Brother Death (2 page)

"Yeah, there you go. Thing is, these killers are beginning to worry a lot of people. I got put in charge of the investigation, starting right after I get back from my vacation here to see my brother and his new wife and nephew. I do pretty fair work most of the time. Maybe somebody doesn't want me involved."

"Well, if that's the best they can do they don't seem all that formidable to me."

"Oh, they are. This guy might not be connected to that, or maybe he just barely qualified or something.

You, ah, interested in maybe doing a little consulting work, Saval?"

"You want me to go to Tembo?"

"You're one of the best bodyguards in the galaxy. If you can't help me figure out how to keep these toobies from slaughtering the local citizens, who else?"

"I dunno. . ."

"I would consider it a personal favor," she said.

That's when Bork knew how worried Taz really was. The Borks seldom asked for favors, even of each other.

Especially of each other.

He nodded. Bork had two families-one he'd been born to, another he'd chosen. Either one needed his help, he would give it. Family meant something to him. "Okay," he said.

That was that.

Chapter TWO

THE BABY WAS asleep, angelic in slumber: he had wispy, almost downlike white hair and he was paler even than his mother. You could see the tapestry of blue blood vessels under the translucent white of him, and his skin made the finest spidersilk cloth seem coarse. People said he looked like his father, but standing naked there in the dim nursery, Bork couldn't see it. Five minutes ago the baby had let out a small squawk and rolled over in his sleep. Bork had gotten there from his own bed before his child finished the turn.

He put one big hand out and touched his son lightly. At the touch, little Saval smiled reflexively.

Bork moved his hand back but stayed next to the crib, feeling for the thousandth time the weight of responsibility that came with being a father. It wasn't uncomfortable, the feeling, but there were ways it was heavier than a flexsteel bar loaded with plates. He had sometimes thought about it but never really figured he'd get to be a da. It was a whole lot different than he'd ever guessed. Here he was, a father, married to the most beautiful woman in the galaxy. Life sure was strange.

"He okay?" Veate said from behind him.

"Yeah." He continued to watch the baby.

Veate came to stand next to him. She slid one hand up Bork's bare arm and lightly squeezed his tricep.

"You're going to get eyestrain staring at him like that."

"It's just so amazing, you know? I mean, he's a little person and we made him. And he's so beautiful. I have to say, he's the best-looking baby I've ever seen."

She laughed. "Well, if it isn't Bork the master of objectivity."

He glanced at her. "What? You don't think so?"

"Are you kidding? I'm his mother. Of course he's the most beautiful baby you've ever seen. He's the most beautiful baby ever born."

Bork nodded. "Yeah, that's true."

She punched him. "You're an idiot, you know that?"

"Huh? How come?"

"Great big thing like you in here stupe-faced over a baby. Some kind of tough guy you are. Sleel would fall down laughing, he knew about this."

"Yeah? Last time I talked to Sleel, he said after seeing little Saval he and Kee were thinking seriously about having one of their own. This is a special kid here."

Veate leaned over and kissed his arm. "What am I going to do with you? You get any prouder and you'll explode. Come on." She tugged at him.

"Where?"

"Remember how we made this extraordinary babe?"

He grinned. "Vaguely."

"Vaguely? You thug!"

She started to move away in mock anger, but he picked her up, as easily as a normal-sized man might pick up a small child. He cradled her. "Hey, I'm old," he said. "Can't expect me to remember everything."

"I expect you to forget your name before you forget lovemaking with me, Saval Bork!"

"Who? What did you call me?"

She pretended to pout. "That's better. Not good enough, but better."

He carried her from the nursery to their bedroom.

Love wasn't about technique, Bork knew that, but if you did love somebody, them knowing pretty much everything there was to know about the physical aspects of it made it real interesting.

"Lie back," Veate commanded.

Bork did so.

"Lume control, one-quarter on the overheads."

The computer brought the lights up obediently.

"Lume control, pink spot, centered on the bed."

Her white hair and skin turned to rose quartz.

"It's better for you when you can see me, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Bork said.

She straddled him, but sat on his belly, her fine pubic hair, now shaded pink, tickling his navel. She put her hands on the thick muscles of his upper chest, leaned into them and massaged him, squeezing hard.

He enjoyed the feel of her fingers digging into him. After a moment, she slid her hands up to his neck and worked the bands of muscle under his ears.

"Mmm."

She slid back a little. He felt wetness on his belly, smelled her pungent musk. The lightest touch of warmth pressed against the base of his erect penis.

"And you like to smell me, too, don't you?"

"Yes."

She leaned back a little more.

"Mmmmm."

He raised his hands and pressed them lightly against her hips, urging her to move yet farther back.

"No, you don't. Not yet. You aren't ready yet."

"Hell I'm not."

"Hey, who's the albino in this bed?"

He chuckled. "Got me. I can't even remember who I am." "Hah! You don't get off that easy. I'm going to make you suffer."

But she didn't. Instead she raised herself up, touched him at the tip of his very much erect penis, then slid down slowly until she ensheathed him completely to the base. Without lifting herself again, she massaged him with internal muscles, clamping and relaxing, over and over again, until she brought forth from him a powerful orgasm.

"Oh!"

Veate laughed. "You still don't get off that easy, you thug."

His laughter joined hers.

Through some acoustical trick, Taz heard her brother laugh, even though she was on the opposite end of the house. Cooling duct or something, she figured.

She sat up and swung her bare legs over the side of the bed. She hadn't been able to sleep. Might as well do something useful.

She slipped a robe on and padded down the hall to the gym. Saval had a good set-up, as complete as many small public gyms. Even though he favored free weights over machines, he had, along with the couple tons of flexsteel plates and bars, a full ROM unit, a state-of-the-art computer-controlled SSA LS-21. Gym rats around the galaxy liked to joke that the initials for the Strength Success Associates Corporation who made the machine really stood for "Suffer, stupid asshole." The unit could measure tonus and nerve conduction close enough so that when programmed properly it would take a user exactly as far as she could go, no more, no less. It wouldn't let you overextend yourself; on the other hand, you couldn't slack your way past it.

The gym lights blinked on as Taz stepped inside. The far wall was mirrored, and she watched herself as she slipped out of the robe and stood naked in front of the LS-21. She was in good shape, she knew.

Most mues of her kind were; it seemed a waste not to be, given the potential. HG engineering had given her great-grandparents thicker and heavier bone structure, a slight advantage in tendon leverage, and attachments, and more muscle-building hormones than standard humans, as well as a faster metabolism.

Great-grandfather and -mother had been designed for planets with a gee-and-a-half or better. Maybe the desire to use her body hard was built into her gene structure, she didn't know, but she did muchly enjoy working up a good sweat.

Saval was a bug about free weights, called them more "organic," but Taz preferred the machines. They were less risky than the heavy bars, even with the safety fields. The machines wouldn't let you go past your limits; the flexsteel didn't know what those limits were, didn't care.

The SSA stood there like a larger version of a child's girder construction set, a tall rectangle with cams, bearings, bars and handles that moved into place or pivoted out of the way depending on the exercises.

She stepped into the machine. "On," she said. "Ten percent warm-up. Squats."

The machine weighed and measured her with its bioelectronic sensors, calculated and computed its results, and increased the field strength to respond to her movements at one-tenth of her capacity for the exercise ordered.

The crossbar came down and rested across her shoulders. Felt like about twenty-two, twenty-three kilos.

That'd be about right; she could squat two-twenty, two-thirty for a triple. She took a couple of breaths and began to squat, facing the mirror, watching her doppelganger flash nudely back at her. Gods, her pubic hair was thick. Looked like some animal's furry black pelt down there. She grinned. At least there wasn't any gray in it yet, like there was on her head. A few strands at the temples shined through the blue-black. She had it pulled back in a low braid; she usually wore it tied or plaited short when she was working, but she sometimes liked being able to let it hang to her shoulders on her own time. Saval had more gray in his hair than she did, but then her da had gone gray before her ma.

-Two. Three. Four-

Her thighs warmed as she moved up and down, back kept straight, knees bending, upper legs going to parallel.

-nine, ten.

Her legs weren't quite ready yet, she decided. "Lunges," she told the machine. Obediently, it lightened the amount of weight. She followed the lunges with exercises for her hamstrings and calves.

When her legs were sufficiently heated, Taz moved to work her back, then her chest, shoulders and arms. After ten minutes with the light weights, she had a thin sheen of sweat and was ready for some serious work.

"Squats," she told the machine. "Maximum intensity, three reps."

The bar across her shoulders grew heavy, gradually increasing until it was almost three times her own body weight. She felt the strain in her low back, and going down was a lot easier than coming back up.

Muscles in her thighs and buttocks tensed, bulged and strained under the machine's heavy hand as she rose, barely able to fight her way through the rep. Now the sweat poured from her and the burn was painful, a deep, hot ache that went to the bone.

She grunted at the bottom of the second rep, almost didn't get past the sticking point as she trembled upward, and yelled her way through it.

One more. She could do it, the machine wouldn't let her try otherwise, but gods, she was tired! The sweat seeped past her eyebrows and ran into her eyes. She blinked it away. Should have worn a headband.

Down. Don't bounce at the bottom! Come on, up, up, up, goddammit! You can do this!

She came up, a plant growing slowly toward the sun, a glacier oozing over virgin winter ground.

Christo, this was hard, it was impossible! Fuck the machine, what did a machine know? She couldn't make it

Yes, she could. Move, move, move, dammit-!

Her bent knees straightened. She rose, reached the top. Locked her legs.

"Jesu Damn! Off!"

The SSA turned the many kilos on the bar into air.

Taz stretched. Grinned. Well. So much for squats.

Time to do her back. "Rows," she said. "Eight reps at maximum. . ."

Thirty minutes later she stood under the pulse of her shower, letting the hot water wash away the sweat and some of the fatigue. She ached all over, but it was a good feeling. She'd been to her limits, and that was always a satisfying trip. She knew what she could do if she had to, and that was better than not knowing. She was a strong woman, stronger than most ordinary men, and it felt good to take the muscles out for a brisk walk. Now she could sleep. Saval was going to help her figure out what to do about the mystery back on her own planet; she was in good health, powerful, ready. How much better off could she be?

What about Ruul?

Fuck Ruul.

You wish. That's the problem, isn't it?

Fuck you, too.

Her inner voice just laughed, high and girlish, a leftover from the days when she was eighteen and just finding out about real sex and love and first heartbreak.

So long ago, that seemed. Back when the galaxy was hers to take, and any road was possible. Ah, if she had it to do over again . . .

You'd do it the same way, wouldn't you?

She sighed. Yeah. Probably would. What the hell. She hadn't made that much of a mess of it. Besides, if you liked who you were, you had to honor how you got there. Looking back over your shoulder too much was apt to make you trip over something in today's path. You couldn't do anything about the stupid mistakes you made anyhow, so why let them drag you down?

Still, some memories were hard to shake. Taz climbed into bed, fell into sleep, and some of the past seeped into her dreams.

Chapter THREE

IT WAS A large chamber, nearly empty. In it the man Ndugu Kifo; before him, a silk cushion with a small object upon it; behind him, a suitcase-sized Ultralux vouch tuned to his brainwaves, perched alertly upon its built-in tractor. Kifo sat with his legs knotted in lotus, the bare wooden floor cool under his naked buttocks and heels. Inside the Temple of Despair it would seem still to someone not paying attention, but when a man achieved a certain level of true stillness, his senses opened. Sent the smells, feels, sights, sounds along their pathways into an open mind, a mind that noted, catalogued, then dismissed, unless the input had some . . . relevance.

The beams overhead ticked, wood obeying the laws of thermodynamics and physics, expanding from the hot sunshine beating down upon the city of Leijona, contracting from the coolers within the temple. Not important.

Traffic rumbled past, noises muted by the thick walls, but still producing subtle vibrations. No matter.

The vouch hummed electronically to itself, constantly monitoring Kifu's physical and mental telemetry.