"I"ve been around," she said neutrally.
"Looks like you"ve been in some dangerous situations."
"The Undertown"s a dangerous place."
His gaze was steady, and she couldn"t look away.
"Ever thought of a transfer?"
"To where? I"d be bored silly up here in the Overcity. Tried it, didn"t like it."76.
He smelled musky, warm, and she felt her head swim. She wanted to run her hands through his thick, silky pelt. G.o.ddess, this was stupid! He was her squire. Her squire squire, for G.o.ddess" sake!
Like she had been Martle"s squire.
He reached out a paw and traced the path of one of the scratches across her breastplate.
"How"d you get this one?" he asked, his fingers lingering at the end of their path.
"Never mind," she snapped. "Get on with what we came here for."
He pulled his hand back. She took a deep breath, hoping he hadn"t noticed the shake in her voice.
"Yeah. Right." Deftly he set up the mind probe, turned it on and angled the screen so that they could both see it. "Here goes." He quickly typed instructions into the probe. The screen dimmed, flickered, and went blank.
"You"ve broken it."
"I have not not broken it." broken it."
"It never does that when I use it."
"You never went to the lectures."
She had no answer to that.
The screen began to strobe with scenes too brief for Forrester to identify.
Faces, places, objects . . . all fuzzy and none lasting long enough for her to place them in context. "What"s going on?" she asked.
"Well, we a.s.sume she was drugged, right? So that she couldn"t run away from the securitybot."
"Yeah."
"And that"s why her memories were fuzzy when we reviewed them earlier."
"I guess."
"So, if we go back to the latest point where her memories are clear, that"s when she was drugged."
"Uh-huh."
"And whoever was around at the time is our major suspect for having drugged her."
"Seems fair. What"s your sample rate?"
"I"m taking a memory every ten minutes."
The strobing continued. Forrester was getting a headache trying to follow it. She squinted, and knelt closer to the screen.
A face, clearer than the rest.
"Stop!" she cried.
Cwej"s finger hit the b.u.t.ton. The screen froze on a close-up of a bottle gripped by a gnarled hand. The picture was crystal clear.77.
"Go forward," Forrester barked, but Cwej was already feeding instructions in. More pictures, slower this time. Grimy, graffiti-laden walls of crumbling brick. Flickering firelight upon an arched roof A group of underlife in the remains of a collapsed church, clouds rolling overhead. Two people, a man and a woman.
A fuzzy image of a securitybot.
"Got it," Cwej murmured. "If I increase the sample rate to a memory every ten seconds . . . "
It took five more minutes to focus down upon the last thing the old woman saw before she had been drugged.
"And there they are," Cwej announced. "Prime suspects one and two."
The image was sharp. Sharper than the rest. Forrester had seen the effect before. The low-life"s mind had been brought into focus by a powerful emotion. Love could do that, and hate. And fear. Especially fear.
The man in the image was small and dark-haired. He was wearing a crumpled suit and a battered hat. The woman was tall and fine-boned. Her hair was close-cropped. Her clothes were plain except for an embroidered waistcoat.
She was holding a dermal patch towards the old woman. The image was so clear that Forrester could make out the individual pores on the patch, through which the drug would be absorbed into the skin.
"So," Forrester breathed. "Our murderers. Run the record on in real time."
The image jerked into life. The woman"s hand disappeared out of sight. The image began to fuzz over.
"Drug"s taking effect," Cwej murmured. "Must be a fast acting one."
"Wait," Forrester said, "she"s going to say something."
On the probe screen, the woman turned to the man and mouthed something.
"Can we get audio on this thing?"
Cwej frowned. "Audio"s usually difficult. The neural pathways it"s stored in are too fiddly to access from the outside. Smell"s the easiest, followed by visual. Touch and sound are b.u.g.g.e.rs." He fiddled with the controls. "However,"
he said distractedly, "the memory is so sharp that we might be in luck."
A blare of static. He turned the volume down quickly.
"Replay," Forrester ordered.
The picture jumped back ten seconds. The woman turned to her companion.
"She"s going under, Doctor," she said. "Give her the spike. She can kill the slug for us."
"Well," the man said, "we make a fine pair of murderers, don"t we my dear?"78.
Chapter 6.
"I"m Evan Claple and this is The Empire Today The Empire Today , on the spot, on and , on the spot, on and off the Earth. Today"s headlines: disaster strikes s.p.a.ceport Eighteen Overcity on Earth as an orbital laser platform malfunctions and off the Earth. Today"s headlines: disaster strikes s.p.a.ceport Eighteen Overcity on Earth as an orbital laser platform malfunctions and destroys an entire accommodation block. Fifty thousand people are destroys an entire accommodation block. Fifty thousand people are feared dead along with an unknown number of aliens, and damage is feared dead along with an unknown number of aliens, and damage is estimated at over one billion Imperial schillings. Earth Defence Coor-dinator Jim Hallis has promised a full investigation. Also, as official estimated at over one billion Imperial schillings. Earth Defence Coor-dinator Jim Hallis has promised a full investigation. Also, as official figures indicate that the murder rate on Earth is rising rapidly, we figures indicate that the murder rate on Earth is rising rapidly, we talk to Minister Stammatina of the Church of the G.o.ddess. Offworld talk to Minister Stammatina of the Church of the G.o.ddess. Offworld now, and latest figures from . . . " now, and latest figures from . . . "
Wherever Bernice looked, the jungle seethed with life.
Fleshy purple leaves quivered like palsied hands at the end of branches covered in hair. Vines wound themselves tighter around the gnarled boles of trees, occasionally shifting position as if seeking the best grip to strangle them with. Flowers with vast, fleshy petals and twisted stamens seemed to distend then shrivel in a grotesque parody of respiration. Tiny animals with insane glints in their multiple eyes scurried, fought, screamed and mated their way from tree to tree and vine to vine. Through c.h.i.n.ks in the oppressive canopy of leaves, flocks of flying reptiles with razor-edge talons wheeled through a fiery sky. The leaves were wet with condensation, which trickled down and fell to the spongy ground.
"Let me guess," she said. "This isn"t the restaurant."
"That depends on who"s doing the eating," Provost-Major Beltempest said pleasantly. He was standing in the centre of the clearing made by the descending flitter, his tunic open to show his huge blue paunch, a blaster rifle loosely cradled in his arms. Despite the flapping of his huge ears, he was sweating in the intense heat; dark patches had appeared at his armpits, and drops of perspiration were rolling down his trunk.
His pilot, a close-cropped young Landsknecht with metallic skin and eyes like those of a dead fish, also held a blaster. To Bernice he looked a lot more trigger-happy than his superior.
The Doctor stood beside Bernice. He was looking around with interest, fanning his face with his hat. "Some people collect stamps," he said brightly, "and others collect beer-mats. You obviously collect planets."79.
"Not me," Beltempest responded, wiping the sweat from his domed forehead with the back of his hand. He seemed in no hurry to do anything. "The Landsknechte. As you saw from the orbit, Purgatory has been terraformed into a set of different segments, each with its own ecology and climate, each separated from the others by a force wall. Some even have their own individual atmospheres. We have copies of thousands of planets here, each one presenting its own special survival problems. They"re all training grounds for our Landsknechte. All apart from the administration, s.p.a.ceport and the accommodation segments, of course."
"I don"t think "terraformed" is the right word," the Doctor said quietly.
"Why not?"
"Because it means "made to look like the Earth"."
"I stand corrected. What would you prefer?"
"Distorted?" the Doctor suggested. "Twisted? Perverted?"
"You don"t appreciate what we"re trying to do," Beltempest said, gesturing carelessly to the forest with the blaster. "This segment, for instance, is a perfect representation of the jungles of Ybarraculos Epsilon. Nasty place. Wouldn"t go there for a holiday, that"s for sure."
"That"s all right," the Doctor murmured, "they wouldn"t take you."
Beltempest waved the blaster off to one side. "Over there," he continued, "this segment abuts onto one representing the acid ice-cap of Throssa. You might want to avoid that one: the icefish have a particular taste for human eyes, and it"s an evens bet whether their caustic flesh kills you before their teeth do."
Bernice suppressed a shudder. "You"re enjoying this, aren"t you?" she asked.
"On the other hand," and he pointed over their shoulders, "in that direction you will find a perfect replica of one of the ruined emerald cities of Dargol.
Beautiful place. Absolutely beautiful. Don"t stop moving, though, or the jewel-wraiths will melt your minds out through your ears." He smiled. "Or perhaps I"m lying. Who can tell? Anything could be true here. The Landsknechte set Purgatory up some years ago. We"ve replicated almost every environment that the Landsknechte might be called upon to fight in. We can simulate almost every type of conflict in every potential location. Very useful. Our lads leave here the best fighters in the galaxy, ready to take on any alien sc.u.m under any conditions."
"Those that leave at all," the Doctor murmured to Bernice.
"The strong survive," Beltempest said, overhearing him. "And the weak die.
That"s why we won the Wars of Acquisition. Superior training. Superior personnel." He tapped his head. "Superior intellects."
The Doctor scratched his head. "Now who was it who said, "We have met the enemy, and he is us"?"80.
"Any advice for us?" Bernice asked.
Beltempest"s warm, friendly eyes suddenly weren"t so warm and friendly any more. "Run," he said. "Run fast. And then die."
"This isn"t fair," she protested. "It isn"t fair and it isn"t legal."
"It"s perfectly legal," Beltempest said calmly. "The War Act of 2825 gave the Landsknechte full powers to administer their own laws to their own personnel on their own planets and on their own s.p.a.ce vessels, and to administer punishments as they saw fit. We"re not Adjudicators. The penalty for anything anything on Landsknecht planets and vessels is death. That"s how we maintain discipline." on Landsknecht planets and vessels is death. That"s how we maintain discipline."
"But the war"s over," the Doctor said.
"Unfortunately, due to an oversight on the part of the then Imperator, the Act was never rescinded."
"Unfortunately?"
"For you."
"But we"re not in the Landsknechte!" Bernice cried.
Beltempest smiled. "We"ll stretch a point," he said.
The Doctor c.o.c.ked his head to one side and gazed shrewdly at Beltempest.
"Whose orders are you following?" he asked.
"What?"
"Somebody has told you to get rid of us, haven"t they? Somebody alerted you to the fact that we were arriving and told you to what was that phrase they used to use back on Earth? Terminate us with extreme prejudice."
"Interesting," Beltempest said. "Why should anybody want to eradicate two minor troublemakers like yourselves?" He seemed genuinely curious. "If you can tell me that, I might be able to spare your lives."
"If we knew that," the Doctor murmured, "we probably wouldn"t be here in the first place."
"In that case . . . "
Beltempest looked at his watch, then stood slightly straighter and pulled his uniform into some sort of order. "Under the powers vested in me," he said formally, "and in line with Landsknecht practice, you are sentenced to act as targets during a Landsknecht training session." He relaxed. "Start running," he said. "They"ll be here any minute."
"What happens if we survive?" Bernice asked. "Do we go free?"