Fixx hesitated in the lee of a rusted barn and studied the aircraft. One of them was a giant, a huge C-5 Galaxy, heavy like a pregnant albatross and low to the ground on a cluster of fat wheels. There was no cockpit to speak of, not in the sense that Fixx thought of it. Where the Galaxy had been built with a cabin for pilot and crew there was now a blank banner of plastic and steel, pockmarked with sensor pits and twitchy antennae rods. SkyeCorp didn’t use human pilots for the most part. It was far more cost-effective to engineer out that whole part of the system and replace it with cheap logic circuits and bio-matter processors-that is, brain tissue harvested from high-order primates. The four-engine plane had its nose lifted so that container trucks could drive aboard and deposit their loads. He could see from his vantage point that the last items of cargo were already being secured; soon the nose cowl would drop and the Galaxy would amble out on to the runway. The jets were already spinning at idle-this flight was running late. Fixx dropped to his knee and rolled the bones on a patch of weed-cracked concrete. The pattern brought another smile to his face. Good choice. This bird would take him where he wanted to go.
There were a few men milling around the front of the hangar, some running cursory checks on the aircraft, others smoking and drumming bored fingers on the barrels of their rifles-aging Gulf-vintage Colt M-16s, as third-hand as the base and the transport jet. Fixx kept the sword close and moved in toward the hangar. He could have killed every man here with the SunKings switched to deep reticule mode, but that would have brought the house down. No. Tonight he wanted to move in silence, leave nothing but footprints and take nothing but advantage. If he had to make a kill, it would be quiet.
The op kept to the pools of shade, shifting in and out of them under the cowl of the black long coat, a piece of the night moving here and there. He reached the back of the hangar and got in through a broken window. A hooter sounded from the front of the Galaxy, and he smothered a dart of surprise; but the alarm was only a warning as the transporter’s nosecone began to droop, yellow hazard strobes flashing across the concrete. The cargo doors at the back of the plane were already shut, but a side hatch was still half-open. Fixx frowned. Shut or open, yes, but halfway? That seemed strange, but he had no time to consider the reason. The flight would go if he dallied, and there were things unfolding in distant places that needed him to be there. His free hand dipped into his pocket and worried the bones a little. Yes, he had to act, not think. Fixx sprinted from cover and launched himself at the hatch. He was in and had it shut just as the hooting siren fell silent. The jets were growling up to power and he felt a lurch as the Galaxy taxied from the hangar.
He glanced around. Cargo modules two stories tall crowded around him, and items that were loose inside made desultory clangs against the walls of pressed steel. There was an alley between them that he could make it down if he held his breath, and with the sword leading the way, Fixx got to the front of the jet. What light there was came from the dull yellow glow of biolumes on the cargo gantries and the handful of plexiglas portholes in the fuselage. The Galaxy rattled and howled as it took up a waiting position at the end of Barksdale Field’s Runway Left.
Fixx glanced around for some corner where he could seat himself and that was when he noticed the door. The cargo container on the starboard side, yellow with a red pennant that said “Tao Ge Shipping”, made a creaking noise. The metal doors that sealed the contents in were unlocked, and one of them hung open. Each fresh vibration of the engines made the door shift a little. Fixx considered the guns again, then ignored the thought. A stray round might punch through the fuselage. Bringing the sword to guard, he approached. He was maybe a metre away when he saw that there was blood on the handle, and more in a spatter pattern on the deck. Fixx lashed out and yanked the door hard. It came toward him with a squeal of poorly oiled hinges, revealing a sea of dirty, terrified faces.
At the front of the women-and they were all females-there were two girls in prison-surplus jumpsuits. They looked at Fixx like secret lovers caught in a tryst, and between them they held on to a man whose throat leaked red, whose struggles were getting more and more feeble by the second. The man had his trousers and underwear halfway down his legs. One of the girls held a bent piece of metal in her fist, the end of it wet with gore.
Fixx lowered the sword. The container was full to bursting with human cargo, thin and emaciated girls, all of them oriental. Joshua would have said Korean, if he was pushed, but he was no expert. They stood there, the jet screaming around them, the unlucky guy bleeding out, watching each other. Fixx knew the look in their eyes well enough. These women had gone beyond the point of no return.
The would-be rapist burbled something and went slack. His killer went to work stripping his body for anything useful. The other girl-the intended victim, he wondered?-had a nasty wound on her arm. Fixx finally sheathed his weapon and dug out a pocket medipack from his coat. “You speak English?”
The girl shook her head and took the packet, tearing it open with her teeth. The plane shuddered and began to move, picking up speed. Fixx sniffed and sat down, bracing himself against the hatch. The women, some of them fretting, copied him. In moments, there was the gut-wrenching motion of take-off. Cold crept into the cargo bay as they ascended into the night.
Fixx had a couple of packets of Insta-Kibble (Swells In Your Stomach! Easy On Your Wallet!) that he’d intended to eat on the way. He tore them open, and with great care, broke them into enough pieces for everyone. The erstwhile passengers sat there in the rattling chill, chewing on morsels and regarding each other with wary eyes.
Fixx settled back and drew in his coat around him.
I will tell you, if you care to listen, something of cruelty. It is a uniquely human conceit; you will not see animals indulge in it. What of the cat, I hear you ask? The cat that torments and toys with the mouse? Ah, but Brother Cat is only training himself, using his prey to stay quick and deadly. He is no crueler than the virus that strikes down the newborn, or blinds the artist. This is simply the manner of nature. As it is the manner of man to be cruel.
And so my story. Look around in the shops selling effects of the past to visitors from over the oceans, the places that overflow with bowls in black lacquer, careworn jade and the litter of a thousand years of history. Inside one day you may see terracotta warriors, the clothes sculpted upon them the same as those worn by the swordsmen of that era. Some date back to the Qin Dynasty, when China was a feudal land and ruled by the blade and the pen.
In that time, there was a man, an Emperor, who greatly feared the world beyond death. He had killed so many of his enemies that surely they would be waiting for him when he perished, a war band of ghosts with the curse of his name as their last earthly memory. This man, this Emperor ordered an army of the red stone men made to accompany him into the other world when death came to claim its price. More than three thousand of the pottery soldiers were forged-regiments of footmen, archers, soldiers with spears or crossbows, charioteers and horses-all of them to be buried with their dead lord in a great tomb that was planted with trees and grass so it would appear to be a natural hill.
And so the man, the Emperor, died, and the army of stone was created. As this work went on, an act of cruelty came to pass.