The Knights of the Black Earth (3 page)

“Snaga Ohme was
the most powerful man in the galaxy,” Bosk averred. “The top weapons dealer and
manufacturer alive. No one could touch him. Kings, warlords, governors,
congressmen, corporate leaders—they all came running when he so much as
twitched his pinkie their direction.”

“Ohme feared that
the Warlord—if and when he came to power—might put him out of business. So Ohme
built the negative wave device to kill Derek Sagan.”

Bosk shook his
head vehemently. “Not kill him.”

“Keep Sagan in line,
then.”

“If he leaned on
us, we could lean back.” Bosk was defensive. “We were looking out for our own
interests.”

“Sagan has the
bomb, blackmails the government. Ohme has the negative wave device, blackmails
Sagan.”

“It was an
ingenious idea. You gotta admit that.”

“All predicated on
the fact that Sagan was specially genetically designed. One of the Blood Royal.
The device would kill him and him alone, even in a crowd. Yes, a truly
remarkable concept.
If
it worked. ...”

Bosk snorted. “It
worked, all right.”

“Ohme tested it?”
The stranger appeared surprised, intrigued. “We weren’t aware that he’d built a
working model.”

Bosk opened his
mouth, suddenly closed it again. He shrugged, surly now, and deciding to be
uncooperative. Who was this bastard? Coming here with all his damn stupid
questions. And how the hell did he know so much? What was going on?

Standing up, a bit
unsteadily, Bosk stalked over, grabbed the bottle, stalked back, and poured
himself a drink. He flopped down in the chair, reached for the remote, turned
on the vid. James M.

Warden was
resurrected. He was still interviewing His Majesty the King. Her Majesty the
Queen had joined them.

The mental hand
that had been tugging at Bosk’s brain gave him a sudden sharp jab that made him
flinch, literally. He saw it all now. Everything became suddenly clear, as
clear as it could be through a liquor-soaked haze.

You juice-head, he
swore at himself. You damn near let him walk off with this for a measly twenty
thou. It’s worth ten times— hell, make that a hundred times—more!

Bosk stared hard
at the vidscreen, his brain flopping around, wondering how best to appear
completely unconscious of the fact that he’d scammed the whole scheme and that
it was big, really big, and that he was going to make a bloody fortune off it.

I can’t let on
that I know, though, was his next thought, which of course made him wonder if
he’d already given himself away. He slid a glance over to the stranger, slid it
back quickly. The stranger was staring at the screen, too, but with the
abstracted gaze of one who is using a visual aid to enhance far-removed
thoughts.

Bosk breathed
easier. Noticing his hand was clenched around the glass so tightly that his
knuckles had turned white, he forced himself to relax. He started to take a drink,
then thought better of it, then was afraid that not taking a drink might seem
suspicious. He brought the glass to his lips, set it down again untasted, and
wondered uneasily how to bring the conversation around to where he wanted it.

At that moment, James
M. Warden broke for a message from his sponsor.

Bosk cleared his
throat. “What I meant to say is that the theory behind the device was sound.
Ohme knew it would work. There was no reason to doubt it. It’s all in there.”
Bosk gazed fondly at the computer.

“You ended up with
the design,” said the stranger.

“I ended up with
it,” Bosk said softly. “It was my chance, you see. My chance to get even. The
night Ohme was murdered, all hell broke loose. Sagan’s troops had the goddamn
place surrounded. In the confusion, I raided Ohme’s own personal computer. I
downloaded, then destroyed, all the files on the Negative Waves project. I’m
the
only
person alive who’s got them.”

Bosk added the
last with emphasis. He was watching the vidscreen with a smile on his face, felt
emboldened enough to repeat himself. “I’m the only one.”

The stranger
nodded. “Yes, so I understand. You searched for backers to finance the project.
But with the government collapsed and the new king taking over, no one was
interested in spending a fortune on a weapon with such limited potential.”

“Sagan was still
alive,” Bosk muttered.

“True, Warlord
Sagan was still alive and had enemies. But by the time they might have been
willing to invest, Derek Sagan had managed to get himself killed. He was the
last of the Blood Royal—the only people Ohme’s device was designed to destroy.
The demand for your product went right down the toilet.”

“Not the
last
of the Blood Royal,” Bosk said, with a sly glance at the vidscreen. “Sagan wasn’t
the last. The king. Dion Starfire.
He’s
the last”

The stranger was
nonplussed. “There could be others.”

“Sure, sure.” Bosk
staggered to his feet His unsteady hand knocked his glass to the floor. “What
do you take me for? A brain-rotted old queen, too juiced to know who I’m climbing
in bed with? This is big. Really big. Bigger than twenty thousand fuckin’
eagles. I’ll go back to Adonia. I’ll go back in style. No more hanging around
the Laskar bars, letting guys like you in your expensive suits think you’re
doin’ me some big honor by rubbing your ass against mine, then throwin’ me out
the next morning like I was too filthy to live. You need me, damn it You need
me and I want my share or I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”

“You’ll what,
Bosk?” asked the stranger calmly.

Bosk realized too
late that he’d gone too far. Fear knotted his belly, sent the gastric juices
surging up, bile-bitter and burning, into his throat His jaws ached; saliva
flooded his mouth. He was afraid he might vomit.

He swallowed
several times. Sweat, cold and clammy, chilled on his body, made him shiver.

“I’ll find other
buyers.” He decided to bluff it out.

The stranger
considered, said gravely, “Very well, Bosk. We’ll meet your price. Just think
of this as a down payment.” He patted the briefcase.

Bosk didn’t like
it. The guy had given in far too quickly. Still, the Adonian reflected, I
have
got him by the short hairs.

“You’ll need a
technical adviser.” Bosk slurred his words. The shivering fear caused a tremor
in his right leg. He clamped his hand over his leg, to stop the muscle jerking.
“There’s a lot of data ... I left out . . . not in . . . the files.”

“Bound to be,” the
stranger agreed. He stood up from the folding chair. Placing the briefcase on
the table next to the picture of Snaga Ohme, the stranger smiled, indicated the
computer screen. “Bring up the files. I want to see what I’m buying.”

Bosk hesitated. “It’ll
take a while to get the material all in order. Big files, scattered. I’m not
all that organized.”

“I understand
completely. I just want to take a look before I go. Scan it, get a feel for the
project. That’s all. I think that’s only fair, considering my initial
investment. Then, when you have the data compiled, I’ll be back to pick it up.
At that time, I’ll bring the rest of your payment. Besides,” the stranger added
with a slight lift of his shoulders, “I’d like to know the project’s really in
that computer of yours.”

“It’s in there,”
Bosk said, gloating. “And it’ll work.” He stumbled over to the chair, sat down
in front of the computer.

Bosk placed his
hands on the input keypads. After a second’s wait, the screen began to glow. A
red light flashed; the log-on script for Bosk came up on the screen. He had yet
to hit any keys. Once the sequence was complete, the menu appeared.

Bosk cast a
cunning glance at the stranger. “Why don’t you go take a look at the view. Or
maybe you should check to make sure no one’s stolen your car.”

The stranger
smiled to indicate he understood completely. Leaving the vicinity of the
computer, he strode nonchalantly over to the window and peered out through the
grime to the street below.

Once the stranger’s
back was turned, Bosk accessed a file titled “Classical Literature through the
Ages”—guaranteed to be a snorer. Opening that, he selected the choice: “Idylls
of the King.”

The computer
responded by demanding a retina scan.

Bosk moved his
face closer to the screen, flinched as the scanning beam swiftly crossed his
eyeball ten thousand times.

The word “verified”
appeared on the screen, followed by a display that did not appear to be, on
first glance, classical literature.

“All right,” Bosk
said after several minutes had elapsed, silent minutes punctuated by the
clicking sounds of the Adonian’s fingers on the keyboard and muted voice
commands to the computer’s audio interpreter.

He gestured at the
screen. “There it is. Negative Waves. I’ve brought up the outline of the
initial concept, plus the preliminary diagrams of what the weapon should look
like when it’s completed. I figure that should be enough to convince you that what
I’ve got is the real thing.”

The stranger left
the window. Hands clasped behind his back, he strode over to the computer. He
bent down to see the screen, leaning over Bosk, who had remained seated. The
stranger studied the text intently.

“Scroll on further,”
he said, making no move to touch the keyboard.

Bosk obediently,
and proudly, did so. He, too, was reading the text, written in Snaga Ohme’s
precise, organized, meticulous style. The concept was sound. It would work.
Bosk raised his hand, rever-endy touched the computer screen.

“Genius,” he
murmured.

“Indeed,” said the
stranger, and he sounded impressed.

Bosk heard the
stranger straighten. The Adonian turned around, grinning in elation, prepared
to name what he considered his absolute minimum price for the files and his
knowledge concerning them, and found a handheld lasgun within ten centimeters
of the bridge of his nose.

Terror surged. He
opened his mouth to beg . . . scream. ...

With careful
precision, the stranger shot Bosk through the center of the forehead. The beam
bored a neat bloodless hole through bone and brain. The Adonian slumped, slid
out of the chair.

The stranger
shoved the body aside, sat down in the chair. “Damn,” he muttered softly.

Without Bosk’s
hands on the keyboard, the screen had gone blank.

The stranger was
only momentarily thwarted, however. Though he had not anticipated this problem,
he was prepared to deal with it. He spoke calmly into his commlink. “It’s
finished. Come up.”

Bending over the
corpse, the stranger slid what appeared to be plastic thimbles over Bosk’s
fingertips. Then, adjusting his lasgun’s intensity, the stranger modified the
beam to a cutting tool and proceeded to remove Bosk’s right eyeball. This
grisly task completed, he placed the freshly severed eyeball in a holder, stood
the holder on the table next to the computer. He then removed the fingertip
plastics, now bearing the whorls and lines of Bosk’s fingerprints. Carefully,
the stranger drew them over his own fingers.

Seating himself at
the computer, he rested his fingers on the keypad of the blanked computer.

The screen logged
in “Bosk.” The menu appeared.

Studying the list,
the stranger hesitated. There was, no doubt, a trap in here. Even if he
happened to guess the right file, bringing it up in the wrong sequence might
cause it to self-destruct.

Unable to discover
even a hint of a clue, the stranger exited the menu. Bosk had been smart, but
he had also been lazy. Hopefully too lazy to make certain all the doors into
his files had been shut and locked.

Hands on the
keyboard, the stranger typed—in case the computer was attuned to Bosk’s
voice—the command: “Recall last accessed project.” An old trick, but it worked.

A file appeared.
Words, arranged in a definite pattern, filled the screen; words in a language
long dead and forgotten by all but a few. The stranger was among the few who
could read them, but this wasn’t what he was after. He tensed. The computer
scrolled down to the lines:

Wearing the white
flower of a blameless life,

Before a thousand
peering littlenesses,

In that fierce
light which beats upon a throne,

And blackens every
blot.

Suddenly, “Idylls
of the King” disappeared. The screen went blank. This was either what he was
searching for or he’d lost it.

The stranger
picked up the eyeball, held it to the retina scan. A file came up. He read the
header and smiled.

“Negative Waves.”

You’re not a man,
you’re a machine.

George Bernard Shaw,
Arms and the Man

The Wiedermann
Detective Agency, with offices in every major city of every major planet in the
heart of the galaxy, handled only cases that were far too important, discreet,
and delicate for other, less sophisticated (and less expensive) agencies. The
Weidermann Agency would not, for example, tail your philandering husband unless
he happened to be the prime minister and the ensuing scandal could topple a
government.

The agency was
expert in corporate intrigue, both detecting it and performing it. They did not
handle ordinary or sordid cases. They would negotiate with terrorists and
kidnappers for you, but it would cost you plenty. They would not undertake to
break your uncle out of prison, or remove him from a penal colony, but they
would refer you to people who did that sort of thing. They would not find out
who poisoned your sister unless you had proof that the local police were being
deliberately obtuse and your credit rating indicated you could pay for a
prolonged investigation.

The agency’s
offices were always located in upscale downtown professional buildings, rubbing
shoulders comfortably with law firms that had twenty-seven names on the
letterhead, and the offices of doctors whose names were followed by that many
initials.