Chapter Chapter Thirty One

Be wary of the Past. In it are the seeds of the Future.

THE SCROLLS OF VANERA Ghosts Against all reason and advice, Weller went back to his house to take a shower.

“Time is of the essence here,” Brother Ortega had admonished as the hover-jit dropped Weller off. “Is this really necessary?”

He stood in front of his bathroom mirror, leaning over the sink. Once again, he wore a linen suit, this time the dark blue one he had recently gotten cleaned and pressed. He had shaven and even put on a little cologne.

“We cannot overemphasize the possible danger,” Behoola had said. “That is primary! Why do you feel you need to do this?”

He breathed deeply, eyes closed, trying to remember how he had gotten into this situation, how it had gotten out-of-control. From somewhere in his living room, he thought he heard a floorboard creak.

“If we go racing in like a combat unit, Claudia Honin-Zay will surely get suspicious,” he had argued. “Plus, if Selina is anywhere in the area, she may bolt. And don’t forget Kazrah. He’s a wild card in this situation. I want this to be as unassuming an encounter as possible, as normal as possible. This is how I would approach any meeting with an important client. Appearances count. I’ll only be a few minutes. Besides, I... I just need to get clean. I’ve been busting it all day.”

To get clean. To get all the dirt off. The pipe from his shower still dripped slowly, echoing throughout his empty house. Sometimes he felt as if he would never get clean.

“Then we shall meet you at the estate house,” Behoola had said. “I too have an appointment with my mistress later this moon. Brother Ortega and I will wait for you in my quarters. It would be better if the three of us weren’t seen arriving together.”

Do I really want to go through with this? I’ve done it again--I’ve gotten myself into some half-assed, indigene affair. Christ! There’s just too much. Too much...

Weller hadn’t told Behoola and Ortega of his suspicion that Kazrah might be a member of the Ahnka. He only had the hunch of a street thug on that. Better not to cause any more concern than what already existed.

“Fine,” he had told Ortega. “I’ll get another jit. But take this staff. It’s a...”

“A shock-lance,” Ortega said, taking hold of the staff. “Yes, I know what it is and I think I know how to use it.” In response to Weller’s surprised expression, the hospice-worker shrugged. “We’ve had a couple of workshops on self-defense and how to recognize certain weapons and personality types,” he replied. “You never know who or what will show up at the hospice.”

Ortega shook his head at the irony of that statement. “I’ve been attacked by Arshelle before. I’m not the best of fighters but the lance will help, although, God willing, we won’t have to resort to violence.”

He glanced sideways at Weller. “I won’t ask how you got this.”

What an odd collection of sentients, Weller thought as he sat down on the small chair in his bathroom, leaning his head back against the wall. Under ordinary circumstances, we may never have met. How did we all come together? Selina. She’s the common denominator. Otherwise...

Fatigue began to seep into Weller’s bones. He felt tired, drained. Should he take another stim? Christ! That’s what got me into trouble in the first place. Can’t I ever learn?

“It’s a long story,” Weller had replied to Ortega’s covert reference to the shock-lance. “But just be careful and wait for me. This situation with Selina is more complicated than we think. There’s a lot more going on. Why did Claudia Honin-Zay hire me if she knew what her husband was doing? What’s Kazrah’s part in all of this?”

“He has corrupted my mistress, I’m sure of it!” Behoola said, evident distaste for the bodyguard/attendant written all over her face.

Weller nodded. “But why? To what end? And what am I doing here and why is Selina suddenly wrapped up in all of this? Coincidence?”

“We are all connected,” Behoola said. “It may as simple as that.”

“The Wheel of Life,” Ortega added. “Six Degrees of Separation. La raza cósmica.”

“What?”

The attendant/nurse smiled and shook his head. “Some old Terran philosophies. But we have no time for discussion right now.”

“Right! I’ll see you there. I’ll contact you after my appointment with Honin-Zay. Try to be as indiscreet as possible.”

Behoola reached out and touched Weller’s arm. “Master Weller,” she said softly. “Thank you for your help. And, please, you be careful too.”

He looked at his hands, one normal, one disfigured, both shaking just a little. They had been the hands of someone who cared once, long ago it seemed.

Lani. The Marpoos system.

What the hell’s wrong with me? I’m always running away. Not this time! Damn it, not this time! He stood up to get the stim. To hell with it! He’d need something not only to jumpstart his rapidly tiring mind and body but to get him through the rest of this night. He’d had enough experience with drugs of some kind since Marpoos; he knew he could handle it now. After all this was over, he’d see about taking care of himself. But right now, others were depending on him. And not just Selina. He wouldn’t let anyone down again.

Something moved in the mirror.

He looked up, startled. A reflection from behind him, a sharp glinting as if someone’s eyes had been caught in the light. He stared at the glass, frozen. And then, as if a fire had been lit under him, he jumped up and poked his head into his living room. Nothing.

No... no, of course not. I’m just a little jumpy. Just...

His front door stood ajar, its lock system decoded. Weller ran outside to the stoop of his house, looking down both sides of the quiet and empty street. A cool breeze kicked up, chilling him through his suit jacket. No one was about but for the hover-jit just now pulling up in front. Weller held up one finger for the driver to wait a minute and went back inside.

I’m sure I closed and locked the door. He went quickly from room to room, even checking his small closets. Paranoia again, he thought, standing in the middle of his living room. But he did notice one difference, something in his house that hadn’t been there before. A smell, a faint, musky, almost animal odor lingered in the night air.

Animal?

He closed and locked his windows, took the stim, and went to his desk. There, in a small side drawer, lay one of the only souvenirs from one of his pasts he had kept, smuggling it with him wherever he had gone. A ring he had bought for Lani--gold and of Terran design. One he had purchased from an off-world trader but, somehow, had never given to her. Time had simply run out. He hadn’t taken it out and looked at it in a long time. Somehow, now, it seemed important to do so.

Why he’d saved this memento out of all his and Lana’s other personal objects, he couldn’t remember. He had just grabbed things as he got out.

For luck, he thought though Lani hadn’t brought him any in the end. He pocketed the ring in one of his front pants pockets, checked his buzz-pistol, took one last look around his house, locked his front door, and walked to the waiting jit.

As he began to get into the back seat, he paused again and looked back. His floorboards had creaked. He had often fantasized about living in one of the more modern, inner-city complexes. Yet, now, the old floorboards had warned him that someone had gotten into his house.

For one moment, he remembered the Puman he had seen in Ifko’s Atomic Bar and Grill, the intense way the man-cat’s eyes had followed him into Yharria Main, practically burning a hole in his back. He had definitely been interested in Weller.

But why? Just a chance encounter? An easy target?

He was different than the other Pumans I’ve seen. Weller shook his head and sat down in the jit, closing the door behind him. Can’t be. I’m imagining things. Too much going on.

“Honin-Zay estate,” he told the driver. “Grenia Boulevard.”

But as the jit floated off and as the stim began to fire up his system, he had another ‘post-recall’ experience. That odd phenomenon had first occurred after he had confronted the supposed Seraen fem in the grenia. Only later did he remember the details of that meeting. Now it happened again.

The movement in the mirror. It hadn’t registered at that moment but now he could see it clearly in his mind. He leaned back in his seat, his hand tightening on the end of the arm rest.

The glinting of light had seemed to flash off a pair of eyes...

...cat eyes.