The Machiavelli Interface (15 page)

After general greetings, Wall asked his director how his new clean-up technician was working out.

"He was a bit of a problem at first," she said, "but he is coming along."

"Ah. Good, I should like to see him."

"I have him working in the sickroom, as you requested."

It was necessary to leave the protection of the terminal to reach the holding pen in which the ill animals were treated. A servomech cooler followed Wall and his director, its fans straining to maintain the envelope of comfortable temperature as they walked across the complex. Even so, the direct rays of the tropical sun found Wall, and he felt the beginnings of perspiration under his thin tunic. Without speaking, Wall gestured, and one of his bodyguards snapped an umbrella-field on and dialed for dark polarization, so that Wall suddenly walked in a hard-edged shadow. Better.

The interior of the sickroom was cooler, but still not comfortable for humans. Several African elephants stood swaying to the sound of pulse generators along one wall of the building, while a curlnose was sling-cradled under a gantry, to keep weight off what was an obviously injured foreleg.

The normally black skin around the foot had turned ashen, indicating a serious infection.

"Busta will be all right in a week," the director said. "He picked up a mutant staph, but he is responding to treatment."

Wall nodded. He wasn't looking at the curlnose. Instead, he was watching a thin man shovel large clods of wet fecal material from the ground behind the elephants, then heave the substance onto a conveyor. There was a methane generator tank, quite primitive, really, being fed by the conveyor. The man wore nothing more than a groin strap and hardskin gloves.

Ah, yes. Ex-Minister Miyamoto: the ambitious liar. Wall wondered how far the man's ambitions extended these days.

Wall walked toward Miyamoto. The former minister had lost at least twenty kilos of body fat, and his once-pale skin was darkened by both sun and dirt, as well as bits of dried scatum. His face was set in neutral lines, neither pleased nor disgusted. He continued to wield his shovel as Wall approached.

"Ah, my old friend, how are you?"

Miyamoto stopped suddenly, and looked at Wall. For a moment, it seemed as if he did not recognize the Factor. He did not speak.

Wall grinned. "I see you have taken your new work to heart. I am so glad."

Miyamoto's hands tightened on the shovel's smooth plastic handle. For one glorious moment, Wall thought the man might actually try to attack, and he felt his pulse quicken at the thought. But Miyamoto relaxed his grip and nodded. "A man can learn to accept anything," he said.

Wall felt a pang of irritation. He'd expected more. Begging, perhaps.

Regret. Something. He said, "Oh? I am so glad to hear that. Since you seem to enjoy your labors so, I am certain we can find more for you to do. Perhaps you can aid other workers less capable than yourself. I will see to it."

Miyamoto did not reply, and Wall turned away in anger. We shall see how much you can learn to accept!

The zoo director said, "There is a mating scheduled today, my Lord Factor."

Wall perked up. "Really?"

"Mastodon Hizta is to mount one of the young females, Grintel." The director paused delicately. "Her first time."

Wall felt a surge of something akin to lust. A young female. Her first time.

And he remembered Hizta, he of the two-meter-long penis. "Yes," Wall said.

"I would like to see that." Indeed. A man needed a place to relax, and what was more relaxing than watching the copulation of beasts long since extinct, save for the hand of man?

* * *

From his rented computer terminal in the small programmer's complex in Baton Rouge, Khadaji created a man who didn't exist. Or, rather, who existed, but not where Khadaji showed him. He was a herring, meant to draw those seeking his creator.

The program was imbedded on a steel ball the size of a child's marble. The small sphere of metal had been worth two years' standards to the man who built it, and it was cheap at the price. Using the program, Khadaji was able to rascal the maincomp used for detailing offworld passenger lists. The addition of one name to a manifest was carefully balanced. According to the now-altered list, one Marsh Himit, Medic First, had taken a shuttle to the Confederation starliner traveling to the Delta System. The herring had, according to official records, transferred to a system liner for the world of Lee. There, he had booked passage to the City of a Million Caves, and his stated purpose was to spend several months in religious contemplation among the ten thousand kilometers of interlinked tunnels that formed the city.

It amused Khadaji to think of the Confederation resources that might be expended in trying to find the "doctor" who had gassed Wall and his men at the recent festival in Australia.

When the alteration was complete, Khadaji set up a worm so that no one could trace the source, then destroyed the link. He took the program ball to the top of the fused glass levee that bound the Mississippi River, and tossed the little marble as far as he could out into the brown water. Even if anybody ever thought to look for such a thing, the chances of finding it were minimal.

With luck, some bright cool would eventually stumble upon the passage entry and take the bait. The Man Who Never Missed had run to hide in a cave, and they could go look for him there. Meanwhile, he had things to do.

Sooner or later, some of his matadors would be coming to Earth. He was sure of this, for he had trained them to think of final solutions to dangerous problems. Khadaji didn't know who, for certain, or when, but it was going to happen. When they arrived, they would need his help.

He took a hovercraft downriver, to the rebuilt city of New Orleans. The Dixie Underworld was still potent there, and Khadaji had bought several connections to vouch for him. Amid the oak trees and Spanish moss, the crime center of the North American continent did its business. If you wanted a thing done and you had sufficient money, it might be arranged.

Except for a small pub on Muta Kato, in the Bruna System, Khadaji had converted all his holdings to cash. He had sufficient money, and he had things to do.

* * *

Dirisha finished her meal and stood, trying to look as if she was in no hurry to do anything in particular. She couldn't go back to her room, though she would have dearly loved to collect her spetsdöds. She had to assume Massey and his men had her cabin secured. Anything less would be wishful thinking.

If they knew enough to follow her while skin-masked, they must know which quarters were hers.

The immediate problem was to lose her tail. They couldn't take what they couldn't find, and the starliner was plenty big enough to have places to hide.

As long as they were in bent space, nobody was leaving the ship, but there was a stop in the Svare System due in two days. For two days, she could stay hidden, if she could get away long enough. She had several stad cubes under different names, so money should be no problem—they couldn't know all the aliases she had, even if they did know the current one.

It wouldn't do her any good to hide, though, if they had some way of tracing her. She didn't know how long they'd been watching her, but if they'd had a chance to get to her rooms, she might be carrying a sub rosa caster.

She'd have to find out before she ran.

There was a store selling electronics on the main level, she recalled. She would go there.

On her way, Dirisha stopped in a clothing shop. She bought another set of thinskins, like the body suit she wore, only darker, a tunic and lightweight jacket, and a pair of silicon boots. Just in case. She had the new clothes packaged to carry easily. If Massey continued to tail her, she did not see him, but she had to assume somebody followed her. After a few moments, she saw a woman whose face looked familiar from the restaurant. Good. Better the devil she knew.

Inside the electronics kiosk, Dirisha toyed with a holoproj recorder and a stimwand before getting to her real reason for being there. A wide-band receiver was built into a digital-ball music inducer. She asked the clerk for use of a speaker room, and smiled at him through the thincris window as she went through the motions of playing the inducer. What she did instead was wind the receiver, with its sound turned down, across its spectrum. Halfway across the upper end, she found the caster.

It was in her left boot. Probably a viral electronic, but she didn't really care.

A further run of the receiver showed the rest of her clothes to be clean, but she wasn't going to chance missing anything. She waved at the clerk, who went back to his counter.

Quickly, Dirisha stripped, and dressed in her new clothes. There was a back exit, and if she moved fast, she could get to it before they noticed she was gone. It might be covered, but that was the chance she had to take. The sooner she got free, the better.

Dirisha moved from the speaker room in a hurry, slinging the inducer at the startled clerk. The man yelled as the small machine smashed into a display of entertainment vids, knocking them down in a shower of plastic strips. Dirisha ran for the exit, jerked it open, and leaped through.

A single man stood near the end of the corridor behind the row of shops.

He looked up, obviously not expecting to see Dirisha charging toward him at a dead run. He fumbled for something in his tunic, a mistake.

Sumito was effective at any speed. Dirisha danced by the man, slammed her knee into his groin, and smashed his face with her elbow. His head bounced off the wall he had been leaning against, and he fell. Did he have time to transmit a warning? She hoped not, but it didn't matter. She was committed at this point. She rounded the corner, saw she was on the edge of a pedway, and stepped onto the moving strip. At a fast walk, augmented by the speed of the pedway, she moved away. With luck, they'd think she was still inside the electronics kiosk for a few more minutes. Her tagged boot would say so, and if they were only watching the front entrance for her to emerge, they'd be in for a long wait.

For the first time since she'd seen Massey, Dirisha felt some relief. She was still in trouble, but at least the shit wasn't so deep anymore.

Seventeen

THERE WOULD BE no mistakes this time, Wall was certain. He had not been gulled into choosing a warped flower by wily antagonists, not
this
time.

Once, they could set him up; twice, never. No, he had picked a city at random, one called Manchester, had gone there and made his choice from thousands of girls who had not even known for what they were applying. His subterfuge involved advertising for pre-teen girls of exemplary character—virginal status—of good background and pleasing appearance, to compete for ten scholarships to the prestigious Prep School at the University of Australia.

Ten girls would be chosen from the thousands who applied; nine of them would be given hefty trust funds and entrance to the school almost immediately. The lucky tenth girl would be given private instruction by tutors selected by Factor Marcus Jefferson Wall Himself. Few parents could turn down such an offer. None ever had.

"Cteel."

"Yes?"

"Project the pictures of the finalists for me. I want to see my flowers."

"At once."

The holoprojic images of the ten girls swirled into solidity in front of Wall.

He smiled, and walked completely around them, to view them from the rear as well as the front. All of them were lovely; any of them would be an excellent choice. Certainly they would, for he had personally selected them all. There was the heart-breaking blonde, the sultry-looking brunette, the one with the single dimple... ah, how could he go wrong? No more mistakes for him; each of these ten had been researched to their great-grandparents.

Which to choose? Was there ever such a joyful decision to be made?

"Sir?"

Wall was snagged from his contemplative trance by Cteel's voice. "What?"

"You requested immediate notification on any matter directly relating to the apprehension of Khadaji."

"Do we have him?"

"No. We have determined where he has fled."

"Where?"

Cteel told him.

Wall shook his head. "I very much doubt it, old friend. Our man Khadaji is unlikely to be so stupid as to use the name he gave us during his little game. Send troopers, of course, but don't expect the City of a Million Caves to yield our quarry."

"We have also backwashed the medical computer to discover an earlier false identity."

"Doubtless he no longer uses that one, either."

Cteel continued doggedly. "We have located the tourist quarters in which he stayed. We have recordings, if you wish to view them."

Wall started to cut Cteel off. What did it matter what hole the rodent had spent time in? But knowledge was indeed power, Wall knew. Perhaps some clue lingered in the air of the den. "Show me," Wall commanded.

The Hawaiian lanai appeared in front of Wall. The point-of-view shifted to the ground below the second level unit, to people lying in the bright sunshine, damaging their skins with the naked radiation. Fools. A waste of his time. Wall started to have Cteel kill the picture. Then he stopped, his heart suddenly loud in his ears.

"C-Cteel. Hold that picture!"

The computer obediently went into freeze-frame mode.

"That man, the one sitting at the table, drinking from a plastic pineapple. Enhance the picture. Double the size."

The figure grew and sharpened. The resolution was very sharp. Wall could tell what color eyes the man had, could see the small moons at the base of the fingernails. The details were good. Quite. Good.

Wall found he was leaning against his orthopedia. The device whined as it tried to adjust to a position for which it had never been designed. Wall also found he was holding his breath. The man in front of him, captured in holoprojic reality, was a man he knew: Artemis, the cuntmaster Wall had killed on the Dark world. The last time he had seen Artemis, his guts were spilling all over the boy Tavee's bedroom. The boy Marcus Jefferson Wall had been, more than fifty T.S. years ago.