S. Swann - Prophets

To make room for his legs, Nickolai had to push his seat all the way back, and in response the craft tilted rearward for a moment.

“Gad.” Kugara said, watching a few red lights on the dash display in front of her. “Guess no aerobatics with you in the car.”

She waited until the craft found its level, then she punched the vector jets, shooting the protesting vehicle across the desert and back toward the city.

Nickolai looked at Kugara. Her hair trailed back in the wind, and her face was dominated by a clenched grin that Nickolai would normally attribute to a huntress just prior to a kill.

“What do you want of me?” he asked.

“We’re on the same job,” she said against the wind. “Can’t I buy a comrade a drink?”

“I notice I’m the only one to whom you offered.”

“We both need an ally, scion of House Rajasthan.” She turned that predatory grin toward him and said, “Despite what the maps say, you’re not in the Fifteen Worlds anymore.”

Kugara took him to a bar in a part of Proudhon run-down enough to have been in his old neighborhood in Godwin. It was part of a mall that had taken over an old assembly building. The space was large enough that none of the shops and restaurants inhabiting the space felt the need to build ceilings. The bar was one of the few that felt the need for actual walls.

It took a few moments for Nickolai to realize that Kugara had chosen this place with him in mind. With the ceiling of the original assembly plant a good forty meters above them, he could walk around without ducking. In addition, the bar had circular tables and stools that allowed him to sit without being crammed in a human-sized booth, or wedging his tail into a tall-backed chair.

She let him pick a table. He took one to the rear of the place, putting as much distance between himself and the human crowd as he could. The stares from the patrons were becoming familiar, and he barely noticed the crowd edging away from him. He sat with his back to the wall and wondered what he should think about Kugara’s interest in him. He wondered if this was part of Mr. Antonio’s plan.

A pitcher of amber liquid slid in front of Nickolai, and Kugara took a seat across the table from him. She had a mug filled with black liquid, with a head the color and texture of foam insulation.

“Allies, you said?” Nickolai asked her.

She raised her glass. “Have a drink,” she told him. “To a profitable mission.”

Nickolai had worked around humans enough to understand the custom. He took the pitcher in his hand and raised it, echoing the toast. Proportionately, the pitcher fit his hand about the same way her mug fit hers. “A profitable mission,” he said. He took a swig with her and set the pitcher down. It wasn’t the spiced ale from Grimalkin, but it was more tolerable than most human beverages.

She looked at his pitcher, then at her own mug. Nickolai’s pitcher was nearly half-empty, where the head in her mug had only lowered a couple of fingers. “I can see you’re an expensive date.”

Nickolai pushed his chair back and said, “If you’d rather be alone—”

“Stop it. God, you have no sense of humor.”

“What is it you want?”

She shook her head and took another sip from her mug. “I want someone to cover my back. I had the bad sense to go spouting off about Dakota back there . . .” She looked down into her mug. “Sometimes I am an idiot.”

“If you don’t like working with Wahid, you can find another job.”

“You say that as if I have a choice.” She lifted her mug and drained about half of what remained. She slammed it down on the table, and after a few moments of silence, she added, “At least you picked up on the fact Wahid seems a bit twitchy. I was beginning to think you were completely oblivious. And you can add that haughty bitch Parvi to the list.”

“Parvi?”

“Oh, can’t you sense how overjoyed she was to have us in the team?”

“I assume you’re trying to be humorous again.”

She laughed. “You can say that. So, Nickolai, how do you feel working with a bunch of humans?”

“Mosasa isn’t human.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that, didn’t you? Mind expounding on that little tidbit?”

Nickolai pondered his options for a moment. The fact he carried a rather large secret with him made him reluctant, but Kugara was the only other member of the team he would feel comfortable having as an “ally.” He also thought she had a point that they both needed one. This mission was going to take them far outside the grip of the BMU, the only law recognized by their nominal comrades. And would he want to trust his life to humans like Wahid or Parvi, or even Fitzpatrick?

Nickolai finished his pitcher and told Kugara what he could about Mosasa. “Our employer,” Nickolai said, “doesn’t just work with AIs. He doesn’t own them.”

“Meaning?”

“He is them.”

Kugara lowered her mug. The glass hit the table with a slightly liquid squeak. A similar sound seemed to come from her throat. After a moment she said, “Shit.”

“Tjaele Mosasa is a construct controlled by a salvaged Race AI device. The ‘man’ who briefed us is no more real than my right arm.” He held the arm in front of him; fingers spread so the metallic claws were visible.

She looked at his arm. “That’s a prosthetic?”

Nickolai made a fist and lowered it to the table. “Yes. It is.”

“It’s very well done, I couldn’t tell at all.” She finished off her dark beverage. She stared at the foam sliding down the edges of her glass. “Why would an AI hire a group of mercenaries?”

“It may be exactly what he said it was.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it is.” Kugara looked up from the shreds of foam in her glass and asked him, “But if you had a choice, would you be walking into this?”

“No.”

“Damn straight.” She looked over at the bar. “I think it’s time for a second round.”

She never asked him why he had no choice in the matter, or why he had a prosthetic arm, or why a scion of House Rajasthan had deigned to prostitute his skills as a mercenary on Bakunin. He returned the favor.

By the end of the third round, and his third pitcher, Nickolai finally felt a comfortable softening of the edges of his perception. Even before coming to Bakunin, he hadn’t been much of a social drinker. What little alcohol he consumed was usually ceremonial, toasting saints, fellow warriors, or the person of the sovereign. He was somewhat surprised at how he enjoyed being comfortable with another person, whoever it was.

That might have been why it took him that long to notice their shadow. A trio of men, who had entered some time after he and Kugara had arrived, sat at a corner booth that had a good view of Nickolai’s table. They weren’t obviously watching them, but they also weren’t doing much drinking, or laughing, or talking. The trio might be in civilian clothes, but Nickolai was sensitive to motion and body language, and even out of the corner of his eye he could tell they had body armor restricting their movements under the loose overalls they wore.

Without moving his gaze from Kugara, he cycled though his new spectral sensitivities. When he downshifted the spectrum toward the infrared, he could see square hot spots on their belts that were most likely active Emerson field generators.

The body armor could be innocent, insofar as anything was innocent in the violent mess that was Bakunin, but an Emerson field sucked enough power that you didn’t turn one on unless you imminently expected to be targeted by some energy weapon, otherwise you’d suck the massive power sink dry long before the field would be of any use.

Nickolai did his best not to shift his body language. Raising his pitcher to his lips he said, “Three men behind you.” He kept his attention on the three men in his peripheral vision. Either they were very good at covering their reaction, or they didn’t have audio surveillance on them.