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What saved Eriksson’s life was not a sudden flash of conscience, or the old man’s resilience. What saved Eriksson’s life was the guard who, hearing the commotion, dared to find out what was going on. Sakamoto heard a click, saw the door sigh open and then the pale, frankly amazed face of the guard.
“What are you staring at?!” Panting with fury, Sakamoto flung Eriksson away and stepped back as the old man writhed, hands at his throat. “Did I summon you? No? Then get out!” Then, after the guard had hastily withdrawn, Sakamoto threw a dark look at the prostrate knight, who was still trying to suck air into his lungs. “Bah!” Sakamoto said, and spat. His spittle arced through the air and spattered against Eriksson’s cheek. “You are not worth the energy.”
He stepped over Eriksson’s body, reached for his flagon, splashed wine into a waiting goblet and tossed it back with the satisfaction of a man having done thirsty work. “Get up,” Sakamoto said, his words lost as he drank deep. “Before I change my mind.”
Slowly, achingly slowly, Eriksson got to his feet an inch at a time, his words coming in tortured whispers. “You… you’ll… wish, wish… you’d… killed me.” A fit of coughing shook his frail body, and he bent over double, gagging.
Sakamoto’s eyes slitted like a watchful lizard’s. “You think? Well, I think not… for the time being. You’re a prize piece of bait, Eriksson, an irresistible fly.”
“For Katana?” The old man shook his head in a feeble negative. “She’s too… too smart for you. She’ll never… never…”
“Come?” His fury spent for the time being, Sakamoto dropped into a chair. “Wait and see, old man. She’ll come.” Suddenly, Sakamoto exhaled hugely, clapped his hands together, gave them a good scrub. He reached for a dainty puff pastry and said, conversationally, “I have a new chef, Shujin Nanashi. He’s quite talented. Do you know what he calls these? Inzanami’s Delight. Do you know who Inzanami is, Eriksson?”
“Hell,” Eriksson managed. “She’s the guardian of Hell.”
“Yes. Hell.” And then Sakamoto gave a lazy smile that would have been beatific if it hadn’t been so very awful. “And I bid you welcome,” he said, and ate.
35
DropShip Black Wind, inbound for Saffel
Prefecture II, Republic of the Sphere
4 August 3135
“What?” Still sleep-muddled, the MechWarrior, a loose-limbed man named Evans, squinted. The tan blob resolved into a Mech Tech, roughly his height and weight, in a wedge of inky shadow and hard to make out. On the other hand, it was ship’s night, his brain was muzzy; and his mouth tasted like the floor of a hovercar.
“My apologies, Chu-i,” the tech said, “but Jingo-san requested that you report to the ’Mech bay at once.”
“Jingo?” Yawning, Evans dug at a glaze of stubble along his right jowl. “He works day shift. What the hell’s he doing up?”
“Riding us, for one. He’s in a lather because the tai-shu will lead the drop.” The tech’s tone turned faintly pleading. “Look, if you don’t come, I’m going to catch it.”
“Mmmm.” Evans said, scrubbing the back of his head. He was the type of man who needed at least three full mugs of hot, black coffee to achieve consciousness. Sentience required five. Besides, he’d checked his Panther over a dozen times, and everything was—had been—fine. “What’s the problem?”
“We think it’s your DI interface. One of the drop couplings isn’t functioning properly, so we need to check the undocking sequence. Normally, we wouldn’t wake you”—a hasty, apologetic bow—“but since only you can access your computer, we…”
“You have your own passcodes. So does Jingo-san. What’s wrong with them?”
“Our passcodes won’t work. So we need you and…”
“Oh, all right,” Evans said, just to stop the man’s sniveling. Anyway, the fact that no one could access his DI was troubling. “Just let me throw on some clothes.”
Ten minutes later, they were in the DropShip’s bay. Evans’ ’Mech was rigid as a sentry in its couplings, the cockpit dark. The light tang of ’Mech coolant hung in the air, mingling with the sharper smell of scored metal. Evans frowned. “Where’s Jingo?”
The tech looked worried. “I don’t know.”
“Well, what the hell…”
“Look,” said the tech. “I can do the work, and if we get started that means we’ll both be closer to some shut-eye.”
“Fine, fine,” Evans cut in. He had a headache now, and his brain screamed for caffeine. Evans slouched into a lift; stepping in behind, the tech closed the cage with a clatter of metal joists and punched in his code. The lift rose with a slight lurch and a soft mechanical purr, its pulleys squalling thinly, and the bay deck fell away beneath them, darkening into shadow. At cockpit level, the lift bobbled to a halt. The tech pulled the cage aside and Evans tapped in his access code, pulled open his Panther’s hatch, and squirted through the narrow hatchway with comparative ease.
His cockpit, like most ’Mech cockpits, was configured to allow for maximum efficiency using minimal space. He duckwalked in, flicked on his ’Mech’s ignition switch, and flopped into his couch. As his systems flickered to life, Evans tugged his neurohelmet from a shelf just above and behind him, squared the bulky device on his head and thumbed on his gyro start-up control. He waited as the DI correlated data fed through his neurohelmet and verified that he was indeed Evans, then spoke the passcode he’d preprogrammed into the computer for voice match. When the DI agreed that he was indeed who he said he was, Evans punched up internal stats, studied the data as it appeared on his secondary viewing screen. Then he cursed. “You got me out for this? There’s nothing wrong with the couplings!”
“No?” the tech said, the word rising to an astonished question mark. “But twenty minutes ago…”
“Screw twenty minutes. Come on, see for yourself.” Evans heard the scrape of the tech’s boots over the Panther’s deck, a strange shuffling rustle like a cloth being snapped down, and just as he was about to screw his head around, his command couch jiggled as the tech came up behind and put a hand on his left shoulder. Evans gave the screen a backhanded wave. “See?”
“Why, yes, I do believe you’re right,” the tech said. Evans’ caffeine-starved brain only had a fraction of a second to register that the tech’s tone had changed: no question in it now, now it was—his gummy mind struggled for the word—smooth.
There was a blur of movement, something that flipped in and out of Evans’ vision so quickly that his brain never really registered the something as being there—and, suddenly, he felt the bite of wire around his neck, then the wire clamping down. Evans jerked, flopping like a hooked fish. Mouth gaping, tongue bulging, making awful gurgling sounds that got thi
“Not on the controls, please,” Jonathan said as the first spurt of bright red blood sprayed from the carotid artery, the left. Damn neurohelmet; he’d had to flip the garrote, not over the MechWarrior’s head, but from side to side before crossing his hands and pulling. Ah, well, couldn’t be helped… With a quick, expert flip, Jonathan simultaneously disengaged the pilot’s neurohelmet and jerked him from his couch, spilling him facedown onto a thick canvas tarp Jonathan had spread not twenty seconds ago. The DI responded with a steady shrill of an alarm at the loss of neurocontact. Jonathan ignored it. He planted his right knee in the small of Evans’ back and pushed while simultaneously pulling back harder. Evans reared, but Jonathan rode the man like a bucking bronco. The wire sliced through meat, and Evans’ blood gushed, turning the canvas a queer, dull copper. Evans lurched and flopped—and then the air in the small cabin was filled with the overripe stink of feces and the ammonia tang of urine.