Star Vigilante (Vigilante Series) (14 page)

“All our efforts have failed.” The Derindl woman returned her attention to Matt. “Vigilante, I assume you have a reason for not destroying the Stripper from orbit?”

“I do.” He filled her in on the Mican’s threat and his response. “A more subtle approach seems desirable.”

“Quite.” A visibly shocked Autarch Dreedle turned to Eliana. “Daughter, has Clan Themistocles been unable to bribe the Halicene Conglomerate into withdrawing its Stripper?”

Eliana flushed rose-red. “We have failed in that also. I apologize for my kin-people, Autarch. The decision by a prior Despot was unwise and—”

“Will lead to the devastation of my planet, my people, your people and our joint offspring,” Dreedle said harshly. The Autarch turned back to Matt, her manner urgent. “Vigilante, do you have a plan?”

“I have tactics. And an idea.” He smiled pleasantly through Faceplate. “Tell me—are your Trees able to do industrial-scale polymerase chain reaction copying of a sample DNA codon? A virus?”

“Yes!” Dreedle smiled back Derindl-like, with her tongue protruding; it was something else seeing it in real-life rather than just reading about it in his Library datadump. “Our Genetic Manufactory can do this. How many liters of this virus do you desire? One million? Two?”

“Uncertain, but perhaps only several thousand liters.” Matt thought quickly, wondering just how effective the spyseeds of Halicene Conglomerate might be, whether the Autarch herself had already been suborned, and whether Halcyon’s atmosphere was even now being seeded with a viral vector that would need only a signal to go plague-active. “Do you have facilities for aerosol dispersion?”

“We do.” Dreedle seemed impatient. “What else do you require?”

“Many things.” Matt stood up, Suit whirring with restrained power. “I need samples of the slag left behind by the Stripper. Plus the complete technical readout on it—to the extent obtained by your soldiers before they died. Also the rate of heavy metal buildup in your aquifers and the ore storage mode used by the Stripper.” He blinked an order to Suit, imaged a PET signal to
Mata Hari,
and smiled reassuringly. “Autarch, your Tacticians have command of the data I need. Maser-feed it to my ship before I leave.”

Autarch Dreedle stood up in a rustle of robes, her expression concerned. “You leave so soon. Don’t you trust us? Is that why your ship won’t land at the Port and why two Defense Remotes now hover above my Trunk?”

“Autarch, I trust no one.” Matt turned, gathering up Eliana with his eyes. “Come, Patron. It’s time we visited Olympus and your Human colony. Perhaps we can ‘talk’ to the ex-Despot of Clan Karamanlis about his barter deal with Halicene Conglomerate.”

Eliana stood, appearing uncertain as she glanced from Dreedle to him and back. “Autarch? By your leave.”

The Derindl ruler nodded, human-like. “Go, my Daughter. I hope your service to the Tree will be successful.” The Autarch turned to Matt, her professionalism gone, her feminine allure turned to maximum overload. “Vigilante—will you avoid destroying my planet in the process of cleansing the Stripper?”

Heading for the exit rampway, he called back his answer. “If possible, Autarch. In the meantime, please order your forces away from the Stripper, avoid further attack, and advise my ship when any Halicene craft comes in-system. Eliana?”

“I’m coming.”

With his Patron following, Matt marched out through the Derindl Autarch’s office, pushing away his hormonal reactions, disposing even of the liking he felt for Dreedle. He could not afford to feel lust or passion or caring for this strong, intelligent alien woman.

He might have to kill her.

Even if she were not in the hire of the Anarchate or Halicene, she still might need to be sacrificed for the good of her people and her planet. And as a Vigilante, he had one inviolate rule—don’t get involved with a possible Target.

Whistling tunelessly, Matt left the Autarch behind, boarded a hovering Defense Remote, and returned to the ship. Eliana sat beside him in the Remote’s cargo hold, unusually quiet. As if she sensed that the calmness innate to living within a culture that practiced community ecology might soon be disrupted. Drastically.

On the way back, Suit’s sensors noticed something unusual. As ordered,
Mata Hari
hung nearby, just above Top Canopy, but now it was supported by four pressor beams that speared down from the ship’s belly. The pressor beams supported
Mata Hari
like four legs, similar to the Colossus Mode of his Suit boots.
What the hell?
Matt hadn’t ordered that—he’d ordered Nullgrav Hover. And he’d never seen the ship do Colossus Mode on a planet’s surface—or known that it could do so. Entering the Bridge, Matt stepped out of Suit, ignored Eliana and stood naked under the waterfalling lightbeams, in optical neurolink. He communed with his AI.

“Partner, why is the ship supported by four ship-to-ground pressor beams? And why the hell didn’t you
tell
me we could do something like this?”

In his mind, Matt felt
Mata Hari ’s
looming presence. The presence seemed embarrassed. “Matt, I’m sorry—I didn’t know I could do that either.”

What the hell?
“
Mata Hari
—you are the ship. So where did the order come from, if not from you?”

“From the Restricted Rooms.”

What the?
“But I thought you controlled them and were just being secretive. You were, weren’t you?”

The AI paused long seconds. “I wasn’t. And I don’t control them.” Guilt flooded his mind—an AI felt guilt? “They are . . . the Restricted Rooms are also impenetrable to me. I know this sounds strange, Matt, but I really like you and I wouldn’t—”

“Bullshit.” She stopped talking. “Come on. Out with it. What are you really hiding?”

“Nothing!” The pain in her voice was real; either
Mata Hari
had achieved a quantum jump in her ability to imitate human emotions, or her pain was real. As were her feelings, which had been more intense of late, more spontaneous, more . . . real.

“But, but . . . .” Matt stopped, confused and upset that now, of all times, his ship had a weird software bug in it that neither he nor she could fix. In his mind,
Mata Hari
hung back a little . . . as if she were ashamed. Suddenly, her mood brightened.

“There! The pressor beams have shut off. Don’t worry about it Matt.”

“Don’t worry? Sure.”

As Eliana looked on, puzzled by their open argument, Matt stepped down into the Interlock Pit and queried ship systems, trying to trace the data-fault. But his virus-trace kept getting rebuffed every time it came near one of the Restricted Rooms deep in the ship’s innards. Strange.
Mata Hari
had some explaining to do—if she could remember. Damn . . . what do you do when your AI develops selective amnesia?

Within the Pit, in communion with his symbiont, Matt shrugged and ordered the ship to head north to Olympus. The Job came first. Later would come a leisurely full systems checkout . . . in some unnamed nebula where no one could find them.

“Matt? Aren’t the ship and
Mata Hari
one and the same?”

Distantly, he heard Eliana’s very reasonable question, sensed her interest in him, and understood her wish to be included. But Matt couldn’t do that. Not now. Not when he had a Problem to solve.

“Please, Patron, I must work with my AI to sort out this episode, and also prepare for our arrival at Olympus. I will include you once we arrive,” he said.

Eliana sighed regretfully and turned away to head for the Spine hallway and her stateroom, pretending indifference. Pretending she was whole once more, back in the bosom of her Mother Tree. Back among people with whom she had grown up. At home. The Spine slidedoor closed behind her.

He had no time for guilt. No time for regrets. No time, even, to feel the way a normal human ought to feel when one of his tools acts up. Instead, he focused on the hours-long trip north, on the planet Halcyon, and on his Problem.

Sitting naked in the Pit, drinking in streams of lightbeam data inputs, Matt shut out Eliana, even shut out
Mata Hari.
He shut out everything except the Problem of finding a way to save a planet without destroying all life on it.

It was a cold, emotionless method.

But for him, it worked.

CHAPTER SIX

Hours later Matt still sat in the Interlock Pit, wearing only skin. The forward holosphere occupied his full attention as he watched sexy goings-on in the Autarch’s personal office—thanks to a few nanoware gifts Suit had left behind at Tree Melisen. Just now, the Autarch was making love with two Derindl males. Behind him, the Spine slidedoor whooshed open. Matt ignored Eliana’s entrance and leaned forward. He’d always wondered just how the Derindl used those short tails. Now if—

“Pervert!” Eliana declared.

He turned and looked up at Eliana, dressed in a brown tunic and white stretch pants. Her eyes blazed with indignation. Matt folded hands in his lap and sat back—as much as his neck cable would allow. “Who says what is sexual perversion? You? Me? Some religion? Anyway, it’s irrelevant to my real purpose—obtaining intelligence on the Autarch and Derindl society.”

Eliana scowled skeptically. “A likely excuse. You’re sure you’re not—”

“Being a horny cyborg pervert like the Vidcasts say we are?”

“I . . . .” Eliana rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry. You explained how you’re not like that. And I shouldn’t be so quick to flare up.” She smiled a bit lopsidedly. “But as you said, for a Greek, I’m even-tempered. At least compared to my aunts and uncles.” She turned more serious. “Also, I’m not used to such invasions of personal privacy. Will you turn that off?”

Matt thought-imaged through the PET relay; the holosphere image vanished. “It’s done. Anyway,
Mata Hari
will scan the transmission for pertinent Intelligence. Satisfied?”

“Thank you.” Eliana now looked closely at him. Not forcing herself, nor with her usual squeamishness. She looked at him as if she cared what he felt and thought and hoped for and . . . .

“You’re welcome,” Matt said, his mouth suddenly dry. “And thank you for treating me as a person.”

“Matt, you’ve always been real people to me. It’s what surrounds you that gives me pause.” Eliana squatted down beside him, her rose scent enveloping him. She stared into the Pit with open fascination. “Does it hurt?”

“What?”

“Those lightbeams. The . . . the connections to your belly and neck. Everything.”

“Does wearing clothes hurt you?”

She grimaced. “Hardly the same thing.”

“But it is.”

“Well . . . what’s it like? Being a cyborg?”

Perhaps she would understand. “Eliana, being a cyborg is just being different in some unusual ways, like a crossbreed is different from Pure Breed humans, or humans are different from Derindl.” The analogy hit home; she looked troubled. “Have you ever thought of what I am able to perceive as a cyborg?”

She shook her head, eyes running over his bare skin, the coax cable connection to his neck. Eliana then focused back on him—eye-to-eye—showing honest curiosity. “Not really. I’ve played virtual reality games where different environments are portrayed, but I don’t think it’s the same.”

“It’s not.” Matt held up his left hand. “See that? Looks like a normal hand with five fingers . . . nails short, skin swarthy, knuckles rough. Right?”

“Right.”

He blinked, bringing into play miniscule lenses behind his contacts, a different lens for each eye. “When I order my onboard nanoware lens to shift into place, I can see that hand in many light spectrums. Like the infrared and ultraviolet that I’m now using. Organic flesh looks different in different light spectrums.”

Eliana looked up sharply from his hand, inspecting his face with wonder. “Really? You can do that without looking different outside?”

“Easily.”

“What else can a cyborg do?”

Matt smiled, enjoying her sense of discovery. “Well—grab that piece of pipe beside your accel-couch, the one I brought in from the Biolab, and hand it to me.” She did so, hurrying back to sit beside the Pit. He placed the straight aluminum pipe atop his thumb and an outer finger, with a middle finger underneath, then pressed down with his outer fingers. “See?”

Eliana gasped at the horseshoe-shaped pipe. “But your skin looks normal. It looks—”

“It is normal, along with my bones. They just have metallic bioupgrades that increase endurance and add structural and cross-sectional strength. Your own skeletal upgrade is just a civilian version of my combat upgrade.”

She looked skeptical. “But doesn’t it affect—”

“There’s no effect on my sensations of heat and cold—or touch.” Tossing aside the bent pipe, Matt reached out and tickled Eliana behind her ear.