Snow in the Desert Read online

  ‘You’ve come a long way?’ he asked.

  ‘Not so far as you,’ said Hirald. She looked from him to the woman across the flames, who also had caste marks on her face. The other couple: the man a Negro with incongruous blue eyes and the woman Hirald thought could have come from anywhere until she noted the caps over the neural plugs behind her ears. She was corporate then; from one of the families.

  ‘Yes, we have come a way,’ said the man, touching his caste mark.

  ‘We search,’ said the Negro intently. ‘Perhaps you can help us. We search for one who is called Snow. He is an albino.’

  They all looked at Hirald then, avidly.

  ‘I have heard of him,’ said Hirald, ‘and I have heard that many people look for him. I do not know where he is though.’

  The woman with the neural plugs looked suspicious. Hirald continued to forestall anything more she might say.

  ‘You are after the reward then?’

  The four looked to each other, then the latter three looked to the Marsman. He smiled to himself and casually reached for the covered weapons next to him. Hirald glanced at the corporate woman, who was staring back at her.

  ‘Jharit, no.’

  Jharit stopped with his hand by the covering.

  ‘What is it, Canard Meck?’

  The woman, now identified as a member of the Jethro Manx Canard corporate family, slowly shook her head then looked to Hirald, who had not yet moved.

  ‘We have no dispute with you, but we would prefer it if you left our camp, please.’

  ‘But she knows. She might tell him,’ said Jharit.

  Canard Meck looked to him and said, ‘She is product.’

  Jharit snatched his hand from the weapons and suddenly looked very frightened. He flinched as Hirald rose to her feet. Hirald smiled.

  ‘I mean no harm, unless harm is meant.’

  She strode out into the darkness without checking behind. No one moved. No one reached for the weapons.

  Snow removed the pistol from its holster in his dust robes and checked the charge reading. As was usual it was nearly at full charge. The bright sunlight of Vatch acting on the photovoltaic material of his robes kept the weapon constantly charged through the socket in the holster. The weapon was a matt black L, five millimetres thick with only a slight depression where a trigger would normally have been. It was keyed to Snow. No one else could fire it. The beam it fired was of antiphotons; a misnomer really, as what it consisted of was protons field-accelerated to the point where they became photonic matter. Misnomer or not, this beam could burn large holes in anyone Snow cared to point it at.

  David Songrel was a family man. Snow had observed him lifting a child high in the air while a woman looked on from the background, just before the door to his apartments closed. Snow wondered why Aleen wanted him dead. As the owner of the water station she had much power here, but little over the proctors who enforced planetary law, not her law. Perhaps she had been involved in illegalities of which Songrel had become aware. No matter, for the present. He rapped on the door and when Songrel opened it he stuck the pistol in his face and walked him back into the apartment, closing the door behind him with his stump.

  ‘Daddy!’ the little girl yelled, but the mother caught hold of her before she rushed forward. Songrel had his hands in the air, his eyes not leaving the pistol. Shock there, knowledge.

  ‘Why,’ said Snow, ‘does the Androche want you dead?’

  ‘You’re ... the albino.’

  ‘Answer the question please.’

  Songrel glanced at his wife and daughter before he replied, ‘She is a collector of antiquities.’

  ‘Why the necessity for your death?’

  ‘She has killed to get what she wants. I have evidence. We intend to arrest her soon.’

  Snow nodded then holstered his pistol.

  ‘I thought it would be something like that. She had two proctors come for me you know.’

  Songrel lowered his hands, but kept them well away from the stun-gun hooked on his belt.

  ‘As Androche she does have the right to some use of the proctors. It is our duty to guard her and her property. She does not have freedom to commit crime. Why didn’t you kill me? They say you have killed many.’

  Snow looked to Songrel’s wife and child.

  ‘My reputation precedes me,’ he said, and stepped past Songrel to drop onto a comfortable-looking sofa. ‘But the stories are in error. I have killed no one who has not first tried to kill me . . . well, mostly.’

  Songrel looked to his wife.

  ‘It’s Tamtha’s bedtime.’

  His wife nodded and took the child from the room. Snow noted the little girl’s fascinated stare. He was quite used to such. Songrel sat himself in an armchair opposite Snow.

  ‘A nice family you have.’

  ‘Yes . . . will you testify against the Androche?’

  ‘You can have my testimony recorded under seal, but I cannot stay for a trial. If I was to stay this place would be crawling with Andronache killers in no time. I might not survive that.’

  Songrel nodded.

  ‘Why did you come here if it was not your intention to kill me?’ he asked, a trifle anxiously.

  ‘I want you to play dead while I go back and see the Androche.’

  Songrel’s expression hardened.

  ‘You want to collect your reward.’

  ‘Yes, but my reward is not money, it is information. The Androche knows why the Merchant Baris has a reward out for my death. It is a subject I am understandably curious about.’

  Songrel interlaced his fingers in his lap and stared down at them for a moment. When he looked up he said, ‘The reward is for your stasis-preserved testicles. Perhaps like Aleen he is a collector, but that is beside the point. I will play dead for you, but when you go to see Aleen I want you to carry a virtual recorder.’

  Snow nodded once. Songrel stood up and walked to a wall cupboard. He returned with a holocorder that he rested on the table and turned on.

  ‘Now, your statement.’

  ‘He is dead,’ said Aleen, a smile on her face.

  ‘Yes,’ said Snow, dropping Songrel’s identity tag on the table. ‘Yet I get the impression you knew before I came here.’

  Aleen went to the drinks cabinet and poured Snow a whisky. She brought it over to him.

  ‘I have friends amongst the proctors. As soon as his wife called in the killing – she was hysterical apparently – they informed me.’

  ‘Why did you want him killed?’

  ‘That is none of your concern. Drink your whisky and I will get you the promised information.’

  Aleen turned away from him and moved to a computer console elegantly concealed in a Louis XIV table. Snow had the whisky to his lips just as his suspicious nature took over. Why was it necessary to get the information from the computer? She could just tell him. Why had she not poured a drink for herself? He placed the drink down on a table, unsampled. Aleen looked up, a dead smile on her face, and as her hand came up over the console Snow dived to one side. On the wall behind him a picture blackened then flared into oily flames. He came up on one knee and fired once. She slammed back out of her chair onto the floor, her face burning like the picture.

  Snow searched hurriedly. Any time now the proctors would arrive. In the bathroom he found a device like a chrome penis with two holes in the end. One hole spurted out some kind of fluid and the other hole sucked. Some kind of contraceptive device? He traced tubes back to the unit that contained the bottle of fluid and some very complicated straining and filtering devices. To his confusion he realized it was for removing the contents of a woman’s womb, probably after sex. She collected men’s semen? Shortly after, he found a single stasis bottle containing said substance. It had to be his own, and now he had an inkling of an idea; a possible explanation for his situation of the last five years. He opened the bottle and washed its contents down the sink just before the proctors broke into the apartment. Not that there
was very much of value in it.

  *

  Hirald looked at the man in the condensation bottle, her expression revealing nothing. He was alive beyond his time; some sadist had dropped a bottle of water in with him to prolong his suffering. He stared at Hirald with drying eyes, the empty bottle by his head, his body shrunken and badly sunburnt, his black tongue protruding. Hirald looked around carefully, there were harsh penalties for what she was about to do, then held a small chrome cylinder against the glass near the man’s head. There was a brief flash. The man convulsed and the bottle was misted with smoke and steam. He died. Hirald replaced the device in her pocket, stood and walked on. Her masters would not have been pleased at her risking herself like this, but then they did not have complete control over her actions.

  Snow was glad to leave the station behind him and this was reflected in his pace. He walked away at a kilometre-eating stride and occasionally swore with obscene precision. After the death of Aleen, Songrel had not felt obliged to honour his promise and Snow had spent two days in protective custody while the wheels of justice ground out slow due process. Luckily the appointment of the new Androche, traditionally a time of holiday and peace, had given him a needed respite. He had a day before the killers came after him.

  Passing the condensation jar he noted that the man was now dead, his body giving up the last of its water for the public good. He paused for a moment to observe the greasy film on the inside of the jar before moving on. Someone had finished the poor bastard off. Snow wondered if that same someone might be after him, for the same purpose.

  Out of sight of the station Snow left the road and set out across a spill of desert to a distant rock field. There he would be able to lose himself, if a sand shark did not get him first. He drew his pistol as he walked and kept his eyes open. One sand shark twitched its motion-detecting palps above the sand but shortly subsided. It must have fed in the last solstan year. It would be quiescent for another year to come.

  Without event Snow reached the rock field and was putting away his pistol when a flash of reflected light alerted him to possible danger. Andronache, he thought, and readied himself for another challenge, only this time there was no challenge.

  Automatic fire flicked his dust robes and scored pain across his ribs. Splinters from a nearby rock impacted on his mask. Snow dropped and quickly pulled himself behind a rock.

  ‘Idiot,’ he said. It had been some time since anyone other than an Andronache killer had tried for him. He had forgotten that their honour code did not apply to all. He crouched down further as rock shattered above his head and rained splinters down on him.

  ‘Hey, Snow!’

  Snow did not reply.

  ‘Hey, Snow, if you stick anything out make sure it’s not worth money!’

  There was laughter at this rapier wit. Two of them at least. Snow ground his teeth then pulled a couple of shiny spheroids from his belt. A volley of shots hit the rock so he supposed that at least one of them was changing position. Holding one of the spheroids to his mouth he twisted its top with his teeth then threw it hard in the general direction of the laughter. The explosion seemed completely out of proportion to the size of the object he had thrown, but then most explosives were merely matter, not field-compressed antimatter. Snow was up and running as shattered stone rained down and a great dust-cloud spread. He was behind another rock before the screams started.

  ‘You bastard! I’ll have your balls off with a blunt knife for that!’

  The voice had come from that formation to the right. The screaming came from the one to the left of it. Snow fired at the first until he got a reply, two replies. There was someone else a lot closer. Three of them then, unless there were others who were more canny. He fired a few more times, rock disintegrating and fragmenting at each hit, then he checked the charge on his pistol, holstered it, and waited, listening intently. The screaming had become a steady groaning and swearing.

  Sporadic firing splintered the rock between him and his antagonists. This did not disconcert Snow. He knew it was covering fire for the one who was creeping up on him. He heard the first betraying scrape of shock armour against stone shortly after one such burst of fire. It was out to his left. He drew his pistol and, pointing in that direction, waited. Then, a distraction, the groaning of the wounded man abruptly ceased.

  ‘David! David! Answer me!’

  No answer. Snow wondered if someone else had just joined the game. Thinking on this he almost missed the flicker of movement as the creeper stood up and sighted on him down the barrel of an Optek assault rifle. It was all the man had time to do. Snow fired once, his pistol on its highest setting. The man turned into an explosion of burning flesh, grisly remnants stuck to the rock and smoked.

  ‘Oh my God! Oh you bastard!’

  Snow wondered at the talker’s sense of proportion. He hadn’t started this. It was not his fault that they had underestimated his armament. He glanced in the direction of the rock formation the man was concealed behind and saw him come out and come running towards him. He was firing wildly, his Optek on automatic. Snow had no time to return fire. He dived for cover. Abruptly the firing stopped. Snow waited for a moment then slowly peered out from cover. The man was flat on his face, the top of his head lying about a metre in front of him. Walking towards him, an Optek resting across her shoulder, was the most beautiful woman Snow had ever seen, and he had seen a lot.

  Three Optek rifles, a dilapidated laser only a fool or a desperate man would risk firing, food, aged desert survival packs and suits, a little cash money, and now useless identity tags; the sum remains of three lives. These had been poor men; staking all on one last gamble for wealth. They had tried. Snow removed what was of most value and easily transportable; the money, liquid rations, power packs and filters from the suits, and left the rest in plain sight for anyone who wanted to take it. The woman, Hirald, retained one Optek rifle and ammunition, she did not seem interested in the rest. On the other side of the rock field, away from the stink of opened bodies and the sudden interest of crab-birds and sickle flies, Snow made a fire from old carapaces and removed his mask in the light of evening. He was curious to note that the woman had not replaced her mask since the first moment he had seen her that morning, and her skin looked as clear and as perfect as it had looked then. She sank down next to him by the fire, with a grace that could only reflect superb physical condition.

  ‘What brought you to the rock field?’ he asked her.

  ‘I made a shortcut across the Thira and was on my way back to the road and civilization, and I of course found one of the nastier aspects of this civilization.’

  Snow was doubtful about this reply. He had crossed the Thira a couple of times and knew it to be rough going. Hirald looked as fresh as someone after a month’s sojourn in a water station.

  ‘I see,’ he said.

  ‘You are Snow,’ she said, turning and fixing him with eyes that were violet in the fading light. He felt his stomach lurch at that look, then immediately felt a self-contempt, that after all these years he could still react this way to mere physical attractiveness, no, beauty.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘I would like to travel with you for a while.’

  ‘You know who I am, then you will know at once why I am suspicious of your motives.’

  She smiled at him and he felt that lurch again. He turned and spat in the fire.

  ‘I’m crossing the Thira,’ he said.

  ‘I have no problem with that,’ she told him.

  Snow lay back and rested his head on one of the packs. He pulled a thermal sheet across his body and stared up at the sky. The red-tinted swathe of stars was being encroached on by asteroids of the night. A single sword of light cut the sunset.

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘Because I’m lonely, and after the water station I would have travelled on alone. I felt like a change.’

  Snow grunted in reply and closed his eyes. She was not out to kill him. He had given her ample oppor
tunity as they crossed the rock field. But she did have motives as yet unrevealed to him. Whatever, she would never keep to the pace he set and would soon abandon him, and the unsettling things he was feeling would soon go away. He slept.

  Sunlight on his face, bringing the familiar tingling prior to burning, had his hand up and closing his mask across before he was fully awake. He looked across the dead ashes of the fire at Hirald and got the unsettling notion that she had not changed position all night. He sat up, then after a muttered good morning, went behind a rock and urinated into his condenser pack. Following the ritual of every morning for many years now he then emptied the moisture collectors of his under suit into it as well. The collector bottle he emptied into his drinking bottle before dipping his toothbrush and cleaning his teeth. By the time he had finished his ablutions and come out from behind the rock, Hirald had opened a breakfast-soup ration pack and it was bubbling under its lid. Snow reached for another pack, but she held up her hand.

  ‘This is for you. I have already eaten.’

  ‘Did you sleep at all?’

  ‘A little. Tell me, how is it you are in possession of proscribed weaponry?’

  ‘Took it off someone who tried to kill me,’ he lied, but he could hardly tell her he had brought it here before the runcible proscription and modified it himself over the so very many years since. He sat down and drank his breakfast. When he had finished they set out across the Thira. Hirald noted him looking at her after an hour’s walking and closed her mask. He thought no more of it; lots of people did not like the masks and were prepared to pay the price of water-loss not to wear them so much.