Then he stiffened up, too. I ducked, and a huge boom sounded. The floor of the gateway terminal had a chunk taken out of it.

  I scooped up my leaky box and looked around. A tiny figure waved, then disappeared. I charged after him.

  Once out in the bright hot Blood World air, I recalled how much I disliked this planet. It was all deserts and evil-looking plants. Taking huge steps, I ran after Jink as fast as I could. We reached a flying vehicle of sorts—it was like an air-hauler, but smaller.

  Jink climbed in and waved for me to climb up into the bed on the back. I got on, but I had trouble getting a good grip before he launched into the sky. I almost slid off, and when I did get a hold of the side rail, I could only do so with one hand. My other hand was gripping my package by the brown string. By some miracle, it didn’t snap or untie itself.

  Riding through the air for several minutes, we finally landed at the gremlin encampment. I climbed off the back of the mini-hauler. I was lightly bruised and impressed.

  “Jink, that was pretty amazing. I can’t even think how you managed to—hey!”

  The hauler was surrounded by several of those walking-tank things. Gremlins piloted all of them, and their nozzle-like turrets were aimed directly at me.

  “This is no way to greet an old comrade in arms,” I complained.

  “Where is Floramel, big-man?”

  I looked at Jink. He wasn’t in a charitable mood, I could tell.

  Taking my package and setting it down between us, I pointed at it. “I brought you a gift. Check it out.”

  “What is this?” he asked suspiciously.

  “A present, like I said. From one warrior to another.”

  He stared at it.

  Now, you have to know something about gremlin psychology. It’s kind of like that of monkeys, or lemurs. They’re inquisitive beings. They’re not trusting in any way—not by a longshot. But they are also easily intrigued by mysteries.

  “You,” Jink said, pointing to one of his gremlin sidekicks. “You open it.”

  Grumbling, the low-ranked gremlin crept forward. He poked at the package. When it shifted its weight, he sniffed and stared.

  “Open it!” Jink demanded.

  Others took up the cry.

  “Open it! Open it!”

  Finally, the sacrificial lamb of the group dared to touch the string—but then he bounded away, squalling and pointing. “It leaks! The package leaks blood!”

  Jink’s mouth dropped. He approached the box. Then he looked up at me.

  “You would dare such an insult?”

  “Uh… what insult?”

  He pointed accusingly at the box. “You think I’m a fool? This is Floramel’s head, isn’t it? You weren’t able to trick her into coming home to us, so you murdered her!”

  The gremlins went wild at this. They hopped and screeched. Weapons and wired needles appeared everywhere. A bigger and bigger crowd had gathered to encircle us. The tanks with their turrets swiveled and pranced like horses.

  “Such madness!” Jink wailed. “I knew of your barbarity, but I never would have believed—!”

  “Hold on, hold on!” I shouted. “It’s not what you think!”

  They settled down a bit, and they stared at me and my box.

  “What then, big-man? What would you dare to bring that could repay your debt?”

  Stepping forward, I knelt over the box. I untied it, and they all churned and sidestepped all around me.

  At last, I had it open. I lifted a giant bloom from the box. It was dripping sap like gore. It was a Dust World orchid, just like the one that Jink had sent to me.

  “What’s this?” he demanded, snarling and hissing. “Why would we want one of your stinking flowers?”

  “It’s a message, Jink,” I said. “Just like the one you sent me.”

  Then, plucking at a tiny ring at the base of the flower, I set off a thermite reaction. This in turn lit off a much more powerful explosion—because the flower and the box were full of military-grade chemistry.

  In less than a second, me, Jink, all his aunties and cousins, plus six stolen Mogwa power-armor were vaporized.

  -64-

  “What do we have?”

  “He’s a nine. That’s rounding up, mind you.”

  “Good enough. Call the Servant.”

  Two bio people lingered over me. I’d been revived somewhere, somehow, and if the truth were to be told, I was kind of surprised.

  Relaxing on the recovery plank, I wriggled my toes and fingers enough to realize I was locked down securely. The bio people left, and it was just me, some bright lights, and my cooling dick as the sticky liquids dried on my skin.

  I almost shivered before anyone bothered to come talk to me. Why did they always keep operating rooms so damned cold?

  Another figure arrived. It hovered near.

  “Why is he unconscious?” asked a familiar old voice. It was the man from Belarus, the infamous Public Servant Alexander Turov.

  “He’s not,” said one of the bio women. “He’s faking.”

  “Of course he is... What else would an assassin do when he’s in his enemy’s power?”

  I didn’t like his turn of phrase. I opened an eye and pretended to wake up. Yawning, I tried to stretch. Bands of steel and chains jangled and rasped.

  “Hey there, Mr. Servant. You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

  “You, on the other hand, are not. I believe that you will have your cock out for display at your own funeral, McGill.”

  “That’s probably true.”

  Alexander waved a skinny hand, and they released me. A few armed guards stared from the doorway.

  Noting their distance and the fact they didn’t have their weapons trained on me at the moment, I figured I could probably kill old Alex before they could stop me.

  The old man watched me with interest. “I see the violence in your eyes. Do you always contemplate murder when you speak to your benefactors?”

  “Uh… yeah. Pretty much.” I shrugged. “It’s an occupational hazard, I suspect.”

  Turov nodded, but the guards frowned harder. They brought up their rifles, just in case.

  “Sir,” I said, “I want you to know you have my heartfelt thanks.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because you revived me again, without any prior warning that I might need the service. I was kind of hoping I could get away clean, see… but it didn’t work out that way.”

  Alexander nodded, and he studied the cold gray floor of his private revival chamber in Eastern Europe. “Why did you murder a large number of gremlins, McGill?”

  “Well sir, that’s kind of a private matter. Just something between their folks and mine.”

  Alexander squinted at me, like he was trying to figure me out. Countless authority figures had given me that precise look in the past, starting with my young mother.

  “McGill, you are an enigma. Do you know that when I proposed using you for certain missions—I was warned not to?”

  “By who, sir?”

  He shrugged. “Pretty much everyone in your chain of command.”

  “Oh… well sir, they would know.”

  “Yes. I see now they were correct. What did that prissy fellow say?”

  “Primus Winslade?”

  He snapped his skinny fingers and aimed one of them at me. “Yes! That’s him. He said employing McGill was like using a blowtorch to trim the hedges—that the job would probably get done, but I might not be happy with the results in the end.”

  I laughed, but I was the only one who did. The bio people had melted away, and the guards were in a sour mood.

  “Let us go over the specific cases that back up Winslade’s claim,” Alexander went on. “First, I suggested you should assassinate the Mogwa who came to commandeer our fleets and legions.”

  “Huh… is that what you were hinting about? I thought maybe—”

  He put a hand up to stop me. “Do not embarrass yourself further.”

  “Okay...”

  “Instead, you lost several of my ships and countless billions of credits worth of gear.”

  To my way of thinking, that right there was what was wrong with some of these Servants. They thought they owned all Earth’s ships and soldiers. They were supposed to manage such things, not regard them as personal possessions.

  These thoughts crossed my mind, but I was way too smart to say them out loud. I was still in the middle of old Alex’s castle, and I owed him the courtesy of listening. After all, no one else had seen fit to revive me.

  “The debacle at Segin was expensive, but the outcome was positive,” he continued. “The Mogwa we helped there account us as friends now, and they shall treat us with greater respect in the future.”

  These words flat-out stunned me. I knew they were far from the truth. Most Mogwa didn’t know which end of a thank-you was which. Someone—probably Winslade—had pumped this flowery sunshine into Turov’s ear to make all our losses sound better.

  Despite all these negative thoughts swirling around in my brain, I managed to smile and nod with enthusiastic agreement. “That’s the plain truth, sir. We’re practically allies now.”

  He nodded. “All right, then. Let us come to your most recent acts of heinous violence and destruction.”

  “Uh… which ones would those be, exactly?”

  “I’m speaking of your actions on Blood World.”

  “Oh yeah, of course. Was that cool or not, sir? We couldn’t let those gremlins have tanks and stuff.”

  “Right. You were sent out there as a cleaner. But what I want to know is who sent you?”

  He stepped close and peered at me. He seemed full of suspicion and accusation. He clearly thought I was working for someone else, and he wanted to know who it was.

  I looked stupid, which took no effort at all. I always looked like that when someone surprised me. The whole idea had been mine and mine alone—but I didn’t want to fess-up to that. So, I just looked dumb and stared back at him.

  “Not going to talk, heh?” Alexander asked. “I see… do you know that I have had every known revival machine monitored for the past several months?”

  “You did? Is that why it’s so bitterly cold in here?”

  “Yes. It is now late November.”

  I whistled. “November? Holy shit. I hope Thanksgiving hasn’t come and gone. I promised my folks—”

  He gestured for me to shut up, so I did.

  “I finally gave up on using that approach to flush out your handler. Whoever sent you on that mission was very cautious. Eventually, I grew impatient. That’s why you’re breathing again.”

  “And I want to thank you for that, sir—”

  “Do not thank me. I’m considering torment to learn the truth.”

  “Oh…” I said.

  “But I suspect that you will not tell me who sent you to Blood World. An agent that cracks easily is a poor one. You would also be less likely to do work for me in the future, should I resort to such extreme, but justified methods.”

  “Sound reasoning, sir.”

  Alexander tapped at his chin and muttered to himself for a bit. Finally, he sighed. “I have come to a fateful decision. I will allow you to live this life. Go now, and do not annoy me further.”

  I’m not a man who overstays his welcome. I pulled on some clothes they gave me, and I got the hell out of that creepy basement. It wasn’t until I was up on the ground floor that I noticed I was wearing an honest-to-God tuxedo. I guess that’s just what they had lying around in the Turov household.

  Walking fast, I’d almost made it across the flagstones to the big arched doorway, when a woman’s voice called out to me.

  “McGill? Is that, you? James McGill?”

  I pivoted on one heel. A woman came close. She was pretty. She also looked familiar—then I had it.

  “Sophia? Galina’s sister?”

  She smiled. “That’s me. I guess we’ve met, but I don’t remember that day…”

  A shadow crossed her face. The last time I’d been out here at her dad’s place, it had been her wedding day. The Tau had raided the place, shooting her down. She’d caught a revival, but she’d forgotten years of events—including everything about her fiancé.

  I reached out a big hand and put it on top of her two, which she held clasped in front of her. “If it makes you feel any better, Miss, I killed most of those Tau personally.”

  She glanced down at my hand, then up at my face. She lit up. “That’s how I recognized you—from the vids of the battle. It does make me feel better, knowing those aliens are dead. Thank you for your service, Centurion.”

  We smiled at each other for a moment, and as the Almighty himself can tell you, I felt a tug of temptation. As I’ve admitted a thousand times over to anyone who’ll listen, I’m a deeply flawed man.

  Just then, however, a skinny old dude with crossed arms and a sour expression appeared in the hallway behind Sophia.

  I glanced his way, then looked back down at his lovely daughter again. I took my hand off hers, but my big smile never faltered.

  “Ma’am,” I said, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to be going. Official military business. I hope you understand.”

  “Of course…” she said, sounding just a touch disappointed.

  Sophia glanced over her shoulder, but her father was long gone from the hallway. He was spry for an old fart.

  After another smile and a wave, I quickly left the mansion and then the continent.

  -65-

  Less than a day later, I made it back home to the southern swamps of Georgia Sector. To my surprise, Etta was there. As it turned out tonight was Thanksgiving, and she’d come home for a visit.

  Everyone was overjoyed to see me. They’d been worried, but they’d held the faith that I’d return eventually. They went on about how I’d disappeared and not come home, and how no one in the government would say squat about where I’d been all this time.

  “It was another of those secret commando missions, wasn’t it, boy?” my dad asked in the kitchen of the big house.

  “Sure was,” I said.

  “Don’t tell us a thing, James,” Mamma said. “We don’t want to know the harrowing details.”

  “Speak for yourself, woman.”

  “Dad?” Etta asked me. “Did you know we’ve got more guests coming tonight?”

  “Huh? Really? Who?”

  They all smiled. “It’s a surprise.”

  Instantly, all kinds of worries popped into my mind. Chief among these was the idea that Floramel and the Investigator would come, possibly bringing Della. That thought had me a little freaked out. The Investigator was just about the oddest person I knew, and I couldn’t imagine he’d be much fun at my family dinner table.

  Steeling myself with a fake smile, I counted the empty chairs which I had just noticed at the far end of the table. There were exactly two.

  “Huh…” I said, thinking that over. Who was coming to dinner?

  Over the next several minutes, while we waited for the food to finish-up in the auto-cooker, I repeatedly suggested we should break out the wine. This idea wasn’t greeted with enthusiasm.

  Just before the dinner timer was up, there was a knock at the door. Etta jumped up to get it, and she came back into the dining room looking as pleased as punch.

  “Welcome the Turovs!” she said.

  I gaped, and everyone else stood up. Galina walked in first, but I looked right past her. I expected her father to appear out of the shadows, just as he’d disappeared into them the last time I’d seen him back in Belarus.

  But that’s not how it happened. Instead of a crusty oldster, a slim young woman with a charming appearance walked in Galina’s wake.

  It was Galina’s sister, Sophia.

  “There you are, James,” Galina said. “I understand you’ve met my sister?”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah. I remember her…”

  Galina smiled. “She heard I was coming out to the states for this unique holiday, and she wanted to experience it.”

  Sophia offered me her hand in greeting, but it wasn’t a handshake. It was one of those deals were she wrapped her fingers over my index finger. I figured I was supposed to kiss her knuckles or something, but since I was clueless, I gave her a brief up-down pumping instead.

  She looked bemused and withdrew her hand.

  “Hello, Lady Turov,” I said. “Welcome to our humble home.”

  We offered the women chairs, and my dad and I pushed them in, seating them the old-fashioned way. This seemed to please everyone.

  Along about then, the timer finally dinged, and I felt saved. My dad and I soon jostled outside the auto-cooker, plates in hand. We returned to the table with full loads.

  The women were all talking a mile a minute, but they eventually got up and got plates as well. The whole party quieted down while we ate.

  People asked me questions, I think, but I didn’t answer with more than a grunt now and then until I’d cleared my third plate. After that, I was ready to hear what people had to say.

  Dinner came and went, then we had wine and dessert. All too soon the good stuff was gone, and I had to listen to gossip, politics, complaints and other nonsense.

  By the time our guests stood up to leave, I was ready for a beer and bed. After all, I’d been revived just this morning on the other side of the planet. It had been a long day.

  At the door, Galina smiled at me and gave me a kiss. I slapped her rump as she turned away and walked toward her air car.

  One more person lingered, however. It was Sophia. Her eyes had a certain light in them.

  Uh-oh.

  “Hey, thanks for coming,” I said. “We don’t get a lot of fancy people out here. I hope the food wasn’t too crass.”

  Sophia reached a hand out and wrapped her fingers over mine again. “I enjoyed everything,” she said. “Especially the company.”

  “Uh… that’s great…”

  She held onto my hand and stared at me for about two seconds too long, then she finally let go and walked off into the night. The two women got into their air car together and flew away.

  I let out a big sigh and retired to my shack across the backyard.