Emperor Mollusk Versus the Sinister Brain (12 page)

“You’re a Celebrant?” she asked.

He held up his hands and shrugged. “I hope it’s not too disappointing.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Oh, that’s a bit rude,” he said. “You don’t hear me questioning your qualifications.”

“He’s the seventh deadliest assassin in the system,” I said.

“Sixth,” he corrected. “But who’s counting?”

Zala circled him. “You don’t look like an assassin.”

“Good assassins don’t look like assassins.” He clinked the ice in his drink. “How could I prove it to you? Would you like me to kill you?”

She smirked. “I’d like to see you try.”

He chuckled. “You wouldn’t see it.”

“I hate to interrupt this chest-beating contest,” I said, “but I didn’t bring Zala here to be killed.”

“Really?” He reached into his pocket and put a small red vial on the desk. “Then she should probably drink this.”

She picked it up. “What is it?”

“Antidote for the poison I gave you.”

Zala drew her scimitar.

“Well, it won’t do you any good to kill me now,” he said. “Drink the antidote.”

“How do I know this isn’t poison?”

“You’ll have to take my word for it. I may be an assassin, but I’m not going to lie to you. Or you can give it a minute and drop dead. It will be quite painless.”

She looked to me, but I said nothing.

“You understand, Emperor. It was an honest mistake,” he said. “You don’t bring a visitor to meet a holy assassin without certain assumptions being made.”

I said, “No need to apologize. I should’ve made it clear from the start.”

Zala unscrewed the vial and drank it. She slammed the vial onto the desk. “I’ll play along and assume you’re who you say you are. How do you know, Emperor?”

“I’m a member,” I said.

“And you neglected to tell me this.”

“Would you have believed me?”

“I still don’t believe either of you,” she admitted.

“I’m only an honorary inductee,” I said.

“Don’t be modest,” he said. “What you did on Saturn still has yet to be matched among the order.”

I didn’t like to remember Saturn.

“I’m not here to reminisce,” I said. “I’m just here for information. And could you give Zala the antidote to the poison you just gave her?”

“But he just gave me the antidote.”

“No, he gave you the poison. He was lying before that.”

She scowled.

He laughed. “Sorry.” He opened a drawer, withdrew a bottle, offered a small red pill to Zala. “You’ll want to take this.”

She held it in her fingers. Delicately, as if she didn’t trust it.

“Take it,” I said. “I’m almost certain it won’t kill you.”

“Almost?” she asked.

“He is a death-worshipping assassin,” I said.

He smiled. “Guilty as charged. So if you didn’t drop by to have me kill your companion, then why are you here, Emperor?”

“I need to know if you’re trying to kill me.”

He chuckled. “If I were trying to kill you, you’d know. Actually, you wouldn’t know because you’d be dead.”

“Is any member of the Celebrants trying to kill me?”

He tapped his fingers on the desk. “It’s possible. It is against the rules, though how seriously a league of entropists follow rules is always up for grabs. Still, if you aren’t dead yet, then it probably answers the question.”

“I suspected as much.” I stood. “Thanks for your time.”

“No problem. It’s good to see you again. We should get together for lunch sometime soon. I’ll call you.” He turned to Zala. “It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“I didn’t catch your name,” she said.

“No, you didn’t.” He stood and straightened his tie. “I hate to be rude, but the vice president of Pluto is probably not going to have a seemingly ordinary heart attack all on his own.”

We left the cottage. Zala watched him walk away.

Zala said, “I still don’t believe it.”

He stood beside her, a silent shadow appearing out of nowhere.

She jumped, drawing her scimitar. “Don’t do that!”

“My apologies,” he said. “Force of habit. So are you telling me for certain that you don’t want her dead, Emperor?”

Smiling, I hesitated to answer.

“No, I guess not. She’s proven useful so far.”

“Because I just want to be clear on this,” he said. “Make sure I’m not missing a wink or secret signal that’s meant to say you don’t really mean it.”

“We really should work out some official sign,” I said.

“I’m in complete agreement. Maybe a hand gesture or a code phrase.” He glanced at Zala. “So not dead?”

“Not dead,” I replied.

“Then you shouldn’t take that pill I gave you,” he told her.

Her eyes flashed. “I already did.”

“No problem. I have the antidote here somewhere. One moment…”

He fumbled through his pockets until he produced a hypodermic injector.

“You’ll want to use this on your pituitary gland in the next forty seconds.” He handed it to her. “It’s located just below your third rib—”

“I know where it is,” she said softly.

“Right, right. Have a good day then.” Whistling to himself, he walked away.

Zala scowled, unbuckling her armor. “You keep such interesting company, Mollusk.”

The next stop on our Lunan tour was the address I’d deciphered. It belonged to a suite on the fourteenth story of an office building in the business district. There weren’t many tourists here. Just Lunans and Terrans going about their daily lives. The streets were busy, but the advantage of being former Warlord was I never had to worry about parking.

The security team was already waiting for us. Three Terrans, four Lunans, and a Saturnite decked out in combat gear. They saluted. Everyone except the Saturnite.

“This is the finest team on Luna, sir,” said Blug.

The Saturnite and I locked stares. “What’s your name, Officer?”

“Gorvud,” he replied curtly.

“An exemplary record,” said Blug.

He saluted her. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Per your orders, the building has been evacuated and the block secured.”

“Very good. I will be going in first. If there’s a problem, I’ll signal you.”

“As you wish,” said Blug.

Zala, Kreegah, Snarg, and I entered the lobby of the building.

“A Saturnite on your own security team,” said Zala. “I sometimes wonder if you don’t have a death wish, Emperor.”

“He has to work, doesn’t he?”

We rode the elevator to the fourteenth floor. The office we were interested in had been rented last week, but records indicated it hadn’t been used. The door didn’t even have a stenciled name on it.

It was unfurnished except for a small table with a four-by-four cube, wrapped in a featureless chassis, sitting on it.

“What is that?” she asked.

“The next clue,” I replied. “No doubt left for me to find.”

A cursory examination of the cube revealed no obvious way to open it.

“Could you use that prized Venusian steel of yours?” I asked.

She balked. “It would be undignified to use the sacred steel as a glorified can opener.”

“I can open it.” Kreegah took it in his hands.

“Wait,” said Zala. “How can you be certain it’s not some kind of explosive?”

“I can’t, but it would be a needlessly complicated method of assassination.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“An intriguing hypothesis.”

She grabbed the box, but Kreegah held on to it. They both clutched it.

“Emperor, if you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn’t be despised by every civilization but one in the system.”

“You make a valid point, Zala. And it’s possible that this box is a trap. In fact, I assume it is. But I’d be surprised if it turned out to be something as uninspired as a bomb.”

“Why touch it at all?”

I squinted. “I’m afraid I don’t understand the question.”

“You don’t have to poke and prod it,” she said. “You can just leave it alone.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because a bomb in a box would be the perfect weapon to use against you.”

“But it’s so dull,” I said.

“Yes. It’s dull and pedestrian and simplistic. But it works. Most beings in the system would simply elect to shoot and stab their enemies. It’s not technically impressive, but it gets the job done. And it would exploit your biggest weakness: your curiosity. Anything complicated you would figure out almost immediately. But something simple like this is a trap you can’t resist.”

“You make an interesting point.”

Before she could protest, Kreegah tore the top off the box.

“Hmmm. No bomb,” he said.

“Too bad,” I said. “I thought you were onto something there.”

“You sound disappointed,” she said.

“Do I?”

“If you thought I might be right, why did you let him open it?” asked Zala.

“An excellent question.”

Because I didn’t have an excellent answer, I didn’t say anything more than that.

“You do realize that if I’d been correct,” she said, “we’d all be dead now?”

“Yes, but you weren’t.” I removed a spheroid from the box. “That bomb-in-a-box idea. You didn’t come up with that all by yourself.”

“A proposal from the Venusian Covert Service. Back when we were considering merely assassinating you for your crimes.”

“Good plan.”

The spheroid clicked and whirred.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Some sort of pressurized vapor-release device,” I said.

“A gas bomb?” Zala coughed.

I set the device down. “Something like that. Although why anyone would think gas could be much of a threat to me, sealed in my own exo, is a puzzle.”

Zala wiped her tearing eyes. “Damn it, Emperor. Did you stop to think that maybe it’s not meant for you?” Her coughing grew louder. Her gray scales flashed slightly different shades of green and blue.

“Well, that doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “They’re not trying to kill you. Even if they were, there is any number of gases that could result in instant death.”

Coughing and swearing to her gods, she exited the room.

Snarg chirped. Her forcipules twitched. Centuries of specialized breeding had made ultrapedes immune to nearly all poisons and toxins. Yet she reacted, which in itself proved unusual.

Kreegah just stood there. I waved a hand in front of his face, but he didn’t react. The gas had rendered him catatonic.

I ran the air through my exo’s analyzer. Since this was a general-purpose exo, results would take a few minutes.

Zala entered the office. She no longer coughed or sputtered, though her scales were a darker shade of gray than usual. Almost a deep green.

“You should probably stay outside until I’ve identified the nature of the gas.”

Zala drew her gun and fired it. The blasts struck me in the chest. I stumbled backward. She kicked me with enough force to crack the window behind me.

Snarg was too busy twitching on the floor to be of much use, and Kreegah remained immobile. Zala fired as she advanced. Her aim was dead on, but her instincts were off. She kept shooting me in the exo when a good shot through the dome was all it would’ve taken.

I shot her with a stunbolt. It should’ve knocked her out, but it only caused her to drop her gun. She still had her scimitar.

“Kill Mollusk,” she growled, spraying spittle.

I blocked the swing with my arm. The blade sliced several inches into the limb. She wrenched the sword free, and her next swing nearly split my head. Instead, it pierced my shoulder, nearly shearing off the limb.

The gas had affected Zala’s fighting skills. Her attacks were powerful, but sloppy. On her third swing, I was able to land a punch across her jaw. It stunned her long enough to push her back. I fired several more stunbolts. It put a wobble in her legs, but she didn’t fall down.

“Kill. Mollusk.”

With unlikely speed, she charged. Zala hurled herself into me. The force shattered the window behind me, and we went tumbling toward the street fourteen stories below.

Zala wrapped her hands around my exo’s neck as she howled, splattering saliva across my dome.

My thoughts were fractured at the moment, and I’ll admit that too much of my attention was directed toward the vaporized catalyzer that had transformed my reluctant bodyguard into my enthusiastic assassin. Triggering mindless fury via chemical stimulation wasn’t difficult. But outside of unleashing anarchy, the applications were limited.

Zala wasn’t just enraged. She was enraged in my direction, and that was impressive, scientifically speaking.

I set aside my curiosity and shoved Zala away. My exo attempted to twist itself to land on my feet, but I was only halfway through the maneuver when I struck the pavement. The impact knocked me senseless. I assumed that Zala had landed on her feet. Luna’s artificial gravity was weaker than Venus, and while she could’ve sprained her ankle with a bad landing, her rage no doubt allowed her to ignore the possibility.

She lurched toward me. “Kill. Mollusk.”

The security team aimed their weapons at her.

“Hold your fire!” I said.

My exo wasn’t in perfect working order, but neither was Zala. She staggered on shaky legs.

Another stunbolt caused her to collapse. She crawled. Unable to even hold her sword, she crept toward me with drooling determination.

“Kill.”

She twitched and hissed, probably fantasizing about chewing me out of my exo with her own teeth.

Blug approached. “I thought she was on your side, Lord.”

“Not exactly,” I replied, “though this isn’t her at her best.”

The security team restrained Zala. Meanwhile, traffic patrol redirected vehicles and kept gawkers at a distance.

“Is this strictly necessary?” asked Gorvud as he slapped handcuffs on Zala’s limp, semiconscious form.

“Better to not take any chances,” I replied.

Zala raised her head and scowled in my direction. She sprang, but Gorvud kept his hold on her. She growled and thrashed.

“Kill Mollusk!”

Gorvud smiled. “Yeah, yeah. Get in line, lady.”

He threw her in the back of a security carrier. After the hatch was sealed, the carrier rocked as she threw herself, screaming, against the interior.

“Is she going to be okay?” asked Blug.

“She should be fine once the gas wears off,” I said. “We’ll have to isolate her until then.”

The carrier rattled after a particularly hard charge.

“Oh, dear,” said Blug. “I hope she doesn’t hurt herself.”

The vapor stimulant wasn’t likely to be permanent, and if necessary, I was certain I could synthesize an antidote. But I did imagine Zala, a maddened, frothing creature, spending the rest of her days locked in a cell. It wasn’t the end a proud Venusian warrior deserved.

The ground quaked as something tremendous fell from above and smashed into the limousine. The security team pulled their guns and surrounded me.

Snarg scampered from the wrecked vehicle. I’d forgotten about her, but she hadn’t forgotten about me. There was murder in her milky yellow eyes. She shrieked, barreling toward me.

The team fired their weapons, but nothing they had could penetrate her enhanced armor. She batted them aside as if they weren’t there. Only Gorvud could grapple with her, and even that was a losing proposition.

She ignored my ultrasonic commands.

Kreegah landed light as a feather beside me. I dodged a punch that shattered my dome and nearly mashed me into goo. A guard tried to restrain the Jupitorn, but his great strength meant he didn’t even have to bother shrugging them off.

I sprayed him with a healthy dose of sedative gas. Four times the regular dosage. He swayed, fell to his knees, and then collapsed.

Blug ushered me into a security skimmer. The vehicle rocketed down the road. I saw Gorvud falter. Off-balance, he was shrugged off by Snarg. Her undulating segments chased after the skimmer.

I ordered the pilot to get us airborne. We jumped into the sky, but not before something thudded against the bottom of the vehicle. The skimmer rocked.

“I’ll shake it off,” said the pilot, executing an extended barrel roll.

Pincers tore through the undercarriage. Snarg pushed half of her head through the hole. Warbling, she snapped her jaws as she drew closer. The pilot struggled to keep the skimmer flying, but we entered a steep dive.

I latched on to the vehicle’s roof. Snarg yanked my exo out the hole. She devoured the heavy alloy like tinfoil.

The pilot managed to pull up, and we bounced off the street below. The vehicle skidded, spun, and flipped once before coming to a stop. My grip on the roof kept me from getting tossed around within the cabin. I did get smacked once or twice by Blug’s flailing limbs, but I could hardly hold that against her.

The light refracting through the broken windows added to my disorientation. I heard Blug moan.

“Are you okay, Lord Mollusk?”

“I’ll live,” I replied. “Are you in one piece?”

“More or less,” she said. “I might have broken an arm.”

Snarg sheared off the skimmer’s door, and with a hiss, she wrapped her maxillae around me. It was my own damned fault for making her so indestructible. But I could think of no end more appropriate than to be done in by my own brilliance.

She ran her long black tongue across my face. Her antennae no longer twitched, and while her many eyes blinked irregularly, the worst of the gas must’ve worn off.

I stroked her pedipalps. “That’s my girl.”