Year's Best Scifi 8 Part 33

"You sent for me."

The woman nodded and the lock on the hatch clunked open. After spinning the handle Snow stepped back as the hatch rose on its hinge to allow him access. He climbed into a short, metal-walled corridor that ended at a single panel door of imported wood. It looked like oak to Snow-very expensive. Pushing the door open, he entered.

The room was filled with a fortune in antiques: a huge dining table surrounded by gate-leg chairs; plush eighteenth-century furniture; oil paintings on the walls; hand-woven rugs on the floor.

"Don't be too impressed. They're all copies."

The Androche approached from a drinks cabinet carrying two gla.s.ses half filled with an amber drink.

Snow studied her. She was an attractive woman. He estimated her age as somewhere between thirty-five and a hundred and ninety. She wore a simple toga-type dress over an athletic figure, and at her hip she carried an antique-or replica-revolver.

"You know my name," Snow observed as he accepted the drink. "I am Aleen," she replied.

Snow hardly heard her. He was relishing his first sip.

"My G.o.d, whiskey," he said, eventually.

"Yes," Aleen acknowledged, before gesturing to a nearby sofa. They moved there and sat facing each other.

"Well, I'm here. What do you want?"

"Why is there a reward of twenty-five thousand shillings for your t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es?"

"Best ask Merchant Baris that question. But I see it was rhetorical. You already know the answer."

Aleen nodded.

Snow leaned toward her. "I would be glad to know that answer too," he admitted.

Aleen smiled, Snow leaned back, annoyed.

"There is a price," he said flatly.

"Isn't there always? There is a man. He is the Chief Proctor here. His name is David Songrel."

"You want me to kill him."

"Of course. Isn't that what you are best at?"

Snow kept silent as Aleen lay back against the edge of the sofa, then regarded him over her drink.

"That is not all I want from you."

He turned and gazed at her and at that moment she lifted her feet up onto the sofa so that he could see that she wore nothing under the dress. Does she shave, Snow wondered, or is she naturally hairless there? He also wondered what it was that turned her on: his white body and pink eyes? Other women had said it was almost like being made love to by an alien. Or was it that he was a killer?

Probably a bit of both.

"Part of the price?"

She nodded and set her gla.s.s to one side, then she slid closer to him on the sofa and hooked one leg over the back of it.

"Now," she said, reaching up and opening her toga to display b.r.e.a.s.t.s just like those of the girl he had killed. Snow searched himself for an adverse reaction to that; finding none, he stood up and unclipped his dust robes.

"You're white as paper," Aleen said in amazement as he peeled off his undersuit, but when her eyes strayed to the covered stump terminating his left arm, she made no comment.

"Yes," Snow agreed as he knelt between her legs and bowed down to run his tongue round her nipples. "A blank page," he went on as he worked his way down. She caught his head.

"Not that," she said. "I want you inside me, now."

Snow obliged her, but was puzzled at something he had heard in her voice. No love-making then: just the act itself. Perhaps she wanted white-skinned children.

Hirald called out before approaching the fire. It had been her observation that the Andronache got rather twitchy if you walked into one of their camps unannounced. As she walked in she was surprised to see that these weren't locals. Hirald noted two men and two women wearing monofilament survival suits that looked to be of Martian manufacture. She also pretended not to notice the weapons that one of the men had hastily covered on her arrival. She walked to the fire and squatted down. One of the women tossed on another crabbird carapace and watched her through the flames.

The man who had covered the weapons, a tall Marsman with caste markings tattooed on his temples, was the first to speak. "You've come a long way?" he asked.

"Not so far as you," Hirald said. She looked from him across the flames to the woman. Her face also bore caste marks. The other couple were a black man with incongruous blue eyes, and a woman who had caps over the neural plugs behind her ears. She was corporate then-from one of The Families.

Hirald went on, "But why have you come here, I wonder?"

"We search," the black said intently. "Perhaps you can help us. We search for one who is called Snow. He is an albino."

They all stared at Hirald. "I have heard of him," Hirald said, "and I have heard that many people look for him. I do not know where he is though."

The woman with the neural plugs looked suspicious. Hirald quickly asked, "You are after the reward, then?"

The four glanced to each other, then the Marsman smiled to himself and casually reached for one of the covered weapons beside him. Hirald glanced at the Corporate woman, who stared back at her.

"Jharit, no."

Jharit stopped with his hand by the covering. "What is it, Canard Meck?"

The woman, now identified as a member of the Jethro Manx Canard Corporate Family, slowly shook her head, still staring at Hirald.

"We have no dispute with you," she said. "But we would prefer it if you left our camp, please."

"She might tell him," Jharit protested.

Canard Meck glanced to him and said, "She is product."

Jharit s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand from the weapons and suddenly looked very frightened. He flinched as Hirald rose to her feet. Hirald smiled.

"I mean no harm, unless harm is meant."

She strode out into the darkness without checking behind. No one moved. No one reached for the weapons.

Snow removed the pistol from its holster in his dust robes and checked the charge reading. As was usual it was nearly full. The bright sunlight of Vatch acting on the photo-voltaic material of his robes kept the weapon constantly powered up through the socket in the holster. The weapon was a matt black L, five millimeters thick with only a slight depression where a trigger would normally have been. It was keyed to Snow. No one else could fire it. Rather than firing projectiles, as did most weapons on Vatch, this weapon discharged a beam of field-accelerated protons, but they could still make large holes in anyone Snow cared to point it at.

David Songrel was a family man. Snow had observed him lifting a child high in the air while a woman looked on. Snow wondered why Aleen wanted him dead. As the owner of the water station she had power here, but little influence over the proctors who enforced planetary law. Perhaps she had been involved in illegalities of which Songrel had become aware. No matter, for the present. He rapped on the door and when Songrel opened it he stuck the pistol in the man's face and walked him back into the apartment, closing the door behind him with his stump.

"Daddy!" the little girl yelled, but the mother caught hold of her before she rushed forward. Songrel had his hands in the air, his eyes not leaving the pistol. Shock there, knowledge.

"Why," said Snow, "does the Androche want you dead?"

"You're...the albino."

"Answer the question please."

Songrel glanced at his wife and daughter before he replied, "She is a collector of antiquities."

"Why the necessity for your death?"

"She has killed to get what she wants. I have evidence. We intend to arrest her soon."

Snow nodded, then holstered his pistol. "I thought it would be something like that. She had two proctors come for me, you know."

Songrel lowered his hands, but kept them well away from the stun gun hooked on his belt. "As Androche she has the right to some use of the proctors. It is our duty to guard her and her property. She does not have the freedom to commit crime. Why didn't you kill me? They say you have killed many."

Snow glanced at Songrel's wife and child. "My reputation precedes me," he said, and stepped past Songrel to drop onto a comfortable sofa. "But the stories are in error. I have killed no one who has not first tried to kill me...well, mostly."

Songrel turned to his wife. "It's Tamtha's bedtime."

His wife nodded and took the child from the room. Snow noted the little girl's fascinated stare. He was used to it. Songrel sat down in an armchair opposite Snow. "You have a nice family."

"Yes...will you testify against the Androche?"

"You can have my testimony recorded under seal, but I cannot stay for a trial. Were I to stay this place would be crawling with Andronache killers in no time. I might not survive that."

Songrel nodded. "Why did you come here if it was not your intention to kill me?" he asked, a trifle anxiously.

"I want you to play dead while I go back and see the Androche."

Songrel's expression hardened. "You want to collect your reward."

"Yes, but my reward is not money, it is information. The Androche knows why Merchant Baris wants me dead. It is a subject I am understandably curious about."

Songrel interlaced his fingers and stared down at them for a moment. When he looked up he said, "The reward is for your stasis-preserved t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. Perhaps he is a collector like Aleen, but that is beside the point. I will play dead for you, but when you go to see Aleen I want you to carry a holocorder."

Snow nodded once. Songrel stood up and walked to a wall cupboard. He returned with the device, rested it on the table and turned it on.

"Now, your statement."

"He is dead," Aleen said, smiling.

"Yes," Snow confirmed, dropping Songrel's ident.i.ty tag on the table, "yet I get the impression you knew before I came here."

Aleen went to the drinks cabinet, poured Snow a whiskey and brought it over to him. "I have friends among the proctors. As soon as his wife called in the killing-she was hysterical apparently-they informed me."

"Why did you want him killed?"

"That is none of your concern. Drink your whiskey and I will get you the promised information."

Aleen turned away from him and moved to a computer console elegantly concealed in a Louis XIV table. Snow had the whiskey to his lips just as his suspicious nature cut in. Why was it necessary to get the information from the computer? She could just tell him. Why had she not poured a drink for herself?

He set the drink down on a table, unsampled. Aleen looked up, a dead smile on her face, and as her hand came up over the console Snow dived to one side. On the wall behind him a picture blackened, then burst into oily flames. He came up on one knee and fired once. She slammed back out of her chair onto the floor, her face burning like the picture.

Snow searched hurriedly. Any time now the proctors would arrive. In the bathroom he found a device like a chrome p.e.n.i.s with two holes in the end. One hole spurted out some kind of fluid and the other hole sucked. Some kind of contraceptive device? He traced tubes back from it to a unit that contained the bottle of fluid and some very complicated straining and filtering devices. To his confusion he realized it was for removing the contents of a woman's uterus, probably after s.e.x. She collected men's s.e.m.e.n? Shortly after, he found a single stasis bottle containing that substance. It had to be his own. He suddenly he had an inkling of an idea-a possible explanation for his situation of the last five years. He took the bottle and poured its contents down the sink before turning to leave the apartment, but the delay had been enough.

Hirald looked at the man in the condensation bottle, her expression revealing nothing. He was alive beyond his time; some s.a.d.i.s.t had dropped a bottle of water in with him to prolong his suffering. He stared at Hirald with drying eyes, the empty bottle by his head, his body shrunken and badly sunburned, his black tongue protruding. Hirald looked around carefully-there were harsh penalties for what she was about to do-then placed a small chrome cylinder against the gla.s.s near the man's head. There was a brief flash. The man convulsed and the bottle was misted with smoke and steam. Hirald replaced the device in her pocket, stood and walked on. Her masters would not have been pleased at her risking herself like this, but they did not have complete control over her actions.

The gray-bearded proctor was crouched behind the sofa, his short-barreled riot gun resting on the back and sighted on the bathroom door. Songrel stood by the moisture lock, his own weapon also trained on Snow.

Songrel glanced across at the Androche's corpse. "You will be staying for the trial," he said, nodding to the proctor.

The man stood and moved across the room, not letting Snow out of his sights for a moment. Even as the barrel of the riot gun was pushed up under Snow's chin he noted how the man was careful not to block Songrel's field of fire. Snow allowed his weapon to be taken. Maybe he could have dealt with the proctor, but not Songrel as well. Now the proctor backed off, flicking one puzzled glance at the weapon he had taken before pocketing it.

Songrel opened the moisture lock and gestured Snow over. There, maybe, Snow thought. He walked over, stepped through the lock and glanced behind him. The proctor, staying well back, shook his head and grinned. Swearing under his breath, Snow shut his plastron mask and ducked out into the arid day.

They gave him no openings, not on the stairs nor out on the dusty street. Always, one of them would be covering him from a distance of two or three paces. Snow was fast; faster than most people had reason to suspect, but not fast enough to outrun a bullet or energy charge.

"You know you're killing me," he said to Songrel.

"There'll be guards during the trial, and we'll give you an escort after...if you're released," Songrel replied.

Opening his dust robes so both of them could see clearly what he was doing, he reached to the back of his belt and removed the holocorder Songrel had given him.

"You've got all the evidence you need here, and I have to wonder how many of your guards might be tempted by the merchant's reward."

Songrel appeared pained at this; he stepped closer to take the recording device, his weapon directed at Snow's mask.

The woman seemed to come out of nowhere: one moment all movement in the street was warily distant, then she was there, holding the proctor's riot gun as he stumbled and went face down. Songrel's aim slid aside to track her.

That was enough of an opening for Snow. He snapped his boot forward, catching the man in the gut, then chopped down on the back of his neck as he bowed forward. Songrel's gun thudded into the dust.

Snow dropped, s.n.a.t.c.hed and rolled, coming up to get the woman in his sights. She wasn't there.

"I think this is yours," she said, to one side of him.

Turning his head only, he observed her. With one hand she was covering him with the riot gun. In her other hand she was holding his own weapon. She lowered the riot gun.

"Perhaps now would be a good time to leave?"