The Crystal Variation Page 10

  “Where’s the other one?” The first ‘hunter asked the second, who shrugged, plainly aggravated.

  “Not there.”

  “Must’ve been there. He didn’t leave.”

  “That’s why we sent Kaig to take care of the back room, wasn’t it?”

  Cantra almost sighed. Three of them, assuming Kaig survived his adventure to the back room, which she didn’t consider likely, if the “other one” was Pilot Jela, as it must be. Still, it wasn’t any use waiting to find out.

  She brought her hands up, resting the bracelets against her breast, fingers folded together. She jerked her chin, hitting the hidden toggle, felt a ripple in the fabric of her ‘skins . . .

  The bracelets fell away. Cantra dodged back, slapping the seal on her thigh.

  The first hunter yelled, bringing her noisy gun around. Cantra shot her in the eye, landing hard on her shoulder on the alley floor, rolling for the scant cover of a trash bin, as the second ‘hunter fired, fired, fired—and stopped.

  Cantra peered out from beneath the bin, hideaway at ready—two more darts left, which ought to be enough if—

  “Pilot Cantra?” The voice was familiar and not unexpected.

  “Pilot Jela?” she replied.

  “Yes,” he said, rueful, she thought. “The field is ours, Pilot.”

  AS IT HAPPENED, she’d been wrong about Hunter Kaig’s chances of survival. He was alive, twisted up in his own wire and sound asleep on the floor.

  “I’ll send him on up to the next level,” the man named Ragil said, rolling a dope stick one-handed while he talked to Pilot Jela. “Won’t be much help in present conditions, though.” He brought the stick up, drawing on it hard to get it started, and glanced over to Cantra, where she had taken up a lean against the wall, the better to watch the room.

  “Want one?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said, forcefully agreeable.

  “Owe you,” he insisted. “My people are supposed to keep the riff-raff out.”

  “No favor in a stim-stick for someone running on adrenal high,” she answered, still agreeable. “I’m fine.”

  She got the right answer this time. Ragil gave her a look and turned back to Jela, who was working with the computer, idents from the three hunters on the table next to him.

  They were a study, Ragil and Jela, and Cantra took her time about studying them. Ragil’s hair was brown, which matched his eyes. And while he was another one built like a war-runner, his shoulders weren’t quite as broad as Jela’s and he was about a head taller. Not natural brothers, she’d decided. Not Batchers neither. Not, she thought, kin at all, though there was something—undefinable and undeniable—that put one of them in forcible mind of the other.

  Part of the similarity, she considered, was bearing—both were proud, tall-standing men.

  Another part was age—or lack of specific age, other than the ever-slippery “adult”—but that could just mean they’d done a lot of ship-time. Truth was, she didn’t look her own years, quite, having started in on ships at a tender age.

  The rest—might be they’d been shipmates once—they seemed to have that kind of understanding between them. Neither one calling senior, both comfortable in their talents.

  Shipmates, she decided, watching Ragil drag on his stick, eyes narrowed as he read Jela’s screen through the drifting smoke.

  “That doesn’t look good,” he said. Jela grunted, and sat back.

  “What’s not looking good, if you don’t mind sharing?” she asked from her lean, and the pilot spun his chair around to face her. He might’ve been worried, or he might not, for all the info she could read off his face.

  “It happens that our friends weren’t necessarily registered,” he said, and she shrugged, which got her a bite from the bruised shoulder.

  “Freelancers, is all,” she said.

  “Not on Faldaiza.” That was Ragil. “Freelancers gotta register for a non-resident license and get listed in the public files, along with the text of their writs.”

  She considered that, then used her chin to point at the cards on the table. “What’re they?”

  Jela grinned. “My money says forged.”

  She frowned. “Forged ‘hunter tickets—for what? I’m not wanting to pry into your private affairs, Pilot, but I don’t have any shame in telling you there ain’t no bounty out on me—” for at least two Common Years now, she added silently— “so even if they’d been registered, it’d be an illegality to come in and arrest a righteous citizen of the Spiral Arm during a certified pursuit of happiness. Which is what they done.” She took a breath, looked from Jela’s face to Ragil’s, seeing identical expressions of placid waiting.

  “So when I’m saying freelancers,” she said, just in case the brains behind those non-committal eyes hadn’t processed the thought. “I’m saying freelancers. I understand Faldaiza’s feelings regarding the slave trade, but that don’t mean those taken here need to be sold here.”

  “Well,” said Ragil, and took a heavy drag on his stick. Jela tipped his head.

  “That would fit,” he allowed, “expect they knew who they were looking for—you.”

  “And you.” She sighed. “So—what?”

  “So—the piece of news you don’t have,” Ragil said, “is there’s another pilot in the mix. He was set to meet Jela this evening, except he never showed. Me, I saw him—talked to him—no further out than local yesterday.”

  Cantra looked at him, then back to Jela.

  “He fell or got taken,” she said, watching his face, “and before he filed his last lift, he said something that made you sound interesting to whoever was listening.”

  His mouth tightened, not a smile, she thought. “Who then came looking for me at the restaurant, since that was the arranged meet, but you’d already claimed the open invitation.”

  “Putting me up high on the interesting list, too. And the Batcher warned us to walk careful ‘cause she’d seen the come-lately and thought he smelled bad.” She sighed. “Well, at least that hangs together as a tale. Got any idea who?”

  “No.”

  “Not helpful.”

  “I agree.”

  She shifted against the wall. “What’s the odds the Batcher knew the come-lately?”

  “That’s an idea,” Ragil said to Jela, who looked up at him.

  “Right. I’ll swing by on my way back.”

  “Back from where?” Cantra asked, thinking that she was glad of the dance with Danby, because it looked like that was going to have to do it. Whoever was trying to get Pilot Jela’s attention had her linked to him, which meant her place was on her ship—just as soon as she could get there.

  “From your ship, I’d imagine,” Jela said, seriously. “I got you into this—whatever it is. Least I can do is give you backup to a defensible point.”

  “Think I can’t take care of myself?” She snapped at him, and he held his big hands up in front of his face, fingers spread.

  “I think you can take care of yourself just fine, Pilot Cantra,” he said, and it was respect she heard in his voice. “But I’ll ask you to do the math. First time, they sent one—we think. This time they sent three. Next time they send six, or nine. Do I scan?”

  “If they send,” she countered. “Might be three was all they had. Might be they lost interest and found something else to do what’s fun.”

  “And might not,” he answered, which he hadn’t needed to do, her brain already having said the same.

  She sighed and shoved away from the wall, feeling her recovered gun in its quiet pocket and the needler with its depleted charge hidden back behind seal.

  “All right then,” she said, not in any way pleased by the ruination of her plans. “I got my kit to get, if you’re wanting a tour of the town. But before that, I’ll come along with you to The Alcoves and see what the news is there.”

  “Why not?” he said, and levered out of his chair. He had the cheek to smile at her, too.

  TEN

&
nbsp; On the ground

  Faldaiza Port

  THE ALCOVES was closed, the door opaque, the menu over it dark.

  “They never close,” Jela said, and Cantra felt a shiver start at the back of her neck.

  “Maybe repairs?” she asked, but not like she believed it herself, nor did the other pilot bother to answer.

  What he did do was step up to the door, put his big blunt fingers against it and push. Nothing happened. Cantra could see the strain in his shoulders as he exerted more force. She looked up the street and down—empty. So far, so lucky.

  The door gave a small groan and began moving back on its track. Jela continued to exert pressure until he had opened a small gap. The foyer was dark, which fact slowed Jela not at all: He squeezed through the gap and became one with the darkness beyond.

  Cantra sighed, tried to think generator failure, but her heart wasn’t in it.

  She followed Jela, and sometime between passing over the threshold and coming to rest inside the dark foyer, her gun slid out of its quiet pocket and into her hand. The dark was too thick for her to decipher much more than a blacker blot on the blackness to her left, which might have been Pilot Jela, breathing so quiet she couldn’t hear it, which irritated her for some reason. Frowning, she touched another seal pocket and slipped one of the several lightsticks out, snapping it inside her fist. Feeble bluish light leaked between her fingers, enough for her to see the empty console and Jela approaching on sneak-feet, his far arm held down against his side.

  At the edge of the console he paused, looked—and moved on, his near hand rising to wave her along behind.

  She followed, not liking it, but not inclined to let him go on alone. He’d put himself out for her, coming into the alley and taking care of the second hunter, for which act of lunatic generosity she owed him. Even though she’d had the situation under control.

  She paused, looked around the edge of the console—and wished she hadn’t. The master of the dining room was crumpled into an improbably small ball on the floor, his formal tunic dyed with blood, a wide ragged gash in his throat.

  Swallowing, she moved on, past the wadded up curtain, which had been ripped down from its hanging over the doorway, and caught up with Jela just inside the hall.

  The third room down was nasty—eight identical corpses displaying the remains of various unsavory forms of persuasion. Two wore formals, while the rest, by their clothes, had been kitchen workers. It was well-lit, unfortunately, and Cantra slipped the lightstick into her public pocket.

  Jela swore, quietly and neatly. Cantra held her peace, not thinking immediately of anything she could usefully add to the motion.

  “All Batchers,” she said after he’d prowled a bit and had a chance to work off some of his bad mood. “No guests.”

  “There are other rooms,” he answered, and she sighed, jerking her head at the curtain.

  “So we’ll check ‘em out,” she said and after a heartbeat or two, he brought his chin down, which she took for ‘will do.’ She swept the curtain back.

  Most of the other rooms were found to be empty and intact, saving the one that held what had once been a woman of some substance. A neat hole had been made in the center of her forehead; the skin ‘round the hole was just a little burnt, which you’ll get with your pin lasers.

  This time, Jela didn’t say anything, just went down to a knee and started going through pockets, quick and efficient. Seeing that he had the way of it and didn’t need her help, Cantra set herself to guard the hallway, the curtain hooked back just a bit, so he’d be able to hear if she shouted.

  The hallway was dim and quiet—not much different than it had been earlier in the day. If you didn’t know that one of the rooms held eight Batcher bodies, and the one behind her was occupied by—

  There was a noise—a very small and stealthy noise—from the left, where the hall ended at a flat white wall, barely two dozen paces from Cantra’s position. She frowned, staring at the area and finding nothing to see, save the hall and the wall.

  She’d almost convinced herself that the noise had come from behind, inside the room where Jela was relieving the woman’s body of care, when the sound came again, slightly louder this time, and from the same area.

  Carefully, she moved forward, slipping the still-glowing lightstick out of her pocket, holding it high in the hand not occupied by her weapon.

  The section of hall she went through was certifiably vacant. The wall at the end was white and blank. She went over to the left, where end wall met side wall, lifted the lightstick high and began to scrutinize the situation.

  She hadn’t got far along in the scrutiny when the noise made itself heard again—well over to the right and sounding a shade impatient. Cantra moved down-wall, light still high and illuminating nothing but wall, flat, white, seamless, and—

  Not entirely seamless.

  It took a professional’s eye to see it, but there it was—a thin line along the blank face of the wall, shimmering a little in the lightstick’s blue glow.

  The noise came again, just beyond the tip of her nose, a scratching sound—fingernails against plazboard, maybe. Mice.

  She marked the position of the line, slipped the ‘stick away, unsealed another hidden pocket and pulled out a ring of utility zippers. Frowning, she fingered through the various options. The ring was a portable, o’course, armed with the most common polarizers. If this particular hidey hole were sealed with anything out of the way, she’d need the full kit from her ship. Still, it was worth a—

  “Pilot Cantra?” His voice was barely louder than his breath, warm against her ear. “What do you have?”

  “Stashroom,” she said, keeping her eyes on the line, fingers considering the merits of this zipper, the next, a third . . .

  “Think I’ve got a way in,” she said, weighing the third zipper in her hand. “Somebody inside, is what I think.” Her fingers decided in favor; and she nodded to herself.

  “Cover me.” She slipped her gun into its pocket and activated her chosen tool, reaching up to run the needle-nose down along the line in the wall. The zipper’s path was marked by a gentle peel, as if the skin of the wall were rolling back from an incision.

  Cantra knelt on the tile floor, brought the tool down until its nose caught on the second line, followed that one along parallel to the floor, snagged on the third and went up again, the skin of the wall rolling up in earnest now, almost as high as her waist. Big enough for someone to come out of, if they were so minded. Big enough, absolutely, to shoot through. Big enough—

  A body leapt through the opening, curling as it hit the floor and going immediately into a somersault, showing a flash of green among a blur of pale arms, pale hair, pale tunic.

  Jela extended an improbably long arm, caught the Batcher by the back of the tunic and hauled her—for it happened to be ‘her’, Cantra saw—up, feet not quite making contact with the floor, which didn’t stop her from squirming and twisting.

  Cantra slid her weapon free and pointed it. The Batcher stopped struggling and hung limp as a drowned kitten in Jela’s grasp.

  “Pilots,” she gasped. “This humble person is grateful for your aid.”

  “Right,” Cantra said, and looked to Jela, giving him leave to ask what he would with the quirk of an eyebrow.

  He was silent for a moment, then spoke to the Batcher. “You gave us warning earlier in the evening, eh?”

  “Yes, Pilot,” the Batcher said submissively, which could as easily be truth or a lie told in order to placate him.

  “Tell me,” Jela said, inexorably calm. “What you said, to warn us.”

  The Batcher hesitated, then raised her face, though she stopped short of actually meeting Jela’s eyes.

  “Walk safely,” she whispered.

  “Why?” Cantra asked, which might not’ve been the question Jela wanted the answer to next, but which had damnall bugged her since it happened.

  The Batcher licked her lips. “There were those who had taken the
other pilot,” she whispered, “as he was about to enter our establishment. I saw this. They were many, he was one. I thought to warn pilots that there was danger in the streets. The master—”Her voice caught. She took a hard breath and hung her head again. “The master did not forbid this. The master said, hoodlums in the streets are bad for business.”

  There was a short silence, then Jela said. “I’m going to put you on your feet. I expect you to stand and answer the questions this pilot and I ask you. Try to run away and I’ll shoot you in the leg. Am I understood?”

  “Pilot, you are.”

  “Good.” He set her down. She stayed put, head hanging, gloved hands limp at her sides.

  “Tell us what happened here,” Jela said.

  She swallowed. “They came here during the slow hour. Uno, at the desk—he had time to hit the emergency bell. Many of us ran, but in the kitchen, they were prepping for the busy hours upcoming and were caught. Also, the master—the master had been in the wine cellar and did not hear the bell. When we came to this floor, they had already killed Uno and captured the kitchen staff. The master told me to run for aid, and I did try—but they were at all exits, even those not generally known. I came back and they were—they had killed the master and left her. I—I hid myself in the wall, but I could not open the secret door from the inside. And then you came.”

  “I see,” Jela said in a tone that conveyed that he might not actually believe everything he’d just been told. “Do you know—”

  Back toward the front of the building, there was a sound—a large, unfriendly, sound.

  “You know a way out?” Cantra snapped, not being in any way wishful of meeting the people who had killed a pilot, eight Batchers and their owner—For what gain? she asked herself, then put away that wondering for another and less fraught moment.

  “Pilot,” the Batcher said, “I do, if they are not deployed as before.”

  “Go, then,” Cantra snapped, over a second noise, louder and less friendly than the first. “We’ll follow.”

  The Batcher looked at Jela.

  “You can move now,” he told her. “Lead us out of here.”