Assassinorum kingmaker, p.8
Assassinorum Kingmaker, page 8
He skirted round the shattered glass and pounded a fist on the door.
‘Hail!’ he said. ‘Out there! I have broken glass. Bring a broom and pan, please.’
No answer. Never an answer. The food appeared. Clean blankets appeared. Diagnostic tests he was supposed to plug into his neural port once per week. When he was sick, pharms in little paper cups.
A week in, he suspected that he was being observed through the big mirror. Two weeks in, and he didn’t care any more.
Because bottles also appeared, and he appreciated that. After his stock had run dry, they kept bringing them from his personal reserve. Though fewer and fewer lately.
‘Maybe they’re drying you out,’ he said to himself. ‘Ready for combat. Fit for duty. Back with Jester and Gwynne. Another warzone.’
The last one he’d served alongside the Cadians. Tough people, but quite mad. It almost seemed as if they enjoyed it. Perversely revelling in the opportunity to demonstrate how hard they were. He remembered one officer, a violet-eyed lieutenant from the 24th who he’d briefly courted when they were both in reserve rotation, saying facial scars were considered attractive among Cadians. Particularly vain soldiers were known to mess with their medicae stitches to ensure healed wounds would show.
She’d had a wavering white line slicing from brow to jaw. It creased when she laughed.
Rakkan stepped back over the glass, and washed his face in the basin. Looked up and saw himself.
Red eyes. Puffy cheeks. Not quite the lean, hungry Knight he’d been four years ago, when he’d taken two las-bolts in the spine and left Dominion.
He stretched the skin, as if his own face were a mask. Trying to find that younger version of himself, before he was a Freeblade, drifting from battle to battle. No plan but to fight until he and Jester were too broken to be of use.
‘That’s your problem, Linoleus,’ he told himself. ‘You’re a questing Knight without a quest.’
Ka-chunk.
His neck twisted at the noise, the familiar sound of the rotator hatch.
Inside the alcove stood a small hand-brush, a pan, and a half-size bottle of amasec.
‘Thank you,’ he said, to whoever was listening. ‘And let me the hell out of here.’
The Storm and the Falcon,
The Falcon and the Storm.
Over moorland, over seas,
Battle Falcon and the Storm.
The Falcon tries to catch the Storm,
The Storm to drown the Falcon.
Which will remain, at break of day,
The Falcon or the Storm?
The Storm or the Falcon?
– Traditional lullaby, Dominion
TWELVE
‘I’m not going to do it,’ Sycorax said.
Koln recited a psalm to herself in order to keep herself calm, stop her body from tensing and adding to the sense of threat in the room.
‘Why not?’ said Raithe. He didn’t look up as he said it, just slid his carving knife through the square of braised grox-meat on his plate. The cut was clean, precise, and done with such force it sent a small shriek up from the porcelain underneath.
When he raised the piece of meat to his mouth, Koln saw that it was bloody.
‘It’s what your temple is known for, isn’t it?’ he said, before taking the piece in a single bite.
‘That’s a bit reductive,’ Koln said. She’d hoped that her support would stop Sycorax from exploding, make it a three-way debate rather than a two-way argument.
Sycorax slumped over her plate, elbows on the table. If Raithe was a combat knife, all sharp edges and straight lines, she was a whip. Languid and flexible, lifeless until the moment it snapped into the air to strike.
The officers’ wardroom was small. A C-shaped booth around an oval table. If things came to violence, it would be like two big felines locked in the same cage.
To manage her own tension, Koln catalogued the meal on Sycorax’s plate. Mostly vegetables. Aerated water instead of the tall glass of scarlet vin Koln had poured for herself, and the half-glass Raithe hadn’t touched.
‘Seduce him.’ Sycorax’s eyes regarded Raithe with a micro-expression that Koln’s algorithm identified as bored contempt. ‘That’s your plan. I seduce Rakkan into helping us.’
‘Yes.’ Raithe swallowed. ‘What is your objection? You find it distasteful?’
‘I find it impractical,’ Sycorax answered. ‘It doesn’t make sense in the current environment.’
‘We need him to help us.’ Raithe’s knife swept through the grox-steak again, blood welling from the cut. ‘He needs to be motivated. Incentivised to cooperate.’
Koln interjected. ‘What if–’
‘No, no,’ said Sycorax, raising a hand. ‘I want to play this idea out. So you, Master Raithe, have been locked three weeks in quarantine and you don’t know why. You’re fresh from a battlefront and have spent most of that three weeks soaked in amasec and have barely washed yourself. Then suddenly a… what? Comely medicae comes in and sympathises with you and you fall hard?’
‘Something like that,’ said Raithe.
Sycorax snorted.
‘What’s the problem?’ he said, getting those range-finding eyes.
‘The problem is, you don’t know how humans work. Socially, I mean. I’m sure you’ve studied enough anatomy to plunge that knife into any number of arteries, but manipulation isn’t in your training.’ Sycorax lifted her glass and took a drink.
‘I asked for you to critique the plan,’ said Raithe. ‘Not me.’
‘All right.’ Sycorax put her glass down hard. ‘First of all, it’s too fast. Seduction only works if given time, and it’s better if the target comes to you, not you to it. Speed raises suspicion. Don’t get it twisted – if you want me to play a medicae with a weakness for the bottle who hears Rakkan has a private stash and wants some, I can do that. But he’ll smell something wrong the second I try to question him.’
‘So he falls for you,’ said Raithe. ‘And we tell him our purpose afterward.’
‘Bad idea,’ said Sycorax.
‘I concur,’ Koln broke in. ‘He’ll feel betrayed. It’ll likely produce the exact opposite of our desired effect.’
‘We also know little to nothing of his psychology,’ said Sycorax. ‘We don’t know his preferences. His romantic history. For all we know, even if we were successful it’d put him into a self-destructive spiral of loathing. If I’m to study him, I need him acting as normally as possible – including with his sacristan. She’s the one most likely to find us out when I replace him.’
‘Unless we tell her,’ said Koln.
Both assassins turned towards her.
‘What?’ said Sycorax.
‘We tell her,’ she repeated. ‘And him. We tell them both.’
‘No,’ said Raithe.
‘We played out your idea,’ said Sycorax. ‘Let’s do it for this one. Why? That seems a risk.’
‘Not really.’ Koln opened her data-slate, the micro-projector she’d grafted onto it casting flickering blue document-holos in the air. ‘It’s eminently practical. If we try to dupe them, we might succeed. But we have the problem of there being two of them. Replace Rakkan and kill Gwynne, and once we get to Dominion they’ll assign a new sacristan we have no leverage over. Conversely, it will be difficult to successfully pass Sycorax off as Rakkan in Gwynne’s presence – she knows him well, and has been with him during the last four years.’
‘I had worried about that,’ admitted Sycorax. ‘So you want to recruit them as assets?’
‘We get the best of all possibilities,’ Koln said. ‘Open knowledge sharing, available immediately. Deep familiarity with Dominion and its systems. Real-time advice delivered by micro-bead.’
‘Dangerous,’ said Raithe. ‘They’ll give us up the moment we land.’
‘I don’t think they will.’ Koln slid a finger across her data-slate, changing the holo to a schematic of a skeleton, its legs braced with metal clamps. ‘My scans of Rakkan brought up an interesting feature. He has augmetic leg braces, the kind used to provide mobility after a spinal injury. At first I thought it was due to a war wound, but when I scanned the state of the augmetics’ micro-plasma reactors, I found out the half-life of their coils suggest they were first activated around four years ago.’
‘When he left Dominion,’ said Raithe. ‘And went into exile as a Freeblade.’
‘Correct,’ nodded Koln. ‘But there’s more. Before he was brought aboard, I rigged his stateroom with a full pict-audio suite. It has proved illuminating.’
Sycorax laughed.
‘What’s amusing?’ Raithe said.
‘People in quarantine for three weeks with a case of amasec,’ said Sycorax, ‘tend to talk to themselves.’
Koln triggered the audio file.
‘Damn them all,’ said the voice of Linoleus Rakkan. It appeared as waveform floating above the data-slate. ‘Stryder, Rau. A pox on both their bloodlines. And damn the mad tyrant Yavarius-Khau.’
‘He goes on like that,’ Koln said, shutting the file down. ‘For weeks. When he’s intelligible.’
‘So,’ said Raithe. ‘You’re suggesting Sycorax talk to him, give him an option.’
‘Not at all,’ Koln said. ‘I’m suggesting that I do it.’
>>Interrogation Transcript 1
>>Operation: Kingmaker
>>File No. 5782-Gamma-KMKR
>>Mission Day: 8
>>Recording Device: Ear canal augmetics [stereo]
>>Recorder: Avaaris Koln
>>Cleared for Reading: Koln, Avaaris; Raithe, Absolom; Sycorax
>>Clearance Level: Vermilion Special Privileged
>>DO NOT TRANSMIT<<
>>DO NOT DUPLICATE<<
>>PURGE DATA ON MISSION COMMENCEMENT<<
KOLN: Good morning.
RAKKAN: Who…
KOLN: A friend. You are safe.
[Pause: 2 seconds]
RAKKAN: You’ve… kidnapped me. Given me a deployment order… locked me in here as a prisoner… told me nothing…
KOLN: Yes, I apologise. The quarantine was necessary due to the threat of the wyrm. We have recruited you for an endeavour. To serve the Emperor.
RAKKAN: Emp… ror…
KOLN: Linoleus, I’m going to need you to stay awake and sober. This is very important. I have given you a stimulant to help, but I need you to focus. Here.
[AUDIO: Tin cup and porcelain on metal.]
KOLN: I have brought you some caffeine and breakfast. Please have some. I put a little extra kick in the caffeine to help you out.
[124 seconds removed; sounds of drinking and utensils on plate]
RAKKAN: My regards. The scrambled embriyolks were quite good.
[Pause: 1 second]
RAKKAN: This chair… There are straps on the arms of it. Are you going to bind me?
KOLN: I doubt they’ll be necessary.
RAKKAN: Aren’t you worried I’ll overpower you?
KOLN: In a word, no.
RAKKAN: That’s fair, I suppose. You’ve kept me locked here for weeks. Probably more people on this ship than just you. Even with my armatures, I doubt I’d make much headway.
KOLN: Let’s put that aside for now, shall we? I apologise for detaining you and keeping you in the dark, but we had your best interests at heart.
RAKKAN: [laughs] You sound like my mother.
KOLN: [laughs] You’re funny. That wasn’t in my profile of you. That will make this go easier.
RAKKAN: Where is my sacristan?
KOLN: She is aboard, and we are seeking her cooperation as well. You can see her if you like, though I don’t need to tell you that any conversation will be monitored.
RAKKAN: So I am a prisoner?
KOLN: Of course not, your cooperation is voluntary. You can leave whenever you like.
RAKKAN: Would you return me to the front, or drop us off on a planet or…
[AUDIO: Metal object on table.]
[Pause: 3 seconds]
RAKKAN: And we were having such a nice conversation.
KOLN: It’s a short-pattern stubber, cross-drilled bullet for maximum damage when it breaks up after entering your cranium – and so any fragments from the exit wound won’t puncture the hull.
[Pause: 2 seconds]
KOLN: Personally, I’d recommend putting it just here, at your hairline. Or I can do it, if you prefer. I also have pills. Whatever you want, you’re a free man.
RAKKAN: For a minute I thought you really were giving me a choice. Should’ve known better, at this point.
[Pause: 2 seconds]
RAKKAN: I suppose that’s why there’s a drain in the floor.
KOLN: Those are your choices. There is no going back. Either you join your sacristan in cooperating, or you don’t. I’d prefer you did – this is not a bad place. It has quite an impressive liquor cabinet and better quarters than these. We are serving the Emperor in a great task, much greater than fighting waves of Transmuted on a losing battlefront.
RAKKAN: What do you want from me?
KOLN: I want you to tell me about your life. About the culture of Stryder-Rau in both generalities and particulars. About the succession system. And most of all about High Monarch Yavarius-Khau.
RAKKAN: Why?
KOLN: Because we’re going to kill him.
RAKKAN: Kill the High Monarch? [laughs] Who hired you? Kameela Rau? Jaskan Synk-Stryder? Whose side are you on?
KOLN: The Emperor’s.
RAKKAN: So your price for my life is to help you murder my great-uncle?
KOLN: Yes.
RAKKAN: Mamzel, if you’d woken me up with that, you wouldn’t have needed the gun.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Sycorax came up from her bed in an instant, rolling from the mattress to a combat crouch on the floor. Yanked the vox-bead from her right ear, the sound of the interrogation audio still droning between her fingers.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Knuckles on her cabin door. She slid up beside it.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘It’s Koln. I found something I want to share with you.’
Sycorax swore. Last thing she needed was a new ream of data to read. She did not like reading – the audio interviews were different. Her brain had been augmented to handle conversation, to read intonation, emotion. To find hidden layers of meaning and mimic accents, but that had come at a loss to her visual processing.
Words would not stick if she read them, and the thought of looking through another inch-thick stack of cultural essays and family trees scraped her nerves – already raw from the polymorphine comedown.
Sycorax cycled the wheel lock and opened the door a crack.
‘What is it?’ she droned.
Then she saw Koln’s grinning face – and the amasec bottle in her hand.
Sycorax cocked her head, then opened the door and let the Vanus in.
‘You can take the wall chair if you like.’ Sycorax nodded to the far wall. ‘There’s a folding table stowed next to it. I’ll take the bed.’
‘Quite a planning session,’ said Koln, dropping the table from the wall and sitting in the take-off jumpseat. She leaned forward so the shoulder buckles didn’t dig into her back. ‘Thought Raithe might hit you.’
‘Wish he had,’ said Sycorax. ‘Instead of being so damned… controlled. Controlled and controlling. Not for me, thanks.’
Koln paused, the amasec bottle hovering over the second glass. ‘Sorry, from what you said when we met, I thought you did.’
‘I do a little. I like a nip of amasec and a half-lho-stick after a kill. But I’m going from playing one drunk aristocrat straight into playing another. I need a break. Besides, my vocation puts enough poison in my body – no sense doing it for relaxation.’
‘Interesting, and understandable.’ Koln reached inside her coat. ‘Personally, I like to experiment a little. Given how many chemicals we pump into our bodies to enhance our physical selves, I find that mind and emotional expansion is occasionally useful. For example.’ She raised the amasec glass, looked at the amber liquid rolling around the bottom. Thick and syrupy, leaving a slight golden film on the glass that drained as she tipped the tumbler around. ‘Amasec. Always found it instils a certain nostalgia, a golden lens on the past. A nice drink with friends. Or…’ She pulled a small stoppered bottle from her coat, placing it on the table. ‘Purple wine. A fine soporific. Fuzzy and floating, a sense of well-being. Still not tempted?’
‘At another time.’
Koln raised a finger, dug in another pocket. ‘I foresaw this.’ She drew a cylinder thermos, small as a frag grenade, and tossed it to Sycorax. ‘Klaava.’
Sycorax popped the catch and sniffed for poisons. ‘Alcohol?’
‘None at all. It’s a weak narcotic. Think of it like caffeine, but it takes you down instead of up. I know this is a time of heightened emotion, but emotions are just neurological chemicals so…’ Koln raised her glass. ‘You change the chemicals.’
Sycorax took a tentative sip. Then a larger one. ‘Thanks, it’s good. Now what do you want? Or are you here because you don’t like to drink alone?’
This felt calculated, suspicious. She didn’t like it.
Koln turned the crystal tumbler in her hand, staring into the amasec. ‘What did you think of that approach plan, confidentially?’
Sycorax felt the prickle of sound-dampeners on her skin.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Koln. ‘He won’t hear us.’
Sycorax set the thermos down on the shelf next to the bunk. Stayed silent, looking at Koln. What was the Vanus’ game, here? Get her to bad-mouth Raithe then run to him with the audio? Feign friendship and then use what she revealed as leverage?
‘I’ll go first. I think Raithe is out of his depth,’ said Koln. ‘His approach plan for Rakkan was wrong, and it was patronising.’
