pleasure is mine, sir. How many troopies do I bring for backup?”

“One more time. May I buy you dinner, m’lady?”

“Oh. Just a moment, I’ve got to check the ‘dex . . . yes. I’d be delighted, Sten. How formal is this place?”

“Sidearms should be unobtrusive, but color-coordinated. At . . . 1930?”

“Seven-thirty it is,” Cind said, and broke the connection.

* * * *

“And dinnae we look pretty, lad. Are we wooin’ or spookin’ t’night?”

“A little of both.”

“Ah.” Alex brushed nonexistent lint from Sten’s raw silk shirtjac. “Well, y’re set up on th’ far end. Sh’d Ah hae extraction set up, or will y’ RON?”

“My God,” Sten said. “I never realized the joys of being an orphan before. Mother Kilgour, I don’t have any idea of whether I’m remaining overnight anywhere, whether I’m even going to get kissed, and what concern is it of yours, anyway?”

“Ah’m mere remindin’ you y’ hae a 1115 wi’ th’ Emp tomorrow, f’r final briefing. And I’ll be there. Anything else?”

“Noo . . . yes. Y’r scarf’s all crookedy.” Kilgour straightened it. “An’ as m’ mum useta advise, dinna be doin’ aught you cannae stand up in church an’ tell th’ deac aboot.”

“She really said that?”

“Aye. An’ now y’ ken why th’ Kilgours are nae a church-goin’t clan.”

Kilgour slid out. Sten made a fast final check — damn, but I seem to be spending a lot of time in front of mirrors lately — and he was ready. He tucked a hideout willygun into a chamois ankle holster, curled his fingers twice — the knife came out of its arm-sheath easily — and he was ready for a night on the town.

There was a tap on the door.

“It’s open.” He wondered what new, last-minute harassment Kilgour had come up with. But no one entered. Instead, again came the tap.

Sten frowned, crossed to the door, and opened it.

Three small, well-muscled young men stood there. They wore civilian clothes — but their suits all looked as if they had been issued by some central authority.

They were Gurkkhas. They snapped to attention and saluted. Sten started to return the salute, then caught himself.

“Forgive me, honored soldiers. But I am no longer a soldier.”

“You are still a soldier. You are Sten. You are still Subadar.”

“I thank you once more,” Sten said. “Would you come in? I have but a few moments.”

Sten ushered them inside. The three stood in uncomfortable silence.

“Shall I send for tea?” Sten asked. “Or whiskey, if you are off duty? I must apologize for my bad Gurkhali. But my tongue is rusty.”

“We will have nothing,” one said. The other two looked at him and nodded. He was now their appointed spokesperson.

“I am Lalbahadur Thapa,” he said. “This man is Chittahang Limbu. And this one here is Mahkhajiri Gurung. He thinks he is of a superior caste, but do not let his arrogance trouble you. He is still a good soldier. All of us carry the rank of Naik.”

“Lalbahadur . . . Chittahang . . . you bear honorable names.”

“They are — were our fathers. This Mahkhajiri’s father runs the recruiting depot on Earth. At Pokhara.”

Havildar-Major Lalbahadur Thapa had fallen saving the Emperor’s life from assassins years before. Long ago, Subadar-Major Chittahang Limbu had replaced Sten as commander of the Gurkkhas — at Sten’s request. Chittahang had been the first Gurkkha to command the unit, establishing a tradition.

Gurkkhas, in addition to their other virtues, had very long memories, at least as regards their friends and enemies.

“How may I serve you?” Sten asked.

“A notice was posted in the Administration Office, saying that you desired volunteers for a special mission, and any member of the Imperial household was invited to apply.”

“You?”

“There are twenty-four more of us.”

“But . . .” Sten sat down. He felt as if somebody had sucker-punched him in the psychic diaphragm. He regained equilibrium. “Gurkkhas serve only the Emperor.”

“That was true.”

“Was?”

“Only cows and mountains never change. We discussed this matter with our captain. He agreed that serving the Emperor by helping you with your mission, whatever it is, would be sabash — well done.”

“This volunteering was done,” Sten said carefully, “with Imperial permission?”

“How could it be otherwise? The notice ended with ‘In the Name of the Emperor.’”

Gurkkhas could be very naive on occasion. Sometimes it was theorized they were deliberately so, using blankness as a device so they could do exactly as they had previously decided.

Sten thought that if the Emperor did not know — and approve — of their request, all hell might break loose. After all, one of the most impressive Imperial boasts was that after the assassination the Gurkkhas had refused service under the privy council, returned to Earth, and waited for the Imperial return.

Sten didn’t let this potential ego problem show on his face or in his words. Instead, he beamed. “I am most honored, gentlemen. I shall speak to your commanding officer and to your bahun, and begin the proper ceremonies.”

Fortunately the Gurkkhas were not obsessed with long ceremonials, so Sten was able to usher the three men out in a few moments without offending anyone’s dignity. Then he allowed himself a few minutes of ponderment and one stregg.

Damn, he thought. Why me? Why this? I think I’d better walk very small when I bring this up to the Emperor. Then the thought leapt:

But if it works out — and I go in with some Gurkkhas — the Emperor is sure going to get the flash he said he wanted. Plus, his backbrain chortled, I won’t have any trouble keeping my back covered . . .

* * * *

Cind had no idea what was going on.

First Sten had asked her out — socially. Then he had made that strange remark about sidearms being unobtrusive but color-coordinated.

She had chanced a fast call to Kilgour, a man she felt was on her side. Maybe. And whatever her side was anyway, which she was none too sure of.

Of course, the Scotsman had been less than no help.

“You remember, Mr. Kilgour, a conversation we had some time ago,” Cind began. “When you said I was, uh, too young and striking to play spy?”

Alex thought back. Vaguely. “Ah do.”

“Sten invited me to dinner this evening. I have the idea that . . . this is about half professional.”

“Thae’s a good startin’t point, lass. Th’ puir waif canna do naught thae’s not work-related. ‘Twill lead him t’ an early grave, Ah’m fearit.”

“Where are we going?”

“Y’mean morally, collectively, or historically?”

“I mean where is Sten taking me for dinner? And how should I dress?”

“Ah. I misunderstood. Th’ place is secure, an’ y’should dress cazz. Cazz dressy. Carry heat i’ y’ wish. Ah would. But y’re safe.”

“You’ll not tell me any more.”

“A course not, Cind. Dinnae Ah think — an’ Ah’m tellin’t th’ truth — y’ hae moves aboot y’, giein’ thae y’did some growin’t since th’ last we’ve seen y’? Dinnae Ah think, were y’ noo so young, an’ you an’ Sten in love, Ah’d take y’ home m’self to meet m’ mum? So why sh’d Ah denigrate y’ an’ start tellin’ y’ wha’s goin’t on, when deep down, y’ ken already?”

Without waiting for a response, Kilgour blanked the screen. Clotting men, Cind thought.

Clotting . . . and then she deciphered Kilgour’s brogue. Love? You an’ Sten, emphasis Sten? Of course she probably was in love with him, assuming love was something that made you not sleep well at night, build entire castle complexes in the clouds and then move into them, and behave generally, if you didn’t watch yourself, as if you had just injected an opiate.

But . . .

But Sten? Love?

Clot men, she decided, was a safer and more productive way to think.

At least now she knew how to dress.

* * * *

Cind’s outfit was a whisper of sensuality, a simple collarless garment with a deep V dip on the neckline, a close-fitting waist, and a slight flare just above the knees. There were no buttons, zips, or velk to suggest how it stayed together. The waist had a plain belt-tie. Of course, like all “plain, simple, well tailored” garments, it had cost Cind a quarter of her last proficiency bonus.

What made it special, besides the cutting, was the fabric itself. Mantis Section — the ultraelite operational section of Imperial Intelligence — wore the ultimate in camouflage uniforms. They were phototropic, changing colors to match the background the soldier was next to.

A civilian had bought marketing rights to this fabric and then modified it. The material remained phototropic — but it reflected the background of five minutes earlier. The color recorder and time delay were part of the garment — the belt, on Cind’s dress. It also held a strip computer with a simpleminded color wheel that could override the phototropic commands so the wearer would not suddenly find herself wearing a pink dress against an orange background. The belt further contained sensors that muted or increased the color response to match the current light level. On a random factor, it sent strobe images to certain panels and, just to make sure the garment’s audience stayed interested, occasional real-time flashes of what lay beneath, when panels would go transparent for eye-blink flashes. Those transparencies could be programmed to match the wearer’s modesty. Or, in Cind’s case, to never show the knife sheathed down her backbone or the mini-willygun in the small of her back.

Cind met Sten dressed to kill, in several ways.

And for once the male animal didn’t screw up. Sten not only noticed and complimented her outfit, but asked intelligent questions — as if he were really interested — about how the cloth worked.

Still better, he brought a complementary flower.

Flower was not quite the right word. Aeons earlier, an Earth-orchid grower, exiled from his native tropics, had developed the ultimate oncidium orchid — many, many tiny little blossoms on a single stem, crossbred with a native chameleonlike and highly adaptable plant form. The result produced a living bouquet — a necklace — that exactly matched its wearer’s garb.

She gave Sten a moderate kiss and a hug in thanks. And, as she pulled away, she allowed her little fingernail to trail across his neck and down his chestline.

She did not want him to think, after all, that she was a total virgin . . .

* * * *

The bar-restaurant was secreted in an industrial cul-de-sac not far from Prime World’s Embassy Row. Sten missed the turnoff and had to bring his rented gravsled — he had politely rejected the garish official transport he’d been offered — back for another approach. The building sat by itself, isolated in gloom, almost impossible to see. But as the gravsled grounded, bright lights flared.

Cind blinked in the glare. The lights seemed less intended to illuminate the path than to allow those inside to see approaching visitors. There was a very small sign halfway up the curving walk: The Western Eating Parlor. Number Two.

“Not a very exotic name,” she observed. Sten grinned. “There are wheels within wheels here. Supposedly this joint started back on old Earth, way, way back. Like pre-Empire back. Outside a city called Langley. It catered to an exclusive clientele, the story goes. Which hasn’t changed in all these centuries.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. Who’re the customers?” She raised a hand before Sten could answer. “Don’t tell me. But give me a hint.”

“Okay. Take the first letter of each word in the name: T-W-E-P.”

Twep,” Cind sounded.

“Make it a long E” Sten said.

Oh. Like in the old archaic term “Terminate With Extreme Prejudice.” Cind had heard the term used by elderly intelligence types. It meant officially sanctioned murder.

Inside, the restaurant was a hush of real leather, murmured conversation, and skillful service.

The maitre d’ was a horror.

Half of his face was gone, replaced by a plas mask. Cind wondered how long he must have been without medhelp — it was very rare to see, at least in what passed for civilization, someone whom reconstructive surgery did not take on. He didn’t notice Sten and Cind for a moment. He was supervising two busboys, who were covering a large blast hole in the paneling. Then he greeted the newcomers as if they were strangers. “May I help you, sir?”

“She’s clean, Delaney.”

Delaney grinned with the half that remained of his face. “Indeed she is. I have an upstairs snug, Cap’n. An’ your friend’s at the far bar. I’ll bring her up.”

“You’ve been here before?” Cind whispered as Delaney led them through quiet luxury.

“No. Delaney and I go back a ways.”

Delaney’s hearing was very sharp. He paused. “FYI, the captain lugged me off a mountain once. A real big mountain. During a bad time. When I wasn’t computin’ real well.” His fingers touched where his face was.

“I had to,” Sten said. “You owed me money.” A bit embarrassed, he changed the subject. “What happened to the wall?”

“You ever operate with an octopots with a service name Quebec Niner Three Mike? Called herself Crazy Daisy? Kinda cute if you go for cephalopods.”

Sten thought, then shook his head.

“She retired as OC, outa Mantis 365,” Delaney added helpfully. “Mostly out of NGC 1300 Central?”

“Must’ve been before my time — wait a minute. Was three-six-five the guys who stole the sports arena?”

“That’s them.”

“Okay. Know the team. Never met her. But isn’t she on some renegade list?”

“You must be thinking of somebody else,” Delaney shrugged. “She’s clean-up with anybody here.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Anyway, she was in this afternoon. Celebrating something. Kept climbing out of her tank and floppin’ up and down the bar. Gettin’ nasty. Pourin’ down shots of jenevercut with dry ice. Anyway, she’d bought herself a toy. Old projectile weapon she’d had made up. Called it a goose gun. Anyway, she decided she wanted to show it around. I maybe shoulda said something, but —

“At any rate, she showed off how it loads — she’d had some special rounds built up for it — and then she says it’d put a hole in the wall you could throw a human through.

“Guy down at the end — ex-Mercury REMF Analysis, shoulda stayed quiet — says drakh. So Daisy blew a hole in the wall ‘n started throwing the guy at the hole. He was right, and the hole wasn’t big enough. But Daisy kept trying. I had to tell her to knock it off and go home after three, four tries.”

Cind hid her giggle. Delaney led them into a small room and seated them.

“You’ll have what, skipper? Scotch, or are you streggin’ tonight?”

Sten decided to be reasonable. “Scotch. It’s early.”

“Do you pour Black Velvet?” Cind asked.

“We pour anything. Or if it doesn’t pour, we’ll get you the needle, the inhaler, or a suppository blank. And I’ll tell Aretha — that’s the name she prefers to use — to come on up.” He left.

“This,” Cind said, “is a spook bar? Correct?”

“It is. Mostly Mantis.”

Every profession had its own watering holes, from politicians to pederasts. And each had its own requirements. The Western Eating Parlor was an almost perfect intelligence operative’s bar. Situated in a capital — the capital, in fact — it was unobtrusive. It would serve its retired or active clients any of the exotics they had become fond of on a hundred hundred worlds. All of the help had some degree of intelligence background, from Delaney the maitre d’ to the barman who was the son of a recently deceased planning type who was waiting his appointment to the appropriate university, to the busbeings who might just have done some contract wet work in the past. The Parlor was unbugged; it was kept that way with frequent, sophisticated sweeps. The press were discouraged, except for those journalists who needed deep background and would never blow a source.

The Parlor, like the dozens of other spook bars, gave its clients not only a chance to get radically unwound, but a chance to pick up on new information or what a new assignment really might bring down on the hapless operative whose control had been less than generous with the facts.

That was why Sten had asked Alex to book dinner at the Parlor. The Eternal Emperor was being entirely too generous for this to be anything other than a nightmare assignment.

Aretha sleeked into the room and curled onto an oversize ottoman, hooves tucked underneath her. She — question mark — might have been taken for a sextuple-legged herbivore, considering the swept-back, needle-sharp horns, the brown-white-striped fur coat, and the hooves on the first and rearmost set of legs. But when she put her head back and bayed amusement, the prominent canines and cutting premolars and molars said otherwise. She ordered mineral water to drink — Sten and Cind immediately put their drink intake at “nurse” — and a slab of animal tissue, pounded and raw. Sten had charbroiled Earth salmon, a relatively new addiction, with butter and dill sauce. Cind also sampled Earth salmon. Raw.

Aretha briefed them — as only a Mantis field operative could. Sten was grateful that she spoke through a synthbox after the initial, polite greetings. Translating someone else’s speech, even when it was in one’s own tongue, could get wearisome, especially if the speaker had a dual diaphragm and evidently was at home in a language with glottal stops and sibilants.

She knew of Sten and his reputation and said she would help as much as she could.

She assumed this woman had a need to know. Helping, she went on, would best be done by her kicking Sten in the genitalia, ensuring that he could not take this posting.

Three years earlier, Aretha had been deputy military attaché at the Imperial Embassy on Jochi, she said. She was recovering from a minor case of zagging when zigging was indicated. Sten estimated her rank at lieutenant colonel.

“Nightmare,” she went on. “A nightmare indeed.

“First let me tell you about the humans, my dear ambassador-to-be. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Former miners, with all of the forethought and logic that means. Go to any length to prevent regulation, then howl like a spavined pup when the material being mined runs out.

“As a culture, the Torks have enough imagination to want everything, but not nearly enough brains to achieve it. So that means they will willingly deny anyone else possession of these same mostly imagined treasures. Because the Altaic Cluster can only be considered a treasure if you have a way to package and export hatred and ethnocentrism.

“Consider the Jochians. Perhaps you did not know they were once a self-named Society of Adventurers. Given a charter to plunder by our own Eternal Emperor, long may he wave.”

“I know that.” Sten did not feel it necessary to tell Aretha that the information had come from the Emperor himself.

“Adventurers — pirates at one time. Then their culture swash-buckled itself down into anarchy and city-world solar systems until the oncoming of the Khaqan. The first. There have only been two.

“The Khaqan was also a liar and a thief and a back-stabber. The thing was, he could do it faster and better than any other Jochians. So he rose to the top. Like scum on a pond.

“He either died or was murdered by his son, the present Khaqan. Who has all of his father’s talents at chicanery, and a fondness for building monuments to himself to the exclusion of all logic, needed public works, or continuing the social umbrella. And the Empire did nothing about his excesses while I was there. Possibly the Emperor had larger problems. Certainly, he would have heard almost nothing about how severe the problems really were.

“Unfortunately, our beloved Emperor had appointed an ambassador whose talents — I should not think anything less than complimentary, but allow me to say that in two E-years of intense observation I thought Ambassador Nallas’s primary talent was lunch.”

“What about the cluster’s other beings?” Sten asked.

“Merciful clouds, they manage to fit in very well with the humans. First we have the Bogazi. Have you ever seen a livie on the planet Earth?”

“I’ve been there.”

“That is right. I forgot. Think chickens.”

“What?” Sten said.

“Mean chickens.”

Sten chortled, almost spraying Cind with Scotch.

“I am not even beginning to jest. Fowllike. Large. Two and a half meters tall. Bipedal. Hammer beaks. Beaks lined with teeth. Two arms — hands most capable of weapons use or strangulation. Retractable spurs. Not chicken temperament, however. Except under times of extreme duress, when panic seems to be the correct measure, and they rush back and forth and to and fro, flailing about with all these wonderful evolution-provided weapons.

“They seem to have evolved from an aquatic bird. I understand, however, that in common with chickens their drumsticks are most tasty. We were not, unfortunately, in a position where a little sedate galluspophagism could be accomplished.

“They group like feline carnivores — one male, five or six females. The grouping is called — I am not making this up, either — a coop.

“The male is smaller, weaker, and marsupial — their young are born alive, by the by. Extremely colorful. The females hunt, so they have natural camouflage — not phototropic, such as your quiet assistant, but nearly as effective. They’re highly democratic — but you should hear the discussions before a decision is reached. A rookery. You will enjoy them.”

Sten was enjoying Aretha’s descriptions and company. The food came. They ate.

“Sten has given me all the fiche,” Cind said, halfway through her sushi inhalation. “What about the fourth set of beings — the Suzdal?”

“You could — I could, at any rate — almost get used to them. Think of a protomammal that evolved. Originally a pack carnivore. Small. A meter and a half to two meters. Six beings to a group. Attractive beings — quite gold in color.”

“Why’d you have a problem with them?”

“If I believed in racial memory, which I do not, or if my home planet has fossils of small, pack-hunting carrion eaters, which it does not, I would offer that as an explanation.

“I cannot. Perhaps their language — an incessant yapping — is what is bothersome. For certain what is loathsome is their violence. The Suzdal like to kill. A prime social pleasure is turning an animal loose on open terrain and hunting it down. In packs. It would almost seem that they have an Ur-memory.

“Whatever it is, the Suzdal fit in perfectly with everyone else in the Altaic Cluster — beings who hate each other, and have hated each other for so long they forget why. But that does not stop them from a little considered genocide whenever possible.”

“Wonderful,” Sten said. He worded his next question very carefully. “I have heard reports that suggest that the Imperial energy shipments are . . . being diverted.”

“You mean someone is stealing the AM2,” Aretha said. “They are. Or rather, the Khaqan is.”

“Where’s it going?”

“Not sure. I attempted to learn — and found my esteemed ambassadorial leader a stumbling block. Some of it, I think, is going to the Khaqan’s cronies within the cluster. Some of it is being outshipped, and the profits used to build his monuments. More is just disappearing.”

Aretha finished her dinner and had a final sip of mineral water. “You have no doubt been told of the Khaqan’s infatuation with large, ornate structures. But until you see for yourself just how massive an edifice complex he has, you will not believe it.”

“I thank you, Aretha. It would seem to me — and this must stay QT — that the most logical way to keep the lid on the Altaic Cluster is to quarantine all four races to their own sectors. At least, kept at arm’s length, they can’t manage a pogrom a week.”

Aretha whinnied laughter. “You were not told.”

“I evidently have not been told several things,” Sten said.

“Many, many years ago, the Khaqan decided to settle this terrible problem. So he intermingled these beings.”

“What?”

“He arbitrarily chose resettlement. A nation of Suzdal, for instance, that rose against him would be moved, once the rising was suppressed. Frequently their new home would be in the middle of Bogazi worlds.”

“Oh, drakh,” Sten said. He poured himself a drink — straight. He started to drain it, then offered the decanter to Cind. She shook her head.

“Even more amusing,” Aretha went on, “the Khaqan formed various militias. Each of a single group of beings.”

“That makes no sense,” Cind said.

“Oh, but it does. If you use each group of militia only against their traditional enemies, it keeps the anger focused everywhere except on you — the Khaqan. Another advantage is that these militia forces, stationed worlds and light-years away from their native sectors, are not only potential hostages, but keep the home worlds from being able to easily mount a revolution or civil war.”

There was a loud crash, what sounded like gunshots from downstairs, and then whooping laughter. Aretha looked longingly at the door to the snug.

Sten smiled. “Thank you, Colonel. I owe you one. Now, if you’d ask Delaney to bring up the bill?”

“Would you permit me to buy you a drink downstairs?”

“I don’t think so,” Sten said. “I’ve got an early morning, and the . . . gentleman I’m seeing might not appreciate his favorite ambassador sporting a mouse.”

With a whicker of pleasure, Aretha was out the door and headed down the stairs. In a second, Sten and Cind heard an even louder crash.

“I hope this place has a back door,” Cind said.

“It does,” Sten said. “Have you ever heard of a spookery that didn’t?”

* * * *

Sten’s tongue caressed down Cind’s neck, following the cleavage of the dress. Cind sighed . . . deep in her throat . . . near a growl. His hand moved along the inside of her thigh.

Their rented gravsled was on autopilot, holding a westering speed of barely fifty kph, and an altitude of nearly six thousand meters, out of any traffic lanes. Sten had managed to turn on all coil-sensors before the two of them tumbled, locked together, into the wide back.

Sten’s hand found her belt buckle and fumbled. Nothing happened. “I feel like a teener,” he said.

“You should,” Cind murmured. “You tell me all about that enormous Imperial bed — and then hurl me into a rentawreck’s backseat like we were flashing pubescents. Serve you right if a cop overflew. I can see it now,” she murmured into his ear. “Hero Ambassador Found With Nude Bodyguard.”

“But you’re not . . .”

His fingers suddenly became capable.

“Yes, I am,” Cind said throatily, as the dress came away and the nipples of her small breasts shone dark in the moonlight.

Their lips came together, tongues moving smoothly as if this were long-rehearsed and never the first time, and then her warmth caught him and drew him down and in for the eternity.