Drakon (40 page)

Lafarge snorted. "You really don't understand humans at all, do you? For all that you exterminated them in the Solar System."

Gwen shrugged and tossed a peanut into her mouth. "My parents were human." She smiled at his slight shock. "
Parent,
really. I'm a clone. Yes, I'm that old. I fought in the Final War; I saw your ancestors leaving for Alpha Centauri, and wept with envy . . . .

"I'm not human, but my ancestors were; and what they dreamed, we are. By our natures; but you have more choices. Which is exactly what I'm offering you: a choice."

"To let you wipe out humanity on two-thirds of Earth?"

"Oh, I don't think I'd transform them to
servus.
Not with unaltered humans around in numbers; it wouldn't be fair, they couldn't compete, and I can't start up my own race here in sufficient numbers to protect them. Besides which, humans are a challenge. Have a peanut? No?"

"No," he said. "This is all a game to you, isn't it? Moves and counter-moves and prizes."

"Of course," she said. "I'm
four hundred
years old. Nobody lives that long without gaining a certain degree of detachment. By the way, there's no reason why you shouldn't live that long or longer, here. We're beyond reach of Samothracian law as well as Draka."

He turned on his heel and walked away.

Humans,
Gwen thought. "So emotional."

Worth it to get a sense of her enemy.
Strong will.
She'd expected that, but not quite so much so.

She crumbled a handful of peanut shell, and tossed the nuts among the squirrels. They squabbled and chattered over the bounty, tails curled up. A bit rigid, though. He should have played it out longer, probed for her weaknesses.

What would I have done if he'd said yes?
she wondered. A very low probability . . .

"I'd probably have gone along with it, for a while at least," she murmured. "Would have been enjoyable."

She cast her mind back, reviewing every episode of the past few weeks.
I've made some sort of
mistake,
she thought. No definite clue, but the gestalt had been wrong.
Ah
.

A squirrel came close to her feet; she flipped it into the air with a toe and grabbed it in one hand.

The tiny heart beat against the skin of her palm, and the little animal squirmed in her grip. She held the tiny face close to hers.

"Be more cautious," she said to it. "It's a dangerous world."

Gwen tossed it underhand. It sailed through the air with its paws spread, landing on a tree about ten meters away; the gray shape clung for a moment, then vanished upward into the branches.

"Dammit, it's my money," Bill Saunders said. "If I want to buy materials you want, that's my business and none of yours."

He glared at the Californian.
Slicker than snot,
he decided. Probably a faggot. Not that he had anything against queers as such, although presumably God didn't approve. There had been one in his company back in Nam who'd been the best hand with an M-60 he'd ever met. He just didn't like this San Franciscan snob.
Who is a traitor.
Not just to the United States, but to the human race.

Tom Cairstens leaned back in the chair across from the desk. "Mr. Saunders—you don't mind if I call you Bill, do you?"

"Yep. I do."

Cairstens's smile didn't falter for an instant. "IngolfTech has done a good deal of mutually profitable business with you.
Why
endanger it? You can't use those components."

"That's proprietary information."

Their smiles were equally fake as Cairstens rose to go.

***

The barkeeper muttered something. It was easy to lose a sound in here; there were probably louder places in East Harlem, but not many. He didn't recognize the group playing, just that it was Puerto Rican, and cranked enough to warp the woofer.
Lot of good talent out there,
he thought. Nice that tight short dresses were back in. That brought a slight stab of guilt.
I'm married, not blind,
he told himself. Lot of very flashy-looking dudes, too. He was a little out of place himself, probably not enough to scream
policía.

Certainly the boss would stick out if he'd come in himself; there weren't any Anglos here. The smell of sweat and weed was pretty thick, curls of blue smoke drifting up under the ceiling lights. The bartender stared at him silently.

"I can't hear you," Jesus said patiently. "But the health inspectors might."

The barkeeper wasn't the owner, of course, but he wouldn't want to piss him off, either. He jerked his head at a door.

"Stairway's there."

The interior one, at least; somebody might well be watching the outside doors to the aboveground part of the building. There were rooms on the upper floors, hourly and daily rents, real class. He should have backup for this. Instead all he had was the
patron
and the . . . he didn't even like to
think
about Lafarge. The bartender's hand showed him a key: 613.

He went behind the bar and through the doors, touching one finger to his ear. It wasn't necessary to activate the little button, but it made him feel better, somehow.

"I'm going up," he said, in a whisper that didn't move his lips. "He's in 613."

"Be careful," Lafarge's voice answered. It sounded like normal conversation, but he knew nobody else could hear a thing. Shit. "There are at least three other people in those rooms."

"I'm always careful," he answered shortly. "
Patron?
"

"Ready out back," Carmaggio's voice answered.

The stairwell was dark and littered, smelling of urine and ancient dirt. He went up the stairs two at a time, the treads of his shoes making no sound; they looked like dancing leather, but he'd bought ones with composition soles. No sense in slipping at a critical moment. On the sixth floor he took a careful look both ways down the corridor. Nobody, and most of the lights were out. Perfect. He slipped his ID into one hand and the automatic into the other. The door was wood, with an ordinary Yale lock—low security, for New York. He kicked it flat-footed beside the knob, once, twice, and on the third time it flew open.

"
Policía!
" he shouted. "Everybody down, everybody down!"

The girl screamed—they always did. Just the two of them, on the couch, both in their underwear.

The man wasn't Laureano—too heavy, a big beefy guy with a wisp of pointed beard. He backed up against the sofa with his hands at shoulder level.

"Hey, chico, no problem. Be cool," he said.

His eyes darted to a chest of drawers by the wall, covered in tossed-off clothes. Probably a piece there, or his stash. The girl was much younger, cowering back on the couch with her hands over her breasts.

"Down,
hijo.
Now."

The man went down. Jesus stooped and cinched his hands behind his back with a set of plastic manacles; great little invention, since you could put them on and tighten them one-handed. The girl stared at him as he went over to the door to the bedroom, standing wide of it.

"Police," he said through it. "Come on out, Laureano. We just want to talk to you a little, is all, homes. Just a talk. Talk about a lady you met."

Four rounds blasted through the door—and through the outer wall of the suite and probably out through the side of the building, possibly through a couple of civilians on the way. The girl on the couch scuttled out the door on her hands and knees, grabbing bits of her clothing as she went and not wasting any more time on screaming.

"
Shit!
"

He curled back into the angle of the two walls beside the door, the hardest place to bear on from the inside of the bedroom. Two voices whimpered from within: women's voices. And the sound of heavy breathing.

"Man, you in trouble now. Don't make it worse. Come out without the piece and you can still walk away from this."

Bambambambam.
Whatever Laureano had in there, it had a high-capacity magazine. And he was trying to hit; this grouping was much closer to the hinge of the door, and him. The prisoner over by the couch gave a yelp and Jesus spared him a quick flickering glance. One of the bullets had drawn a line of blood across his buttocks. The detective grinned.
Mierda.
This could get serious, though. Too many civilians around.

The heavyset prisoner was yelling at Laureano too; mostly insults.

"Shut up!" Jesus called.

He lay down and rolled on his back, inching quietly toward the door feet-first. Knees up, shoulders braced . . .
slam
and his heels knocked it open. He used the same motion to flip himself back up on his feet, automatic in a two-handed grip and pointed at the bed. His mouth opened . . .

. . . and closed as he saw Laureano's naked back vanishing out the window.

"He's on his way down,
patron,
" he said.

***

A dark shape coming down the rusty iron of the fire escape, into the piles of garbage bags and cans at its base. There was just enough light to see that he was naked; the gun was a black blur in one hand. The sour taste of danger at the back of his mouth was familiar, almost comforting, after the last couple of months. He tucked himself into the doorway, shoulders against the bars that covered the painted-over glass, inhaling the scent of garbage and stale urine.
Eau de Nouveau York,
he thought with a cold smile.

"Freeze, Laureano," he said. Not shouting, but loud and emphatic. "Put the piece down."

Shit!
he thought, as fragments of brick spalled into his face.
The little fucker is fast!
The ricochet went
bwanngggg
across the alleyway and struck sparks from something on the other side.

Fast, but not very smart. Feet slapped on pavement, going away. Carmaggio surged out of the doorway, automatic out. He used the old one-handed grip; nothing wrong with the modern two-handed ones, but he stuck with what he'd been trained on.

"Stop!" he shouted, for form's sake.

Crack.
The weapon bucked upward in his hand, and the spent shell pinged off iron somewhere to his right. Laureano went over forward as if he'd been hit with a sledgehammer. The detective broke into a lumbering run on the slimy pavement, gun held down. The fire escape rattled as Jesus plunged downward to join him. The gangbanger was down and squeezing his thigh with both hands as if he could force the ripped muscle and broken bone to unite. Both policemen stayed cautious until Carmaggio had toed the weapon aside.
Glock 17,
he noticed.

"Laureano Gomez, you are under arrest," Carmaggio said, panting slightly. "You have the right to remain silent . . . ."

Actually, he was moaning pretty bad; the blood wasn't pumping the way it would if an artery had been cut, but it was trickling pretty fast. The ambulance should be here soon, though—and he'd have the usual ten miles of paperwork to fill out for a weapons-discharge. Shouldn't be
too
bad, though, what with the way young Laureano had been spraying 9mm from his Glock around. Only one round fired in response, and no fatalities. Speaking of which . . .

"You'd better get back upstairs," he said to Jesus.

"
Si.
Laureano's friends, they don't like him too much, though. Say he's been acting crazy for the past few days, doesn't do anything but fuck like a bunny and beat up on his women. Also there's a quarter of a key of best-quality rock and some
muy malo
guns up there. Everyone's going to be real cooperative, real public-spirited citizens."

The younger man bolstered his weapon and trotted back up the fire escape. A woman came to the exit, holding a bathrobe closed over her chest and peering downward into the darkened alley. When she saw the fallen gangbanger she began to scream Spanish obscenities at Laureano, a shrill counterpoint to the growing wail of sirens. Carmaggio knew enough of the language to follow those—highly imaginative, and mostly directed at the wounded man's putative masculinity.

"Man," the detective said, "I think you're going to be
real
useful."

***

"I . . .
am . . .
pushing!" the human gasped.

Gwen stood between her legs. Expecting a brooder to deliver lying down flat on her back was one of the more curious local customs, which she had no intention of following. She'd had a proper birthing couch made. Alice lay with her torso up at a forty-degree angle and her legs out in the braces, body slick with sweat and panting like an engine. Her face knotted and the muscles of her swollen stomach rippled as she labored at her task. A shriek and the baby's head slid free of the birth canal.
Good, no complications.

No real tissue damage, no bleeding worth noting.

Gwen's strong fingers helped with the final heaves. Warm water stood by; she sponged the baby clean and wrapped it. The red infant face squalled, and she felt her heart melt with love. "There, my little one," she whispered. "It's all right. We know what you need." Her nostrils flared to take its scent, a clean sharp odor cutting through the heavy smell of human fluids.

She handed the infant to Tom, who held it dubiously while Gwen and Dr. Mueller saw to Alice and helped her into the waiting bed. The baby was crying again, sharp and demanding, craning its neck from side to side—smaller than a human newborn, but a little more coordinated. Reddish fuzz covered its head, and there was a trace of knowledge in the green eyes; the transducer would already have begun to trickle knowledge in, slowly and carefully. Neurons would be forming and knitting into patterns in the newborn brain.

"You can leave us now," she said.

The men left the small bedroom. Gwen put the baby to the brooder's breast; Alice gasped once sharply at the strong tugging, then relaxed with a contented little whimper. There were dark circles under her eyes, but she looked down at the small wiggling form with awed wonder.