“Ah, the mad monk,” Vaz said. “But he does speak good English for a hinge-head. Even if he can’t say Phillips.”
“Do you ever wonder how many ODSTs he’s killed?”
Vaz slowed for another set of stoplights. New Tyne seemed to have an awful lot of controlled intersections for a small place. “All the time,” he said. “Elites don’t have full-time interpreters. He was an armed ’terp. When the time comes to kill him, I’ll volunteer. And sleep easier.”
A shadow fell across the front seat as another vehicle pulled up next to them at the lights. Naomi braced, hand on her sidearm. This was when ambushes happened. She could see the driver out of the corner of her eye, a thickset middle-aged guy in a plaid shirt, but he just glanced at them and looked away again. If he’d seen her, she hadn’t reminded him of anyone. The lights changed and the vehicles moved off.
She slid her hand under her coat for the reassurance of her magnum again, still a little disoriented without her Mjolnir armor. It was about more than just missing the augmentation and electronics. She felt more conspicuous in a drab gray parka and shabby combat pants than she ever did in three hundred kilos of gleaming titanium alloy. The Mjolnir face was who and what she was, the tribal identity she shared with the family she’d spent most of her life with—her fellow Spartans. Her civilian-looking self was flayed, peeled, missing both its protection and its self-image. She took her cap out of her pocket and pulled it down hard on her head. It was a poor substitute for a helmet.
“It’s the eyes,” Vaz said.
“What is?”
“It’s not your hair that makes you look like your dad. It’s your eyes.”
The arms dealer they’d just sold an MA5B rifle to had definitely recognized a family resemblance. He hadn’t said the name Sentzke, but then he hadn’t needed to. Naomi had seen the look on his face. She ducked her head to check herself in the wing mirror and saw her father’s pale gray eyes blink back at her. Dying her white-blond hair some other color wouldn’t change that.
“I need some colored contacts,” she said.
Vaz studied her face for a moment as she turned to him. “Adj can whip up a pair. I’ll ask BB on the next radio check. He knows all your biometrics, seeing as he’s been in your neural interface.”
“Yeah, I don’t have any secrets,” she said. “Except from myself.”
She realized that she’d put her hand on the back of her neck, a reflex reaction to cover the external port of the interface at the base of her skull. Adj had remodeled it to reduce the profile. If anyone got too close—closer than she’d tolerate, anyway—all they’d see through her hair would be something that looked like the regular implant that most UNSC personnel had. It supported the simplest of cover stories, that they were Naomi Bakke and Vaz Desny, two deserters looking for a quiet refuge in New Tyne. It was easier to play a soldier with a reason for hiding on Venezia than to try to walk, talk, and behave like a civilian. Some things were hard to conceal.
Her thoughts drifted back to the kid walking along the road with his mother. What was it like to grow up in an outlaw community? It didn’t look that different from what she thought of as normal life.
“There.” Vaz indicated left and turned down a ramp into the grim concrete housing estate where Spenser lived an outwardly regular Venezian life. “Nobody tailed us, either. So far, so good.”
Spenser was making sandwiches in the kitchen, filling the place with the smell of hard-boiled eggs. He was a rumpled-looking, everyday guy with gray hair and a lot of lines, as far from the movie image of a spy as it was possible to get. It made him perfect for the job.
“I’ve got to go to work,” he said, putting the sandwiches in his lunchbox. He did contract maintenance shifts at the local militia base, a testament to what Mal Geffen called his spook-fu. Naomi was always impressed by the power of ordinariness. What better place for a spy like him, a civilian used to working in military environments, to infiltrate? He fitted in seamlessly. “So … Sav Fel’s shown up here. How do you want to play this?”
Vaz didn’t look at Naomi. “Our priority’s Pious Inquisitor. Are we going to have to do this the old-fashioned way?”
“Yeah, we’re going to have to tail him. I’ll see what I can glean at work, but he’s got to have access to a small atmosphere-capable transport, because he’s going to have a hard time hiding nearly two kilometers of battlecruiser on the surface. I’m assuming Oz hasn’t detected anything that size in orbit.”
Naomi wondered if Spenser would still call Osman “Oz” when she became CINCONI. “We’d have heard if she had.”
“Okay, so we follow Fel somehow,” Vaz said. “Or Sentzke.”
“Where do they hang out?”
“Not sure yet. I’m still putting the pieces together on Sentzke.” Spenser sealed his lunchbox with a snap. “Some of the locals are known quantities from my DCS days, but he’s a new face to me. I’ve only been here a couple of months, remember. Did I tell you how I pinged him?”
“No,” Naomi said. “But I did wonder how you got the photo.”
“Sorry. Old spook habit. Sometimes he does maintenance work at the barracks. It’s not his main job—I think he does it as a favor. Anyway, you know what they’re like for insisting on passes, so I just poked around in the admin filing cabinet one night.” He looked at Naomi as if she’d reacted, but she was sure she hadn’t. It was still just words: father, Staffan, Sansar. “I knew when he went off-planet because getting to and from Venezia is a big logistics job. Think about it. Even if you’ve got your own small vessel, you need to get a ride with a slipspace-capable ship if you’re heading for another planet. The bigger vessels tend to belong to the militia. I overheard someone arranging it. One thing you need to remember about the culture here—it’s cautious. These people don’t trust tech that can be hacked. Nobody’s ever created better security than pieces of paper you can burn and conversations you have face-to-face.”
Spenser played his cards close to his chest, just like the local population. Naomi wasn’t sure if that was simply his ingrained secretiveness or if he was trying to be diplomatic about her father. But she had to ask.
“Do you know where he lives?”
Spenser’s expression changed for a moment, as if he’d slipped out of character and was trying to ground himself again.
“Fifteen, Mount Longdon Road—on the south of town, next to the old slate quarry. But I promised Mal Geffen I’d leave him to you. So I haven’t been near him yet. Just keeping my ears open.” Spenser shrugged, looking embarrassed. “I’m sorry. This must be awkward for you.”
“Not at all.” Naomi had learned long ago to lock down her own expression and shut out all external distractions. She was still uneasy, but she couldn’t pin it down to whatever her father was doing right now. “If it was, I’d ask Osman to redeploy me.”
“Well, I plug into the Kig-Yar bush telegraph. The Jackals get around. If Fel’s selling off that warship, I’ll get to hear. He definitely isn’t hanging out with Sentzke to attack Earth, though. Kig-Yar couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Earth, not unless we want to buy something.”
“No use for a battlecruiser themselves, then.”
“Not their style. A big warship isn’t much use for a lot of the things they do, and it’s goddamn expensive to maintain.” Spenser took his jacket off the hook on the back of the door. “I’ll leave you to tell Osman. Okay, I have to go now. You’ve got your map, yeah?”
Vaz tapped his pocket. “All the recommended hot spots.”
“Don’t forget there’s a bounty on your head for offing those Jackals on Reynes.”
“They don’t know it was us,” Vaz said. “We didn’t leave any witnesses, did we?”
Spenser chuckled. “I’m glad to see ONI’s teaching you something. Did you sell the rifle, by the way?”
“Got eight-seventy-five for it.”
“Not too shabby. Remember to secure the house if you go out.”
Vaz didn’t say anything fo
r a long time after Spenser left. He topped up the coffee machine, humming to himself. He was picking his words. Naomi wanted him to just speak his mind.
“Well, if Sentzke’s in the market for a warship, I wonder how he’s going to pay for it,” he said at last.
“And he’ll need a crew. Unless he’s got an AI as good as BB.”
“Well, that’ll take him some time. I bet the Covenant didn’t have anything.”
“Isn’t it time we called this in to Osman?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“That we’ve spotted Sav Fel, and that he was with my father. That’d be a start, I think.” There: she’d done it again. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be abrasive. Okay, I’m going downstairs to call the ship.”
Vaz just nodded. He knew she needed to do it herself. She didn’t need to explain.
Spenser had set up a mini listening station in the basement, complete with a fridge and a battered sofa. It was probably a lot more comfortable to work in than the disused mine shaft he’d lived in on Reynes while he was monitoring the Sangheili. Naomi opened the secure link to Port Stanley and BB responded
“Remember to call Osman Admiral now,” BB said. “It’s official. We baked a cake. We’ll send you some on the next resupply run. Anything you need?”
“Cosmetic lenses. Blue, hazel, green—anything to darken my eye color. Just in case anyone spots the resemblance.” Words: still just words. But she did feel odd. She was trying to remember and wasn’t sure what or why. “We just made a positive ID of Sav Fel in New Tyne. We eyeballed him less than an hour ago. He was in a vehicle with my father.”
That even silenced BB for a second. “Oh,” he said. “At least that narrows your search area.”
“Tell Osman we’re going to work on a way to track Sav Fel to Inquisitor. Next radio check in two hours.”
“Is that all you want to say?” BB asked.
“Yes. Naomi out.”
She cut the link and leaned back on the sofa, picking at a rip in the leather while she worked out a search pattern to locate both the truck and Sav Fel.
We need to know when they leave the planet. Dad might be a red herring. He might be involved with Fel for some other reason, but common sense says the ship’s the most likely reason. So … how do we do this?
Tagging Sav Fel—or her father, if her suspicions were right—was going to require face-to-face contact anyway. Whatever they did, they’d have to get personal.
Dare I risk that?
And I’m calling him Dad again.
She waited for Osman to call back and pull her out because the risk of recognition was too high. But no call came. She looked at a six-pack of sodas on top of the battered gray filing cabinet, debating whether to just go back upstairs and tell Vaz the deed had been done and the sky hadn’t fallen in. No, she had to sort out this uneasiness first. Spartan or not, she was human, and the brain always tried to complete the pattern: a gap had now been filled in her memory, the one that said Father.
So how about Mother? What did that evoke?
Naomi tried to grasp the thought as she poured a soda into the only clean glass she could find. The absence of hostile aliens—obvious, dangerous, lethal—was allowing thoughts that she hadn’t been aware of before to surface. She watched the soda bubbles rise and vanish.
Bubbles. They only form a running bead in carbonated liquid when there’s dirt on the glass.
For a second the surface of the soda was completely still, a perfect mirror before it shivered and broke up. Now she remembered what she’d wanted. It was the last thing she’d truly longed for, other than wanting to go home to her mom and dad.
She’d been five years old, maybe six. And she’d wanted a doll’s house.
FIVE KILOMETERS OUTSIDE NEW TYNE, VENEZIA
Skirmisher Kig-Yar were a lot like birds, Staffan Sentzke reminded himself, and that explained everything he needed to know about dealing with them.
Kig-Yar weren’t canine, despite the nickname most humans used—Jackals. Their ancestors were reptiles. Some sub-species still looked very lizard-like to Staffan, but others were more like birds, just the way Earth’s lizards had branched off to grow feathers and beaks. The most birdlike were the Skirmishers from T’vao. They liked shiny, glittery things, they squabbled, and they displayed. He suspected it was the legacy of an ancient ancestor that collected blossoms and pebbles to impress prospective mates. As he drove up the track to Sav Fel’s grand house, he couldn’t help but notice the fragments of brightly colored glass set in the concrete gate posts.
An armed Grunt stood guard. Staffan peered down at him from the truck window.
“I’ve come to see Shipmaster Fel. Staffan Sentzke.”
The Grunt checked a datapad. “Your name’s not on the list, and if your name’s not on the list, then—”
“Cut the crap and try spelling it with two Fs,” Staffan said.
“Oh. Yeah.”
“I didn’t think you guys liked Kig-Yar.”
“He pays on time.”
Staffan took that as a sign that he could mistrust Fel a little less. He’d learned to assume that everyone he dealt with from the time he’d lost his daughter was a liar with an ulterior motive, and that nothing he saw was what it seemed, but there was a spectrum of bastardry. Some bastards were at the shoot-on-sight end of the curve; some were otherwise regular people with occasional but repellent flaws. In the middle lay the wide spread that the world wouldn’t miss if they met their deserved fate. Kig-Yar generally scored as less objectionable than many humans because they didn’t have ideologies. They liked stuff, pure and simple—acquiring it, smuggling it, stealing it, selling it, trading it, possessing it.
It’s a game. Shiny stones. Bower bird mentality. But at least they make sense.
Sav Fel made sense too. He had his own agenda that happened to be running in parallel with Staffan’s for a while. He wanted what Staffan had a great deal of, and Staffan wanted something that was little direct use to Fel: a warship.
Perfect.
One of the paneled front doors eased open just before he reached out to knock. A beaklike snout poked out of the gap, then the door creaked open fully to let Staffan in.
“He’s in the office.” The Kig-Yar minion was the more common reptilian kind. He took a few paces toward a corridor and let out a stream of ear-splitting chatter. “Wait here. I’ll get him.”
The hall wasn’t quite as luxurious as Staffan had expected. The whole place smelled slightly of ammonia and what he could only describe as mud. The furniture was an odd mix of styles, but every piece had some gilding or polished metallic detail. Fel had the typical Kig-Yar weakness for glitz. It was echoed in his beaded, studded belt as he emerged from the passage.
Staffan caught a glimpse of another Skirmisher before Fel closed the door behind him, and heard a burst of angry jay-like noises. The shipmaster flinched.
Oh, it’s his wife. It has to be his wife. Staffan tried not to give in to a smile. The idea of Shipmaster Fel being squawked at by an angry female was too funny. Staffan kept forgetting their society was matriarchal, because most of what he saw of it was the males toiling for a living. Henpecked. Literally. Hah …
Fel’s minion trotted into the room to be dismissed again with an imperious gesture and a long rattling hiss. Fel might have been doing the Kig-Yar equivalent of kicking the cat, or just reminding his more reptilian cousin of his place in the pecking order. Skirmishers definitely thought they were a cut above other Kig-Yar.
“Welcome.” Fel’s black head feathers lifted a little. He reminded Staffan of a pterodactyl in the process of turning into a crow, with rows of little teeth set in a long beak. The vertical pupils in his yellow eyes were pure reptile, though. “Were you followed?”
“If I thought I was,” Staffan said, “I’d have driven to the grocery store and wasted his time, whoever he was.”
“There are spies here, you know.”
“There’s spies everywhere. But you know t
hey don’t last long here.” Venezia was a colony of dissenters—and criminals. Strangers were treated with due caution, and a spy would have to be very good indeed to escape Staffan’s attention for long. “So you have one at last, do you?”
Fel almost preened. He knew he’d pulled off a coup. “The opportunity presented itself. I seized it.”
The Kig-Yar opened another inner door and led Staffan through into the main room. It was full of gilded mirrors that gave the place the feel of a home decor showroom. He could hear other Kig-Yar now, a mix of adult voices with higher-pitched ones in the distant background—children. Chicks. Staffan wondered if they were cute and fluffy when they hatched. He settled in the most comfortable-looking seat without being asked, just so that Fel understood who held the power here, and crossed his legs.
“Tell me exactly how you took the ship,” he said.
“Don’t you believe me?”
“Oh, I believe you. I just want to be sure that this isn’t some elaborate setup.”
Fel jerked back his head, offended. “The Sangheili are falling apart. They’re not capable of scams. Certainly not scams that cost them warships.”
“Everyone’s capable of scams,” Staffan said. “Especially when they’re desperate. Although I can’t think why the Sangheili would suddenly take an interest in Venezia, unless you’ve pissed them off some other way.”
The Covenant had either never found Venezia during the war or never bothered. The planet was unglassed, untouched, and in pretty good shape, which no doubt irked the Earth authorities. Staffan missed little. He had enough deserters from planetary militias to maintain a pretty good listening station, and pieced together with reports from Kig-Yar ships, the information formed a useful picture.
As useful as you can get now that the Covenant’s collapsed, anyway.
“The Sangheili were so used to the San’Shyuum thinking for them that they’re still struggling without them,” Fel said. “They’re in chaos. And the Arbiter certainly isn’t uniting them. It’s what you call a free-for-all when it comes to keeping track of their assets. One of their rebel factions asked me and my crew to transport a warship from one of their yards.”