Hammer and Bolter - Issue 1 Read online

  He introduced himself, and offered to buy her a drink. She regarded him distantly, and then asked his name. Her accent was thick.

  ‘Titus,’ he replied.

  She marked it on her card. ‘The fifth tune from now, Master Titus,’ she said, adding, ‘amasec on ice.’ Then she walked away, and took the embrace of a noncom for the next dance.

  He was perplexed, until he saw the way of it. Most of the women in the bar were dancers from the Theatricala. They supplemented their wages by partner-dancing at the zendov bars, efficiently exploiting Karoscura’s paucity of female companionship. No wonder the clubs were popular. No wonder the clubs paid the girls well for after-hours dancing. They brought the men in, men so hungry for a five-minute intimacy with a woman while the music played, they’d stay all night, waiting their turn, and drink well in the meantime.

  When his turn came, she found him at the bar.

  ‘Master Titus?’

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked as she led him onto the dance floor.

  She seemed surprised that he should care. ‘Mira,’ she replied.

  The music began. Endor had watched the dancers closely, and had learned the steps. His mind worked that way. He took her in a close hold, and turned her about the floor, between other dancing couples. Glittering glow-globes rotated above them, casting down a blizzard of light like snowflakes.

  She was close to him, taut, radiating heat. He felt how hard and sinewy her body was, how rigid. She was tiny, but all muscle. She smelled of cologne, but it did not mask the heat of her, or the residue of old ballet makeup, hastily removed, or the slight odour of sweat. She had come straight from the Theatricala, probably changing in a backroom in a hurry.

  Sweat, hard limbs, the stale aroma of lho-sticks. He found it intoxicating. Pulled close to her, he noticed she had an old scar along the nape of her neck, just below the hairline.

  The tune ended.

  ‘Thank you, Mira,’ he bowed. ‘Your amasec awaits at the bar.’

  ‘My card is full. I will come over later.’

  He looked disappointed.

  ‘Where did you learn to dance?’ she asked.

  ‘Tonight. Here.’

  She scowled. ‘I don’t like liars. No one learns to zendov in an evening.’

  ‘I’m not lying. I watched and learned.’

  She narrowed her eyes. They were hard eyes, in a hard face. ‘You’re not very good,’ she said, ‘but you know the steps. Perfectly, in fact. You’re too rigid, though. Your shoulders are too tight.’

  He bowed again. ‘I’ll remember that. Perhaps you might educate me in the finer points of the dance?’

  ‘Sorry, my card is full.’

  ‘No room, not even at the end of the night?’

  The music had begun again. A Navy officer was waiting for her, impatient anger in his face.

  ‘Amasec,’ she said. ‘Perhaps, at the end of the night.’

  IN THE ZENDOV clubs, the end of the night meant dawn. The queues of men danced the girls into exhaustion. Heading from the bar to find the washroom, Endor saw three or four shoeless girls in a back hall, smoking lho-sticks and dabbing at bleeding heels and swollen toes.

  He went out into the snow, and searched for a public vox-station. He called Liebstrum’s number, and got the message service.

  ‘Where are you?’ he shouted. ‘Where are you?’

  TWO GLASSES SAT on the bar. Joiliq in one, diluted with slowly melting ice, and amasec in the other. It was four-thirty.

  ‘Master Titan?’

  ‘Titus,’ he corrected, looking around. What he saw made him forget the throbbing in his temples. ‘My name is Titus.’

  The girl nodded. ‘Sorry. This for me?’

  He smiled. She took up the amasec and sipped.

  ‘A last dance, then, yes?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve been waiting.’

  There was a look in her eyes that told him how much she despised the men who waited to dance with her.

  She led him to the floor. Her body was as hard as before, but now she was cold. There was no heat in her. The fragrance of lho-smoke and sweat had dulled into a thin, unhealthy smell.

  ‘Loosen your shoulders,’ she said, as the music began. ‘Turn your head. No, too much. Turn it like this. And swing out. Yes. And back and back.’

  ‘Am I getting it?’ he asked. He felt like he was dancing with a corpse.

  ‘Your footwork is fine. Excellent, actually. Your back is still a little stiff. Turn out, turn out, that’s it.’

  ‘You’re a good teacher.’

  ‘I do what I’m paid to do, sir.’

  ‘You’re tired.’

  ‘Every day is a long day,’ she whispered, her head against his chest. She looked up at him sharply. ‘Please don’t tell the bosses I said that. They’ll dock my pay.’

  ‘I won’t,’ he smiled, rotating her neatly. ‘I know how long your day’s been. I was at the Theatricala. You are a fine dancer.’

  ‘This pays better than the classical shit,’ she said. She stared up at him as they spun and re-addressed. ‘Have you been following me?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I just came here and saw you.’

  ‘And learned the zendov.’

  He chuckled. ‘Something like that. Men must follow women all the time on this world. There are so few of you.’

  ‘It does become a problem,’ she admitted.

  ‘So they follow you? Watch you?’

  ‘I suppose they do,’ said Mira.

  ‘Who watches you?’ he asked.

  ‘You do,’ she said, ‘and everyone else.’

  They swung and re-addressed, then promenaded again.

  ‘How did you get the scar?’ he asked.

  She flinched. ‘I hate it when men notice that.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Will you tell me how you got it?’

  ‘I got it years ago. That’s all I want to say about it.’

  He nodded, spinning her. ‘I’m sorry I asked. We all have our scars.’

  ‘Isn’t that the truth?’ she agreed.

  The number ended. He stepped back and looked at her.

  ‘Please, please don’t ask me for another,’ she said quietly.

  ‘A last drink, then?’

  ‘I’m dead on my feet, Master Titus.’

  ‘Might I be first on your card tomorrow, then?’

  ‘It doesn’t work that way. Come along tomorrow, and we’ll dance again.’

  She walked away. The band was packing up. Endor went to the bar, where the barman was washing the last of the glasses.

  ‘Grain joiliq, with shaved ice, and a sliver of citrus,’ Endor requested.

  The barman sighed, and fixed the drink. When Endor looked around, the girl had vanished.

  IT WAS LIGHT when he got back to his residentiary. Snow was fluttering down out of a sky that was white and opaque. He tossed his copy book onto the desk, took off his jacket and fell down on his bed.

  HE DREAMT OF Hapshant. There were worms coming out of his tear ducts. Endor tried to wipe them away. Gregor shouted at him, telling him he was a fool. Hapshant went into spasms, his heels kicking on the hardwood floor.

  THE KNOCKING PERSISTED. It was suddenly late in the afternoon. Endor sat up, fully clothed. The knocking came again, not Hapshant’s heels at all.

  He went to the door and opened it.

  Liebstrum stared at him.

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, hello to you too,’ replied Endor.

  Liebstrum pushed past him into the room. ‘Throne of Terra, Titus. Why? Why do you keep doing this?’

  ‘Doing what, exactly?’

  ‘Calling me. Calling me with these messages and–’

  ‘Where have you been?’ Endor asked.

  Liebstrum turned and looked at him. ‘You’ve forgotten again, haven’t you?’

  ‘Forgotten what? Interrogator, I believe you have been singularly derelict in your duti
es these last few weeks. I’m afraid I’ve been forced to send a report of admonition to the ordos and–’

  ‘Not again. Again with this,’ Liebstrum sighed.

  ‘Again with what, interrogator?’

  Liebstrum pulled out his rosette. ‘It’s Inquisitor, Titus. Inquisitor.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Four years ago, on Hesperus. You elected me yourself. Don’t you remember?’

  Endor frowned. ‘No, I don’t.’

  Liebstrum sat down on the bed. ‘Throne, Titus, you have to stop doing this to me.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  Liebstrum looked up at him sadly. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Hunting Gonrad Maliko. You know that. Keep up.’

  ‘We captured Gonrad Maliko five years ago. He’s serving life in the penal colony on Izzakos. Don’t you remember?’

  Endor paused. He wandered over to his desk and poured the last dregs of a bottle of joiliq into a dirty glass. ‘No, no, I don’t remember that. Not at all.’

  ‘Oh, Titus,’ Liebstrum muttered.

  ‘Maliko is loose. He’s here, and he’s loose. I have a lead, a girl in the Theatricala, and box 435–’

  ‘Stop it! Stop it now!’

  ‘Liebstrum?’

  Liebstrum rose from the bed and approached Endor. ‘Show me your rosette,’ he said.

  Endor took a swig of his drink and pulled his wallet out of his pocket.

  ‘Look. Do you see, Titus?’ Liebstrum asked, opening the leather wallet. ‘There’s no rosette in there. You were disavowed, three years ago. They took your warrant away. You’re not an inquisitor any more.’

  ‘Of course I am,’ said Titus Endor, ignoring the bald patch in the wallet where his rosette had once been sewn in. ‘I’m operating under Special Circumstances.’

  Liebstrum shook his head sadly. ‘Titus, I’ve tried to help you, Throne knows, but you’ve got to stop calling me. You’ve got to stop pretending.’

  ‘Pretending? How dare you!’

  Liebstrum walked towards the door. ‘This is the last time I come running, you understand? The very last time.’

  ‘No, I don’t understand. I am affronted by your manner, interrogator. Maliko is still out there.’

  Liebstrum turned to look back one last time. ‘No, Titus, he really isn’t.’

  ENDOR WENT TO the park in the last of the afternoon. Black trees and blacker ironwork benches stood up out of a skim of wet snow. He wondered how Maliko had got to Liebstrum. What did he have on him? He sat on a bench, and began to draft a report in his copy book, a report exposing Liebstrum’s connections to the criminal, and recommending his immediate censure and suspension. But the bench was cold and damp, and it soaked his clothes and gave him a headache, so he walked to a local cafe and ordered a pot of chocolate and a thimble of amasec.

  The light was going out of the sky. As the snow fell, it almost seemed as if the pale sky was shedding in little white flakes, leaving a dark undercoat behind.

  ENDOR WENT BACK to the zendov club early, before the Theatricala turned out, and waited for the girl, but she never showed. He hung around until it was quite late, and then started asking questions. The other dancers, the girls, were reticent. They’d learned that you didn’t give out personal details to men who loitered at the clubs.

  Finally, Endor snagged a junior barman who, for rather too many crowns, said he was prepared to slip into the manager’s office and take a look at the girl’s contact address in the club ledger.

  Endor met him out the back of the dance club just after one in the morning, and exchanged the cash for a slip of paper.

  Mira Zaleed, 870 Arbogan.

  He considered leaving it until the morning, but he was restless, so he bought a quart of amasec at a tavern on Oroshbyli Street, and rode the maglev to Corso Saint Helk in the north of the city. From the station, it was a long walk up the rockcrete walkways to the hab blocks: Solingen, Zarbos, Arbogan.

  The stairwells were unlit, and choked with trash. A domestic quarrel was raging on the fifth floor, and the residents of other habs were yelling out protests at the noise. Just before he located 870, it occurred to him that 870 was twice 435.

  Titus Endor stood in the gloomy hallway, listening to the racket of someone else’s private life disintegrating, and wondered if the numbers were significant. Numbers could be dangerous. A life of study and an eventful career had shown him that. Certain numbers, usually abstract mathematical constructs, possessed power. He’d heard of several cases where cogitators had been corrupted by warped numbers, and he’d been party to another case, years ago, when some old fool had mistakenly believed he’d uncovered the Number of Ruin. He and Gregor had handled it, and it had come to nothing, but they’d taken it seriously. He couldn’t remember the old fool’s name now, some dusty scribe, but he remembered the case. They’d been interrogators then, him and Gregor, just starting out. They’d been friends.

  An age ago, in another life.

  His mind had wandered. He blinked, and wondered how long he had been standing in the dim passageway outside 870 Arbogan. The domestic had ended, and the night was still. From somewhere, he heard the frail sound of zendov music, playing on an old voxcordian.

  He decided to steady his nerves with a sip of the quart of amasec, and discovered that the bottle was half-empty already.

  He knocked on the door.

  There was no answer. Someone in a neighbouring flat cried out, the half-awake mew of the nightmared.

  He knocked again.

  ‘Mira Zaleed?’ he called.

  The door was baffled shempwood in an iron frame, with double dead bolts and a triple-tumbler, Blaum et Cie safety lock. The lock had been retrofitted into the door, an expensive piece of kit for such a low-rent hab. He rummaged in his trouser pocket, and found his anykey. The slim blade extended from the grip, slipped into the lock and muttered as it explored the permutations.

  He waited. One murmur more, and the anykey turned. The lock sprung with a clatter of rotating drums, and the deadbolts unlatched.

  He put the anykey back in his pocket and pushed the door open with his toe.

  ‘Mira?

  The squalid apartment was cold and dark. The windows of the main room, overlooking the hab block’s cinderblock courtyard, had been left open, and snow damp had blown in like wet breath. The drapes were lank and partly stiff with frost. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves and clicked the light switch. An overhead light bar woke up, lazy and slow. Frizzy purple mould had colonised the cups and plates left on the little dining table. A chair had been overturned on the bare floor. On the wall, faded picts of laughing friends and solemn family gatherings jostled with playbills and programmes from Theatricalas from a half-dozen worlds like Gudrun, Eustis Majoris, Brontotaph and Ligeria.

  The bedroom was vacant. A single bed, crumpled with use, had been pushed against the wall, and yellow markings, made in chalk, had been scribed on the exposed floor space. The marks were arrows, circling and crossing, and numbers. 4, 3, 5 and then an 8, a 7, a 0. To the left, 87, the digits stacked as a column. 5, Endor thought, went into 435 87 times.

  He stepped over the marks, and took out his little chrome picter. He took four or five shots of the markings.

  He felt cold on his back, a shiver. In the little closet, packed tight, were dozens of dance costumes, all gauze and lace. They smelled, very faintly, of sweat and lho-smoke. He reached in and rifled through shoes and hats at the back of the closet space. His hand closed on something: a book.

  He drew it out.

  It was an unauthorised edition of Stratified Eating Customs In The Halo Star Sub-Races, by Soloman Tarsh. Tarsh was a pen name Maliko had used to publish his most scandalous theories. Endor smiled. Like the tumbling mechanism of a Blaum et Cie safety lock, things were falling into place. He bagged the book in a plastek evidence sheath, and put it in his pocket. Then, he rootled some more, and found a string of cultured pearls, a small jewellery box and a fetish made of ben
t wire and feathers.

  He bagged them all.

  The kitchen was a dank mess of grime and grease, stacked with culture-bearing crockery. He went to the bathroom.

  Violent death marked the small, tiled room. Blood had extravagantly stippled the walls and dried into black scabs, and it had pooled in the enamel tub, separating into dark sediment and glassy surface plasma. From the spray travel and the splash vectors, Endor approximated a frenzied attack, multiple stabs with a short, double-edged blade. There was no shower curtain, and the rings on the rail were broken and buckled. The perp wrapped the body in the curtain, he deduced.

  ‘Are you dead, Mira?’ he asked out loud. It was unlikely. The kill scene was a week old, and he’d danced with her just the night before.

  ‘Who’s in there?’ a voice called. Endor stiffened.

  ‘Come on out, unless it’s you, Mira.’

  The voice was sixty years old, and carrying twenty or thirty kilos too much weight. Endor unclipped his shoulder holster so his weapon was in grab range, and came out of the bathroom. A torch beam shone in his face.

  ‘This had better be good,’ said the sixty-year-old, overweight voice.

  ‘Get the light out of my eyes, please,’ said Endor.

  The beam swung away, revealing a fat old man aiming a combat shotgun. The barrels of the weapon were pointing directly at Endor. The old man was wearing pyjama bottoms and unlaced, scuffed army boots. His belly stretched his stained vest. Old Guard insignia, the stitching worn, decorated his fatigue jacket.

  ‘Who are you?’ Endor asked.

  ‘This says I get to ask the questions,’ the old man replied, settling his shotgun. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘A friend of Mira’s.’

  The old man snorted. ‘That’s what they all say. They don’t all get in, though.’

  ‘She gave me a key.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’ the old man asked.

  ‘We’re friends,’ said Endor.

  ‘Round and round we go,’ said the old man. ‘Give me a good reason not to blast your lungs out through your spine.’