The Szuiltan Alliance (The Szuiltan Trilogy) (23 page)

Agent
. Again, someone calling Jack an agent.

"A good man. He'll be missed." This from a second voice somewhere to Steve's left.

"What do you mean
Agent
Holt?"

"Your friend Jack Holt was more than a trader trying to get back into space Steve, much more than you will probably ever know."

The voices dropped to whispers, sibilant sounds filling the air as they discussed something between themselves. Steve could not make out the words and did not make any great effort to try. His mind was struggling with another matter. The message. He had been given a message to deliver, and there had been names as well, names he had not included in his telling of the story because he had forgotten. Until now.

"Suzex."

The whispers stopped immediately. There was another moment of complete silence and then the man's voice.

"What of Suzex?"

Is that nervousness I can hear?
Perhaps even fear?

"I was given a message by the man who killed Jack," said Steve, shivering in the sudden atmosphere of cold dread and anticipation in the room.

"Which was?"

Steve wanted to get the words exactly right. It was not difficult. He found they were etched into some far corner of his mind. He would probably never be rid of them.

"'Tell the Council that Suzex has dealt with another one of their agents.'" He paused at a sudden intake of breath behind him before continuing. "And there was something else too, something about this Council not having anyone to stop him without someone called Shrilor. Does that sound right?"

The man did not answer. Instead he leaned close. Steve could smell the faint odour of exotic herbs on his breath. This man did not eat in places like
The Tradesman's Entrance
, where seasoning was limited to a slight sprinkling of synthetic salt and garlic.

"The official line on Jack Holt's death will be that you were both involved in an accident while en route to Szuilta. Unfortunately Jack was killed. You escaped with minor injuries. You never reached Szuilta."

The man's voice was low, menacing, and Steve quickly realised that it was futile to argue. Whoever this man was there was a definite aura of authority about him.

"If you should start trying to tell other people the story you told us, you will be struck off the trading register."

"You can't..."

"We can, Steve. Believe me, we can. You will never trade legitimately again. Now, do you understand all that?"

Steve nodded. He found it easy to believe.

"Good. As long as you go along with our story about the accident you have nothing to worry about. We probably won't even have to talk to you again. You can forget all about us."

"That shouldn't be difficult." Steve's voice held a sharp edge of bitterness. "I never found out who you were in the first place."

He felt the sharp pain in his arm again, and then blackness.

It was hard to believe that had all happened over four months ago. The warning was still fresh in his mind, and he felt certain he was being watched, listened to. He had become edgy, looking over his shoulder, thinking carefully about what he said before he said it.

Shit! My comment about the Bosens. Will that count against me?

He finished the glass in front of him, tapped it on the bar for a refill and drank half of that in one gulp.

Fuck them.

He knew it was the drink talking, but it satisfied a basic need in him and he smiled.

"Mr Drake?"

Steve turned to face the man who had arrived almost silently at his shoulder. He wore an immaculately clean trackover, at odds with the majority in the room around them. He took hold of Steve's arm with a gentle but firm grip.

Steve pulled his arm away.

"What do you want?" He struggled to speak clearly through the alcohol that was slurring his thoughts as much as his words.

The man took hold of Steve's arm again and helped him to his feet. The grip was stronger this time.

"The Trading Inner Council wish to see you right now."

Chapter 38

A siren wailed somewhere off in the distance. Police? Fire? Paramedics? It was impossible to tell.

A squadron of air cars sped by overhead, roof-lights strobing the night, scanners like spotlights racing along the ground, up the sides of buildings and off over the rooftops. They were travelling too fast to detect anything useful, but the show was impressive.

A loud creaking down the street, the deep rumble of masonry falling, timbers cracking. The fire had died some time ago but the destruction continued.

The outer suburbs were at war.

This was no longer vandalism, no longer isolated terrorist actions. This was war.

A rebellion.

Ursa Mirram sighed at the thought. She had never expected the openness of the fight that raged around her every day. She suspected that few, if any, had. The trigger had been the arrival of the Bosens, of course, and the brutal tactics they employed.

"We were slaves under Earth, we will not be slaves again."

She remembered the words now, words spoken by one of the rebel leaders, a man called Simon Walker. Until the Bosens he had been an unemployed vagrant, squatting in empty buildings, leading his band of fellow vagrants on nighttime excursions into the more affluent suburbs to commit robbery and vandalism. When she had lived in one of those suburbs she had heard the rumours about such bands, and she had heard the horror stories of people waking to find their house violated, horror stories of violence, rape and murder. She had attended one of his illegal gatherings and had little doubt that the stories were true. His words, however, made sense.

Can't the government see that they're just exchanging rule by one distant planet to rule by another? An alien planet at that? Can't they see they're just stepping back in time, insulting all those who died to make Aks free?

She had always known of Mayor Lane's hatred for Earth, but she would never have imagined it went so deep as to obscure the obvious. And now he was Leader?

Larn help us.

"Admiring the view?"

Ursa turned from the crumbling hole in the wall, her jacket catching slightly on a rusty hinge, the only evidence that this had once been a door.

"Not much to admire at the moment," she said, smiling at the man who walked from the dark of another room.

Man? Only a boy really. Sixteen at the most.

John Keyes fought to hide his embarrassment, subdue the blush he felt rising in his cheeks. He had lost his parents in one of the first actions by the Bosens, stood and watched them ripped apart by those alien abominations. The woman who stood before him now, this Ursa Mirram, had pulled him to the safety of an old building, literally dragged him as he stood traumatised by the death of his mother and father. He still had nightmares. He was afraid to fall asleep some nights. Occasionally the nightmares would strike while he was awake, terrifying visions that would paralyse him, leave him shaking and sweating in a dark corner. Ursa would come to him, speak softly, hold him. She would ease the fear away, mask the past in the pleasure of the present.

The older men would laugh at him, say that he had found a new mother in Ursa. At first he would have agreed, she
was
like a mother to him. Now, he was unsure, suspicious of the feelings her nearness stirred in him, embarrassed by the
other
dreams, the ones that had started to replace his nightmares during sleep.

He had been a shy boy, rarely straying from his parents' side, educated, as so many were in the outer suburbs, at home by family and friends. As he grew he developed a passing interest in girls, but his shyness and his dependence on his parents had restrained him from experiencing anything other than the rare fantasy. Instead, he submerged himself in books. He learned of puberty and the ever so slightly frightening mysteries of sex through reading rather than through experience, and he was happy that way. Life was something that touched other people, not him, not his books.

But Ursa... she stirred something in him, something he had only read about. He recognised the signs, so many works of fiction were filled with them. He had loved her as a boy loves his mother since she first took him into her protection. Now, he realised, he needed to love her as a man loves a woman. The thought both terrified and embarrassed him.

He cleared his throat of the tightness that had developed before he spoke, pushing thin fingers through his tangled blonde hair, suddenly aware of how much he needed to bathe, to wash his hair, to be clean again.

"Did I hear police overhead?" His voice irritated him. It sounded so small, so
childish
.

Ursa walked away from the old doorway, limping heavily, her artificial right foot clumping awkwardly on the wooden floorboards of the room. It had been the best the rebel group who found her could do, using doctors who had been struck off because of their anti-government sympathies, whose access to medical supplies was severely limited. The bio-mechanics in the foot were old and temperamental but it served its purpose. It allowed her to walk.

"You should be asleep." Her voice was soft, concerned. This boy had been through so much and she recognised the dependency that had grown between them. He needed a mother. She needed...

What do I need? A son? I never wanted children. A lover? He's only a boy.

"I don't like to sleep. It makes me remember."

How his blue eyes sparkle in the dim light from outside. How soft and caressing his voice with its child-like qualities. Oh Larn! Am I that degenerate?

She turned to look back towards the night outside, fearful that her eyes might give her away. She had spent too much time holding him, stroking his head to banish the bad memories that lurked within both of them. It confused her and frightened her.

This is not the place. Now is not the time. He is too young to be the one.

"Are we safe here? Are the police scanning this area now?"

He had moved closer to her. She could feel his presence behind her.

"They scanned as they flew past, but too quick to pick us up I think."

"But are we safe?" His voice trembled slightly. He was unsure whether it was fear at the possibility of discovery or fear of his feelings for Ursa. He was just inches from her now. He could reach out, touch her, not her arm or her back, but those places he had always considered forbidden. It would take such little effort of the body, but so great an effort of will.

He was relieved when she stepped further away.

"For the moment, perhaps. But I think we need to move before tomorrow night. We've been here for how many days now?"

He thought, the effort of memory a welcome distraction.

"Four, maybe five. I'm not sure."

"Four or five, it makes no difference," she said, looking once more out into the night. "Too long whichever way. Are the others awake yet?"

The others?

For a moment he wondered what she meant, and then he remembered.

The others. I had almost forgotten about the others.

"No. They were still asleep in the other room when I came through here."

For a moment he was jealous. There were seven of them in total, including Ursa and himself. The other five were
men
not
boys
like him.

What chance have I got with Ursa when there are men of her own age or older? For all I know she's already sleeping with them when I'm not awake.

He knew the thought was ridiculous, wasn't it? He seldom slept for long, and he was always watching her. She had never shown interest in the men and they had never shown any in her, at least not of a sexual nature. Jealousy was so dangerous.

I must control it.

"Should I wake them?" he said, forcing his voice to be level and calm.

Ursa looked to the sky. Dawn was a suggestion behind the billowing smoke of fires.

"Soon. We..."

There was a scrambling from outside, a foot slipping on the rubble that cluttered the street.

She waved John back as she drew her pistol from the holster clipped at her side.

John fell back into the shadows, fear causing him to tremble, but it was a fear he was used to and one he could control. He knew he should be ready to help, but the other guns were in the back room with the sleeping men.

Foolish. I should have brought one with me.

Ursa slipped to one side of the doorway, her weapon held in steady hands. Had they been discovered? Had she been wrong about the speed of the scan? There was nothing to be gained from such questions. If this was an attack then perhaps she could hold them off long enough for John to wake the others. The doorway was narrow, all the windows were boarded up. They would struggle to get inside.

Unless they use explosives.

The possibility made her move further away from the wall. She offered more of herself as a target this way, but close in gave her no chance if they blew their way in.

Some choice.

She was aware of John moving towards the door leading to the back room.

Stay still
, she wanted to cry out.
Wait until I open fire. Wait until they're concentrating on me. You're in the open.

The thought of John being hit and killed filled her with a sudden emptiness, a deep sickness in her stomach, but she thrust such thoughts aside.

Another scrambling, nearer this time, just outside the door. If it was police or soldiers they were surprisingly clumsy.

A dishevelled figure fell in through the door.

Ursa's finger tightened on the trigger, only to relax as she recognised one of the men from their group.

So close. I almost pulled the trigger.

"What the fuck are you doing sneaking around?" she snapped. "I almost killed you."

"I wanted to look outside, see what was happening. I couldn't sleep."