Magus Star Rising
Chapter Twenty Five

The appearances of the Magus Star

every 72 Terran years

are reasons for spiritual and

emotional contemplation, the study and

reevaluation of ancient myth, and

the proverbial fear of the unknown.

They also provide excuses for one big party.

NEW TERRAN PRESS

Festival

The Magus Star festival was, Weller observed, now in full swing. Although all major continents and archipelago groups of Alpha-Seni held their own versions of the celebration, Weller knew none could be as colorful as the one held in the Yharria.

Colorful? Maybe that was an understatement.

The orange, early evening sun of Alpha-Seni illuminated the most curious and varied assortment of costumed revelers Weller had ever seen. Old Terran celebrations came to mind like Carnival or Mardi Gras or the famous Winter’s End Observance on Argella V (one he actually attended). Except the Magus Star Festival looked to be revving up on a much grander and elaborate scale.

Creatures, beasts, sentients, and humanoids of every description (and some not so describable) thronged the streets. Nothing unusual there, but the costumes and disguises, both corporeal and virtual, real and fanciful, prosthetic and, in the case of the very extreme, augmented, boggled the collective mind.

Even the Yharria, on a normal day, wasn’t this eclectic.

But thoughts of the meeting tonight with Behoola and Brother Ortega never really strayed far from his mind. His first impulse after hearing the news about Selina’s escape was to try to replace her himself. Sorrow, disbelief and, finally, rage had warred within him.

“I saw her in the grenia! Just outside, just now!” he had wanted to say. But he didn’t mention that strange incident. It wasn’t Selina, that much was obvious, only his tired, overactive mind playing tricks on him.

Behoola’s cooler, though grief-stricken, attitude finally prevailed on him to wait until the meeting tonight. But a whole day? What was Ortega thinking? He had said he had his reasons but Selina could be anywhere. She might even kill again!

And so, he had tailed Marcus Honin-Zay today as he had done yesterday. Both times the merchant had traveled the same route to the same destination and then back again. No surprises and no more sightings of Weller’s own furtive follower. Just the same, Weller found himself looking in window reflections and over his shoulder more than he had wanted to.

Even so, he decided not to follow the merchant back to his estate this time. He had taken some secret lasepics of today’s rendezvous, and had documented everything. No big deal, Weller thought. Honin-Zay’s just slagging his whore and that’s all I’ll report to Claudia Honin-Zay tonight. The rest of my fee’s as good as made.

He had found a message on his comm early this morning. Someone had somehow bypassed his direct line and gone straight into his mailbox. The flashing message light was the first thing he saw after he woke up. “I will be returning this sun from my retreat,” the voice of Claudia Honin-Zay had said, cool and even. “Please meet me at my home at what you would refer to as ten o’clock PM. You will be granted access to the grounds in the usual way. I expect a full report.”

And you’ll get one, Weller thought again. He had produced copies of the lasepics and his report and secured the originals in a storage locker shed in New Mayfair while Honin-Zay and his whore were otherwise engaged. He had the copies on him that he would deliver to the merchant’s wife tonight providing there were no complications. Anything could happen in the Yharria in any case but especially so during a festival. Pickpockets and muggers were everywhere so he had to make sure his ‘evidence’ was backed up. Yeah, you’ll get your report and then you’ll give me the money and we’ll never see each other again. And then maybe, just maybe, my new life will begin.

He only had an hour or two before his other, first meeting tonight and, what the hell, he’d never been to a Magus Star festival before. Everyone around him was in such a good mood, why not let some of that rub off on him? The Third God knew, with the latest developments, it might be a while before he could enjoy himself again.

Tantalizing aromas of grilled meats, vegetables, spice cakes and other various edibles hung thickly in the air. Somehow, an Ecronian beer found its way into his hand which he downed in just a few gulps.

Weller stopped at a corner food-stand and, after a surprisingly minimal wait in line, used a credit disc to purchase a coffee. His stim buzz was wearing down and he needed a little extra jolt for the meeting tonight. Once again, Selina broke the bubbling surface of his thoughts. Now it’s murder, he thought. What could have caused someone like Selina to commit such an act? He looked up into the cloudless sky. Maybe there’s something to this Magus Star crap after all. Hey!

A Voofran elbowed his way through the crowd, a scarf wrapped around his bald, scaled head. His naked upper torso gleamed blue-green, wearing the billowing pants and soft-soled shoes of a performer. He passed right in front of Weller, only inches away, his snake eyes staring straight ahead.

Weller almost choked on his coffee. He stared back at the Voofran who simply made his rough way through the crowd, seemingly oblivious to the celebration going on around him.

There was a certain bigoted expression about the lizard-like humanoids--‘All Voofrans look alike’. But Weller was sure this one seemed almost alarmingly familiar. Whether it was the clothes, the expression, the thin tongue that snaked in and out of the lipless mouth, some unpleasant memory reared its ugly head.

It’s him, Weller thought. The one who attacked me with the two Senittes. The ones in the alley.

Suddenly Weller was the ‘tailer’ again. Pushing his unfinished coffee into the hand of a surprised Senitte standing next to him, he began to walk after the Voofran, trying to keep him in sight. It wasn’t hard; the muscular reptilian was an imposing figure as the celebrants, even other Voofrans, moved out of his way.

If I hadn’t popped him with the buzz-pistol, Weller thought, feeling the reassuring warmth of the weapon in his pocket. I may never have gotten out of that alley. Which brought to mind his abrupt, impulse reaction; the reason he suddenly followed the Voofran. Who saved me? He wondered. The memories of those moments in the alley came back to him. He had pretty much put that incident out of his mind but a loose end was a loose end. He had a little time before his first appointment. He wasn’t sure how yet but maybe he could replace out something.

Besides, it was too late now to look for Selina. He knew, after the first shock of her escape had worn off, that he still had to finish this job; still had to obtain the rest of his fee if he wanted to accomplish his goal of helping her. And he would attend Ortega’s meeting tonight after finishing up his business here. When that was done, he would meet with Claudia Honin-Zay one last time.

I’ll just follow him for a while, he thought, concentrating on the Voofran’s broad back. No big deal.

He sidestepped a half a dozen Senitte stilt-walkers, tall, feathery headdresses bobbing above their painted faces as they made their oddly graceful way through the street. For a moment, he lost sight of his reptilian quarry.

Where? There! The Voofran had cut down a side street, his long-legged gait nevertheless slow and sure. Weller pushed his way through the crowd and stepped into the less crowded confines of the adjoining avenue.

Up ahead, about a half a short block away, the Voofran disappeared into the entrance of an old stone building. Pre-Contact Senitte design, once upon a time possibly a fine example of that type of architecture. But now, an old and rundown example of neglect.

He walked up to the front of the building, a closer look bringing back a couple of old memories. Scripted lettering in several languages on the window identified it as ‘IFKO’S ATOMIC BAR AND GRILL’. I haven’t been in here in a long time. Gearing his nerve up, he entered the bar.

Not much had changed that he could remember. Ifko’s was essentially a large, cavernous room dimly lit by hidden, greenish light that gave the interior an eerie, underwater quality. It was quiet and surprisingly comfortable with only a few customers scattered among the ‘tables’ and ‘booths’, which, Weller saw to his delight, hadn’t changed either since the last time he had been here. Giant mushrooms, trees and rocks had been shaped or grown to form those types of furniture. The bar itself was a long, flat, serpentine tree trunk. Two miniature waterfalls broke up the stream which coursed through the middle of the room. Exotic ferns and vines hung from the ceiling interspersed with coiling stalactites. Plants, mosses, flowers, rocks and bushes sprouted everywhere.

Weller wondered absently if the Honin-Zays’ gardener had had anything to do with this.

He carefully sidestepped the gnarled roots and small boulders that veined the floor like a web. Steam rose from the ‘jungle’ as Weller made his way through giant, mottled leaves and clinging branches. Small birds and lizards shared the artificial arboreal space with the bar’s patrons as the little creatures flitted and scurried about.

Atomic Bar and Grill? It was more like an old-style conservatory.

Weller took a stool at the bar, placed his shade-hat on the smooth wooden surface and ordered a drink. Non-alcoholic. The Senitte bartender raised his eyebrows slightly and placed a glass of iced nurga in front of Weller. Couldn’t be too buzzed. It had been a harried few days and he was tired enough. He’d hang out for a little while just to check on the Voofran and then make his way to his first appointment tonight. He was to meet Behoola. For some reason, she had urged going separately.

Interesting woman, he thought as he took another sip while he scanned the bar. Not your average Senitte fem, second or otherwise. Intelligent, strong-willed.

Weller lit up a cigarette and looked around the bar. Mainly males of two or three distinct races dotted the bar’s ‘landscape’. Two of the few women present were waitresses, one Senitte, the other Terran, wearing floor-length, armless and backless silken dresses and bright blue head-scarves. They flitted from table to table like bugs, their dresses billowing outward behind them. One or two other fems sat at tables with their male partners.

At a far booth disguised as a rocky alcove, he saw his ‘man’. The Voofran stood talking to a Puman and a Senitte fem who were each seated with drink in hand. Odd threesome, he thought, blowing a smoke ring overhead.

Weller watched the woman as her long-fingered hands gestured fluently as she spoke to the Puman. A warrior type, Weller noted of the man-cat, perhaps just arrived from the outer mountain provinces. The Puman sported the mane and strong build of his people but, unlike the rickshaw drivers, seemed to be a darker gray rather than brown. Though it was hard to discern in the muted light, Weller knew that lean, hard muscles rippled beneath the Puman’s fur. An air of power and menace emanated from the man-cat, although that power seemed controlled for the moment and not directed at anyone. From this angle Weller saw a pouch and a long knife lay within the Puman’s reach on top of the table while what looked like a fighting-staff leaned against the wall directly behind him.

At that moment, the Voofran sat down and drew a small package out of the large hip-pack he wore at his belt. He pushed it across the table where the woman scooped it up. She unwrapped it, shook her head approvingly and gave the Voofran an even smaller package in return. She then got up from the table, made some final remark to the Puman by leaning in close and whispering in his ear, nodded to the Voofran, turned and headed briskly for the door.

Weller watched her exit, her frame all sinuous and sexual. It all seemed to happen so fast. A transaction just took place, Weller thought. All business all right, but none of mine.

He drained his glass and put his credit disc on the bar. Wait a minute! Weller looked back to where he had watched the fem exit. Wasn’t that the Honin-Zay servant? The one who took him to Behoola? He hadn’t recognized her at first but he was sure now it was the woman... Ladora? Yes, that was her name.

Strange coincidence, he thought, turning back. It was then he noticed the Puman and the Voofran looked at him in a not-too-friendly manner. Though the Pumans who migrated to the Yharria and other parts of Frenati City took on jobs suited to their great strength and speed or their unsurpassed metal-forging skills, their war-like potential was not to be taken lightly.

The Voofrans could be nasty too. By nature, they were not the friendliest of races. Not indigenous to Alpha-Seni like the Pumans, the Voofrans had been uprooted from their own world by some natural cataclysmic disaster and forced to immigrate to the outer planets. Like the Terrans. Not having a high degree of technology of their own, the Voofrans had had to rely on the other races of the Rim World Conglomerate for help and, so the theory went, resented that obligation.

Weller nodded, not wishing to give the impression he had tried to move in on the man-cat’s girl and started to get up to leave. There wasn’t much point in pursuing his idea about the Voofran now, especially since he may have recognized Weller. Ifko’s had suddenly gotten a little too crowded.

But another familiar, though unwanted, sentient from his recent past blocked his way. “So, Terran, we meetin’ again, huh?”

Weller felt a chill in the pit of his stomach. Another of the trio who had attacked him, the older Senitte, his already scarred face lit up by a more recent gash on his left cheek stood between him and the door. He moved closer, a noticeable limp marking his walk as he used a long, wooden staff to make his way.

The staff rang a bell too.

“You know this, huh?” the Senitte hissed as he faced Weller. “Fedur’s shock-lance. ’Member Fedur? Your Ahnka friend took care of him!”

“My Ahnka friend?”

“Yeah. You know.” The Senitte sneered, his nose almost touching Weller’s face. His breath smelled like booze. “You know! Burned Fedur to nothin’!”

Weller looked sideways at the thug. Ahnka? The Ahnka was an infamous though shadowy guild of criminals primarily based in the Yharria. The only comparisons Weller could give it were the Axis Group on Aqueous II or the ancient Mafia on Old Terra. They supposedly had their fingers in a lot of the bazaar’s very lucrative pies (as well as other parts of Frenati City) and were not to be trifled with.

But the description the Senitte had just given him didn’t ring a bell. He knew no one in the Ahnka. Weller shifted his gaze to the table where the Puman and the Voofran sat. The table was now empty but he was sure either the man-cat or the reptilian still kept an eye on him from somewhere.

Shit. Another stroking screw-up! “Hey, nice to see you again, friend,” he said, taking a step toward the door. “But I’ve got to be going. No time to reminisce. Maybe I’ll see you at the reunion.”

The thug raised the lance to block Weller’s way. Weller saw a minute haze of sparks dance over the tip of the weapon. He felt the muscles in his back clench as if they had a memory all their own. “Maybe you stay a little longer, I’ll bet. Qua want to talk to you, you know. He still a little stoked at you buzzin’ him.”

Qua? The Voofran. “Look, friend,” Weller said as his hand strayed close to where he had hidden his buzz-pistol. “I don’t want any more trouble with you. So why don’t you...”

Just then the bartender leaned over the bar close to where Weller had been sitting. In a very loud voice, he directed a slew of Senitte invectives at the thug. Weller wasn’t clear on everything that was said but he recognized the words for ‘trouble’ and ‘outside’ and one that he thought translated into ‘agreement’.

The Senitte stood there as if struck dumb then laughed and nodded nervously at the bartender. He suddenly seemed to deflate, his anger rushing out of him like air from a leaky balloon. “Don’t be worryin’... friend,” he said to Weller. “We been told not to stroke with you. Sometimes I forgettin’. Jet, huh? Must be nice, havin’ friends like that; ones that can get the word out.”

He glanced knowingly at the bartender. “Buy you a drink, huh?” he said, once more looking at Weller, this time with an attempt at camaraderie. “Make amends? I mean your Ahnka friend with the scar burned Fedur but Fedur asked for it, I guess. Tried to fight him. Ha! Tried to fight the Ahnka. What a grunk!”

Weller relaxed but stayed where he was. Maybe this little side trip of his could still pan out. “No thanks to the drink. But you said the Ahnka had a scar?”

The thug looked confused. He glanced away as if he realized that perhaps he had said too much. “Yeah. You know. The scar. Up here.” He put his finger to his right temple and traced a Z.

Weller closed his eyes for a moment, dredging up another piece of memory. He felt a cold finger run down his back... Kazrah had the look of a thug--blank and menacing, his eyes cold with a large Z-shaped scar inlaid on his right temple.

His eyes snapped open, looking right through the Senitte thug. Claudia Honin-Zay’s attendant/bodyguard, he thought. What the stroking hell? “Why... why do you think this one was Ahnka?”

The thug’s eyes narrowed. He seemed to be rethinking his appraisal of Weller, perhaps wondering why he was being asked so many questions. “What? You think you can’t tell? You can tell, you know? He had the look, the smell, the way he moved. And the weapon, a beam-pistol, custom job. Not just anyone gets that kind of gun. He was Ahnka. You know he was.”

Kazrah? An Ahnkan?

Weller’s hand shot out like a snake and grasped the top third of the lance, wrapping it in a grip so hard his knuckles turned white.

The thug’s own grip tightened as he pulled back on the lance. “Hey, what the shit...”

The bartender growled another warning, this time to both the thug and Weller. A beam-pistol of his own appeared in his hand.

But another recent memory fueled Weller’s next move. Recha. “Give me the lance,” Weller said softly. “And I’ll see that my friend gets Recha off your back.”

The thug eyed Weller suspiciously. He glanced again at the bartender. Good, Weller thought. This Recha’s still a threat to him. The Senitte let go of the staff, wobbling a little on unsteady legs.

“Sure, that’s jet.” He held up both hands, palms forward. His bid at a smile came out more like a grimace. “You put in a good word for us, huh?”

Weller hefted the lance in his hands. He thought about zapping the thug like Fedur had zapped him. But the bartender certainly wasn’t going to allow that type of action and the Voofran and Puman could be anywhere.

Besides, he really didn’t know how to activate the damn thing.

On the other hand...

In one quick jerk, he swept the bottom end of the staff up into the thug’s groin. The Senitte howled and collapsed on the floor, rolling over onto a small section of ‘soil’ before coming to rest fetus-like in a copse of small bushes.

“Out,” the bartender said in perfect Terran, his pistol raised. “Now!”

With a last glance at the groaning Senitte, Weller rushed out the door. The skin between his shoulder blades tingled ferociously as he resisted the urge to look behind him. There was still the matter of the missing Voofran and Puman. They wouldn’t be so easy to deal with as the Senitte had been although the shock-lance would even things up a little.

Regardless, he’d found out some interesting information all right and couldn’t help but feel a little pride in that. But he didn’t know if it was good or bad. And what did it all mean? Kazrah following him, saving him, and being a member of the Ahnka. That had to be his reflection Weller saw as well.

And what about Claudia Honin-Zay? Did she know any of this?

Using the lance like an ordinary walking-stick, he strolled back into Yharria Main, lost in thought, his mind racing. If he had more time, he could have followed the servant Ladora but would never replace her now.

He finally glanced back. And there he was, a distinct, powerful presence amidst the harried crowd. The Puman, the one who had been in the bar with the Voofran and Ladora, stood at the side of the street, watching him. His piercing cat-eyes gleamed in the light. And then he was gone.

Weller shivered and hurried on, holding the shock-lance tightly. Suddenly his ‘small surveillance job’ had gotten very complicated. If it wasn’t for the money, if it wasn’t for Selina...

As he walked as fast as he could towards the spot where he had parked his rental, rushing past festival revelers and street-vendors, he knew this meeting tonight couldn’t happen soon enough.