Matadora (11 page)

Dirisha stood to the President's left, wearing a set of soft gray flexweave orthoskins and her spetsdods, watching the technicians flurry around the broadcast gear as the time for the program drew near.

The room was large—President Sen could hardly occupy a less-than imposing office—a good eight meters square, and even the four technicians and all their equipment did little to shrink the space. There were no windows, and only two doors. The main entrance was ringed with detection gear—axial scanners, HO detectors and a zap field—and the emergency exit was a one-way that could only be unlocked from the inside by President Sen's right palm print. The floor and ceiling were both ferrofoam, and laced with sensors. Dirisha had inspected each tech as he or she entered, done a physical and hard-object scan, and a spec-chrome for possible contact poisons. The four techs were all clean.

When she had learned of the broadcast, Dirisha had taken a quick-course in broadcast engineering. When she checked each piece of equipment allowed into the room, she knew what it was she was checking, and what it should look like. In theory, it would be almost impossible for anybody dangerously armed to get into this room, short of an all-out attack with heavy weapons.

Dirisha had a couple of armored monitors set outside, to cover the building, so if somebody did throw heavy stuff at it, she'd get enough warning to hustle Sen into the emergency exit.

She had it covered, she figured.

One of the techs dropped a lens mount. The expensive piece of equipment thumped down on the thick carpet and bounced. They were a clumsy bunch.

That was the second time somebody had mishandled the cast gear.

Another tech said, "One minute, President Sen."

The ruler leaned over and put the palms of his hands flat on his desk, and did a son of half-push up. It was a gesture he sometimes did when nervous.

Well he should be nervous, Dirisha thought. He was not a popular man.

Three times in the past week, people had tried to send President Sen to join his ancestors. Three times, Dirisha had kept him alive. A fanatic with a hand wand had tried to get Sen from a crowd; a woman cook had tried to poison the President; a religious cabal had sent a team of assassins with bombs against the ruler of Mzaha. Dirisha had stopped them all. So far.

"Thirty seconds." The tech calling time looked into his viewer. "Cats' blood, Rimo, the posterior illuminator is in the frame. Get over there and move it, stat!"

The named tech scurried to move the offending light. Dirisha watched him circle behind the President, her spets-dod held ready to shoot if the man moved a hair toward Sen. Instead, the tech got one foot tangled in the base of the illuminator as he tried to move the light, and fell. He almost went headlong, but managed to save himself from falling by slamming into the emergency exit. Ouch. The tech shoved away from the door.

"Come on, Rimo! We're at ten seconds!"

Rimo grinned with embarrassment and tugged at the illuminator.

"Okay, okay, now move out of the frame!"

Rimo scampered back behind the holoproj camera.

Dirisha looked at the tech directing.

"Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one—go!"

President Sen smiled, and as he did, one of the technicians behind the camera suddenly pulled a strip of metal away from the camera's base and screamed. "Death to dictators!" Then the woman lunged forward.

Before the would-be assassin had moved half a meter, Dirisha shot her, the cough of her spetsdod loud in the room. What a stupid attack, she never had a chance, why—?

The double cough of a second set of spetsdods reached Dirisha even as she spun to face the movement she saw peripherally. A gray figure, coming from the emergency exit! President Sen slapped at his cheek where he'd been hit.

Before she could bring her spetsdods around to return the fire, Dirisha felt the double sting of two more spetsdod slugs stitch her belly. Damn! She couldn't even take one of them with her, for the gray figure danced back into the exit before she fired! Her darts hissed through the open doorway harmlessly.

Damn, damn, damn! She and Sen were dead—!

Dirisha straightened from her crouch. President Sen lifted himself off the desk. The suicidal tech with the metal strip stood and brushed at her slightly-tangled hair.

The gray figure stepped back into the room. Pen.

"I just killed your charge," Pen said, "And you along with him. How did I do it?"

Dirisha sighed. She thought back over the past few minutes. The clumsy, stumbling techs. The one-way lock.

"Sen's palm print, on the lock."

The tech called Rimo stepped forward and supinated his right hand. He peeled a thin sheet of plastic away from his right palm and held it up. Dirisha could see the whorls and lines on the material. She shook her head.

"You had clues," Pen said.

Dirisha nodded, feeling disgusted. "Sen's habit of pushing against his desk top."

"What else?"

"The clumsy techs. That gear is too expensive to let a hyperspaz play with it. It was a set-up for the lock fall."

"What else?"

"The diversionary attack. There was no way it could have succeeded—even Sen could have protected himself against that."

Pen nodded. "Cut it."

The walls of the "President's office" began to fade, as holoprojic images created by a magnetic-viral computer dimmed and allowed reality to seep back into the room. Dirisha and the others—all students or instructors—found themselves standing in the middle of a large domed structure, empty save for themselves. Dirisha knew that the other matador students would either be watching her test live, or would see the recording of it later. She sure had screwed it up.

Pen said, "Hindsight is wonderful, but it comes too late. Fortunately, this scenario was only a game. Learn from what you have seen here—no one should make the same mistake Dirisha did. Take nothing for granted." Pen paused. "I'd like to see the assassin."

A door opened and a figure entered the dome.

Dirisha smiled at the approaching woman, and shook her head ruefully. "I should have known," she said.

Geneva didn't smile. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Dirisha said. "It's the best thing you could have done for me. It might save my life, someday."

"I know. That's why I did it."

Pen spoke to an unseen audience. "If you want to be able to prevent your charge from such a fate as Dirisha's, you must learn to think like an assassin. If you can conceive of the attack, you can design a defense. In this job, there is no second place winner, second means you lose. Three times, Dirisha kept her charge alive, but she lost him on the fourth. Dead is dead forever. Remember that."

Pen turned and strode away, a dramatic figure in his robes. Most of the others began to follow him.

Dirisha turned to Geneva. "Why didn't you do the shooting? The plan was yours."

"Part of planning is to pick the best people for the job," Geneva said. "Pen was better equipped for that part."

Dirisha cocked her head to one side and smiled at the younger woman.

"Really? I think if it came to it, you could outshoot him. I've seen you both work."

"Against somebody else, maybe," Geneva said. She reached out to touch Dirisha's shoulder. "Not against you."

Dirisha felt that stab of feeling again, that uneasy touch of emotion she'd known since she and Geneva had become close. The woman loved her, there was no getting around it. Even though she knew Dirisha didn't feel the same way about her, she still loved her. Damn.

"Well, I'm next in the barrel," Geneva said, breaking the mood. "Probably they'll get me first time."

Geneva was wrong. Nine students tried assassinations against her charge, a portly "industrialist" from Earth. It was only when Pen and Red joined forces that Geneva finally lost; and, even then, she took Red with her, narrowly missing Pen as she went down.

Afterwards, Pen found Dirisha practicing sumito.

"Do you know why we were able to get Geneva's charge?"

"I saw the scenario, she was off-balance by the—"

"No. It was because she didn't really care for him. We do that on purpose, write the charges in as pompous or ignorant or stupid, sometimes. To see if you'll let your personal feelings for a client influence how you do your job.

Geneva didn't like him, so she was lax."

"She beat all of us nine times," Dirisha said.

Pen nodded. "Yes. But," he said softly, "if you had been her client, she'd still be beating us."

Dirisha stopped her dance. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Pen stood, as inscrutable as always. "It means that what you feel for a client makes a difference. It is difficult under the best of circumstances for a man or woman to be objective—whatever 'objective' is—about anything important. You don't like a client, then your job is just a job, 'objective', nothing more. If you like a client, you work harder for him or her, unconsciously. If you love a client and you can still maintain your professional training, that client gets everything you have. If you were Geneva's charge, she'd move planets to keep you safe. All the galaxy together would have trouble beating her—love is more powerful than fanaticism. Remember that, Dirisha. It's important."

Pen turned and left, and Dirisha stood watching him. At times, it seemed everything Pen said was ambiguous, full of hidden meanings. Dirisha felt as if she had just heard something profound, only—

She wished she knew what the hell it meant.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

DIRISHA WENT TO see Mayli Wu. She found the woman she'd first known as Sister Clamp sitting nude, legs locked in lotus and eyes closed, on a cushion in the meditation chamber.

Although Wu was naked, she wore her spetsdods, and Dirisha felt the other woman's awareness as she slipped into the room. There had been other times when she had known that kind of energy exchange, as another's ki flowed and meshed with her own. If she tried to shoot the meditating woman now, Dirisha knew she would be shot at the same instant. That sense of zanshin was part of what Flex players craved, part of what the Arts were supposed to give when enlightenment was reached. In all her years of training, Dirisha had known the feeling only a few times, and then only fleetingly. A true Master was supposed to live there.

Strange that she should feel it now.

Dirisha sat on her heels, and waited.

After ten minutes, Mayli Wu opened her eyes. She smiled. "Sister. How may I serve you?"

Dirisha said, "I need some answers."

"Of course." Wu unknotted her legs and stretched them in front of herself.

She bent at the waist and touched her toes, then straightened. She drew her feet up, knees gaping slightly, and clasped her arms around her legs. "Ask."

"Why did you give up being a medic to become a trull?"

"To learn about love."

Dirisha shook her head. "I was in that business, when I was young. What I learned about was lust, and selfishness."

"You weren't looking in the right direction."

"And you found what you wanted?"

"Yes. I have touched love more than once."

Dirisha digested that. "What is this all about?" She waved her hand, to encompass the whole of Matador Villa. "Really?"

Wu smiled. "Pen has told you."

"You'll pardon me if I say I don't trust Pen any farther than I can fly by flapping my arms. The man is an expert at manipulation, his motives are suspect."

"Everyone's motives are suspect, to you, sister. You don't trust anybody, you never have. It is your greatest strength."

Dirisha nodded. "It's kept me alive."

Wu shook her head. "Your greatest strength, but also your greatest weakness. A flaw in your perfection."

"What are you saying?"

Wu touched the edge of the plastic flesh holding the right spetsdod to the back of her hand, peeled it up, and dropped the weapon next to her hip. She repeated the process with her other spetsdod.

Dirisha's breath caught. During the time she'd been here, she'd never seen another student or instructor weaponless. She had gotten so used to seeing everyone armed, the sight of Mayli Wu without her weapons gave her a chill.

Now the woman truly looked naked; before, she had only been unclothed.

"Why did you do that?"

"Are you going to shoot me? I can't shoot back."

"No. But why did-?" Dirisha stopped, her gaze fixed on Wu's smile. "What makes you think I won't shoot? You do think that, don't you?"

"I know it."

Dirisha raised one hand and pointed at the center of Wu's chest. "It would only take a flick of my finger to prove you wrong."

"True," the naked woman said. "You could do it, easily. But you won't."

Dirisha let her hand fall. She was right. She wouldn't shoot. But how could Wu know?

"How do I know?" Wu said, voicing Dirisha's question. "Because I trust you. Your integrity. Your sense of fairness. Your training. I can see your essence, better than you can see it yourself, and I know. In this moment, in this place, I can trust you completely. If someone were to come in here and see me defenseless, another student, they might decide to collect a few easy points by stinging me, but that doesn't worry me, either. Do you know why?"

Dirisha felt herself being swept by emotions, a labile mix of fear, wonder and astonishment. The answer to Wu's question presented itself as though clad in microstacked stainless steel, as solid as a block of compressed lead: why couldn't anybody who happened by shoot Mayli Wu? Why, because I would protect her from it. Why would I do that? Because she trusts me to do it!

Wu said, "Ah. I see that you understand. A major step. Only one of many you must still take, but a beginning. Even the longest journey must start somewhere."

Shaken, Dirisha could not speak for a moment. Finally, she found her voice. "So Pen told the truth?"

"Certainly. He has not told you everything, but what he says about our purpose is true. You would never have been selected to come here, were you not in accord with it, on some level. The Confed is dying; when it finally collapses, there will be chaos in the ruins. For mankind to rise again at all will be difficult; for people to move in moral directions will be harder still.