“Ah. What would you do if people wouldn’t give you a chance?” Jasim lowered his hands. “Wouldn’t take the time to get to know you well?”
Leonidas opened his mouth, but their pilot walked in then, carrying two long knitting needles and what looked like most of a scarf dangling from them, the end draped over her shoulder.
“We’re not far from Dustor,” she said. “Who’s paying the docking fee for this excursion?”
“I am,” Jasim said before Leonidas could offer.
He hustled past the woman—Maddy, Leonidas recalled—and up the corridor. Had he not truly wanted an answer to his question? Or maybe he’d known there wasn’t a good answer. Plenty of people had judged Leonidas prematurely by his reputation or simply by the way he looked. Everyone got that though. Not just cyborgs. And of all the people in the system, surely cyborgs could take care of themselves if they were mistreated by someone. Still, he admitted that enhanced body parts didn’t do anything to take away the sting of perceived slights.
“You a cyborg too?” Maddy, still in the compartment, asked, looking him up and down.
“Yes.” Leonidas did not know what to make of the woman, but would attempt to keep from offending her, since she seemed to be a direct conduit to Jasim’s employer.
“You ever do repo work? My son-in-law’s always looking to hire good men. He might want you to dye that hair to look younger and more intimidating, but you’ve probably considered that anyway.”
Leonidas lifted his eyebrows. “Have you considered dyeing yours?”
“Nah, not recently. I did follicle mods back when I first started graying, but they made my scalp itch. Besides—” she waved a knitting needle at her head, “—sometimes it pays to have people underestimate you.”
“Perhaps I subscribe to the same school of thought.”
She prodded one of his biceps with her needle. “I’m thinking not.”
Leonidas was about to point out that she would be needed at the helm soon if they were approaching Dustor, but she spoke again.
“Do you want a hat?”
“What?”
“I’m almost done with Jasim’s scarf, and I have all that new yarn.” Maddy looked expectantly at him.
A few days ago, she hadn’t wanted him on her ship, and he hadn’t gone out of his way to speak to her since then, preferring to keep to his cabin and do his research. Maybe she had decided he was worth talking to—or knitting for—because she wanted to recruit him for the family business. Or maybe it was because he’d helped Jasim come up with a suitable bribe for her. Leonidas had no idea how that would play out, but he was certain Alisa would find it amusing if he told her about it.
“I make hats of all kinds.” Maddy shrugged. “You can come up and pick your color. Or colors. And let me measure your head. It’s a big one, isn’t it?”
“It’s normal.”
“You cyborgs are anything but normal.” Maddy waved her needle again and headed for the corridor. “Let me know if you want a job in our outfit. And don’t forget to bring your head by for measuring. Preferably when it’s not sweaty.” She kept talking even as she walked out of sight. “Do you like tassels? A few tassels might soften that hard jaw of yours. You wouldn’t want to repo wearing them, but you’re married, right? I’m sure your lady will enjoy the style. A few tassels can make a man look playful and friendly.”
Leonidas scratched his head. Why were pilots always odd?
Chapter 8
Walking out into the hot, dry air of Dustor was like stepping into a sauna. Jasim wore his combat armor, but he hadn’t yet donned the helmet, so he felt the heat. The gazes of hard-eyed, rough people raked over him, men and women walking through the docking area. Maybe he should put on his helmet. None of those people looked like they had a love for cyborgs. What was new?
Jasim checked the blazer rifle he wore across his armored torso in addition to the smaller weapons integrated into the arm pieces of his suit. In a utility belt, he carried a knife and a few tools for thwarting locks and energy windows.
Leonidas stepped through the hatch after him, ducking his head to do so. He, too, wore his armor. Jasim did not comment on the childish stickers adorning it, one on his calf, one on his back, and one on his shoulder.
From what Jasim had seen of the kids, he could easily imagine them enjoying dressing Dad up. For some reason, the thought made him feel wistful. He’d never considered the idea of children of his own, figuring teaching would be the closest he could get, but maybe he should ask Leonidas for the name of that doctor he mentioned. He wished he hadn’t chickened out halfway through asking his other questions. He’d been hoping that Leonidas had found a way around his reputation as a super soldier and a killer to find a job that didn’t involve killing or roughing people up, but if he’d originally been hired as a security officer, then he hadn’t. People had seen him the same way they saw Jasim. Even the woman who had become his wife had in the beginning, it seemed. Still, Leonidas appeared to be well connected, a rare thing for a cyborg in the aftermath of the empire’s fall. Jasim wouldn’t mind asking him for help or maybe a reference. But that would be presumptuous. Jasim didn’t think Leonidas liked him or respected him. Why would he want to vouch for Jasim in any way? He was here to help out the old unit, not Jasim. Earning his respect seemed an insurmountable obstacle.
“I’m ready,” Leonidas said, perhaps wondering why Jasim was standing in the walkway without moving.
“Me too.” Jasim headed away from the ship.
Their plan was to visit their old colleague Corporal Banding before heading to the address McCall had given them, but that colleague hadn’t answered Leonidas’s message, so they didn’t know what they would find. His pawnshop was reputedly still open, so he hadn’t locked up and gone off on a trip or vacation. Jasim hoped they weren’t heading into the city to find another body. The killer wouldn’t skip to B-surnames before he’d finished the A’s, would he?
“I see Dustor is as hospitable as ever,” Leonidas said, his gaze scanning the docks and the buildings beyond, many of the old walls adorned with graffiti. People in ragged clothing sat or lay in out-of-the-way nooks along the cracked sidewalks. A few made superstitious signs when Leonidas and Jasim walked by in their armor.
“Not much in the system is hospitable to cyborgs anymore.” Jasim eyed Leonidas. “Do you mind if I ask how you came to have Alliance contacts?” Jasim hoped he wasn’t prying, but if his contacts might be useful in their investigation, it was worth asking about. “People don’t seem that eager to bother you when they figure out who you are.”
“Except for the cyborg killer? He and his drones don’t seem to mind bothering me.” Leonidas’s lips thinned. “He better not have bothered my family.”
Jasim agreed with the sentiment. He had no family of his own left, but he could see why Leonidas would value what he had.
“I meant other people,” Jasim said. “Like security androids on space stations.”
“Our ship’s chef catered Senator Hawk’s wedding a few years ago.”
“That old freighter has a chef?” Jasim asked, almost as surprised by that as by the loose implication that Leonidas might have been at that Alliance senator’s wedding. Of all the people who had reasons to hate cyborgs, former Alliance military officers were at the top of the list, and Jasim recalled that Senator Hawk had been Admiral Hawk, one of their star pilots, before retiring into politics.
“He started out as a security officer too,” Leonidas said, his tone dry. It wasn’t all that inviting so Jasim didn’t ask more. Knowing a senator on the other side of the system probably wouldn’t be of much use here on Dustor.
“You know which way to go, sir?” Jasim asked. They had reached the end of the docks, and an intersection offered several possible routes into the city.
“The pawnshop is this way.” Leonidas pointed in one direction, but looked back toward the docks before heading that way. “Will your pilot be all right without a guard?”
“She’ll keep the
hatch shut. I doubt anyone will harass her.” Jasim waved at the side of the ship where The Pulverizer’s name and double-axes logo stretched along the hull. “He’s fairly well-known on planets like this. Besides, she has numerous weapons if someone does try to get in.”
“Such as knitting needles?”
“A destroyer, too, and there’s a weapons locker with rifles in it. She knows how to use them.”
“She offered to knit me a hat,” Leonidas said as they headed into the city.
The smells of body odor, grease, and urine wafting out of alleys made Jasim think that he should don his helmet, if only to take advantage of the filtration system.
“She’s knitted countless hats, sweaters, and socks for her dozen-odd grandchildren,” he said. “I read between the lines that she may have been forbidden to send more. I know The Pulverizer has rejected offers for her to outfit his office staff. I heard that exchange. So she knits things for almost everyone she comes across now.”
“Does she offer everyone tassels?”
“Uh, I don’t think so. You must be special, sir.” Jasim considered his somewhat craggy features and strong, hard jaw. “Or maybe you just have a tassel face.”
“Undoubtedly.”
They walked in silence, waving away robocabs that slowed down, offering to take them wherever they wished for an exorbitant price. The graffiti and blazer scorch marks on the sides of the vehicles did not inspire notions of safety and reliability. Human hustlers replaced robot ones when Jasim and Leonidas turned down an alley, the cinderblock walls windowless, and only intermittent doors with signs hanging on them suggesting that goods and services could be purchased within. Security guards stood next to a few of the doors.
Leonidas pointed to the end of the alley at a sign for the Banding Pawn Mecca.
Jasim remembered the man they were looking for, Corporal Banding. They had been about the same age, same time in service, and they’d done a few assignments together. Banding had been easygoing and hadn’t said anything the time he had been on C.Q. and caught Jasim smearing the inside of Sergeant Gonzales’s shirt with depilation cream. Of course, Sergeant Gonzales had definitely deserved it. Everyone had laughed the next day, when he was complaining about his bald chest. Jasim didn’t know how successful this pawnshop was, but he felt encouraged that one of their kind had managed to start a business.
There weren’t any guards standing outside of the thick sandstone door. Jasim waved his hand at a sensor, but it did not open. He tried a latch, and it did not budge.
Leonidas tapped a button on a panel to the side of the door.
“Store is not open outside of posted hours,” a mechanical voice said.
“It’s the middle of the day,” Jasim said, confirming that they were within the hours when it should be open.
Leonidas knocked, insomuch as one could on a stone door. It was more of a thumping.
“I’m starting to think we’re not going to find anything good here,” Jasim asked.
“Maybe he broke for lunch,” Leonidas said, but his face was grim.
“Should we force our way in?” Jasim looked up and down the alley, eyeing the handful of security guards near the other shops. There was enough foot traffic that they might not notice if he and Leonidas forced their way in quietly. Or they might not care if they forced their way in. This was Dustor, after all.
Leonidas leaned his armored shoulder against the door. Instead of making a show of ramming it, he simply crouched and pushed. The locking mechanism snapped, and he shoved the door open.
Lights came on inside, and a couple of robots rolled out from behind display cases and racks. Jasim’s first thought was that they were there for security purposes, but they asked in unison, “How may we help you?”
“We’re looking for the owner,” Leonidas said. “Rick Banding.”
“We have blazer rifles, pistols, grenade launchers, all-terrain assault vehicles, fire sprayers, and more,” one robot said. “Would you like to peruse our brochure?”
A holodisplay popped into the air between the robot and Leonidas, showing images and specifications for many of the items it had listed.
“Not exactly a gold and diamonds kind of place, is it?” Jasim asked, looking around at racks of weapons. He spotted a tank in a rear corner and wondered how Banding had gotten it in here. There weren’t any larger doors anywhere, just another person-sized one in the back. “Must be what the local clientele wants. Apparently, nobody on Dustor longs to buy gifts for a wife or girlfriend. Unless the wife or girlfriend has a fondness for assault rifles.”
“We’ll look around,” Leonidas told the robot, shooing it aside.
The no-nonsense colonel, as Jasim remembered him.
He followed as Leonidas strode past display stands and under a large holovid that came on near the ceiling, showing people in desert camouflage out in the Dustor Dune Sea, sniping at the giant worms that lived out there, munching on men who wandered into their domain.
Leonidas passed aisles capped with stacks of dehydrated goods and cases of grenades and knocked on the back door. Once again, there was no answer, and it was locked. Jasim joined him as he broke the lock with a snap and pushed it open.
“Do you think it’s within your right as a man’s former commanding officer to break his doors?” Jasim asked.
Leonidas gave him a flat look, and Jasim shut his mouth. This wasn’t the time for jokes. He reminded himself that he’d hoped to win the colonel’s respect, not irk him.
They passed into a short windowless hall. The lights did not come on this time, nor did any robots roll out to greet them. They checked three doors, which led to an office, a small kitchen, and a bathroom. A netdisc lay atop a desk in the office, a signal flashing: a message waiting. Leonidas’s warning that trouble was brewing and he was coming? Had it arrived too late?
Jasim started to move on to the last room, an open door at the end of the hall, and memories of discovering Adams’s body came to mind. This was too damn similar. Except that in the case of Banding, Jasim actually liked the man. Nobody would miss Adams, but Banding had been a decent fellow.
He paused when he realized Leonidas had stopped at the bathroom. He gazed upward toward something inside.
“What is it, sir?” Jasim asked, coming back to join him—happy to put off looking in what was likely the bedroom.
Leonidas pointed at a high window on the far wall of the bathroom. After a second of study, Jasim realized it wasn’t a window at all, at least not an official one. Above the sanibox, a circle had been cut in the cinderblock, and a beam of sunlight slanted in. A hint of the stink from the streets outside filtered in too. The longer Jasim looked at it, the less likely he deemed it that Banding had installed the unorthodox window. Scorch marks blackened the wall around the opening, and a few chips had fallen away from the stone.
“That hole looks big enough for one of those drones,” Leonidas said.
“Yes, sir,” Jasim said grimly. “Looks like it was done recently. Are we too late?”
“We’ll find out.” Leonidas headed down the hall toward the last door.
By now, Jasim expected to find Banding on the floor or dead in his bed with a tiny pinprick hole in his throat and all his implants cut out. He took a breath, steeling himself before he walked through the doorway. The bed was rumpled, with a blanket on the floor, but there was nobody in the room.
“Huh,” Jasim uttered.
Leonidas stood and spun slowly, looking all around the dim space. It was empty.
“There’s no blood on the floor,” Jasim said. “There was at Adams’s place. From having the implants cut out.” He scratched his jaw. “Did he dodge the drone’s attack? And then flee, figuring it wasn’t safe to come back home?”
“Fleeing isn’t likely for a cyborg,” Leonidas said, giving him a quick frown.
Jasim frowned back. Was that an implication that he thought Jasim would flee in a tough situation? He had never run away during a fight. Just because he’d wa
nted to leave the military… that didn’t mean people couldn’t depend on him in a skirmish.
“If he woke up in time to dodge,” Leonidas said, prodding the blanket on the floor with his armored foot, “why wouldn’t he have simply destroyed the drone? It wasn’t that hard to put it out of commission.”
“I don’t know, sir.”
Jasim headed back to the office, thinking there might be something enlightening on the netdisc. He tapped at it, but it wanted a passcode or retina match, and he had neither.
A couple of minutes later, Leonidas walked in, holding something between his gauntleted thumb and index finger.
“Is that a needle?” Jasim asked.
“With a suspicious substance on the end, yes.”
“Poison.”
“I found the needle on the floor by the bed. We’d have to get it analyzed to know for sure that there’s poison on it, and to see if it’s a match for the substance Yumi examined. I don’t know if we’ll find a lab here where you can drop something off for study.”
“A police lab on a core planet could do it, but I doubt the mafia-owned enforcer outfits here spend much time bothering with forensic studies.”
“Doubtful,” Leonidas said, but he walked into the kitchen and found a small container to seal it in. “Unless this simply fell out, it looks like those drones can fire their needles.” He touched the side of his neck, perhaps remembering the battle on the station and thinking he had been closer to becoming a pincushion than he’d realized.
“I didn’t see a needle left behind when I found Adams. Just a tiny hole in his neck.”
“Maybe someone came and took it out to remove the evidence. Or maybe they’re not actually supposed to be launched, just stabbed and withdrawn.”
“I don’t know, but I’m seeing a good case for starting to sleep in our combat armor.”
Leonidas nodded. “That might not be a bad warning to send out to everyone. I’ve slept in mine before.”
“Because enemies were flinging poisonous darts at you?”
“Because it lets me lock myself down so I don’t lash out in my sleep.” Leonidas’s lips twisted wryly, but there wasn’t any humor in his eyes.