The Forever Hero (49 page)

In the end, a decision either begins or concludes with two people. Either two men, two women, or a man and a woman.

In this case, the meeting happened to be between a man and a woman, but it could have been between two men. The head of the Guild could have been either a man or a woman, since throughout its history the senior assassins had picked both men and women as their chief. The modus operandi had varied little under either sex.

The man wore black, as he always did on such occasions, including a black face shield. The woman regarded his choice of apparel as an affront of sorts, particularly in view of his disregard for her profession.

Was the meeting in person?

Not for this pair.

Each sat before a screen, neither's true countenance known to the other.

The man was who he said he was, although he called himself Merhlin, and his true name remained hidden.

The woman was of the occupation she professed, but not exactly the person she said she was. That deception the man suspected, but found immaterial, an attitude neither she nor the woman whose place she took would have appreciated had either known.

“You are the one calling himself Merhlin? The one with some slight ongoing interest in the Guild?”

“That is one way to put it, Honored Lady.”

“Assassin will do as well as any false honorific, Merhlin.”

“Very well, Assassin.”

“You wished the conversation, Merhlin, and paid for the privilege.”

“I did. Thought it only fair to give you advance notice of my intentions.”

“That you have already done. This was scarcely necessary, though we appreciate the additional income.”

“Should have been more clear. Wished to deliver a specific message.”

“Then do so.”

“In a few moments, I will. First, a few observations.” He held up a gloved hand to forestall any objections. “Observations more than relevant to the message.”

“Then state them.” The lady's tone had gone from bored to sharp.

“First, the Guild prides itself on professionalism. Second, the Guild will not undertake any assassination for a fee, whether or not the victim is a total innocent or not. Third, the Guild has gone from being a tool that occasionally protected the oppressed to a tool for protecting the Imperial establishment in addition to and outside the law of the Empire.”

He paused.

“The Guild does not concern itself with popular opinion.

“It should. Because it does not, and has not, and will not acknowledge either restraint or morality, it is doomed. Should those who survive, and there may be a few, continue the tradition of serving the highest bidder and slaughtering men, women, and children whose sole fault is that their existence stands in the way of the powerful and the unscrupulous, the Guild will not survive.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, Assassin. That you should already know. I am Merhlin. Call me Merhlin of Avalon, and tremble when you call upon my name. You have been warned, and your days are numbered.”

The screen blanked.

The chief assassin who was not the head assassin stared at the screen. Then she tapped a code.

“Did you get that?”

“Outspace transmission. Either has his own ship or went to trouble of routing indirect through the geosynch station. No way to trace him. No way even to figure out who he is.”

“We know that. He's the one who's been picking off top assassins, using their own weapons.”

“Is he?”

“Why else would he go to the trouble, and the expense? This has been going on for more than five years, if I recall right.”

“What about his threat? Why did he even bother?”

“That's the troubling part. That implies an even bigger effort against the Guild.”

“What else can he do? We're recruiting as fast as he strikes.”

“Are our recruits learning as fast as those they replace?”

“Now…you sound like
her
.” The man paused. “But what really can he do?”

“I don't know. The annual conference is coming up. That strikes me as more than coincidence.”

“So…? Maybe he wanted the word spread.”

“That means he knows it's taking place.”

“What could he do? Destroy the entire quarter?”

“Recompute without subset two.”

The small control room was silent except for the breathing of the man at the control couch and the muted hiss of the ship's ventilation system.

“Probability approaches unity. The accuracy of the data cannot be verified.”

“Stet. Recompute
with
subset two and without subset three.”

The man gazed at the exterior screens while he waited, studying the view of Iredesium in the distance. The moon, less than a thousand kays in diameter, housed some of the largest resort and pleasure centers outside of the home Imperial systems, each a domed oasis on airless stone, built at enormous costs for the wealthy and those who played at being wealthy. Of either, there seemed to be no shortage.

The view he watched showed the moon clearly, half white, half dark.

“Probability in excess of point nine. Exact figures cannot be determined within standard parameters of error without the information contained in subset three.”

The pilot shook his head. No matter how the information was juggled, the answer came out the same.

How good was the information?

Some of it had come from Infonet. Despite the fact that he had founded Infonet and trusted the management, Infonet Class A information had a proven accuracy pattern of greater than ninety-five percent. Given the volume of the corroborating information, and the independent analyses from the foundation, which confirmed the conclusion, the chance for the final recommendation to be wrong was infinitesimal.

That the AI supported the conclusion with whole sets missing was another supporting, though certainly not conclusive, test.

Still…he didn't like it. When everything agreed, there was a chance that everything was wrong.

Or was it that he didn't want to pay the price to finish off what he had started? Or that he hated to solve problems impersonally?

He looked up at the screen, touching the distance control and letting the view enlarge as Iredesium seemed to swim closer in the large screen before him.

He checked the time again, for perhaps the tenth time in the last standard hour.

Less than a standard hour before the meeting below came to order, and that meant less than two stans before it was over, one way or another. Time to act, or to fail to act.

“The same old question, isn't it?”

“Inquiry imprecise. Please reformulate.”

He ignored the AI's precise statement as he pondered the implications stretching out before him. Certainly his opponents had shown no mercy, nor would they even understand his mercy should he grant it. No…business as usual, and Istvenn protect the innocent. He sighed, and stood.

“Passive detection. Report if any targets within screen range.”

“Understood. Will report standard targets.”

Though there was no carpet on the deck of the small ship, his steps did not click or echo as he made his way to the locker that held the space armor.

He said nothing as he donned it, nor did the AI break the silence. Finally he stepped through the small inner lock, leaving it open as he began his checks.

“Comm check.”

“Circuits clear.”

After the inner lock sealed, he touched the plate that would open
the exterior lock, and waited. Hand over hand, he exited, clipping his safety line to the recessed anchor beside the lock plate. He moved with a minimum of excess motion to the exterior lock to the aft hold.

From a distance, any distance, an observer using optical methods would have seen nothing, for the full-fade black of the hull and matching finish of his armor created an effect of invisibility.

Once the lock opened, he maneuvered the long shape through the narrow aperture. Next came the checks of the drive ring unit he had added below the missile's normal drives.

Slowly, he edged the massive but slender shape around the hull until it pointed at the midpoint of the terminator line of the moon that the ship, the man, and the missile all orbited.

The man took a long breath, then another.

In time, he eased back the access panel and twisted the blue dial to the number “II.” Next, he broke the red seal and flipped the switch beneath to the “armed” position. He closed the panel and took another deep breath.

Moving hand over hand down the narrow shape, he came to the ring drive units, where he opened a second access panel and closed one switch.

“Done,” he said quietly as he edged back to the ship's lock.

When the exterior lock had closed behind him, he stated, “Course feed to Hunter.”

“Beginning course feed. Course feed complete.”

The inner lock opened, and he stepped back into the ship, waiting until it closed before checking the ship's pressure.

Normal.

He began taking off the armor and stowing it back in the locker.

“Commence Nihil.”

“Commencing Nihil. Ignition in one minute.”

He completed stowing the armor and walked back to the control station, his booted feet still silent as he crossed the hard floor.

“Ignition. Preliminary extrapolation shows Hunter on optimum course.”

“Interrogative defense screens.” While he knew the answer, he wanted to hear it again.

“No screens in place except normal class three precautions.”

The pilot nodded. Class three screens were the standard screens against nonenergized objects, designed to divert small meteors and other space junk.

The drive units on Hunter would punch through anything but class one screens, and those were only used by ships, Imperial ships.
No dome or station could afford the energy or equipment expenditure to cover that wide an area with class one screens.

“Course lines on screen two,” he ordered.

“Course lines on screen two,” the AI responded.

He swallowed the taste of bile in his mouth. If he could have built a wider organization, trusted more people…

“Then you wouldn't have to do things like this?” he asked the empty air. “Be serious. You don't fight fanatics. You destroy them totally or you leave them alone. You didn't have a choice. Corson—what choice did he have?”

“Invalid inquiry. Please reformulate.”

“Hades! Re—” He had almost told the AI to reformulate itself, but stopped as he realized he had no idea what such a drastic command might do to the artificial intelligence.

“Istvenn!”

He bit his lower lip, not quite hard enough to draw blood, as he watched the red line of the Hunter arcing down toward Iredesium. He forced himself to continue watching.

“Dampers on screens. Shield all sensitives,” he added quietly.

“Shields and dampers in place.”

The command had been early, many minutes before it would be necessary to protect the ship's equipment.

He could feel the nausea climbing back into his throat, and he swallowed again, still watching the screens. The red dashed line continued to drop toward the moon.

A pale blue line flashed into place above the screen representation of Iredesium.

“Class three screens triggered.”

The pilot watched as the dashed red line penetrated the meteor shield without deflection and continued to dive for the target dome.

“Estimate one minute until detonation.”

Ignoring the AI's statement, delivered in its impersonal feminine tone, ignoring his own urge to turn away from the information displayed on the screens, he forced himself to keep watching, glancing from the visual on the main screen to the smaller representational screen, then back to the visual.

“Detonation.”

For several seconds both screens seemed unchanged. Then, on the representational screen, the dashed red line intersected the moon's surface. On the visual screen, Iredesium hung there, still showing half white, half black.

A pinflare of white flashed from the middle of the moon, spreading…and the visual screen blanked.

“Dampers on. Impact on target verified. Detonation height at two hundred meters, plus or minus fifty.”

The man did not answer.

He had left the control couch for the fresher, where the slim contents of his stomach were emptying themselves into a small basin.

“Probability of damage within design envelope approaches unity.”

“Plan beta,” choked the man from the former crew section. “Plan beta.”

He wiped his mouth and slowly straightened after splashing his face with a handful of cool water.

“For better or worse…”

His legs felt rubbery, but he walked back to the waiting control couch, still as silently as ever.

“Plot all in-system contacts on screen three.”

He swallowed the bitter aftertaste and concentrated on the full screen array.

The specially guarded and prepared convention hall was nearly full.

“We have a problem.”

“We have more than a problem.”

“You mean the Merhlin thing?”

“Count's close to a hundred now.”

“A hundred? You sure about that?”

“Two arm councils nearly wiped out…”

“Nobody knows who they are…not even Imperial Intelligence… say Eye himself is worried.”

The hooded figure at the end of the table let the talk continue.

“Said he threatened the Council itself…”

The other hooded figure, sitting taller and to the right of the chief assassin, leaned forward.

“Is the threat that serious?” His voice was low.

“You know the answer,” came back the cool tones of the woman. “It is the same answer as always. If the group called Merhlin is totally fanatic and highly skilled and disciplined, the threat has to be taken seriously. Fanatics can destroy anything. But the chances of the kind of knowledge and discipline necessary mixed with fanaticism? Not to mention the human element. We've always had warnings of any large scale movements against us, and how could anyone take on the entire Guild without an enormous commitment of personnel and equipment?

“Besides, would anyone today stoop to destroy an entire resort of five thousand people, most of them not involved with us? Even if they would, it would take nuclear weapons or a fleet-sized laser, and those are weapons the Empire has destroyed systems to keep to itself.”

“Order!” The command was simultaneous with the tap of the ancient handgun on the metal plate.

The conversations around the meeting hall died into a series of murmurs, and the murmurs into silence.

“The first order of business is the five year report.”

The Guild delegates shifted restlessly in their seats, waiting for the routine business to pass and to hear what the Council had to say about the threat to the Guild itself.

“Delegate Beta…”

Like most participants, Delegate Beta did not wear a privacy cloak, opting instead for a simple synthflesh false face and wig, combined with a voice distorter.

“The summaries are presented on the screen for your review. As you may recall, the screen is rear-projection and nonimaging, which means that your portable equipment will not retain the images…” Delegate Beta launched into his summary of five years of Guild activities and financial accomplishments.

At the conclusion he received a mild round of applause, mainly for the brevity with which the summary had been presented.

“Second order of business…Delegate Gamma.”

Delegate Gamma stood and moved toward the podium.

She never got there.

Sun-white light seared through the roofing of the meeting hall, as well as through the rest of the Iredesium Resort Complex Red, reducing all but the heaviest metals to their basic atomic forms, turning ten square kays into a shimmering and cooling lake of molten stone and metal standing on an airless plain.