Vin of Venus Read online

  Vin opened the envelope. A riot of euros, pounds, and dollar notes tumbled out.

  "Your first payment as a private detective," said Marta, laughing.

  She chinked glasses with Vin and winked.

  "Like they said in that old American film, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship," said Marta and the bracelet on Vin's wrist grew hot.

  -SCION OF THE EVENING STAR-

  Ocher clouds crawl through leaden skies. Vin hears the woman's scream just as he enters the courtyard, sees the labyrinth of sculpted blue fungus Prince Tarqual Vaz uses to dispose of political enemies. He is close! The shriek carries again and Vin's gaze sweeps the upper walls, heart pounding, allowing himself the luxury of hope. There—along the battlements—he sees a tumble of ebon hair, stark against pale green skin. Rhadma, his beloved. Tarqual clutches her with one thin arm, while the other presses a jeweled poniard against her throat. Even at this distance, Vin can see the leer on the young prince's face.

  "Rhadma," Vin calls, drawing the Sword of the Sea Clans.

  But before his blade can leave its sheath, the labyrinth rumbles with a third scream. One of Tarqual's Dread Lancers hurtles over the blue fungus, mounted atop a six-legged War Strider. His battle-cry ends just as he thrusts a barbed spear at Vin's head.

  Vin sidesteps, draws his sword. He sweeps it in a wide arc to bite into the lance's shaft. The keen sea-forged blade shears right through. At the same time the jeweled bracelet on his wrist tingles and throbs, scarlet stones gleaming, sending a pulse of murderous hate through his body. He swings again and his sword severs one of the Strider's legs. The beast chitters, oozing ichor. Vin vaults atop its back. He whirls and stabs the startled rider through the nape of his neck. The battlements with Tarqual and Rhadma are only scant yards above him. He hunches, powerful hate-fueled muscles preparing for maximum effort.

  He leaps ...

  ... and fell to the cold wooden floor of his bed-sit in Kensington. The impact didn't quite knock him out. Instead, he lay prone for several long moments, his temple throbbing from where it had struck.

  Another nightmare.

  Well, not a nightmare really. Kind of thrilling. The nightmare part was waking up and discovering the stumps where his left leg and left arm had been. Like he was doing now.

  Next to the bed sat the powered wheelchair Dr. Krol had lent him. He slithered over, got his right hand wrapped around an armrest, pushed with his right leg, and managed to flop into the padded chair after a couple tries. Getting better, at least.

  The cheap digital clock on the nightstand read 4:35 a.m. In less than an hour gray light would come seeping through the bed-sit's only window. Further sleep was out of the question. He considered and rejected the idea of taking a bath. Too much logistics involved. Instead, he sent the chair humming over to the dresser and turned on the electric kettle. After the water started boiling he poured a measure into his cup, along with two bags of PG tips.

  Sitting next to the window, waiting for his tea to cool, a wave of futility struck him.

  He was alone.

  He had no real memories of who he was.

  And this world, though achingly familiar at times, did not feel like "home."

  Secreted in the right pocket of his chair was a pack of razor blades he'd stolen from Dr. Krol's medicine cabinet, on the pretense he might need them for self-defense.

  Why was he kidding himself?

  The cold sun came up and lit the rain-slicked sidewalks below.

  * * *

  "I'm taking you to Greenwich today, before your appointment with Dr. Muroc."

  Marta had just finished winching the power chair to the back of the car. She slid into the driver's seat, alongside Vin. Rain dripped from the ends of her lank blonde hair.

  "Good."

  "Muroc's doing your initial fittings. Isn't that exciting?"

  Vin slumped his head against the window. Across the street, tourists were queuing up for Kensington Gardens despite the weather. "I suppose so."

  "Don't you think—"

  "It's been a bad morning, all right?"

  Marta's thin mouth curled down at the corners. She started the car and pulled into traffic, almost hitting the rear fender of a taxi. Several minutes went by before she spoke again. "I don't suppose you want to talk about it."

  "Not really."

  Marta Krol was an associate of Dr. Muroc. A trained social worker, she was supposed to assist with all the preliminaries of a prosthetic fitting, including lining up a physical therapist for afterward. But she also fancied herself a counselor. Which meant their many "outings" together were peppered with annoying questions.

  "You're still upset about your train-ride from Warsaw, aren't you?"

  "We've been over that."

  "Well, if someone had assaulted and tried to rob me, I'd still be angry."

  Vin recalled the two French girls who had helped him make his connection in Paris. Neither was over twenty. Anais and Sabine had been pleasant company during the trip, keeping the conversation light, but, at one point in the Chunnel, he'd dozed off and woken to find Anais trying to tug the ruby bracelet off his wrist. Sabine pressed a knife to his jugular and whispered she'd bleed him like the poor cripple he was, if he tried to resist. Only the intervention of a ticket officer had saved him.

  He'd worn the bracelet covered with a sleeve ever since.

  "I don't feel angry," Vin said, "as much as ... helpless."

  Marta braked for a light. The windshield wipers thumped while she composed her reply. Vin felt the bracelet lurch against his skin, filling him with needles of anxiety. He glanced out the window. A young man on a motorbike had pulled alongside the car, glaring at him and Marta. Hooded eyes. His shaved scalp was nearly hairless as Vin's own.

  "You recognize him?" Vin said.

  Marta paled. She stomped the gas as soon as the light changed.

  * * *

  By noon the sun had poked through in one spot and Vin was feeling better. They'd had lunch at a curry house. Something about the mix of heat and spices brought a twinge of nostalgia.

  "That an old boyfriend, then?" he said, his chair's motor whirring as they mounted a sidewalk, heading back to the car. Off to their left rolled the stately grounds of Greenwich Park, with the colonnade of the Maritime Museum in the distance.

  "A former client, actually. I don't suppose that was a coincidence."

  Vin enjoyed asking the personal questions for a change. "You feel like talking about it?" he said, unable to hide a smirk.

  Past the museum, past a row of smoke-stacks, a huge structure loomed. His smirk vanished.

  "What's the matter, Vin?"

  He gestured toward the gentle curve of white, impaled with massive steel beams.

  "That's the Dome," Marta said. "They're still making jokes about the damn thing."

  "It's—"

  * * *

  Vin digs both knees into his mount's furred back, leans forward. The creature plunges through a low-lying cloud. For a moment, all is mist and whipping wind. Then, the Venusian landscape reveals itself below. Sparkling sea bordering jungle-studded coast. The domed fortress of Warlord Gann Lorci rises from the foliage like a sinister egg, muted sunlight gleaming off crenellations of green and black stone.

  A battle rages.

  Atop the waters floats the flotilla of the Sea Clans, Vin's adopted people. Radium cannons crack and boom from the wooden decks, spitting streamers of white radiance that shatter against Lorci's fortifications. But these attacks do not go unanswered. Counter-siege machines hurl globes of green fire high into the air, arcing downward and bursting against the ships in brilliant flashes. Roughly half the fleet has already been set aflame.

  "We're losing, my chieftain!"

  The voice comes roaring across the wind. Vin turns and sees the black-furred snout of his loyal companion's mount, scant yards away. Amazing to think that those thin, membranous wings can keep such creatures aloft. He bares a fierce smile at Jaryk Coln of the Crimson
Men. "Losing now, perhaps," he shouts, "but the Warlord has yet to feel the edge of our blades!"

  Jaryk's scarred face splits in an lustful grin as he yells exultation. His cry is echoed by the throats of a hundred-odd Crimson Men, floating and flapping in the air-currents behind them.

  "Dive!" commands Vin, and nudges the Xhat into a steep spiral down ...

  * * *

  "I'd lost you for a moment back there. What psychiatrists call 'disassociation.' It's common to trauma survivors."

  Marta took a sip of her cider. She'd come back from the bar with a lager for Vin and a pack of crisps. They were the only customers in the pub, save for an early-afternoon drunk playing the fruit slot machine. His curses alternated with payoff dings.

  "Does that mean I hallucinated?"

  "Sort of. More like a memory came bubbling back to the surface." She pushed the beer toward him. "Want to tell me about it?"

  "You wouldn't believe me."

  "Oh. Venus, again."

  Vin drained half his lager in one go.

  "Easy with that. Look, I've been meaning to talk to you about these ... fantasies." She reached into her purse, took out two paperbacks, and laid them on the scarred table. Both looked old, with deeply-creased covers and cracking yellow spines. The first was entitled Blades of the Evening Star, and depicted a bald, overly-muscled man riding a giant bat.

  "Where'd you find that?"

  "Used bookstore in Croydon. There's hundreds like these. Vin, whoever you were before your accident, you must've read a lot of fiction. Absorbed the stories, somehow. Now you think they're actual memories."

  The second book was called Scion of the Evening Star. Same bald man again, this time hacking the legs off a giant spider.

  "Vin?"

  He squinted at the cover. Something flashed a lurid red from the bald man's right wrist.

  "Vin, are you listening to me?"

  "Sorry."

  She tore open the crisps. "Do you realize Venus is probably the most inhospitable planet for life in our solar system? Sulfuric acid rains. Pressure so great it crushes any probe we send to the surface."

  "But was it always like that?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I read somewhere Venus may have been like Earth, billions of years ago. With giant oceans. And then something happened, set off a chain-reaction of greenhouse gases."

  "Right. Billions of years ago." Marta popped a crisp in her mouth and glanced sidelong out the plate glass window. The sun had burned away all the morning clouds. Now the air just above the pavement was starting to shimmer. "Greenhouse gases, huh? Might be something to that."

  * * *

  Arms and legs dangled from the ceiling of Dr. Muroc's waiting room. Prosthetic limbs dating back to both World Wars, but still, the initial effect was unsettling. Sonorous electronic music played ("Joy Division," Marta explained, making a face). Vin sat across from a framed collection of glass eyes. There were no magazines available, so he leafed through a vintage comic book he'd found on his chair. Every time he looked up, a dozen colored orbs stared back at him.

  "I don't want to alarm you," he told Marta, "but I think I might've seen your stalker again, on the ride over here."

  She jolted up. "Where?"

  "A couple cars back. On his bike. Trying to stay out of sight."

  "Oh." Marta hugged her purse against her lap. "Don't worry about him."

  "I'm not the one who seems worried."

  The door to Dr. Muroc's office opened and a fit young man in fatigues stepped out. His right foreleg had been replaced with a curved piece of metal, bowing slightly as he walked. The soldier glanced at Vin and did a double-take. Smiling, almost shy, he came over and shook his hand.

  "Thanks for your service, mate. Where were you stationed?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "Where'd they send you? Iraq, was it?"

  The soldier's green eyes were friendly, but distant, somehow. "I'm sorry," Vin said, "I'm not—"

  "Oh, you're military, all right. No mistaking that." He bumped a fist against Vin's shoulder. "Sometimes you don't want to remember. I can understand. Ta, then."

  The artificial leg flexed and un-flexed, propelling him away.

  He's right, Vin thought. I don't know how, but he's right.

  * * *

  "There's enough nerve conduction in your left shoulder, I can give you an arm with some capabilities. The leg's going to be more difficult. But attainable, I think. You'll need a cane, mind."

  Vin blinked at Dr. Muroc's impassive face. He had a ruff of white hair, sticking out like wings on either side of his bald crown. "You're saying I can walk?"

  "With practice, yes."

  "Do people cry when you tell them that?"

  "Some do. You don't strike me as the overly-affective type, though."

  Vin looked down at both his stumps, exposed to the sterile lamp-light of the examining room. He didn't know what to say.

  The doctor cleared his throat. "I trust Marta has been of some assistance?"

  "She's trying to help me remember, I guess. Make some sense of things. I don't like being analyzed all the time, but she means well."

  Muroc pursed his lips. "Her father doesn't approve of her work. Thinks it's too dangerous. None of my business, really." He gestured toward the ruby bracelet on Vin's wrist. "Speaking of Dr. Krol, he'd asked if I could track down someone to identify that jewelry. I'm no slouch in antiquities myself, but I've never seen gemstones cut that way. Or that particular spiral motif. It suggests Celtic origins, but—"

  Yells echoed from the lobby.

  "That sounds like Marta," Muroc said.

  Vin pushed himself off the examination table and managed to land squarely on his power chair. Muroc was already through the door. Vin sent the chair racing after him, out into the lobby. He nearly collided with the doctor as Muroc came staggering backward, blood streaming from his nose.

  "Don't you touch him!" Marta screamed.

  The motorbike rider's fists were still raised. He flicked red from his knuckles, mouth contorting in a sneer. "You've been diddling him, haven't you? Screwing the boss, is it?" His eyes, wild, settled on Vin. "And what's this? Your new conquest from just this morning? Half a man?"

  "Derek, please—"

  "Whore." He pushed her against a couch, so hard the back of her head struck the wall.

  Vin jammed the chair's controls forward. He had only a few feet to accelerate, so the collision with Derek was little more than a nudge. Still, it brought him close. The ruby bracelet burned against his wrist.

  * * *

  "You would appear to be overmatched, sir."

  Prince Tarqual's rapier slips through Vin's guard a third time, drawing a furrow across his chest. Even all the adrenalin coursing through him can't stop the pain. He gasps, swinging the Sword of the Sea Clans in a desperate counter-stroke. Tarqual dances out of the way.

  "That old blade's too heavy," he says, grinning.

  Despite his deceptively slender physique, his mincing, effeminate appearance, the young prince is as dangerous as an eight-limbed jungle cat. Years of courtly training in swordplay, no doubt. Vin has underestimated him.

  Tarqual launches a lightning-quick thrust. Vin moves to parry, but at the last moment the rapier whips aside and slashes his wrist. A feint! The Sword of the Sea Clans goes flying from his grasp, to crash against the flagstones in the courtyard below.

  "You're finished," Tarqual says, raising his blade for a final strike. "The rebellion's over and your woman mine. She'll make a fine mistress."

  The grin freezes on his face. He stiffens.

  As if by magic, a dagger's metal tip protrudes from his chest. He looks down, unbelieving. One slender hand tries to cover the hole in his heart. Blood gushes out around his fingers.

  He falls.

  Rhadma hurls the jeweled poniard next to his body. "Never turn your back on a Princess of the Sea Clans," she says, and spits.

  * * *

  Vin's mind had crawled down
a scarlet tunnel, into someplace else.

  When conscious thought returned he found himself hanging from Derek's neck, his one arm encircled around him, driving the sharp facets of the bracelet up into his cheek. A solid thud sounded. Derek's head jolted forward as if struck from behind. He started to turn, dragging Vin with him. Another thud.

  Derek's legs collapsed under him. Vin broke most of the larger man's fall.

  "I told you to stop," said Marta, swaying over them. She brandished a prosthetic leg made of polished wood and metal.

  Derek pushed Vin free and wobbled to his feet, before she could swing again. But in the next moment Dr. Muroc rushed him, grasping a scalpel in a fencer's grip. Derek threw himself backward as the tiny blade slit his leather jacket from neck to pockets.

  "Get out of my office!" Muroc warned, taking another step toward him.

  Derek had time for one frenzied look. Then he whirled, pushed open the front doors, and bolted down the street.

  Muroc locked the doors behind him. "I'll phone the police."

  Marta helped Vin up onto the couch. Her face was tear-streaked, but her voice firm as she spoke. "I—I had a brief affair with him. Back when he was a client with Drug Rehabilitation. That was before I came to work for Dr. Muroc." She grimaced. "Not very professional, I suppose."

  "Everyone makes mistakes," Vin said. He could hear Muroc in the other room, giving directions to the Metropolitan Police.

  "Don't tell anyone, will you? I could lose my license. That's why I didn't—I never—"

  "It's alright." Vin folded his hand over hers. He'd struck the floor for the second time that day, but the pain felt distant. Secondary.

  Not so helpless after all.

  -SWORD OF THE EVENING STAR-

  Sway. Clack. Sway. Clack. Sway.

  You could call it 'walking,' he supposed.

  If I'd lost limbs on different sides of my body this would be easier.

  * * *

  Hordes of French schoolchildren had invaded the British Museum. They hooted and called to each other, running between the glass cases of Grecian pottery and endless clay slabs scratched with Linear B. Their sole teacher, a frazzled-looking man in a black sweater, gave apologetic shrugs but made no attempt to corral his charges.