Текст книги "Natural Selection"

"Yes, sir. I'll do a good job, sir."

Crippen angrily waved him away. "Then get to it, man."

Karl Kole nodded and made his way into the warehouse. He headed further back than he might normally, but the rest of the staff had become used to his idle explorations of the warehouse. Besides, everyone was busy trying to turn out a hundred centerpieces for the Frederick Steiner Memorial Library banquet. If anyone had actually had the time to notice him, they would have ignored him.

When he got way to the back, where old goods and broken pots were shoved, the assassin knelt down. He took a careful look around the area and decided no one had disturbed it. Moving aside an old advertising sign, he pulled out a box with four rubber-sealed ceramic flower pots. Carrying them as if they were no more important than any others in the building, the assassin became Karl again and went directly to his workbench.

Melissa Steiner-Davion's security people were very good. From the moment he'd decided to take the job of killing her, he'd begun to study films of her. Her bodyguards insulated her so well from people that only a madman could ever get close enough to kill her. Those opportunities only occurred when Melissa plunged into crowds to greet her subjects, but such forays were rare and random. Shooting her from pointblank range would be a way to kill her, but it was also a way to get caught, so he had rejected it instantly.

A long-range sniper-shot might have worked, but, again, Melissa's security people made that difficult. They covered the high points around any public appearance she was to make. Her routes of travel were never publicized beforehand. And if there was any rumor about where she would be and how she would arrive, her security changed the plans at the last minute. There was no way to count on a window of opportunity to shoot her.

The Archon's security forces knew that the one thing that could kill her was predictability. If she developed any sort of routine, she could be assassinated. The only events they allowed her to commit to in advance were those where she would be surrounded by a low-risk audience in a venue they could control.

The dedication banquet was such an event. All the people invited were royalty—of blood, the arts, or industry—and all could be checked out well in advance. Everyone would be screened for weapons at the door and the room itself would be swept for explosives and lurking murderers several times before the banquet took place.

At first, in studying Melissa, the assassin almost thought the job called for a suicide attacker, but he was not one of those and did not like working with that kind of fanatic. He saw no pattern in how she traveled, what she ate, or where she spent her time. She looked as impossible to kill as rumors about an impending Clan assault on Tharkad.

Then, in watching a documentary about her life, he found the key. He began to make notes, double-checking sources and doing research. All he learned confirmed the one weakness in her defenses. It gave him the one weapon to use against her. It gave him mycosia pseudoflora.

When Melissa Steiner married Hanse Davion in 3028, the Prince of the Federated Suns had paid vast sums to supply true mycosiablossoms for the bridesmaids' bouquets. The green flowers grew successfully on only one world, Andalusia, and blossomed only once a year. Hanse Davion had the flowers harvested and conveyed up to a string of JumpShips to carry them to Terra in time for the ceremony.

That romantic gesture created a demand for mycosiathe like of which had never been seen in the annals of mercantilism. Hundreds of scientists began to work on breeding a version of the plant that would flower more often, in different colors, and on worlds other than Andalusia. This proved difficult, but the race was won by the New Avalon Institute of Science in 3038. Mycosia pseudofloraentered the commercial market two years later and thereafter became Melissa's trademark flower.

If she wore a corsage, it had at least one mycosia pseudoflorablossom in it. For important affairs, like the dedication banquet, nothing less than several flowering plants would do.

The assassin aped Karl's work style as he set each pot out on the-workbench. He made sure they were evenly in line, then pulled his trowel out of a drawer and picked up a plastic bucket from beside his table. Working quickly he went to the peat pit and filled the bucket. He returned to his bench and used the peat to line the base of the pots, spreading it out evenly to hide the matchbox-sized lump on the bottom, beneath the rubber coating.

He walked to the greenhouse and picked out the four plants he wanted. Each was in full bloom because he had added some flowering compound to their water two days ago. He took one in each hand and transferred them to his workbench, then returned for the other two. That left another four mycosia pseudofioradisplaying their brilliant green blossoms, so he told Mr. Crippen that he should probably sell them.

Back at his workbench he diligently worked the plants out of their small plastic pots and placed them in the rubberized ones. He packed peat around them and then topped each pot with some white stones, just to be decorative. Finally he placed each of the rubber pots in a decorative gold pot and presented Mr. Crippen with his handiwork.

His boss seemed pleased, then stuck a finger in the peat. "Too dry. Wet them down at bit, but not too much."

Karl frowned. "I thought I would do that when I got them in place. If I do it now, they could get frosted on the drive, couldn't they?"

Crippen hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, yes. Go. Take them over there now so we can get the truck back to deliver the centerpieces."

"Yes, sir."

Karl covered each plant in a black plastic bag to insulate it, and carried the lot of them out into the delivery truck. He climbed in and started it. The hovertruck rose up on a cloud of air as a snow-curtain curled up and away from the skirts. Driving carefully, Karl headed the truck into traffic and out on the short trip to the reception center.

The dedication banquet was not the first time Karl had delivered flowers to the reception center. The security guard there greeted him warmly and let him into the underground garage. He brought up a rolling cart, and Intelligence Secretariat agents descended like locusts on both of them.

The Archon's security men wore dark glasses and conservative suits. They sent the center's man back to his post, then checked the cart, the truck, and patted Karl down. Opening the back of the truck, one of them produced a chemical sniffing device and waved it around. "Clear."

The assassin didn't let his internal smile make it to Karl's face. The plastic explosive that had been shaped and baked into the flowerpots was double-sealed in a coat of acrylic and then rubber. Though the rubber was semipermeable, it had its own scent that would have masked anything from the explosives. The sniffer didn't get anything, as he'd expected.

"Strip the plastic off the flowers."

Karl looked hurt. "If I do I may burn the flowers. Can I do it upstairs, after I get them in place?"

One security man looked at the other and they exchanged nods. "Seven, flowers coming up," one announced into the small radio microphone on his jacket lapel.

Karl dutifully loaded the four pots and a watering can onto the handcart and let the security men escort him to the freight elevator. They said nothing. Because Karl would have done it, the assassin whistled a popular tune, then stopped when the security men looked at him. "Sorry."

The elevator halted and they rolled into the reception hall from behind the podium where Melissa would deliver the keynote speech for the dedication. Karl smiled as he saw the iron stand already in place in front of the podium. It had four hoops set in a diamond pattern. Mr. Crippen knew his stuff—the display would look perfect.

Karl stripped away the plastic, and the security men used the chemical sniffer again. They nodded and Karl placed one pot in each of the rings. He twisted them around until all the triangular flowers were oriented in the same direction. He looked hopefully at the security men and one of them finally nodded his approval of how they had been arranged.

Karl smiled and picked up the plastic watering can. He raised it toward the flowers.

"Wait."

The assassin forced himself to turn slowly. "What?"

"What's in there?" The security man pointed to the can.

"Water." His heart started pounding in his ears. "Just water?"

Karl nodded and took a drink out of it. "Just water."

The man smiled. "I told my wife you didn't have to use anything special to keep those miksos thingers."

"Just water and a lot of love." Karl nodded sagely and watered the flowers. As the peat drank the water in, his heart rate dropped back to normal. It is done. One more step and it is all over.

He glanced at his watch and nodded. "Good. I can even stop for an early lunch on the way back." He looked at the security men. "I will be back with the centerpieces later. Do you want me to bring you anything?"

They shook their heads and Karl blushed. "Okay, see you later."

They accompanied him back to the truck, took possession of the plastic bags, and continued to watch him until he left the garage.

Karl finished out the rest of the day and, in fact, did help deliver the centerpieces. He refrained from checking his earlier handiwork. He did, however, take stock of the names on the place cards at each seat within the blast radius. This will be a major blow to Tharkad society, but it will raise the general level of acting on a couple of holovid dramas.

As he expected, Mr. Crippen did not buy lunch, but Karl didn't protest. Karl wouldn't protest. Karl was a nice, quiet man who kept to himself. He didn't cause trouble.

That would be how they would remember him, and how they would talk about him to the news media. Karl Kole: assassin or dupe? Historians would debate that question for years.

The assassin left Karl's place of work and walked on past the bus stop. The regulars on his bus home might notice he was not with them, but Karl regularly missed that bus. Sometimes he treated himself to dinner, but more often he took in a holovid at a local theatre. If anyone had noticed him and actually remembered, they would have seen him head toward the Tharkad Theatre on Chase Street.

He stopped at the theatre and bought a ticket to see The Immortal Warrior Returns.Glancing again at his watch, he saw he had half an hour until show time. He smiled at the girl in the kiosk and said, "I'll be back."

He lied.

The assassin walked down the street to the Argyle Hotel. At the desk he asked for the key to room 4412, which he had rented two weeks before and guaranteed with a credit card in the name of Carl Ashe. The clerk gave him the key and said there were no messages.

Carl thanked him and took the elevator to the room, where he showered and used colorant to bleach his hair bone-white. He changed into the tailored suits Mr. Ashe had ordered from a nearby tailor earlier in the week. Packing some clothes and a few toiletries into an overnight bag, Carl Ashe donned a long parka and some copper-tinted glasses, then left the room.

He had the doorman summon a taxi and ordered it to take him to the spaceport. He gave the man a miserly tip and demanded a receipt. Once inside the terminal, he went to the storage lockers and pulled out a larger suitcase and retrieved his ticket from it.

He returned to the check-in counter with the two cases and waited in line. Things moved slowly, but not so slowly that he began to worry. Glancing at his watch, he saw he had plenty of time. The clerk at the Odinflight Transport counter checked him in efficiently and whisked his bags away.

"The shuttle to the outbound Tetersen ship leaves from Gate Fourteen at seven-thirty. That's half an hour from now."

"Thank you."

He found the gate with no trouble and no delay. Nearby was an empty chair with a holovid viewer grafted onto it. He pushed a Kroner stamped with Melissa's face into the slot and changed channels until he got the public access station. He heard applause from the tinny speaker as Morgan Kell finished introducing the Archon, then returned to his seat on the dais.

The camera tightened in on the Archon as she started to speak, also catching one of the mycosia pseudoflorablossoms in its frame. The assassin ignored Melissa's words, but drank in her beauty. He could see why she was beloved by billions. She was intelligent and gorgeous. It would be a pity to let her descend into wrinkles and senility.

He turned from the holovid viewer and walked over to a visiphone booth. He dropped two Hanse Memorial coins into the slot and punched up Karl Kole's apartment. The phone rang four times before the computer answered it. The assassin punched in the numbers 112263, then hung up.

He was on board the outgoing shuttle when the computer dialed another number. Having done that, it hung up and dialed yet another number. Once it had a connection there, it downloaded a suicide note written by Karl Kole. That note would show up in Mr. Crippen's electronic mail within a day. The computer then wrote zero to every segment on its hard disk, effectively destroying its usefulness.

The computer's call was the second crucial step in the assassin's plan. The first had come when the water he used on the flowers reached the semi-permeable rubber coat. Enough moisture got through in each pot to allow a timer to use it to power up. These timers, which were set for seven hours' elapsed time, counted down faithfully, and by six-thirty all had opened a circuit that fed power from a small battery to radio-phone circuitry.

The computer's call to the cellular number that all four detonators shared came at 7:21 P.M. When the circuits detected a signal, they sent out an electric impulse that would normally have rung a buzzer. Instead, the circuits pulsed energy into the magnesium firestarters to which they had been connected. Within two seconds of the call going out, the magnesium started to burn. It, in turn, lit a small thermite charge. The thermite burned through the acrylic and ignited the molded ceramic explosive.

The explosives did not quite detonate simultaneously, though the assassin had hoped they would. The lowest one went off a half-second before the others, boosting the stand into the air by thirty centimeters. Next, the top and right ones exploded in tandem, and the last one exploded a second after that.

The fact that things did not go perfectly did not matter to the success of the assassin's mission. The bombs converted the decorative pots into lethal shrapnel. The fire and metal literally vaporized the wooden podium, killing Melissa before she ever felt any pain.

As the shuttle rolled down the runway and pulled up into the night sky, Mr. Ashe could see the flashing lights of ambulances gathered around the reception center. "Looks like some excitement downtown," he said to his seatmate.

By the time the shuttle reached the DropShip Columbus ,Archon Melissa Steiner Davion had been declared dead. By the time the Intelligence Secretariat had begun a worldwide dragnet for Karl Kole, Carl Ashe and the Columbuswere a whole star system beyond their grasp.

20

Deia

Federated Commonwealth

19 June 3055

Feeling a BattleMech lurch forward with him in the cockpit filled Nelson Geist with more happiness than he had known since his capture. The cooling vest circulated fluid through its tubes and the neurohelmet sat heavily on his shoulders—deliciously familiar sensations to a man who thought he would never experience them again. Being seated high up in the navigation and gunnery seat of the Red Corsair's BattleMasterbrought back memories, and he was smiling in spite of what his presence there meant.

She will spoil it. She will use it against me.Nelson reached out and took the joystick sighting controls in his hands and moved them around. As he expected, the gold crosshairs burning on the holographic display before him did not move. She is not so foolish as to let me to have live weaponry to play with.

Her voice crackled gently through his earphones. "How does it feel to be a warrior again, Nelson?"

"It feels right. "The second he spoke he wished he'd said nothing at all, and her laughter told him his caution was correct.

"Good."

He heard a click and other voices came on line. "We have a concentration of enemy two klicks south of your position, Red Leader. We count twelve, repeat one-two, 'Mechs. We will drive these Zouaves toward you. Blue Leader out."

"Red Leader acknowledges, Blue Leader. Red out." The Red Corsair half-turned back toward him. "Ready for battle, Nelson?"

Outside, through the bubble canopy that covered the enlarged cockpit, Nelson saw smoke and fire from Blue Star's initial engagement with the enemy. He saw several flights of missiles head out away from him, but the alpha point of the salvos moved inexorably closer to the Red Corsair's Star of 'Mechs.

Nelson clenched his teeth. "I assume you want me to keep score for you?"

"Quaint, Nelson." She moved her hands, and the crosshairs centered themselves on the display. "What do you know about Zimmer's Zouaves? They are mercenaries, quiaff?"

"Don't know. Never heard of them."

"They are supposed to be sponsored by the Kell Hounds. You have heard of them?"

Nelson allowed himself a smile. "Yeah, they kicked the Jade Falcons around on Twycross, then busted up the Nova Cats and Smoke Jaguars on Luthien. I've heard of them. They're so tough that the son of their leader became a Khan of the Wolf Clan."

"So, you would expect these Zouaves to be better or worse than you, as Inner Sphere MechWarriors go?" Her radio clicked open. "Red Star, hold your fire until I shoot."

"Not as good."

The running battle kept getting closer. If not for the thick jungle between Red Star and the Zouaves, Nelson knew the raiders could have used their superior Clan technology to pick them apart. He could feel the Red Corsair holding back until the mercenaries were at point-blank range. It was not that she was afraid of missing them, but that she wanted to see the devastation up close.

"Then you would be able to defeat them?"

"With a lance or even-up in firepower, yes."

The Red Corsair hit a switch down below and Nelson's auxiliary and secondary screens started scrolling weapon-readiness data for him to inspect. His hand brushed one of the joysticks and the crosshairs responded to it. "What are you doing?"

"You are my gunner, Nelson."

"No!" Nelson shoved both joysticks forward, making all the 'Mech's weapons point at the ground. "No, I won't do your killing for you."

"If you do not, we will die."

"Then we die."

The Red Corsair's sigh told him he was doomed. "If we die, so do your friends. Spider, Jordan, the lot of them. If we die, I have given orders that they are to be ejected into space."

"You can't. ..."

"I can and have, Nelson." Down below she raised her hands and folded them behind her head. "The weapons are live. The targets are yours. Fire at will."

Nelson looked from the consoles to the holographic display. The Zouaves were falling back in good order, but they were stumbling back into a trap. Attacking them would be a slaughter. Not attacking them would kill his friends. But even fighting against the Zouaves wouldn't guarantee the Red Corsair's survival.

"Think about this, Nelson. For each kill you get, I will release one of your friends."

"And if I kill them all? What is my reward then?"

"A chance to kill more, and if the Wolf Clan arrives in time, a chance to kill some of them."

Nelson sent the BattleMastercrashing forward through the brush. Both arms came up, and the sights tracked with his hand movements. The crosshairs settled on a retreating Griffin .Nelson hit the right trigger and sent a sizzling bolt of azure lightning out from the pistol-like PPC in the 'Mech's right hand.

The particle beam boiled all the armor off the Griffin 'sright arm and started to work on its ferro-titanium bones. When Nelson hit the left trigger, another PPC bolt ripped away great chunks of armor on the Griffin 'schest. Armor vapor wreathed the afflicted 'Mech as the war machine staggered back. The pilot managed to keep it upright, but only just barely, winning both admiration and pity from Nelson.

Two things surprised him in his first attack, and he hated himself for reveling in both discoveries. The first was that the Clan weapons did more damage than even the best weapons manufactured in the Inner Sphere. The devastation wrought on the Griffin was easily half again as much as he would have expected from a comparable Inner Sphere weapon.