Nemesis

motion to his throat. The last of the junkhunter band dropped and was still.

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.

46

“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.”

47

FOUR

Blood

Weapons

Face and Name

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.