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Whrrr!
Crack!
The sound of the unknown weapon jolted his momentarily still legs into a
shamble onward down the slight incline before him.
His pursuer was invisible, silent except for the sometime padding of feet,
silent except for the occasional missile like the one that had shattered his
left arm.
"Whuff . . . whuff . . . whuffff . . ."
Each breath was harder to draw, but he kept putting one foot in front of the
other. In the back of his mind, the thought flared you're being hunted, like a
fox, a garbou, like a dog.
But his unseen hunter refused to let him turn, driving him with the shadowy
presence, with the silent whrrr of pain.
Right after he had seen the dark figure, he had charged the unknown, had
actually touched the alien, if that was what it was, for the steel muscles of
the shadow figure had paralyzed his remaining good arm and tossed him aside
like a doll.
"Run . . . assassin . . ." Those had been the words hissed at him.
He had not run, not him. Not then. Instead he had turned and attacked with all
the skill taught by the Guild. And had been tossed aside again. Like trying to
catch a shadow at night. And it had been barely night then. Now dawn was
approaching.
Each of those early rushes toward the alien blackness had found him sprawled
into the dirt, into the grass of the park.
"Whuff... whuff . . . whuffff. . . ."
When assault had failed, he had stood his ground. Until the terrible
projectiles had whirred past his head, the second shattering his left arm.
"Run . . . assassin. . ." And the alien had hissed his terrible message again.
He had stood-until the shadow rose from nowhere next to him and had twisted
his pain-
wracked arm.
"Run . . . assassin . . ."
Whhrrr!
He had run-not wisely, but well, for who had ever outrun him? Who had ever
outrun the
Hound of the Guild?
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"Whuff . . . whuff . . . whufff . . ."
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His legs were shaking. The flares behind his eyes left him nearly blind to the
path ahead.
Staggering, he managed to catch his balance, lurching leftward, then right,
until he came to the gentle slope upward, a slope that became more steep with
each meter.
"Whuff . . . whuff . . . whuffff . . . whufffff . . ."
How could you fight something that struck in darkness, stronger than any man,
that treated you with such contempt, that ran you down more easily than you
had ever run any quarry to ground, and with seemingly less effort?
He dragged himself another step forward.
"Whuff . . . whuff . . ."
Whhrrr!
His legs balked at the uphill effort. He stood there, gasping, swaying like a
tree about to crash into oblivion.
Whrrr!
Crack!
He did not feel the stone that killed him, nor see the dawn that spilled from
the eastern sky of Haldane a handful of minutes after his body had slumped
into an untidy heap on the viceroy's private riding trail.
XLVI
THE HOODED MAN at the head of the table cleared his throat.
"And now, for the unsubstantiated information . . ."
"It's gossip time," whispered a uniformed admiral in the corner to his nearest
colleague.
The whisper was not low enough. The hooded man, the figure known as Eye,
turned and looked. While Eye's expression was hidden, the admiral wilted as if
he had received a withering glare.
"Gossip, perhaps, but it has its uses. First, the Ursans are working on their
own version of a jumpshift. We have a team looking into that.
"Second; an unknown group has moved against the Guild. While our sources have
not been able to verify that, we have verified that there have been a number
of deaths associated with individuals suspected of Guild activity. We have
been able to investigate three deaths of this type and found reason to believe
that the victims were also associated with the Guild."
"A question?"
"Yes."
"Why no faxnews stories?"
"The deaths have been spread over ten systems and roughly a standard year, but
there is a pattern."
"Do we know who or what is involved?"
"We have a name, believed to be a code name. That name is Merhlin. Who or what
it represents is unknown at this time."
"Do we want to get involved?"
"I doubt that is to our interests," answered the hooded man.
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His response brought a series of low chuckles from the Imperial officers
around the table.
One woman shook her head slowly.
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"You disagree, Admiral Storz?"
"I would only point out that if an unknown has the resources to take on the
Guild, not only without being discovered, but without being stopped, what
would prevent such an organization from then applying itself to our agents?"
"Good point. Discovery, however, is not the same as involvement. I should have
made myself clear. We are working to discover this group or agency. We do not
intend to aid either party"
Admiral Storz nodded.
"Any other questions on this one?" Eye surveyed the shielded figures around
the table in the shielded room. "If not, the next item is the unreleased
Forsenian communique which would require the registration of all Imperial
agents with the local Forsenian government. . . ."
XLVII
THE MAN IN the full-fade blacks sighed.
War was hell, it had been said from the beginning of man's recorded history,
and he did not look forward to the next phase of his war against the Guild.
But the Guild was becoming more and more a tool of the unscrupulously wealthy,
and the Empire did nothing.
Until he had the final product from the information the Infonet and Lyr's
integrators were piecing together month after standard month, he had to
continue to keep the Guild off-balance.
So far his efforts had been isolated enough to give second thoughts to
individual agents, but the faxers and the other media had tumbled to the
identity of the dead in less than a handful of the cases.
He shrugged.
The Infonet he had set up on New Avalon had proven a commercial success, but
the mass of information he needed was still not complete. His personal wealth
was accumulating faster than either ecological knowledge or knowledge about
the Guild.
The Guild continued to monitor all the communications on the open bands in and
out of New
Augusta, and while he wondered to what degree they could pick up on his short
tore messages, he found his own concerns were making even normal foundation
business harder to carry out. While Lyr could still make credits hand over
fist, and while existing grants could be extended, not as much in the way of
new and innovative research was getting started as he would have liked, not
when he had to watch his own step every meter of the way.
This time, this time his action should give the Guild some pause.
He checked his equipment and slipped into the lift, headed for his first
target in the
Tower. The regional Guild councils were not quite as careful about their
security precautions as the Overcouncil.
While none had arrived at precisely the same time, and while their
reservations did not share common lengths, for two nights the top eight
members of the arm council would be in the same
Tower, at least theoretically.
Saverin appeared to be the one listed as Kerlieu, on the eighth level the same
Saverin once known for his proficiency in needlepoint laser work.
Gerswin stepped from the lift and walked down the brightly lit but deserted
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