Logos Run (2 page)

But the chill that Norr felt was not entirely physical. Other senses had come into play, too, senses that norms possess, but rarely take full advantage of. What one of them might have experienced as a vague uneasiness, Norr saw as a roiling blackness, and knew the sensation for what it was: negative energy being broadcast by a group of hostile minds. The sensitive put her hand on Rebo’s arm. “Jak . . . Wake up . . . Something is wrong.”

But the warning came too late. One of the angens uttered a bloodcurdling scream as an arrow sank into its haunch, and a pair of hobnailed boots made a thumping sound as a bandit landed on the roof. That noise was followed by a loud
boom
as the driver triggered his blunderbuss and sent a dozen .30-caliber lead balls into the undergrowth where the archer was concealed. But that did nothing to protect the coachman from the garrote that dropped over his head, or the noose that began to tighten around his throat. He had little choice but to release both his weapon
and
the reins in a desperate effort to restore his air supply.

“On the roof!” Norr exclaimed, as her companions awoke. “Bandits!”

Like all his kind, Bo Hoggles had a body that had been designed for life on heavy-gravity worlds. That meant he was strong,
so
strong that he could smash a massive fist up through the thin roof, and grab the bandit’s ankle. That was sufficient to scare the would-be thief, who was forced to let go of the garrote, while he attempted to pry the heavy’s sausagelike fingers off his ankle. And that’s what he was doing when Rebo drew the semiautomatic Crosser, pointed the weapon up toward the ceiling, and fired two ten-millimeter rounds through the roof. One bullet missed, but the other struck the brigand in the back and severed his spinal cord. The coach rocked sickeningly as Hoggles let go; the body bounced into the air and fell past Norr’s window.

The driver had control of the reins by then, but no amount of swearing could make the wounded angen run faster, and that slowed the rest. All of which was part of the time-tested process that the bandits traditionally relied upon to bring their prey to a standstill. So, while the loss of Brother Becko was regrettable, the brigands had every expectation of success as the coach slowed and finally came to a stop. What they
didn’t
expect were the people who emerged from the carriage. A heavy, armed with a war hammer, a norm with a gun in each fist, and a sensitive with a metal-tipped wooden staff. But in spite of the fact that the passengers were clearly more formidable than the bejeweled merchants the bandit leader had been hoping for, he had little choice but to hurl himself forward as a volley of arrows arched overhead.

Rather than exert
more
control over her body, Norr let go instead. That allowed her full array of senses to unfold. The staff made patterns in the air as the variant whirled. There was a series of clacking sounds as half a dozen arrows were intercepted, broken in half, and left to fall like wooden rain.

Hoggles was not so graceful, or so fortunate, since he made an excellent target. Two arrows thumped into his chest, but neither possessed the force required to penetrate the mesh-lined leather armor the variant had purchased in CaCanth. And, having fully recovered from the injuries suffered at the Ree Ree River, the hard-charging giant was among the bandits in a matter of moments. Blood flew as the enormous war hammer struck this way and that, while his basso war cry dominated the field of battle.

Nor was that the worst of it, because even as the berserker met the main body of the onrushing brigands in hammer-to-head combat, Rebo was busy shooting at the rest. It was aimed fire, which meant that nearly every bullet found its mark, and that added to the slaughter.

And so it was that having lost fully half his band in a matter of minutes, and with a bullet lodged in his left thigh, the group’s leader issued a shrill whistle. Strong hands grabbed the chieftain under the armpits, and his feet were lifted clear off the ground as members of the bandit’s extended family hustled him into the safety of the woods. All the brigands were gone within seconds, leaving the battle-dazed travelers in sole possession of the body-strewn battlefield.

“Well, that was an unpleasant surprise,” Rebo said calmly as he slipped the unfired Hogger back into the cross-draw holster at his waist. “Let’s get out of here before they regroup.”

“I agree,” a male voice said emphatically. “And I would very much appreciate it if you would be so kind as to wear a more suitable garment during future battles. . . . I could have been damaged—or taken off-line.”

The sound seemed to originate from Norr, but had actually emanated from the coat she wore, which, in spite of its nondescript appearance, was a computer. A
wearable
computer that was more than a thousand years old and had once been at the center of a star-spanning system of star gates. Months before, the threesome had agreed to reunite the artificial intelligence (AI) with a control center called Socket on behalf of a dead scientist.

But the AI could be imperious, not to mention downright annoying, which was why Norr responded as she did. “If you would be so kind as to let us know when we’re about to be attacked—we’ll put you away well in advance. Come to think of it, maybe we should do that anyway. . . . I could use some peace and quiet.”

Logos didn’t like being packed away and therefore chose to remain silent. Rebo grinned. “Good. . . . I’m glad that’s settled. Come on, let’s give the driver a hand.”

Having reharnessed the uninjured angens, and attached the wounded animal to the back of the coach by means of a long lead, the carriage got under way fifteen minutes later. Rebo sat next to the driver with the fully recharged blunderbuss across his knees, while Hoggles remained in the coach, war hammer at the ready.

Norr tried to separate the natural apprehension she felt from the external stimuli available to her highly specialized senses but that was hard to do. So, with no assurance that they wouldn’t be attacked again, all the variant could do was to keep her eyes peeled and look forward to the moment when they put the forest behind them.

Eventually, after two hours of suspense, that moment came, as the trees began to thin, and gently rolling grass-lands appeared. The sun was little more than a red-orange smear by then, and Rebo wondered how many more sunsets he would witness before he and his companions left Thara and continued the uncertain journey begun so many months before. The coach slowed slightly as it encountered a rise, the driver snapped his whip, and the angens pulled harder. The undercarriage rattled, darkness gathered, and the stars lay like white dust on the blue velvet sky.

The sun was little more than a dimly seen presence beyond the layers of charcoal-generated haze that hung over the city. Much had changed during the ten millennia since the first colony ship touched down on Anafa. A primitive settlement had evolved into a town and then a city. Or
multiple
cities, because Seros had been through many incarnations, with the latest sitting atop all the rest.

None of which held any interest for the hooded metal man as he paused to examine a building, matched the image to the one stored in his electronic memory, and made his way up the front steps. The long, filthy robe hung loosely over his skeletal body, servos whirred as the machine climbed the stairs, and the locals hurried to get out of his way. The mysterious androids could communicate with one another, everyone knew that, and would hurry to one another’s aid if threatened. That meant it was a good idea to leave the robots alone in spite of their propensity to ignore common courtesies, preach on street corners, and generally skulk about.

Like the structures around it, the rooming house had seen better days. The landlord claimed that it had been an office building once, back before the techno wars, but the history of the six-story tenement hardly mattered to the hundreds of people who lived there, or to the metal man as he climbed five flights of stairs, pulled a graffiti-decorated door open, and entered the maze of cubicles beyond. Space was let by the square foot, which meant that the squats were of various sizes, depending on what a particular tenant could afford. Paths wound snakelike between the constantly morphing hovels they served. Some of the cubicles had walls made out of brick, others had been constructed with salvaged wood, but most consisted of large pieces of colored cloth draped over a confusing network of crisscrossed ropes. That meant life in the tenement was a largely public affair, in which every aspect of a resident’s life was known to those in the surrounding area, and gossip had been elevated to an art form.

So it wasn’t surprising that dozens of inquisitive eyes tracked the android as it followed a serpentine path deep into the squats, paused at one of the many intersections, and took a judicious right. And since the automaton’s progress was heralded by a buzz of excited conversation, Arn Dyson would have known about the visitor well in advance, had his consciousness been resident within his physical body.

But it wasn’t, which meant that when the robot arrived in front of the sensitive’s squat and whipped the badly faded curtain out of the way, the man sitting at the center of the simple reed mat made no response. The sensitive was middle-aged. His long hair was fanned out across his shoulders, and his eyes were closed. What few possessions he had were stacked along a wall made of interwoven sticks. A grubby little girl sat with arms wrapped around her knees. She regarded the machine with serious eyes. “Are you here to see Citizen Dyson?”

“Yes,” the metal man grated. “I am. Wake him.”

The little girl seemed to consider the order. If she was afraid of the machine, there was no visible sign of it. “Citizen Dyson has gone to visit the spirit planes. If you wish to speak with him, you must wait for him to return.”

“I will wake him,” the robot said, and took a step forward.

“No!” the little girl objected. “Not while he’s in trance. That could kill him.”

“Is there a problem?” The deep basso voice came from behind the automaton, and the machine was forced to give way as a heavy entered the tiny squat. The giant’s head had been shaved, he wore a gold ring in his nose, and he was naked from the waist up. Muscles rippled as the variant moved, and the robot knew that the biological could best him in a fight. “My master will pay Citizen Dyson two cronos for two hours of his time,” the android said flatly.

The heavy looked suitably impressed. He knew that the assassin’s guild would be happy to kill someone for half that amount. “Why didn’t you say so?” he demanded. “Go ahead and bring him back, Myra. . . . The worthless spook owes me thirty gunnars—and I thought the money was gone for good.”

The waif looked from the heavy to the robot and back again. Then she nodded, scraped the wax off the tip of a wooden match, and lit a slender cinnamon stick. The moment a tendril of smoke appeared, the girl blew some of it into the sensitive’s nostrils. The distinctive odor served to stimulate Dyson’s physical body—which sought to bring the rest of him back. The sensitive shivered, blinked his eyes, and frowned. “Myra? Hobar? What’s going on?”

“You will come,” the metal man said tactlessly. “Omar Tepho has need of your services.”

“I don’t know who this Tepho character is,” Hobar put in, “but he’s willing to pay two cronos.”

Dyson looked up at the robot. “Is that true?”

“Yes,” the automaton replied gravely. “It is.”

“Okay,” the sensitive agreed reluctantly. “I wasn’t able to satisfy Tepho’s needs last time. Let’s hope this session is different.”

It took the better part of an hour for the robot and the sensitive to make their way through the laser-straight streets, past the weatherworn pylons that marked the path of a once-glorious transportation system, and up to the seemingly decrepit building from which Omar Tepho ran the Techno Society. The unlikely twosome followed a narrow passageway back to the point where an iron gate blocked further progress. There was an audible
click
as the automaton inserted a metal finger into the receptacle located next to a print-sensitive identification pad.

The variant had been through the process before, so he wasn’t surprised when the gate swung open, and the robot led him to a metal door. There was a momentary pause while a guard inspected the pair through a peephole followed by a nudge, as the door swung inward. Council member Ron Olvos was there to greet Dyson. He was a small man, but a hard worker and a skilled politician. Those qualities, plus the care with which he always put Tepho’s interests ahead of his own, accounted for his presence on the board. Olvos ignored the machine but extended a hand to the sensitive. “Welcome! Thank you for coming.”

Though not altogether certain that his presence was entirely voluntary, the variant smiled agreeably and wondered if he should demand three cronos rather than two. But he couldn’t muster the necessary courage, the moment passed, and Dyson found himself in a spotless corridor. “The council was in session all morning,” Olvos explained. “The chairman raised the possibility of bringing you back—and will be extremely pleased to learn that we were able to do so.”

“Really?” Dyson inquired doubtfully. “I didn’t meet with much success last time.”

“Ah, but that wasn’t your fault,” the smaller man replied soothingly. “
This
session will go more smoothly. . . . Do you remember Jevan Kane?”

The sensitive nodded. Kane was the operative who sought him out the first time. He was a cold man with blond hair, blue eyes, and white skin. All in an age when more than 90 percent of the population had black hair, brown eyes, and olive skin. “Yes, of course,” Dyson replied politely. “How is he?”

“Dead,” Olvos replied emotionlessly. “Which is where
you
come in. It’s our hope that, unlike the founder, Kane continues to support the Techno Society’s goals and will provide us with some much-needed assistance from the other side. If so, we could have an ongoing need for your services, and that could be quite profitable for you.”