Molehunt (15 page)

Well, in some people's minds the balance of power was no longer as balanced as it used to be.

‘There's more.' Josh's voice broke into Anneke's musings. He passed her a large e-pad containing what looked like engineering specs. ‘These items weren't as heavily encrypted as the rest.'

‘What are they?'

‘At best guess, they're refitting plans for M-Class Battle Cruisers.'

Anneke's mind reeled. ‘Refitting plans for dreadnoughts? But why? No one has dreadnoughts except RIM. Why would anyone need these?'

Josh shrugged, clearly not that interested in the real-life applications of his results. ‘Maybe some have gone missing. Have you looked lately?'

Good question, Anneke thought. Only problem was nobody but the gods that ran RIM knew where the Old Empire weapon caches were hidden. Indeed, their location was one of the most tightly guarded secrets in the galaxy. Legions of adventurers, psychopaths, and would-be conquerors had searched for the caches for a thousand years. Whoever controlled the weapon caches of the Old Empire, controlled the galaxy. It was that simple.

If the stories were true, RIM controlled them. RIM, with its complex code of morality and militarism, with its lonely view of human development, and its glorification of self-denial.

So …
looking
was out of the question. Fine. Unable to look, Anneke would do the next best thing.

But before she left Enigma, Anneke received a private PhoneNet call from Oracle, as he stood silently beside her. She turned on her inbuilt audio receiver and heard the synthetic voice.

‘One more thing, Anneke. I believe the hacker, who may or may not also be your suspect, was located nearby when he entered my system. Possibly this person is one of our own. I will monitor the situation on an ongoing basis.'

The fact that the mole was so close made her feel more paranoid than anyone being attacked on a regular basis ought to feel. She said her farewells and went to see Fat Fraddo. He was the Godfather of Luria. If there was a section of the Draco Quarter that was nastier and more dangerous than any other, that was where Fat Fraddo had his lair. A crook, a cheat, a killer, and the boss of Luria's organised black-crime syndicates, Fat Fraddo was also the most charming man Anneke had ever met.

And probably the most lethal.

Not that he was very nimble himself, weighing in at over two-hundred-and-twenty kilograms, but his word carried more weight in these parts than any voice from a firestorm.

When Anneke was eleven years old, Fat Fraddo had been a local gang-leader, rising fast and making plenty of enemies. Too many, as it happened. On the run from an ambush, he had raced into an alleyway and become caught in a bear trap – the kind local wannabes set out to see what they could catch. The trap caught Fraddo, and his pursuers nearly did, too.

Anneke was on her way home from school. She didn't know who Fat Fraddo was, but she screamed the name of a notorious hitman her uncle had mentioned as being important, and then ran. The gang assumed they were crowding some other gang's mugging and fled. This gave Fraddo time to unspring the bear trap and limp away fast. For Anneke it was just screaming a man's name. For Fraddo it was his life.

‘Hey, girl, how you been?' Fat Fraddo embraced her in his own version of a bear hug. ‘Listen, everybody.' He spoke to a room full of scumbags with low violence thresholds. ‘This here is Anneke. She's got special protection. From me. She's got more city privileges than all of you lot put together. Anybody ever lays a finger on her, you're strung up by your own guts. You got me?'

No one was stupid enough to miss that.

Fraddo led Anneke to the Ready Room. What she saw took her breath away. There were banks and banks of holomonitors showing schematics of star systems, quadrants and ‘premium' worlds. There were also computer screens, VR headsets and neural jacks, all crammed with data on shipping routes, port layouts, local stock exchanges and much more.

‘Welcome to Fraddo's Empire, Angel. Now what can I do for you?'

Fraddo sat down in a vast cushioned chair, looking like a king in his throne room. The background noise sounded like a stock exchange just after a big bank had folded.

‘I need to confirm some rumours,' said Anneke.

‘What kind of rumours?'

‘The
Majoris Corporata
kind.'

Fat Fraddo whistled. ‘Now you talkin' dirty and heavy.'

‘You heard anything, Fraddo?' Anneke asked.

Fraddo pursed his lips. ‘Now why you'd you wanna get mixed up in stuff like that, huh?'

‘It's my job. You know that.'

He shrugged and a tsunami of fat rippled under his T-shirt. ‘I heard me some space talk. Not that I give it any mind.'

‘You don't think it's real?'

‘Hell, I don't know, girlfriend. Space is big. Maybe them Clan and Company boys tired of being under the heel of RIM. Maybe they tired of lurkin' in this shit can. Maybe they's feelin' all pumped up. What do I know?'

He held out his hands, palms out, in a gesture of helplessness. Anneke laughed and Fraddo suddenly laughed back, basso profundo.

‘Okay, I hear some stuff. I hear Quesada been nosin' all over the place, putting together deals, calling in favours, old ones, too, some more'n a century old. They spearheading this. But not like normal. This thing, whatever it is, got a different style to it. Different
signature
, if you know what I mean.'

‘Somebody new, from outside maybe?'

‘Could be.'

‘You hear where any of this might be going on?'

‘I knows from your question that you already knows the answer, girlfriend. So I'm gonna tell you, whatever you do, stay away from the Cygnus Sector. That place ain't healthy.'

‘You planning on staying away from it, too?' Anneke asked.

Fraddo burst out laughing again. ‘Hell, no.'

‘If you were going to the Cygnus Sector and you needed information, where would you ask?'

‘Only one place. Reema's End. High orbit station above Telugus.'

‘Telugus?' She eyed him a moment. ‘You got any ships going that way, Fraddo?'

‘Girlfriend, you got a death wish or something?'

Anneke moved base three times during the next three days. Fraddo had offered to provide protection, but she declined. Even just visiting him would have sent the Committee members up the flue.

Then came some good news. The Committee declared its preliminary intent to clear her completely. She was ordered to appear before them the following day at noon.

That night news broke about her alleged past on Se'atma Minor. That was bad press. She sat watching the viewer in growing dismay as the local broadcaster told how, as a teenager, she had been a rebellious child who got hooked on drugs and started trafficking and how, not long afterwards, she had killed a man in a dealer argument. There were witnesses; police records were unearthed.

A local informant, his image carefully blurred, hinted that her uncle, a commander in RIM, had covered up the incident and helped her go straight.

‘What a work of art,' she muttered.

As she packed her meagre belongings and headed out the rooftop hatch of her latest bolthole, she had to admit the mole was an artist as well as a murderer.

Now he had exactly what he wanted: she was discredited, and all ports and jump-gates would be closed to her. She was trapped, and the pack would be baying for her.

‘Hey mole, big mistake,' she muttered as she walked. ‘I'm more dangerous as a criminal, and you just made me a criminal.'

M
AXIMUS paced, disgruntled, as he waited for the Envoy to show. Once again he was in the sparsely furnished room behind the tailor's workshop. The stench from the sewer filled his nostrils.

I shouldn't be here
, he thought.
I'm exposing myself needlessly. And why? The whim of some nobody alien?

He checked his watch again.
What was keeping the
—? He almost used the word ‘man'. He took a deep breath, tried to get his emotions under control. He'd taken a call on his earphone from Kilroy just before he left for this handover.

‘This line safe?' Kilroy asked.

‘What do you think?' said Maximus. ‘What is it?'

‘Longshadow's gone.'

‘Gone? How? Everything's closed to her. Ports, space towers, jump-gates. Her picture's on every channel.'

‘Still, she's gone.'

Maximus snarled. Anneke Longshadow was like a stone in his shoe, but he didn't have time to deal with her. Yet. Once the Envoy was happy and on its way, he would give her his full attention.

‘Rumour has it she's left for the Cygnus Sector.'

‘WHAT?'

‘Rumour has it she —'

‘I heard you!'

‘Your orders?' asked Kilroy.

‘Find out whatever you can. Confirm the rumours, one way or the other. I can't talk right now.'

‘Meetin' the lizard?'

Grunting, Maximus said, ‘We'll talk again tonight. Meet me at the usual place.'

He cut the connection. So. Longshadow was going to the Cygnus Sector. No prizes for guessing
where
in the sector she would be going. There was only one place to get the kind of information she would be wanting.

Reema's End.

It would soon be Anneke's end, too.

But first he must attend to ‘the lizard'. Cute name. There was definitely something reptilian about that alien. Maximus shuddered. The Envoy still had not shown. Maximus checked his watch for the tenth time. His scalp prickled. Something was wrong. Was this a set up?

He hurried to the back door; flung it open, and dredged up a show of nonchalance. The Envoy stood there, backlit by filthy street lamps.

Pulse racing, Maximus nevertheless managed to sound calm. ‘Well, it's about time you —'

The Envoy toppled forward into his arms. Maximus caught it instinctively, and then regretted it. A thick ichor was seeping from beneath the Envoy's habit, and it smelled like ripe garbage.

‘Who cut you?'

The Envoy's cowl fell back and Maximus stared. Lizard wasn't the right word for it. Cockroach fitted better. Maximus let go of the Envoy as if it were red hot, dropping it to the floor.

‘Assassin,' hissed the Envoy from between its mandibles. Its lidless eyes seemed to glare at Maximus.

‘You led an exporter here?' Maximus's tone was clinical.

‘I killed him, but I think I am dying.'

‘That's too bad.'

The Envoy made an odd noise deep in its thorax that might have been laughter. ‘No matter. I have already reproduced.' It coughed up purplish phlegm. Maximus took another step away. ‘You have the package?'

Maximus marvelled that the alien could think about business when it knew that it would soon be dead. He nodded. The Envoy made a rattling sound. It was speaking hurriedly, as if it didn't have much time left. ‘You must take it to my employer. In person. Anything less is – unacceptable.'

‘Taking it to your employer is what is unacceptable,' said Maximus. ‘That was never part of the agreement.'

‘Too bad. For you.'

Maximus fidgeted. He still couldn't risk a talima being sworn against him and, technically, under the arcane and ancient rules of engagement, his employer was within his rights. On the other hand, Anneke was quite possibly on her way to that very place. Reema's End.

Well, so be it. He would surrender to the galactic fate that kept throwing him and Anneke against each other.

‘You will go?' asked the Envoy.

‘I will. It suits me.'

‘Of course. It is
Kadros
. Fate.'

The creature laughed again, then died suddenly, a final burst of air hissing from its collapsing lungs. Maximus stood for a moment, thinking.

What to do with the body? A sewer job?

There was a whistling sound and the Envoy's body suddenly glowed white hot as an endogenous thermal chain reaction was triggered. Maximus shielded his eyes from the magnesium-bright light. It was over quickly. All that was left was a slight charring of the floorboards.