Black Steel (20 page)

The driver knew trouble when he saw it and he was faster than his partner. He snatched at his holstered weapon.

In a heartbeat Rita covered the space between them and slashed, catching the cool's wrist. The strike was perfect, Cierto noted. The cool's hand fell, severed from the now-panicked man's arm. He screamed.

Villas moved in and skewered the second officer with a simple thrust to the chest. The second man had only begun to draw his weapon. He fell.

Rita snapped her sword back, cocking her hand by her ear, and cut at the still-screaming cool. The blade kissed the man's neck, tore out his throat, and slung blood onto his fallen partner.

Villas crouched by the, cool he had taken out and picked up the man's weapon. He stood and pointed it at the door of the substation, then fired the entire magazine. The whump! of the gun firing was echoed by the sharp taps of the pellets striking the door. If those inside had not heard the screaming cool, surely they would hear the impacts of the missiles?

Surely they did. The door opened and two cools emerged, still more curious than worried. The man in the lead saw Villas just as the student dropped the handgun. Rita moved to draw his attention, bringing her sword up in a salute, touching the bloody blade to her forehead.

"What the fuck-?"

The second cool bumped- into the back of his stopped companion. "AI? What is it?"

Two more students, Burton and Les, emerged from their hiding places to the sides of the door, swords raised. The cools had to know they were in deadly danger by now. Both went for their weapons.

Burton and Les moved in concert. Burton's thrust was to his man's right eye; Les chose a safer target, ramming his sword into the second cool's liver and twisting. The first cool out the door gurgled and collapsed; the second went white and tried to grab the sword that impaled him. He lost a finger when Les jerked the weapon free and repeated the thrust, again piercing the liver. "Ahh!" the cool said. Les withdrew the blade and gave the man yet another thrust.

Meanwhile, Ellenita and Basilio moved in and through the doorway. The station commander would be alone inside.

Cierto hurried across the street to try to see the final assassination. He was but halfway there when the whump! of a squeezer from inside told him that the commander had managed to get at least one shot off.

Burton and Les moved aside as their Patron ran into the station.

The commander was down, her head half-severed from her neck, blood gouting onto the terrazzo floor in a smeary pool. But Basilio was also sprawled on the cool gray floor, a small wound on his chest over the heart also spilling blood.

Against five qualified with projectile weapons, the loss of one was not bad. True, these local cools were hardly the Republic's finest warriors; still, guns against swords, the bearers of the latter with only six months' training, well, that was a fair enough test, no?

Cierto grinned. "Bueno."

The other students had begun to drag the slain and still-dying cools into the station. Once they were all inside, Cierto said, "Bring Basilio."

Ellenita rose from where she had been examining her fallen comrade. "He is dead, Patron."

"No matter. We do not wish for there to be an extra body here."

"Surely the explosion-?" Villas began.

"-will hide things from local authorities," Cierto finished. "But perhaps this might rate investigation from Republic professionals. They have many machines and much patience. We shall dispose of Basilio in our own way."

Quickly the five remaining students set the explosive charges. Carrying Basilio, they followed Cierto to the stolen hopper and entered it. The vessel had altered identification pulses and registration numbers.

By the time anyone could sort those out, Cierto and his students would be offplanet and on their circuitous and separate ways home.

As the hopper lifted and sped away from Tofaa, the star-speckled night was shattered by a series of explosions, so close they sounded as one giant roar. There would be a fifty-meter-wide crater where the substation had been; with luck, no one would ever realize that the sundered bodies of the cools had been sword fodder before the blast.

Cierto leaned back in his seat, feeling pleased. They had behaved well under the pressure of real combat, his students. True, he had lost one, but that was to be expected. Another few months, perhaps three more such training exercises, and they would be ready.

Already he was considering Basilio's replacement. Samuels? Or Gene? Gene. He was a bit slow, but very methodical. He could be improved with work.

Basilio was a loss, but at least Cierto had not had to give up either of his women. Rita and Ellenita were coming along in other ways, as well as being potentially excellent swordswomen. Another grin replaced the last one.

Everything moved according to his plan.

Kee Wu watched Sleel dance, the sword seeming to be as much a part of him as his own hands.

Amazing. He could do this consciously-what might he accomplish if he could achieve zanshin? Truly he was the best student she had ever seen, and she was learning as much from him as he was from her.

Sleel finished the series and stopped. He wiped sweat from his eyes with the back of one sleeve. Despite the headband he wore, his face was drenched.

"Sorry," he said. "I was off on that last piece."

She said, "It was fine, Steel."

He shook his head, sweat flying. "No, it was off."

"Let's take a break," she said.

"Okay. "

When he had toweled more of the perspiration from his face and neck, they both moved to drink from the water fountain. That done, Sleel said, "I don't think I'm gonna get much better. I can walk the pattern using the sword instead of my hands and feet without falling down. Not much else left, is there?"

"Just the one thing."

He smiled, something he had done more of lately. "Oh, right, the zonked-out trance."

"It's not exactly like that."

"Yeah, sure, but you can't teach me that part."

"No. It can't be taught. Or even learned."

"Mumbo-jumbo time again."

"You'll know it when you get there."

"And how long might that take?"

She shrugged. "Nobody can say." She looked at him more carefully. "Why? You have an appointment somewhere else?"

"Yeah. You might say that."

As he healed from his loss on Mtu, Sleel had become more focused on another thing. "Revenge is a waste of your energy," she said.

He laughed. "This from a woman who went zipping off to find the great-something-grandson of somebody long dead who swiped a formula from her own great-something grandma?"

Wu had the grace to smile.

"Wait, lemme guess," he said. "That's different, right?"

"Well, no. But as a teacher, I want you to do as I say, not as I do."

"Right. "

"Besides, you're not ready for Cierto. yet," she said.

"Not ready? Shit. I can sure as hell shoot him in the back or clonk him over the head without knowing any more than I knew before I got here."

"But that's not how you want to face him, is it?"

Sleel looked at her. "You do a little mind-reading on the side?"

"You're easy, Sleel. He beat you at what you did best."

"How do you know I'm not ready? You said I was the best student you ever had."

She thought about it for a few seconds, decided to tell him. "Back when I walked the Flex, Cierto and I dueled."

"No shit? Why isn't he dead? Or you, for that?"

She gave him a wry smile. "Because I couldn't think ahead. I beat him. Cut off his foot. I thought that was enough, so I didn't kill him. Personal honor. I didn't know at the time he was related to the thief who stole the family secret. He was down, I had won; killing him would have been . . . superfluous."

"Would you have killed him had you known who he was?"

She repeated the tight smile. "Probably not."

"Opportunity lost. But you did beat him. And you think I couldn't?"

"You might take that Cierto of years ago, as good as you now are. But he has certainly improved. The strike I used was a trick; we were evenly matched. I don't know if I could defeat him today. I can, however, beat you."

Sleel raised an eyebrow, and some of the old cockiness she had seen flash in him now and then came to the surface. "Oh? You said that my sumito coupled with the sword is the best system you've ever seen.

And that I'm good at it."

"It is and you are. Your technique is superb. Better in many ways than my own."

"But that doesn't matter."

"No," she said. "It doesn't. It is not about technique."

Sleel laughed.

Wu looked at him, waiting.

"Mayli said that same thing to me once, in front of a class. Only the subject was sex. It's not about technique, she said. It's about love."

"She was wise, my sister. This"-she touched the handle of her sword-"is about spirit. Technique is only the smallest part of it."

Sleel grinned.

"You don't believe me," she said.

"I didn't say that."

"You don't have to." She sighed. "Go and get two shinai," she said.

"Oh, yeah, you got it," he said.

Wu had to smile at him as he hurried to fetch the bamboo practice swords. He was eager to show her how good he was, to prove to her-and to himself-that the past months of practice had been well spent. As indeed they had been. But those lessons were not as important as the one she was about to impart.

She hoped.

Cierto watched his advanced class work with the computer generated lacs, defending and attacking.

There had been some changes in the class, and these were the best of the bunch remaining. Les had lost his nerve, becoming hesitant when required to fight other students with the live blade. Shortly there would be found a good-bye note from him in the house computer, saying that he had left to return to his homeworld. The note would be a forgery, and Les would go no farther than the estate's private recycling plant, at least not in his present form.

Winston, a fire-haired boy of twenty, would move into Les's vacated position.

Villas, alas, would have to suffer a similar fate, since he seemed to have become afflicted with pangs of conscience over those killed in training exercises. Perhaps Jorj could improve enough to replace Villas.

It was about control, Cierto knew, and he was the Patron.

Jorj. Now there was a name that brought back old memories. His paternal uncle had been named Jorj.

The bastard.

The students went through their drills, but Cierto was all of a moment suddenly lost in the past.

Hoja was in his room, studying, when his uncle arrived.

"Good evening, Nephew," Jorj said.

"And to you, Uncle."

"I am sorry that I missed your birthday celebration."

Hoja shrugged. "A thing of no importance, Uncle."

"Ah, but it is. You are now thirteen, and a man."

His uncle moved to sit on Hoja's bed. "Come, sit beside me," he said. He patted the bed lightly.

Obediently, Hoja left his desk and sat next to his uncle. Jorj was only ten years older, but to a boy of thirteen, twenty-three was as far away as the moon.

His uncle put one arm around the boy's shoulders and squeezed lightly. "Your father tells me you are doing well in your studies. "

"I try, Uncle."

"You must call me Jorj, for you are a man now."

"Si, Uncle-I mean, si, Jorj." The name felt funny in his mouth.

Jorj allowed his encircling arm to relax and he began to rub gently Hoja's neck and upper back. He said,

"Well, now that you are a man, there are other lessons you should learn."

Hoja did not understand what his uncle meant.

Jorj leaned over and kissed Hoja full on the mouth. His tongue darted in between the boy's surprised lips.

Hoja jerked his face away. "Uncle!"

"Lessons I mean to teach you, Hoja," Jorj said, as if nothing had happened. "Starting now."

Hoja struggled, but his uncle was stronger. He was taken by force; it had hurt more than he would have thought possible. As he lay naked on his bed, sobbing, Jorj had dressed and left, saying as he exited, "It will be easier next time. You will come to want it, to love it."

The students continued their work with the lacs, but Cierto was there in body only. His memory had claimed him fully and he did not even see them.

Four months passed in the life of Hoja Cierto, four months in which the thirteen-year-old boy was molested by his once-respected uncle almost every night. He had not come to love it, nor to want it, and his shame was great. True, there were men who preferred other men to women, and this was well known and accepted. And while Hoja had not yet lain with a woman, neither did he wish to lie with men, especially his uncle.

He did not know what to do. Should he tell his father? Would that make things better? Or worse?

After a particularly painful session, in which Jorj had used his fists upon him, Hoja decided that he must speak of this to his father.

The Patron's private sitting room was halfway around the main house from Hoja's room. The boy arrived at the room just in time to see his uncle being admitted.

So much for seeing his father. He could hardly blurt out that his father's brother had been molesting him for months while Jorj sat there listening. All his uncle had to do was deny it, and Hoja knew full well his father would not take the word of his son over that of his brother.

Still, Hoja did not turn and leave. He padded carefully to the door and put his ear against it. The muffled laughter of the two men came through the thick wood, but no words were understandable.

Of a moment, Hoja felt a burning need to know what Jorj was saying to the Patron. He could not hear them through the door, but there was a way.

His father's private fresher was off the sitting room. The door from that into the hall was only a few meters away.

Moving with great care, Hoja opened the fresher's door and slipped inside. The door connecting the fresher to the sitting room was ajar. He could hear the conversation between his father and his uncle easily, hunched down next to the bidet and hidden from sight.