How Dark the World Becomes (8 page)

“No? Then who the hell are they?” But then the light came on in my brain like a magnesium flare at midnight, and I knew the answer before she said it. 

“The children.”

*   *   *

She was pretty shaken up, so I let her sit at the dining table while I drew tea from her samovar. She’d been ready for bed when I made my entrance—hair down, no makeup, slippers and a big fuzzy white robe. I had to hand it to her, she regained her composure pretty quickly, since a few minutes before she must have figured she was just a second or two from a flechette in the brain. Hell, she got points in my book just for not wetting herself when I grabbed her from behind in the dark—lots of tough guys I know would have.

After I brought two tall glasses of tea over to the table she told me the whole, lousy story. 

She’d been on Peezgtaan on a consulting gig, but not for the e-Traak family; it was for the Bureau of Economic Culture—something about the spiraling cost of importing fine art from Earth, alternate sources of supply, that sort of stuff. The fact that there is a prevalent mindset which considers art a commodity—like bauxite ore—is interesting, but I won’t go there right now. She’d been done with the assignment when the assassinations took place. During her survey work, Arrie had met her, in his capacity as a gallery owner and importer, and now he’d contacted her to help get the survivors off planet. 

What survivors?

The driver and the father were down at the scene, as reported. The bodyguard took out both of the primary assassins—the two “bystanders”—but he took two bullets himself, and they were both Poisoned Pills—lead-lined composite hollow points with polonium kickers—which meant that the bad guys were very, very bad. That must have been the odd thing about their weapons Bernie had gotten wind of but hadn’t been able to nail down. No wonder.

Huh! I knew something Bernie didn’t. Now, there was one for the record books.

One of the bullets in Jones had first gone through the open palm of the little boy—fortunately without encountering enough resistance to dump its poison—which accounted for his blood being on Jones and at the scene. Figuring that the primaries were not the only things to worry about, Jones got the two kids to Arrie before he died. 

Why go to Arrie? 

Because the primaries had had Co-Gozhak provost credentials. There was no way for the bodyguard to tell if they were genuine or not, but even if they were stolen or forgeries, if they were good enough to get them into a secure facility, then that probably meant at least a contact on the inside. That made it hard telling who was really clean and who wasn’t, or from how high up the mountain the boulder had started rolling—and so that’s when the smart move was to go below the sensor horizon, to crooks. 

This guy Bony Jones, the bodyguard, figured all that out, and made the right move, with two radioactive cocktails spreading through his system, eating his organs up from inside. Knowing they were in for a real painful, ugly death, most guys would have just started looking for a lifetime supply of happy-drugs. Jones didn’t. He did the job, right up to the end. I wished I’d known him when he was still breathing.

“First thing,” I said, “this means the biometrics are wrong for the jump tickets.” 

She nodded.

“We figured two children would trigger any data mines they had running, but two adults wouldn’t. The gender change for the girl wouldn’t really matter. Since the children are lighter than the reservation, there’s no problem with the physics, and a last-minute bribe should fix the administrative difficulties.”

Sure. Just like I was doing with the bodyguard biometrics—you can always ratchet them down.

“Okay, but you should have trusted me on that one. I’m going to have to scramble to get the phony passports changed in time. Now, what about the thing with Kolya?”

“Mr. Markov? After you and I talked—the evening after I gave you the money—Mr. Arrakatlak found out that Mr. Markov had discovered that I was helping the children. Mr. Arrakatlak already suspected that Markov was in the employ of the assassins. We—Mr. Arrakatlak and I—decided that the only thing to do was for me to go to Markov and ask him to arrange the escape.”

“And this actually made
sense
to you?” I asked.

“Yes, of course,” she answered impatiently, becoming more confident as the shock wore off, confident enough that some of her hostility was beginning to resurface. “Mr. Markov already knows I am part of the escape, but he doesn’t know that I know that he knows . . . You understand?”

I nodded, doubtfully.

“He thinks I came to him by chance, and that he’s the one who’s arranging everything, so he stopped looking for us, and for anyone helping us. He knows he can take the children as soon as we show up to leave planet. So I gave him Bronstein’s World as a destination, because I knew there would be no shuttle for the Bronstein C-lighter until several days after the Akaampta departure. With luck, we should be gone before he realizes anything is wrong.”

I thought about that for a couple seconds. Two things occurred to me. 

First thing, she wasn’t afraid of me anymore. She wasn’t trying to convince me that she’d actually done this thing—only that it was a good idea. So she was probably telling the truth.

Second thing was, much as I hated to admit it, this was actually an okay plan, or would be under most circumstances. It was a very gutsy move, but that’s what made it work. Kolya would never think that this pale and pampered thoroughbred with a PhD in something or other would walk right into the lion’s den unless she was as clueless as she looked. Pretty smart.

“Except for the part about not telling me,” I said. “Why didn’t you
tell
me?” 

“We couldn’t right away. Mr. Arrakatlak found out that Mr. Markov has a data mine on your comm link, and there was no one at your office. Then you disappeared. I thought you were dead, but Mr. Arrakatlak said to wait, and that you would turn up.”

Now it was starting to smell like bullshit. A mine? Surgically implanted comm links like I have are all but impossible to mine, even with nanos, since you need to have someone physically close enough . . . like Cinti. Shit! Cinti could have planted nanos while I was sleeping. And, sentimental fool that I was, I’d figured she really
had
told me everything. 

It occurred to me that if I didn’t start getting smarter here, and really quickly, I was going to die. At least Kolya couldn’t trace me through my link. Nobody could, data mine or not, unless I told somebody right where I was over an open circuit. I had too many dummy repeaters squirreled away in different parts of the city and all my signals went through them. Even if somebody was smart enough to backtrace all the electronic blind alleys to pinpoint a transmission—and I didn’t know of anyone working for Kolya that smart—by the time they did it I’d be long gone. 

“Okay, but how did Arrie find out about the mine?” I demanded. 

She shrugged, and I could tell it had never even occurred to her to ask. This was all black arts stuff to her, and one magic trick seemed as difficult or as easy as the next. But how the hell
did
Arrie find out about a comm mine that Kolya had planted on me? I was sure Arrie didn’t have Kolya’s organization penetrated—he was an operator, but on his own side of the divide, not on the Human side. I was his link to Kolya’s organization. Right?

But at the moment, I had bigger concerns. This changed everything, and I had to figure out the new patterns here—and quickly. 

First things first. I triggered my embedded comm link and called Henry. He was waiting, of course; he was back in one of the under-the-rock plazas that adjoined the inside face of Marfoglia’s living complex, watching the entrances. 

“Yeah,”
he answered inside my head.

“Hey, what’s new?”

“Not much,”
he answered.
“You?”

“Nuthin’ worth mentioning, except I’m gonna bow out on dinner later. I think I got some bad curry at lunch.”

“You gotta watch that subcontinent stuff, boss. It’ll eat your guts out.”

I laughed.

“Yeah, but this was Thai, so go figure. See you later.”

I broke the connection. Marfoglia was looking at me with a mix of curiosity and disdain. 

“Breaking a date with a girlfriend?” she asked.

“For you? In your dreams,” I answered. “That was my number-two guy. ‘Bad curry’ is my code phrase for compromised communications.

“We’re going to have to move you and the kids. Right now,” I added. 

“They’re sleeping.” 

“Then wake them up,” I answered. “They aren’t safe here anymore, and neither are you.”

“But Mr. Arrakatlak—”

“
Fuck
Arrie!
” I shouted, and she jumped in surprise. 

“Arrie doesn’t know shit! He sure as hell doesn’t know Kolya Markov. All this double-cross pretend-your’re-hiring Kolya ying-yang might work most of the time. But Kolya’s tried to kill me twice in the last three days, and I’ve gotten away twice, and when things start going that bad, Kolya goes into Operating Mode B, which is
No Loose Ends
. 

“So wake the kids up.”

*   *   *

After about ten minutes, she came back with the two little Varoki. They were wearing purple silk robes, with Chinese characters embroidered on them in gold. Arrie was right about that—it really was pretty amazing how
Terrakultur
had grabbed hold of the imagination of the
Cottohazz
, especially the wealthy Varoki.

The Varoki are hairless—eyelashes don’t count as far as I’m concerned—and for us hair styles are a big clue to gender. But if you’re around them enough, you start noticing other gender differences, things like proportion of hips to shoulders, prominence of the jawline, that sort of thing, even in little squirts like these two. Early physical and emotional development isn’t that different from Humans, either. The boy was older, maybe early teens, on the verge of adolescence, with his left hand in a clear bandage case. The girl was a couple years younger, about twenty centimeters shorter. Both of them were very frightened, but the boy was trying hard not to show it. His ears were trembling with the effort to keep them from folding tight back against his head. I was glad their last bodyguard had been Human; that would help.

“Hello,” I said. “My name is Sasha, and I’m going to keep you safe and get you back to your family. Do you understand?” 

The boy nodded, but the girl looked to Marfoglia, who translated in what sounded to me like perfect aGavoosh—clicks and glottal stops like a native. The girl not speaking English was a problem; we’d need to work out some simple words so she and I could communicate in an emergency. Well, I had a couple words of aGavoosh, and it wouldn’t kill me to learn a little more.

“What are your names?” I asked.

“Barraki,” the boy answered. 

The girl must have figured out the question from his answer, because she said, “Tweezaa.” 

I held out my hands.

“Take my hands,” I said. The boy took my left hand right away. The girl looked at Marfoglia, who said another couple words in aGavoosh and nodded, and then the girl reluctantly took my right hand.

“Barraki. Tweezaa. I’m not just something you see and hear. I’m something you can touch. I want you to feel my skin, how warm my hand is, and remember how it feels, so you’ll remember I’m real. And remember I’m going to get you home safely.” I squeezed their long, bony little hands, and Marfoglia translated, but the girl looked away and said something softly.

“What did she say?” I asked.

“She said, ‘There is no home,’” Marfoglia answered, and her voice had a catch in it. 

The funny thing is, I don’t even remember deciding to go along as their bodyguard. I just knew I was. And all of a sudden, a lot of things started looking clearer. There just might be a way out of this mess for all of us. 

Have you every noticed how often happy thoughts like that come right before a disaster?

My comm link tingled behind my left ear. Then it stopped. Then five seconds later it tingled again, and stopped. 

“We’ve got company,” I told the three of them.

EIGHT

I expected more of an argument. When I told Marfoglia she had thirty seconds to grab the passports and identification we’d need, she did it almost that fast. She started to say something about getting dressed before we left, but she looked at me and something she saw in my face made her shut up—it was probably the fear. If I was afraid, she better be too. And believe me, I was.

We were out into the hallway in under sixty seconds. I’d studied the floor plans before I broke in, so I knew there was a stairwell at the end of the hall—the far end, of course, on the other side of the elevator foyer. 

“Tell the girl I’m going to carry her and it will be okay,” I ordered. Marfoglia told the little girl—I couldn’t remember her name. Her eyes, already big with fright, got bigger and her ears flared out in alarm. She shook her head and reached out to Marfoglia. 

“I’ll carry her,” she said, but that would just slow us up. 

“Sorry, little girl,” I said, and scooped her up as I started to run. “Haul ass, you two!” I ordered over my shoulder. The girl gave a little cry when I picked her up, and held her arms stiff across her body, keeping them between us, but she didn’t cry or struggle, so I was okay with that. 

We got to the stairwell before there was any activity from the elevators. I was there first, but Marfoglia and the boy were close behind me, and I closed the fire door behind us—no way to lock it, of course. 

“Up,” I ordered, and started taking the stairs two at a time, still carrying the little girl.

“Wait!” Marfoglia shouted from behind me. “That’s the wrong way!” Her voice carried and echoed up and down the concrete and stone stairwell.

I stopped, turned around, and put my finger to my lips.

“Quiet!”
I ordered, but softly. “Sound carries a long way in here. The right way may be full of bad guys, so just shut up and follow me.” While we were talking, I shifted the girl from my right arm to my left and pulled the gauss pistol out of the pocket of my slacks. She started to make an
“ooo”
-ing sound—not really crying, but getting warmed up for it. I looked at her and shook my head.
Not now, little girl. Cry later
.