Quofum (11 page)

Leaning forward, Boylan rested his fists on the table. “You not listening to me, Salvador. Pay attention.
I have no time for this now
. Leave it alone. Get back to you real job. Clean up that storeroom.”

“You refuse to settle your account?”

Straightening, the captain turned his hands palm upward and cast his eyes ceilingward. “Oh, sure, I settle it. I send space-minus communication now, to Wolophon III, which passes details to Cmkk, which transfers information to maybe Balthazaar, which coordinates deposit of necessary credit on Thalia Major.” Lowering his gaze, he glowered across at the placid technician. “Is no problem because I have nothing else to occupy my time right now.” His tone changed from cantankerous to the kind one would use when addressing a child.

“Firstly, no guarantee from this place and location that initial communication would successfully make contact. Secondly, is waste of expedition resources. Thirdly, is illegal to utilize mission equipment for personal matters. And lastly, according to terms agreed upon when original loan was made, time to pay back is incumbent on my ability to do so. That is presently inadequate.”

“You should have saved your money,” Araza told him. Unlike Boylan, there was not a hint of scorn in the technician’s voice.

“Even if I had it, I would not be bothering with such a thing now. Not here, not in this place. In case you not noticed, I have other responsibilities.”

“Your responsibility is to your long-patient creditors. You have been in a position to make payback on numerous occasions during the past twelve years.” Araza was quietly implacable. “You have not paid.”

The captain shrugged, unconcerned. “Time passes. Things happen. The load will be repaid. Eventually.”

“‘Eventually’ is insufficiently unambiguous for my clients. You will pay now.”

Though he was not really worried, Boylan casually let his right hand slip toward his waist. Along with a varied assortment of other gear, it held his holstered sidearm. If he could not make the technician see reason, he would have to force it upon him. A week or two spent locked up in his room should give him sufficient time for reflection. He had delivered his demand and found the response wanting. That would be the end of it. When the expedition returned to Commonwealth space, Araza could communicate that information to whoever had hired him. If his stubbornness proved to be unrelenting, the expedition would simply have to get along without his abilities. Boylan didn’t think it would come to that. The withholding of food, for example, was usually enough to convince the recalcitrant to cooperate.

“Even if an effective means of doing so existed,” he told the intent technician in an attempt to put an end to the charade, “I couldn’t pay off loan now. I don’t have the credit.”

Digesting this response, Araza nodded comprehendingly. “Very well. If that is your concluding word on the matter. I have been charged with extracting recompense. I will do so now.”

Boylan’s fingers furtively undid the snap on his sidearm’s holster. “Don’t threaten me, Salvador. Not to my face. Not in my own camp.”

Reaching up, the technician fingered the top of the seal that ran down the front of his jumpsuit. The captain tensed, but Araza was only unsealing his jumpsuit. No hidden weapon revealed itself as the tech slipped the seal all the way down to the crotch of his clothing. The green-and-beige camouflage work-suit fell away from slender shoulders. Beneath, in place of the usual lightweight underwear, the technician was clad in a light-absorbing jet-black skinsuit of a type Boylan did not immediately recognize. Encircling it at the waist was a black belt festooned with gleaming, highly miniaturized gear whose functions were unfamiliar and subject to multiple interpretation. The belt buckle…the buckle…

Boylan froze. His breath caught in his throat. Though it was pleasantly warm in the dining area, a chill ran up and through his entire body as if his spine had suddenly been flash-frozen in a slab of glacial ice. Only his right leg stayed warm, because it was down that limb the trickle of tepid urine from his voided bladder curled.

The buckle that secured the black belt at the technician’s waist had been faceted from a single artificially enhanced, specially treated crystal of vanadanite. The bright orange-red stone was inset with a gold skull and crossbones. As if that was not conclusive identification enough, the technician proceeded to doff his work cap. Instead of his shaven skull, a second head covering was revealed beneath the hat. This was a black skullcap inlaid with signs, insignia, and cryptic script that had been laid in with crimson foil.

There was no longer any doubt as to Salvador Araza’s true profession. The revelation was only further confirmed when he reached up and calmly peeled off first one and then the other prosthetic eyebrow.

The Qwarm favored full-body depilation lest even a single stray hair betray their presence or get in the way of their work. That work, as it had been practiced ever since the clan had been established hundreds of years earlier, ran the gamut of a great many disreputable but tolerated specialties. Bill collecting could be counted among these. Assassination was another.

Boylan was badly shaken by the disclosure, but he was not paralyzed. The hand that had been sliding toward his sidearm and had unlatched its holster now drew the weapon and fired. His stocky build notwithstanding, the captain could move fast when he needed to. Deceptively fast. The tiny but deadly shells his weapon fired sped straight toward the somber-faced specter standing before him. Unfortunately, by the time they reached the point of contact, their target was no longer there.

Boylan looked around wildly as smoke rose from the holes the double shot had blown in the module’s interior wall. Araza had vanished. As the captain crouched next to the table, gripping the sidearm tightly, the technician’s voice drifted up to him from somewhere down the corridor.

“There is neither need nor sense in making this difficult, Nicholai Boylan. I have told you that I am charged with exacting recompense. If my employer cannot have your money, then he must have your life.”

“I
told
you!” Boylan was trying to look every which way at once. “I don’t have the money! I need more time.” He was breathing faster than he had in years and his heart was pounding so hard it threatened to punch its way out his chest. “I will have substantial credits waiting for me when this expedition returns. First thing, I will transfer them to whatever account you specify.” Despite his fear, he tried his best to sound conspiratorially convivial. “That need not even be your bedamned employer’s account.” Even as he spoke he was edging stealthily toward the hallway opposite the one from which Araza’s calm voice emerged.

“I am Qwarm,” the unseen technician told him. The corridor imbued his voice with a slight reverberation. “A Qwarm cannot be bribed. In any event, I have some knowledge of what someone in your position in charge of an expedition on this scale is likely to be paid. The amount would not cover the interest owed, much less a satisfactory portion of the principal.”

“I told you.” Boylan’s stressed response was half entreaty, half curse. “I need more time!”

“You have had twelve years.” Had the tech’s voice moved? Boylan couldn’t tell. He was almost to the hallway entrance. Araza continued patiently. “Not only my employer but any legitimate Commonwealth bank or credit monitoring facility would consider that you have already been granted an excess of leniency.”

“Banks don’t hire assassins to extract revenge. Not because they’re any more compassionate than the people who are paying you, but because they know that a dead creditor is a complete write-off.” The captain found himself with a clear line into the hallway.

“You should have dealt with a bank,” Araza’s voice informed him coldly. “I have been advised that my client is prepared, albeit with due reluctance, to consider Nicholai Boylan fully amortized.”

Accompanied by a barely perceptible hum, a neat hole half a centimeter in diameter appeared in the wall slightly above and to the left of Boylan’s head. The edges of the puncture were perfectly smooth. No smoke rose from the perforation, no heat radiated from its edges. It had been made by one of the Qwarm’s preferred weapons: a sonic stiletto. Shaped sound had blown a hole in the tough nanofiber material. Boylan knew it would have no difficulty punching an equally perfect hole in his head.

Pulling the communit from his duty belt, he made sure its locator was turned off. Then he whirled and raced down the corridor. As he ran he did not look back. Doing so would only slow him, however marginally, and might result in his not seeing something on the floor and tripping over it. Looking back under such circumstances was a waste of time. He would not see a sonic burst coming. As for Araza, if he was near enough to observe the captain’s desperate flight, then Boylan knew he was already as good as dead. As long as he could not see the Qwarm, could not hear him, and nothing spanged through his skull or his torso, the captain thought he had a chance.

A slim chance, to be sure, but he had survived near-death encounters on other worlds. As long as his brain functioned, there was hope. If he could just reach the shuttle he could safely lock himself inside. Then he would be the one in a position to make demands. Of course, Araza would recognize that as well. The shuttle was the one place where his quarry could find safety. That knowledge would persuade the Qwarm to go there first, to prevent the captain from engineering exactly that kind of escape. Realizing this and knowing that he could not best or get past the professional assassin in an open fight, Boylan had opted for an alternative strategy.

If he could get outside before his pursuer brought him down, the captain planned on switching off the security perimeter. The Quofumian forest would be his equalizer. Salvador Araza might be comfortably at home within civilized surroundings and a master of humanx culture, but he arguably knew even less about this world than did Boylan. Out in the teeming, volatile, unpredictable alien jungle the Qwarm would find himself only one more predator among hundreds. True, one of the latter might as easily decide to make a casual meal of the fleeing captain. In that event Boylan felt he would be no worse off than if he tried to stand his ground inside the camp. But there was also the possibility that Araza might become a meal for some wandering carnivore first.

Of course, the Qwarm could simply choose to remain inside the camp, comfortable within its confines and at ease with its amenities. Boylan did not think Araza would resort to such idleness. Such inaction would be very un-Qwarm-like. Having held his true identity in check for so long, the captain doubted a professional like the technician would be content to sit back and wait for circumstances to favor him. Naturally proactive, he was unlikely to sit on his butt and wait for his target to wander in and surrender.

He might also realize, as Boylan had, that if the captain could get to the river first he might through truth or trickery be able to inveigle the members of the science team on his behalf. While the researchers were untrained in matters of interhuman conflict, they knew how to conceal themselves in the forest (in order to better observe animals) and how to defend themselves with the sidearms they carried as part of their standard field issue. A Qwarm was still a Qwarm; impressive, well trained, and thorough. But on Quofum, Araza was operating on unfamiliar ground, and five guns against one would be an improvement in the odds sufficient to give even a professional killer pause.

Once outside the last module Boylan could instruct his communit to disarm the perimeter fence. That way he would not be confined to exiting via the gate. He could vanish into the woods in any direction. Within the forest he would have to deal with the fantastic array of local life-forms. It was night outside, too. Were the spikers active after sundown? Boylan hoped so. He was ready to take his chances with hostile natives of any species so long as the cocksure Araza was forced to do the same. They would see which man was better prepared, both mentally and otherwise, to survive under such conditions.

He hesitated at the module’s emergency doorway, but only for an instant. Knowing how fast a Qwarm could move, he understood that the one currency he could not afford to squander was time. Easing the barrier open, he held his sidearm out in front of him as he emerged. In the absence of moon, phosphorescent flora and fauna, stars, and the subdued perimeter lights provided just enough illumination for him to make out his surroundings. His eyes struggled to adjust. There was movement visible, but only on the far side of the barrier, within the deep woods.

Putting his lips close to his communit he hastily whispered the command for cutting power to the security perimeter. Given that there were defense issues involved, it took more than a moment to set up the correct sequence. He was halfway across the flat open space that had been cleared between the camp buildings and the fence line before he had the command string in place. After that, it was only a matter of murmuring a code word to set everything in motion.

He waited until the last possible moment. Once the security barrier went down Araza would immediately connect it with Boylan’s absence. Unless the technician was a complete fool he would just as quickly divine the fleeing captain’s intentions—and the Qwarm did not train fools. But in the absence of a locator signal from the captain’s communit the tech would have the entire perimeter to check, by which time Boylan expected to be deep within the forest. Once inside he would follow an erratic, unpredictable, zigzag course toward the river. He did not for a moment doubt that Araza, like all of his clan, was an excellent tracker. But this was not a Commonwealth world. There would be arbitrary distractions. If Boylan was lucky one of them might even prove fatal to his pursuer, or at least slow him down.

He approached the nearest perimeter relay post. Crouching low, he muttered the word that would initiate the disabling sequence. Seconds later the activation telltales on the inside of the post changed from red to green. It meant that the power to the perimeter was down. It could mean nothing else. Still…