‘Organization, speed, luck and, thus far, seven centuries of experience. Anyway, Keech doesn’t often put himself in a position where he can be hit. Normally he operates on Polity worlds well within AI surveillance, and spends most of his time searching through Polity databases. Not easy to get him there. When he does come somewhere like this, he’s normally well covered. It’s surprising that he’s here alone. Maybe he’s getting careless,’ said Svan.
‘Or maybe he’s just had enough,’ said Tors.
Svan shrugged and gestured to a path cutting into the dingle opposite a jetty. ‘This looks like it,’ she said.
As they turned into the path, Shib could feel the hairs prickling on the back of his neck. He had been in some hostile places before, some where he’d had to go suited and armoured, and some where nothing less than a fully motorized exoskeleton would do, but here he felt things were wrong right from the start. This was a casually brutal place. In the Hooper town, he’d caught the tail-end of some sort of fight, and even he had been surprised at how easily Hoopers bore hideous injury. Then there had been the rush to head for where Keech had headed, then of course Nolan… He peered round at the surrounding dingle and gripped his carbine tighter. From the dingle floor, spined frog-things regarded him with glinting blue eyes, and the foliage above bore oozing fruit of a long and slimy variety. Was there anywhere here where you could let your guard down?
‘This is the place. We secure it and wait for her here,’ Svan said.
‘Her?’ asked Shib, nicking his gaze forward. Ahead of them a tower sprouted from the ground, and around it the churned earth was clear of vegetation, as if the tower itself had sucked all goodness from it. Shib wondered where the resident ogre was.
Svan did not elaborate. Instead she turned to them.
‘Dime, take out the autogun, and any dishes on the roof. Tors, I want you to blow the door. You cover him, Shib, and hit any autos around the door.’
‘How many people here?’ Shib asked.
‘Just one old woman. We’re to hold her and wait. Our client should be along soon. Right, we go now.’
Dime dropped a targeting visor down over his eyes, raised his carbine, and fired four short pulses in rapid succession. As he fired, Shib and Tors ran for the door. On the roof of Olian Tay’s residence, the satellite dishes on the pylon flared and sagged. The autogun, which had swung their way at the last moment, disappeared with a flat crack and flare, out of which black fragments dropped to the denuded ground. Tors hit the door and slapped a small disk against the locking mechanism, while Shib covered him. They both swung themselves either side of the entrance as the small mine blew and sent the buckled door crashing inside the building. Then they were in.
Svan walked across the clearing, carefully scanning her surroundings. She watched as Dime ran around behind the structure, and she listened as sharp cracking sounds and low detonations issued from inside. The only noise she sensed came from Shib and Tors. This place was deserted. Either Olian Tay had struck lucky, or someone had warned her. As Svan entered the building, Dime moved in behind her. Tors stood in the central living room, doors broken open all around, while Shib was coming down a spiral staircase to one side. She glanced at them and they both shook their heads.
Svan peered up at the ceiling. ‘House computer, where is Olian Tay?’
‘Olian Tay, Olian Tay, is over the hills and far away!’ The voice was that of a woman, and Svan had no doubt to whom it belonged. She made a sharp hand signal to Dime, who quickly pulled an instrument from his belt and held it up.
‘Where are you?’ she asked.
‘Oh, I see,’ said Tay. ‘You want me to tell you that just so’s you can deliver the flowers my lover has sent.’
‘You could say that, but don’t you really want to know why we are here?’
‘That’s the way, keep me talking so’s your friend can trace a signal. Not too bright that, considering you destroyed the radio dish.’
‘You’re somewhere close, then,’ said Svan, making another sharp gesture. Shib and Tors made to duck out of the room and search, but Tay’s next reply stopped them in their tracks.
‘Wrong, this signal is coming through a landline to a pylon on the east of the island. Right now I’m sitting in the Mackay lounge on Coram. Oh, by the way, there’s enough explosives underneath my house to launch you four out this way as well, so I suggest you listen very carefully to me.’
‘I’m listening,’ said Svan.
‘Now, I know that somehow you’ve traced our mutual friend, Monitor Keech. He is not here anymore. The last I heard he was heading off to find some Old Captain to chat to. What I am most interested in is how you managed to trace him here.’
Svan gave the other three a warning look. ‘If I tell you that you’ll let us walk out of here?’
‘I will allow that,’ said Tay. ‘Now perhaps you can explain yourself?’
Leaning her elbows on the rim of the granite outcrop, Tay stared down at her tower. She then studied the screen of her transponder and smiled at the way the mercenaries were frantically gesturing to each other.
Their leader spoke up then. ‘We followed Keech with a purpose-built tracer that picks up on emissions from certain old designs of cybermotors,’ the Batian woman said, holding up some sort of device she had pulled from her belt. Tay peered at her screen. The explanation seemed plausible but she didn’t believe it for a moment.
‘I don’t believe that for a moment,’ she said, enjoying herself immensely. Only a small seed of doubt marred her enjoyment: if they hadn’t traced Keech by the method they claimed, how had they traced him? As she turned from the granite, with the transponder held up before her face, it occurred to her that maybe they were not here searching for Keech at all. No matter. She walked over to her AGC and climbed into it. When these mercenaries finally went away, as their kind always did, she would return to her home. She dumped the transponder on the seat beside her and reached for the control column.
‘Why, Olian,’ said the woman who climbed into the AGC beside her, ‘you’ve got it all wrong. They came here to meet me, and I came here to meet you.’
Tay did not recognize the face that smiled at her, but the gas-system pulse-gun pointed at her face had her fullest attention.
‘Who the hell are you?’ she asked.
‘Can’t you guess?’ the woman asked and, so saying, picked up Tay’s transponder and spoke into it.
‘Svan, this is your client here. I have Olian Tay and will be with you shortly. I must congratulate you on performing precisely as I expected.’
She clicked the transponder off, tossed it out of the AGC, and then looked at Tay expectantly. Before reaching out to take hold of the column Tay wiped sweat from under her chin and swallowed dryly. Batian mercenaries… now there were many people prepared to hire these mercenaries, hence the entire culture of one continent, on an Out-Polity planet, revolving around that frowned-upon profession, but factor in the recent presence of Sable Keech here on Spatterjay, and Tay’s own interests… Tay did not like where her thoughts were leading her. There had always been something odd about one particular story concerning the demise of one of the Eight.
‘What do you want?’ she asked.
The woman gave a deprecatory smile and waved the gun at her. Tay could not keep her eyes off the wide silvered snout of the weapon. She knew that, even at its lowest setting, it could probably take her face off.
‘Oh, Olian, we can chat about all this back in your wonderful tower. Then you can show me your wonderful museum. I’ve read quite a bit about it, and have always wanted to see it.’