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“Gee, you wear a mask; I wonder why?” Despite her irritation, Katana had to work not to smile. One thing about the Bounty Hunter: he was never boring. And she actually liked him, found it very easy to slip into repartee, as if they’d known one another for a very long time. She changed the subject. “Where are you off to next?”
“For me to know and you to discover. But feel free to send word through my secure ComStar account, and I’ll deliver whatever you require, or be in my Marauder in a New Avalon minute.”
And how does he afford a secure ComStar account? Acts like he’s got his own HPG stashed away somewhere. “At least stay for a meal. Have breakfast with me, and we can talk.”
There it was again, that little hesitation, something that was almost… Katana’s eyes narrowed. Not something she saw so much as sensed. As if he’s attracted to me somehow, but more than physically…
“Thanks, but no,” said the Bounty Hunter, and Katana knew that the moment, whatever it had been, had passed. Her eyes tracked him as he moved to the shoji closing off her balcony. The paper was suffused with a golden glow, and the Bounty Hunter paused there, silhouetted against the amber hues of first dawn. “I’m afraid I got into a batch of bad eggs a few weeks ago and, well…” The wood frame let out a muted squall as he slid it to one side. “Let’s just say, it’s put me off my food.”
And before Katana could say anything more, he’d vaulted over the balcony railing and was gone.
DropShip Delta, in lunar stationary orbit
Ship’s night, 29 January 3135
“You did what?”
A faint sizzle, like grease on a hot griddle, and Marcus waited, lips compressed and eyes narrowed to slits. Damn the time lag in transmissions to and from the surface, anyway! A waste of valuable time… As he counted off the seconds, Marcus thought that, yes, things were slipping away from him now. Things were getting out of control.
He didn’t kill her. He had the opportunity and the means and still…
Finally, there was a tiny pop and crackle, and then Marcus’ face burned as he heard Jonathan’s laughter. Even distorted because of distance and interference, Marcus knew at once that the laughter had no humor, nor was it simply indulgent. No, Jonathan’s laugh was …malevolent. “I let her live,” Jonathan said.
“I understand that. What I don’t understand is why?” More waiting again as the message traveled to Proserpina. Something odd about Jonathan: he was begi
“Because it’s so much more entertaining this way,” said Jonathan. “Where’s the fun in just killing her?”
“Damn fun.” Marcus gripped the edges of his communications console with both hands. Metal bit into his palms. “That’s not how we pla
Things weren’t going well; no, they were not going according to plan. What was wrong with Jonathan? They were supposed to be a team, the way they’d been when they were younger.
Yes, a team, but Father always favored Jonathan. What, did Father think I was blind, that I wouldn’t notice? I noticed all right. I wasn’t born yesterday, just first . Well, I’ve done my sharing of killing. Through various cha
“You’ve had a lot of chances to get rid of Katana,” he said now. “Get it over with so we can move on. There’s more to life than chasing after Katana Tormark.”
After a lag: “I’m not disagreeing,” said Jonathan. “But part of the project has been to make her suffer. Well, we know that there are many ways to suffer, don’t we, Brother? There’s the physical, of course, but there’s also confusion, misdirection, loss, shame… so many different and interesting ways to suffer.”
“Don’t talk to me about suffering,” said Marcus. “Our mother suffered for years after Father turned his back on us. And then there was the accident… me… Why should Katana’s life be any better?”
The time delay was only ten seconds but felt like ten centuries. Then there was a click, a hiss and finally, Jonathan: “Don’t worry, Marcus. It won’t be.”
Conqueror’s Pride, Proserpina
Night, 29 January 3135
Drip… drip… drip…
Something was wrong. Jonathan slouched over the kitchen table, listening to the slow drip-drip-drip. Like a leaky faucet. And a fly must have piggybacked in because he saw it: fat, black, doing loop-de-loops over a bowl of gray, greasy soba.
Jonathan threw his head back and sucked down another mouthful of bourbon, grimaced at the burn. His head felt hollow. He knew when things started going wrong. “In Katana’s bedroom,” he said out loud. “When I had her, when she…” He broke off, not wanting to say it because then it would be real. But he remembered; the dark gloss of her skin, her long legs…
He drank again, the glass clicking against his teeth. After talking to Marcus, he’d been restless. Ready to prowl. Finding a woman had been easy. Leaning against bricks at the mouth of a dark, moldy-smelling alley, he’d watched the parade: leggy women with high breasts; bored women with breasts that sagged like deflated balloons; scrawny ones so sick from drugs or drink they were walking skeletons. There were men, too, advertising in black leather cups, thigh-high boots and a smile.
He found the one he wanted. Not young; around thirty. Tawny, chocolate-colored skin and long, muscled legs. Not as tall as Katana, but her face was unblemished, her teeth very white, and when he went up to her, he caught a scent of ci
“I mean, there’s no other way to put it,” he said, swinging his head left. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
The woman didn’t answer. Her head was thrown back; her glassy eyes bulged; the red-black crater that had been her throat oozed blood that drip-drip-dripped, but more slowly now because she’d been dead awhile and the blood was starting to coagulate. But his voice’d startled the fly. It abandoned the soup, landed on the woman’s glazed right eye. Didn’t like that much and flitted to the left and then darted into the cave of her gaping mouth, open in a silent scream.
And things had gone so well in the begi
For him, only Katana would be good enough.