Black Steel (8 page)

Ells had meant to kill her.

Why?

More important than the attack, since it had failed, was the motive behind it. People didn't just up and kill other people without reason, not unless they were mentally disturbed. Ells had planned this in advance; Wu was certain that he had joined her dojo with the intent already formed, and that kind of premeditation might spring from madness, but it didn't make sense. It took intent to prepare a practice sword as a killing weapon, especially as carefully as Ells had done it.

Before the medics arrived, best if she could determine why Ells wanted her dead.

She'd had her students carry the wounded man into her office, where he was sprawled now upon the couch. The class had been dismissed and she and Ells were alone. He was not particularly comfortable, one lung collapsed as it was, and having trouble breathing, but she didn't think he was in imminent danger of dying. The shards of shattered bamboo were still buried in him, sticking out of his side.

Wu squatted next to the couch. Why?"

Ells managed to shake his head. Was not going to tell her.

She reached out and lightly touched one of the bamboo spears embedded in him, wiggling it with her fingertip.

Ells groaned. "Don't, that hurts!"

"If I hit this with the heel of my hand, I expect I can drive it all the way into your heart, if it isn't touching it already."

His already pale face seemed to go whiter.

"I haven't called the medics yet. I could have com problems and you could bleed to death and get cold enough so they couldn't bring you back."

"You . . . wouldn't."

"Tell me why."

Ells stared at her, looking for truth. He must have found it. He started to talk. What he said was most interesting. When he was done, Wu called the medics. She watched him carefully until the medical team arrived and took him.

Well. It looked as if she would be leaving Koji for a time. An ancient score had come to light. An old story from long before she had been born, materializing out of the past like a ghost to haunt her. She would have preferred that it had not, but there was no help for it. She would have to attend to it.

It was a matter of honor.

Chapter EIGHT

IN THE HOUSE of Black Steel, Cierto the Patron considered his recently collected data. Most of it was straightforward enough: his quarry had fled Earth for the world of Mtu, in the company of the matador identified as Sleel.

Once there, they had boarded a train-a train, how quaint!-and traveled across the continent to the border of the scientific station colloquially known as The Brambles. Local records showed that the pair had been admitted into the station-an achievement of no small difficulty, Cierto was able to determine. From there, there were no more specifics as to where the two men had gone, at least nothing available to Cierto's stealthware.

The master of the casa stood alone in his private gym, facing a stolid-looking oversize lac generated for wrist-strengthening exercises. The lac shuffled in and brought its blade-a two-handed Mtian broadsword-down in a headsplitter cut.

Cierto stepped back and brought his right hand up with his own sword in an upward block, absorbing the force of the blow. It jarred his wrist, arm and shoulder. As the lac lifted its heavy weapon for another cut, Cierto shifted his sword to his left hand, tossing it easily without looking. He caught the handle and turned his body slightly, sliding his right foot back, leaving his left foot forward.

So. The thief had run, not unexpected. But surely a man who had lived most of his life looking over his shoulder for pursuit by various authorities should be more adept at hiding his trail?

The lac whipped the broadsword down.

Cierto blocked.

The clang was realistic enough, as was the vibration that tested Cierto's grip and arm. The lac shuffled forward for its next attack, a lunge for the heart. Cierto tossed the sword back to his right hand.

The lac thrust the point of its sword at the man.

Cierto used an inward block, holding his sword point up and snapping it across his chest. The lac's stab was deflected; it passed harmlessly next to Cierto's left shoulder. Cierto shifted grips once again for the next attack, the balancing sinister to the previous dexter.

Thrust-

Inward block-

The next attacks were high, a looping slice to Cierto's neck, first on his right, then the opposite side.

Outward blocks stopped both.

The final attacks of the programmed series were low, stabs at the man's groin, identical moves on the lac's part, but once again requiring that Cierto switch hands to meet them. Upward, outward, inward, downward. In theory, a man could cover his entire body with just these four blocks; they were basic to nearly all martial arts, armed or empty-handed. Since a sword was merely an extension of the hand, the moves looked similar to those of a karate player or Sengatist. The difference was that a missed karate block would be cause for a damaging blow from a fist, whereas a miss here was worth death from a razored edge.

The lac bowed slightly and assumed a defensive pose, so that Cierto could become the attacker.

"Off," Cierto said.

The lac shimmered and was gone.

No, he did not need to practice these skills on an artificiality. He had wasted enough precious ammunition on this old thief who continued to live and plague his house. It was time indeed for the Patron to take the field and demonstrate what must be done.

As the ground cart rolled through the lanes toward Prime, Sleel felt the pressure of the sameness around him. Occasionally there was a break in the trees, where one had died and been replaced with a younger one, but by and large the continuity was there. They didn't seem to have grown very much in twenty years, he'd expected that.

Sleel and Reason were alone in the cart, a programmed unit supposedly sealed until it arrived at its destination. As a teener, Sleel had learned how to reprogram the carts; most people who lived in The Brambles knew how to do that. The carts had originally been a Confederation safeguard, designed to ferry outside people to and from the various guarded locations, not allowing them to stop and poke around on their own. When the Republic arose from the ruin of the Confederation, the carts were left in place, since they worked well enough, but the penalties for misusing them had gone down.

The little vehicles continued to roll on their cushioned wheels, the plastic exteriors age-worn, the seats inside sagging and hardly comfortable. Still, they were a lot faster than walking. The tops were hard and clear plastic, so a good view-such as there was to see--could be had, save when the yellow-brown pollen from the trees accumulated on the carts and blurred things. Locals who had money could buy flitters or hoppers if they wanted, and many had, but the carts were still used because they were free.

"Amazing," Reason said. "I had no idea how extensive these things were. A whole country of giant sticker bushes."

"Yeah, well, if the stuff works, they're gonna want a lot of it. It's a big galaxy."

"You have an insider's knowledge; you think the longevity chem won't work?"

Sleel shook his head. "No, it'll work. My parents don't make that kind of error." Yeah, they're great with plants, it's people they can't handle.

"Do they know we're coming?"

"I thought I'd surprise them."

Sleel shifted to stare through the pollen-dusty plastic. No, he hadn't called them. Probably even if he had, they would have forgotten about it within a few minutes. They were both still fairly young, early seventies, but they were also narrowly focused. An only son coming home after more than two decades would hardly rank in the same category as a patent graft or a new theory about enhanced photosynthesis.

"How much farther?"

"Another hour," Sleel said. "I think I'll just grab a little sleep. Wake me if a webbit tries to attack the cart."

Sleel closed his eyes and deepened his breathing, but he was not about to drift into sleep's welcome oblivion. Just as well, given his dreams of late.

Going home. Well, it hadn't been home for a long time, but it was one of the few constants in his life.

Maybe they'd be glad to see him. Maybe he could impress them with what he'd done. Yeah. Right. And maybe he could learn to fly by waving his arms.

The boxcar to the ship leaving Koji was scheduled for a midday lift and Wu had her seat confirmed. The port was in Rakkaus, the City of Love, and it was a town unto itself. Wu carried her sword inside an officially sealed security travel tube, hanging from a strap over her left shoulder, and what little else she'd packed in a small bag slung over the other shoulder. She had almost an hour before boarding, and she wandered through the port, looking at the displays. Since this was Koji, most of the holoprojic or real displays had religious themes. Here were the Tillbedjare Artifacts, or a stylized rendering of them, the Hand and Eye and Mind; a few meters away the Libhober display showed the Prophet Stekarie achieving his cosmic flash of Oneness. Here sat the Buddha, contemplating the Eightfold Way; there the Trimenagists Shifting Triangle pulsed and glowed, beckoning. The Siblings of the Shroud had a computer to answer questions. The Jesuits manned a recruiting station. And past that-Past that was a war memorial.

Wu stopped in front of the memorial and stared at it. It was an endlessly changing projection of faces, taken from ID graphs, people and mues, children, men, women, dozens of them, but each dissolving into another face within a few seconds, timed so that the effect was almost hypnotic. Bearded men transformed into smooth-faced boys, old women into younger ones, mues into basic stocks.

As each face faded and was replaced, the colors of skin and hair and eyes shifted through the ranges of all races and configurations. The family of man was indeed vast, including in it genetically altered brothers and sisters who stretched the boundaries far and wide. These were the faces of those who had died during the galactic revolution that had toppled the Confed, millions of them, and it would take a lot longer than any one person could stand here to see the cycle through. There was no sound, no identification attached to the images, just the continuing pulse of humanity.

Whenever she traveled, Wu would pause here for a few moments. Somewhere in those constantly altering faces was her sister. She had never seen her appear; she was in the viral matrix of the computer's program, just as she continued in Wu's own memory. A heroine of the revolution she had been.

Ah, sister. If I could only have a few minutes with you, to say all I never got to say.

Wu turned away. So many faces. It sometimes overwhelmed her to think about it. The numbers of those who had died had no meaning, but looking upon this memorial made them real. The sons and daughters and fathers and mothers and uncles and cousins who had been caught in the sweep of history and taken away from those who had loved them continued to pulse behind her, but she could not look. She wanted to see her sister, and yet, she did not think she could bear it if ever she finally did.

On the floor under the display were various items left by those who had come to see the memorial.

Holographs, flowers, medals, a candy bar, coins, tiny world flags and other things that had some meaning to those who had left them, and perhaps once to those who silently appeared and faded in the flux above them. Offerings to memory they were, and even though a service din came and cleaned them all up once a day, the floor was never bare here.

It must be getting close to boarding time.

Wu walked away from the memorial.

Sleel and Reason arrived at Prime and the cart rolled to a quiet stop, then opened itself. What luggage they had was easily carried, small personal items bought in port, a change of clothes, little else. They had left in a hurry.

Sleel's breath came and went in a sigh as he stepped out onto the land of his birth and childhood. The smell was all too familiar, the feel of the air, the heat of the tropical sun. Sweat gathered under his orthoskins, seeking evaporation and failing to find it.

"Little warm," Reason observed.

"Yeah. This way."

The main complex was shaped roughly like a letter G. The top curve was of biolabs and climate-controlled greenhouses, of which there were five separate-but-joined-by-tubeway buildings. The back of the letter was given over to four supply and stores buildings, as well as a formal gathering hall, almost never used. The base of the curve was a pair of large shops for maintenance of dins and other machineries, and a power plant. The inverted and reversed Langle consisted of housing; single, double and family units sufficient to hold fifty families in moderate comfort. Sleel's parents' unit was the last one on the inside tip, past the center of the G. Prime was the size of a small village, and stocked fully, easily self-sufficient for more than three years.

When Sleel and Reason arrived, there was nobody else in sight, save a pair of old exterior dins set to maintain the grounds. One of the robots lurched to the left on a damaged tread and had to keep correcting itself, moving in a jerky fan-shaped pattern.

Sleel laughed.

"Something funny about a lame din?"

"Not by itself. Only, that din was doing the same thing when I saw it last."

"You sure it's the same one?"

"Yeah. I carved my initials into it with a grafting laser, see?" He pointed at the lurching robot.

"Poor maintenance?" Reason said.

"Nah. They probably fixed it a dozen times. Things just don't program well, have to replace the whole brain and it's easier to patch it than replace it."

"Odd philosophy."

"They're all scientists here, they spend a lot of time in the future and not the present. Old cliche, but true, they tend to be dreamy about the little things." Yeah. Dreamy about things like food, shelter and . . .children.

The cube looked the same from the outside. The wear-ever plastic was a little more faded from the effects of weather, a paler blue than he remembered. The exterior gardens had different growths in them, but that had changed fairly frequently even when he'd lived here.