Jeffrey Carver - Eternity's End

Action was what Jakus wanted. Not the wait, but the hunt.

He hadn’t always felt this way. He hadn’t always been a pirate, not even at heart. But something had changed after his capture by the raiders of the DeNoble fortress. At first he’d merely been a prisoner working under duress in the nets of pirate ships. But to his surprise, he found exhilaration in the blood hunt, in the search for ships to conquer and capture, or to loot and destroy. This was especially true after his transfer from the backwater of DeNoble to the real powerhouse, Kilo-Mike/Carlotta. The augments helped, of course, urging him on whenever he felt his determination slipping. But it wasn’t as if he were under the control of the augs; he was in command, not some goddamn little superconducting crystal.

By the time of his special assignment to Faber Eridani, he’d become a well-equipped soldier, trained in the arts of espionage and undercover activity. At least he thought so. And then—how incredibly annoying!—Renwald Legroeder, of all people, had somehow managed to escape from DeNoble. And not just escape: he’d come to Faber Eridani, and found Jakus, and challenged the perfect story he’d planted to explain the loss of the L.A .. Once that cover was compromised, his bosses had insisted on faking his death and getting him off Faber Eri. They should have just killed Legroeder, in Jakus’s opinion, but the people at the Centrist Strength shop had been too damn slow on the uptake. They hadn’t wanted to complicate matters by being implicated in a felony murder; never mind that they decided later to try and kill him, and then botched it…

But at least the whole fiasco had brought Jakus back to active duty with the raider fleet. And peering out into the quiet landscape of the Flux, he knew that it was better this way, even if he was bored right now. Because the time would come when they would strike. And his excitement this time would be not just for the thrill of the fight, but for the Free Kyber Alliance. For the colony fleets.

He could stand to wait awhile for their prey. When it came, they would strike like a cobra. Fast and deadly.

Captain Hyutu would see to that.

“Peter, you are such a sight for sore eyes!” Harriet exclaimed, as the PI was conducted into the meeting room at the Narseil embassy.

The Clendornan seemed aglow with pleasure. “It is good to see you, too! Both of you.”

“It feels like forever since we left,” Harriet said.

“Since we got back ,” said Morgan. “We’ve been holed up in this embassy way too long.”

The Clendornan chuckled. “It’s only been a couple of weeks. Of course, by the time we finally get you out of here, it might really feel like forever.” He chuckled at Morgan’s groan, and then became serious. He looked as he always did when he had something important to say; his wedge-shaped head was slightly tilted, and his mouth was crinkled in a smile on one side, and tight and expectant on the other. “Are you ready for some encouraging news?”

Harriet laughed. “Believe me. We’re ready.”

“I thought you might be.” The Clendornan opened his compad on the table, and as he looked up, his grin seemed almost human. “We finally got our hands on the preliminary McGinnis site report. It wasn’t easy; it seemed to me that someone really didn’t want us to see it.”

“North?” asked Harriet.

Peter shrugged. “Hard to say for certain. But that’s my guess.”

“Why? What did it say?” asked Morgan. “If they didn’t want us to see it, that must mean the results were in our favor.”

The Clendornan nodded. “Nothing’s official yet, but I think you can quit worrying about the arson charges against you. It turns out the house fire was caused by built-in incendiary devices.”

Harriet drew back, stunned.

“What do you mean, built-in devices?” Morgan asked quietly.

Peter’s eyes glimmered with purple fire. “Precisely as I said. Self-destruct devices, apparently. I didn’t believe it, either, until I read the whole report. Why would a man build such things into his own home? It made no sense. But the investigators were most thorough, and that’s what they found—along with evidence in the com logs that McGinnis triggered them himself.”

Harriet lowered her eyeglasses, trying to find words. “Let me understand this. McGinnis booby-trapped his own home? Why would he— unless —”

“—unless he felt deeply threatened,” Peter said. “A longtime threat, so grave that he was prepared to destroy himself, his home, and all of his records, rather than… what? ” Peter gazed steadily at Harriet. “Of course, he didn’t destroy his records. He gave them to you instead.”

Harriet drew a deep breath, trying not to succumb to dizziness at the implications. “But what was the threat? Why was it so great that he was willing to take his own life?” She pinched her brow, thinking of the records now in their possession. She was more grateful than ever that they had secured copies in various safe locations. She looked at Peter again. “There’s something you’re waiting to tell me.”

Peter gave a lopsided grin. “Not tell you. Show you. Remember the dog?”

“What dog?” asked Morgan.

“McGinnis’s. Harriet remembers, don’t you?”

“How could I forget?” Harriet shuddered at the memory of the dog convulsing outside McGinnis’s house, and then bursting through the security forcefield to flee the fire. She still felt guilty for leaving it. But then, she’d left McGinnis, too.

“Well, one of my people has found it. Brought it back, alive and well.”

Harriet felt her heart race, without quite knowing why. Morgan clapped her hands and cried, “And we get to adopt it?” Harriet eyed her, and Morgan shrugged. “Well, why not?”

Peter eyed Morgan balefully. “I’m pleased that I could amuse you. Perhaps, if all works out, you will get to adopt it. But as a matter of fact, the dog turns out to be carrying some extremely useful information. I brought a vid to show you.” He pulled a cube from his pocket.

Harriet pointed to the player the Narseil had provided them. Popping in the cube, Peter said, “This first one was shot at a safe house outside the city, where we first brought the dog.”

The recording was of moderately amateurish quality. It showed the brown dog, Rufus, in a sparsely furnished room, with two of Peter’s assistants—one apparently controlling the camera, none too steadily. Harriet watched in silent fascination. The dog looked gaunter than she remembered, but seemed unharmed.

“That’s my assistant Norman,” Peter said, pointing to the man on screen who was crouched in front of the dog, trying to calm it. “Irv’s doing camera. He’s the one who caught it. Irv’s afraid of dogs. I was proud of him.”

Harriet nodded, fascinated by what was developing on the screen. The dog was clearly terrified, and growing more so every time it opened its mouth to bark. The reason quickly became obvious. Instead of a bark, what came out were garbled, but almost human , sounds. “What is that?” Harriet asked, leaning closer to hear. It was a husky, hissing voice. “It sounds like words!”

“Mhhusssst rrrr t-hhelll…” rasped the dog.

“Is the dog talking? ”

“Hrrrrr… musssst trrrrelll…”

“Must tell?” Harriet looked at Peter and demanded, “Is that what it’s saying?”

Morgan was shaking her head. “You can’t be serious.” But the look of skepticism on her face was evaporating as the dog strained to be heard—and then cringed, as though from the sound of its own voice.