The Szuiltan Alliance (The Szuiltan Trilogy) Read online

  The voice on the speaker laughed, a sound made strangely chilling by the damaged circuitry.

  "Not all of us can go flying off around the galaxy, Steve. Someone has to stay home and do the housework. As for the computer... what if it went wrong? You'd all be landing on top of each other, which reminds me... Suzy's been waiting for you to come back."

  Steve looked for inspiration to the ceiling of the control room. Some problems never fully disappeared, they just lay quietly in the shadows, waiting to ambush you again.

  "I really don't need an obsessive fashion victim hanging around me just at this moment. I've got enough things to worry about, like getting back to work and building up my savings again. You've no idea how much this ship thing has buggered me up."

  "Maybe this time you'll make sure your insurance payments are kept up to date."

  The monotone voice of the on board computer broke through the conversation.

  "Cleared for landing. Proceeding."

  Steve clicked his seat belt on.

  "I'm on my way down. See you later over a bottle of MBP. You can buy."

  "Just for that I'll let Suzy know you're on your way. You'll have plenty of time to spend with her. Jobs are pretty scarce down here at the moment."

  Steve laughed, "What are friends for?", and clicked off the radio.

  He relaxed once more into his seat and picked up the book reader as the autopilot drifted the ungainly ship down for landing.

  It was good to be home.

  Chapter 8

  Jack Holt watched the steady descent of The Seven Deadly Sins on the computer screen. It had been almost a year since he had last seen Steve Drake and he was looking forward to the reunion. It would be something to relieve the monotony.

  Steve had been right, of course. There wasn't any excitement or danger in the general clerical duties he had performed steadily for the last ten months or so. But there had been a time before that...

  He could feel the adrenaline begin to pump at the memories and he rose from his seat, pacing the room. This sedentary life was driving him crazy with frustration. He needed a release. He had forced himself to stay fit, visiting the gym every day, and was pleased that his lean frame had not become flabby with the inactivity. He felt as sharp as ever. Scratching at two day's stubble on his chin, he was aware that he had lost the habit of shaving every day and had let his deep black hair grow long, so long that he now tied it back in a ponytail. Something needed to happen soon.

  The door slid open with such unexpected suddenness that reflexes took control and he found himself reaching for a weapon at his side that wasn't there.

  With a slight embarrassment, Jack nodded to the slim, smartly dressed man in his early forties who entered the computer room.

  "Mr Baxter. It's been a long time."

  Baxter smiled and brushed a stray strand of brown hair back into place.

  "Mr Holt. Enjoying your work?"

  "It's survivable, just. Are you offering something more interesting?"

  The adrenaline was pumping so hard now he could feel it surging through his body, heightening his senses, shifting him from foot to foot in agitation and expectation.

  Baxter's smile broadened.

  "If you mean do we have a job for you, the answer is yes. I think your 'rest' period has gone on long enough, don't you?"

  Jack's smile was wide and relieved.

  "I was beginning to think I wasn't needed any more."

  "We always have need for men of your calibre, Mr Holt. The Trading Inner Council want to see you immediately. We have organised a replacement for this..." he laughed and waved a loose hand around the computer room, "...fascinating job while you're away."

  Jack grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and headed for the door without hesitation.

  Chapter 9

  Ursa Mirram had worked for Mayor Roger Lane of Aks for almost three years. Before that she had served five years in the Aksian land-army, the last two in Special Forces. She was his Personal Assistant and his bodyguard, and she had been an agent of the Trading Inner Council since her eighteenth birthday, ten years ago.

  Pausing outside the Mayor’s private office, she checked herself in the mirrored surface of the door. Plain loose dress, sensible shoes, minimum make-up. She kept her hair brutally short and her body fit, stocky rather than slim, both the result of her years in the armed forces. She smiled, satisfied.

  Mayor Lane looked up from his desk as she entered the office, barely able to conceal his disappointment. He had hoped it was one of his secretaries or the Head of the Building Executive, who, as well as being good at her job, was stunningly attractive and an ex-lover. Ursa was efficient, no doubt of that, but why couldn't she make an effort to look more attractive?

  "A message for you Mr Mayor, coming through on your secure private line."

  And why did she still call him 'Mr Mayor' after three years? His last P.A. had been calling him Roger after six months. Then again, she was also screwing his brains out at the same time. Thinking about sex with Ursa was like… well, it was just something you didn’t think about.

  "Thank you Ursa. Is that all?"

  Ursa checked the computer organiser on her wrist.

  "You have a meeting this afternoon with Mr Rowlands from Suburb 50, otherwise free for the rest of the day."

  She watched the Mayor activate his private message screen, studying his reaction, the slight trembling in his right hand, the appearance of a thin film of sweat on his upper lip, the blinking, the licking of dry lips turned at the corners in a slight smile. Whatever he was reading both frightened and excited him. If her suspicions were correct she would feel the same too.

  He pressed delete, destroying all trace of the message, and flicked the screen off.

  "Cancel Mr Rowlands would you Ursa? I'm going out."

  She feigned surprise.

  “But Mr Rowlands has been waiting to see you for months Mr Mayor. You’re on record as sharing his concerns about overcrowding and increased crime in Suburb 50. It won’t look good to cancel such a high profile and long scheduled meeting.”

  Mayor Lane had risen to his feet and was reaching for his jacket.

  “Yes, well, I’m very sorry and I hope you’ll make my most abject apologies to Mr Rowlands but something has come up that must take precedence.”

  “May I ask what sir?”

  He turned towards her, anger flashing in his eyes.

  “No, Miss Mirram, you may not. The reason the Mayor of Aks has a private secure line is that there are things you, as a mere P.A., are not privy to. Now go and do your job and cancel Mr Rowlands. I have more important things to get on with."

  “With due respect sir, as one of your official bodyguards…”

  “Miss Mirram,” snapped the Mayor irritably. “Your services are not required, I thought I had made that clear. ”

  Ursa stepped aside as the Mayor hurried out of his office. She followed slowly, apparently with little interest, taking in his hurried steps, his brief and curt exchange of words with an aid who tried to impede his progress further down the corridor. She did not follow him into the elevator but watched the indicator drop down to the basement.

  The Mayor's air-car left the garage as she reached the window in her office, disappearing into the gloom of an overcast sky, heading east towards the suburbs and the desert. She had seen enough to know he had gone alone, refusing the services of his usual chauffeur and other bodyguards.

  She had not had to read the private message to guess its meaning, glad now that she had broken years of silence to warn the T.I.C. of her suspicions, of the snatches of whispered conversations between the Mayor and his most trusted confidantes she had overheard. Somewhere out there was a legend, a nightmare, and he was plotting something with Mayor Lane.

  Chapter 10

  Steve saw Suzy as soon as he stepped off his ship and into the crowds that surged around the arrivals area, the suburb of Sellit Central where all ships, once landed and cleared, wer
e towed and their passengers, crew and cargo unloaded. She stood a good head and a half taller than anyone else and her luminous dyed green hair glittered with all the welcome of a stagnant pond. He pushed desperately deeper into the crowds, trying to become invisible, closing his eyes in despair as the mass movement pushed him steadily towards her.

  It wasn't that she was a particularly unattractive woman, perhaps too thin for Steve's own taste, but there were plenty of men around who liked their women stick-like. It was just that she was ... well ... strange. Her ideas on fashion were, to be kind, individual. At the party where she and Steve had first met, her hair, for once its natural brown colour, had been sprayed with an hallucinogenic so that anyone who strayed too close saw her in vivid rainbow colours which, considering the garish shades of her clothes, was perhaps for the best. He had been drunk, not unusually, and the combined effect of MBP and the hallucinogenic had made him more than willing to accompany her to her room.

  He couldn't remember much about that night, but ever since Suzy had searched him out with frightening regularity. She wanted him to settle down, to commit to a desk job and a life with her. He was more scared of that than he was of any danger he might face in deep space.

  "Steve!"

  Her voice screamed above the noise of the crowd as she sighted him.

  "Over here, Steve!"

  He attempted to move in the opposite direction but the crowd pushed him persistently towards her.

  As he came within striking distance she lashed out with her arms and crushed him close to her, his face buried between her small breasts, her chin pressing into the top of this head.

  That's another thing, he reminded himself. She's too tall.

  Jack Holt smiled at the sign outside the Inner Council Complex.

  Neutrality is peace.

  This was the traders' maxim, the belief by which they existed. Jack's smile broadened. Neutrality, yes, but not ignorance of galactic politics.

  What few traders realised was the extent of Sellit's undercover network of agents stationed all over the known galaxy, reporting on the state of worlds, governments and wars. Jack had been an agent for more years than he cared to remember. At thirty-six he was far from a veteran, but he had worked undercover since his twenty-third birthday and was considered by his superiors to be an experienced agent. As he had been called before the Trading Inner Council he could only imagine that they had a job for him, an assignment.

  He was getting bored staying at home anyway.

  Tapping the touch sensitive square on the door in front of him, he waited while somewhere within the corridors beyond a small light would be flashing on a security console. A video screen would flicker and the image of the person waiting would be analysed, along with the fingerprints detected by the touch sensitive pad and the retinal scan so subtle be barely noticed it, and compared with files.

  Jack waved to the swivelling camera above him as the door slid open. He walked inside, breathing deeply to quell the flutter of nerves in his stomach.

  The corridor was comforting in its familiarity, although austere in appearance. Its clinical white walls, freckled with sensors, cameras, ventilation grills and more defence mechanisms than he would dare to imagine, reflected the subdued ceiling lights, almost doubling their brightness. The walls curved away, twisting out of sight some two hundred yards from the door, creating the unsettling illusion of infinity stretching out before him.

  He had once shared a drunken night with a female T.I.C. agent, part of whose job was to maintain the appearance and functionality of these corridors, and she had explained how the general effect was designed to disorientate any unwelcome visitors, giving those vital few extra seconds for security to properly respond. It disoriented its welcome visitors as well, but it was not an unpleasant disorientation. It was similar in a way, reflected Jack, to the very first mouthful of MBP after a long and dry day at the computer or on-board ship.

  This whole complex had been Jack's home for almost four years as he trained to become a T.I.C. agent.

  Walking towards apparent infinity, he reflected on how he had first been approached, and on the early years when he and Steve were both fresh out of Earth, young and eager and a little afraid at the enormity of their decision. At least, he had been afraid. Steve had always been the reckless, impulsive one.

  When the rest of their childhood group had been holding back from something new, something risky, it was always Steve who stepped forward. Steve had been the one who enticed the others to stay out long after the time they were due home. Steve had been the first to swim in the lake, ignoring the "No Swimming" signs. Steve had been the first to start drinking and, subsequently, had been the first to get himself arrested. And it had been Steve who had talked him into leaving Earth and heading for a life with the traders. Martin and Sharon had stayed behind and, the last he heard, got married.

  Funny, but I always thought that Steve and Sharon would end up together.

  The T.I.C. had approached him not many years after he had arrived on Sellit. They had never fully explained why they chose him, but some comments had been made about his mature and serious-minded approach. It had been subtle and slow, and it was only with hindsight that he could see the first tentative contacts made by other traders, traders he now knew were agents for the Council. He had accepted the offer, when it eventually came, without hesitation. He had always felt there was more to life than just trading and making money, something worthwhile that he could do, something that might make a difference.

  He still remembered his first day, being led into this very corridor, his stomach fluttering at what lay ahead. He had walked into the T.I.C. complex with fear and excitement and, until recently, those feelings had never left him.

  During the years spent training, his friends, including the recently returned Steve Drake, had been told he was away on a long trading trip to the outer rim of the known galaxy. This was to keep his real work as secret as possible. None of his friends, even now, knew what he really did to earn his living. They all believed in his mundane job as a General Clerical Officer on Sellit, a job that enabled him to move around such areas as Computer Control and the spaceport with absolute freedom. Useful places to keep a protective eye on the Trading Inner Council's work.

  He stopped at one of several intercoms set at regular intervals into the walls and pressed the transmit button.

  "Agent Jack Holt in Corridor One."

  He lifted his finger and, after a second of static, a computer generated voice droned from the intercom's speaker grill.

  "Room 5A, Corridor Twelve. The Council are waiting."

  Jack headed without hesitation for the inter-complex shuttle service, small, unmanned travel cars connecting, in seconds, corridors that would otherwise take several minutes to move between.

  This must be important if he was actually to face the Council.

  Steve headed straight for the full 2-litre bottle of MBP that stood on the bedside cabinet as Suzy closed the apartment door behind them.

  "A little present," she said. "To welcome you home."

  Steve smiled and unscrewed the top, breathing in the unmistakable odour reverently. He hadn't been able to afford a bottle since his last ship had been destroyed in the storm. Suzy did have her good points.

  "Do you want a glass?" asked Suzy at the same moment that Steve lifted the bottle to his lips and began to drink. A wry smile crossed her face. "Silly question."

  She turned towards the accompanying bathroom.

  "I'm just going to freshen up a bit. Won't be long."

  Steve watched her go in silence. It was no good. He couldn't let it go on like this. He couldn't just drink her booze, sleep with her and then leave again. He would have to explain to her that, whatever her feelings for him, he did not, could not, love her. It wasn't fair to either of them to carry on as it was.

  He was barely a third of the way through the bottle when she came back into the room.

  Her hair was still green, although
she had washed out some of the luminescence, and she had taken much of the makeup from her face. She wore a floor length dress that was almost transparent in the backlight of the bathroom. He could see her nipples, dark and hard, pressing against the thin material, and the deep shadow of her pubic hair. She was all but naked and he could feel the familiar lust and desire growing within him. This was something else he had denied himself while searching for another ship.

  But this is all wrong.

  He took another gulp of MBP and tried to clear his suddenly dry throat.

  "Suzy," he began, before a rough cough broke his words. He tried again."Suzy. Listen. We have to talk."

  She stepped clear of the bathroom and the light clicked off, giving her dress an opaqueness that Steve found relieving.

  "Since when have you wanted to talk?"

  "Please Suzy. This is serious."

  The smile faded from her face, replaced by a concern and nervousness that Steve found surprisingly endearing. She sat down on the bed next to him. He cleared his throat again and took a deep breath.

  "This has got to stop. This whole thing... I can't lie any more." He was staring at the floor, the bottle of MBP clutched tightly in one fist. "We need to sort it out, now."

  "Sort what out? I don't like the way you're talking Steve. What's wrong?"

  There was a slight tremor in her voice that told him she already understood exactly what was wrong. But he knew he had to say it. She would never accept it unless he came out and said it to her face.

  Shit! Why does life have to be so fucking hard?

  "I know you have feelings for me Suzy, and I'm flattered, I really am, but..."

  "I love you. You know that. I've been in love with you since that first night."

  She was clutching her dress in one small fist, kneading it nervously. This was a conversation she had always dreaded yet, strangely, she had expected it earlier than this. Somewhere inside she had always known that Steve was not the kind of man to settle down with one woman.