Van was impressed. That alone must have cost the colonel tens of thousands of credits. “That could not have been inexpensive.”
“It was not, but life…it is fragile, and how could one not appreciate it to the fullest when one realizes that? One cannot hoard life. It still slips through the fingers.”
“It does.” Van smiled. “But hoarding is an old Taran habit, and one that dies hard.”
“Even for one…such as you?”
“You mean…black Tarans? Our skins may be a bit darker or more bronzed, but we can be as bad as the others that way.” Van finished the last of his café and set the cup down.
“I think not. A man who borrows the words of Cameros cannot hoard all of his life.”
From there, the conversation slipped into generalities, and various promises to keep each other informed, and, precisely fifty minutes after he arrived, Van stepped back out of the colonel’s office and made his way back to the waiting groundcar.
He settled into the rear seat, still thinking over what the colonel had implied. The Scandyan revolt actually created by Revenant agents? It made sense, in an obverse way, since it weakened the Argenti presence on the edge of Revenant territory, but, if that were so, why was there no mention of the possibility in the histories and political analyses?
“Ser…something up ahead,” Stefan said.
Van looked up. An electrolorry was angled across the road, blocking the right-hand side, not that it probably would tie up too much traffic, since, as usual, there wasn’t much. From what he read and watched, the only traffic was in the center of Valborg and in the southwest.
As Stefan slowed to a stop a good five meters back, abruptly the side gate of the lorry—the one turned toward the embassy groundcar—gave way, and lengths of pipe rolled down and crashed onto the street. Some continued rolling toward the embassy vehicle, but Stefan could not move back, not with the large gray groundcar that had stopped less than a meter behind them, the only other groundcar in sight.
Van had a very chill feeling. Even before the last pipe rolled against the rough pile that built up against the front of the groundcar, he was out and moving, his implant and system tuned up to combat-ready.
The first man—blocky and young—had a vibroknife. Van slammed that aside and twisted the heel of his boot through the would-be attacker’s knee. The crunch was sickening. Van twisted the man’s wrist and upper arm, with another snap, and the vibroknife dropped to the stone walk.
Van dropped flat, even before the wicked thwip! of a slash-disc flew through the space where he had been standing. His implant located the second man—no more than four meters to his left.
Van grasped one of the shorter lengths of pipe, then launched himself. The shorter pipe thudded into the bearded man’s chest, and the hand holding the disc-gun flew back. Before the second attacker could bring it back forward, Van followed the pipe with a flurry of well-placed elbows and knees. The second man collapsed.
Van turned, and a line of fire slashed at his left shoulder. He moved toward the pain, quickly, and smashed his good arm and elbow into the third man’s throat, following with a knee. The man dropped his disc-gun and sagged to the ground, trying to gasp for air. Van might have crushed his larynx enough for him to suffocate, although he didn’t think so. He really didn’t care.
Van surveyed the area, but could see no one else nearby. The gray groundcar behind the embassy vehicle was empty, presumably having been driven by one of the attackers, and several other groundcars were approaching from the west.
“Ser?” Stefan said, holding a dressing. “You are bleeding.”
Van had noted the pain, but not the bleeding, and he looked almost stupidly at the slash in his left arm. “Yes…you’d better use that, and then notify the local authorities.”
“I already called the constabulary, ser. They are on the way.” Stefan ripped open the jacket sleeve more and applied the pressure dressing to the slash in Van’s left arm.
“Good.”
“The newsies have been saying that violence is up here in Valborg, but I’ve never seen anything like this.” Stefan tightened the dressing. “That should do for now.”
“I haven’t either,” Van admitted. He looked over the three fallen men. The one whose knee and arm he had broken was trying to crawl away. Van stepped toward the struggling man. “If you move another centimeter, I’ll snap your other leg.”
“Frig you…” The man fumbled toward his jacket with his good arm.
Van slammed a snap kick into the other’s chin. A small stunner clanked onto the pavement, and the attacker collapsed forward. Van swept the stunner away with his foot. “If you wouldn’t mind picking that up, Stefan…with a cloth or something.”
“Ah…yes, sir.”
The second man groaned, trying to stagger to his feet.
Thrummm…Stefan had triggered the stunner.
Van glanced at the driver.
“It seemed wiser, ser.”
Van held in a laugh. It had been wiser. In his present state of mind, Van might have done far worse, and Stefan had sensed that.
The groundcars that had been nearing stopped. One turned around. The other waited. Then, from overhead, came the sound of a flitter roaring down. The downwash from the ducted airflow whipped Van’s uniform around him, but only for a moment, as the shimmering white craft settled into the open space in front of the angled electrolorry.
Two constables rushed out. One watched the three fallen attackers. The other hurried over to Van and Stefan.
“What happened, ser?” asked the fresh-faced constable.
“I don’t know. The lorry stopped, and then pipes flew off it. I got out to see what was happening, and one of them lunged at me with a vibroknife. I kicked at him, and I guess I was lucky. He fell down. The second fellow…the last pipe rolled down and smashed into him. The third one…his disc-gun slashed me in the arm, and we struggled.” Van shrugged, and wished he hadn’t, as an arrow of
