Vigilante Read online

  Aebura glowed with pride since she made the fruit juice herself. “I’ll go get it,” she said and hurried away.

  She didn’t know it, but a fierce argument had started within the first minute of her telling her story—and it showed no signs of slowing down.

  Why not? Shinigami demanded now. It’s a perfectly good solution. Why not do it?

  Because I am not a madman who burns down cities and then asks questions, Barnabas told her. His voice was terse. That would be rank vigilantism.

  What’s wrong with vigilantism?

  It doesn’t follow the rule of law. It isn’t impartial.

  What’s not impartial about suggesting that slavery is wrong?

  That isn’t— Barnabas sighed and looked down at his empty glass of fruit juice. To his surprise, he really was enjoying the stuff. It wasn’t beer, of course, but he couldn’t hold that against it. Not everything could be beer. Justice should be impartial.

  I don’t see why.

  You’re being very difficult.

  The Queen Bitch doesn’t leave justice up to other people when she sees something bad going on. And you were a Queen’s Ranger.

  That was different. I was acting on her orders and enforcing her Justice.

  There’s only one Justice, and it isn’t the same thing as laws.

  When did you become a philosopher?

  When did you become a coward?

  Barnabas went still as stone and Shinigami, sensing she might have pushed things a little too far, withdrew into silence.

  Aebura swung out of the back room and offered him a folded piece of paper. She noted curiously that Barnabas looked far angrier than he had when she’d left. She filled his glass with fruit juice, worried that he might be angry at her.

  She’d only known him for a few minutes, but she instinctively knew she did not ever want to see him angry. She withdrew a little and busied herself with work.

  Barnabas stared at the piece of paper and read. There was a low throb of anger in his gut.

  Coward?

  Cowardice had nothing to do with this. He had wanted to go off on his own. He would say that he was here because he knew there was still injustice to be rooted out. From what he had seen of the universe, there would always be injustice. There were always people who wanted to see what they could get away with.

  He remembered how he had once been. He had completely lost control—everything that made him...well, not human perhaps, but sentient. He had cared for nothing more than what he wanted to do. He’d been ruled by his emotions, and other people had suffered for it.

  He had sworn that he would never give in to that again. He had been comforted by the strictures of a monk’s life and learned to strive for a higher standard of morality, and when he had joined Bethany Anne he had been glad to know that he served someone whose laws were truly just.

  Someone who could take him down if he ever got out of control. She’d made that abundantly clear. Despite his mood, he smiled slightly at the memory.

  Now he was out on his own because he needed to be. It was time for him to stop relying on anyone else to check him before he went too far.

  He wasn’t arguing with Shinigami because he didn’t want to burn this whole place down, but because he did. He understood all too well why she had suggested it. He had wanted the same thing when he’d heard Aebura’s story.

  But he knew he needed to let go of the anger before he acted or he might do something he would regret. There was no one else to talk his plans over with now. There was only him.

  Well, and Shinigami.

  He shook his head wearily and closed his eyes and let the anger sink back into the recesses of his mind. That was the trick to this: you could always get rid of anger if you wanted to. Often he did not want to. Anger slipped into his mind with a comforting familiarity. It whispered for him to break the rules because he worked for a greater good.

  And then when you weren’t looking, you crossed lines and found yourself with more blood on your hands than you could ever atone for.

  He was aware of the tall thin alien watching him as he beckoned the bartender over again. He gestured to the paper. “This is a standard contract, I’m afraid.”

  “I know.” Her tail drooped sadly. “I didn’t think I could get a better one.”

  “Mmm. Hear me out. It’s standard, but it’s utterly wrong.” Barnabas pointed to a few paragraphs. “This basically indemnifies the mine owners for any danger they put you in and allows them to charge you for anything they want and add time to your contract. Here, it says that if you have a dispute about the contract you have a right to legal representation, but there are no provisions for how you’re expected to go about obtaining that. In short, it’s a mess.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “I wanted to leave, but no transports besides the mines’ go from here to Dugan—my home planet. Even if there were, how would I have paid my passage? Dugan has no exports, really.”

  She was embarrassed, and she felt like an utter fool now. She had known that the contract was not in her favor. She had expected poor conditions in the mines, and she knew she would have to work hard, although she didn’t object to that.

  But she hadn’t guessed that the mine owners wouldn’t let people go at all. Because if you couldn’t leave and you didn’t get your wages until the end of your service year, how would you find legal representation?

  What would stop people like Venfirdri Lan from doing whatever he wanted to the people he employed?

  She should have known.

  “Aebura.” Barnabas sounded gentle. “People like this prey on people who don’t know better. You were caught up in something bigger than you.”

  Aebura hesitated, then dropped down from her perch to crouch on the counter in front of him. “It wasn’t that,” she explained. “I feel foolish, yes, but that was a small thing; unimportant. When I left the mines…”

  She glanced at Gar again to see if he was watching and Barnabas felt a small stirring of anger.

  She lowered her voice. “When I left the mines after my contract was done the others asked me to smuggle them out with me. They said that Lan was getting worse and they were afraid for themselves.”

  “You didn’t do it,” Barnabas guessed.

  She shook her head. “I told them that they only had a few months more on their contracts. I told them…” Her small shoulders slumped. “It doesn’t matter now. They were all excuses. I knew Lan was getting worse. We had less food to eat and the hours were longer. I told myself he wouldn’t go this far.”

  “‘This far?’” Barnabas echoed.

  There was a pause while Aebura wrung her hands. She was rocking side to side a bit as well.

  “Slavery,” she blurted finally. “I think that when the mines shut down Lan didn’t tell them, and he didn’t let them leave. Why else would none of them come to Tethra? They never got out.”

  Barnabas nodded slightly toward Gar. “And that alien there—is he this ‘Lan’ you speak of?”

  “Oh, no.” Aebura smiled slightly. “That is Venfaldri Gar. He was Lan’s second-in-command.” A moment later she added, “I do not think he recognizes me. He never liked Ubuara. I think he thought we were all the same. Because of our minds.”

  Barnabas raised his eyebrows. “What about your minds?”

  “We can speak telepathically,” Aebura explained.

  “Without implants?”

  “Yes.” Her tail twitched, which Barnabas thought might be a sign of amusement. “They need implants to stop us from doing it.”

  “Why would they want to stop you from doing it?”

  Her tail was not twitching now. She hunched and would not meet his eyes. “They think we’ll start a rebellion or pass prohibited materials if we’re allowed to, so when you get your contract you get an implant that stops you from connecting. I don’t know how it works.”

  Shinigami, scan the alien in front of me. I want to know about the implant in her head.

  Shinigami w
as silent, and Barnabas wondered if she was still speaking to him.

  A few moments later, however, she reported, It is a device that transmits radio waves. It is placed near what are likely to be the speech and language centers of the brain.

  “Likely to be?”

  I am guessing, based on physiology and what I can read of the brain waves, that this creature is very similar to a primate. The device would likely interfere with speech in more than one way, but it’s difficult to know.

  Thank you, Shinigami.

  Barnabas considered this.

  I still say we burn this sonofabitch down, Shinigami added. Apparently she had decided that it was once again time for her to express her opinions.

  Barnabas’s mouth twitched in something that might have been considered a smile. He remembered Michael saying that creating female vampires was riskier than creating male vampires. Because they are more likely to fail? Barnabas had asked. No, Michael replied, because they talk. A lot.

  Shinigami?

  What?

  Why do we not like slavery?

  There was a pause, and Barnabas knew that Shinigami—rightly—believed this to be a trap of some sort.

  He waited.

  Because it infringes on the rights of individuals.

  Are you quoting something?

  Shinigami did not deign to answer that.

  Either way, Barnabas continued, if you dislike slavery because it infringes on the rights of individuals, I can therefore assume that you would rather make people’s lives better, not worse. If so, burning “this sonofabitch” down is illogical because...

  Silence.

  I’m never going to let you use the flamethrower if you don’t answer me.

  Because burning to death would make their lives worse, Shinigami said sulkily.

  Very good. Barnabas smiled at Aebura. “I apologize for that. I needed to have a conversation with my associate.” He tapped his head. “We can also speak mind to mind in a way, but we require technology to assist us.”

  Which apparently you have some big objection to. What was your point about that, anyway?

  That in my day tools like ships did not have minds. They were simply inanimate objects, no more. They didn’t talk back.

  How boring. And how error-prone, too. Have you met any humans? They do stupid things. No wonder you gave us minds.

  Humans are not idiots. Barnabas resisted the urge to roll his eyes. They really should have given Shinigami to Tabitha. She’d broken Achronyx in, so surely she could have done the same here.

  Name one thing a human can do better than me.

  Strategize in unfamiliar situations?

  No human will ever best me in strategy. Ever.

  Wrong, Barnabas said flatly. Strategy requires logic, emotion, and instinct. Though you may best us in logic simply by running simulations, you will never be an unqualified superior choice as a strategist.

  There was a very long silence—by Shinigami’s standards, anyway.

  Prove it, she demanded finally.

  What?

  Prove it. Play a game with me. Chess.

  That’s insane. The simulations alone—

  I won’t run simulations more than ten turns ahead. When he said nothing, she added persuasively, On my honor.

  I’m still not sure artificial minds have honor.

  Say that to Archangel II’s face! I dare you.

  I retract my comment. Barnabas narrowed his eyes slightly. Very well, you have a deal. He looked back at Aebura again with a smile.

  All Aebura had seen was a brief moment of inattention. Emotions had chased one another across his face and his lips had moved slightly, but she would never have guessed he was having a conversation.

  How fast could he speak? How fast could he think?

  She shivered slightly. This alien didn’t look very threatening, but she was now firmly of the opinion that looks were deceiving on that front. Why, she wasn’t sure. He hadn’t done anything intimidating…yet.

  She didn’t know it, but that was going to change in approximately thirty seconds.

  The alien to your left is trying to scan you, Shinigami reported.

  Has he succeeded?

  Impossible to tell. Your clothing is made to repel some scanners, but without knowing more about him and the technology he has access to I couldn’t say.

  Barnabas leaned forward slightly. “Aebura, what species is that man?”

  “He’s a Luvendi.”

  I could have told you that much, you know.

  Not now, Shinigami. “What should I know about the Luvendi in general?”

  “A lot of them run mines here. Their bones are fairly brittle.” Aebura considered and concluded, “They don’t have music.”

  “Everyone has music.” Even if he despised most of it.

  “Not them,” Aebura argued. When she saw Barnabas’s skeptical look she added, “Seriously!”

  Barnabas looked at the alien and, having caught him staring, raised a single eyebrow.

  Then Gar did something that seemed like a good idea at the time, but that he would later describe as the biggest mistake of his life.

  He ran.

  3

  When Gar first took off, he didn’t have any sort of plan at all. He just looked into the eyes of the small alien—pathetic looking, really—and felt a wave of inexplicably strong fear. It was a lone human.

  But it was also affiliated with the former Etheric Empire.

  He had learned that from the Nekubi in the bar, offering one a drink and looking away in disgust as it slimed its way up the barstool and sat. It had taken depressingly long to get it to open up at all. It was a clever bargainer, and Gar knew that with that example he was hardly going to get anything more out of the other two.

  Besides, once he’d spent an agonizing half-hour buying it drinks, he was determined to have that time be worth something. Finally it opened up.

  Strange ship in orbit? Oh, yes. Registered as the Shinigami, yes, yes. Registered to the former Etheric Empire, yes. And I’m not saying I’m certain, oh, no, not certain, but the last time we saw aliens like that one over there was right before the mines got bought out. They’re called “humans.”

  At first Gar thought this was a joke. He had heard stories of humans. Their eyes glowed red, they had claws, and they could beat Yollins in single combat.

  This was clearly not a human, but the Nekubi had been sure. It couldn’t even identify whether the alien was male or female, but it was sure the thing was human. Absolutely sure.

  And Gar began to wonder.

  He still remembered the day things had changed. Well over two years ago, Lan had received an urgent message from the corporation they served. He had holed himself up in his office while he reviewed the message, then made sure all communications to the outside world were completely shut down.

  Gar had assumed this was some sort of security protocol and accordingly, he waited to be briefed while he followed Lan’s orders. He made sure there were no radios to be found anywhere on the premises, and no transmitters of any sort. He helped the security team take down the satellite uplinks.

  Lan had never briefed him on anything.

  What he did do, however, was enact all the rules he’d always said the mine should have. There were strict curfews now, and reading materials were confiscated. The workers were pleased to learn that they would now receive wages, but less pleased to learn that food would be available at a store and they now needed to pay rent for the little huts they lived in, the payments for which would be withdrawn from their wages.

  When Gar told Lan about the increasingly dire mutters he was hearing Lan simply told him, “Do what you have to do.”

  Since then, Gar had done things he didn’t like to think about.

  It had started slowly; that was the thing. First, there were more people in the little jail, so he had to build a new one. The security guards complained too much, so he had the prisoners build it. They were surly and bad-tempere
d, so he had them whipped.

  It was all very logical when he thought about it. The thing was, it left a sort of a sick feeling in his stomach.

  And he was angry. He was angry all the time now. When he walked through the mining camp, it was with his eyes darting this way and that, to see which person would rebel next. And there was always another one. Why couldn’t they just follow the rules?

  It wasn’t just them, either. Why couldn’t Lan enforce some of his own policies for a change? He didn’t have the workers yelling at him. He didn’t see their stares. He just called for more and more supplies from the city and holed up in his office. He was snappish when Gar asked him to do anything at all.

  Do what you have to do. Take care of it. Don’t bother me with things like this.

  Bastard.

  Then yesterday, Lan had called him into the office. Gar was to go to Tethra. He needed to do something “of the utmost importance.” When Gar found out that he was going to procure one of Lan’s favorite types of cake, he didn’t even care about the absurdity. He hadn’t left the compound for months and he was beyond pleased to have time away from the sullen workers, the bored security guards—there was a recipe for trouble—and, above all else, away from Lan, who wasn’t explaining why any of this had been necessary.

  He didn’t even care that he’d have to give a fake name and make sure he wasn’t followed back. Nothing bothered him.

  Until he’d started to piece together the whispers once he’d arrived in Tethra.

  Until he realized that the mine Lan controlled should have been shut down entirely and the workers let out of their contracts—with pay, presumably, for the ones Lan had kept beyond their year.

  Lan had told him that the company had a provision in the contracts for work shortages, and that workers would be paid double wages for staying past their year.

  Gar was beginning to have the feeling that none of that had ever been true.

  When he’d heard about the strange ship in the sky, and the other whispers that one like this had been seen months ago...well, he wanted to learn more. When he heard that the captain of that ship might be sitting in the bar next to him?