Nemesis

The sun was dipping towards the horizon when a piece of the desert seemed to detach itself and transform into the shape of a man. A cameoline cloak shimmered from the colours of the rust-sand to a deep night-black, revealing a muscular figure in a stealthsuit that was faceless behind a gunmetal spy mask. The mask’s green eye-band studied Valdor and Tariel, where the two of them had sought shelter in the lee of the parked GEV truck. A spindly rifle, easily as long as the man was tall, lay across his back.

Valdor gave him a nod. ‘Eristede Kell, I presume?’

‘You are out of uniform, Captain-General,’ said the marksman. ‘I hardly recognised you.’ His voice was low.

Valdor raised an eyebrow. ‘Have we met before?’

The sniper shook his head. ‘No. But I know you. And your work.’ He glanced at the infocyte.

‘Vindicare,’ said Tariel, by way of terse greeting.

‘Vanus,’ came the reply.

‘I’m curious,’ said Kell. ‘How did you know I would be watching?’

‘You’ve been in this sector for some time. It stood to reason you would have seen the crash.’ The Custodian gestured around. ‘I had intended to find some of your prey in order to find you. It seems events altered the order of that but not the result.’

Tariel shot Valdor a look. ‘That’s why you didn’t attack them? You could have dealt with them all, but you did nothing.’ He grimaced. ‘I might have been killed!’

‘I considered letting that happen,’ said the sniper, with a casual sniff. ‘But I dismissed the idea. If a pair as unlikely as you two had come out here, I knew there had to be good reason.’

‘You almost missed that thug with the plasma gun!’ snapped the infocyte.

‘No,’ said Valdor, with a half-smile, ‘he did not.’

The sniper cocked his head. ‘I never miss.’

‘You came to the Atalantic zone without your vox rig,’ Valdor went on.

‘Comm transmissions would have been detected,’ said Kell. ‘It would have given me away to the bandits.’

‘Hence our somewhat unconventional method of locating you,’ continued the Custodian.

Tariel’s eyes narrowed. ‘How did you know when to fire?’

‘His weapon’s scope contains a lip-reading auspex,’ Valdor answered for the sniper. ‘Your assignment was open-ended, I believe.’

‘I’ve been systematically terminating the raider gangs as I find them,’ said Kell. ‘I still have work to do. And it makes good exercise.’

‘You have a new mission now,’ said Tariel. ‘We both do.’

‘Is that so?’ Kell reached up and took off the spy mask, revealing a craggy face with close-cut black hair, sharp eyes and hawkish nose. ‘Who is the target?’

Valdor stood up, and pulled a mag-flare tube from a compartment in his chest plate, aiming it into the sky. ‘All in good time,’ he said, and fired.

Kell’s eyes narrowed. ‘You are leading this mystery mission then, Captain-General?’

‘Not I,’ said the Custodian, shaking his head as the flare ignited, casting jumping shadows all around them. ‘You, Eristede.’

FOUR Blood / Weapons / Face and Name

1

The coleopter’s chattering rotors made it impossible to have a conversation at normal levels in the cabin, and Yosef was reduced to growling into Daig’s ear in order to get something approximating privacy. ‘It’s the pattern I’m not certain about,’ he said.

Daig had a fan-fold file open on his lap, one hand holding in the slips of vinepaper, the other gripping a thick data-slate. ‘What pattern?’

‘Exactly,’ Yosef replied. ‘There isn’t one. Every time we’ve had a crazed lunatic go on a killing spree like this, there’s been some kind of logic to it, no matter how twisted. Someone is murdered because they remind the killer of their abusive stepfather, or because the voices in their head told them that all people who wear green are evil…’ He pointed a finger at the file. ‘But what’s the link here? Latigue, Norte and the others? They’re from all different walks of life, men and women, old and young, tall and short…’ Yosef shook his head. ‘If there’s a commonality between them, I haven’t seen it yet.’

‘Well, don’t worry,’ Daig said flatly, ‘there will be plenty of people willing to throw in their half-baked theories about it. After Latigue’s death, you can bet the watch-wire will be buzzing with this.’

Yosef cursed under his breath; with everything else that had been on his mind, he hadn’t stopped to think that if the Eurotas Consortium had become involved with the case, then of course the Iestan news services would have got wind of it into the bargain. ‘As if they don’t have enough doom and gloom to put on the watch-wire already,’ he said. ‘By all means, let’s add to everyone’s woes with the fear of a knife in the belly from every dark alleyway.’

Daig shrugged. ‘Actually, it might take people’s minds off the bigger issues. Nothing like a killer of men on the loose in your own backyard to keep you focussed.’

‘That all depends on how large your backyard is, don’t you think?’