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heads, too?'
'I hear only my own thoughts,' Jazz spoke first, 'and I speak my own words.
Don't talk about me, talk to me.'
Arlek faced him squarely. 'Very well,' he said. 'Give us your weapons, your
various . . . things. We take them so that you may not use them against us.
You are a stranger, from Zekintha's world; so much is obvious from your dress
and your weapons. Therefore, why should we trust you?'
'Why should anyone trust you!?'
Zek cut in, as Arlek's men began taking Jazz's equipment. 'You betray your own
leader while he's away seeking safe places!'
To give them their due, some of the Travellers shuffled their feet and looked
a little shamefaced. But Arlek turned on Zek and snarled: 'Betrayal? You speak
to me of betrayal? The moment Lardis's back's turned you run off! Where to,
Zekintha? Your own world, even though you've said there's no way back there?
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To find yourself a champion, maybe - this man, perhaps? Or to give yourself to
the Wamphyri and so become a power in the world? I
would give you to them, aye - but only in trade for the safety of the
Travellers - not for my own glory!' 'Glory!' Zek scoffed. 'Infamy, more like!'
'Why, you - !' He was lost for words.
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Jazz had meanwhile been stripped of his packs, his weapons, but not of his
pride. Strangely, now that he was down to his combat suit he felt safer; he
knew he wouldn't be shot for fear of the havoc he might wreak with his awesome
weapons. At least he could stand man to man now. Even if he couldn't
understand all of Arlek's words - and even though many that he could
understand rang true - still he didn't like Arlek's tone of voice when he
spoke to Zek like that. He caught the Gypsy's shoulder, spun him round face to
face. 'You're good at making loud noises at women,' he said.
Arlek looked at Jazz's hand bunching his jacket and his eyes opened wide.
'You've a lot to learn, "free man",' he hissed - and he lashed out at Jazz's
face with his clenched fist. His reaction had been telegraphed; Jazz ducked
his blow easily; it was like fighting with a clumsy, untrained schoolboy. No
one in Arlek's world had ever heard of unarmed combat, judo, karate. Jazz
struck him with two near simultaneous blows and stretched him out. And for his
troubles he in turn was stretched out! From the side, one of the Gypsies had
smacked him on the side of the head with the butt of his own gun.
Passing out, he heard Zek cry: 'Don't kill him! Don't harm him in any way! He
may be the one answer to all your troubles, the only man who can bring you
peace!' Then for a moment he felt her cool, slender fingers on his burning
face, and after that . . . . . . there was only the cold, creeping darkness .
. .
Andrei Roborov and Nikolai Rublev were lesser KGB lights. Both of them had
been seconded to Chingiz Khuv at the Perchorsk Projekt - known as a punishment
posting -
for over-zealousness in their work; namely, Western journalists had snapped
them beating-up on a pair of black-market Muscovites. The 'criminals' in the
case had been an aged man-and-wife team, selling farm produce from their
garden in the suburbs. In short, Roborov and Rublev were thugs. And on this
occasion they were thugs in serious trouble.
Khuv had sent them to 'talk' to Kazimir Kirescu; it was to be their last
opportunity to interrogate the old man before he went on a course of
truth-drugs. It would be best if he could be persuaded to volunteer the
required information (on Western and Romanian links) for the drugs weren't too
good for a man's heart. The older the man, the worse their effect. Khuv had
wanted information before Kirescu died, for afterwards it would be too late.
This might seem perfectly obvious, but to members of the Soviet
E-Branch things were rarely as obvious as they seemed. In the old days when a
person died without releasing his information, then they would have called in
the necromancer Boris Dragosani, but Dragosani was no more. As it happened,
neither was Kazimir Kirescu.
Approaching the old man's cell to see how his men were making out, Khuv was in
time to discover the two just making their exit. Both wore the clear plastic
capes or ponchos of the professional torturer, but Rublev's cape was spattered
with blood. Too much blood. His rubber gloves, too, where he stripped them
from shaking hands. His face was deathly white, which Khuv knew was sometimes
the reaction with this sort of man when he'd done a job too well, or enjoyed
it too much. Or when he feared the consequences of a gross error.
As the two turned from locking the door, Khuv met them face to face. His eyes
narrowed as they took in Rublev's shaken condition, and the condition of his
protective clothing. 'Nikolai,' he said.
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'Nikolai.'
'Comrade Major,' the other blurted, his fat lower lip beginning to tremble. 'I
-'
Khuv shoved him aside. 'Open that door,' he snapped at Roborov. 'Have you sent
for help?'
Roborov backed off a pace, shook his long, angular head. Too late for that,
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