Prophets

Nickolai walked, because a taxi would be uncomfortable and expensive, but also because actually seeing the human hive of Godwin was still a novelty. His vision with his digital eyes was an order of magnitude sharper than his real eyes had ever been and worth the occasional headache. He could read the holo-script crawling up the side of buildings five or ten klicks away. He was able to see the enigmatic human expressions on the drivers of the aircars soaring above him.

And he could see as much as hear and smell the difference in the neighborhood around him. The broad avenue of West Lenin wasn’t cracked and buckled like the old streets near his apartments. The walls of the buildings around him were still in the colors of steel and stone intended by the builders, not the garish tapestry of graffiti that wrapped the structures where Nickolai lived.

Most different were the human inhabitants. They seemed cleaner, better dressed, and were less prone to obviously avoid his path.

The Godwin branch of the Bakunin Mercenaries’ Union was a plain onyx-black cube of a building nestled between a bank and an expensive-looking escort service. The windowless building had a single door and no decoration other than a small bronze plaque with the initials BMU engraved in it. As he approached it, he could faintly smell ozone, a sign of an active broadband Emerson field ionizing stray air molecules.

Nickolai entered the building and faced a long hallway lined with holo screens—the nearest of which showed his approach and the entrance of the building from several points of view and at several different frequencies. One density scan showed a partially exploded skeletal view of his body where the recent reconstruction of his arm was plainly visible, showing bones metallic, dense, and much too smooth and regular to be organic.

He walked along the hallway, past his own image, and past images of a more expected variety—pictures of military hardware, from hand weapons to hovertanks; Paralian-designed assault craft with military-class tach-drives down to manpack contragrav units. Much of the hardware bore trademarks of Bakunin-based industries. The arms industry was the largest sector of the Bakunin economy, supplying not only the bottomless domestic demand, but also equipping probably half the militaries in human space—every government that didn’t have the resources to equip its own military and a few that did.

Every human government.

Despite historical ties to Bakunin, the nonhuman inhabitants of the Fifteen Worlds—the loose confederation that included Nickolai’s homeworld of Grimalkin—avoided any ties to human space; cultural, diplomatic, or economic. Despite being a de jure part of the Fifteen Worlds’ sphere of influence since the last days of the Confederacy—when it was the Seven Worlds—Bakunin’s thriving export industry rarely sent anything off in the direction of Tau Ceti.

And, despite the professionalism of the receptionist, it was clear in the man’s voice, his posture, and the smell of fear on his skin that the alienation was mutual. The Fallen were still afraid of their creations.

“Can I help you?” asked the receptionist before Nickolai was within six strides of the semicircular desk at the end of the hall.

Nickolai waited until he stood in front of the desk before speaking. “I am here to obtain membership in the Mercenaries’ Union.”

“Oh,” the receptionist nodded, “of course.” The man did well hiding his fear. Someone with the half-dead senses of the Fallen might have completely missed the man’s discomfort.

Nickolai was tall enough to see over the top of the desk and look down on the receptionist. He watched as the man’s hand moved away from a handheld plasma cannon holstered behind the desk. Nickolai frowned slightly. There was little honor in the nasty-looking handgun. It was a single-use desperation weapon—firing it would release all the energy in its fifteen-centimeter-diameter barrel in a cone of plasma at temperatures that would vaporize all organics, most synthetics, and a good many metals in a cone that would fill most of the corridor Nickolai had just walked down.

“We require a one-kilogram deposit as a reserve against your first year’s dues,” the man told him.

Nickolai nodded and pulled a chit from his belt, placing it on the desk. The man waited for Nickolai’s hand to completely withdraw before taking it. “Very good. If you go to one of our interview rooms, you can post an alias and a resume for our clients, and schedule yourself for a skills assessment. After that we’ll archive your DNA signature, and you’ll have access to our databases and all our facilities. You’ll get an ID badge, but you don’t need it for our services as long as you can present a biometric ID. Welcome to the BMU.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Tithes

The most dangerous impulse is to feel safe.

—The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom

In this business you never let your guard down.