"Fucking hell," sent Gorman.
Cormac, because he was only just becoming accustomed to using his aug, did not feel confident enough at subvocalizing to ask what was bothering his unit leader.
Tarren was a small, wiry little man clad in an armoured suit which Cormac assumed he favoured because it made him look a little more impressive. He wore an aug and sat with a hand resting on a hexagonal box affixed to the arm of his chair. He eyed them for a moment, then nodded to one of his men, who kicked the prostrate man to his feet and sent him on his way. This local scuttled past them as they advanced.
"This could be a problem," Spencer sent generally.
"We will both have to focus on him," came Travis' reply.
"If, or probably when, we encounter any problems," Spencer sent direct to Cormac's aug, "these are yours." An image of the room and its occupants arrived in his aug with four of Tarren's men highlighted over to Cormac's left. He tried to focus first on the image, then on the four men indicated, but felt distanced by the pain in his forehead. But he would not let this little handicap hinder him—he had managed to function with worse than this. There were about twenty of these thugs in the room and he wondered how the others had been assigned. And why were Crean and Travis focusing on only one person? He decided to try asking a question.
"Who Travis Crean focus on?" he managed, feeling clumsy as he tried to prevent his lips moving.
"I see," sent Spencer. "The big guy is a thralled hooper. Under his hand Tarren has a Prador control unit which is probably linked to his aug."
Cormac absorbed that and shivered almost in superstitious awe. He had heard about such creatures, but stupidly assumed they were all gone now, or were confined to the Prador Kingdom. Only a short while back his research, before taking the mem-load, had revealed to him that his father and Amistad had been keeping watch on "Prador snatch squads." He called up in his aug part of the text he had found then:
During the latter years of the war, these same squads captured humans who were then transported to the planet Spatterjay where they were infected with the local viral fibres, which impart great physical toughness and durability. The purpose of so infecting these captives was to make them strong enough to physically survive Prador coring: a process whereby the brain and part of the spinal column is removed to be replaced by thrall technology.
So, Tarren controlled a human once enslaved by the Prador, a mindless human, and one that, because of infection by the Spatterjay virus, would be very, very tough and difficult to kill.
"That's far enough," said Tarren, when they reached a point in the middle of the floor adjacent to the corpse of the local. The hooper had probably broken her neck with the ease of someone snapping a carrot.
Spencer halted and nodded towards the corpse. "Little problem with the natives?"
"Not an insoluble one," Tarren replied, "and really none of your concern. Who are you and what do you want here?"
"You can call me Spencer, if you wish, and I'm here for information for which I am prepared to pay quite handsomely."
"Just received a recent update from our informant—seems this little shit's pet hooper has killed eight people in the last week."
"And how are you going to pay for this information, supposing I even have it?"
Cormac could see where this was going. He kept his right hand positioned over the gas-system pulse-gun holstered at his hip, while the thumb of his left hand, apparently hooked into the waistband of his jeans, was also hooked around a stun grenade.
"Prador diamond slate," said Spencer, carefully reaching into the pocket of her coat and taking out a packet. She held it up and Tarren glanced to his hooper, who lurched into motion and walked over to stand before Spencer, holding out his spade of a hand. Spencer cautiously placed the package on that hand, which closed, and the hooper swung round and brought it to Tarren.
"Crean and Travis, when we're done here and if you're both still intact, go and drive the rest away," Spencer sent. "We won't want to be disturbed for a little while."
No direct order given, but Spencer was certainly telling them this was about to get bloody. Or had she earlier issued some order that Cormac had missed?
Tarren accepted the package, a simple leather wallet with a buttoned-down flap, opened it and tipped out the contents. Four flat, clear octagonal crystals slid out onto his hand—a veritable fortune in diamond slate.
"So what is this information you want?"
"You recently had a visitor," said Spencer, "whose current name is Marcus Spengler, though you may know him by a different name, maybe Carl Thrace. His current appearance is of a fat bearded fellow with a tendency to dress in brown leather."
Tarren frowned and tipped the crystals of diamond slate back into the wallet, then placed that to one side on the arm of his chair. "He told me there would be people following him and he paid me to discourage them." He smiled and waved a finger at Spencer. "Now, as well as being a man of my word I am also a business man. Spengler told me to discourage you, but he didn't say I should keep quiet about where he went."
"And that would be?" Spencer enquired.
"Oh, he went out to what's left of this planet's attempt at terraforming. I'm not entirely sure what interest he has in the place, unless it was to find somewhere to hide that interesting piece of luggage he had with him." Tarren looked theatrically thoughtful for a moment. "I really ought to find out soon, since he only rented that gravcar for a day and has now been gone for five days."
"Thank you for the information," said Spencer.
"Don't kill him—I'll need to confirm this," she sent.
"Think nothing of it," said Tarren. "In fact that's all you'll be thinking of it."
"Hit them," came Spencer's cold instruction, as she palmed a thin-gun, raised it and fired a short burst of three shots, while swinging the weapon sharply across. Cormac had never seen anything quite like it, for each of the three shots separately struck three individuals, two of them beyond Tarren, and one of them the hooper. That shot punched a hole straight through the big blue man's forehead, but it seemed to affect him not at all as he began moving towards Spencer.
Something then clipped Cormac's shoulder, and stun grenades began to go off all about the room. He felt a surge of adrenaline whose cause was more embarrassment than fear, for he should not have been standing gaping. He threw himself sideways, simultaneously arming the grenade as he pulled it from his waistband, and sent it skittering across the floor to two of those Spencer had selected for him. As it exploded, he shouldered the floor, rolled and came up with his pulse-gun levelled. He fired once on automatic, sending one envirosuit-clad woman crashing over a table, then something punched him hard in the right biceps, spinning him round, his gun flung from a hand that now felt boneless. As he went down on one knee, he used his left hand to draw Pramer's thin-gun from where he had concealed it in the back of his trousers, but he knew he was just moving too slowly. His fourth target, a squat, ginger-haired man, had already drawn a bead on him with a cut-down pulse-rifle.