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  Liege-Killer

  Book One Of The Paratwa Saga

  Christopher Hinz

  Helpless halts my tongue; a devouring fever

  Runs in flame through every vein within me; Darkness veils my vision; my ears are deafened,

  Beating like hammers; Cold the sweat runs down me; a sudden trembling

  Sets my limbs a-quiver; my face grows paler Than the grass in summer; I see before me

  Death stand, and madness.

  —“Sappho of Mytilene,” 6th century BC

  Prologue

  The shuttle crouched between skyscrapers, in the center of the desolate street, dwarfing rusted cars. Gouged and dirty wings—arched slivers of white metal—swept upward from the squat body of the craft like floppy ears from a fat rabbit. The underbelly quivered, radiating heat. Gray smoke drifted out from beneath the craft, swirling into oblivion as it met the perpetual Philadelphia gusts.

  “What’s the level?” asked Bronavitch, younger of the two crew members. He stood beside the monster engines, oblivious to the waves of heat pouring from the vertical landing jets. Their spacesuits were designed to protect them from far worse perils.

  Kelly grinned. Parched walnut skin crinkled across his cheeks, made him look older than his forty-six years. “Nothing to worry about within five miles of here.” Kelly twisted his neck forward, peeked out through the top of his helmet visor, and checked the readout counter mounted to his thick utility belt. “The scan reads less than point-oh-seven—we’re in a fairly safe area. We could probably even take our suits off for a minute or so.”

  “Yeah,” Bronavitch grumbled, “and we could gulp some air and say good-bye to the Colonies.” Bronavitch did not need Kelly or a poison counter to tell him that there was enough organic death in the smog to keep a cleanup crew busy for years.

  Kelly’s grin expanded. “The air does seem a bit thick.”

  Bronavitch shook his head. He was not in the mood for Kelly’s humor. “I’m telling you, I’ve had it. I’m sick of the whole damn planet. My contract is up in two months and I’m not signing on for another tour. I’ve had it.”

  His partner rumbled with laughter. “You told me that last year. Hell, admit it. You like it down here. You told me that you thought it was very serene.”

  “It pays good.”

  Skyscrapers—metal and concrete shells—lined the boulevard. A few smaller structures were nestled in their midst like scared children clutching at their mother’s skirts. Chunks of unidentifiable debris lay everywhere.

  To the west, a mountain of trash poked up through the lower smog cover, interrupting the flow of the street. Bronavitch thought he detected form in the junk pile. It seemed to resemble a giant frog. He suspected some mad humans had been responsible for its creation during the final days. His theory seemed reasonable. Dying of radiation and a host of other ecospheric poisons would have justified the creation of such a weird monument.

  “Do you know what they used to call this place?” asked Kelly.

  Bronavitch shook his head.

  “The City of Brotherly Love.” Thankfully, the black face had lost its smile.

  Bronavitch booted a crusted brick. “Let’s get on with it. I want to get the hell out of here.”

  They marched down the street. Open doors and glassless windows seemed to stare at them; dark eyes, full of death, contemptuous of the living. Bronavitch felt a familiar twinge of fear tighten his stomach. He hated these dead cities. It always seemed as if someone were watching, like they were intruding upon some private domain.

  Kelly broke into a fresh grin. He appeared to be enjoying himself.

  “All right, we know the pirates landed where we touched down. They must have been close to whatever they were looking for.”

  “How do you know they were looking for anything?” Bronavitch argued. “Maybe the bastards just dropped in at random, hoping to pick up a few artifacts. Or maybe they had shuttle problems and were forced to land for repairs.”

  “I don’t think so. First of all, they couldn’t have been here for more than two or three hours—in and out real quick, not nearly enough time for a profitable artifact hunt. And when did you ever hear of a shuttle dropping into a supercontaminated zone like this for repairs? Even if they lost their main engines, the vertical landing jets were still functioning—had to be in order to touch down safely in the middle of this mess.” Kelly shook his head. “No, if it had been an emergency landing, they would have coasted down toward the Virginia area. The contamination’s not as bad.”

  Bronavitch sighed. “These are Costeaus you’re talking about. They’re not always that rational.”

  Kelly laughed. “Maybe not, but most of the bastards got better ships than we do. Don’t believe all that Guardian crap about stupid pirates and their rundown equipment.”

  It was no sense arguing. “All right, which direction? This is a goddamn big city.”

  Kelly pointed toward the frog-shaped mountain. “That trash pile could have been their landing mark—there’s nothing else down here that’s so easily recognizable from the air. And if I were a Costeau captain, I wouldn’t have touched down any closer to it than this.”

  “Landslides?” Bronavitch asked uneasily.

  “Right. That mess doesn’t look too stable. At this distance, at least the shuttle would be safe even if the whole damn mountain came tumbling down.”

  Bronavitch nodded. “That still leaves a big area to search. Why don’t we call base and request help?”

  “No way,” growled his partner. “I’m not gonna get chewed out by some commander for tying up a whole unit just to find out what some pirates were looking for.”

  Bronavitch clamped his mouth shut.

  They had come from E-Tech—from the Berks Valley base, about sixty miles to the northwest. Berks was one of E-Tech’s major experimental arenas where scientists and engineers sought methods for removing the contamination from the environment. Ecospheric Turnaround was the long-term goal of the huge organization, a goal in which Bronavitch no longer had much faith. Working down here as a shuttle pilot for the past two years had slowly eroded his belief.

  Too much of the Earth was dead. There were still insects and a few of the hardier forms of plant life, and there was man, in his protective garments. Most of the evolutionary links in between had perished; the complex chain of life had been broken by the madness of two centuries ago. Bronavitch believed that the Earth would never again be a hospitable place for humanity.

  He and Kelly were assigned to perimeter duty. They checked on the status of various bioprojects that Berks initiated, searched for signs of natural life, ferried scientists to and from other bases, and policed the zone surrounding the Berks Valley. Today’s duty fell into the last category.

  Early this morning, Berks radar had picked up an unauthorized ship heading toward the Philadelphia area. Although the fix had been lost before the ship landed, computer projection had indicated several likely touchdown locations. Naturally, the pirates had already departed by the time he and Kelly located this landing spot. Costeaus generally knew just how long they could remain in an area before E-Tech tracked them. Heavily smogged cities like Philadelphia made visual detection nearly impossible, and sensor analysis took time. Pirates were rarely caught on the surface.

  The best that could be hoped for now was that he and Kelly might locate some evidence identifying the pirate clan. Then E-Tech or the Intercolonial Guardians would launch an official investigation up in the Colonies. With exceptional luck, the trespassing pirates might be arrested.

  Unofficially, though, Bronavitch knew that this Costeau incident would be treated like most of the others—largely ignored. The Costeaus’ antique-hunting expeditions to the surface were tolerated as long as t
hey did not directly interfere with any of E-Tech’s projects. Today’s hunt, and the subsequent official report, would be made primarily to assuage the Irryan Council, which, in its wisdom, was demanding a final solution to the pirate problem.

  Kelly halted and directed a gloved finger toward a large hole in the side of a small, brick-faced building. “That looks new.”

  Bronavitch nodded. This could be easier than he had thought. The five-story structure appeared a bit better preserved than the surrounding skyscrapers. The building had probably been shielded from the higher-elevation nuclear shock waves that had mutilated Philadelphia back in the twenty-first century.

  The hole was rectangular and larger than a man in a spacesuit. It was also newly formed. One learned to easily recognize such anomalies after a few trips through any of Earth’s decimated urban areas.

  Kelly stepped carefully over the lip of the opening and turned on his helmet spotlight. “Looks like some kind of an old food store.”

  Bronavitch followed his partner into the darkened interior, panned his helmet light across the rows of dusty shelving.

  Crushed cans and smashed plastic jars littered the racks. Ceiling rubble, foodpaks, and shattered fragments of glass covered the floor. Kelly’s spotlight froze momentarily on a human skeleton slumped over a low counter. Bronavitch looked away.

  “This is it.” Kelly shined his spotlight down the center aisle, traced the trail of overlapping boot prints that led toward the back of the store. In a few spots, the centuries-old layer of deep dust had been disturbed enough to reveal the original tiled floor.

  “Looks like there were at least four or five of them,” Bronavitch observed.

  “Either that or they made several trips through. C’mon.”

  He followed Kelly down the aisle, keeping his attention along the upper edge of the surrounding shelves. It felt as if they were walking through a dark canyon. The only sounds were their footsteps, picked up by external suit mikes and amplified into their helmets. He shivered. Outside, at least there was the wind and the smog-filtered sunshine. In here, silence and darkness created an entirely different mood. Bronavitch imagined that something was waiting to leap down on him from the top shelves.

  Kelly halted when they reached the back of the store. Bronavitch followed his partner’s downward gaze.

  The hole in the floor was roughly the same diameter as the one the Costeaus had cut into the outer wall, although more circular in shape. They knelt carefully at the edge and shined their spots into the opening. About ten feet below was a cellar floor of pale concrete. That floor also had been cut through. Their spotlights reflected off a dark pool of water well below the basement level.

  “Oh, shit,” Bronavitch muttered. He did not relish the idea of climbing down into some sewer beneath this dead city.

  “Must be at least fifty feet to the water level,” Kelly said quietly. “I wonder why they made such big holes? They must have used at least two beam cutters to be in and out of here so quick. Hell of a lot of work.”

  The question had a simple answer. Bronavitch said, “They hauled something up from down there that was bigger than a man in a spacesuit.”

  Kelly nodded. “They probably used a portable winch. Want to run back to the shuttle and get ours?”

  “A ladder will do,” Bronavitch said reluctantly. They might as well get this over with as quickly as possible.

  The portable ladder was in Kelly’s backpack. In a few minutes, they had unrolled it and fastened one end to a sturdy pillar some ten feet from the edge of the hole. There was no question as to who was going down first. Kelly eased himself over the lip and began the descent.

  “What if this place caves in?” Bronavitch asked nervously.

  “If it didn’t cave in on the pirates, then it probably won’t fall on us.”

  Somehow, that did not sound very reassuring.

  Kelly quickly passed the cellar mark and rapidly approached the pool of dark water. Bronavitch could hear the end of the ladder flapping against the surface of the liquid.

  “What if the water’s too deep to stand in?” he called down. “It might be a couple hundred feet to the bottom.”

  Kelly laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re almost at sea level.”

  Maybe it was the ocean.

  His fears were eased by a loud splash as Kelly hit the water. “It’s up to my waist and everything feels solid underneath. It’s way too big to be a sewer—must have been one of those old subway transport tunnels. C’mon down.”

  Bronavitch took a deep breath and climbed over the lip. In a minute, he was standing beside Kelly in three feet of water.

  They stood silently for a moment, playing their lights over the dank and slimy walls. The water had a slight flow to it and the gentle current licked at their waists. They could not see the bottom—the water was almost black. Bronavitch took a step toward the left wall, tripped on something solid, and almost fell.

  “Shit!”

  “Old railway tracks,” Kelly said calmly. “This tunnel looks wide enough for two sets of them.”

  “Yeah, right,” he muttered. “So which way do we go?”

  “I’ll go upstream and you go downstream.”

  Bronavitch thought his partner was joking until he flashed his spotlight into the solemn black face. “Look, Kelly, this is weird enough down here without us separating...”

  “Relax. The Costeaus obviously had a map of some sort. They knew just where to cut that hole in the food store and just where to make their descent. I’ll bet they knew exactly what they were looking for and exactly where it was located. It’s got to be real close by.” Kelly turned and began a slow march against the current.

  Bronavitch repressed a shudder. Two more months. Just two more months and then his contract was up and he could be off this damn planet forever. He thought briefly of home; the orbiting colony of Kiev Beta—even in perigee, more than a hundred thousand miles away.

  Kelly vanished from sight as the subway tunnel curved gently to the right. Bronavitch sighed and began moving in the opposite direction, splashing his gloves against the dark liquid to create as much noise as possible. He hoped he would not trip over anything. There were probably rotting corpses in this foul water just waiting to snag his ankles.

  After two hundred years, there couldn’t be anything left but bones, he reminded himself. Rotting corpses, insisted his imagination.

  “This tunnel has a grade to it,” said Kelly. “Water’s getting a bit deeper down my way.”

  Bronavitch stopped, stared at his waistline. The water was a couple of inches below where it had been. Good. Maybe the tunnel would lead up to the surface.

  “Dead-end,” Kelly said a moment later. “There must have been a cave-in. There’s rubble all over the place down here and the water’s up to my chest. The pirates couldn’t have come this way.”

  “Care to join me?” Bronavitch cracked. He was feeling better each step of the way, mainly because of the decreasing depth of the water. He figured that by the time he rounded the next bend, the level should be down to his knees.

  “I wonder what the hell they could have been searching for?” Kelly asked. “Do you think maybe someone hid a treasure down here two hundred years ago?”

  Bronavitch heard the guarded excitement in his partner’s voice. He sighed. “I know what you’re thinking, Kelly, and you may as well forget it. The pirates were already here and if there was a treasure...” He stopped, stared at the huge form that was coming into view around the bend. “I’ve found it,” he said simply.

  The last car of the old subway train appeared heavily rusted but otherwise in good shape. All the windows were intact, although layered over by grime. The wheel trucks were underwater, giving the illusion that the transit cars were floating on the surface of the opaque liquid. He moved alongside the train and examined the now-familiar hole cut through the age-scarred metal. His light reflected off something shiny inside.

  He waited until Kelly came sp
lashing around the bend before grasping the edge of the hole and hoisting himself up into the train.

  His spot illuminated a glittering white cavern. Ice. The whole interior of the car was covered with it. He checked the temperature readout on the panel within his helmet.

  “Jesus, it’s almost ninety below in here!”

  A huge silent generator took up the rear half of the eighty-foot car. An open airlock led toward the front of the train. Icicle-coated conduits trailed along the ceiling, connecting the generator to a rack of glazed monitors beside the airlock. Kelly hopped in behind him and whistled softly.

  “A stasis operation.”

  Bronavitch nodded. He felt relieved now that they knew what they were dealing with, although he still wanted to be away from this place as quickly as possible.

  They pushed on through to the next car—the stasis chamber itself. The room was even colder than the generator car, although the Costeaus must have shut off the power hours ago. Thin milky stalactites hung from the ceiling. Hard icy patches obscured portions of the metallic floor. Until today, this chamber had probably been a sealed freezer for over two hundred years. Now the inexorable process of temperature equalization had begun. The ice was melting. If any stasis-frozen humans had remained, they would be well on their way to a more permanent sleep.

  The occupants of this freezer were gone, however. The pirates had found what they were looking for.

  “There were two of them,” Kelly said quietly. The pair of large plastic cradles in the center of the car was empty, the pale ivory cocoons missing. The genetically manufactured tissues that surrounded the sleepers would keep their metabolism stable for at least thirty hours—long enough for the Costeaus to get them to a Wake-up facility up in the Colonies.

  Bronavitch felt even more disturbed than he had earlier. There were two of them. Jesus! Why couldn’t there have been one ... or three ... or twenty-six?

  Kelly walked past the cradles to the other end of the stasis chamber. He used his glove to wipe the frost from a pair of glass gauges.