He was moving purposefully toward the teacher now, gliding rather than walking across the floor. “Resistance on your part is useless. I’m considerably stronger than I look, much stronger than you, and a great deal quicker. Killing is my job. You know, I’ve never killed a teacher before. I’m not sure any Qwarm has had occasion to kill a teacher. There isn’t much call for it.”
“You’re sure nothing I can say would make you reconsider? Not so much for my life as for all the others that are at stake here.”
“Noble. I like that. Don’t see too much of that these days either. No, I’m afraid there isn’t. An assignment is an assignment. No matter how I might feel personally I have guild rules to abide by.”
“Oddly enough, I do understand your situation.” He sighed. “Well, I almost died out there on the ice half a dozen times this past year.” He extended a hand. “Give me the pill. I’m not one for pain. You’re sure it won’t hurt?”
“Not at all.” Marquel passed the blue capsule across. “Actually I rather envy you. That’s tronafin, a very powerful narcotic. You’re going to enjoy the biggest high of your life, even if it won’t last very long. Not only won’t you feel any pain, you’re going to be overwhelmed with pleasure. You see, we’re very businesslike, not cruel at all—unless somebody’s paying for that, of course. We try to make every effort to…”
A startled expression came over Marquel’s face. The black stiletto rose and struck. Williams ducked and rolled as the blade sliced down into a bookcase and the wall beyond. As he struggled back onto his feet the Qwarm turned and staggered toward him.
Tran artifacts and tools had been used in the decoration of the Commissioner’s office. Very attractive, very ethnographic. One of them was a Tran dart thrower, a tiny, inconspicuous device fashioned from bone and horn. It utilized a small spring made of something akin to baleen to launch a fifteen centimeter-long dart. All the while he’d been chatting conversationally with Marquel, Williams had been shielding it with his body and arming it.
The angle was bad but he knew he wouldn’t have time to remove the device from its hook and aim it. When he’d tilted back his head and raised the pill as if to swallow it Marquel’s attention had been focused on the teacher’s right hand. Just before swallowing, Williams had turned to his right to expose the dart-thrower and had used his other hand to flip the little trigger.
Marquel had been standing within arm’s length. The razor-sharp sliver of bone that the dart was cut from had gone right through his black suit to bury itself between navel and groin. It wasn’t a killing blow but the shock was more than enough to stagger the assassin. Despite the unexpected pain he’d reacted quickly, stabbing with the knife. The pain had slowed his reactions sufficiently for Williams to dodge.
“Teacher.” The Qwarm came toward him as blood began to drip from the wound and stain the floor. Williams kept retreating, trying to keep as much furniture between himself and the injured assassin as possible.
Yes, he was just a teacher—a teacher who’d spent almost two years surviving among sometimes hostile natives on the barren, deadly surface of an inhospitable world called Tran-ky-ky. Two years of battling lethal elements and carnivorous fauna. Two years on an occasional warship called the Slanderscree. Two years battling barbarians and duplicitous humans and their friends. Yes, he was a teacher. One who’d been hardened and toughened by the classroom called reality. His experiences had made him stronger, faster, and like the Tran, cunning.
Despite the long spike protruding from his intestines, Marquel continued to stalk him, the stiletto still clenched firmly in his right hand. Because of the location of the dart the Qwarm’s control of his leg muscles was less than perfect. Sheer willpower kept him advancing.
This continued for several minutes until Marquel realized Williams had maneuvered him completely around the room so that the teacher was back by the artifact-covered wall.
The Tran sword he removed from its mounting was chipped from stavanzer bone. He held it in both hands and waited. No more chasing around the desk. “Come on, then.” He tried to balance the weapon as he’d seen Hunnar Redbeard and others do. Hunnar wielded it with one paw, but it was too heavy for Williams to attempt that.
Marquel’s expression was contorted as he grimaced in pain. “Makes it interesting. Much better.” His words were getting thick, Williams noted. “Better.”
He lunged.
Avoiding the blow, Williams stepped to one side and cut down with the sword. Though slowed by the pain in his gut Marquel was still able to move fast enough to reach out with his left hand and grab the teacher’s wrists, pinning both hands to the sword. The concussion raced up Williams’s forearms. It was as though he’d been struck by an iron bar. The strength in the small man’s fingers was incredible.
His right hand rose and light slipped along the flat of the stiletto. This time Williams was sure his assailant was smiling. His eyes glittered through the ocular openings in the hood.
“Very good, teacher, very good. Much more than I had any right to expect.”
Williams tried to wrench his hands free, but the Qwarm’s grip was like steel. At the same time the teacher brought his right knee up and round and slammed it into the assassin’s lower abdomen, just below the place where the dart still protruded.
A tremor ran through the wounded killer. Somehow he still managed to strike weakly with the knife. It sliced through Williams’s survival suit, the incredibly sharp blade lodging in his right shoulder. The strike was a little high. Marquel intended to drag the point down Williams’s chest until he could use his weight to shove it into his quarry’s heart, but the loss of blood and the continuing pain finally overwhelmed him.
Still holding the teacher’s wrists in a death grip, the Qwarm crumpled to his knees, then fell over on his back dragging his quarry down on top of him. His right hand flopped loosely to the floor. The stiletto remained imbedded in Williams’s shoulder. The assassin blinked; not at the teacher lying on top of him but at the lights in the ceiling.
“I’ll be damned.”
Using his foot, Williams was finally able to pry his hands free of the sword and the assassin’s grasp. He rose and stumbled backward. Gritting his teeth he wrapped his fingers around the handle of the stiletto and yanked convulsively. The pain as the blade emerged from his flesh was tremendous. He staggered but didn’t fall.
A steadily widening pool of blood was forming beneath the dead man. Marquel continued to stare at the ceiling, the look on his face one of astonishment and surprise rather than pain.
Williams staggered over to the Commissioner’s desk. Inside a drawer he found a pop-up board lined with contact switches. Which one activated the sealed doors, which alerted building security?
He was still hunting when the doors unexpectedly parted, to admit not an ally of Marquel’s but the elegantly clad Resident Commissioner. She stared at him a moment before her gaze was drawn to the body in the middle of the floor. Her expression tightened and she took a step backward.
“What the hell’s going on here? Who—wait, I remember you. You’re one of the three who—”
“Williams. Milliken Williams.” He grimaced and clutched at his throbbing shoulder. Had Marquel taken him more seriously, he had not the slightest doubt the stiletto would have been poisoned. “Could I ask you to please call a doctor?” He gestured at the complex control panel. “I don’t know which of these stands for what.”