The Lost Stars: Shattered Spear Read Free Page B

and rigid beliefs had allowed humanity to dominate Old Earth, had brought humans to the stars, had brought them as far as Midway, and had brought Malin to this alley.
    Malin spotted a minor fluctuation that told him of movement and edged along on a path that would bring him closer to the path of his quarry. Had that quarry actually been moving to ambush Malin? Or had Malin been spooked by the long pursuit and the mental strain of staying to the cracks in the surveillance net during that time?
    He paused again, breathing slowly, scanning the darkness for any movement that might not register on the surveillance sensors. The sensor system could be hacked, had been hacked innumerable times, to keep it from noticing someone or some event. Malin himself carried the means to enter the system’s controlling software and redirect it. But he hadn’t used that tool tonight because of a growing suspicion that his prey had the same capability and would spot Malin the moment he tried to employ it.
    A shuttle zipped by above the city, coming down from orbit and heading toward the landing field on the outskirts of the city. A lessertracker would have been distracted, but Malin kept his senses glued to his readout and spotted the flickers that marked more motion at the same moment as the shuttle crossed directly overhead.
    Too easy,
Malin thought, frowning. His target had not made any such obvious moves in the hour of pursuit. Was the prey growing tired and careless? Or had those betraying actions been shown deliberately, clear enough and yet subtle enough to lead an eager and also tired hunter into a misstep?
    Morgan would have caught them by now.
Malin could not block the thought before it taunted him. Morgan had been in a class by herself, but she was almost surely dead. He no longer had to measure himself against her, no longer had to compete with the woman who did not even realize that Malin was her son. But he almost moved quickly then, almost tried to close fast on his prey, almost tried to keep proving he was as capable as Morgan.
    More motion, more noise, several flickers along a path.
    His prey was running.
    A lesser hunter than Malin might have bolted after the fleeing quarry. A lesser hunter might have hesitated, wondering whether to race in pursuit or not.
    A lesser hunter would have died seconds later.
    Malin hurled himself away from the path his prey had taken. No longer worrying about concealment, he pelted down the alley, trying to put as much distance between himself and his last position as possible.
    The explosion came just as Malin rounded a corner and sheltered next to a building.
    As the roar of the blast subsided, to be replaced by shouts and screams and the wail of alarms, Malin stood away from the building, brushed off his suit, triggered the software routines that would render him invisible to the sensor net, and walked away. The hunt had failed. A dangerous enemy of General Drakon and President Iceni was still at large. He would have to report this, would have to let Drakon andIceni know of the threat, and of his failure. It would be up to them to decide on the necessary response. Or, more likely, up to Iceni, because even though they were supposed to be coequal, Drakon had increasingly focused on external security and deferred to her on internal matters. It would probably be Iceni who would decide what to do.
    An all-too-familiar self-rebuke echoed in Malin’s head.
    They wouldn’t have gotten away from Morgan.
    *   *   *
    KOMMODOR Marphissa had long since stopped expecting to ever again get a full night’s sleep. If something major didn’t demand her attention in the middle of the “night” aboard the heavy cruiser
Manticore
, then something minor would pop up.
    This wasn’t minor.
    “Dancers, Kommodor! Twenty-four Dancer ships have arrived at the jump point from Kane!”
    She sat up on her bunk in her darkened stateroom and rubbed her eyes, trying to make sense of the news, then glared at the