I shrugged. ‘Enjoy it while it lasts.’
‘You would be happy like that? In a construct?’
‘Luc, after what I’ve seen in the last two years, I’d be happy in a waiting zone for the souls of the damned.’
‘Very romantic. But I am talking about a military virtuality.’
‘We differ over terms.’
‘You consider yourself damned?’
I downed more Sauberville whisky and grimaced past the burn. ‘It was a joke, Luc. I’m being funny.’
‘Ah. You should warn me.’ He leaned forward suddenly. ‘When did you first kill someone, Kovacs?’
‘If it’s not a personal question.’
‘We may die on this beach. Really die.’
‘Not if it’s a construct.’
‘Then what if we are damned, as you say?’
‘I don’t see that as a reason to unburden my soul to you.’
Deprez pulled a face. ‘We’ll talk about something else, then. Are you fucking the archeaologue?’
‘Sixteen.’
‘What?’
‘Sixteen. I was sixteen. That’s closer to eighteen, earth standard. Harlan’s World orbits slower.’
‘Still very young.’
I considered. ‘Nah, it was about time. I’d been running with the gangs since I was fourteen. I’d come close a couple of times already.’
‘It was a gang killing?’
‘It was a mess. We tried to rip off a tetrameth dealer, and he was tougher than we’d expected. The others ran, I got caught up.’ I looked at my hands. ‘Then I was tougher than he expected.’
‘Did you take his stack?’
‘No. Just got out of there. I hear he came looking for me when he got re-sleeved, but I’d joined up by then. He wasn’t connected enough to fuck with the military.’
‘And in the military they taught you how to inflict real death.’
‘I’m sure I would have got around to it anyway. What about you? You have a similarly fucked run-up at this stuff?’
‘Oh no,’ he said lightly. ‘It’s in my blood. Back on Latimer, my family name has historic links to the military. My mother was a colonel in the Latimer IP marines. Her father was a navy commodore. I have a brother and a sister, both in the military.’ He smiled in the gloom, and his clone-new teeth gleamed. ‘You might say we were bred for it.’
‘So how does covert ops sit with your historic military family history? They disappointed you didn’t end up with a command? If that’s not a personal question.’
Deprez shrugged. ‘Soldier’s a soldier. It is of little importance how you do your killing. At least, that is what my mother maintains.’
‘And your first?’
‘On Latimer.’ He smiled again, remembering. ‘I wasn’t much older than you, I suppose. During the Soufriere Uprising, I was part of a reconnaissance squad across the swamplands. Walked around a tree and bam!’ He brought fist and cupped hand together. ‘There he was. I shot him before I realised it. It blasted him back ten metres and cut him in two pieces. I saw it happen and in that moment I did not understand what had happened. I did not understand that I had shot this man.’
‘Did you take his stack?’
‘Oh, yes. We had been instructed. Recover all fatalities for interrogation, leave no evidence.’
‘That must have been fun.’
Deprez shook his head.
‘I was sick,’ he admitted. ‘Very sick. The others in my squad laughed at me, but the sergeant helped me do the cutting. He also cleaned me up and told me not to worry about it too much. Later there were others, and I, well, I became accustomed.’
‘And good at it.’
He met my gaze, and the confirmation of that shared experience sparked.
‘After the Soufriere campaign, I was decorated. Recommended for covert duties.’
‘You ever run into the Carrefour Brotherhood?’
‘Carrefour?’ He frowned. ‘They were active in the troubles further south. Bissou and the cape – do you know it?’
I shook my head.
‘Bissou was always their home ground, but who they were fighting for was a mystery. There were Carrefour hougans running guns to the rebels on the cape – I know, I killed one or two myself – but we had some working for us as well. They supplied intelligence, drugs, sometimes religious services. A lot of the rank-and-file soldiers were strong believers, so getting a hougan blessing before battle was a good thing for any commander to do. Have you had dealings with them?’
‘A couple of times in Latimer City. More by reputation than actual contact. But Hand is a hougan.’
‘Indeed.’ Deprez looked abruptly thoughtful. ‘That is very interesting. He does not. Behave like a man of religion.’
‘No, he doesn’t.’
‘It will make him. Less predictable.’
‘Hoy. Envoy guy.’ The shout came from under the port rail, and in its wake I caught the murmur of motors. ‘You aboard?’
‘Cruickshank?’ I looked up from my musing. ‘That you, Cruickshank? ’
Laughter.
I stumbled upright and went to the rail. Peering down, I made out Schneider, Hansen and Cruickshank, all crammed onto one grav bike and hovering. They were clutching bottles and other party apparatus, and from the erratic way the bike held station, the party had started a while ago back on the beach.
‘You’d better come aboard before you drown,’ I said.
The new crew came with music attached. They dumped the sound system on the deck and the night lit up with Limon Highland salsa. Schneider and Hansen put together a tower pipe and powered it up at base. The smoke fumed off fragrant amidst the hung nets and masting. Cruickshank passed out cigars with the ruin-and-scaffold label of Indigo City.
‘These are banned,’ observed Deprez, rolling one between his fingers.
‘Spoils of war.’ Cruickshank bit the end off her own cigar and lay back across the deck with it still in her mouth. She turned her head to light up from the glowing base of the tower pipe, and hinged back up from the waist without apparent effort. She grinned at me as she came upright. I pretended I hadn’t been staring with glazed fascination down the length of her outstretched Maori frame.
‘Alright,’ she said, commandeering the bottle from me. ‘Now we’re running interference.’
I found a crumpled pack of Landfall Lights in a pocket, and lit my cigar from the ignition patch.
‘This was a quiet party until you turned up.’
‘Yeah, right. Two old dogs comparing kills, was it?’
The cigar smoke bit. ‘So where did you steal these from, Cruickshank?’
‘Armoury supply clerk at Mandrake, just before we left. And I didn’t steal anything, we have an arrangement. He’s meeting me in the gun room.’ She shuttled her eyes ostentatiously up and aside, checking a retinal time display. ‘In about an hour from now. So. Were you two old dogs comparing kills?’
I glanced at Deprez. He quelled a grin.
‘No.’
‘That’s good.’ She plumed smoke skyward. ‘I got enough of that shit in Rapid Deployment. Bunch of brainless assholes. I mean, Samedi’s sake, it’s not like killing people is hard. We’ve all got the capacity. Just a case of shedding the shakes.’
‘And refining your technique, of course.’
‘You taking the piss out of me, Kovacs?’
I shook my head and drained my glass. There was something sad about watching someone as young as Cruickshank take all the wrong turns you took a handful of subjective decades back.