Bernice watched with something between amus.e.m.e.nt and concern.
"Adamantium core," Forrester gasped between curses. Her leg felt like it was on fire. "He must have had it installed since the last time I was here."
"Indeed I have, fair maiden," a drink-slurred voice boomed at them from a hidden speaker. "Indeed I have. These premises suffer from an infestation of Adjudicators in much the same way that other places have rats or ber hounds.
Much as I enjoy watching the little creatures frolic and gambol, it does tend to be bad for business, and so I have, albeit reluctantly, been forced to take measures to prevent them from gaining access. The entire building is now sheathed in a substance that, I am a.s.sured by those in the know, will repel anything short of an attack by an Imperial Landsknechte frigate."
"Does he always talk like that?" Bernice asked. She was crouched over Cwej"s body, trying to protect his extensive wounds from the ever-present rain.
"Only when he"s drunk," Forrester replied.
"How often is that?"
"Put it this way: I"ve never seen him sober."
"An unfair slur," the voice protested. "I am not drunk. Merely affable. Con-genial. Cordial, if you will."
"As a newt," Bernice murmured. "Look, Forrester, we really need to get Cwej seen to. I"m not sure how much longer he can last."
"Yeah, tell me about it," Forrester growled as she surveyed the crumbling brickwork of Dantalion"s domain. Now that she was looking closer, she could make out the signs of recent modification. The outer walls of the church looked like they had been stripped off and then reattached to the central adamantium box. Dantalion was right: she couldn"t get in there with brute 154force and bludgeon him into treating Cwej. Only tact and diplomacy could save him now.
And she was honest enough to know that those weren"t exactly her strong suits. "Dantalion," she began. "I know we"ve never exactly seen eye to eye . . . "
"I seem to remember," he said, "that the last time we met, the last thing my eye saw was your fist."
"That"s because . . . " She took a deep breath. "Dantalion, despite our . . .
differences of opinion in the past, I need . . . " There was a lump in her throat.
She swallowed it, and continued in a quieter voice. "I need a favour."
"Medical?"
"Of course," she snapped, her patience almost worn out. "If I wanted my apartment redesigned I"d have gone to a professional."
Dantalion didn"t answer for a while. When he did, he sounded a lot more reflective and a lot less drunk. "It won"t be the first time," he said.
Forrester wondered what he meant by that. As far as she knew, their relationship had consisted entirely of her kicking in his door and arresting him, and him protesting about it and evading the charge. She shrugged. Who could tell what a juke-sodden alien meant by anything?
"I can pay," she said.
"We"ll sort that out later. For the moment, bring the patient in."
With a click, the door swung open. Light spilled out around the edges. Forrester pushed it fully ajar, then helped Bernice with Cwej"s unresisting body.
His breath was coming in short gasps now, and his eyes were rolling wildly beneath closed lids. Forrester had seen plenty of death in her time, and Cwej looked about as close to it as anybody she"d ever seen. Something squirmed inside her, close to her heart. He couldn"t die. Not Cwej. He was too young, too innocent.
An alien claw, slicing up into Fenn Martle"s chest. His face as he looked down, surprise and confusion in his eyes. His mouth open, calling her name. The blood. surprise and confusion in his eyes. His mouth open, calling her name. The blood.
The blood spilling down his chin and chest . . .
Down? But the claw had entered his back, hadn"t it? She remembered . . .
Don"t think about it, Roz. Just don"t.
The door shut behind them. They were in the vestry; old stones with rounded corners and pillars formed arches above their heads. Dantalion had obviously decided to retain the inside as well as the outside.
Dantalion appeared in the doorway. He had put on weight since Forrester had last seen him, and the corrugations in his face had become more p.r.o.nounced. Scuttling over to Cwej, he briefly examined him, running both sets of arms over his body and clucking in disapproval at what he found.
"Touch and go," he murmured, the diagnostic tools in his cybernetic eye whirring as they extended themselves towards Cwej"s body. "His only chance 155is a time tank. Take him through into the narthex, and I"ll deal with him there."
"The what?"
"The big room through that door. Oh, and put your weapons in the font.
Don"t worry, it"s dry."
Forrester shrugged. If he wanted her blaster, he"d have to prise it from her cold, dead fingers. Or ask politely. One or the other.
Forrester and Bernice half carried, half dragged Cwej through into the main body of the church. b.u.t.tressed arches soared above their heads, and the diffuse light from the stained gla.s.s windows reinforced to blast-resistant standards, Forrester a.s.sumed cast rainbows across the flagstones. Detouring around various items of medical equipment scattered across the floor, Dantalion led them to a number of large, black, coffin-like boxes from which pipes led away to three rounded machines squatting in a corner. Dantalion activated a control and the lid of the nearest coffin swung upwards.
"Place him in the receptacle," he ordered.
They complied. The Birastrop lowered the lid and turned his attention to the other machines, caressing their controls and murmuring to them.
"Does he know what he"s doing?" Bernice whispered.
"Better than we do," Forrester replied.
Bright green light flooded out of the seams and interstices of the time tank.
Forrester hated to think how bright it must be inside.
Beside her, Bernice was still worrying. "How much is this likely to cost?"
Forrester shrugged. "No idea."
"Can we afford it?"
"Look, we"ll rob a bank if we have to."
Bernice raised her eyebrows. "What"s with this "we"?" she asked. Forrester was just about to explode when she noticed that Bernice was smiling.
"The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have not quite penetrated the young man"s thick hide," Dantalion said, turning to them. The tools in his eyes were retracting like disturbed sea anemones. "The burns are extensive, but not life-threatening in themselves. Shock is always the killer, of course. The tank will sustain his life functions, anaesthetize him, feed him, coddle him, comfort him and speed up the time that pa.s.ses over his skin so that his burns heal more rapidly. We"ll take him out in about an hour. Until then, we have things to discuss."
He turned and walked away. Bernice watched him go.
"Bit more businesslike when he"s working, isn"t he?"
"Don"t underestimate him. Stoned or sober, Dantalion is a force to be reckoned with."
"A being after my own heart."
156."Don"t say that," Forrester cautioned. "There"ve been rumours about illegal organ-trafficking in the Undertown for years."
They followed Dantalion out of the church proper and into a side room that was lined with velvet curtains. Dantalion plumped himself into a chair of alien design and gestured them towards a rough pew. Forrester noted Bernice"s quick appraisal.
"Genuine," Bernice said appreciatively. "Like the rest of the church."
"St James Garlikhythe," Dantalion said. "Such poetry in the names you humans give to your places of worship. This building or rather, the sh.e.l.l of this building is over one and a half thousand Earth years in age. That"s older than me!" He giggled, then, just as quickly, became serious again. "And so to the sordid question of recompense."
Forrester decided to forestall the hours of delicate negotiation that she could see looming on the horizon.
"We can pay whenever you ask," she said.
Dantalion sighed.
"You will never make a good businesswoman," he said. "Just as you never made a good Adjudicator. Always too willing to hit when a hint might succeed.
But no matter. I do not require your money. There are more important things you can give me."
"Such as?" Forrester was wary.
"Two things I require of you. Just two. Merely two."
"Such as?"
Unruffled, he continued: "Firstly, information. Two Adjudicators, one of them badly injured, both of them on the run, correct?"
She hesitated, wondering how much information she could afford to give him. How much did he already know?
"Correct," she said reluctantly.
"And they were running from an attack in a flitterpark in the s.p.a.ceport Five Overcity, above our heads, yes? An attack carried out by robots of unusual design?"
"Word travels fast."
"And they cannot ask for help from the Order of Adjudicators. Why is that, I ask myself?"
Forrester looked helplessly at Bernice, who just shrugged. Thanks a lot, Forrester thought.
"Let me help," Dantalion continued. "Could it be because they believe that the Order of Adjudicators is itself implicated?"
Forrester just nodded mutely.
"The Adjudication service. Always so aloof. So secretive. So proud of its impartiality." Dantalion took a sip at an oddly shaped gla.s.s of cloudy liquid.
157.Forrester caught the sharp tang of juke. If he kept drinking that stuff, he would rot away from the inside, smiling all the time.
"And all this," he continued, "all this this . . . is because the two Adjudicators in question did not believe the "official" verdict that an old human female called Annie Falvoriss killed an old Filth male named Waiting for Justice?" . . . is because the two Adjudicators in question did not believe the "official" verdict that an old human female called Annie Falvoriss killed an old Filth male named Waiting for Justice?"
"You"ve got excellent sources."
"Your warden Lubineki, I believe his name is in the s.p.a.ceport Five Undertown Lodge. An excellent man who commands my admiration in great quant.i.ties. And so inexpensive."
Forrester felt a cold hand clutch at her guts. Was there a straight Adjudicator anywhere apart from her and Cwej?
"Waiting for Justice and Annie," he mused. "They were friends of mine. I don"t make friends easily, you may be shocked to learn. Many people will not a.s.sociate with an "alien", and those enlightened ones who will don"t particularly like juke-drinkers. But they were different. I liked them. We used to talk."
He sipped at his drink again, and Forrester thought she could see something sloshing around inside the gla.s.s; something that kept moving when the drink stopped.
"Waiting for Justice didn"t kill Annie," he continued. "Some kind of robot did. The same kind of robot that attacked you in the Overcity."
"You saw it?" Forrester leaned forward.
"Somebody did. Somebody that owed Olias a favour, and I work for Olias.
Sometimes."
"But why?" Forrester smashed her fist into her palm. "Why was an underdweller killed by an a.s.sa.s.sination robot? It just doesn"t make sense."
"Another a.s.sa.s.sination robot attacked an alien of my acquaintance: a member of the Hith race, named Powerless Friendless. The robot babbled about secret missions. My acquaintance didn"t know what it was talking about unsurprising, since I had wiped his mind of certain facts, some years ago. I spent a long while putting them back again today."
"Putting them back?" Bernice raised an eyebrow. "You make it sound so simple."
"It is," he said. "Memories are often simple things to find. And hide."
"Where is this alien now?" Forrester snapped.
"He left. He looked like a being with a mission. He had been tortured at some stage in the past, quite comprehensively tortured. He left here seeking vengeance for the sins that had been visited upon his body." He sighed. "I advised him not to, but he was insistent. I told him the memory viruses I inserted into his mind were delicate things. They were still uncovering memories when he left. Whatever he remembers is muddled, mixed up. He ought 158to allow it time to settle." He looked up at Forrester with his good eye. "As you should, later."
"What"s this about me?" Forrester"s hand slipped un.o.btrusively onto the b.u.t.t of her blaster.
If he had noticed the threatening gesture, Dantalion was ignoring it. "There we come onto the second thing I require from you in payment."
"And that is?"
"Do you remember coming here three years ago?"
She thought back. Three years. Shortly after Martle had been Martle had died. Killed by the Falardi. There had been a raid . . .
"Yeah, we raided you for unlicensed gland removal from a Barrarian mating pair," she said. "Olias got you off the charge, as usual."
"No," he said, "four weeks before that."
She shook her head.
"No," she said firmly, "that was the first time I had seen you for almost a year."