CHAPTER TEN
We had to pass by the operations office on our way to the gate. The female Ulkomaal at the desk didn’t say anything, but I had the impression she was watching us closely as we passed her window. Briefly, I wondered if she recognized us, and whether the Ulko people might still remember my part in helping Ixil free the two slaves back on Pinnkus.
Probably not, and at any rate that incident wouldn’t do us any good here. Whether or not the Ulkomaals held any residual gratitude, this particular one was living and working in a criminal enclave. Even if she did recognize us, she wasn’t likely to be inclined to stretch her neck out for outsiders.
Six blocks. Half a kilometer. Anywhere else in the Spiral, I reflected as we set off down the walkway, that would have been a nice ten-minute stroll or a brisk five-minute walk.
But here, with the lingering looks of pedestrians and idlers on us as we passed, and the brooding buildings with all those overlooking windows hemming in close around us, I felt like a fish in a bowl surrounded by a houseful of hungry cats.
Nikki had said that it would be another hour or two before everyone in the Badlands knew who I was. Two blocks into our walk, I decided she’d seriously underestimated the speed of gossip.
But at this point there was really nothing we could do but keep going. It was nearly as far back to the Ruth as to the relative safety of the city beyond Scrimshaw Avenue, and I knew from experience that projecting even a hint of fear or unease would only encourage those who were already inclined to be trouble. So I kept us moving, alternating a straight-ahead stare like that of a man on a mission with quick measuring scans of my surroundings like a man who was nevertheless not stupid or unaware of those around him.
Checking to see how Selene was doing could be interpreted as uneasiness, so I didn’t. But she was keeping up with me, and her stride was as firm as mine, and I had no doubt she was exuding the same air of confidence that I was.
Three blocks to go. Halfway through the gauntlet, and so far no one had done anything but stare, glare, or glower. As my father used to say, If someone wants to think he’s tough because he’s good with looks and insults, by all means let him have his delusions. There’ll be a lot less paperwork for you to fill out afterward.
Unfortunately, even if none of this bunch wanted to take me on, they all had friends. I spotted at least four young men and two women furtively pull out their phones as Selene and I approached, and I was pretty sure they hadn’t suddenly decided to call for takeout.
Still, three blocks didn’t give anyone very much response time. With luck and a little intimidation this should work.
We were midway down the fourth block when I heard a sudden intake of air from beside me. “What is it?” I asked quietly.
“It’s Trent,” Selene said, sounding more puzzled than worried. “He’s here.”
I sent a quick look around us. If he was anywhere nearby, he was keeping to the shadows. “Where?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Too many scents, and the airflow is restless. But he is here.”
“I believe you,” I assured her. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would he be on Niskea, let alone in the Badlands?”
“He must be hunting one of the targets here,” she said. “You said there were dozens of them.”
“More likely hundreds,” I said, appreciating the irony of it all. Nikki had tried to lock us into the Ruth by broadly hinting to the locals that I was in the Badlands to snatch one of their neighbors, and now here Trent was apparently doing that exact same thing.
Earlier, I’d thought about trying to contact him to pump him for information about his proposed hijacking. With him right here, it would be trivial to set up a meeting.
Assuming, of course, that we survived the next few minutes. “Whoever he’s here for, it has nothing to do with us,” I told Selene. “Though if we’re lucky, and worse comes to worst, he may show up in time to be a distraction.”
We were a block and a half from the wide avenue ahead when worse indeed came to worst.
Their move was casual enough to look at first like just a group of young men crossing the street, but quick enough to effectively cut off any options I could try. Five young thugs lined up across the street ten meters in front of us, and as I glanced over my shoulder I saw that five more had similarly cut off our retreat.
“Hello, there,” I called, offering them a friendly wave and my best oblivious smile. As my father used to say, If you appear to be a naïve grinning idiot, most people will look down on you, which puts you in perfect position for a quick uppercut. “I think we’re lost. Can you tell me where Joji’s Cajun is?”
“They’re closed today,” the one in the middle called back.
“That’s a shame,” I said, letting my smile slip a little. The place had certainly looked open when I’d spotted it down one of the side streets we passed a couple of minutes ago. “Someone told me they had great food. Can you suggest an alternative?”
“How about you chew on one of these, Mr. Big Man Bounty Hunter?” the thug countered. Reaching inside his jacket, he produced a long, nasty-looking knife. “Goes down real smooth,” he added, holding it up to show me.
I huffed out a silent sigh as his four companions picked up on the cue, one of them producing a knife of his own, the other three pulling out pairs of fighting sticks. They were great weapons if you were expecting close-in work: cheap, effective, and didn’t leave behind any ballistics or spectral profiles to tag you for the killing.
But the absolute first rule of knife fighting was to always point your weapon at your opponent’s eyes so that he couldn’t tell how long it was. By that standard, this guy was a rank amateur.
Still, he probably had a lot more experience attacking with a knife than I had defending against one. And it was a really long knife.
“Hey, there’s no need for hostility,” I protested, letting my waving arm drop back to my side. My plasmic was still hidden away, but I could get it out faster than any of them could move into stabbing distance.
But that would instantly escalate the situation, and I needed to try all the other options first. “I’m not here to bother you or anyone else,” I assured him. “I just want to go to the StarrComm center across town and send a message. Nothing to do with anyone here.”
“Sure,” the thug grated out. He took a step forward, his four companions following suit. “A hunter suddenly shows up here, and we’re supposed to believe he’s just sightseeing? Sure.”
“This doesn’t have to go any further,” I said, trying one last time.
“Neither do you,” he shot back.
“Yeah. Funny,” I said, looking around. The passersby and shoppers had all come to a halt and were gathered around us like spectators in an open-air arena waiting for the main bout to begin. The probability that with its current configuration the fight was likely to be over very quickly didn’t seem to be affecting the anticipation level.
And it occurred to me that not producing a weapon might actually have worked against me. The toughs had now tagged me as an easy target, and if their ambition matched their swagger and amateurism they would be happy with any kind of victory, even an easy one. In fact, with that type, the easier the better.
“But you’re forgetting one thing,” I said, pointing to the shop directly to my left. It was a rolled-meat store, I saw, with a metal frame supporting a colorful cloth awning that stretched over the walkway almost to the street itself. “See that place over there?”
And as the thugs’ eyes reflexively followed along that line, I slid my plasmic out of concealment.
“You’re forgetting that the people over there don’t want to spend the rest of the day smelling burned flesh,” I continued, hefting the plasmic a little for emphasis. “Well, human flesh, anyway. I’m sure their rolled meat is delicious. So let’s do this. We all agree that you’re courageous defenders of your turf, that we’re cowards who aren’t worth the trouble of fighting, and that you chased us out of the Badlands fair and square. Okay? Then we can all just get on with our lives. Sound good?”
An experienced fighter with a grasp of combat odds and cost/benefit ratios would already have concluded that the vague and unconfirmed suggestion that I might be hunting someone wasn’t worth losing at least three to five members of his team, especially since he himself would probably be the one I’d shoot first. But as I’d already noted, these toughs were anything but experienced. “Oh, yeah, big hunter man,” the thug sneered, taking another step toward Selene and me. Again, his flankers followed his lead, but it seemed to me that this time they hesitated just a bit before moving closer. “You going to shoot us down, huh? You think you can get all of us—all of us”—he waved his hand in a wide arc that encompassed the watching crowd—“before we tear you to little pieces?”
“I don’t think there’d be much tearing,” I replied. “Most of these people are smart enough to realize this isn’t their fight. Actually, it’s not your fight either—like I said, we’re not here to take anyone.” I held up a finger. “And just as a grammatical point, you shouldn’t say before we tear you apart, but before they tear you apart. Because you won’t be one of them.”
For a second he seemed puzzled. Then the confusion cleared from his face and he gave me a vicious smile. “You don’t think I’ve got the stomach to do it, huh?”
I sighed. As my father used to say, Sometimes subtlety just isn’t worth the effort. In those cases, and with those people, make sure you have a brick handy. “Actually, I was referring back to my earlier comment about burnt flesh,” I told him. “Which would be yours.”
His face hardened. “You want a piece of me, hunter?” he demanded. “Go ahead. Shoot.”
“Thanks for the offer,” I said. “But I think I’ll go with a more imposing opponent.”
Without waiting for his response, I shifted my aim and sent a plasma shot into the rolled-meat shop’s awning.
There was a chorus of mixed screams and screeches from the onlookers gathered beneath the cloth as it burst into smoky flame. “There you go,” I said to the thug, sparing a quick glance at the burning cloth to confirm that no one was in any immediate danger. I’d picked that particular awning because of its isolation from any other flammable objects and for the metal frame that looked sturdy enough to keep it safely suspended in the air while the fire burned itself out.
The fact that it was also sending up a thick column of black smoke as it burned that could already be seen for a couple of kilometers was just a nice bonus.
“I saw a firefighter substation a block past Scrimshaw Avenue on our way in,” I said, raising my voice to be audible over the screeching of the onlookers and the crackling of the flames. “I figure it’ll take them about three minutes to get here. And firefighters are usually accompanied by badgemen.”
“You figure that, huh?” the thug called. If he was worried about the authorities charging in on his private battlefield, he was hiding it well. “Got news for you, hunter: Badgemen don’t come into the Badlands. Neither do firefighters. We’re on our own.” He lifted his knife. “Which means you’re on your own. How does that go? If you run . . . ?”
“ . . . you’ll only die tired,” I finished the sentence as a sinking feeling settled into my stomach. And with that, I was out of choices. If Selene and I were going to get out of this alive, I was going to have to shoot. To wound if possible, but to kill if necessary.
Worse, with us at the short end of ten-to-two odds, I was going to have to attack first. Even with the argument of self-defense on my side, in the eyes of Commonwealth law shooting first would make me the aggressor. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in handling this like real men,” I offered. “No weapons, hand to hand.”
“Why, you think that’ll hurt less?” one of the other thugs jeered.
“Maybe not, but it’ll certainly take longer,” I told him. “Nice street fight, lots of spectators. I’m thinking you’d have time to set up some wagers on the outcome, maybe make yourself a little extra cash.”
The thug’s eyes flicked over my shoulder, possibly double-checking that there was no official response on the way to deal with my casual arson. “You think stalling is going to do you any—?”
“I’ll take a piece of that,” a voice came from my right.
I sent a frown that direction. A short, wiry-looking man with a messenger bag over his shoulder had pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “Fact, I can run the action for you,” he continued as he walked briskly toward the line of thugs. “Got seed money right here—just give me a minute to set up a wager grid.”
I refocused my attention on the thugs as the newcomer slid the bag off his shoulder and popped the sealing strap. The leader seemed completely dumfounded by the unexpected intrusion into his moment of glory, especially the man’s assumption that we were indeed going to exchange our armed standoff for a full-on showground brawl. Beside me, I heard Selene’s breath catch in her throat . . .
And then, in a single smooth motion, the thin man threw his bag at the second knife-wielding kid’s face and threw himself at the chief thug. A snap-grip on the thug’s right wrist with his left hand—a half pivot as he snaked his right arm up under the thug’s armpit—the very audible crack as he broke the thug’s right elbow—letting go of the thug’s wrist to deliver a short but devastating palm-heel blow to the side of the kid’s neck—
A scream of surprise and pain came from behind me. I spun around toward the line of thugs behind us, bringing my plasmic to bear—
To find a taller and more strongly built newcomer with a similar messenger bag across his back had already introduced two of that group to the pavement and was in the process of taking down a third.
I turned back, a single glance at Selene showing she was as astonished by the sudden flurry of violence as I was. The thug spokesman was sprawled unconscious on the ground now, his knife lying a meter away on the pavement, and the thin man was in the process of taking down the other kid who’d been carrying a knife, the one he’d thrown his bag at. The other three—
The other three, fighting sticks still in hand, were in full-fledged retreat, running like maniacs through gaps that had miraculously opened up for them through the surrounding crowd. Some members of the crowd had likewise suddenly discovered they had business elsewhere and were moving away nearly as fast.
I looked behind me again. The large man was standing calmly among the crumpled figures of the three thugs he’d taken out, the other two having vanished like their comrades into the landscape.
“Are you all right, Mr. Roarke?” the thin man called.
I turned back to face him. He had retrieved his messenger bag and looped it back over his shoulder and was walking toward Selene and me. “I am now,” I said. “To whom do we owe thanks for the timely assist?”
“Call me Huginn,” the thin man said. “This is my partner, Muninn. I’m glad we caught you before you left the Badlands.”
“Oh?” I asked carefully as Muninn came up to join us. “That sounds like you were looking for us.”
“Yes, we were,” Huginn confirmed. “Our boss would like a brief word with you to discuss your current situation and activities.”
I felt my throat tighten. Cherno hadn’t said anything about requiring periodic reports, and given that all we had right now was a nicely balanced stack of nothing, I hadn’t thought that calling him was worth the StarrComm fees. Apparently, he thought differently. “Certainly,” I said. “Selene and I were heading to the StarrComm center anyway. Do you have a vehicle handy, or shall we find a runaround?”
“Actually, we’re not going to the StarrComm center.” Huginn looked around. “But we should probably continue this conversation elsewhere.” He gestured ahead toward the busy thoroughfare of Scrimshaw Avenue. “After you.”
“Thank you,” I said, frowning as the four of us started off. Did no StarrComm mean Cherno was already here on Niskea? I thought about asking as we walked, decided there were still too many ears around who didn’t need to know our business.
Three minutes and a wide pedestrian crossing later, we were finally and officially out of the Badlands. “Okay, here’s the deal,” I said as we paused. “As I said, we need to go to StarrComm and make a call. After that, we’ll be happy to accompany you wherever we need to go.”
“Sorry,” Muninn said harshly. “The boss wants to see you now.” His eyes shifted to Selene. “And only you.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I said. “Selene and I are a package deal. And we really need to make that call.”
Muninn shook his head again. “I just said—”
“Not a problem,” Huginn cut in calmly. “You and Muninn go see the boss. I’ll take Selene to the StarrComm center, wait while she makes her calls, then escort her back to the Ruth. Will that be acceptable?”
My first instinct was to ask him to choose between no and hell no. The absolute last thing I was willing to do was leave Selene with a total stranger, especially a stranger who’d demonstrated an ability to dispense the kind of near-lethal violence I’d seen from him. “And if I say no?”
Huginn gave me a microscopic smile. “Please don’t make me insist.”
I braced myself—
“It’s all right, Gregory,” Selene spoke up. “I’ll go with him.”
I stared at her, feeling my jaw drop a little. “Selene, what in—?”
“It’s all right,” she repeated. “Mr. Huginn won’t hurt me.” She looked at him. “Will you?”
“As long as you’re with me, you’ll be absolutely safe,” Huginn said. The words were calm and polite, but there was an undertone of steel in his tone that promised very bad things to anyone who tried to interfere with that promise.
Or maybe that was just wishful hearing on my part. With the two of them standing right there, and my plasmic back in concealment, there wasn’t a chance in hell I could prevent them from doing anything they wanted.
And frankly, if Cherno was going to be mad at me, it would probably be just as well if Selene wasn’t there.
As my father used to say, You can accept the inevitable with grace, or you can scream like a spoiled two-year-old. Screaming doesn’t gain you points with anyone.
“Fine,” I said, fixing Huginn with a hard look. “But if anything happens to her . . . ”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Roarke,” Huginn said. “I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon.”
* * *
We found the runaround stand, grabbed ourselves a pair of vehicles, and headed off in our respective directions.
I’d expected Muninn to take me to some fancy restaurant for our meeting, or maybe for a longer drive out of the city to a secluded estate. To my surprise and mild concern, he drove instead to another spaceport inside the city limits, this one twice as big as the one in the Badlands but far more upscale. He parked us beside a ground-to-orbit shuttle, and we were barely aboard and strapped into our seats when the perimeter grav beams winked on, pulling us up off the pad, and the pilot took us up toward space.
I stared out the window as the planet receded beneath us, my nagging feeling of discomfort keying up a couple of levels. A shuttle parked in a premium field that was almost certainly reserved for high-end starfaring ships, and a launch slot that could apparently be moved instantly to the head of the line. Either of those would be a solid flag of money or power; the two of them together doubled that conclusion.
Trouble was, Cherno was a criminal lieutenant, and people in that position typically tried to keep a lower profile than that. Part of the goal was to avoid attention from the badgemen, but most of it was because they didn’t want to look like they had ambitions against their own bosses.
Had I been wrong about who Huginn and Muninn were working for, then? Could Gaheen himself be here? The one time I’d met the newly crowned big boss of the organization, we’d had a short but civil enough conversation. But if he’d traveled all the way from Huihuang to check on my progress, today’s meeting might not be nearly as friendly.
Especially since he knew now that I’d come to his mansion as part of an effort to assassinate him. An unwilling part, true, and I’d also been instrumental in keeping that murder from happening. But I’d dealt with enough crime bosses to know that sometimes important details like that got lost in the shuffle.
And then, even as I was mentally rehearsing what I was going to say, I caught sight of the vessel our shuttle was headed for and my whole scenario went straight off the cliff.
It was a Patth ship.
And not just any Patth ship. It was the Odinn, the private transport of Sub-Director Nask. The Patth who’d once kidnapped and threatened me, and whom I’d threatened in return.
He was also the Patth I’d last seen hurrying a Gemini portal off Fidelio, to the consternation of Jordan McKell and the rest of the Icarus Group. The portal that was now sitting in a private warehouse on Cherno’s estate.
And whether Nask was still alive or the Odinn was now the property of his successor, this meeting could very easily go badly. Very, very badly.