The Simmering Seas Read online

  He plunged into the corridor, three targets in his sights, weapon aimed. The Green Sun agent fired a blast at 317, shattering the doorknob. Yet she was not the easiest target.

  The teen boy stood between her and Ryllen. The boy froze, his laser pistol trembling in his hand. Ryllen shot him between the eyes.

  The agent raced inside the room, and a volley of weapons fire trailed. The other mahali dealer, a girl perhaps eighteen, showed more courage than the boy and tried to fend off Ryllen, but her aim was unsteady. Ryllen burned two holes into her chest.

  He swaggered into 317, relieved to see the agent dead. The wound beneath his left collarbone screamed.

  “How bad?” Ham asked.

  “Too bad.”

  He noted the confusion in his mentor’s eyes. Ham did not foresee this twist. Ryllen explained what happened and identified the assassin as Green Sun. Ham pulled back her shirt to reveal a giant tattoo.

  “Don’t understand,” Ryllen said. “Why was she here?”

  “This may not be as it appears,” Ham said. “I’ll see to my sources.”

  “Sorry about the misread. I’ll do better next time.”

  Ryllen knew his death was close, yet he felt rude not to say hello to the so-called “dolls.” Was this Syung woman really the key to moving on Shin Wain? The whole notion seemed preposterous.

  “You two are some hot coits. Not bad for posers.”

  They were panicked. Understandable. But Ham took charge, reassuring them the danger was past.

  “He’s one smart asshole,” Ryllen added. “Emphasis on the ass. By the way, I’m Ryllen. Friends used to call me RJ, back when I had friends. Been a long time since I met any girls from Haansu. Nice.”

  “I need to get them to safety,” Ham told Ryllen, who nodded. “How long do you have?”

  “It’s a cudfrucker, but it feels slow. Faster the better, Ham.”

  Ryllen felt at ease when the hopper arrived outside the window.

  “Ride’s here. Get it done, Ham. I’ll be better next time.”

  He winked before Ham took aim. At least the pain would be brief.

  Death.

  A familiar cycle.

  The abyss.

  The tug.

  When Ryllen awoke, he recouped his memories and took stock of the moment. He had quite enough of Room 317, thank you.

  The cleanup appeared all but complete. The bodies of the mahali dealers were bagged, and the Green Sun shooter was being lifted into one. Mei supervised the scene.

  “I won’t ever get used to that,” she said, acknowledging Ryllen. “Take a look, guys,” she told the other agents. “RJ has a skill we’ll never be able to match.”

  His chest pain subsided. His audience was dumbstruck.

  “Don’t get too excited,” he said. “Might be better to die once and say good riddance.”

  Mei helped him up and pointed to the hole in his jacket.

  “Sorry about that, RJ. I’ll buy you a new one if it helps.”

  He studied the dead assassin, her name still a mystery.

  “How did this happen?”

  “We weren’t sure about Leena. We were told to stay dark until she played her hand. Look, RJ, it was Lan’s idea. He revised the plan. He thought this meeting was a perfect chance to expose her.”

  “Expose for what?”

  “Double agent. He suspected her for some time, but there was never proof. Lan knew there was a mole.”

  “Was she the one who gave us up at Ronin Swallows?”

  “Could be. As for tonight, she knew Cortez was meeting Kara Syung. I’m sure she made you at the bar. Not difficult.”

  “So, you were hiding across the hall but couldn’t make a move …”

  Mei nodded. “Unless she played her hand. But you and Cortez were fast. We stayed dark until he transported the women away.”

  “You put everything in jeopardy, Mei. You …”

  “Like I told you before, my loyalty is to Lan. He made the call, RJ. But it worked out. We’ll tip the owner extra for the glass and the door. Cortez planted the bleeders. They’re activated. See your hand-comm.”

  The application Ham synched to his device showed both women on the move. They were leaving a parking lodge, en route to the UpWay. Maybe this was going to work out, after all.

  Bleeders were Chancellor tech, one of the many “toys” Ham brought when he defected from Special Services. Easy to implant by touch, bleeders moved through the target’s system until, after a short while, they settled into the temporal lobe to record auditory transmissions. They dissolved within thirty hours. If Kara Syung and her aide were going to be valuable, they needed to act quickly.

  Ryllen, newly reborn, went straight to work.

  17

  N O ONE SEES YOU COMING,” Ham said aboard Quantum Majesty. “Your madness has prepared you for the next stage.” More to the point, Ryllen’s ability to stalk his prey and murder without detection made him best suited for tracking a prized target around Pinchon. The hope? Kara Syung would open doors previously closed and sharpen their focus on the threat both Ham and Lan believed Hokkaido to face. Ryllen didn’t care about the global stakes. His path led to one man.

  “A handful of families control the seamasters,” Ham explained before Ryllen took off to Haansu District pre-dawn. “By extension, they control the global economy. They’ve become insular the past few years, more so than traditional. We assumed it was a product of refinery. Consolidating their power base. Lang Syung’s death three years ago was a turning point,” he said of Kara’s brother.

  “So, she was right about Lang killing himself?”

  “That remains an open question, kid. Lan Chua was paying closer attention at the time. He spotted peculiar movement inside the governing families and seamaster hierarchies. New trade policies, pricing structures, fleet schedules, distribution, catch priority. By themselves, these changes appeared mundane. Together, they suggested collusion. Yet the seamasters have never worked in unison. Now, they appear to have common purpose. Miss Syung took to this notion when I broached it. Did you hear?”

  Ryllen remembered. Ham asked her why the seamasters might try to amass vast wealth through a pricing scheme destined to fail.

  “They’re deferring short-term profits to some larger purpose,” she said. Ham convinced her to listen to Lang’s words about Engineering and from there, to what he called “the nexus,” Mangum Island.

  “Are we sure she’ll run with it?” Ryllen asked. “If you and Lan are right, she’s going up against all the families.”

  “Kara Syung is motivated by loss. You more than anyone understand this. She’ll be relentless. We have to hope she’s not reckless.” He laid out final instructions: “When you follow, kid, stay within range of the bleeders but maintain a healthy distance. The sun casts long shadows. Stay inside them. Check in every two hours. Pass along your data.”

  Ryllen put his skills to work, tracking Kara Syung and Chi-Qua Baek using a tech outlawed on forty worlds. Bleeders were a common surveillance tool of the Chancellors. Some reports said they used the microscopic devices on colonists for more than three centuries. The practice might not have ended had competing Chancellor families not used them against each other for social leverage. The resulting scandals and political fallout engulfed the Collectorate. Outrage prompted their official ban twenty years before the empire fell.

  Ham said the ban was a typical Chancellor con. Many factions developed watered-down versions which lived in their targets for less than two hours, assuring they’d escape detection. Special Services, on the other hand, simply refined the tech, extending its life and reducing its ability to be discovered under the most intensive scans. Ham spoke little of his years in Special Services, but he joked about this one.

  “Eavesdropping while Chancellors exulted ad nauseum about themselves verified what I long suspected: We were a doomed people. Still, it was a pleasant diversion. I never laughed so hard in my life.”

  Ryllen, however, did not l
augh once as the day proceeded. Not through the Syungs’ breakfast. Not through Kara and Chi-Qua’s personal conversations en route to the city. Not through Kara’s cake-and-tea party at Nantou Global or surprise encounter with Hoija Taron, the grandmother of her fiancé. Not through the meeting with Kara’s engineering team. Not through Chi-Qua’s tedious search at the Hall of Records. Most definitely not through the awkward lunch between Kara and Ya-Li Taron. Not through Kara’s retrieval of data about High Cannon Collective or her decision to play hooky for the afternoon and study the material at a quiet retreat.

  He was recording and passing along a bounty of useful intelligence, but Ryllen spent most of his day rendering judgment on these people. They lived in a world into which he was adopted at four years old. They lorded over it like queens and kings, their elitism and self-righteousness masking the insecurity that it might all be taken away in an instant.

  His classmates used to exude the same air of superiority, never truly accepting the off-world child with an impressive surname. They never paid attention to the fringes of Pinchon society, to blue-light districts such as Zozo and Umkau. Their tiny world focused on two driving forces: Wealth and control. At one time, Ryllen wanted to be like them. Their aspirations were reasonable, even justified. But refinery and the fall of Jee taught him the first valuable lesson. His adopted family’s rejection completed the course.

  He knew what they were. Imperious. Vacuous. Heartless.

  “That’s what it’s all about,” he told Ham during a bicomm update early in the afternoon. “They’re trying to replace the Chancellors.”

  “They already have, kid. In some ways, they’re doing a better job. Look, don’t allow what you’re hearing to prejudice your feelings about Miss Syung. She’s different, and we need her.”

  “No worries, Ham. I like Kara. She doesn’t act like a cudfrucking princess. She has a spine. It’s probably gonna get her killed.”

  “It may indeed.”

  “This thing with Ya-Li Taron is sick. Someone should kill that gutless asshole before the wedding.”

  Ham laughed. “No, kid. You will not be assassinating a Taron. Stay on the mission. You know the parameters. Yes?”

  “I’m on it,” he said from his rifter. “Following north right now. I’ll keep a safe distance. Next report in two hours.”

  He tracked them to a resort enclave at Pantow Beach and parked his rifter two hundred meters downcoast. Kara went all-in to disguise their afternoon as hooky, right down to beachwear and a service of blue prawns. Suddenly, he was hungry. He hadn’t tasted a blue prawn in years. They fetched at least a hundred Dims per dozen.

  Chi-Qua Baek revealed she uncovered the planet’s entire customs records for the past eight years. Ryllen settled back, preparing for a long journey through endless data. But his comfort ended when Chi-Qua took an unexpected tack. She began with information uncovered about the young man “Hamilton Cortez shot through the heart.”

  “Remember how he called Ryllen a ‘tragic figure?’” Chi-Qua said. “Ham said Ryllen’s history was more appalling even than mine, but at least I had the possibility of family.”

  Wait, what? When did he say that?

  After Chi-Qua said she found Ryllen’s background through census data, she continued. “I think I understand what Ham meant. Ryllen came from Earth, not the Carriers. He was adopted fifteen years ago by Hosan and Muna-Lin Jee.”

  “Wait. You don’t mean the Jees who were prominent within Nantou?” Kara said.

  “Until refinery. They were taken down just like my family.”

  “I remember now. Hanso was killed during the reprisals. He was friends with Father and Ja Yuan. I don’t recall meeting Ryllen. The other Jees – are they still alive?”

  Ryllen scoffed inside his rifter. “My family didn’t let me out much.”

  Chi-Qua continued. “The last two years, Muna-Lin Jee lists two children, neither of whom is Ryllen.”

  Kara replied. “She can only do that if she legally disowned him. Why? The Jees are already under a cloud. This won’t help.”

  Ryllen never expected to relive the darkest chapter of his life.

  “You don’t know my mother,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Kara deduced the truth: Muna-Lin Jee disowned him for joining Green Sun. Ryllen remembered the day well. Muna-Lin called him to her flat, offered him his favorite food, and told him never to associate with the House of Jee again.

  “I understand where she’s coming from,” Chi-Qua said. “Scapegoated for no reason. She didn’t want the Jees thrown into the sewer. At least they’d maintain whatever status they had left.”

  Ryllen didn’t know what to make of Chi-Qua Baek. They had much in common thanks to refinery, but Chi-Qua chose the road back to social heights. How could she suck in her pride and work for a household who didn’t prevent her own from falling into disgrace? Either she had an enormous, forgiving heart, or she was following a separate agenda even Kara couldn’t see.

  “It’s a sad story all the way around,” Kara said. “I can’t get the picture out of my mind. The laser burn on his chest, the smoke rising from his skin. He was given an unfair hand.”

  Ryllen went into today wanting to hate Kara Syung, but he couldn’t. She surprised him at each turn. She might have been dreadful at disguises – he laughed again at her rendition of a doll – but this woman sounded like a Hokki elite who actually cared.

  Chi-Qua had the final word on the subject. “Sad, yes,” she told Kara. “But it also says we’d best steer clear of Hamilton Cortez.”

  Ryllen leaned forward. “I’ll bet he doesn’t want to hear that.”

  They delved into the data, and the afternoon dragged on. Ryllen processed it as best he could, but his greater focus turned to Kara. He heard it in her voice. The deeper they dug, the more tense she became. They made startling connections between Mangum Island, High Cannon Collective, and the so-called dark quadrant of planets. Kara detected the patterns.

  “She’s damn smart,” Ryllen said as Kara theorized what might be happening – and correlated her brother Lang’s travel dates to Mangum with arrivals from the dark quadrant. And everything, it appeared, went through High Cannon Collective. An interstellar conspiracy, she said. Ryllen remembered what Lan Chua told him: “Shin Wain doesn’t spend much time on Hokkaido these days.”

  Ryllen’s instinct kicked in. “He’s part of it. Has to be. This is bigger than Hokkaido. You’re closing in, Kara. Do it!”

  He refused to keep his distance. Why did Ham and Lan set him free during exile from Green Sun? “You take extraordinary chances. No one sees you coming.”

  “They damn well won’t see this coming,” he said as he triggered the nav and set a course to Pantow Beach.

  “He learned something horrible,” Kara said of her brother, “and it happened on one of those six trips. It can’t be a coincidence.”

  They turned their attention to High Cannon Collective’s personnel. As Ryllen set down his rifter on the beach fifty feet from the Syung-Low cabana, he knew what they’d find.

  This wasn’t a spy mission anymore. His interests aligned with Kara’s.

  “It’s unlikely the seamasters don’t already know what High Cannon is up to,” Chi-Qua said. “This has been going on for years – whatever this is.”

  “They know, or they suspect, or worse … they don’t care.”

  “Because they’re part of it?”

  These two women stumbled on more than they ever imagined. If they were right, they’d likely wash up on shore like Kara’s brother. Ryllen saw clearly: They needed someone else in their corner. The seamasters were too powerful. Ham and Lan Chua didn’t need to protect them if this intelligence panned out.

  He opened the bubble on his rifter. Kara sealed his decision:

  “Chi, if Nantou and Hotai are somehow connected … I’m dead,” she said. “When I marry into Taron, they’ll strip my independence, end my career, and hold me hostage in service of the household. They’ll onl
y be concerned about my corporate shares. They’ll scrutinize every move and sooner kill me than suffer the shame of betrayal.”

  He was about to remove the earpiece when Kara broke down the personnel files of High Cannon Collective and uttered magic words:

  “Shin Wain. Special Consultant. Twenty-two years with HCC, but also four years at Hotai.”

  He removed the earpiece and leaped from the rifter. Racing to the cabana, Ryllen shut off the bleeder detection program.

  This is going to be mad. They’ll lose it when they see me. Stay calm. Make them listen.

  He entered on delicate feet and caught Chi-Qua’s eyes first.

  “I know who he is,” Ryllen said. “I’m going to kill him. But I need your help.”

  He saw it in their stunned features. They thought he was an assassin. Probably saw his weapons. OK, lower the temperature.

  “I was right last night,” he said. “You two are a fine pair of coits. I think it’s time we hitched the same ride.”

  Kara spoke. “You … how can you be here?”

  He winked because it felt appropriate.

  “What can I say? Death. It happens. Anyway, I’m Ryllen Jee. Let’s talk.”

  “Oh, no,” Kara said. “Security will be here in seconds.”

  “Maybe, but you’d best tell them I’m a friend. See this?” He held up his hand-comm and threw open a hologram. “Ham Cortez planted bleeders on you. We’ve been tracking all day. I know everything you do. I was passing it along. Those were my orders. But not now. This shit is going to get you killed. You want to live past tomorrow? Find out what happened to your brother? Learn what they’re doing on Mangum Island? If so, we need to have a serious cudfrucking discussion. Up for it?”

  They answered with stunned silence. Ryllen set his eyes on a plate of blue prawns. He had no idea what he was doing.

  Exogenesis

  Artemis Station

  Planetoid Y-14, Oorton System

  Standard Year (SY) 5363

  E XETER WOOLSEY TOUCHED THE FACE OF GOD. The experience terrified him so much he returned to the cylinder many times. He had to learn more. He brought a thousand questions to bear, but the answers eluded him. God did not speak, though it grabbed him each time with its rope of fire and showed Exeter visions of galaxies far beyond his own. Amayas Knight always withdrew him from the cylinder at a crucial moment, like a dream stolen at its climax.