Runner (37 page)

Rebo frowned. “Thanks for the warning—but how am I supposed to accomplish what you ask? We need to get off this planet, and the shuttle is going to land at the spaceport.”

“Go to Techno Society headquarters,” the spirit instructed, “and use the star gate. They won't expect that.”

“No,” the runner agreed soberly, “they won't. But the office will be guarded. What about that?”

“That's
your
problem,” Lysander said unsympathetically. “Now remember, it's absolutely imperative that you find Logos before they do, or those who control the Techno Society will make the same mistakes that I did. That has priority over everything else.”

“Not for me it doesn't,” Rebo replied, but the connection had been broken by then, and Norr was back in her body. The sensitive blinked and shook her head as if to clear it. “What did he say?”

Rebo slid the magazine into the butt of his gun and felt it lock into place. “He says they're waiting for us at the spaceport in Cresus.”

“And?”

“And he says we can escape Ning by making use of the star gate located inside Techno Society headquarters.”

Norr uttered a low whistle. “So, what do you think? Could we pull it off?”

Rebo thought about his responsibility to Lee and the fact that if the two of them were to divorce themselves from the sensitive, they would be a whole lot better off. The problem was that what he
should
do to take care of Lee was in direct conflict with what he
wanted
to do for Norr. A second had passed, and the runner was still struggling with the problem, when Lee sat up. His eyes were bright and determined. “The answer is, ‘yes.'
We
can pull it off.”

Norr laughed and looked from the boy to Rebo. He smiled. “You heard the boss . . . We'll find a way.”

The Techno Society's offices were pleasant compared to
the rooming house where Kane slept. So, when the operative wasn't out at the spaceport, he preferred to spend most of his time in the station chief's office. It had a large window that opened onto a narrow side street that was lined with stalls. The noise generated by squalling angens, merchants endlessly pitching their wares, and the steady
bang, bang, bang
of the local tinsmith had bothered the off-worlder at first, but now, after more than a week at his borrowed desk, he barely noticed the racket. He toyed with a double-edged letter opener and stared out the window.

There was a commotion out in the hall, followed by a loud
thump,
and a heartfelt swear word. Kane turned to see the station chief standing in the doorway. Her name was Ilia Posa. She was middle-aged, thick-waisted, and typically wore loose robelike garments that were intended to conceal her figure. She didn't like Kane, the task that had been assigned to her, or the fact that the operative had commandeered her office. Her voice was cold as ice. “Your visitor is here.”

“Bring her in,” Kane ordered, and stood while a blanket-draped stretcher was maneuvered into the room. The person who lay on it was so skeletal that the covers lay nearly flat. But the seer was there, and, though said to be near death, continued to occupy her body. Once the stretcher had been laid across the surface of the desk, and the generator-powered light had been extinguished in order to protect her eyes, Posa pulled the blankets down to reveal a skull-like face. Most of the old woman's hair had fallen out, her skin looked like gray
parchment, and her lips had a bluish tinge. But when her eyes locked with Kane's, the operative could feel the power still residing in her body. Her voice was little more than a croak. “What do you want? Let me die in peace.”

“My name is Kane,” the operative replied. “They tell me that you have the ability to communicate with the dead.”

The crone blinked. “I'm a sensitive. Everyone knows that.”

“Yes,” Kane agreed lamely. “Well, tell me this . . . Can you put me in contact with a spirit named Lysander?”

The old woman's eyes narrowed. “Why should I? And what will you do if I don't? Kill me?”

The joke was followed by wild cackling that Kane took to be laughter. He looked up at Posa. The station chief held a six-year-old girl by the hand. She let go and pushed the child forward. “No,” Kane replied calmly. “I'll kill
her
. And I'll do it slowly . . . While you watch.”

The little girl said, “Grandma!” and ran to the old woman's side.

The sensitive tried to rise but lacked the strength and fell back onto the stretcher. “You bastard.”

Kane nodded as if in agreement. “Put me in contact with Lysander, and both of you will go free.”

The seer closed her eyes. There was a long pause, and the operative was ready to conclude that his prisoner had either fallen asleep or passed into the next world, when her eyes suddenly popped open. “Lysander refuses to speak with you—but there's another spirit who will.”

Kane's felt a sense of frustration mixed with curiosity. “Really? Who?”

“His name is Cayo,” the sensitive said hoarsely. “He claims that you left him to die in the catacombs beneath the city of Zand.”

The operative remembered the desperate flight up out of the depths, the sound of shotgun blasts echoing back and forth between the ancient walls, and the pitiful way in which Cayo had called his name. “Kane! Help me!”

But he hadn't helped, and now, rather than the spirit he wanted to communicate with, Cayo was attempting to come through. The reality of that sent a chill down Kane's spine but he still managed to keep his voice level. “Tell him that I'm sorry—but there was no way to save him. I hope his next life will end more peacefully.”

“He doesn't believe you,” the old woman replied, “but he has information regarding the woman you're looking for
and
the object you brought up out of the catacombs.”

“Information?” Kane inquired cautiously. “Why would Cayo provide me with information?”

“In return for money,” the sensitive croaked. “Take a hundred cephors to Zand and deliver them to his wife. Once she has the money, Cayo will tell you what the woman plans to do.”

“I
know
what she plans to do,” Kane replied. “She and her friends intend to board the shuttle and leave the planet.”

“Cayo says you're wrong,” the seer responded, “and he seems sincere.”

There was a long pause as Kane considered the proposition. It seemed like a long shot, but it wasn't that much money, not by the society's standards, and thanks to the local star gate, he could travel to Zand in a matter of minutes. “All right,” he said finally, “tell Cayo that I will do what he asks. Except that his wife will receive
half
the money up front—and the other half once he delivers on his promise. In the meantime both you and your granddaughter will remain here.”

“You'd better hurry,” the old woman cautioned, “or
you're going to need a sensitive in order to communicate with
me
.”

Speed. That was the most important factor in Rebo's opinion
, and the others were in complete agreement. The longer it took to reach Cresus and implement their plan, the more time their enemies would have to prepare a trap for them. And that could be important, because even though the group intended to stay clear of the spaceport, they might ultimately be forced to use it. Just because Lysander said that a star gate was available didn't mean it was so, and if it turned out that the discarnate was wrong, the travelers would have little choice but to try for the shuttle.

So, no sooner had the float successfully made its way through the last set of rapids and entered the stretch of calm water that river folk called the flat, than the foursome left the slow-moving raft in favor of a long, narrow mail boat. It was powered by two heavies pulling four oars. Captain Duther and his crew waved as sweeps flashed in the sunlight, water dripped off bright red blades, and their former passengers were borne downstream.

The river was flowing along at about two miles per hour. That, combined with the strength of the burly oarsmen, was sufficient to propel their craft at a steady six to seven miles per hour. Thanks to the fact that the boat was on an express run, carrying correspondence for the Caliph himself, there was no need for it to stop at each jetty along the way.

As time passed, and the distance to Cresus continued to dwindle, villages appeared with increasing regularity, as did river traffic, until the young woman who served as the coxswain was forced to steer a zigzag course between heavily laden barges, rafts of slow-moving logs, and a variety of boats. Most were drab affairs, dedicated to fishing or
carrying small cargoes, but a few boasted striped awnings, bright metalwork, and uniformed crew people. Lee never failed to wave as the mail packet swept past them—but none of the wealthy boaters chose to return the gesture.

That was to be expected, from Hoggles's perspective at least, but what troubled the heavy was the other items that the current carried with it. There was trash of every description, ugly-looking white foam that poured into the Juno from what had once been freshwater streams, and the occasional corpse. Flood victims perhaps? Boatmen murdered by pirates? Casualties of the latest plague? There was no way to tell.

The half-submerged bodies caused the heavy to think, however, about the city and his reasons for returning there. Not to see his family, all of whom had been murdered, but to rediscover himself. Was he the firebrand of his youth? The hermit who lived aboard a spaceship? Or someone else entirely? And what about his friends? Was he ready to part company with them? And make a life for himself in Cresus? And how realistic was the idea given that there was a price on his head?

The flood of questions was interrupted as the mail boat rounded a bend, slid under a high-arched bridge, and passed between the whitewashed pylons that marked the city limits. Most watercraft were required to pull over to the riverbanks at that point and line up to go through customs, but the mail boat belonged to the Caliph and was exempt from his taxes. It sailed past the official barges, pennant fluttering gaily in the breeze, as water boiled at its stern.

Though not supposed to carry passengers, the mail boat frequently did, which was how the three-person crew were able to get by on their parsimonious salaries. This fact was not lost on the customs agents, who expected a gratuity at
the end of the month in return for remaining silent, and who lived in large houses deep in one of the safer parts of the city.

Rebo, who had absolutely no interest in the extent to which the city's officials had been corrupted, was simply grateful for the fact that he and his companions had been allowed to enter Cresus without undergoing any scrutiny. It was a piece of good fortune he had never dared dream of.

While somewhat open about carrying passengers, there were limits as to how brazen the boat crew could be without eliciting the ire of their superiors, which is why they sought to discharge their illicit cargo
prior
to pulling up alongside the government dock. It was already host to one of the new steamboats that plied the river, and Lee thought the vapor-belching side-wheeler was fascinating.

Having paid the coxswain, the foursome climbed a much-abused ladder to the jetty above. From there it was necessary to thread their way between food vendors, fishermen, and pickpockets before emerging onto the busy thoroughfare that ran parallel to the river and terminated some five miles to the west.

Even though he had grown up in Cresus, Hoggles didn't know where the Techno Society's headquarters were. He pulled a hood up over his head. “Come on,” the heavy said as he made a hole in the crowd, “let's find a wordsmith.”

The others followed, and it wasn't long before Hoggles led them through a passageway and into the thriving market that lay beyond the row of stores and warehouses fronting the waterway. The odor of urine mixed with what the sewers routinely disgorged into the river produced a combination so malodorous that the runner was hesitant to breathe.

At one point Rebo saw light reflect off metal as one of the Techno Society's robots appeared up ahead. It was a
dangerous moment, but the runner managed to hustle his companions into a tea shop before the machine marched past.

Not long thereafter Hoggles spotted what he was looking for and led the group into a storefront dominated by the steady
thump, thump, thump
of a hand-operated press, the harsh smell of chemicals, and the head scribe's frenetic personality. She was small, no larger than a normal teenager, and seemed to flit from place to place. Norr winced as the woman came out to greet them and sent a tidal wave of raw energy toward her potential customers. “Welcome! And what can we do for you today? Wedding invitations perhaps? No? Well, we can handle whatever the project is.”

“We need an address,” Hoggles said. “For an organization called the Techno Society.”

“Oh,” the wordsmith replied, her disappointment plain to see. “I'll look it up.”

Five minutes later, and one copper poorer, the group was on its way. Many of the shops had changed during the heavy's extended absence, but the streets remained the same, so it wasn't long before the foursome found themselves across the street from the building in which the Techno Society was headquartered. What the others didn't know, because Hoggles had chosen not to tell them, was that the route had taken them across the square where his family had been slaughtered. There were tears in his eyes, but the heavy managed to surreptitiously wipe them away as he herded his friends into a deeply shadowed alcove and nodded toward the building on the far side the street. “That's the place,” the variant said. “Right over there.”