Read Online The Revelation Space Collection by Alastair Reynolds - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alastair Reynolds
Tags: Science-Fiction
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prevent him picking up the pieces of his life, remarrying, having children and perhaps even grand-children before she returned, a ghost from a part of his life he might have nearly consigned to oblivion by then. Assuming, of course, that he had not died as soon as he returned to combat.
Until that moment when the Ice Mendicant explained the situation to her, Khouri had never really given much thought to the slowness of light. There was nothing in the universe that moved faster . . . but, as she now saw, it was glacial compared to the speed that would be needed to keep their love alive. In one instant of cruel clarity, she understood that it was nothing less than the underlying structure of the universe, its physical laws, which had conspired to bring her to this moment of horror and loss. It would have been so much easier, infinitely easier, if she had known he was dead. Instead, there was this terrible gulf of separation, as much in time as in space. Her anger had become something sharp inside her, something that needed release if it was not going to kill her from within.
Later that day, when the man came to offer her a job as a contract assassin, she found it surprisingly easy to accept.
The man’s name was Tanner Mirabel; like her he was an ex-soldier from the Edge. He was a kind of talent scout for potential new assassins. His network taps had flagged her soldiering skills as soon as she was defrosted. Mirabel gave her a business contact: a Mr Ng, a prominent hermetic. An interview with Ng swiftly followed, then a spread of psychometric tests. Assassins, it turned out, had to be among the sanest, most analytic people on the planet. They had to know exactly when a kill would be legal - and when it would cross the sometimes blurred line into murder and send a company’s stocks crashing into the Mulch.
She passed all these tests with ease.
There were other kinds of tests, too. The contractees sometimes specified arcane modes of execution for themselves, while secretly assuring themselves that it would never actually come to that, because they imagined themselves clever and resourceful enough to outrun the assassin, even over weeks or months. But Khouri had to learn an easy familiarity with all manner of weapons, and that turned out to be a talent she had never even suspected in herself.
But she had never seen anything quite like the weapon which the tooth fairy had left.
It had only taken her a minute or so to figure out how the gun’s precision parts fitted together. Assembled, it had the form of a sniper’s rifle with a ridiculously fat perforated barrel. The clip contained a number of dartlike slugs: black swordfishes. Near the snout of each slug was a tiny biohazard symbol. It was that holographic death’s head which had set her wondering. She had never used toxins against a target before.
And what was this business with the Monument?
‘Case,’ Khouri said. ‘There’s one more thing . . .’
But then the car thumped down on the street, rickshaw drivers peddling furiously to avoid its descent. The toll burst onto her retina. She swiped her little finger through the credit slot, debiting a secure Canopy account which had no traceable links to Omega Point. That was vital, for any well-connected target could have easily traced the movements of their assassin via the ripples they left in the planet’s ragged financial systems. Screens and blinds had to be maintained.
Khouri pushed back the gullwing and hopped out. It was, as ever down here, softly raining. Interior rain, they called it. The smell of the Mulch assailed her instantly, a mélange of sewage and sweat, cooking spices, ozone and smoke. The noise was just as inescapable. The constant trundling of rickshaws and the ringing of their bells and horns created a steady clamorous background, spiced with the cries of vendors and caged animals, bursts of song from singers and holograms voicing languages as diverse as Modern Norte and Canasian.
She pulled
Until that moment when the Ice Mendicant explained the situation to her, Khouri had never really given much thought to the slowness of light. There was nothing in the universe that moved faster . . . but, as she now saw, it was glacial compared to the speed that would be needed to keep their love alive. In one instant of cruel clarity, she understood that it was nothing less than the underlying structure of the universe, its physical laws, which had conspired to bring her to this moment of horror and loss. It would have been so much easier, infinitely easier, if she had known he was dead. Instead, there was this terrible gulf of separation, as much in time as in space. Her anger had become something sharp inside her, something that needed release if it was not going to kill her from within.
Later that day, when the man came to offer her a job as a contract assassin, she found it surprisingly easy to accept.
The man’s name was Tanner Mirabel; like her he was an ex-soldier from the Edge. He was a kind of talent scout for potential new assassins. His network taps had flagged her soldiering skills as soon as she was defrosted. Mirabel gave her a business contact: a Mr Ng, a prominent hermetic. An interview with Ng swiftly followed, then a spread of psychometric tests. Assassins, it turned out, had to be among the sanest, most analytic people on the planet. They had to know exactly when a kill would be legal - and when it would cross the sometimes blurred line into murder and send a company’s stocks crashing into the Mulch.
She passed all these tests with ease.
There were other kinds of tests, too. The contractees sometimes specified arcane modes of execution for themselves, while secretly assuring themselves that it would never actually come to that, because they imagined themselves clever and resourceful enough to outrun the assassin, even over weeks or months. But Khouri had to learn an easy familiarity with all manner of weapons, and that turned out to be a talent she had never even suspected in herself.
But she had never seen anything quite like the weapon which the tooth fairy had left.
It had only taken her a minute or so to figure out how the gun’s precision parts fitted together. Assembled, it had the form of a sniper’s rifle with a ridiculously fat perforated barrel. The clip contained a number of dartlike slugs: black swordfishes. Near the snout of each slug was a tiny biohazard symbol. It was that holographic death’s head which had set her wondering. She had never used toxins against a target before.
And what was this business with the Monument?
‘Case,’ Khouri said. ‘There’s one more thing . . .’
But then the car thumped down on the street, rickshaw drivers peddling furiously to avoid its descent. The toll burst onto her retina. She swiped her little finger through the credit slot, debiting a secure Canopy account which had no traceable links to Omega Point. That was vital, for any well-connected target could have easily traced the movements of their assassin via the ripples they left in the planet’s ragged financial systems. Screens and blinds had to be maintained.
Khouri pushed back the gullwing and hopped out. It was, as ever down here, softly raining. Interior rain, they called it. The smell of the Mulch assailed her instantly, a mélange of sewage and sweat, cooking spices, ozone and smoke. The noise was just as inescapable. The constant trundling of rickshaws and the ringing of their bells and horns created a steady clamorous background, spiced with the cries of vendors and caged animals, bursts of song from singers and holograms voicing languages as diverse as Modern Norte and Canasian.
She pulled
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