There was a long pause before Tetsami asked, “You native to Bakunin?”
“I thought it was bad form to ask that.”
Dom heard her chuckle. “No, the question you don’t ask is why a nonnative came to the planet in the first place.”
“No, I’m not native.”
There was another long pause. Then Dom asked, “Why do you ask?”
“Sometimes seems Bakunin’s got the monopoly on god-junkies.” Dom had never really thought of it that way. “Do things get this weird off-planet?”
“It’s not easily escaped. Wasn’t this planet founded on socialist atheism?”
Tetsami chuckled again and waved at the cathedral. “The Founding Commune would toss their collective lunch if they saw this display.”
“At least there isn’t a state religion.”
“There will be—five minutes after someone founds a state on Bakunin.”
“We should both live that long.”
The priest went on interminably. It was beginning to become clear why there was heavy security. It had slowly dawned on Dom that two-thirds of the worshipers wore restraint buckles on wrists and ankles. He was looking at a captive audience. Most of them were prisoners of the Church.
After a while Tetsami asked, “Would it be bad form to ask what nuked you?”
“Meaning?”
“Your suit’s worth a kilo. They put a hundred-K bill on your head. You look like an exec. You fight like a brunet refugee from the New Aryan Front. And you smell like an East Godwin maggot-brain—”
“You forgot the cybernetic limb.”
“Yeah, so where do you come from?”
Dom clenched his teeth. They were artificial, smooth, and fit together perfectly. He got no pleasure from grinding them. “You just told me you weren’t supposed to ask that.”
“Well, fuck me, Dom. I have an unhealthy curiosity. Won’t force it.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
Dom relented. “My company, Godwin Arms, was attacked—shot out from under me. My escape crashed me into East Godwin.”
“Oh, shit.” Tetsami only managed a hoarse whisper.
“What?” Dom turned to face her and her normally pale skin had faded to white.
“Shit shit shit.” Tetsami shook her head violently.
“What?” He repeated, more forcefully this time.
She sucked in a breath. “The biggest contract I ever got blew up in my face during the final meet. My contacts were scragged by a paladin hit team ...” She shook her head again, as if she didn’t believe what she was saying. “Guy, I was working for GA&A.”
“Wait a minute—”
“No, I don’t believe in coincidence. Those paladins came out of nowhere. You got tagged by them, too—”
Tetsami’s nervousness was rubbing off on him. “Slow down. Let me think.”
“Think? Someone’s got a contract out on us.”
“I don’t like this.”
“What’s not to like?” Tetsami put her head in her hands.
Dom went on. “Having GA&A fail like that is one thing—but going after field employees is another.”
Tetsami seemed not to hear him. “It was the job, right? Had to be. Espionage is a dangerous biz ...”
Dom thought of the invasion, and the hardware that the Confederacy had brought to bear against GA&A. “I don’t think the hit squad had anything to do with your line of work. It was who you were working for.”
Dom heard the service breaking up below. He stood up and watched the crowd of involuntary worshipers filing out, escorted by the paladins. The two-thirds with the restraint buckles were vanishing into the sides of the church, presumably to be locked into the catacombs that he and Tetsami had vacated. The free third left through the main doors at the front of the cathedral.
Tetsami was looking up at him. “Don’t say that.”
“I think that explains why they treated us differently.”
“What do you mean?”
“There has to be quite a lead time before they put a victim on their show. They seem to have at least five hundred selected criminals in their charge, but they scheduled us the same day they locked on to us. They didn’t even spend the time to program one of those restraint buckles. They wanted us on the air tonight.”
The silence between them was tangible.
Tetsami looked him in the face. He could feel his facial tic start up and he turned away.
“It is a contract,” she said.
“There’s probably a standing bounty for the heads of GA&A’s personnel.”
“No. This shit ain’t got nothing to do with me. I’m a freelancer—”
“The kill list is going to be based on the payroll records. If you had contracted work for GA&A, you’d be on the list.”
There was a long pause, and for the first time Tetsami sounded as young as she looked. “Damn it, you’re scaring me.”
Dom had scared himself. He had prepped that commune in the mountains for an emergency such as this. But he had never thought that GA&A’s personnel would become targets. The top execs, maybe. A few corporations weren’t above the occasional assassination. But going after employees, that made no sense. Even if they were loyal to the previous management—
Dom resolved not to lead anyone to the commune until he knew exactly what was going on.
That meant staying in the cold a little longer.
Damn.
Dom kept looking down into the nave. The last paladin was vanishing into the back, leaving the cathedral empty of evidence of the Church’s enforcement arm. The small collection of people below were unrestrained, here of their own free will.
Sick bastards.
“Why?” she asked in a very small voice.
“If I knew that, I’d feel better.”
There was a footstep behind them.
Dom turned and saw a paladin in a full suit, ten meters down the length of the balcony. The paladin froze in shock for a moment. Then he started yelling on his radio and unlimbered his weapon.
Five more minutes and they’d have been out of there with no trouble.
Tetsami shot. Her aim was exemplary. She focused on the faceplate. But the hand laser wasn’t very effective against a military-quality field. Her shot did give them a few seconds to spare. The paladin’s faceplate darkened instantly, blinding him in the dim lighting.
Dom grabbed Tetsami. “Brace yourself.”
“What the fuck?”
Dom lifted her, stepped up on the railing, and jumped off.
Brief memory of flipping backward over the metal railing, tumbling endlessly into the hungry slime below—
He didn’t like doing it, even though it was only ten meters. There was a chance he could land on his real leg. The remaining few worshipers were turning to watch with growing expressions of shock on their faces. The few underneath him were scrambling out of the way.
His left foot, the artificial one, landed on the seat of a pew, sending a vibrating impact up his body. A circuit somewhere was overloaded, and for a split second his entire left side was frozen and numb.
He didn’t stop moving. The pew splintered and gave under his weight, and then his right leg hit the ground. A shuddering wave of pain crashed over his right side as his leg buckled under him. Fortunately, Tetsami was prepared when Dom let her go. He had managed to soak up most of the impact, and she only had to roll into the aisle and get to her feet.