"Use of Weapons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Banks Iain)

XIII

"Wake up."

He woke up.

Dark. He straightened, beneath the covers, wondering who had talked to him like that. Nobody talked to him in that tone, not any more; even half asleep, coming unexpectedly awake in what must be the middle of the night, he heard something in that tone he hadn't heard for two, maybe three decades. Impertinence. Lack of respect.

He brought his head out of the sheltering cover, into the warm air of the room, and looked round in the one-light gloom, to see who had dared address him like that. An instant of fear — had somebody got past the guards and security screens? — was replaced by a furious hunger to see who had the effrontery to speak like that to him.

The intruder sat in a chair just beyond the end of the bed. He looked odd in a way which was itself odd; a very new sort of unusualness, unplaceable, even alien. He gave the impression of being a slightly skewed projection. The clothes looked strange too; baggy, brightly coloured, even in the dim light of the bedside lamp. The man was dressed like a clown or a jester, but his somehow too symmetrical face looked… grim? Contemptuous? That… foreignness made it difficult to tell.

He started to grope for his glasses, but it was just sleep in his eyes. The surgeons had given him new eyes five years ago, but sixty years of short-sightedness had left him with an ingrained reaction to reach for glasses which were not there, whenever he first woke up. A small price to pay, he had always thought, and now, with the new retro-ageing treatment… The sleep cleared from his eyes. He sat up, looking at the man in the chair, and began to think he was having a dream, or seeing a ghost.

The man looked young; he had a broad, tanned face and black hair tied back behind his head, but thoughts of spirits and the dead came into his head not because of that. It was something about the dark, pit-like eyes, and the alien set of that face.

"Good evening, Ethnarch." The young man's voice was slow and measured. It sounded, somehow, like the voice of someone much older; old enough to make the Ethnarch feel suddenly young in comparison. It chilled him. He looked around the room. Who was this man? How had he got in here? The palace was meant to be impregnable. There were guards everywhere. What was going on? The fear came back.

The girl from the previous evening lay still on the far side of the wide bed, just a lump under the covers. A couple of dormant screens on the wall to the Ethnarch's left reflected the bedside light's weak glow.

He was frightened, but fully awake now and thinking quickly. There was a gun concealed in the bed's headboard; the man at the end of the bed didn't seem to be armed (but then why was he here?). But the gun represented a desperate last resort. The voice code was the thing. The mikes and cameras in the room were on standby, their automatic circuits waiting for a specific sentence to activate them; sometimes he wanted privacy in here, other times he wanted to record something only for himself, and of course he'd always known there was a possibility that somebody unauthorised might get in here, no matter how tight the security was.

He cleared his throat. "Well well, this is a surprise." His voice was even, he sounded calm.

He smiled thinly, pleased with himself. His heart — the heart of an athletic young anarchist woman up until eleven years ago — was beating quickly, but not worryingly so. He nodded. "This is a surprise," he repeated. There; it was done. An alarm would already be ringing in the basement control room; the guards would come piling through the door in a few seconds. Or they might not risk that, and instead release the ceiling gas cylinders, blasting them both into unconsciousness in a blinding fog. There was a danger that would rupture his eardrums (he thought, swallowing), but he could always take a new pair from a healthy dissident. Maybe he wouldn't even have to do that; the rumour was that the retro-ageing might include the possibility of body-parts regrowing. Well, nothing wrong with strength in depth; back-ups. He liked the feeling of security that gave one. "Well, well," he heard himself say, just in case the circuits hadn't picked up the code first or second time round, "this is indeed a surprise." The guards should be here any second…

The brightly dressed young man smiled. He flexed oddly, and leant forward until his elbows rested on the top of the bed's ornate footboard. His lips moved, to produce what might have been a smile. He reached into one pocket of the baggy pantaloons and produced a small black gun. He pointed it straight at the Ethnarch and said. "Your code won't work, Ethnarch Kerian. There won't be any more surprises that you're expecting and I'm not. The basement security centre is as dead as everything else."

The Ethnarch Kerian stared at the little gun. He'd seen water pistols that looked more impressive. What is going on? Can he really have come to kill me? The man certainly didn't dress like an assassin, and surely any serious assassin would just have killed him in his sleep. The longer this fellow sat here, talking, the more danger he was in, whether he had knocked out the links to the security centre or not. So he might be mad, but he probably wasn't an assassin. It was simply ludicrous that a real, professional assassin would behave like this, and only an extremely able and completely professional assassin could have penetrated the palace security… Thus, the Ethnarch Kerian tried to convince his suddenly wildly beating, mutinous heart. Where were the damn guards? He thought again about the gun hidden in the ornamental headboard behind him.

The young man folded his arms, so that the little gun was no longer pointing at the Ethnarch. "Mind if I tell you a little story?"

He must be mad.'No; no; why don't you tell me a story?" the Ethnarch said, in his most friendly and avuncular voice. "What's your name, by the way; you appear to have the advantage over me."

"Yes, I do, don't I?" the old voice from the young lips said. "Actually there are two stories, but you know most of one of them. I'll tell them at the same time; see if you can tell which is which."

"I-"

"Ssh," the man said, putting the little gun to his lips. The Ethnarch half glanced at the girl on the other side of the bed. He realised he and the intruder had been talking in quite low tones. Maybe if he could get the girl to wake, she might draw his fire, or at least distract him while he grabbed for the gun in the headboard; he was faster than he had been for twenty years, thanks to the new treatment… where the hell were those guards?

"Now look here, young man!" he roared. "I just want to know what you think you're doing here! Eh?"

His voice — a voice that had filled halls and squares, without amplification — echoed through the room. Dammit, the guards in the basement security centre ought to be able to hear it without any microphones. The girl on the other side of the bed didn't even stir.

The young man was smirking. "They're all asleep, Ethnarch. There's just you and me. Now; this story…"

"What…" the Ethnarch Kerian gulped, drawing his legs up under the covers. "What are you here for?"

The intruder looked mildly surprised. "Oh, I'm here to take you out, Ethnarch. You are going to be removed. Now…" he laid the gun on the broad top of the bed footboard. The Ethnarch stared at it. It was too far away for him to grab, but…

"The story," the intruder said, settling back in the chair. "Once upon a time, over the gravity well and far away, there was a magical land where they had no kings, no laws, no money and no property, but where everybody lived like a prince, was very well-behaved and lacked for nothing. And these people lived in peace, but they were bored, because paradise can get that way after a time, and so they started to carry out missions of good works; charitable visits upon the less well-off, you might say; and they always tried to bring with them the thing that they saw as the most precious gift of all; knowledge; information; and as wide a spread of that information as possible, because these people were strange, in that they despised rank, and hated kings… and all things hierarchic… even Ethnarchs." The young man smiled thinly. So did the Ethnarch. He wiped his brow and shifted back a little in the bed, as though getting more comfortable. Heart still pounding.

"Well, for a time, a terrible force threatened to take away their good works, but they resisted it, and they won, and came out of the conflict stronger then before, and if they had not been so unconcerned with power for its own sake, they would have been terribly feared, but as it was they were only slightly feared, just as a matter of course given the scale of their power. And one of the ways it amused them to wield that power was to interfere in societies they thought might benefit from the experience, and one of the most efficient ways of doing that in a lot of societies is to get to the people at the top.

"Many of their people become physicians to great leaders, and with medicines and treatments that seem like magic to the comparatively primitive people they're dealing with, ensure that a great and good leader has a better chance of surviving. That's the way they prefer to work; offering life, you see, rather than dealing death. You might call them soft, because they're very reluctant to kill, and they might agree with you, but they're soft the way the ocean is soft, and, well; ask any sea captain how harmless and puny the ocean can be."

"Yes, I see," the Ethnarch said, sitting back a little further shifting a pillow into place behind his back, and checking just where he was in relation to the section of headboard that concealed the gun. His heart was thrashing in his chest.

"Another thing they do, these people, another way they deal in life rather than death, is they offer leaders of certain societies below a certain technological level the one thing all the wealth and power those leaders command cannot buy them; a cure for death. A return to youth."

The Ethnarch stared at the young man, suddenly more intrigued than terrified. Did he mean the retro-ageing?

"Ah; it's starting to click into place now, isn't it?" the young man smiled. "Well, you're right. Just that process that you've been going through, Ethnarch Kerian. Which you've been paying for, this last year. Which you did — if you remember — promise to pay for with more than just platinum. Do you remember, hmmm?"

"I… I'm not sure." The Ethnarch Kerian stalled. He could see the panel in the headboard where the gun was from the corner of his eye.

"You promised to stop the killings in Youricam, remember?"

"I may have said I'd review our segregation and resettlement policy in the —»

"No," the young man waved his hand, "I mean the killings, Ethnarch; the death trains, remember? The trains where the exhaust comes out of the rear carriage, eventually." The young man made a sort of sneer with his mouth, shook his head. "Trigger any memories, that? No?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," the Ethnarch said. His palms were sweating, cold and slick. He rubbed them on the bedclothes; the gun mustn't slip, if he got to it. The intruder's gun was still lying on the bed's footboard.

"Oh, I think you do. In fact, I know you do."

"If there have been any excesses by any members of the security forces, they will be thoroughly —»

"This isn't a press conference, Ethnarch." The man tipped slightly back in his seat, away from the gun on the footboard. The Ethnarch tensed, quivering.

"The point is, you made a deal and then didn't stick to it. And I'm here to collect on the penalty clause. You were warned, Ethnarch. That which is given can also be taken away." The intruder tipped further back in his seat, glanced round the dark suite, and nodded at the Ethnarch, while putting his hands clasped behind his head. "Say goodbye to all this, Ethnarch Kerian. You're —»

The Ethnarch turned, banged the hidden panel with his elbow, and the section of headboard flicked round; he tore the gun from its clips and swung it at the man, finding the trigger and pulling.

Nothing happened. The young man was watching him, hands still behind his neck, body rocking slowly back and forward in the chair.

The Ethnarch clicked the trigger a few more times.

"Works better with these," the man said, reaching into a shirt pocket, and throwing a dozen bullets onto the bed at the Ethnarch's feet.

The gleaming bullets snicked at they rolled and gathered in a fold in the bedclothes. The Ethnarch Kerian stared at them.

"… I'll give you anything," he said, over a thick and dry tongue. He sensed his bowels start to relax, and squeezed desperately, feeling suddenly like a child again, as though the retro-ageing had taken him even further back. "Anything. Anything. I can give you more than you ever dreamed of; I can —»

"Not interested in that," the man said, shaking his head. "The story isn't finished yet. You see, these people; these nice kind people who are so soft and prefer to deal in life… when somebody goes back on a deal with them, even when somebody kills after they've said they wouldn't, they still don't like to kill in return. They'd rather use their magic and their precious compassion to do the next best thing. And so people disappear." The man sat forward again, leaning on the footboard. The Ethnarch stared, shaking, at him.

"They — these nice people — they disappear bad people," the young man said. "And they employ people to come and collect these bad men and take them away. And these people — these collectors — they like to put the fear of death into their collectees, and they tend to dress…" he gestured at his own colour-fully motley clothes, "… casually; and of course — thanks to the magic — they never have any problems getting into even the most heavily guarded palace."

The Ethnarch swallowed, and with one furiously shaking hand, finally put down the useless gun he was holding.

"Wait," he said, trying to control his voice. His sweat soaked the sheets. "Are you saying —»

"We're nearly at the end of the story," the young man interrupted. "These nice people — who you would call soft, like I say — they remove the bad people, and they take them away. They put them somewhere they can't do any harm. Not a paradise, but not somewhere that feels like a prison, either. And these bad people, they might have to listen sometimes to the nice people telling them how bad they've been, and they never again get the chance to change histories, but they live a comfortable, safe life, and they die peacefully… thanks to the nice people.

"And though some would say the nice people are too soft, the soft, nice people would say that the crimes committed by the bad people are usually so terrible there is no known way of making the bad people start to suffer even a millionth of the agony and despair they have produced, so what is the point in retribution? It would be just another obscenity to cap the tyrant's life with his own death." The young man looked briefly troubled, then shrugged. "Like I say; some people would say they're too soft." He took the little gun from he footboard and put it into a pocket of his pantaloons.

The man stood slowly. The Ethnarch's heart still pounded, but in his eyes there were tears. The young man leant down, picked up some clothes and threw them at the Ethnarch, who grabbed at them, held them to his chest.

"My offer stands," the Ethnarch Kerian said. "I can give you —»

"Job satisfaction," the young man sighed, staring at one set of fingernails. "That's all you can give me, Ethnarch. I'm not interested in anything else. Get dressed; you're leaving."

The Ethnarch started to pull on his shirt. "Are you sure? I believe I have invented some new vices even the old Empire didn't know about. I'd be willing to share them with you."

"No, thank you."

"Who are these people you're talking about, anyway?" The Ethnarch fastened his buttons. "And may I yet know your name?"

"Just get dressed."

"Well, I still think we can come to some sort of arrangement…" The Ethnarch secured his collar. "And this is all really quite ridiculous, but I suppose I ought to be thankful you're not an assassin, eh?"

The young man smiled, seemed to pick something from a fingernail. He put his hands in the pantaloon pockets as the Ethnarch kicked the bedclothes down and picked up his britches.

"Yes," the young man said. "Must be rather awful, thinking you're about to die."

"Not the most pleasant experience," agreed the Ethnarch, putting one leg, then another, into his trousers.

"But such a relief, I imagine, when you get the reprieve."

"Hmm." The Ethnarch gave a small laugh.

"A bit like being rounded up in a village and thinking you're going to be shot…" the young man mused, facing the Ethnarch from the foot of the bed."… and then being told your fate is nothing worse than resettlement." He smiled. The Ethnarch hesitated.

"Resettled; by train," the man said, taking the little black gun out of his pocket. "By a train which contains your family; your street; your village…"

The young man adjusted something on the small black gun."… And then ends up containing nothing but engine fumes, and lots of dead people." He smiled, thinly. "What do you think, Ethnarch Kerian? Something like that?"

The Ethnarch stopped moving, staring wide-eyed at the gun.

"The nice people are called the Culture," the young man explained, "And I always did think they were too soft." He stretched his arm out, holding the gun. "I stopped working for them some time ago. I'm freelance now."

The Ethnarch looked, speechless, into the dark, ancient eyes above the barrel of the black gun.

"I," said the man, "am called Cheradenine Zakalwe." He levelled the gun at the Ethnnarch's nose. "You are called dead."

He fired the gun… The Ethnarch had put his head back and started to scream; so the single shot pierced the roof of his mouth before it exploded inside his skull.

Brain's splattered over the ornate headboard. The body thumped into the skin-soft bedclothes and twitched once, spreading blood.

He watched the blood as it pooled. He blinked, a couple of times.

Then, moving slowly, he peeled off the gaudy clothes. He put them in a small black rucksack. Underneath, the one-piece suit was shadow-dark.

He took the matt-black mask from the rucksack and put it round his neck, though not yet over his face. He moved to the head of the bed and peeled a little transparent patch from the neck of the sleeping girl, then went back into the dark depths of the room, slipping the mask over his face as he did so.

Using the nightsight, he undipped the panel over the security systems control unit, and carefully removed several small boxes. Then, walking very softly and slowly now, he crossed to the wall-sized pornographic painting which concealed the door to the Ethnarch's emergency escape route to the sewers and the palace roof.

He turned back, before he slowly closed the door, and looked at the bloody mess on the curved carved surface of the headboard. He smiled his thin smile, a little uncertainly.

Then he slipped away into the stone-black depths of the palace, like a piece of the night.