Bring Me the Dead, page 6
By the time he was dressed, in dark pants and a forest-green shirt in light, soft fabric, nearly forty minutes had passed. He was sure Beau would be gone. But he wasn’t. Ki-tae came out of the changing room to find him sitting in the dojo’s reception area. He wasn’t reading or chatting up the receptionist; just sitting, thunder-browed and quiet.
He jumped to his feet and smiled when Ki-tae appeared. Was there anything predatory in that smile? Were his intentions the same as yesterday? Would it in fact be a mistake to walk the quiet corridors of the ship with him?
But he didn’t believe Beau presented a danger to him. He surely wouldn’t attempt to assault Ki-tae. Though he was the kind of privileged and entitled man who had never grown used to hearing the word no. Some of those types, however charming they appeared, could turn on you if they didn’t get what they wanted. As a scholarship kid at a college with many rich and entitled people, Ki-tae had certainly met his fair share of them, including a few who didn’t think he had a right to say no to them. They soon learned that, as one of the best martial artists in the school, Ki-tae could make a no stick and, if needed, put a man off bothering him or anyone else for a month.
But Beau had never been quite that bad. And that time they had been together, he’d been a generous lover, despite his inexperience, as enthusiastic about Ki-tae’s pleasure as he was about his own. Heat rose in Ki-tae’s face at the memory. He hitched his bag of workout gear higher on his shoulder. Whatever Beau had to say, Ki-tae didn’t think it was anything for an audience. The receptionist was looking at the two of them with some interest.
“Let’s walk,” he said. Beau nodded and made a courtly gesture for Ki-tae to precede him to the door. Ki-tae took the invitation and walked out.
Chapter 7
“I came to say I’m sorry,” Beau said, falling into step with him as they walked through the gray and utilitarian corridors of the cheap end of the ship. “I crossed the line.”
“Not merely crossed. If you’d looked over your shoulder, you’d have seen the line rapidly vanishing into the distance behind you.”
“Guess that’s fair. I got carried away. You do look great right—”
“Are you claiming that how I look is to blame for the way you behaved?”
“Sorry, of course not. I tried something I shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry.”
Ki-tae could refuse to accept the apology. They were not friends. He had no reason to kiss and make up—even metaphorically—with Beau Johnson. Except that maybe it would help his investigation. Beau might slip up somewhere when they spoke. Say something compromising. Confirm something about the intel Ki-tae had so far and received more of every day.
“Apology accepted. How’s your, ah…” He glanced down, gestured vaguely.
“What, Johnson Jr.?” Beau smiled. “Everything is fine. I appreciate you not using your full strength.”
“How do you know I didn’t?”
“Because I was able to count to two yesterday.”
Ki-tae snorted, pretending irritation to hide his amusement.
“Look, as a little gesture of apology, would you like to come with me to a VR show this afternoon?” Beau asked. “It’s about the Yanrax war. Great battle simulations.”
“Those things are for the tourists.”
“I know that. Ignore the voice-over and enjoy the spectacle. It’s beautiful.”
“And was I your first choice to go with?”
“No. Marz was going to go, but she’s feeling a bit delicate. Probably some woman thing.”
“So far as I recall, hangovers don’t discriminate.”
“There might be a touch of that,” Beau admitted ruefully. His usual manner was coming through, sweeping aside the subdued one. Did that mean he had faked being serious before?
“All right,” Ki-tae said. He wouldn’t admit how much he enjoyed the virtual-reality simulations. He remembered going to the largest VR dome in Seoul when he was a small boy and how the shows about the empire had fired his interest. How he’d longed to visit those planets and explore the ruins. By the time he went to the Institute, he had read almost every popular book published about the empire and had started on the more academic ones.
“Wait a moment.” He tapped some instructions into the terminal he had in his pocket. A moment later a robot porter appeared around a corner. It was a tall metal locker on wheels, with an on-board computer. Ki-tae stashed his gym bag and staff into the robot. He tapped on its control panel, making sure Beau couldn’t see the code for the location of Ki-tae’s quarters. He didn’t want any surprise visits.
He sealed the lid. The robot rolled off, moving fast. When Ki-tae went home later, he’d find his things safely in the room’s delivery box. A useful amenity.
They walked on together until they emerged into a plaza crowded with people enjoying a fine afternoon of artificial sunshine. It was dominated at one end by the huge virtual-reality simulator. A display on the front marked the time until the next showing of the simulation Ancient Wars: Yanrax. Only ten minutes to go before the start.
“Come on,” Beau said. “I’ll buy you an ice cream.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Ice cream is always necessary if you want to live your best life.”
Ki-tae relented. He didn’t often indulge in such unhealthy treats, but he’d do so in the cause of gaining Beau’s trust. That would make it worth the extra time on the treadmill to burn it off. He chose a blueberry ice, with whole berries in it. Beau paid for their tickets, and they wandered into the lobby, which was busy. Children ran about, yelling and screaming as they waited for the next showing of a more family-friendly program than the one about the bloodiest battle in a devastating war.
“Oh yes, this seems like tremendous fun,” Ki-tae said drily.
“Lighten up,” Beau said. “How’s your ice cream? You want a lick of mine?” He proffered the green, pistachio-flavored ice-cream cone in Ki-tae’s direction.
“Ah, no thank you. Mine’s just fine.”
In a few minutes a bell sounded, and an announcement told everyone to take their seats for Ancient Wars. Shortly after, the auditorium went dark. Ki-tae felt the tingle as his seat began to project the simulation into his brain. He briefly closed his eyes, and opened them again in an invading Granthax ship, bearing down on a planet. A voice, as authoritative as any of his lecturers, spoke in his ear.
“A million years ago an empire fell.”
* * * *
Beau and Ki-tae walked quite slowly as the crowd flowed around them, streaming out of the VR auditorium, rushing off to dinner or the next entertainment.
“Enjoy that?” Beau asked as they and a few other stragglers walked down the steps and into the plaza.
“There was rather too much artistic license,” Ki-tae said. “But I suppose that’s the adult me talking, the student of imperial history. It did remind me of when I was a child and went to the VR shows about the empire.” He smiled, softening that stern face he wore too often.
“Did you go with your folks?” Beau asked.
“Yes. My…father most often.” He looked away, but Beau caught the pain in his eyes.
“Sorry to bring that up.”
“No, it’s fine,” Ki-tae said in a nearly steady voice, looking ahead again. “It was over a year ago.”
“Which is no time at all.” Beau tried to imagine a world without his father and failed. A commanding presence in his home, his business, and eventually the governor’s mansion. Yet Beau knew even such a strong man as that would eventually be gone. “Was it a long illness?”
“No. It was quick. A stroke. I wasn’t able to get home in time for the funeral. I was in the field on an investigation, and it took me a month to get home.”
“Damn. That’s hard. I’m sorry.”
They walked in silence for a while, leaving the crowd and wandering along a quieter row of businesses. Some were closed for the night, since the ship kept to a twenty-four-hour cycle. But lights showed from bars and restaurants. One restaurant had tables outside.
“You hungry?” Beau asked. It looked like a sort of generic Japanese, Korean, Filipino, et cetera restaurant.
Ki-tae glanced at him with a startled expression and stared for a moment, as if wondering how come he was walking along at the side of Beau Johnson. Beau had to admit he felt kind of the same when he remembered he was walking with an Institute cop. Ki-tae had little jurisdiction outside the Imperial sector, but the Imperial sector was where Beau did his job, so it mattered. Anyway, strange as it was to be palling around with his old rival and current nemesis, he had to find out Ki-tae’s real agenda. The seduction plan had slipped a cog, though he was willing to try it out again if a better moment arose. So maybe he’d try to be friends. Ki-tae wasn’t bad company, even if he was a stiff. He certainly knew plenty about the empire. Maybe turning the conversation to that topic would induce him to let something slip about his current mission.
Ki-tae nodded his assent to going into the restaurant, though when the waitress came, he ordered only some miso soup and a vegetable-and-noodle stir-fry to follow.
“Jeez, get some chicken, live a little,” Beau muttered.
“I’m fine, thank you.”
Beau shrugged and also ordered the soup to start, but sweet chili pork cutlets with noodles for his entrée.
“So come on,” Beau said. “Tell me all about how they took too much artistic license in the simulation.”
“The fighter craft were all wrong. They’re based on out-of-date research. Hengist’s paper from last year makes it clear all the Yanrax attack craft were dual operated. There were no single-pilot fighters.”
“Pilot and gunner?”
“No, the fighters were remote piloted by an AI. The two Yans aboard were both gunners. Haven’t you read Hengist’s paper? I find her conclusions well supported.”
“Um, it’s on my nightstand, I swear.” God, he was so behind with his reading. People wrote new papers and books about the empire all the time, and he needed to stay current. Someone like King would be, and you never wanted a client to think they knew more than you.
“I’m sure,” Ki-tae said, heavily skeptical. Beau grinned and raised his water glass to Ki-tae. Ki-tae rolled his eyes, but he was smiling.
And so it went on, talking about new theories, new books about the empire. It was fun. More fun than he’d ever had with Ki-tae, barring that one time. And no matter how enjoyable a conversation about the empire was, conversation was never going to top that night.
* * * *
Beau popped the hatch, and he and Marz went aboard the unpowered Istrouma. He clicked on a flashlight. Turning the power back on would only drain the ship’s backup batteries, and there’d be no time to get them topped up when they arrived. If main power failed, the batteries could keep the crew alive for nearly a week, with heat and air recycling, while they waited for rescue or to fix the generator. If they were still adrift after that time, all ships carried life pods, single-person survival capsules, each with its own power cells. You could stay on the ship in them, or you could survive in space in them. At least until you ran out of power, at which point you’d drift through space forever, a frozen corpse. Lovely.
Marz needed no flashlight, not with her ocular implants. She led the way confidently. Beau hesitated, checked himself at every turn, junction, and steps. But she never steered them wrong. The complete darkness made the ship feel unfamiliar, frightening. The silence even more so. Without air circulation the air smelled stale.
“Let’s get this thing quick,” Beau said. “This place is freaking me out.”
“Aw, don’t be scared. I haven’t seen the ghost for months. I’m sure it’s gone.”
“Shut up,” Beau suggested. When they’d recovered a cursed artifact for a client, that supposedly contained the trapped soul of one of the kings of the oldest dynasty in the empire, Beau had insisted on taking a look inside what was basically an elaborate funeral urn. It had been empty, but ever since then the crew had mentioned a few incidents. Footsteps when there shouldn’t have been any. Distant voices. And the Chief Pest Control and Morale Officer, A.K.A. the cat, Bubble, would sometimes stare at nothing, puff up her fur and hiss, then run away.
Beau dismissed all this nonsense as the fancies of a person half-asleep on a middle watch. Sound traveled oddly in the ship. Through vents and around corners. And cats were cats. His mother’s cats did the same thing in the governor’s mansion and at their home—though both those places were supposedly haunted too.
They reached the hatch of a storeroom and opened it with the manual-override handle. Marz went in and started looking around the shelves of labeled plastic boxes. Beau stayed by the door. The room was small—he’d only get in her way and might accidentally shine the flashlight toward her face, which made the ocular implants overload temporarily and cause her to punch him and say it was an accident because she couldn’t see. Besides if he was here, then no ghost could close and lock the door behind them. After which they’d find their communicators didn’t work…
“Here we are.” Marz unlatched the cage door on the front of a shelf. The doors kept everything in place even when Beau was flying the ship. She lifted down a case filled with assorted electronics and placed it on a foldout table. He could see her only as a dark shape in dimness, his flashlight pointing to the ground. She examined the miscellaneous electronic devices in the box while Beau stood at the door, wishing she’d hurry up and find what they’d come for so they could escape, ah…leave.
“How are you going to get your hands on his terminal to use it, anyway?” she asked. “Seduce him? Shag him to sleep and do it then?”
“I’ve cooled on the whole seduction angle. It didn’t work out as planned.”
“What happened?”
“I went in for a kiss, and he went in for a kneecap-and-testicles interface experience.”
“Ouch. So, plan B?”
“I always have a plan B.”
“Was that why you went on that dinner-and-a-movie date with him last night?”
“It was not a date.” No, it had not been a date. They’d parted on good terms, agreeing to resume sparring, but there had been no kissing. Ergo, no date. “Have you found that thing yet?”
“Got ‘em.” She took three devices from the box and dropped them into her coat pocket. She replaced the box on the shelf before slipping out of the room, past Beau. He closed the hatch and locked it, and they headed back to the airlock. They were almost there when Beau spun with the flashlight, pointed it back the way they’d come. It penetrated only a short distance down the corridor.
“What?” Marz asked.
“I swear to God I heard something.”
“Just an echo,” she said.
Beau shook his head. “I don’t think so. Can you see anything?”
She peered hard into the darkness. “Nothing there,” she said at last. He wondered how far down the corridor she could see, though. Her ocular implants were designed for reading work, not distance vision. “Come on.” She sounded a tad nervous herself, eager to be off the cold, dead ship.
No, not dead. Hibernating maybe, Beau thought. He loved his ship and definitely didn’t like to think of her as dead. Still, he was glad when the hatch opened to the hangar stuffed with ships of all kinds of designs. They lurked and loomed in the dimness, some great leviathan shapes, some sleek like dolphins, some tiny. Mere minnows.
He locked the hatch behind them when they stepped out. It occurred to him that Ki-tae probably knew the bay this ship was in. What if he decided to search it? He had no way to get a warrant, so nothing he found would be admissible in court, but Beau wouldn’t put it past the devious little bastard to sneak aboard and look for clues anyway. It was totally what Beau would do—if he could find out the location of either Ki-tae’s quarters or his ship. His ship would be one of the minnows. He was apparently here on his own for this mission, so he’d have a small ship. Probably a Dragonfly. They were fast, those little Dragonflies. Beau wished they’d had them back when he was finishing his master’s. Maybe he’d have taken that archeology police job after all—his right as valedictorian. But he’d turned it down. He hadn’t gone to the Institute to end up in some mid-salary job. So it went to the next in line—Park Ki-tae.
Something Ki-tae had never forgotten.
Chapter 8
As usual Beau was twirling his staff when Ki-tae came into the practice room. As usual he looked smugly pleased with himself. He stopped the twirling and bowed as soon as Ki-tae walked onto the mat, making Ki-tae hurry to catch up, bowing, then dropping into a defensive stance when Beau came at him fast. He blocked and danced back off balance.
“Trying to get me off guard?” Ki-tae asked.
“Bad guys don’t bow,” Beau reminded him. “And they don’t give you any warning.”
“Reverting to type, then, are you?” He regained his balance, got his stance right.
“No—I did bow, after all.” He smiled as he feinted and Ki-tae fell for it, moved the wrong way to defend and was caught in a joint lock, briefly. He slipped it and took Beau to the mat with an arm bar.
“Maybe one day we’ll fight without bowing,” Ki-tae said. He released Beau and stepped back. Beau got quickly back to his feet.
“Yeah,” Beau said. “Then I won’t be so sportsmanlike.” He dropped into a crouch and swept Ki-tae’s legs from under him. Ki-tae went down, slapping the mat in time to avoid being hurt. He didn’t stay long on his back, because Beau was coming at him with intent in his eyes, looking to pin him for sure. With his superior weight he’d always been able to pin Ki-tae down long enough to win a point. As Beau lunged at him, Ki-tae rolled, then flipped up to his feet. A flashy move his instructor would frown at. But he’d practiced it. Beau was right about some things. In the field, nobody observed the niceties. Always get back up as fast as you could. You died on the ground.
