Part 10 (2/2)

'Trask,' said Trask.

'Ah. Well, I was wondering if you could help me. I'm looking for Mr Qixotl. I don't suppose you have any idea...?'

The man's eyes were darting around the room, taking in the decor. Or lack of it. 'No,' Trask said.

The stranger nodded, apparently having run out of things to say. 'Yes. Well. I'm sure I'll be seeing more of you later, anyway. Goodbye for now, Mr Trask.' The man turned to go, then stopped dead. He glanced over his shoulder, just briefly. 'And you, Mr s.h.i.+ft.'

A moment later, he was gone.

You see?

Trask nodded.

I've got things to do before the auction, Mr Trask. I thought it was only fair to warn you about this new... well, let's not call it a threat. Let's call it a ”concern”.

'Thank you,' croaked Trask, but the s.h.i.+ft didn't reply.

Alone again, Trask considered the ”concern”. He wasn't convinced the new bidder would make any difference to his plans. Whoever the man Smith was, he was life. And all life was susceptible.

An entirely unexpected thought suddenly unravelled inside Trask's head.

Life. When he'd seen Smith, the first thing he'd noticed hadn't been the man's face, or his body, or his clothes. It had been that quality of life. Stronger than it was in most organisms. Strong enough that you could smell it, if you knew what to smell for. Trask had only scented that kind of intensity in a living thing once before, and that had been in the early years, when he'd taken life for granted. The early years. The final moments.

Trask remembered being under the water, choking on his last mouthful of oxygen but not being able to let it go. His arms, weaker than they should have been, were trying to pull the rest of his body up to the surface. His hands broke free of the water, touched air above his head, but something was dragging him down, tugging at his ankles. There was liquid pressing against every inch of skin, searching for an opening. Ready to fill up his lungs. It was supposed to be a good way to die, a peaceful way, but Trask knew it'd all be over as soon as he gave up and tried to breathe in. That was the hardest thing to take. Knowing that when he died, it would be his his fault. There was no peace in a death like that. fault. There was no peace in a death like that.

And then he saw the face, hovering in the air on the other side of the surface. Inches above his head. The face was old, serious, a terrible frown stretched between a pair of sagging cheeks. The man who'd brought him here to die.

Trask looked up at the man, and saw him for what he was. Life. Sheer life. And the quality was infectious. So infectious that Trask managed to fight against the lake for a good thirty seconds more before the last of the air slipped out of his lungs.

So infectious that even now, sitting in the ziggurat centuries later, Trask could feel the panic and the nausea seeping into his nervous system, even though he knew he was supposed to be dead to feeling. Life. The man who'd appeared in the doorway of the guest room had been just like the man on the other side of the water. His face was different, though. Younger. So it couldn't be, surely couldn't be, the same man.

'...Smith, or at least, that's the nom de guerre nom de guerre I seem to keep ending up with, lifetime after lifetime...' I seem to keep ending up with, lifetime after lifetime...'

Unless...

'...keep ending up with, lifetime after lifetime...'

Was it possible...?

'...lifetime after lifetime...'

Was it possible that Smith was the one?

The one who, all those years ago, had been responsible for putting Trask among the ranks of the dead?

'Run this by me again,' said Sam. 'What is it we're supposed to be doing, exactly?'

Lieutenant Bregman Kathleen was hurtling through the corridors of the ziggurat, her head darting from side to side, peeking into the corners, nosing around in the alcoves. 'We want to find the other guest rooms. They're all supposed to be in the same pa.s.sage, but Qixotl moved us around after I found the dead guy.'

Sam tried to keep up with her. Physically as well as conceptually. 'Um, what kind of dead guy was this? I mean, a murdered dead guy, or a guy who just happened to be dead?'

'A smiling dead guy. Forget about it, it doesn't matter right now.' They reached another junction, and Kathleen swung off to the right. 'It's like you said. The guest rooms can tell you everything you need to know about the people staying there. Right?'

Sam sucked her lip. 'Wait a minute. Kathleen, are you suggesting...?'

'Look, I'm UNISYC, OK? And yeah, I know we're not the most professional outfit in the world '

'I didn't know that,' Sam mumbled.

' but the defence of this planet is kind of in our brief. So what I'm saying is, we have a quick look around the other rooms, and we get the advantage. We can start figuring out exactly what the other BEMs are, and why they're here, maybe.'

'Kathleen.' Sam grabbed the woman's shoulder, dragging her to a halt. Kathleen looked irritated, but relieved at the same time, as if she were glad she'd been given an excuse to stop running. 'Listen. Half an hour ago you looked like your head was going to burst if you saw another alien. Now you're trying to break into their hotel rooms.'

'We don't have to break in. There aren't any doors.'

'”We”? Who's this ”we”?' Kathleen gave Sam a suspicious look. Sam tutted at her. 'I don't mean I'm going to turn out to be a Martian spy or anything. I mean, in case you'd forgotten, we're supposed to be rivals here. We're both bidding for the Relic, whatever it's meant to be.' Bregman, Sam had learned, didn't know what the auction was all about either. The Colonel did, but he wasn't saying anything. At least, he wasn't saying anything that made sense.

'The auction isn't the main thing. It's a question of planetary security.' Sam wasn't sure if Kathleen was quoting another UNISYC training film, or just talking drivel. 'We're both human, that's what matters here.'

'What?'

'Look, I don't... I don't know how to say this. We were standing there in our room, and you said what you said about biodata, and... it made sense, OK? I had this idea, and it made sense. Christ, I don't know. I don't know what else to say. I think maybe I'm starting to figure out how to do my job properly.'

Sam sighed. Loudly. 'Kathleen, you're a seriously messed-up individual.'

'Yeah, well, I'm UNISYC. I'm probably going to end up like the Colonel one day, I might as well practise being a sad loser now.' She started sniffing around the pa.s.sageway, with a faintly bemused look on her face, as if she'd forgotten where she was.

Sam tried to distract her. 'Speaking of the Colonel, don't you think we should tell him what we're doing...?'

'He's meditating. It's like hypnosis, you can do serious damage to someone's psyche if you wake them up early. Hey, Sam?'

'Yeah?'

'I think we've found something.'

Kathleen had moved a few paces up the corridor, and now she was standing in front of one of the open doorways, staring into the room on the other side. She had the same vaguely sick look Sam had seen on her face in the c.o.c.ktail lounge.

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