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  Gooseflesh dotted her bare arms as she returned to the bathroom and washed the man down, then rinsed him carefully. The warm water eased the raging fever of his skin a little, and, once clean, she thought it better to keep him there a while longer. Amber threw a towel in over him, in case he woke and had a sense of modesty.

  She disdained sitting on the low toilet and sat on the floor, the cold, embossed plastic tile imprinting her haunches. She crossed her too-thin forearms over her knees. She’d gone too far to go back now. Rolf would nearly kill her for letting the man come between them. She knew that Rolf could cross the border. He had sources. Sooner or later he would hear of her whereabouts and come after her. She knew that. She’d read it in his thoughts day after day. It was not because of any love they had for one another, or lust either. The only time Rolf had ever tried to rape her, she’d blacked out during the struggle. But when she’d awakened, she was still intact, and Rolf had a fear and respect for her that he tried to hide, but that had been there all the same. That didn’t keep him from beating her … he seemed to know more about whatever it was she’d done to protect herself than she had.

  And the three other times it had happened, he had appeared, gentle, solicitous, caring, and taken the bodies away from her, kept her out of trouble, stroked her trembling hand and told her it would be okay.

  Amber turned her face away from watching the fevered man in the tub. What kind of monster was she? Rolf told her she killed, but she no more trusted him than the Sweepers. She could remember nothing more than losing control over clients, a terrible, overwhelming fear that this time she wouldn’t escape rape, and then—nothing. And worse, she was certain that Rolf could, if pressed, present the evidence of the murders she’d committed. He kept her close with bonds of fear.

  In the silence, listening for the police who never came, she bent her face to her forearms and cried a little, tearlessly, for the hopeless future.

  She stopped crying when her stomach cramped, hungry for the sparing little bit that she usually ate every day. She thought of a tray beside the computer, a tray with foam containers and crumpled paper napkins, and got up, stiffly, to investigate. When she returned, she was swallowing the last of a sandwich, bread dry on the outside, but the meat and filling still tasty on the inside. She walked in as Jack groaned, and moved, and began to talk in delirium.

  Amber touched the laser burn. Infected. She took a handful of credits from her waistband—less than half remained—and she knew she’d have to return to her old thieving ways to keep them going, unless Jack had paid for this room a month in advance. She went downstairs stealthily and waited in the shadows of the lobby where the surveillance camera would only blur past her, and an ill-lit picture at that, until one of the apartment cleaners came by and she called out discreetly.

  In moments, she knew where she could buy the medicine she needed, and hurried down the cement streets to find it.

  Even if she hadn’t known they’d passed the border, she would have realized it immediately. Throngs of people did not pass here. The streets were cleaner. The security cameras worked more often than not. She kept dodging their line of sight agilely, not wanting her prints to be transmitted. Merchants or their computer screen counterparts did business from behind metal grills. The credits slipped through her fingers of their own volition as if greased, and she returned to the apartment building quickly. As she walked, she noticed those who sauntered in camera view, either unaware or unafraid.

  Jack flinched as she smoothed the ointment on and flailed his arm at her. She ducked aside. She had to pinch his nose shut to spoon in the antibiotic, but it worked. Now she had only to wait. She checked the temperature of the bath. Too cold. Too much discrepancy between his fever, so she ran warmer water into the tub.

  It never occurred to her to take what was left of the money and run.

  Jack woke, sopping wet and shivering, his stomach nailed to his backbone in hunger. The girl sat cross-legged on the bathroom floor, and her large golden brown eyes immediately took in his changed state. She was spooning a fantastic smelling stew into her mouth.

  “Back again? If we’re going to stay here, one of us is going to have to learn to cook. Room service prices are murder.”

  And as he opened his mouth to protest, she began spooning the stew into him.

  When she was done, she gently mopped his mouth with a disposable towel. “There.” She sat back. “Burn poisoning. You’ve been out of it for over a day.”

  He touched the side of his face. Instead of the slick burn-scar, he felt a patch of new skin, already peeled. Its pink tenderness gave gingerly. “And new world germs.” He smiled wryly, thinking of how the Montreal had bypassed customs when landing on Malthen. He hadn’t taken his innoculations before the welcoming ceremony. Served him right.

  Amber nodded brusquely as though aware of that, too. She held up his Ranger pants. “I had them laundered.”

  He realized then that only a towel lay over him, its celluloid fibers gelatinous from being immersed in the water so long. He reached out and snatched the trousers away. “Get out of here.”

  Amber laughed. “Sure you’re strong enough to do it yourself?”

  She left as he wadded up the damp towel and threw it at her, the mass sticking to the plasti-door like an immense spitwad. His head whirled as he stood and dried, then dressed himself.

  Barefoot, he padded out into the suite. Jack looked around. “Where’s the suit?”

  “Put away.” Amber had spent the time reading and using the wall screen, schedules and films dropped everywhere, carelessly. Then, as he paced through it, a restlessness gnawed at him. He looked carefully at the mess and suddenly it struck him that the whole thing was deliberate … part of her cover as a bored call girl.

  He scrubbed his hand through his hair. “Where’s the suit,” he said again, surprised by the petulant sound of his voice.

  Amber sat down and crossed her arms. “Sit down, first.”

  A rage began to build in him. “Tell me where the suit is and quit playing games.”

  “Me? Raise your voice much louder, and we’ll have the Sweepers in here. And, on their tail, the World Police. Is that what you want? Shall we turn on the computer again and try that last access code? Might as well go quickly if we’re gonna go at all.”

  He stared at the girl. Wispy bit of nothing from the streets. Her large eyes bored into him, challenging. He forced himself to relax.

  She leaned over and put her hand on his knee. He felt a tinge of well-being and the driving ache to have the suit was pushed back a little.

  “Jack,” she said, “you talked while you were sick. I’ve never had much education—Rolf taught me—so I don’t understand most of what you said, but some of it. And I know that you can’t get back into the suit. Not yet. It’s … it’s more than what it’s supposed to be, and it wants you, so it can feed off you.”

  His warmth turned chill. He shook off her hand. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about you and that battle armor. I’m talking about you being burned off Claron, and looking for someone, and fighting Thraks (spit on them), and the rest of the stuff you raved about while I handfed you ‘biotics.”

  “But you can’t know what you do about the suit.”

  She stood up and shrugged. “Sometimes … I feel things. Like just before they happen, or before someone says something. Rolf told me I had the feeling for it.”

  Psychic, he thought. And he wondered how deep her talent went. He calmed himself and listened.

  “The suit, or something inside it, is alive. It’s growing. You feed it. It makes you want and need it, like addiction. You can control it, I think, if you know about it.”

  He wondered if it was the parasite that would metamorphose him into a berserker. Damn! Damn the suit and damn the Milots and Thraks. His hand clenched involuntarily. He’d burn the suit if he could afford to, but not now. “We need the suit.”

  “I think I can help you contro
l it.”

  “Why?”

  Her gaze met his. “Because you’re nice.”

  Her words rocked him. He hadn’t done anything, one way or the other, and, he suddenly realized, on the scale she had to judge by, that probably ranked him as heroic. “You don’t owe me anything,” he said gruffly. “I owe you.”

  Anger sparked across Amber’s face. “Don’t talk like that to me! You need help and I offered it. Well, my job isn’t done yet, as I see it. And you’ve got to help me. I’ve got to stay out of Rolf’s grasp. He’s got long arms, that bastard. You’ve got to help me!”

  Storm weighed her plea. Then he knew he had little choice, and didn’t want any. She was company. He thought then of the rehab tech who’d warned him he didn’t really wish to be alone, estranged from humankind. He looked back at her. “I want to make it into the Emperor’s personal guard.”

  “To kill him?”

  “No. But through him, I want to find the man that sent my men, my company to death … and I want to find out why Claron was burned. And I want it made green again.”

  “Terraformed?” Her mouth remained half-open in wonder at his ambition.

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t want much, do you?”

  It was not a question he intended to answer.

  She flicked a finger toward the bedroom, where the suit lay in dusky shadow. “You fought in that?”

  He owed her that much, even knowing it might harm her later. “I’m a veteran of the Sand Wars.”

  Her eyes widened. “The Sand Wars? Nobody survived that. Maybe deserters … I’ve heard of a few who claimed to. But nobody who fought.”

  “I did.”

  “Why … you’re old enough to be my father.”

  He grinned wryly. This street kid had a real talent for putting things into perspective.

  Chapter 8

  Jack sat in the corner of the bar, his long legs crossed at the ankles and stretched out, maintaining a low profile, a chilled bottle on the table in front of him. Periodically he fed another credit through the slot in the table top and the servo would come by and drop off another beer. Amber sat in the crook of his arm. The shadows of the corner booth obscured her slightly. She’d cadged new clothes and cosmetics and looked old enough for the role she was playing. It made Jack only slightly nervous to have his arm around someone who’d caused the last three people to touch her intimately drop dead.

  Amber sighed and tossed her head back, a wing of hair trailing across his bicep before it fell back onto her neckline. “You’re going to get a beer belly if we sit around any more bars.”

  This was the third in as many days. He disposed of the half-empty bottle and ordered a fourth. In all, he’d had maybe a full beer to drink, but as long as he kept ordering, the bartender would let him stay. And he needed to stay, as long as he could observe the underside of Malthen’s civilian population at work. Mercenaries had drifted in and out of the bar all day long.

  He tickled her neck and said softly, “Just shut up and sit tight.”

  Amber’s mouth thinned in irritation.

  A grizzled, lean and frowzy looking man sat at a nearby table. He had bottles set up in front of him and Jack noticed that anyone drifting in and out of the bar made it a point to greet him and exchange pleasantries. He had long spindle fingers that scampered spider-like across the tabletop to grasp handshakes or pour drinks. Jack could tell from the man’s mannerisms that he was a veteran and so were the men coming out of their way to greet him.

  Amber started to say something, but he gripped her kneecap tightly as the veteran and his latest greeter laughed loudly and he caught the drift of their voices.

  “… without Marciane.”

  The grizzled man returned, in a clipped voice, “Served him right. Played both sides against the middle. But he did a lot of work, and that means the rest of us will have to pick up the slack.”

  The greeter, a young man with scars across the wattle of his neckline, shook his head. “Not for me anymore. I’m trying out for the bodyguard.” He picked up a shot glass.

  A bitter laugh. “And what makes you think you’ll be invited?”

  “I’ve got pull. I’ll get an audition.”

  “Suits take a lot of training. Good coordination and reflexes. You drink and drug too much, Smithers. And look at the risks. Remember what happened to the Knights in the Sand Wars.”

  The tough kid gave a laugh. “Real funny. You just wish you were young enough to go for it.”

  “Nothing funny about it. Why do you think the suits were destroyed and the Knights disbanded? Things happened in the Sand Wars nobody could explain. Nobody left to try.”

  “Maybe. Well, it’s good seeing you. Maybe I’ll sign up later.”

  The grizzled man looked after the mercenary and Jack heard him add, “If there’s anything left of you.”

  Amber touched the side of his face. “Jack, what’s wrong? You went pale.”

  “Nothing.” He took his arm off the back of the booth. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He hurried her along the streets, both of them taking a pathway that kept them mainly out of camera range. In the apartment, he threw open the closet door, where he’d rigged a stand for the suit, and he sat cross-legged in front of it, his chin in his hands, just staring at the apparition.

  It gave him goose bumps. The pull was always there, to put it on, to wear and use it.

  Amber sat down next to him. “Jack, what’s wrong?”

  He shook his head. “I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.”

  “Do what?”

  “Use the suit. It’s the quickest way to the Emperor. Once there, I can locate the man I’m looking for, and I can ask the questions nobody seems to want answered. I can cut through the layers of bureaucracy.”

  “Once you’re part of the guard.”

  “Right. And from what I’ve been able to gather this past week, it’s not easy to get an audition. You’ve got to be young, tough, and recommended.”

  “We’ll bribe somebody to recommend you.”

  “But who?” Jack straightened. “I haven’t been able to figure out the grapevine yet. But if I start doing work, I’ll get noticed.”

  Amber spread her fingers out in front of her face and stared at him through them, like a mask. “You don’t have to use the suit to get hired.”

  “No, but it’s the most impressive way to guarantee I’ll be noticed.” A cold chill went down his back. Did he want to be noticed? Or had his survival thus far been purely accidental? “But to wear the suit, I have to be able to control it.”

  Amber lowered her hand-mask. “I can help, but I’d need to know more. It’s weakened a lot since you wore it last. Whatever it is that’s growing, it grows in spurts. And I still don’t know where it is … it could be anywhere in the suit.”

  “So I can wear the suit for limited periods of time safely.”

  “Maybe. I mean, probably. Jack—I don’t know what it is. How it grows. What it intends to do. If I did, I might be able to dampen it.” She lay back on the floor and stared at the ceiling, the young girl glaring out from under neon makeup. “Maybe you should just blow the thing up.”

  “No.” She turned and looked at him strangely, but said nothing. He added, “It’s more of an advantage than a disadvantage right now.” He got up and slammed the closet door shut.

  Amber rolled over onto her stomach. “If we could find someone …”

  He looked down at her. The elaborate mass she’d structured her hair into was already coming down, but she didn’t seem to care. He felt a surge of tenderness and squelched it. “There’s no one left but me,” he said. “Who would you ask?”

  “Oh, there’re others,” she answered loftily. “The question is, where do I find them? Ballard would be the easiest to talk to.”

  “Others? What do you mean?”

  She lifted an eyebrow as he reached down and helped her to her feet. “Jack, you’ve got to know there are others. Deser
ters, mostly, before the Thraks wiped everyone out. They won’t talk—afraid to, I think, but Rolf has dealt with Ballard. I just never connected what he’d done with the Sand Wars before. But he’s got to be one of you, I just know it.”

  “We can’t use him.”

  “Why not?”

  He shook his head. “He connects to Rolf. You’d be found.”

  “It’s worth the risk. What if he knows about the suits?”

  “No.”

  Amber’s face pulled into sulky lines, but she walked past him and into the bathroom where she spent an hour vigorously scrubbing off makeup, heedless of the needs of his beer-filled bladder.

  They ate sparingly, near the end of Jack’s brief wealth. Living illegally, he reflected, cost a good three times what it would have on the other side. When he fell asleep in the bedroom, he could hear Amber moving restlessly on the couch in the other room.

  He didn’t hear her leave, but he heard her come back. She moved into the bedroom and alongside the bed as stealthily as anybody could. He made a mental note that she could be a dangerous enemy before he said, quietly,” What the hell are you doing?”

  She jumped. “Dammit! I found Ballard. Get dressed and follow me, quickly.”

  “Idiot! I told you to forget about going after him.”

  “Slag,” she returned. “I’ve already done it and he won’t be where he is for long, so hurry.”

  She fled as he got out of bed and dressed. She waited for him, standing on one foot and then the other, uneasily, chewing on the end of a strand of hair.

  As Jack joined her at the door, Amber pressed something cold into his hand. He hefted it. A small, plastic gun.

  “It’s fully charged,” she said.

  “But—” Then Jack gave way and put it inside his waistband.

  Once outside, Amber took to her heels. It had rained, and the sidewalks were damp and humid smelling, the scent of oil and dirt rising from them. Jack stayed on her heels, knowing that he was seeing Amber at her best—or worst, depending on how you viewed it. She was of the streets and for the streets, and played them to her advantage. Two Sweeper units passed by without turning up even a hint that either of them were out after curfew, her guidance slowing only marginally, she was so sure of herself.