Black Hole Sun Read online

  “Sharing that information would be stupid.”

  “I’ve done lots of stupid things.”

  “That is painfully obvious.” She sniffs. “What would CorpCom think of a dalit who does mercenary work?”

  “Unattached Regulators are outside CorpCom military authority.”

  “Unattached? Is that what you call working for handouts? Better you had performed self-immolation when your father was disgraced.”

  “He wasn’t disgraced—he—” I say, and instantly regret it.

  Dame Bramimonde’s smirk twists into a macabre grin. “Failure is its own disgrace.”

  “Pay me.”

  “Half. Or nothing.”

  “You’re a thief.”

  “I’m a businesswoman.” She removes a small metal case from a drawer on her console. Tosses it to me. “Here is your coin.”

  I feel the weight of the coin. It’s not enough. She’s shorted me, and I’m not going quietly. “Why just the girl? Why save her?”

  “She’s my heir, of course. The woman who will take over as CEO when I retire.”

  “She’s also a battle school–trained Regulator. Why would your heiress become a Regulator?”

  “A necessary evil, I assure you. The clichéd warrior CEO is en vogue. My daughter will make that sacrifice for the good of her family. Surely you know that as well as anyone, don’t you, Durango? Or should I use your real name, Jacob Stringfellow?”

  I turn my back on her. Head for the door.

  “How dare you insult me in my own home! Better men have seen the gallows for less!”

  In the before days, you could be put to death for disrespecting an Orthocrat. “Times have changed, Dame. Deal with it.”

  “Come back here!” Her screamed is followed a second later by the crash of pottery smashing against the wall. “Dalit!”

  I’m slamming the door behind me, ready escape this mausoleum, when the Dame’s servant blocks my path, darting from behind a silk azalea bush. He gestures for me to follow him to the main entry lock.

  He places a finger to his lips and peeks around the corner. Crooks a finger, calling someone to join us.

  “Mimi? Scan please.”

  “One other heartbeat, cowboy. It’s Ebi.”

  “Ebi?” I say.

  The girl we rescued is gone. In her place stands a regal young woman. Freshly scrubbed, her broad cheekbones emit a warm, cosmetic glow. She dismisses the servant and pulls me into an alcove.

  “I wanted to thank you,” she says. “Your davos risked your life to save us.”

  “All in a day’s work.”

  She takes my hand. “If you had only rescued me, I might believe that. However, you saved my brother as well, and I know—I know that his life was not part of the contract.”

  I rub my head. “Any Regulator would’ve done the same thing in my place.”

  “But Mother would not have. You saved my brother’s life,” Ebi says, bowing. “The House of Bramimonde owes you, Regulator. I swear to repay you one day—in full measure.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Maris Valloris, Pangea

  ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 7. 09:01

  When Postule finishes climbing the stairs to the bell tower that looks over the port city of Maris Valloris, he is wheezing, his face as red as the sun setting on the horizon. He’s clutching his chest with one hand and holding the ransom to his bosom with the other. The queen waits for him. She has waited for one hour and seventeen minutes and is feeling, well, cranky. And the queen hates feeling cranky.

  “You’re late,” she tells the fat man.

  The room is lit by a high skylight. The sun’s fading rays fall on the queen’s robes, and she is pleased with the way the watermarking accentuates the light, highlighting the fleur du lis pattern embedded in the cloth. The walls and floor of the room are bare, examples of the clean lines the architects of Maris Valloris used throughout the whole of the city. Light and concrete. CorpCom architecture. Some like it. Most just tolerate it. The queen doesn’t give a fig either way.

  “Please—huff—forgive me,” Postule says between gasping breaths. “There is no elevator—huff—and there are many stairs.”

  “Eleven thousand six hundred and seventy-five. One more step than the longest stairway on Earth. If you had read the placards along the way, you would know that. Of course, you would have kept me waiting even longer.” She removes a small dagger and a boiled egg from the pockets sewn into her purple velvet robes. With the tip of the blade, she peels the shell, leaving the white untouched. “Didn’t I warn you how impatient I am?”

  “Yes…my queen. Please…forgive me. I have the…ransom.” He tries to bow on one knee.

  Effortlessly, she skips forward and kicks his leg out from under him. He sags to his side, then rolls onto his back.

  “Breathe, you imbecile.” She pulls the money from his grasp, then counts it. Carelessly, she tosses the coin aside. The loose coins scatter, making a racket that she pauses to appreciate.

  She straddles the fat man and plops down on his belly.

  “Oof!” he exhales.

  “Oof? I’m light as a feather. You’re in such terrible shape, Postule. If your connections weren’t so useful to me, I would gut you and feed your entrails to the Draeu. How would you like that?”

  “My queen,” he groans, “I would not.”

  She bites the boiled egg in half. The other half, she places on Postule’s lips. “Open up.”

  He complies, and the egg falls into his mouth.

  “Chew.” He does. The queen sets the razor-sharp edge of the dagger against his gullet. “Now swallow.”

  “Swallow?” the fat man whines. “But the knife—”

  “If you love me as your queen”—she smiles mischievously—“you’ll do as I ask without question. You do love me, don’t you?”

  “My love for you is as wide and deep as the Hellenic Sea, my queen.”

  Liar. “Then swallow. And don’t make a peep if you feel a little prick.”

  With a look of wide-eyed panic, he swallows the egg. His Adam’s apple bobs beneath a coating of flabby skin, and the edge of the knife opens a four-centimeter cut. Postule sucks in a breath. But doesn’t cry out.

  “Good boy,” she says, bouncing off him. “Now I know that I can trust your loyalty. Even if I can’t trust your judgment.”

  “My queen?”

  “Your task was simple. Receive the ransom. I said nothing about trying to drown the Bramimonde children. Killing your hostages is bad for business. We have a simple formula. Take the children. Collect the ransom. Let the children go unharmed. Everyone knows this, so they pay. If we deviate from the formula, that’s when doubt creeps in. Why should parents pay if their heirs are going to die anyway?”

  “But, my queen, Dame Bramimonde is the one who deviated from the formula. She sent Regulators to rescue her daughter.”

  “Do you think I’m so stupid?” the queen snarls. “That I wouldn’t know that? But they weren’t real Regulators, were they? They were dalit, and there were only two of them. How did a squad of shock troopers fall to two dalit?”

  “They were not damned ordinary dalit! One of them crashed through the roof!”

  “First, don’t dare curse in my presence again. Second, who would be stupid enough to crash through a roof when they could walk through the doors?”

  “His name was Durango.”

  Of course, it was Durango. It had to be him. Fate, that foul hussy, wouldn’t have it any other way. “Nevertheless, you did try to drown the hostages, so I must give you another job. Postule, my bloody friend, I think that it’s time you met the Draeu.”

  “My queen! Please!” He clasps his hands together in prayer and crawls to her on his knees.

  “Stop begging. I’ll tell you when to beg. Now get up.” She hooks a finger in the corner of his mouth and draws him, thrashing and moaning, to his feet. “Oh, please, Postule, do learn to tolerate a little pain. You have a very long and difficult journey ahead, a
nd we don’t want you dying from sheer terror along the way.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Jaisalmer District, New Eden

  ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 7. 09:09

  East New Eden is a crowded, loud, fetid part of the city where a smart man travels with one hand on a knife and the other on his purse. Which makes it the perfect place for unattached Regulators like us to find work.

  I cut through the bazaar on the way to Ares’s pub. The bazaar is held in one of the oldest covered streets in New Eden, an avenue with an arched metal roof that keeps the rain off. Though most of the core city is under habidomes, the domes leak like a sieve when it rains, and in New Eden it’s always raining. But at there’s least something to do. Hundreds of small shops and booths line both sides of the streets. Anything you want, you can get here—clothing, linens, pots, weapons, even meat, as long as you don’t mind rat on a stick.

  At Ares’s pub, I find Vienne outside, sitting at a table. Loitering nearby are a couple of fellow dalit Regulators who helped arrange my drop from the space elevator—Jenkins and Fuse.

  Shorter than most, Fuse is a bit of a liar. Brash. Buzzed ash hair, thin sideburns, ears a skosh too long, one bicuspid missing, scarred lip, pointed chin, girlish hands. He’s waiting for the coin I promised and chatting up Vienne to pass time.

  “Come on, love. Throw a blighter a bone,” he says while sliding into the chair next to her. Then slides a hand onto her knee.

  “Silly boy,” Mimi says.

  Fuse is wearing symbiarmor. That’s the only reason his elbow doesn’t break when Vienne hammers it. And why his ribs don’t snap when she punches them three times before he can blink.

  “Hoof.” He gasps for breath.

  “You did ask for a bone.” I pull up a chair. “Next time specify whether you want it broken or not.”

  “Got it.” His face turns from purple back to red. Then he grins. “I like a female with spunk. Especially one with mad dinkum tai bo skill. So, love, how about I spring for your meal? Once your boss here pays me the coin he owes, that is.”

  “He’s my chief.” She cuts him a look that could ignite thermite. “Nobody is my boss.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” He grins wide enough to show off his missing tooth.

  “Your heart rate is rising,” Mimi interrupts. “Stress hormones releasing. You seem irritated.”

  “Your point?”

  “Are you irritated?”

  “Ha.” Mind your business, Mimi. I’ll mind mine. I set the coin on the table. “Is that how you lost that tooth? Chatting up female Regulators?”

  “Not exactly.” He gives me a conspiratorial wink. “Listen, if I’m treading on your flag, so to speak, fess up now and I’ll give it a rest. Me and my cobber, Jenkins, we’ve got places to go. Right, Jenks?”

  “Right. I reckon,” says his friend, who is built like a transport container with legs and sports a shaved head and a mug so spotted with ancient acne scars, it looks like the surface of Deimos. “Uh. Fuse? What’s it that I’m saying right to?”

  “Don’t fuss your pretty noggin about it,” Fuse says.

  Jenkins leans against the side of the building. His symbiarmor shirt is tied around his waist, and the sleeves of his undershirt are rolled up to reveal his pulpy biceps. He’s got a square nose and a boxy chin punctuated with a goatee. Left ear pierced multiple times. Broad shoulders and chest and wears a leather jacket over his armor.

  Vienne frowns at him. “It’s against the Tenets to bare yourself in public. Cover up.”

  “If I do that”—Jenkins pulls the shirt over his bald head—“the ladies won’t be able to admire my guns.”

  “If those are guns,” Fuse teases, “then you’re shooting blanks.”

  “Best stop vexing me before I get upset. You know what happened last time I went feral.” He opens his mouth. Taps a bicuspid corresponding with Fuse’s missing one.

  Fuse rolls his eyes. “One lucky punch, and the great gob thinks he’s a regular pugilist. What he’s not telling you duckies is that it took the blighter sixteen roundhouses to make contact, and even then, I had to do a spill over a—”

  “Look,” I say, exasperated, “if she lets you buy the meal, would you shut your carking yap?”

  “Affirmative, chief.”

  “Vienne, accept his offer.”

  “Is that an order?”

  “Yes! Accept before I have to gag him.”

  “That would be fun to watch.”

  “Vienne!”

  “I accept. Reluctantly.”

  Fuse whoops. “Works every time.”

  “There’s a fib,” Jenkins snorts. “It’s never worked before.”

  “Wanker!”

  “Fossiker!”

  “Shut up now,” I warn them both. “Or the deal’s off.”

  Fuse pantomimes a zip sealing his lips. “Sutting upth nowm.”

  “Thanks be to the bishop!” I pile the coin on the table. Half I give to Vienne and the other half to Fuse for hacking into the system that controls the space elevators. Annoying he may be, but when it comes to machines, he’s a right clever jack. He’s also a great demolitionist, from what I hear.

  “Where’s your cut, chief?” Fuse asks as I slide his pile across the table.

  My share of the coin is already encumbered. “I spent it.”

  “Free with the financials, no?” Fuse says. “Spent it all on the ladies, no doubt. And a man with your looks, too. You’d think they’d be swarming about you like flies. It’s the pinkie, I expect. Not many ladies have got interest in a dalit—Ow! My ear!”

  Vienne has it folded between her thumb and index finger. I count to sixty before ordering her to let go. She gives the ear a twist for good measure and smacks him on the make of the head.

  I flip an extra coin onto the table. “Vienne, get these hardworking Regulators a liter of aqua pura. My treat.”

  “Heewack!” Jenkins shouts. “Let’s hit the cantina!”

  “Don’t hit it too hard,” I call as he bounds up the steps to the cantina’s front door.

  “You, also. Go!” Vienne orders Fuse to follow Jenkins. He runs up the stairs, too, his heavy boots clanging on the metal treads. When he’s out of earshot, she leans closer to me and puts her hands on the table. For some reason, my palms start to sweat.

  “I know the reason your palms are sweating,” Mimi chimes in.

  “Stow it.” I spin a coin on the table. It keeps my hands busy. “No comments from the peanut gallery.”

  Vienne tilts her head toward me. Her brow knits and her lips rub together in thought, then she snatches the spinning coin. “You’re not joining me? I would enjoy—”

  My company?

  “—not having to listen to those two idiots alone.”

  “Not exactly the answer you were hoping for,” Mimi says.

  “Hush!” I say aloud, hissing, and then clap a hand over my mouth when I realize my mistake. Vienne draws away. Damn. “Sorry, I didn’t mean you! I was just…just thinking out loud.”

  “I’ll go.” She pushes back her chair and starts to rise.

  “No!” I snag her by the wrist. “I mean, um, sorry I offended you. Didn’t mean to. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to—” You’re blowing it, Durango. “It’s just that.” Stop! “Think I’ll stay here and enjoy the sunshine.”

  The sky overhead is blanketed with clouds. No sun in sight. “Sunshine. Got it. Listen, if you want to be alone, just say so.” She tugs on her arm, and I realize that I’m still holding onto her, my fingers pressed against her wrist. Then I notice that I can feel her pulse, and it’s beating fast.

  “One hundred and two beats per minute,” Mimi says. “Vienne’s baseline resting heart rate is forty-nine beats per minute.”

  “Hush.” This time, I don’t say it aloud, but I do have sense enough to let go of her wrist. “Vienne, it’s not that. I—”

  “You don’t have to lie to me, chief.”

  “I’m not—”

  “I’m n
ot stupid. I know what you’re doing.” She slaps the coin on the table. “How much longer are you going to starve yourself? You’ve not eaten a full meal in weeks.”

  “Until I’m not hungry?” Whew, that was close. Relieved, I sigh loudly and rub my temple, which is sore. Since the AI implant surgery, it’s always sore.

  “Have it your way,” Vienne says with a hint of frustration. “But being chief doesn’t mean you’ve got to do everything yourself.”

  Not knowing how to answer that, I watch in silence as she climbs the stairs and enters Ares’s pub. I spin the coin again. What was I thinking, grabbing Vienne that way? You’re such an idiot, I tell myself, and when Mimi doesn’t pipe in, I can tell she agrees.

  I drag my chair over to the side of the building and lean back. Pull the cowling over my head and pretend to nap. It’s only a couple hours since dawn, but it’s been a long day already. That happens when your day starts off on a space elevator. A jump from atmosphere to surface. I still can’t believe I screwed up the courage to do it.

  “Me, either,” Mimi says.

  For once I ignore her. I’m too tired and too unsettled to bother arguing.

  I’m still visualizing the tube drop when I drift off to sleep, where like always, the nightmares are waiting for me. Images of wounded troopers, disfigured bodies, my own soldiers at my feet, dying.

  “Regulator,” a young voice calls from outside the dream.

  I awake panicked, my hands pawing the searing pain on my face. My skull is melting away, I’m sure of it, and I catch the indelible stench of digestive enzymes.

  “Excuse me, Regulator,” the young voice says again, and someone pushes my chair.

  “What in the f—,” I say, standing up with a raised fist. Then I notice a familiar aristocratic face staring up at me.

  “Jean-Paul Bramimonde.” The boy reaches up, offering his hand. “I have a business proposition.”

  Like his sister, he cleans up well. The young jack looks entirely different in a plain gray jumpsuit. His hair is coiffed, too, slicked close to the scalp, and he’s had a manicure. “What’re you doing in the core city, kid? Looking to get snatched again? Because there are a hundred cutthroats who’d gladly do it.”