The Holocaust Piano
by Phaedra7veils
Chapter 9: Showdown on Von
Part 2
Any amusements the Von Ministry planned that evening paled next to the guests' indifference to what was happening on Amoi. Dozens of the most alluring, scantily clad Pets glittered with gems, reclined on piles of fat, silken cushions, ate cakes and exotic treats dipped in honey and spices, and sipped wines and other liqueurs laced with aphrodisiacs. From the moans and keening noises rising from some piles of cushions, a few of them had commenced with their after-dinner duties. Katze didn't want to imagine what the strange contraption on a platform in the corner was used for, the one which resembled a Catharine's-wheel.
"Relax," Paviter leaned over and muttered, "I seriously doubt this lot is going to allow actual mutilation."
He shuddered. With this tier of Elite, one could never know for sure. As with Iason, boredom had become so acute, it became a game for some of them to test limits. Irritated by the accuracy with which the brat had read his fears, Katze swatted at the space next to his ear as though shooing away a fly. Nowhere in the crowd could he detect dread, trepidation or even slight reserve. Festivities carried on as though as though Jupiter's fall meant nothing, as though the end of Amoi wasn't imminent. It seemed unnatural. Eerie.
Something had changed for him during the interlude of freedom huddled in his clammy basement apartment. Perhaps it was the influence of Iason's and Riki's deaths, chipping away at his hardness. Or perhaps it was the unusual nature of his new Blondie master himself, compared to these ostentatious and decadent displays, with his Eos apartment stripped of useless lackeys and Pets.
Other Pets, Katze corrected himself, rationalizing that at least his services to Raoul weren't entirely sexual. Had it been Iason who controlled his pet-ring — Iason before he was changed by Riki — he would've been forced to participate.
The worst thing was the fawning.
When a young man with unusually large eyes and fine skin reached over and pawed at his knee, he almost recoiled in disgust. This was something Pets did at the behest of senior Elite to curry favours, to signal their master's desire for alliances.
Katze was accustomed to being treated with contempt at worst, ignored at best. He preferred it to this newfound ardour, which felt at once both gluey and slimy. He struggled with the temptation to lash out and cause real pain.
Instead, since he knew the Pet's master was closely watching his reaction, he took a tactical approach, disengaging the hand from his knee and ruffling the boy's hair like one would pat the head of a lap-dog. It sent the message that, although he was open to new associations, he wasn't free to look into it further at that time. Katze was relieved that his training as Furniture gave him some measure of self control. Sympathy for Iason and Raoul flashed through him, for having had to deal with this all the time. All the time.
Raoul was shaping up, he realized, not to be the sort of man who consumed pleasure in passive glut. Rather, the things which gratified him required time, effort and discipline, education and a refinement more subtle than money alone. Although Katze clearly recalled a time when Raoul had seemed obsessed with Pet-cultivation, back when he would chide Iason for his interest in Riki, he suspected the attraction had more to do with the intricate double-helixes which coiled in their cells, than the real purposes for which they were bred.
Katze still railed — inwardly, silently — at the arrogant disregard with which Raoul had pre-empted his freedom. He still despised his sense of entitlement and casual acceptance of privilege. He still feared the man's awesome physical strength, grace and speed, the singularity of his focus and will, the sheer power which he could, and frequently did, dispatch against those who would thwart him. But in this one, outstanding thing, his admiration for the Blondie had grown.
By contrast, his own role in perpetuating the trade in Pets grew all that much clearer. The cold fact remained that Tanagura's one and only commodity was its Pets, and he was every bit as guilty of it as anyone else within that room. This inner contradiction was enough, without Raoul's words of warning, to keep him from being distracted.
Katze scanned the room for unusual activity. One Pet in particular grabbed his attention, not for the splendour of her beauty which was considerable, but for the slyness with which her eyes narrowed when she caught his. Instantly, he honed in. Sure enough, her collar marked her as Academy-trained and part of Hazall's harem, secretly kept in Apatia in direct contravention of his own Federation's constitution. The harem had been started with Iason's gift of the decidedly untrained Kyrie, essentially a bribe through which the Tanaguran Syndicate had weaseled exemptions from the Federation's strict antislavery codes. She leaned back on her cushions, spread her knees wide and lifted a shapely leg into the air like a flagpole.
With so many other more attractive and senior Elite scattered throughout the room, this attempt at seduction was almost too blatent. Katze saw it as a personal confirmation that his hunches had been correct about the Federation's involvement in Amoi's troubles. That was the extent of his interest in her.
Dismissing her was a mistake, as it turned out. He only just caught the warning which flickered across Paviter's face and whirled around to find her advancing upon him.
She reached out to stroke his hair and babbled in an itty-bitty baby-voice that set his teeth on edge, "Ooh, so much pretty-pretty!"
He stared, appalled, as a clump of the shimmering red stuff came out in her hands.
"Watch what you're doing!" Katze snapped, pre-empting her shrieks. Heart thumping in panic, he furiously snatched the loose strands out of her fist.
Raoul had already risen to his feet, attuned to the situation by the transmitter concealed in Katze's pet-ring. The commotion was attracting more attention than Katze could bear. Every eye in the room was turning toward this scene. His face blazed.
"What seems to be the problem?" Florien Von waved his Furniture aside and stepped forward.
Katze opened his mouth to speak, but found words weren't forthcoming. Florien's eyes focused on his fisted hand with the hairs still clutched in it. It looked self-evident, even if it wasn't.
Schooled as he was in Blondie inscrutability, Florien's eyes still flickered with surprise. So much hair would've taken some strength and caused considerable pain if yanked straight out of the scalp. No one else besides Katze knew that the hair had somehow detached itself before the Pet laid her hands on it. Even if the Elite had higher pain tolerance, Katze came across as an accomplished stoic.
"Has my Tsamyra caused a problem?" Hazall stepped forward. On cue, his Tsamyra dropped to her hands and knees and groveled. The Federation envoy's eyes darted between her and the handful of hair and, like everyone else, he leapt to the wrong conclusion.
"I apologize for this shocking display," said Hazall. The tilt to his eyebrow, however, spelled insincerity. Katze smelled opportunism. If not this precise event, something like it had been schemed.
Katze gave a stiff little bow. He didn't intend to look uptight for the danger of it being mistaken as having received offense, which Hazall might take it out on the girl later. Mostly, he feared that the rest of his hair would fall out at any sudden movements.
"Please, my apologies cannot mitigate my Pet's shameful behaviour," Hazall carried on pompously, "Won't you allow me to make a gift of her to you, so that you may dispose of her as you will?"
Murmurs of wonder and approval filled the air. An Academy-trained Pet, in exchange for a few strands of Elite hair, a rare human female free for him to use however he wished, even to kill, Hazall looked both magnaminous and penitent and Katze was thoroughly trapped. Refuse the gift and he would come across as a petulant child. Accept her and Hazall would plant his spy in Raoul's company. Nor did he dare seek out Raoul's or Florien's eyes since their silly tiers and protocols forbade this during State functions. Everyone in the room seemed to hold their breaths.
Finally, the right words emerged, "You are too generous, sir. I am overwhelmed, but to accept her as a personal gift would be the greatest impropriety."
Hazall made dismissive sounds and the room was poised to respond in kind, but Katze continued, "Therefore, if the State approves, I will accept the Federation's amends for the State harem."
Hazall looked thunderstruck. This was not the conclusion he had foreseen or desired, but it was too late to backpedal and the protocol was impeccable.
Florien Von threw his head back and let out a gust of laughter. "Well said, Sir Katze. Such a beautiful addition to our stable will be made most welcome and, by your quick thinking, a scandal has been averted. On behalf of Amoi and the Tanaguran Syndicate, we thank you, Mr. Hazall, for the Federation's generous and humble amends. Come, let's raise a toast to all such mishaps settled so amiably."
With attention effectively deflected, Katze took a sidelong peek at Raoul. The Blondie seemed to be expecting this. "Explain."
"My disguise is disintegrating," he complied quietly. "I can feel my scar returning, along with — other changes. It appears that my healing and physical changes were all Psychetech illusions."
"There's no point in idle speculation. We dare not expose you further. Paviter will escort you back to the spaceship. Wait for me there." A chilling undercurrent ran through Raoul's voice, as though this was Katze's fault, his weakness.
Then Katze remembered. Without the pianoforte's healing, without a false Elite identity, he was nothing more to Raoul than failed Furniture, a castrated and scarred Mongrel. As he left the Ministerial Palace in Paviter's company, his throat and chest felt horribly constricted.
The first moments free from the consulate were spent coughing. Even at a safe distance from the building, waves of heat scorched the threesome.
"You're bleeding," Hilarion mentioned to the young woman he had hauled into the consulate garden, a garden that looked fresh, exotic and beautiful in spite of years of neglect due to the genetic enhancements of its plants, all produced in vast laboratories under Herbay. No one within sight of the building, now engulfed in flames, could've missed their dramatic exit. The pyre turned the twilight into midday for an entire city block in every direction. They were well-concealed, however, behind screens of trailing vines and the shadows of leaves.
"Really?" Hahna swept a cursory glance across her attire, now nearly as bloody and disheveled as theirs. "How can you tell?"
He reached over and plucked a shard of shattered plastic and metal from her cheek. Droplets of blood continued to well within the gouge and streak down her cheek. The wound would leave a scar. Even so, she was lucky, considering how close it came to piercing her eye. "My acquaintance was protected by a pillar and my robes are bullet-proofed, so we're fine. Can you please check to see if you have any further damages? If you're in shock, you may not feel it."
Her expression was rueful and sober, as she ran her hands over the stolen uniform. "Bruised and a little battered, I guess. Nothing serious. Looks like I'm dressed to be mostly puncture-proof, but there's no way the building should've gone up like that, not with that sort of weapon."
"Booby-trapped," Merc agreed.
"Bastards!" Her hands clenched into tight fists. "I lost some good men in there."
"You never expected this when you broke into the place?" Merc stuck a cigarillo between his teeth, slapped his pockets for a lighter and, coming up empty, quietly swore. "Seems to me that's the first thing to look for when commandeering a foreign government's property, abandoned or not."
"I will keep that in mind if I ever plot another secret takeover," she grumbled.
Hilarion leaned back against the trunk of a tree and ran his fingers through his hair, "I presume that was the end of our computer interface component."
"Why would you presume that?" she replied, reaching into Merc's pocket and, before he could protest, extracting another cigarillo. She lit it with the lighter she carried, exchanging it for the one he hadn't yet taken out of his mouth, lit that one and proceded to drag on it.
"That tastes better," she exhaled slowly. "Thanks for saving my life."
"Well, that's mutual, but don't thank me yet," Hilarion replied. "We have about three minutes before Federation security forces swarm all over us."
"I thought the Von moon was Syndicate," her eyes narrowed. "That's the only reason I agreed to meet you."
"Don't be disingenuous. Technically, the Syndicate and the Federation are still allies. I need to figure out how to get us away from here, looking the way we do, without attracting attention."
"That shouldn't be a problem," she said. "Remember our limo? Stuck in the traffic jam caused by your leader's motorcade?"
"What about it?"
"Take a look," she motioned at the garage. "It's just pulling in now."
"That's better," Paviter gave Katze a critical once-over after he finished showering, combing and picking away the long, shedding hairs. "You don't look like a moulting scarlet bird anymore. It hasn't exactly left you bald. I guess you haven't lost anything that didn't belong to you in the first place, hey?"
Katze whirled on him, choked.
"What do you know? For the second time round, I've lost–" he inhaled deeply, "I've lost something which never should've been taken in the first place. And if you think just because it's the second time, it's any easier, you've got a thing or two coming."
It took awhile before realization dawned across Paviter's face. "Aw, shit! I'm sorry, man. I didn't mean... I wasn't thinking. I guess that's the price we chose to pay for leaving Ceres, hunh?"
Katze had to concentrate not to hit him. "You had a choice?"
Paviter thought about it a moment. "No, I guess not. Serve the Blondies, or wind up crushed into an early grave, not really a choice, is it? Damn! — And top of that, Lord Mink sure laid his track across your face, didn't he? You sure were pretty while it lasted, prettier than the Blondies, even — most of them. And that's saying some–"
"Do you have anything I can wear?" Katze cut him off. "There doesn't seem any point to prancing around in these fancy –" he lifted the hem of his robe as though about to drop into a curtsey "– frocks anymore."
Paviter's spare pilot uniform hung loose around Katze's torso, arms and buttocks, but he felt more at ease in it than the formal Elite costume, no matter how smoothly or voluptuously the fine cloths had slid across his skin. With mirrored glasses over his eyes, he no longer feared being recognized by the wrong people.
He was surprised to find Paviter absorbed in some activity going on beyond the windows of their craft.
"Do those three look familiar to you?" The Car asked him.
Three bloodied ghouls toed their way across the scaffolds and catwalks which laced together the decks at the Von Interplanetary Port of Entry. He watched as they dodged haloes around walkway lamps and melted into shadows, plentiful as the twin moons spun through the night cycle of Amoi. The sky glittered with stars.
"Merc — and –" he couldn't believe his eyes.
"Raoul's friend, the antique dealer."
"Hilarion Fyss."
"Nothing conspicuous about the way they're sauntering around, is there?" Paviter craned his neck to catch sight of them slipping around another craft. "Considering what they've been through, you'd think an Elite Kalga would at least spring for laundry service."
"Idiot!" The ex-Furniture reached over and smacked his shoulder. "That's fresh kill."
"Yeah, I know, and it's pissing me off how you take everything I say so literally. Why is that?"
"Gee, I dunno. Maybe it's because the next time you yell something like 'Watch out, he's gonna shoot!' I don't want to have to process whether you're just jacking off or not."
"Touché!" he sulked for a minute before asking, "Reckon they need our help?"
"I have no idea. Who's the third? — The Novaterran."
Paviter shrugged.
"Best hold back then, but keep an eye on them."
A strange faraway look came over the Car's face, which took awhile before Katze recognized as a message coming in over his wire. It seemed that Raoul had taken an interest.
"The Novaterran Consulate came under attack tonight. It was blown up a short while ago. What do you suppose the odds are our friends were involved?" Paviter relayed to Katze and, in turn, described the strange sight they had just witnessed to Raoul. There was a brief consultation, mostly objections voiced over the agents Florien assigned to Raoul's safe conduct back to the Spaceport. Paviter was never satisfied unless he was the one to guard Raoul's back.
"It looks like somebody's still trying really, really hard to kill off your boys," the Car said after Raoul signed off. He took out a set of freshly charged pistols. "There's a good chance they were tailed here. I'm to cover them. Discreetly, if I can."
"Right," Katze said, reaching for one of the guns.
Paviter caught his wrist. "Not you."
One look at his face said that there would be no persuasion.
"Raoul?" Katze called.
"You aren't a soldier," the Pet-Ring crackled to life.
"Iason had me tracking Bison."
"Cut-throats from the ghetto, not trained assassins."
"I directed the black market–"
"From the shadows, Katze."
Katze rolled his eyes. "Yeah? Well, speaking of shadows, Merc's memory was damaged, remember? And there's a good chance he won't recognize Paviter. And if he thinks Paviter's another enemy, there's no way he won't shoot to kill him. Same goes for your friend, Hilarion: do you honestly think if he catches your Car tailing him, he will remember who he really is? Whereas I can pretty much guarantee they will remember me."
There was a moment of quiet. The strange look crossed Paviter's face again. He grunted an affirmative, then handed over the set of pistols to Katze. The cupboard was unlocked and another set removed for his use.
"Let's go," Paviter's face was set in hard, grim lines.
It never occurred to Katze to wonder why Raoul was so anxious to keep him safe.
The black cube was small enough to grasp in one hand, but when Hahna set it on the floor and squeezed it between her fingers, it triggered a release mechanism which caused it to expand as though unfolding in all directions. Only when it came close to filling most of the cabin did the box stop growing, defined not by anything so solid as material walls, but by an impenetrable darkness. The blackness made Merc think of the horizon of the ocean on nights when the sky was completely clouded over. It seemed to absorb light. He hadn't experienced darkness so intense since the misadventure that once took him to the planet of Tenebrios.
The box thrummed for a few moments and a bizarre silence fell over the room, as though all the soundwaves were being vacuumed into the box. There were other effects as well, a strange hypnotic sucking feeling at the air around the body as though coaxing it to leap into the blackness.
"Damn, it's like the thing's trying to eat me alive," he said to no one in particular. And no one heard him. He could scarcely pick up the sound of his own voice. The box had effectively rendered him mute. Panicked, his eyes shot over to his companions and he found it somewhat gratifying to catch the same disconcerted expression mirrored in Hilarion's face. The Admiral simply looked smug.
After letting them experience these unnerving sensations for a little while longer, she reached over, set the palm of her right hand against the boundary of one of the black sides, as though it was solid, and gave it a little push. It started to fold in upon itself in a polar reflection of its expansion process, until it returned to a state of solidity small enough to be carried in one hand.
"Wasn't that pleasant? If either one of you had tried to jump in while that thing was open," she explained, holding the device up for closer inspection, "it would have repelled you like an electrical field."
The effects of the sound distortion still reverberated through the cabin. Her voice sounded like it came from deep inside a water pipe. "How does it work?" Hilarion asked.
"You need to connect it to the pianoforte, somehow. Exactly how, I have no idea. I suspect that it's just a matter of setting the box on top of the stool and pressing the release mechanism and they merge."
"I see, and then what?"
"Can't remember," she shrugged. "At one time I knew, but I had a run-in with a priestess — I remember that much. After that, most of my brains went bye-bye."
The two men gaped.
"What can I say, they're demons. Cross them and you will be lucky to make it out with your mind and soul intact, let alone your life."
"Shit!" was the extent of Merc's contribution.
"I'm one of the lucky ones, frankly," she said. "I must've gotten away before she could scramble me up properly because, aside from not remembering much of anything that happened to me before I turned seventeen, I still manage well enough."
After this extraordinary announcement, the men kept staring at her.
She finally broke the silence with a clap and by rubbing her hands together, "So, what happens now?"
"The usual?" Hilarion replied, "You monitor your credit account and, once the transaction clears, we take the component and go our merry way."
"Sorry, love, not this time. For one thing, Amoian credits are worthless. Nothing backing them."
Hilarion didn't even blink, "Federation credits then? Or would you prefer Novaterran?"
"Novaterran?" She looked impressed. "Gosh, if I was really smart, I could use this opportunity to bankrupt you. The salvation of an entire planet for your fortune? Anybody else would consider that a bargain. No matter how long we've been enjoying this sweet little trading partnership — how long has it been? Half a dozen years at least, wouldn't you say? — don't you dare tell me you wouldn't do the same thing in my place, you Syndicate wolf."
He conceded this fact with a small bow and Merc had to grudgingly admit that he managed to make it graceful under the circumstances.
"Sadly, it won't work. Not even your considerable fortune — and, yes, I have a pretty good idea what it is, Fyss, you sly little Sapphire, amassing all those offworld credits right under the nose of nasty Mommy Jupiter — not even that is worth what I'm going to have to do."
"Kindly get to the point." There were limits to Hilarion's patience.
She tossed him the box. He was so surprised he almost let it bounce off him to the floor. His Elite reflexes didn't kick in until the last instant when his hand whipped out so fast, it looked like a blur.
"Go ahead," she said. "Take it!"
For the second time in five minutes, she managed to render them speechless. Hilarion's eyes softened. "Thank you."
He and Merc began to leave.
"Hang on, gentlemen," she suddenly developed an unnatural interest in her fingernails.
They turned.
"Aren't you going to try it out? See if it still works?"
Hilarion frowned. He turned his attention back to the cube, trying to open it. Faster and faster, he turned it in every direction between his hands, pressing each side between his fingers, to no avail. Merc started to hop between his feet at this ineffectuality, anxious to give the cube a try. The smuggler had no more success when it was handed over.
"So, what's the secret?" The Sapphire asked with a snort.
"Me." Admiral Hahna replied.
"You, because you are — what? A woman? Tenebrian technology requires someone of the female gender to work properly?"
"No, but good guessing! Me, because I'm me."
"Why would that–? That makes no sense. Did you imprint it with an access code? Can't open it without the right secret handshake?"
"No, nothing like that, but you're just full of good guessings, Mr. Suspicious. Just me, and just because I'm me. I've had other people try. None of my crew could. After they came up blank, I tried it out with others, you know, the usual... hostages, bad dates, bartenders on obscure satellite colonies, portaloo manufacturers... nothing. Now, why is that, do you suppose?"
"I have no idea," Hilarion was returning to the end of his patience again, "but it sounds like you do."
"Oh, now you're being lazy! Where's that vaunted Elite intellect? Fortunately for you, I have a few good guessings of my own. A woman with no memories of her past seems to be the only one in the Outworld system, apart from the Priestesses, who knows how to open up one of the most powerful Tenebrian weapons that exists. Come on! Do I have to really spell it out for you?"
Hilarion raised his gun, "Priestess."
"Hey!" She lifted her hands. "Shoot an unarmed woman, would you? Damned brute! I already told you I have no memories."
"Why should I show you mercy?"
"Because it looks I'm probably the only one in the entire galaxy willing and able to help save your sorry ass. Not that you're making it sound like a particularly good idea."
"So you say."
"Yeah, so I say. You got a better plan?"
Hilarion lowered his gun.
"Smart boy."
"So what is it you really want then?"
"Dear me, yes, let's cut to the chase. I've been given to understand that the Syndicate has some interesting mind-altering technology of its own. Am I right?"
"You may be," Hilarion nodded.
"I had better be, because what I want is my memories back. All of them. No matter how awful. I want to know exactly what happened to me and why. I want to know who did this to me, names, faces, times, places, and — most of all — I want payback. Think you can manage?"
"I can't," the Sapphire replied. "I'm not a biotechnician."
Her face fell.
"But I know someone who is."
Just as quickly, her face brightened.
"As a matter of fact, he's right here."
"Here?" She swiveled as though expecting someone to step out of the shadows.
"On Von," he corrected himself. "It just so happens–"
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of an explosion, loud and close enough to cause the spaceship to rock within its stabilizers. A flare of orange against the night sky indicated the location of the blast in one of the first-class docking berths.
"Again!" Merc cried. "What the hell?"
"They're still tracking us?"
"Not us. Not this time," The Admiral rallied. "Dare we risk taking a closer look?"
"Look, there's someone running toward it."
They squinted at a tall man in a pilot's uniform tearing across the catwalk. Before he climbed up the scaffolds to the next level, he turned and cast a look in the glance toward their spaceship. In that instant, just for a second, his unmistakable silhouette jutted out clear against the flames.
Merc and Hilarion gave a simultaneous shout of recognition. "Katze!"
Within seconds, their business with the Admiral was forgotten. Guns were pulled out and they chased after their friend to lend him assistance.
Even above the roaring flames, they could hear Katze screaming a name at the top of his lungs that sent chills down their spines. "Raoul! Goddammit, Raoul!"
"No, it can't be!" Hilarion had frozen. Merc stopped in his tracks long enough to see horror transfigure the Sapphire's face. He reached over and yanked on his wrist, propelling the bigger man after him. They continued to run toward Katze and the flames, halting only long enough to clamber up scaffolds.
Although the docking area had appeared empty before the explosion, as they drew nearer to the first-class levels, they came across groups of people gathering to watch the fire. It was getting difficult to maneuver around some of these clusters of gawking strangers, most of whom must've poured out of the neighbouring spacecraft and starships.
They did not often come across people moving away from the fire, even if, of the two directions, it was probably the smartest, burning fuel being an unstable, volatile thing. Who could say if or when another ship would explode set off by the intensity of heat? Nevertheless, as Hilarion got to the top of the scaffold, he met with someone who was most anxious to make his way down.
"Hold on a second," he informed the man. "My friend has almost finished climbing up."
Then he reached over and gave Merc a hand. As Merc's feet hit the docking level floor, he came face to face with the other man.
"You!" He cried. Hilarion turned, bemused, to see shock, then hatred flare across Merc's face.
"Have we met?" The strange man asked, a trace of superciliousness tainting his voice.
In answer, Merc lifted his gun and blasted a hole through the man's chest. "SERT-4 ring any bells, bastard?"
Surprise, then understanding flickered across the man's face just before his pupils dilated and he toppled over onto the lower deck. There he lay unmoving.
"What have you done?" Hilarion grabbed his arm. "What were you thinking?"
"Holy freaking mother of the entire cosmos, Merc!" A familiar voice called from below. "You've just killed the Federation envoy."
The two men peered over the railing. Admiral Hahna's sweet face stared up at them from the darkness, filled with distress. She was kneeling by the head of the dead man and gently lifted his head into her arms, into the light where they could see it. "You've just killed Hazall."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd which now drew in a wide circle around Merc and Hilarion. The scarred smuggler glared back defiantly, but he dropped his gun.
"You know what they're thinking, don't you?" Hilarion hissed at him. "They think you're the one who blew up the First Blondie's ship. We're all going to be implicated in this."
Merc shot him a look of disbelief, "Why the hell would they think that?"
"Idiot!" Hilarion looked ready to hit him. "Ever hear the expression 'smoking gun'?"
"The man slaughtered an entire mining colony and left me there to die."
"Do you have any proof, Mongrel?"
"I wasn't thinking. I just saw his complacent face and reacted. Tell me you would've done it differently, you great spoiled Elite snob!"
Hilarion tangled his fingers in his hair and closed his eyes.
Merc swallowed hard. "I got it. We're in deep shit."
Another murmur wove through the crowd. It parted at the far end of the dock to let some newcomers through. Merc swung his head back to take what he was sure was a last long look at the stars. Doubtless, Onyx security personnel were already upon them, ready to make arrests. He tried to find some regret for having shot his foe in cold blood, but felt nothing except a curious sense of relief.
The Holocaust Piano – chapter 9.1 << >> The Holocaust Piano – chapter 10