CHAPTER 25
Hell’s Cross, Outpost Fisher Four
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 0. 00:00
An alarm sounds. A moment later áine appears at the door. She beckons for the old woman to follow her in. “It’s the Dr?u,” she says. “They want to confab.”
“With me?” I ask.
“With Maeve,” áine says. “Nobody else.”
We all jog to the Cross, where Vienne is directing the miners to take their positions on the redoubt. As my Regulators wait for orders, Maeve looks to me. I can read the question in her eyes: What should we do?
No choice here. I tell her to meet with the Dr?u. “You do the talking. We’ll provide a show of force.”
“Should you be letting the animals know you’re here?”
“Too late for that,” I say. “They already know you’ve got Regulators on board. They just don’t know how many. Let’s not let them find out.”
“What about me and my children? I have no desire to meet with that filth,” Dame Bramimonde calls out to me. She is standing with Ebi near the exit that leads to the Zhao Zhou Bridge. So much for needing a rest, no?
I look to Maeve. “Can you hide them?”
“Mother can hide,” Ebi says, and pulls her armalite. “I will go with you.”
“Guess that settles the question,” I say. “You can join us, but you have to follow my orders.”
“Yes, chief.”
“The most important of which is to stick with Vienne and do only what she tells you to. Got that?”
“Yes, chief.”
“You say that, but it’s only fair to warn you that Vienne breaks bones when folk don’t do what she says.” I give the order to go and we all began to file out, except for Jenkins, who remains on near the exit, unmoving.
I elbow Jenkins as I pass. “Snap to it, Regulator.”
“But—but where is everybody going?” He reluctantly pulls his armalite. “I heard the word treasure. I thought there’d be treasure.”
“Sorry, Jenkins,” I say. “No treasure this time. Just one old lady fussbucket.”
“How about we just feed the fussbucket to the Dr?u?” Fuse says as we move down the stairs to the path that leads to the Zhao Zhou Bridge
“Right. It would solve two problems. Get rid of her and poison the Dr?u that ate her.” Fuse laughs.
But I don’t feel like joining in on the joke. There’s something wrong here. Back in New Eden, Dame Bramimonde didn’t give a rip about her son’s life. She wanted to leave him with the kidnappers, so why would she travel to the end of the world to rescue him?
I don’t believe her story about Ebi wanting to rescue her brother, either. The girl may love her brother as dearly as she says, but I doubt seriously that she holds that much sway over her mother. There has to be another reason.
“Chief?” Vienne points to a phalanx of Dr?u crossing the Zhao Zhou Bridge. They carry a white banner tied to the barrel tip of a rifle.
In formation, we move forward to meet them. Maeve walks a meter ahead of us. áine is directly behind her, and I’m after her. A few meters ahead, a man steps out from the phalanx and walks toward us. He wears long, flowing robes. His head is shaven, and his Buddaesque belly precedes him. He could pass for a monk if not for the sidearm holstered to his waist on a black leather belt that creaks when he walks. When he’s close enough, I can smell perfume oils, sweat, and underneath it, the uniquely spicy odor of Rapture. It’s in his pores, on his breath, and in his ruddy face like a perpetual blush.
“You!” Ebi shouts at the man.
“Him?” Vienne asks me. “Chief, what is going on here?”
“I have the same question,” I say.
Fuse turns back to me. “Who is that man?”
“His name is Postule. He specializes in kidnapping children and squealing like a stuck pig. Used to work for Dame Bramimonde—”
A high-pitched scream fills the hall. Jean-Paul rushes out from nowhere, wielding a miner’s wrench like a club. “I’ll kill you, Postule!”
“—then he kidnapped her children and tried to ransom them.”
Before we can make a grab for him, the boy races past us. Jumps onto the wall. Moving faster than a neutron particle. Ebi starts to follow, but Vienne snags her by the wrist and pulls her back into ranks.
“Wait for orders. Chief?” she says, asking if we should do anything about the boy.
“Let him go,” I say. There’s nothing we can do about him, anyway, unless we want to start a firefight.
Jean-Paul covers the distance quickly. Then takes one final leap and raises the wrench high. Postule lifts his arms to cover his face, and the boy takes the chance to land a thumping blow to the fat man’s belly.
The wallop knocks Postule backward, but as the boy is raising the wrench to attack again, one of the Dr?u grabs the weapon and lifts Jean-Paul into the air. He continues to fight and scratch, using his heels to draw blood on the Dr?u’s shins.
“What happened to the children that Postule kidnapped?” Fuse says.
“We rescued them.”
Fuse smirks. “But the kidnapper got away, no?”
“Affirmative. He beat me in a footrace.”
“Tch! Thought you were lighter on your feet than that, chief. The fossicker’s just a couple biscuits short of a half kilo.”
“Fuse?”
“Yeah?”
“I was having a laugh.”
“Oy!” he says. “Give a jack a hint or summit, if you’re going to give his nose a yank, no? Thought you were serious, what with them Dr?u but a few meters off.”
“And now,” I continue, “Postule is apparently working for the Dr?u.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t eat him,” Fuse says. “He’s fat enough to feed their lot for a fortnight.”
“I’m sure he’s useful in some ways,” I say. “Or they realized he’d taste like guanite.”
Fuse laughs. “See, chief. That time, I knew what you was up to, and it tickled the funny. See what happens when you soften up the audience.”
“Call off your dog,” Postule yells. “This is a diplomatic visit.”
“Acolyte,” I call to the boy. “Stand down.”
Instantly Jean-Paul stops fighting. His body goes rigid, and the Dr?u has trouble holding his dead weight off the ground.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Postule barks at his escorts. “Let him go.”
A line of drool run from the Dr?u’s mouth and down his neck, but he reluctantly obeys. Jean-Paul sprints back to us. “Master, my first skirmish!”
Maeve steps forward to meet Postule. “We see your flag, so you’ve got protection as long as you raise no weapon. What is it you want?”
Postule offers a practiced bow. “The queen of the Dr?u wishes to negotiate terms.”
“What terms would that be?” Maeve says warily.
“Terms of your surrender.”
The miners laugh, and Maeve cocks her head. “I’ll humor you. What are the terms?”
“Simple. Turn over the treasure, and she’ll only kill the Regulators. You may keep your children.”
The old lady laughs again. “Treasure? We’ve not got enough food to eat, and you’ve come here asking for treasure. You’re mad.”
Postule blanches. Behind him, the Dr?u are growing restless. Standing at attention obviously isn’t their nature, and I can tell that their hinky mood worries the fat man. How did they travel here, I wonder. Postule is too fat to walk far. That means that their camp has to be close by.
“Don’t play games with me, ruster,” Postule says.
“Speaking of games,” I say, “how’d you come to work for the Dr?u, Postule? Last time we looked, you were spread-eagled begging for your life.”
“The last time you saw me,” he sneers, “I was escaping from a piddle-poor excuse for a Regulator. I wondered when you would open your mouth, dalit.”
Vienne cocks her armalite.
“Is that a threat?” Postule says. “Just for that, I’m going to ask the queen to kill you myself.”
“Ask away,” Vienne says.
“You didn’t answer the question,” I say. “How’d a high-class kidnapper like you end up with the Dr?u? Or is it all thieving to you?”
The fat man puffs up. “I have always worked for the Dr?u. Did you think they’re just a bunch of wild animals living the end of the wilderness? There is more to the Dr?u than you ever thought of, dalit. But let’s consider your situation: a thousand kilometers from civilization. No food, no water, no communication. Only a few Regulators and a handful of malnourished miners against a ravenous horde. Who would be stupid enough to accept a job like that?”
“Here.” Ebi tosses a ring to Postule, who cups it in his puffy hands. “You want treasure to leave these people alone, take this and go.”
Postule sizes up the ring. It’s yellow gold with a four blue diamond setting. Since there’s no gold mined on Mars and the metal is embargoed, the ring is obviously imported from Earth. It is, I think to myself, worth a fortune.
“That ring will bring enough on the black market for a long retirement,” Ebi says.
Or several years’ worth of easy prison time for my imprisoned father. What would it be like to have so much that I could toss a fortune into the air like it’s nothing? Even when Father was a CEO, we never had that much coin. Ebi is a very different kind of Regulator from me.
“You’re very different kind of Regulator, too,” Mimi says.
“Not so different. Maybe from Fuse and Jenkins, but not from Vienne.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Of course,” I think, watching Postule.
He examines the stone in the light. “Very pretty, missy.” He pockets it. “But it’s not the treasure. Is it, miners? You know what my queen is looking for.”
“Give me back the ring if you are not going to leave!” Ebi shouts.
Postule laughs and pushes her away. “You can ask the queen for it.”
“Thief!”
“Stupid, spoiled brat.”
Furious, Ebi lifts her armalite. Only a quick swat from Vienne keeps her from putting a slug into Postule’s gut.
This is getting us nowhere. I walk straight up to Postule. “You’ve wasted your breath and our time. There’s no treasure here, just megatons of guanite and a whole lot of Regulator bullets. Which is what you’re going to find between those beady black eyes of yours next time you show your face in Hell’s Cross.”
Behind Postule, the Dr?u start laughing.
“Shut up!” Postule screams at the Dr?u, then turns back to Maeve. “Ruster, you had your opportunity. The queen offered you good terms, and you spit in her face. Personally, I knew you were too stupid to do anything but lie. There is treasure here, and the Dr?u will find it. Makes no difference to her how long it takes or how much flesh she’s got to flail to get it.”
“You’ve got five seconds to get off our land.” Maeve spits in his face.
“Witch!” Postule backhands her. As she falls, he draws back his hand to deliver another blow. Vienne snaps her armalite out and blows a hole through his meaty palm.
“My hand! She shot me!”
“Nice aim,” I tell Vienne. Then I point to the opposite side of the bridge. “Go! Before my Regulators fill you full of chigoe holes.”
On cue, the Regulators bring their weapons to bear. The Dr?u, realizing that it isn’t an idle threat, grab Postule by the shoulders and steer him away. He stumbles, holding the bloodied hand against his chest.
“My hand, my hand, my hand.”
They kick his rear end to keep him moving. One Dr?u covers their retreat, lobbing a smoke grenade for cover. When they reach the safety of the other side of the bridge, he roars out of frustration and fires off a few rounds of plasma into the billowing smoke. The shots carry a hundred meters, then drop impotently into the chasm below.
“So much for negotiations,” I say a minute later, when the Dr?u have gone. “Let’s get back to the Cross, we’ve got—”
“Chief,” Ebi calls. “Jean-Paul. I cannot find him anywhere.”
“He was just here,” I say as we all start to look around for him. “Mimi, locate Jean-Paul’s biorhythm signature.”
“Negative,” she responds. “No biorhythms can be located within a half-kilometer radius.”
“Which means?”
“He is not here, cowboy. He’s gone.”