He smiles when he sees me notice.
‘Look . . .’ Anton says.
Wrong approach. He shouldn’t be arguing. He should be telling that man to lower his pistol or die. Situations like this need to be kept simple.
‘You have to give him up.’
‘Why?’
Gesturing at his companions, the man makes them stand back so we can see the three silent gyrobikes and two dead riders lying in the dirt.
‘See,’ he says. ‘That’s a crime.’
When Anton opens his mouth to reply it occurs to me that it’s time to end this conversation. ‘The messenger didn’t kill them. I did.’
The man looks at me.
‘And I’ll kill you if you don’t lower that pistol.’
‘Dangerous words.’
General Luc is flanked by his ADC and his driver. Both wear full combat gear, with their visors down. Maybe the Wolf thinks he’s bullet-proof. Our eyes lock, and he doesn’t like it when I grin.
Why does he think I do it?
‘So,’ I say. ‘Getting others to do your fighting?’
The Wolf’s face tightens.
As if on cue, two more bikes roll into the dusty square and the crowd decides to fall back some more. Slowly, the riders climb from their bikes. What they don’t do is unholster their shotguns.
That tells me they’re amateurs.
A bunch of dirt farmers wearing what was once uniform.
Don’t get me wrong. Where I came from dirt farmers are aristocracy. And I’ve worn enough rags in my time. I’m just saying I wouldn’t want this lot guarding my back. For a start, their bikes block each other. So it’s impossible for them to move out swiftly.
See what I mean?
Anton’s holding his hunting rifle with one hand. He’s holding it lightly. So lightly it looks as if it might slip from his fingers at any moment.
No one’s fooled.
That rifle is expensive. Made by a famous maker. The Wolf undoubtedly has one like it. He knows who’ll be taking the first bullet.
‘Your call,’ Anton says.
Anton began in the palace guard. He married a senator, one of the richest women in Farlight. She might be a doubter, and he might be in exile and newly released from prison; but still . . .
The stab of jealousy surprises me.
Never knew I was ambitious.
I discover I am now. The empire’s bigger than I knew and more complicated than I expected. Dying here would be a really shitty move.
‘Tezuka,’ General Luc says, ‘let’s keep this civil.’
This time it’s Anton’s face that tightens. He doesn’t like being patronized. It took Aptitude to tell me what that means. Before that, I just thought it was people being rude.
‘What do you want?’ he says.
Glad to see he’s ignoring the bit about being civil.
Twisting slightly, the Wolf nods to the bodies in the square. ‘They’re police,’ he says. ‘Killing police is a capital crime. Even village ones. What do you think I want? I want Vijay Jaxx’s messenger.’
‘The messenger didn’t kill those men.’
‘No,’ says General Luc. ‘He didn’t, did he? But he did refuse an order to stop. That’s a crime in itself . . .’
The Wolf smiles.
‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘I only want to ask a few questions.’
Anton nods thoughtfully.
Now, I haven’t forgiven General Luc for upsetting Aptitude. And I’m not interested in Anton’s respect for the law complicating things. Besides, I need to ask Sergeant Leona some questions of my own. And I don’t rate my chances of getting her back once the Wolf has her. At least, getting her back unbroken.
‘Not going to happen. Want to know why?’
I take his silence as a yes.
‘This is a Death’s Head matter. You have a problem with Colonel Vijay’s messenger take it up with HQ. The day I get an order telling me to hand the messenger over is the day it happens. Until then . . .’
The Wolf looks me up and down.
‘You’ll remember me,’ I say. ‘How many seven-foot ex-Legion sergeants with one metal arm are you likely to meet?’
Anton laughs.
General Luc doesn’t like that.
As his pistol comes up, we hear a click as Anton works the slide on his hunting rifle. Seems like leaving it late to me. In my hand the SIG-37 shivers, runs a rapid diagnostic and chooses explosive. Since we’ve got metal bars behind us, stone walls both sides and doors ahead, I’m not too sure about its choice.
But I needn’t have worried.
Luc is staring at the automatic in my hand. He’s opening and shutting his mouth like a dying fish. Could be the fact it’s pointing at his gut. Although he seems too outraged for it to be just that.
‘Yeah,’ says my gun. ‘Right first time.’
The lights on his side arm are switching off one after another.
This is what usually happens when a semi AI weapon comes up against something fully AI. ‘That’s illegal,’ the Wolf says.
The SIG-37 sighs.
The general is right, of course.
It’s illegal almost everywhere.
In fact, owning a fully AI weapon is not just illegal, it’s a capital offence. I watch the Wolf remember that. See calculation enter his face as he wonders how he can use this to his advantage.
‘General Jaxx knows I have it.’
‘Does he now?’ the Wolf says.
‘Yeah. And so does our glorious leader.’
General Luc goes still. OctoV’s name has that effect on most people.
‘You realize,’ Anton says, ‘that Sven has met the emperor?’ He’s talking to the Wolf, obviously. ‘On more than one occasion?’
‘More than-?’ The Wolf knows about my meeting OctoV the day General Jaxx was made Duke of Farlight. Everybody knows about that. It was the emperor’s first public appearance in a hundred years.
‘Haven’t you?’ Anton says to me. ‘Met him, more than once?’
‘Three times,’ I say. ‘Unless it’s four.’
The general is scowling at me. The look of a predator denied its prey.
I’m nobody’s prey. But it impresses me General Luc thinks I might be. The Wolf is a man with no cut-off. Someone who doesn’t like to be denied.
Lowering his pistol, he holsters it as if I’m not there.
‘Change is coming,’ he tells Anton. ‘Decide where your loyalties lie.’
‘They lie with the emperor.’ Anton says this firmly.
‘In that case,’ General Luc says, ‘maybe you need to consider where the emperor’s loyalties lie.’
Chapter 9
‘Sven,’ Anton says.
Yeah, I know. If you can’t fix it with a hammer, you’ve got an electrical problem. Doesn’t stop him saying it.
Takes me a day to rebuild Sergeant Leona’s gyrobike. Having removed its fairing, I unbolt its saddle, side boxes and shotgun holster. Inside all this is a single fusion unit, matched to a cheap gyro that will keep the bike upright in most conditions short of a direct hit.
Stripped to her singlet and combats, the sergeant sandblasts paint from its fairing on my orders. Sweat darkens Leona’s spine, and stains the singlet under her arms, finally sticking cotton to her breasts and gut.
‘Nipples like bullets,’ Anton mutters.
I’m supposed to be the one who says stuff like that.
Debro thinks the sergeant needs to take it easy. I think the fairing plates need to be able to flex properly. It’s obviously been years since they could do that.
Leona cuts back five coats of paint.
As she does, I take the fusion unit apart. It’s old, obviously enough. But the ceramic shielding is sound and the fuel rod good for several half-lives longer than all of ours added together. After the unit is back in one piece, I balance the wheel and take the Icefeld for a spin.
It brakes well enough, turns on the spot and lets me slide down a gravel slope without losing its grip. Getting back up again is tougher. But only because the engine isn’t really built for someone my size.
The next bike is quicker.
Sergeant Leona sandblasts the fairing as I rebuild the unit, balance its wheel and repair one set of brakes. As an after-thought, I check for bugs and find two.