Angel of Destruction (30 page)

If anything goes wrong
, Aunt Agenis wrote on the next gel-sheet in the pan.
Get Modice out of here
.

It was a firm hand, though written on a gel-sheet. The tension and the waiting, the uncertainty and the anxiety, were taking their toll on Walton Agenis; but she saw as clearly and as far as ever she had. Kazmer could only bow in her direction. It was not for nothing that she had been called the Deep-Minded.

“I’d better not, Modice, your aunt wants me out of the house. But if there’s anything I can do, you send for me, all right? You don’t have to toady to this harridan; she’d rather see you dead than with me. And I could make you happy.”

He kept his tone very reasonable and calm, he thought. All things considered. Walton Agenis straightened up in her chair so abruptly that she spilled half the water in her glass, her face suddenly transfused with mirth despite it all, and mouthed the words back at him with a look of exaggerated outrage.
Harridan?

“You can’t talk about my aunt that way.” Modice’s voice trembled as she fought to keep her composure. “Perhaps you’d better leave, Kazmer.”

The gel-sheet in his glass had dissolved; Modice would take the unused sheets back to the kitchen, to make cellophane dumplings. It took a steady hand to make Langsarik cellophane dumplings under the best of circumstances. That she could pretend to do so convincingly under these was a measure of her nerve.

“Well. I’m sorry you feel that way.” He could express all the resentment he had a right to feel, without holding back. Modice made wonderful cellophane dumplings. He wouldn’t be there to help eat them. “You’ll be sorry. I wouldn’t wait too long to change my mind if I were you, though. I’ve got my pride, you know.”

And she could buy it for three dumplings and a smile. She had. Or rather she could have, in the past, because it was no good anymore, no matter how good a cook she was.

Take care of Modice
, Walton Agenis had said.

Now that it was too late, she would trust him.

Kazmer paused on the threshold of Agenis’s house to let the resentful anguish in his heart paint his countenance an appropriate shade of outrage and insulted fury; and left them there together in the surreal shadows of the floodlit house.

###

“The Third Fleet Interrogations Group is due off the Sillume exit vector in twenty hours.” They would be able to stage from the new airfield at the construction site; Dalmoss was in no danger of an accidental meeting with any Malcontents, Sarvaw or otherwise, out here. Those people were in Port Charid proper, where they belonged.

No, they belonged in Hell, but it was not Fisner Feraltz’s mission to see them escorted safely to their destination — he knew where his special duty lay. “You must be near enough to the entrance vector to make pursuit a clear waste of energy.”

“How do I know that, eldest and firstborn?” Dalmoss asked, and there was just the slightest trace of insubordinate challenge in his voice. His long days of seclusion had worn upon him; the proximity of the Langsarik corpse had made him nervous. It would be all right. After this Dalmoss would be able to rest and recreate himself in the bosom of his family, at home, on Arakcheyek. “In order to time my raid. Must I have special knowledge?”

Good question. Fisner thought for a moment. “The Langsarik leader was present when we talked to Chilleau Judiciary. She passed on the information somehow. If you set your margin carefully enough, it will seem clear that you miscalculated, you didn’t expect the Fleet Interrogations Group in system so soon, you flee in disarray — leaving the body of at least one of your people behind.”

Hilton Shires.

How beautifully it all fit together, when the Holy Mother smiled upon the enterprise.

“Twenty hours. Ten hours from the exit vector to Port Charid.” Dalmoss was talking it through, out loud. Fisner could bear the trivial details of it patiently: it would serve as a useful check on the soundness of Dalmoss’s reasoning, tipping Fisner off if he needed to retire his raid leader. “Four hours from Port Charid to Honan-gung, at this time of year. So if we leave in panic and disarray as soon as the Fleet Interrogations Group clears the vector, there is no point in pursuing us.”

Dalmoss would hit Honan-gung; there would be a raid in process as the Fleet Interrogations Group came off the Sillume exit vector. The raiders would escape, but they would not be able to save their families. The Bench’s punishment would be stern and swift — though after the Fleet Interrogations Group had done its work, the Bench sanctions would be perhaps something of an afterthought.

“You must prepare,” Fisner urged Dalmoss to energize him, get him going. “You must be away from Honan-gung inside of thirty-four hours. There is much to do. This is our finest moment, second eldest and next born.”

Dalmoss bowed, his expression determined and joyful. “Sweet indeed is Holy ordinance, firstborn and eldest. With your blessing we triumph.”

With the Holy Mother Herself on their side they were invincible.

Before two days had passed it would be over for the Langsariks at Port Charid.

Chapter Eleven

Hilton lay flat on his back on a scoot-plank on the floor beneath the crane’s trolley with a probe in one hand and a gleam in the other. “What exactly am I looking for, Jevan?” he asked, trying to make sense of the bewildering array of nozzles and blind access bits on the underside of the crane’s power box. “Hydraulic scan? Flux regulation coupling?”

Silence.

Hilton wondered if he’d lost his work partner. That was more serious than not knowing what to do with the problem at hand. Jevan was the only Dolgorukij on the crew here, the man the Malcontent had identified as a probable agent for the Angel of Destruction. Hilton needed Jevan where he could keep an eye on him, figuratively if not literally. If Jevan had some means of sending a covert signal to warn the raiders away, Hilton needed to know immediately.

So where had Jevan gone?

Footsteps approached the crane trolley where Hilton lay; Jevan. Maybe. “Sorry, Shires.” Yes, that was Jevan. “Maybe we should hold off on this for now. I just heard, there’s a freighter coming in. They might need help load-out.”

Hilton thought for a moment. Jevan could have heard, yes, if he’d been chatting with someone in the dock-master’s office when contact was made.

“Maybe we should all go get sticks,” Hilton suggested, not moving. “Can’t be too careful. Might be Langsariks.”

Jevan laughed, crouching on his heels to stick his face into the gap between the bottom of the crane’s trolley and the floor.

“You’re a funny man.”

Jevan could well laugh, Hilton told himself, excitement building within him. If Kazmer’s Cousin Stanoczk was right, Jevan already knew that they weren’t Langsarik raiders.

“Come out from there, Hilton, we’ll be wanted.”

Yes, he’d wager on it. Shutting off his gleam, arms straight to his sides, Hilton pushed himself out from underneath the crane’s trolley on his scoot-plank, using his feet for propulsion. “No arguments from me, friend. I’d much rather load than muck around with this stuff.”

He felt a tingling sensation, in the sole of his work boot.

Vibration from the movement of the scoot-plank?

No.

Vogel’s signal.

Jevan was holding out a hand to help him up. Hilton took the welcome assistance in the spirit in which it was offered. It was nothing personal. Jevan was a perfectly amiable person; but he was in league with the enemy of the Langsariks, plotting the ruin of the Langsariks. There was blood to balance between them besides.

Maybe it was personal after all — at least on Hilton’s part.

“Ready?” Jevan asked. “I should probably go and find the others. In case we’re needed.”

What made Jevan so sure that they would be?

Still, it might just be common practice on warehouse crews to minimize work effort. “I know,” Hilton suggested, to enter into the spirit of the game. “I’ll go help find people. I think Teller and Ames are on remote.”

The hesitation in Jevan’s eyes was very quickly masked. “Well. Sure. Why not? I’ll get out to interim stores, then.” But it was there; and Hilton could have smiled out loud to see it, except that he might be misinterpreted. Or tip Jevan off.

The signal buzzed twice more in his work boot and was still.

Hilton waited until Jevan was out of sight; then turned, heading toward the corridors that led to the maintenance tunnels for the remote sites where the solar arrays were generating the station’s power.

Where he had a raiding party that needed to get to the docking bay.

They had been on alert for two days. They were ready for some action.

###

Garol Vogel stood behind the dock-master in her office with his back to the windows in the wall, watching as she engaged the incoming craft.

“All right,
Melrick
, your credentials clear. Permission to dock, transmit your manifest.”

It claimed to be the freighter
Melrick
from the Bortic Yards, outbound from Charid for Lorton and scheduled to carry a consignment of cultural artifacts for the cultural institute there as well as licensed replicas for sale on the open market.

“Freighter
Melrick
here, thank you, dock-master. Initiating transmit.” Was it his imagination — Garol wondered — or did he recognize that voice? Had he heard it somewhere before? One thing was for certain — the accent was good. Garol knew it wasn’t really Langsariks. He believed and hoped it wasn’t Langsariks. But the freighter’s captain sounded Langsarik to Garol.

The freighter claimed to have off-loaded at Port Charid and taken on cargo at the Combine Yards before paying a visit to Honan-gung as its next-to-last stop before it made the Sillume entry vector. The next-to-last part was a good touch, Garol felt. Subtle. These people were good.

Garol watched the freighter on approach as its manifest scrolled over the receiver. Shires was with the Dolgorukij, but not so close that the man had no opportunity to send the all clear for the raid to his headquarters. There had been no signal that Garol had intercepted: yet the freighter was here. Garol could only hope that meant that the signal would only have been sent if there had been a problem.

Kazmer Daigule had been tracking the freighter
Melrick
without pause since it had made rendezvous earlier today with a freighter tender from Port Charid —
that
freighter tender, the one whose weight indicated that it was carrying battle cannon or something equivalently and anomalously heavy.

This was what they had been waiting for.

The hardest part of this mission was about to start. He had to keep the raiders distracted while the Langsariks did their thing.

All he really wanted to do was to borrow someone’s weapon and shoot them all, simply shoot them all, for the trouble they had caused and the people they had killed, for the hazard they’d created for a people trying to integrate peacefully into Jurisdiction, for the shockingly insolent disregard they showed toward civil society and the common right of common people to live free from fear in an ordered society.

And he couldn’t.

He had a duty to the Bench to uphold the rule of Law. That meant not just doing the right thing, but doing it the right way.

“Pretty exhaustive,” the dock-master said to the freighter on the communications line, as Garol tracked the progress of the docking sequence on the monitors. “This could take some putting together.”

He had people in position, but if the freighter simply blew in, they would do him no good. He had to trust to the basic mercantile instinct of the Dolgorukij hominid. There was good loot to be had at Honan-gung. Even with its provenance destroyed or forged, the cargo that the freighter was requisitioning would generate a lot of free cash flow. Secret terrorist societies were almost always short of cash for funding.

“Yes, I know, dock-master.” The freighter captain’s voice was regretful and a little diffident over the communications line. “Unfortunately for me, I’m already on deficit time. Any chance of putting a rush on? I’ve got ten casks of something here. I can’t say it’s drinking alcohol because it’s on my manifest as syrup. We somehow didn’t quite manage to obtain any tariff seals, either, so you know I have to get rid of it somehow before I reach the Port Authority in Lorton. Just in case.”

So far it conformed to the pattern Daigule had described. There had to be a way to collect the crew all in one place, and it had to be something relatively unremarkable and ordinary, something that wouldn’t arouse any suspicion. The raiders knew that Daigule was at Port Charid; but by the same token — if their intelligence was as good as their historical successes indicated — they also knew that Daigule’s evidence had not been published. No one had been warned; at least not so far as the raiders knew.

“Well. In that case,” the dock-master said, giving Garol a wink that went by too quickly for him to be sure he’d actually seen it. “I’ll let the crew know. Pressurization sequence initiating. Stand by.”

This was crucial.

The outer bay pressurized; the blast curtain rolled back, and the freighter tracked forward slowly into position with its cargo bays accessible.

The freighter captain’s voice came back across the communications link. “We’ll be doing some cargo shift while we’re here,” the captain said. “Won’t be able to start load immediately. Should be ready by the time cargo’s assembled, hope you understand.”

Garol nodded to the dock-master. Perfect.

They didn’t seem to be planning on moving troops onto the floor concealed in cargo cases this time. It was all to the good if the raiders stayed in the freighter until they thought it was time to make their move, though it complicated the task of Shires’s commando. Garol wanted to minimize any potential shooting.

But there were no cameras, no motion detectors, no surveillance in the murky deeps of the docking bay on the other side of the freighter; there was no way to be sure that Shires and his team could pull it off.

“No problem,” the dock-master said. “It’ll give us a chance to get organized ourselves. We’ll be ready when you are.”

Garol hoped so.

It was all up to Shires now.

And Shires had even more to lose than he did.

###

Crouched behind the waist-tall roll of ground cloth at the far end of the docking bay, Hilton listened to the feed from the dock-master’s office, scanning the freighter with an assessing eye. Late-model Corense shipyards, deep-space cruiser, fit for live and other perishable cargo; the perfect vehicle for transport of luxury goods, and if it carried cannon, what of it? A freighter had a right to self-defense. There were pirates to contend with.

“So. How’s the weather in port?” the dock-master asked, her voice casual in Hilton’s ear over the communications feed from the docking bay on the other side of the freighter. Making conversation. Keeping the freighter engaged.

People were starting to filter into the docking bay; the first cargo crates were arriving. He thought he could see Jevan among the workers.

Hilton looked down the line to his left. Leaning forward slightly, Ousel met his eyes. Hilton looked to the flank of the freighter and back to Ousel; Ousel nodded.

Hilton slid to the right over the rough flooring to clear space for Ousel’s people to exit. Four of them, keeping low but not crawling, careful to stay in the shadows that the freighter cast. There would be no sensor net that would pick up a hominid. Corense freighters carried damage control for space debris, but the ship’s comps knew better than to irritate their master by sounding an alarm every time a maintenance crew came belly under in docks.

“Oh, about the same, dock-master.” The freighter captain didn’t sound all that interested in the weather, though. “Say. We’ll be ready to start load-in soon. We’d sure appreciate any help you can provide.”

Jevan would be counting, probably, but there was no way Hilton could see that Jevan could communicate directly with the ship. Maybe the freighter captain was counting as well.

Filappe next.

The external accesses on Corense freighters were usually distributed evenly across three intervals aft, mid-ship, and forward. Filappe had the spanners. There were no pressure alarms to fear, since the bay was pressurized. They had all studied the layout. If this wasn’t the ship Kazmer had fingered, they were all in potential trouble — so Hilton wanted to find out as soon as possible.

“And we’ll really appreciate your discards.” The dock-master’s voice was clear and carried well over the feed from the dock-master’s office that Hilton was carrying. “Got one or two more people yet to notify, but cargo’s coming together beautifully. You’ll see.”

He got the middle access.

Three of his team beside him, Hilton crept stealthily to the side of the freighter, anxious to identify his point of entry. He was off by some lengths, but it was all right, because Vogel had worked it with the dock-master. The lighting was on their side as much as possible. He could move down the flank of the freighter safe from observation.

But get in?

The bolts on the access port were clean and freshly coated. Hilton felt a moment’s panic as he ran his hand around the outline of the access panel. It was too fresh. Had someone bolted it from inside?

Shilla had the wrench.

Torbe slid the cutting edge of a flexible knife around the edges of the bolts where they met the freighter’s skin, then stepped back.

Shilla fit the tool to bolt and leaned on it, but nothing moved. Backing away, Shilla stared at the bolt with what looked like horror on her face, in the dim light. Then she leaned into the bolt again: it moved this time, it gave against her weight, and going by the grateful glance she flashed at Hilton — grateful for success, and sharing her emotion — it had been sheer anxiety, and not horror, that he’d seen before.

There were nine bolts.

Torbe and Vilner held the panel as Shilla pulled the last bolt, easing the panel away from the side of the freighter as it came down. Hilton gave Shilla a hand up into the freighter’s outside maintenance passage. Once he and Shilla were both inside, Torbe and Vilner passed the outer panel through, so that they could lean it up against the wall of the passageway on the inside. No sense in putting it on the ground, where some ill chance might lead to premature discovery.

Holding up his hand for absolute stillness, Hilton listened for alarms that the ship might send if its hull was breached. There was a good reason to be confident that there would be none; most such alarms depended upon a sudden catastrophic loss of atmosphere, or some anomalous decline in the air pressure within the passageways closest to the hull.

He didn’t hear any alarms.

He heard some sounds coming through the open hull, indistinct noises that bounced off the far wall of the docking bay from the opposite side of the ship. He heard — or thought he heard — the stealthy whisper of fabric against fabric from far down the corridors, on his right, on his left, as the other teams worked.

Satisfied, he gave his team the nod.

There were access portals between the maintenance passageways in the ship’s hull and the ship’s interior. Any such access portal was required by common practice and common sense to have an external override. People got trapped against the hull. It happened. They had to be able to get back into the ship whether or not the portal had been locked off from inside.