Otome-san didn’t say anything for a long time. My face was down, my eyes on the pillow, and I inspected every inch of those swords: the tsubas of gold and silver enamel, with their exquisite detail of a mantis eating a cricket but unaware that a golden oriole eyed him for its dinner; the deep cobalt blue leather wrap of both swords mirrored in lacquered sheaths of the same color.

At last, Otome-san commanded me to rise. We were close enough that I caught a faint, sweet licorice smell of star anise on his breath. He said, “You mourn Kan Otome?”

“Yes, Otome-san. I loved Uncle Kan very much.”

“And your father? Do you love him, too?”

“No.”

“And why not? He is your father.”

“And you are the brother of the man my father killed. Don’t you want revenge?”

“Each man carries the seeds of his undoing. Your father does not require my help for them to take root. Besides, you are doing such a good job.”

Heat rose up my neck, and I’m sure I fidgeted. “I don’t understand, Otome-san.”

“I see only your mother here.”

“That’s because he’s too ashamed to face you.”

“You are mistaken. Your father discovered a fundamental truth. A brother is the most fearsome and mortal enemy of all. Your father did not wish to shame me further for my brother’s misdeeds.”

“Misdeeds?” I was thoroughly confused. “My father forced Uncle to…”

“He forced my brother to face his dishonor and then he helped reclaim his honor as his kaishakunin. I knew your father well, Musume, my Daughter. Trust that I speak the truth.” He pinned me with a look that seemed to hold me by the ankles and give me a good shake to see what fell out. “You have great kokoro, Daughter, a fine spirit. But there is also gaijin, a stranger, in you. In that you share much with your father, hai? Akira-san discovered a traitor, a man who was gaijin, and cut him from his life. Your father knows that the act alone does not bring healing. Only time does this. You are very young yet, but this is something you must do, Musume, else you will never find peace.”

In the end, Otome-san gave me Uncle Kan’s wakazashi. No accident: it’s the sword Uncle Kan used to cut out his guts. Gaijin, I guess, because the sword’s message is clearly pounded into that tabu, the one that shows the bird stalking the mantis that eats the cricket. Just another name for that universal law: Watch your back.

Because you never really know what’s going to happen next.

9

Two Forks, Junction

Benjamin Military District, Draconis Combine

27 December 3134

Four months, waiting for something to happen. Four months of crummy food, crappy pay and a lumpy mattress in a rat-infested tenement block. Four months of Saturday night shoot-’em-ups, when Dr. Matt McCain was throwing in central lines and opening them real wide for some idiot who’d scored some really bad shit the week before and still couldn’t get it through his thick skull that McCain didn’t need to see him again, like ever. But Two Forks was that kind of town. Yakuza territory: lots of drugs, lots of sex and, being south of the equator, hot enough that garbage soured in an hour and tempers spiked to the boiling point.

Saturday night had been bad. Really bad. McCain stared at his feet, watched water spiral a gurgling funnel down the drain. Four lousy months on this toilet of a planet, and no closer now than when I volunteered for this crazy mission. And he was so sure a month ago that he’d finally caught a break. McCain fumbled for soap and lathered. Viki had it all figured, she’d said: reliable cutout, an assassin with a reputation.

Except whoever this assassin guy was, he had lousy aim, because McCain’d really worked at putting the save on the kid. Oh, it was the right kid because of the tattoo: gold chain-link around the kid’s right wrist. Only none of the kid’s yakuza buddies had shown up, kind of putting the kibosh on that old saw about honor among thieves.

There was, of course, another possibility. The party he was so very interested in meeting might be checking out his cover story: down-and-out drunk booted off New Samarkand for malpractice, reduced to grunge work in the armpit of the galaxy. But, right kid or not, they’d screwed up somehow. A month was plenty long to check him out.

McCain toweled off, shaved, combed out his ratty mane of black hair and shrugged into civvies: worn jeans, black tee. On his way out, he backhanded a wave to the receptionist, an attractive, bespectacled redhead in her late twenties. She waved back but McCain could tell she’d be just as happy if their next view of Junction was the planet receding in their rearview, and fast. Outside, the heat smacked his face, and by the time he’d taken five steps, sweat beaded on his forehead. By the time he made it to his hoverbike, his shirt was soaked through.

His bike was at the far end of the lot in a blot of shade thrown by one forlorn-looking, droopy maple next to a picnic table where hospital personnel ate lunch and griped about how crummy their lives were. He’d gotten the secondhand bike as soon as he set foot on Junction, although calling the bike “used” was a joke. The thing rode like it was held together with chewing gum and baling wire. But it got him where he needed to go.

Except this morning. He twisted the key in the ignition, pulled out the fuel petcock, thumbed down the starter and listened as the engine rrr-rrr-rrred. He checked the kill switch; he pulled out the choke; he cursed a blue streak. No go.

Then, a midnight blue hovercar—four-door sedan, tinted windows, mirror-perfect chrome—hissed to a stop alongside. The back door slid open. A ball of cold air ballooned out, followed by a man in a black, crewneck tee and gray sharkskin trousers. His skin was sallow and he had very small, almond-shaped eyes set in a flat box of a face. Another man joined him: identical in dress but much shorter, closer to McCain in height, and so muscle-bound that McCain thought the guy’s biceps would rip the seams of his shirt if the guy sneezed. McCain’s eyes dropped to the men’s right wrists, and suddenly his heart kicked into overdrive. Because there was the tattoo: gold chain-link, circlet of a black dragon against red background.

The muscled one said, “Need a lift, Doc?”

“Naw.” McCain waved him off. “Thanks. But if you’ve got jumper cables…”

“Naw, we don’t got cables,” said Muscle. “What we got is a nice cool car, good stereo. Take you anywhere you want to go.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“Naw, Doc.” And this time McCain saw a glint of blue steel. Maybe a pistol; maybe a nice, pointy torigato designed to make shish kebab out of his heart. “You really want a ride,” said Muscle.

“Well,” said McCain, “when you put it that way.”

They blindfolded him. McCain tried keeping track of twists and turns. They were climbing, and that meant they were headed east. The only thing east of the city was the lake, and ritzy estates beaded the coastline like pearls on a string, homes of the very rich and filthy rich. McCain figured this was really good, or really bad. Good, since the tattoos meant these were the right yakuza, but really bad if they’d figured out that he wasn’t who he said he was.

As soon as they let him out, and even before they tugged off the blindfold, McCain knew they were at the lake because of the smell: wet and sweet with lavender and green grass. One look at the estate and McCain knew something else: filthy rich. The mansion looked like something out of ancient history: a three-tiered wedding cake of a castle with bone white mortar walls and gray-tiled roofs edged with elaborate iron scrollwork.