The Vastalimi Gambit (2 page)

Jo remembered the briefing before they’d left the Solar System . . .

_ _ _ _ _ _

Gramps had said, “Far Bundaloh? What’s on Far Bundaloh? Aside from the iridium mines, there’s jack there. It’s an agroworld. Somebody looking to steal the crops out on the back forty? Rustle some meat critters?”

Jo looked at Gramps. “Even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then.”

Gunny chuckled.

Gramps frowned.

Cutter, leaning against the wall by the door, nodded. Off his look, Jo said, “As you are all aware, TotalMart is our top customer and thus pays most of our bills. And since the current corporate philosophy is ‘If anybody sells it anywhere, TotalMart does it cheaper and is more convenient,’ then you realize that supply and demand depend on each other.

“Masbülc—for those of you living in a cave for the last twenty years, is TotalMart’s biggest competitor. ‘Biggest’ is a relative term: They do seventeen percent as much business as TotalMart, so that’s hardly threatening the corporate existence; however, that’s still twice as much as Masbülc bottom-lined ten years ago. They are leaner, hungrier, and aggressive, and looking to cut a bigger slice of the pie. Decreased sales for TM means some executives will see it reflected in the size of their year-end bonuses.

“More importantly, we might see it reflected in
our
business.

“On FB, as everywhere else, Masbülc’s ops have nipped at TotalMart’s heels for years. Little stuff, mostly, misdirected delivery vans, cyberattacks on store systems, bribing employees to become sand in the machine’s gears, like that. Probably the store there—only one of those onworld—loses more to pilferage and shoplifting than from what Masbülc’s dirty-tricks harriers are doing.

“But it’s not about the local store. FB supplies some exotic food exports that are sold galaxy-wide, and the biggest share of those flow into the TM system.
And
the Masbülc ops have gotten their claws hooked into that in a way that pisses off corporate uplevels.”

Formentara said, “So we are spacing to the end of the galaxy to do what? Act as armed guards on agrovans full of roots and twigs?” Zhe raised an eyebrow.

Jo smiled. Formentara was an androgyne,
mahu
, and hir sex impossible to determine from a first look. Attractive, but . . . male, female, other? Jo didn’t know; nor did it matter. Formentara was perhaps the greatest augmentation expert in the galaxy, and it was through hir grace that Jo functioned as well as she did. Jo was near the limit on augs, and without expert balancing of her physiology, that would kill her, and sooner rather than later. “Well, I wouldn’t put it quite that way.”

Gramps said, “What, are these vans pulled by teams of animals? Horses and stagecoaches?”

“You remember those from personal experience?” Gunny said, her voice faux-sweet.

He played the game: “Sure, my cousin invented them,” Gramps said.

Jo said, “Far Bundaloh is at the end of the road, but it’s not quite that distant in time. House-sized hovervans, maglev rail, and multiplex-sized wheeled bugcrushers move the crops around. It is true that some of these vans have been hijacked, and we need to stop that, but our basic role is to find the ops responsible and shut them down. That will entail convoy duty until we figure it out.”

“I’ll get a sleetgun,” Gunny said. Her voice was as sere as a desert.

“Shotgun,” Gramps corrected. He caught her smile and realized she had suckered him.

“Of course you would know that. Your cousin invent those, too?”

“Naw, Chocolatte, my brother did—right after he and I invented trees.”

Gramps had only fifty-nine standard years, but he was older than anybody else here, beating Cutter by a few months, and the rest of them by at least a decade or two. Gunny never let him forget it.

Of course, Gunny and Gramps were in love with each other; everybody but the two of them knew that. Either of them saying so aloud would break their faces, and as far as Jo knew, they had not acted on it save to hassle each other; they seldom spoke without personal insults or a double entendre involved.

That made for some interesting interplay.

Hassles and insults and leers O my. But: When Gunny had been shot on Ramal during the extraction of the Rajah’s daughter, Gramps had slept on a chair in her recovery room until she came out of the healing coma. Just so, he said, he could rag her about getting hit.

Right . . .

Jo looked at Cutter.

He said, “That’s pretty much it. Wink and Kay won’t be here, we’ll get a new medic.”

“Gonna get a new Vastalimi, too?” Formentara asked.

“I wish. We’ll just have to muddle through.”

Vastalimi were worth their weight in platinum to any kind of military, especially small units like Cutter Force Initiative. The colonel made it clear he would hire as many of them as wanted the job, but that pool was fairly shallow. Vastalimi tended to stay home, and those who traveled and wanted jobs as soldiers of fortune didn’t have any trouble getting work. They were faster, stronger, meaner, and deadlier than any human, and nobody with half a brain wanted to find themselves facing a Vastalimi with mayhem in mind. He was happy to have one and missing her already.

Cutter said, “So there it is, people. Pack, say good-bye to any new friends you’ve made, and let’s get this mission in the vac . . .”

There had been, of course, more than a few Vastalimi on the dropship; however, it was the arrival on the planet and the debarkation into the terminal that really brought it home to Wink: Vastalimi in numbers far more than he had ever seen together before. Scores, hundreds, maybe a thousand of them, all about their business, and looking focused. Vastalimi didn’t seem to loll about, they strode, marched, moved from one place to another in a determined fashion, all looking ready to pounce as necessary.

It was, quite literally, awesome.

They were shorter than human average, and while their aspects were hardly uniform—there were dozens of different shades and patterns to their short fur, their heights varied, and the males tended to be larger and heavier than the females—they all looked a lot like Kay. They had those preying-mantis-shaped heads, the apelike limb set, the feline grace to their movements, the tigerlike, short fur.

Put Kay in a clump of them and even as well as he knew her, it might take a while to figure out which one she was. Different, but still they looked so much alike.

Wink at once felt very much the alien here.

He saw a male with shoulders dyed a deep purple, and that one was strapped—a handgun of some kind in a hip holster, along with other items on his belt. A Shadow, but only the one. Either they were really good, or they didn’t expect trouble here. Probably both.

As far as he could see, there weren’t any other humans in the terminal. No other alien species, either.

He got more than a few looks cast his way. He could almost feel the gazes measuring him.
Hmm. A human. What an odd mix of prey and predator it is. Should we examine it more closely? Poke it and see what it does?

Voices were audible in the terminal, but the background murmur was in a language or languages of which he had only a few words. Not because it was difficult to learn but because it was difficult for a human to speak. The shapes of tongues and mouths and vocal apparatuses was markedly different between these people and Wink’s own. He had a translation program in his com unit. He could use it to listen or to speak, after a fashion, at least for three of the most common local dialects. The computer could translate what the locals said into something Wink could comprehend, and vice versa. Plus it could read signs and approximate them. Although that was apt to be amusing, that reader. On the dropper, he had gone to the fresher, and the reader had rendered the Vastalimi words over the door as “‘Small Orifice of Excrement’; informally known as: ‘Asshole.’”

There weren’t any restrictions as to personal weaponry here. You could carry a knife or a gun if you could manage it on your person, and Wink had both concealed under his tunic. Not that they were particularly comforting. He was well aware of his survival chances in a dustup with a Vastalimi, and they were exceedingly slim. Not that he intended to see how that would go. Even with his risk-taking and dancing close to Dame Death, he was not suicidal.

Hey, bug-face, you don’t seem so tough. Step off—or else—!

Yeah, or else
kill
me . . .

Kay stopped and looked around.

“You okay?”

“Yes. It has been years since I have seen so many of The People at once. It stirs emotions.”

“I don’t recall you ever said why you left Vast.”

“Because I have never said why.”

He waited, but that was the extent of her comments. She started walking. She did not appear to be looking for a reception committee.

“Is your brother coming to meet us?”

“No. He has much work to which he must attend. I am not a cub that I cannot find him.”

Wink nodded. Different species, different social mores.

“Our baggage will be routed to our
domus
, which my brother will have provided for us.”

“Customs?”

“Our passports were scanned before we left the dropship; had there been any problems, we would have been approached by the authorities by now. We need only to obtain a conveyance to the
bolnica
—our version of a hospital. There will be a cart waiting outside the port.
Droc
Masc will know we have arrived and will be expecting us.”

Wink became more aware of the stares he merited as they walked. Lot of looks.

Halfway across the terminal, a large Vastalimi moved to intercept them. He rattled off something in that tongue-twisting language of theirs.

The auto-engage feature on his translation program didn’t seem to be working. Wink managed to flick his translator on manually as the speaker finished, routing the output to his earbud.

“—walk with this
jebiga
prey?”

Jebiga . . . Jebiga, ah, there it was: Fucking.

Kay responded in her language: “Companion is a Healer and human and exempt from
prigovor
. I am also a Healer.”

“And exempt from
prigovor
also?”

“In this instance, yes. I can honorably decline; however, I will not. Do you offer Challenge?”

The larger Vastalimi stood silent for a moment. He must have heard something in her voice that convinced him Kay was not to be messed with.

Wink sure as shit heard it. He fought an urge to step back.

The male Vastalimi said, “Not at this time.”

“Then move from my path or unsheathe your claws.”

He moved aside.

As they reached the exit, Wink said, “Well, that was fun. Expect that to happen a lot?”

“It is possible. That one would not have been a problem had he persisted.”

“Really?”

“One can tell by the way a being stands if he presents a real threat. He did not stand well. I am pleased to have made it this far without combat; I expected that I would have had at least one fight by now.”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“Welcome to Vast, Wink Doctor. It is not like anyplace else you have ever been.”

_ _ _ _ _ _

At the lab in the bowels of the
bolnica
, Droc nodded at Luque, the Chief of Research, a wizened old Vastalimi of 160 or so who had been in charge of the place since before Droc had been born.

There was no need to ask about progress. Had there been any, Luque would have informed him.

“I have new blood samples,” he said.

Luque nodded. “We will examine them in their turn.”

Every kind of tissue that made up a Vastalimi had been harvested and examined with the finest observational machineries available. The tiniest of retroviruses would appear to be planet-sized when projected onto the screens.

So far, nothing had been detected with them that offered a cause.

That did not seem possible.

The medical system on Vast was not as advanced as it was on some worlds; still, it was not primitive. If a Healer needed or wanted a device or medicines, and they were available commercially anywhere in the galaxy, they were free to buy and use them, including implants.

It was true that augmentation among Vastalimi was extremely rare—in twenty-five years of practice, Droc had never actually seen a case of it himself though he knew some Healers who had. Vastalimi did not hold with such things, at least the sane ones did not. Not all were sane, however.

Vastalimi were complex, but not particularly complicated creatures, and The People were, as a species, hardy. Many illnesses that affected other beings did not infect them. Cancer was rare, arterial diseases infrequent. Infections of the kidneys or liver or bowel happened, but the leading causes of death on Vast were old age, accidents, and combat, with everything else trailing.

Yes, there were agents that afflicted The People. Brain fevers, lung infections, blood dyscrasias and poisonings, mental issues, a host of things; however, most were nonfatal, most of the time.

Every test that Droc and the other Healers had run on the dying victims had come up negative for a causative organism. The agent did not chart as a known pathogen. Not a bacterium, fungus, or virus. Neither did it seem to be any kind of allergen, radioactive element, or detectable poison. Nothing to show it as a plasmid or episome. No evidence of genetic retroengineering had been detected.

Healers were at a loss.

People got sick, suffered a short and awful illness, and died. It did not seem to be militantly contagious, in that health workers exposed to the dying had not contracted it—as far as anybody could tell. Some family members and others in close proximity had been affected, including his own parents and some siblings. Of course, it might be like some retroviruses, with a very long and dormant incubation period. Perhaps the afflicted had been carrying the invisible seeds of it for decades.

Or perhaps it was black magic or a plague sent by somebody’s malignant god, for all they had been able to determine.

It was frustrating. Vastalimi did not fear enemies, but to fight them, you had to identify them. If you did not know the cause of an illness, how could you combat it?

The body’s reaction was more or less the same: It broke down, there was a cascade of signs and symptoms that mimicked several known diseases or conditions. Systems failed; the direct causes of death varied, it was a matter of which organ or organs succumbed first. Droc had seen patients bleed from the eyes and ears and even the skin; fulminant fevers had cooked brains into seizures; hearts had raced into uncontrolled tachycardia or slowed to bradycardia and just stopped. Livers, kidneys, stomachs, bowels, lungs went septic and died.

Many patients, once informed of the inevitable progress of the syndrome, opted for
izvaditi utrobu
. Suicide was quicker, less painful, and honorable. If he himself contracted the malady, Droc expected he would fight it to the end, to allow other Healers more time to study him. Yes, that would be a bad way to die, but it might serve some purpose.

His sister was here, on-planet, and she would be arriving shortly. She had been among the best Healers on their world when she had practiced the arts. She’d had skill, of course, but more importantly, she had sometimes been preternaturally able to intuit things that most Healers could not. It seemed empathic, even telepathic, how she simply
knew
what was wrong with a patient, sometimes simply by walking into the same room, no examination, nothing. A talent he did not have.

It had been a loss to Vastalimi medicine when she had left the planet. And a personal one.

He knew the truth, and Kluth’s choices had been limited; he understood her decision. Exile had been, in some ways, harder than death. He did not think he could have done it that way. Whatever perceived dishonor there might have been, she had taken it with her and become a focus that drew attention away from her family. He understood why she’d done so.

Droc wondered where Jak was these days. Not so much that he would bother to look, but as an idle curiosity. Jak, who had walked away clean because of Kluth’s sacrifice. Droc had despised him for that, then. Later, he had come to honor her decision, at least to the point where he could stomach being in the same hemisphere with Jak. Barely. He was not one to initiate duels, but he had considered doing so in Jak’s case. Such a pleasure it would be to kill him. What a scathead he was.

Such a hard choice his sister had made. And one she should not have had to make.

Not that he blamed her. She had been at the wrong place at the wrong time, and there had been nothing to be done for it. It had been years, the parties involved had moved on. Some were dead, some no longer in positions of power, some shunted into places where they were no threat; still, there was a risk. Vial was still around, the scum-spawn.

Had he not asked it of her, Kluth would never have returned to Vast, and it could be the death of her, despite his current status.

But if she could help him figure out what was killing The People? Her death, his, they were nothing compared to that. She would be the first to agree.

Vastalimi did not fear death the same way that some other species did.

“My sister is coming. She has brought a human medic with her.”

“A human? Interesting. I hope she can keep him alive long enough to be useful. How is Kluth?”

“Dutiful, else she would not be here.”

“She is that. I’ll call if I find anything. Don’t hold your breath waiting.”

“No. I won’t.”

_ _ _ _ _ _

A row of vehicles was parked at the curb outside the port, small-wheeled, enclosed carts that could carry perhaps four, if two of them were small and flexible. “That one,” Kay said, nodding at one of the carts.

“How do you know which it is?”

“One is as good as the next.”

“What if it belongs to somebody?”

“Then they will have to find another. They won’t mind. Such vessels are not prized among us. There are more than enough to go around. Were you not with me, I would simply lope. Why would I ride such a short distance if my legs are sound?”

“How short a distance are we talking about?”

“About nine kilometers.”

“That all?” The air was dry, the temperature maybe twenty or so Celsius. Not hot, not cold. Still, it would probably make for a sweaty run, an activity for which he was not dressed.

“But at your pace, it would take much longer than using the cart.”

“You are too kind.”

She whickered, that soft, chortlelike noise that passed for a laugh among her people. “You probably haven’t heard the expression ‘Slow as a human.’”

“No, I have heard ‘Nasty as a Vastalimi,’” he said.

She whickered again.

They climbed into the cart. She rattled off an address. The cart’s motor came online, and the vehicle moved away from the curb. Apparently, the autopilot was sufficiently capable to operate the vehicle without Kay’s help; she didn’t offer it any.

The ride was bumpy, the seat hard and uncomfortable. The city was very clean, with wide streets, and there were more pedestrians than passenger carts though there were larger vehicles carrying what he assumed were necessities, cargo too large or being moved over too long a distance to be managed by a Vastalimi on foot. Most of the cargo vehicles appeared to be automatically operated, no drivers visible.