The House on Blue Silk Mountain

M’Iqo could have kicked himself, but it would have made too much noise.

He was standing flat-footed in the middle of a pitch-dark room he knew to be a trap. He had walked in knowing the room was occupied. And way down very deep in his heart he knew that occupant to be armed.

It was the kind of feckless inattention to detail that catches up with experience. He knew all that and he had done it anyway.

M’Iqo'Cali do Biea’Co si Mii’Miiy, had spent most of his life staying alive when it wasn’t one of the options. He was considered elderly for his trade––almost thirty on the Old Terran Standard Scale––and he had not gotten there with this kind of foolishness.

The starlight option in his left eye might have relieved the situation somewhat––if he had remembered to turn it on.

Suddenly, he recalled that he had remembered that very same thought twice before in the last twenty seconds.

Then he forgot again––he just forgot. The whole idea simply slithered from his mind.

Whoever it was stood silently––waiting. He could feel the direction from the flow of room-noise. He knew the height and weight and that it waited just for him––patiently and personally just for him.

A sultry perfume sifted its way through the air. The scent mimicked one of the more coercive designer aphrodisiacs––hot, mysterious and quite compelling.

But this one was a fake. The pheromone proposition had nothing to do with sex. "Don’t see me," it charged. And then, "Look over there! Something else is more interesting."

Someone wanted to be invisible. It was a very powerful compulsion and would probably have been a quite effective diversion on anyone else.

"M'Iqo." The woman’s hand slid lightly over his shoulder, drifting across and then centering on his chest. The right woman can stop a charging bull with a touch like that––well, it’s probably more like a charging man. This was one of those women.

"I must have taken a wrong door," M'Iqo said. "I was looking for the amenities suite."

This might actually turn out to be just a casual encounter with a lost party guest. He didn’t think so, but, if it was, etiquette might prove more advantageous than homicide.

"Of course you were, M’Iqo," she chuckled.

"M’Dama," he said, "you seem to have the advantage of me. Have we met? I should think I would remember such a voice as yours, even in this darkness. Do we know each other?"

Her voice smiled at him in the darkness. "Well...I suppose we did meet a bit earlier this evening. I doubt you would remember me. There must be more than two hundred women at the Count’s party tonight. Any of them would be much more beautiful than I am. And then too, my friend, you have been a little preoccupied with...other more pressing business."

He couldn’t place the accent––a lilting kind of drawl, and her syntax was a little strange. Tai’Xa would not be her birth language. This was probably going to turn out to be some jaded duchess with a husband as boring as she was. And here he was, wasting time, getting lured into somebody else’s domestic rat trap.

Her voice smiled again. "Not so, M'Iqo, though it is something of a pleasant surprise to find such a one here...." She sighed sadly. "And something of a complication as well. Actually, I was rather flattered that you noticed me quite so...oh, let me see...‘profoundly’. I think that is close to the correct word in your language."

In spite of himself, M'Iqo did a quick mental review. She was right; of course, the place was a regular beauty pageant. However, most of the women here had the maternal instincts of a trapdoor spider. He didn’t have time to follow the thought. There was a problem now––a really very bad problem. He had felt that kind of feathery touch in his mind before. This woman was a telepath!

"Ah yes well, I’m afraid you are quite right," she said.

He could feel the pressure of her unhappiness in his mind. She was intensely embarrassed by what she was doing.

"Uh huh...okay," he said.

M’Iqo was trying to not think so loud. Some joker had once bet him that he couldn’t not think about a chicken for a whole minute.

"So M’Dama," he added. "Do we stand here in the dark, or do I get to call you something besides, ‘M’Dama’?"

"No, M'Iqo, for the moment that is going to have to do for us," she said, and there was genuine sadness in her voice. "It is likely you will be captured shortly and I need just a little more time to complete my work. What is not in your mind.... Well, I regret the need. I hope that I am wrong and you will succeed in your work."

He could feel the heat from her body, and this time his hands found the curve of her face. Such an intimacy would be considered crass insolence even in this perverted society, and yet she allowed his touch––more than allowed. Her cheek turned into his open palm.

M’Iqo generally had very little patience with fascinating women. Mostly he found them just plain irritating. But, whoever this was, her business was something well beyond petty domestic intrigue.

He traced the shape of her face with his fingers. She was a very beautiful woman by any standards. Her skin flushed hot under his touch, and for just an instant his mind filled with the image of a mountain house draped in flowered vines. Three children ran towards him.

He knew the house, of course. He had grown up there and his parents still farmed Blue Taminda silk on the slopes. P’Tra’Shai Mountain was on Kenamin-5. He wasn’t sure what to think about the children.

"Oh, you are a deadly one, aren’t you?" Her voice had grown husky, trembling slightly.

"At least we both came armed," He said. And this time his was the voice with the smile. "So, I am not to learn who you are...?"

"No...not tonight. I have other...obligations, as do you. I just wanted to make sure we wouldn’t be in each other’s way this evening."

The intensity of her regret in his mind actually made him wince. "And so, now you’re sure?" he said.

Again, there was that smiling voice. "Yeah, sure enough. You are here to find a small towheaded girl. Your friend’s little daughter is locked up inside a room three levels above. Watch for the big bald-headed man. He likes to play with knives. He also likes to play with little girls...parts of them anyway. You had best hurry."

"That would be Bad Toupé." M'Iqo really was thinking that he should light this situation up, and of course she would know that. It would have been easy enough to just cut in the starlight system in his left eye. He had intended to do that when he first entered the room. It had completely slipped his mind. Now, of course, he knew the reason for that.

He had never liked telepaths, but he still didn’t key in the eye. He considered it as sort of a professional courtesy, but he didn’t want to pursue the logic very far. The thought was hardly logical, and it might not even be his.

"So...not an enemy..." he said. Not a friend...and not in the way...."

"Yes, and I do beg your pardon. I understand your prejudice about my kind of people. Where I come from, this closeness is for Companions...um...I think you say, for...married people. The intimacy of such contact is embarrassing for you. It is also for me. At the moment it is just.... I have little time and I needed to know your mind. Nevertheless, I do thank you for the little professional courtesy. And M’Iqo, the thought is your own."

Her voice still smiled––his hands had traced what that was like. "Just get your little friend out of here, M'Iqo. And do feel free to deactivate the one with the shiny head.... I so wanted to and couldn’t take the chance."

There was ice in the air with her next words. "There will never be another time for these people. I am here to kill this place."

The voice was gone then. Only the dark sweetness of her scent remained.

M’Iqo was used to isolation. Much of the time it meant safety. Now he just felt lonely.

It was not a feeling he would have to endure for very long. He had left a number of bodies cluttering the basement level where he had come in. Their previous owners had all been carrying comm links, and even as lax as this place was, somebody was going to notice the absence of their reports eventually.

He left the darkness and began cruising the hallways around the ballroom floor. He located four live, and eight automatic gun emplacements. Five of the automatics were unloaded. Two of the live gunners were asleep and one was out on the floor trying to convince his dance partner that he was somebody or other incognito.

Eventually M’Iqo found the amenities suite. The Count was considered to be something of an eccentric and still kept facilities separated by gender. His guests usually considered it a charming anachronism. The old butcher was far too decrepit to remember why it could matter to anyone.

The room was empty as M'Iqo entered and assumed the position at one of the wall facilities. He pulled off a ruby cuff link. The device was a particularly obnoxious sonic mine, though it did make a good cuff link. Arming the proximity fuse, he dropped it on the tile.

The next person to come within a meter of the hellish little bauble would trigger an overwhelming wave of nausea with a domain of five hundred meters. M'Iqo already had the counter wave generator armed in the other cuff link, an emerald. Color dissymmetry was the fashion passion this season.

Then he pulled a palm-sized needler from its very uncomfortable holster. This was an assassin’s weapon––appropriately enough. M'Iqo was an assassin––expensive, and notoriously picky.

That wasn’t his day job, of course. Normally he ruled the children’s provenance of the B'Ai K'Tao Mountain Village Branch of the Imperial Library on Pyxis-Alpha-4. The jobs were not entirely unrelated, at least in his case.

B'Ai K'Tao Mountain Village was about as far from the enlightenment and genteel homicide of the Imperial center as M'Iqo could get. He had retired early from "public service," and his employer had been immensely unhappy about it.

M’Iqo had not known it at the time, but B'Ai K'Tao Mountain was also the home of the "tow head." Eight year old N'Qki was the foster daughter of The Imperial Intendant, High Lord Jai’Çin do Aqa We’Bai si Çiq’Tii do’Ni, etc., etc.

Oh, M'Iqo had known the little girl. She was into everything, and like everybody else, he had thought she was the Intendant’s own daughter. She was a regular for story hour on the mezzanine and a voracious reader of things she wasn’t supposed to be getting into. She cracked the access codes to the secure archives her second day there.

They had become fast friends.

Then one morning the Intendant had come to the mezzanine––floated in, actually. What was left of his body was cradled in a medi-doc. Half his face had been sheared away; the right arm and both legs were missing. The doc was rebuilding him but it would be some time before the old warrior swung a force blade again. Reconstruction of the mouth and larynx had been completed only that morning.

The Citadel Residence had been cruising in its usual low orbit above the planet the night before. It had been cracked open by a Hai’Lin Tagg pirate fleet. Forty-three bodyguards had died in the defense, and most could not be revived. It had been a close thing for the Intendant. He had burned down seven of the Hai’Lin before his arm went, but then they took his legs.

N'Qki had been taken. The Governor had actually been the kidnap target. The plan had evidently changed when the pirates thought he was dead.

The High Families frequently fostered each other’s children. The custom cemented relations between Clans, and often protected the children themselves from assassination. The patronym of the foster family was generally included in the child’s own name lists at peerage.

Fostering was considered a very private matter between those families. Very often, the children themselves did not know they were being fostered until they reached majority.

M'Iqo’s little friend N'Qki was such a child.

Fourteen senior Imperial Intelligence officers had already apologized by their own hand. The Emperor himself had quickly intervened, forbidding any further such foolishness for the rest who had filed letters of intent.

Someone with very bad judgment apparently thought that kidnapping the Imperial Intendant’s daughter would afford them some political leverage in the region. It was a misapprehension that would not last for very long. Then, of course, there would be no ransom demands, just mindless panic, and most likely, a small dead body.

The kidnappers would then run to some place very far away––and would find that there just was no place that could be that far.

M'Iqo’s retirement was over by mid-afternoon. His commission was Commanded reinstated––Commanded with the big "C."

The High Lord Intendant was not his current employer. The situation was so very much worse than that.

M'Iqo palmed the gun affectionately. He was something of a connoisseur of weapon craft and a true artist had designed this little piece of death. It was virtually noiseless and impelled a high-speed stream of gelatin micro-needles. The tree frog sweat they carried caused instant dissolution of the neural medullar sheathing in carbon-based life forms. Every nerve in the body shorted out. The target was inert before it even had time to die. It was not a nice weapon. But then, it wasn’t for nice people.

So, time to play. He stepped away from the facilities as a very drunk man dressed in formal wear slammed through the door. The man ricocheted off the wall, tearing out a jeweled nose ring.

"Damned red-haired bitch," he slobbered.

His eyes focused more or less and he threw a mushy roundhouse punch at M'Iqo.

M’Iqo shifted sideways very slightly and the blow slid heavily across his chest. The man’s body toppled after the fist, landing him face first, cradled in the comfort station M'Iqo had so recently vacated.

The man’s body triggered the mine. The emerald cuff link was working fine––for M'Iqo, anyway. M'Iqo left his recent acquaintance now busily offering up what appeared to be a superlative Pajurian ruby brandy to the great porcelain idol.

So much for timing.

Crossing the floor of the main ballroom was not as simple a task as it had been a few minutes before. The slippery floor was now littered with the contorted bodies of resplendent thugs and their ladies, all busily engaged in destroying the integrity of the Count’s sous chef.

Three decks up accounted for more than six hundred meters, a distance well beyond the effective range of the mine. The guards who met the elevator there were hardly elite corps material but they were expecting M'Iqo.

It was a gallant but hopeless gesture. M'Iqo didn’t stand a chance. As the doors of the elevator slid open the guards filled the chamber with lethal radiation packets and razor string. There was little left to be seen when the air finally cleared.

And that could have been pretty bad for M’Iqo had he happened to actually be in the elevator.

As things stood though, M'Iqo was just a bit ahead of his schedule, and able to allow the guards a few moments to preen at their small victory over the elevator. However, he could only spare a few, and then he dropped all five of them from his real position at the head of the stairs.

He was hoping that the guards inside the room would think that the silence meant the intruder was dead. He stomped around making noise enough to sound like several men and started a muffled conversation with himself about the stupid idiot in the elevator.

There was a chuckle from a man on the other side as a door opened. A burly body topped by a leering head peered out into the hallway. The face had probably started life as human but, among other things, some cosmetic surgeon with a droll sense of humor had replaced the canine teeth with three-centimeter long fangs. Set against the darkened room, as he was, the effect might have disheartened some people.

M'Iqo had set a couple of bodies up against the wall and he now wore the armored jacket of one. The previous owner had been quite fat and M'Iqo felt like a ferret in a living room couch. The hall was dark enough to slow down identification. Most of the stray ordinance had nailed the lighting panels. These weren’t exactly the sharpest troops he’d ever come up against.

He faced away from the door as it opened, waving and mumbling something incoherent to a presumed companion over by the darkened elevator. Then M'Iqo turned and sent a short stream of needles into the man at the threshold. The body was still standing as M'Iqo slid by and helped it step through the doorway. The others in the room didn’t have time to realize that their companion wasn’t actually doing any walking on his own.

Now came the hard part. There was a little girl in here somewhere and he was not going to be shooting poisoned needles around the place until he knew where she was.

Three men hit him as he crossed the room. One was just a little ahead of the other two. He was big and had the asinine bravado of the habitual bully.

M'Iqo was a little too close to be nice. It wasn’t one of his general policies anyway. He turned half-body and rammed an elbow into the base of the other man’s nose. The man was dead as he fell, lurching backwards into the other two attackers.

Both of them carried hand weapons and they hadn’t fired on him. Normally that would mean there was something in or near the line-of-fire they didn’t want to risk hitting. Of course it could also be they were just plain stupid. At any rate they were dead before their associate hit the floor.

There was a very nasty rumbling chuckle. That would be Bad Toupé. M'Iqo had never actually seen him but heard that the guy never took a bath. If that was his signature, this was the guy. The darkness reeked with the essence of ancient sweat socks and things more scatological.

M'Iqo flipped across the room on a diagonal to the jovial shooter’s position. Percussion gels slapped into the slowly crumpling bodies of the two men he had just shot. They exploded messily in effervescent gobs of hair and major organs. Apparently Toupé wasn’t particular about killing his own people.

"I don’t like you...you nasty little man," the Toupé growled. "I’m going to make a hat out of your face."

M'Iqo was in shadow by this time with a slippery mess of assorted body parts between him and his new best friend.

He was still not sure where the little girl was, but there seemed to be only one other target left in the room. He pulled out the needle gun, and then changed his mind. N’Qki might not be in the room at all. Until he knew for sure where she was he might need this character to be alive.

Just then he heard a heavy smack, like someone dropping a roast on the floor. That was immediately followed by the stamping of booted feet and an angry bellow deep in the chest of someone who could no longer scream. That was all behind him somewhere.

It seemed there was another player.

In spite of himself, M'Iqo had to smile. At eight years old, N’Qki was already well known among the B'Ai K'Tao Mountain moppets as a very unfortunate enemy. Boys twice her size had learned that she always collected on points of honor.

Few people knew who she really was; that included N'Qki. M'Iqo did know. There is much to be said for ignorance.

Her foster father was hardly the sort of person you said "no" to. And her father.... Well, M'Iqo was probably the only living entity of any of the catalogued sentient life forms that had ever said, "no" to N’Qki’s father. The key word there being, "living."

He chanced a quick glance in the direction of the pounding feet. His left eye was now in starlight mode. And yes, there was his curly tow headed charge packaged very inexpertly in gas permeable shipping film. M'Iqo glared at the darkness in disgust. The stuff was used to bundle up slaves for market. The packers must have been in a hurry. They had wrapped her up, clothes and all. The film only stuck to skin and N'Qki had found that she could squirm around and get enough slack to move her feet.

He spotted the fallen roast. The little munchkin had managed to drop the one man guarding her. At least there was a body twitching at her feet. The man’s head rested at an unpleasant angle against his chest.

M’Iqo made a mental note to ask her about that at some less stressful point in their day.

And then he felt the whisper of a throwing knife slide past his ear––handle first. Judging from the sloppiness of the toss that would be Mister Bad Toupé again. The hairless toad apparently had some delusion about being a knife thrower.

There was a deep shudder in the floor and M'Iqo felt a sudden drop in air pressure. He yawned quickly to equalize the pressure on his eardrums and then made a quick scan of the room. Whatever it was it had not changed the situation in here. He might have to get interested later but at the moment other business demanded his attention.

He could see a probable hiding place for his opponents just about the right distance and angle for the knife. It would have taken two full spins for the blade to travel that far.

He backpedaled to N'Qki. She had been laced to a chair by someone who thought she was not worth much effort––big mistake. M'Iqo slit the ties, then very carefully slid the point of his ceramic dagger into a clothed area. The tape was very tough and bonded almost instantly with human skin. It was designed to dissolve into dust with a sonic key set to a specific frequency combination. M'Iqo didn’t have any such play toy and it would probably take entirely too much time to convince anyone around here to loan him one.

"N'Qki, I’m going to get your arm free, then put the knife in your hand," M'Iqo whispered. "Baldy here is holding up for reinforcements and he’s going to be all over us when he figures out what I’m doing."

N’Qki nodded. And that was it––no frightened tears, no babbled childish questions. He ripped down on the blade, freeing her arm. He felt her little fingers fumble along his wrist for the knife.

M’Iqo didn’t have any children. He knew the process of course, but the life style of a librarian-assassin, even in retirement, is a bit too precarious for a family life. He had often wondered what that would be like––being a father. He wondered even more after meeting this little kid.

There was a bellow of rage from the funk in the darkness behind M'Iqo. Two figures charged from behind a stack of cartons as N’Qki’s hand closed on the knife hilt. He had missed his guess about the numbers left alive in the room.

The pair split away from each other to make things difficult. M'Iqo dropped to one knee and fired. One man sat down with a bemused smile on his face. It was not the Toupé.

He heard plastic wrapper ripping behind him as he hit the floor. N'Qki was making progress. Then he rolled off into the shadows of some cartons against the wall.

When he arrived, M’Iqo found himself looking down the bad side of a mag slug gun. A stinky bald headed man was already in residence. This time it was the Toupé. The man was surprised but not too surprised to drop M'Iqo with a thunderous burp from the slug gun. The borrowed body armor took most of the damage but the force from the blast still somersaulted him into a pile of aero-gel transport cartons five meters behind.

Toupé leisurely followed him into the pile with the long barrel of the weapon balanced over his shoulder. He was thoroughly enjoying the moment.

"I think maybe I candy you eyeballs," he said, bringing the weapon down towards M’Iqo’s chest. "Use lots of orange sugar."

And that would have been it except that Toupé suddenly toppled forward.

Actually, it was only his top half that did the toppling. The legs sat down heavily, and separately, leaving the bewildered upper half of the body to flop over on the floor.

Toupé fired one last poisoned slug as he fell, and it slapped the floor just a little before his face did.

The acrid scent of a force blade still stung the air as a tall woman with fire red hair stepped out of the shadows.

"Oh, you’re that one!" M'Iqo said.

"So, you really did remember," she said, with a surprised smile. She batted a few stray drops of blood out of her hair. "Yeah," she sighed, a little more thoughtfully. "I’m that one."