––––––––
Dasslak contemplated in a state of bewilderment the unfathomable decision of the girl he had been looking for. She had launched herself from the Puppet Master’s balcony, to a fall of fifty floors. There was no doubt about it; she had gone to her death. Nevertheless, he wanted to verify it. He ran to the edge, in the midst of the badly timed rain, and looked downwards, expecting to see the girl, dead, at the bottom of the abyss; however, he only saw an empty street.
He searched the entire place with his gaze until he noticed a thick cable going from the tower he was in, towards a building diagonally across. He then rapidly followed with his gaze the route this drew out, and he could see her; it was the girl. She was making her getaway at full speed, running along the cable, with incredible balance.
Without wasting any time, he took out one of his revolvers and aimed at Cora's legs, who appeared to be running faster with every step she took. The assassin was not going to pull the trigger immediately: if he did that, the girl would fall and die. He was going to wait until she arrived on the flat roof of the other building; only then would he shoot to immobilise and then capture her.
It was no simple task; the building that Cora was heading towards, some twenty floors less than The Alpha Tower, was around fifty metres away. The target was moving under the rain, and besides, he had to wait for her to take a few steps on the flat roof to ensure she would not fall into the void. Not just any marksman would have attempted that shot with a revolver; it was so difficult that it almost meant wasting bullets. But Dasslak was not just any marksman; he could make shots like that any day.
Whilst he waited for Cora to get to the other building, the Puppet Master ran up to the balcony, highly enthusiastic, to see what was happening. As the girl was advancing along the cable, the Puppet Master’s face contorted into an expression of delight. He had deduced that Dasslak would only shoot her once he was certain that she would not fall. He tasted the air, waiting for the moment.
Dasslak held the revolver with his right hand, aiming at Cora’s left leg, waiting for the moment. When the girl jumped from the cable onto the roof of the building and took a few steps, Dasslak fired.
The assassin was not expecting what would happen next. An instant later, after the bullet left the weapon, the girl, on the other side, jumped up, twisting herself around in mid-air in order to dodge the impact. To his own surprise, he had not managed to hit the target.
After the pirouette, the girl landed on the rooftop on all fours, unharmed. She rapidly got up, and continued her escape, across the flat roof of the building.
Before she could get very far, Dasslak aimed again at the girl and fired, but Cora repeated the manoeuvre, avoiding the second shot. She recovered once more, and ran, until jumping to another cable which would take her to another building.
The girl was a convergence. There was no way of hitting her from this distance; she was already dodging the bullet before it could even leave the barrel of the revolver.
Dasslak knew it very well. He had already contended with similar situations many times. A convergence was almost impossible to harm from far away. They felt the movement of everything around them, and the most experienced of them learnt to sense any object travelling towards them. Some, even, with a couple of seconds of prescience.
Dasslak was furious; the Puppet Master had complicated his task. However, there was no time to lose, Cora was continuing to escape, and he had to hurry if he did not want to lose her. He put away his revolver and went back to the Puppet Master.
“This is your fault! You threatened her life, and because of that she’s escaped!” Dasslak was pointing furiously at the Puppet Master.
“I sent her on a mission and look what happened. A person who opens their mouth, causing dangerous assassins to come to my door, must die,” he replied with his sadistic smile, whilst his men were aiming fearfully at Dasslak, after seeing his threatening figure.
“You've managed to have your little game! You're lucky I have to leave right now. Tell the pile of rubbish who has my ship in his hanger that I'm going to be taking it back right now. They’d better not cause me any more problems, or I'll burn this city to the ground, and not even this interminable rain will be able to put out the flames."
Dasslak did not wait for them to say anything; he took two steps towards the Puppet Master, who was now looking fairly nervous, until positioning himself just in front of him.
"What are you going to do?" asked the Puppet Master, frightened. The assassin did not respond; he was only getting himself some space for a running start. He ran towards the edge of the balcony, and jumped onto the cable that Cora had escaped onto seconds before, running as fast as he could so as not to lose the girl.
The Puppet Master and his thugs, now sure that they had been saved, burst out laughing. They had had their fun at the assassin’s expense, and it had almost cost them their lives. It had been exciting.
"Tell Golat that El Vaquero is going to take his ship. We've had enough fun now. If we keep giving him problems, he's going to kill us all."
Dasslak advanced along the cable at full speed. He ran as well-balanced as the girl, and although she already had a decent head start on him, the assassin was not going to give up. If he wanted to capture her, it would have to be now. Cora already knew that they were looking for her, and she would surely try to hide herself as best she could.
The assassin got to the flat roof of the first building, and continued his way towards the next cable. He could see Cora in the distance jumping onto another one, making her way to a third building, of some twenty floors.
Dasslak hurried his pace as much as he could. He was faster than Cora, but he was on the verge of losing her. When he arrived on the second building, Cora was already on the third, trying to get to the last building, which was even smaller, from which she would be able to jump to the ground, to become lost in the alleyways of Brass.
Dasslak was gaining ground with every step. In the moment when Cora reached the final building, he was already running half way along the last cable.
Cora made it to the other end of the roof of the fourth building, and jumped into the street, disappearing from Dasslak’s vision. When the assassin reached the edge, he jumped onto the street that ran parallel. It curved at both ends, preventing anyone from being able to see the beginning or end of the way.
He did not see the girl on either side; he had to make a decision, left or right. Cora could have gone in either direction, and there was no trace that could indicate which one. Dasslak closed his eyes for a second, before deciding, and immediately after, he began to run towards the left, until arriving at a curve to the right. When he turned around, he caught sight of Cora just before she turned to the left, following the direction of the alley.
Dasslak input a few commands into the device on his eyes as he ran, turned to the left, and saw the end of the alley some hundred metres away. It led to Brass’s under-ground transport. Cora was some thirty metres from the entrance. If she went into the under-ground, he would lose her.
In the second that the assassin had taken before, Cora had gained a small advantage over him, so Dasslak would have to do something to cut her off. He ran as quickly as his body would allow. When the girl was only five metres away from the entrance to the underground, Dasslak was already less than fifty metres from her. He could not risk allowing her to go into that dark place; he did not know the underground, and inside there it could be a real labyrinth. He had to attempt it.
He took out his pistols as he ran, and placed his hands one on top of the other, aiming one of his revolvers at Cora’s left leg, and the other at a space a little higher than it. He fired the first shot, and, immediately after, the second.
Dasslak’s trained eye was able to see it; an instant before he pulled the trigger of the first revolver, the girl was already beginning to turn in the air. She had anticipated the shot.
The bullet travelled at full speed, moving through the interminable raindrops that fell incessantly from the dark sky, whilst the girl turned, trying to avoid the impact. It was only a millimetre away from impacting Cora’s left calf. He was about to hit the target. Incredibly, the bullet passed by just after her left leg had moved out of the way.
Cora continued twisting around herself; her left leg had been saved, but now her right leg was coming up through the same place, following the movement of her body. The second bullet that Dasslak had fired was travelling through the air in her direction. Cora already knew it. She sensed it just after she had jumped up to avoid the first. Dasslak had memorized the movement the girl performed to dodge the impact of the previous bullets. This time he had ensured that, in the improbable case that Cora was able avoid the first projectile at such a short distance, the second would not miss.
He had calculated well, the girl’s right leg met with Dasslak’s second bullet. One moment later, Cora fell to the ground. She tried to get up to run, but the pain was unbearable, her leg was destroyed. Dasslak had her. The assassin walked towards the girl, who was writhing and whimpering in pain. When he was close enough, she looked at him with terror; she imagined he would kill her the very instant he got what he wanted.
Dasslak took out a pair of magnetic handcuffs; nobody would be able to escape from them, and he put them on her wrists, behind her back
“I recommend you don’t move much, otherwise it’s going to hurt.”
“Let me go!”
The girl was terrified. She did not know what to do; in her terrible state, fighting him was impossible. The assassin lifted her up, resting her over his left shoulder. The girl launched the knee of her left leg towards him, using all her strength. It was the only movement she could manage, but Dasslak stopped the blow with ease.
“I told you not to move. Your other leg is very damaged.”
It really was. The bullet had torn it open, and the pain was unbearable. Any other person would have fainted, but the girl was strong.
“Let me go, Vaquero!” she pleaded.
“A few moments ago, you seemed very eager to be close to me, and now you’ve got it, you want to go? You should have been more careful of what you wished for. Now it’s come true.”
“Aagh!” she cried in pain. “... Let me go...! Help! Help!”
“Don’t bother screaming. It doesn’t look like there’s anybody around her who could come and help you,” he said, as he looked inside the underground. “The first bullet went in there, I suppose the second too, unless it’s still in your leg. I’m glad there was nobody here. I could have killed someone without wishing to, and I don’t like to do it for free.”
“What are you going to do, Vaquero? Carry me through the entire city? Someone will notice. They’re going to kill you. You’d better leave me here, it’s for your own good.”
“Nobody’s going to help you, they don’t want you in this city anymore. They’re not going to attack me either; this place is full of cowards. Even so, I’m not going to carry you through the whole city.”
“You’re cruel, Vaquero!”
“I’ve never been accused of being cruel. I don’t believe I am.”
In that moment, Dasslak’s ship arrived, flying low over the city, and positioned itself over the street just above them. Dasslak input a few commands, and a gravitational ray began to lift them into the ship.
“Please, let me go, Vaquero,” she said as she struggled. “Aghh!”
“It’s already too late for that.”
The two of them were lifted up to the ship. Dasslak placed her on a long seat with a comfortable surface. He removed his revolvers and his sword, and left them on a table to one side. He went up to Cora and took her roughly by the face.
“Is he here? In this city... on this planet? Perhaps in this system?”
“Who?”
“The Augur... Don’t lie to me. I can tell when someone’s lying to me,” he asserted, and tightened his grip.
“He isn’t here!” said Cora, and she jerked her head out of his hand.
“In the system?”
“No!”
“Fine, then we’re getting out of this dump.”
Dasslak deactivated the magnetic handcuffs, leaned the girl back, and after carefully placing her leg on the seat, he put the handcuffs on once more, this time fixing them to the wall. He placed a small cushion beneath her head, and warned her not to move her leg. Out of a drawer, he extracted an anaesthetic injection and applied it.
“The anaesthetic’s going to make you sleep for a while. I don’t feel at ease here, I’m going to take the ship to a secure place, and then we’re going to talk.”
While she watched as Dasslak turned back towards the ship’s control cabin, the girl began to lose consciousness. A moment later, she fell into a deep sleep. When she awoke, already a few hours had passed, and she found herself inside a medical capsule. She could barely keep her eyes open, but she managed to see how the machine was repairing her destroyed leg. She made an attempt to get out, but she fell back to sleep, this time for longer than the one before.
The next time she woke up, she was already feeling better; she began to recover lucidity, and remembered everything that had happened. She was once again on the seat which the assassin had put her on when they arrived, subject to the handcuffs fixed to the wall. Her leg was barely hurting her; her injuries had been healed. One moment later, Dasslak came up beside her. He was carrying in his hands a small stool. He put it on the floor in front of her, and sat down.
“Is your leg still hurting?”
“No,” replied the girl timidly.
“You see? I told you I wasn’t cruel,” said the assassin. Cora said nothing, she was still feeling a sense of dread. After a few seconds of silence, the assassin continued: “What’s wrong? Yesterday, you seemed so bold.”
“Yesterday?”
“You slept for a day... Do you want something to eat?”
Dasslak did not wait for the girl to respond, he freed her from the handcuffs, and when she was comfortably seated, he took her right hand and put the handcuff back on, fixing her to the wall. He took from one side of the seat a surface that would serve as a table, and he put it in front of Cora. “I hope you like what I prepared: tinned food,” he told her, and got up to bring a plate, which he put in front of her.
The girl looked wary. She was still not driven to take the fork and eat, but she was starving. It had been several days since the last time she had eaten anything; the Puppet Master treated his subordinates very badly.
“Go ahead, eat,” insisted Dasslak, “I promise there’s no trick.”
The girl took the fork and began to eat as if she had never eaten before, with such frenzy that she caused the plate to move around the whole surface, even towards the edge, almost to the point of it falling off, but Dasslak pushed it back to the centre so Cora could continue.
As she ate, she watched Dasslak. She was trying to guess the man’s intentions; he had healed her leg, and he had brought her food. For a moment, she was almost certain of having seen kindness in the famous assassin. But she convinced herself that it had to be a false impression. Surely Dasslak knew how to get what he wanted; faking it ought to be simple for him. He was probably only trying to gain her confidence so that his job would be easier. She resolved not to trust the man.
“It’s surprising how you’re capable of dodging bullets at such a short distance,” continued Dasslak. “It requires a lot of ability... However, your technique is not so good, it’s predictable. Besides, after turning you fall on the floor, and getting up takes some time. You ought to practice to improve it.”
“What do you want from me?” answered Cora, leaving the fork on the plate.
“I believe you already know, I’m looking for The Augur. They told me that you would be able to tell me where to find him.”
“I’m not going to tell you, Vaquero. If I do, you’ll kill me. The Puppet Master said so.”
“Didn’t I already tell you that I don’t usually kill for free? Why would I be about to do a favour for that clown?”
“How could I trust you, Vaquero?”
“You don’t have to. To tell the truth, it doesn’t matter what you do, I’ll eventually get what I want. If you don’t tell me what you know, I’ll just have to extract the information directly from your head. I have friends nearby who can lend me a cerebral scanner. Although perhaps that might not be very good for you. The procedure is not very efficient, and can cause catastrophic damage to the brain. And not to mention if it’s practised on individuals who’re not human. The one thing that’s most certain is that you would die.”
“You’re an evil man!”
“I thought you liked the bad boys... Anyway, I don’t think I am evil. I don’t enjoy hurting people. That’s why I’m offering you the opportunity to talk.”
“How do I know you’re not going to kill me afterwards, Vaquero?”
“The Puppet Master trusted in my word, even when it could be considered that I’m his enemy. So you can believe me; after you bring me to The Augur, I’ll let you go.”
“I’ve heard promises all my life. Nobody’s ever kept them. They’ve always taken advantage of me, just because I’ve been weaker than them. You’ll do the same.”
“If you’ve had bad luck, that doesn’t have anything to do with me. I need to find The Augur, and I’m going to do it one way or another, I don’t care if you have to die.”
“You really are evil, Vaquero. As evil as they come. All my life, I’ve lived in the shadow of men like you.”
“An evil man would be torturing you by now. I, on the other hand, prefer to avoid it.”
“You’re not going to fool me, I know that, Vaquero. I’ve seen it my whole life. Wicked people... You have no idea the things I’ve been through...”
The girl was looking increasingly upset as she spoke. Dasslak had become very serious. He got up, and took a few steps backwards.
“Are you going to tell me where The Augur is or not?”
“...It must have been very easy for you; you’ve always been the strong one. I’ve suffered my entire life, Vaquero. My own mother abandoned me, leaving me to my fate, forcing me to do terrible things in exchange for a piece of bread. My life has been a torment.”
“Is that it?” asked Dasslak, with his particular brand of seriousness that could intimidate anyone. The girl looked at him, nervous; she had noticed the change in Dasslak’s demeanour.
“You don’t know,” insisted Cora.
“When I was just a teenager, my own father sent an assassin to kill me.”
The girl was surprised; there was nothing she could say to that. Like many, she knew the legend of the most famous assassin in the galaxy, and how he had obtained his sword from a man who wanted to kill him. Now she knew; that man who had tried to end his life, had done so on the request of his father.
“Perhaps you might think that you've been through a lot," continued the assassin, "but there's always going to be someone who's lived through worse things than you. This galaxy is vile; it's full of heart breaking stories and evil men. You think you know what an evil man is? The one who doesn't know anything is you. I've seen into the eyes of hundreds of them."
"But..."
"I told you that I'm not a wicked man; I don't know whether that's true. But what I am absolutely sure of is that I'm not a good man. If you're not going to tell me anything, I'm going to scan your brain. I didn't want to waste time with that, but if I have to do it, then so be it. I don't care whether you die or not."
The girl smiled whilst a few tears ran from her eyes. It was not a smile of happiness. That smile that she so often showed was her defence mechanism.
"All right, I give up. If I have to die, then so be it, Vaquero. I've been ready for a long time. When it's all over I'll receive the sweet relief of death."
"People say lovely things about death all the time. That it's a relief, and that they're prepared to receive it. That it's a rest. But that's not the truth. Death is not pleasant, it is agony."
"If that's how it has to be..."
"The moment those machines begin to scan your brain, you'll understand what I'm talking about. That is death, in those seconds before everything ends, when you discover that it's all been for nothing. It's in that moment when you cease to exist. Some have the luck of leaving life without even knowing it. But that's not for you. When death is approaching, you will feel it."
Dasslak removed the plate from the table surface, and returned the latter to its place. He grabbed Cora's left arm with force, and brought it to her other hand, leaving her handcuffed to the wall. Just to be sure, he took another set of magnetic handcuffs and placed them on the girl's legs. He was always very careful.
“What are you going to do, Vaquero?"
"We're going to Ranore. I have friends there who will scan your brain. It's the closest and safest place we can go to. We could probably be there in two days."
The assassin turned around before the girl could say anything, and went into the control cabin of his ship, closing the door behind him, and set course for Ranore, one of the best organised planets in the whole of Autoro.
In that place, they conducted business freely with other planets, regardless of whether they were pirates or not, but on the planet itself, crime was pursued by the authorities. The safety and the good economy allowed those who controlled the place to live well. But not everything was good; it was a slave trade planet. All those who could afford it were in possession of a slave.
Dasslak had some allies there. For a decent amount of time, he had worked for the government, dismantling criminal organisations. Until he tired of the arrogance of those in power.
During the journey to Ranore, he made sure to feed Cora and allow her to lie down to sleep. He was not interested in being cruel with her in her final moments of life. But he avoided having any other conversation with her. Everything was decided now, and he had nothing else to discuss with the girl.
When he was close enough to the planet, he requested permission for entry. He explained who he was, and what his intentions were. He would require a cerebral scanner.
The highest authority there, Abasha Maart, held him in high esteem; he quickly agreed to his request, and ordered his son, Bario Maart, to receive the assassin in one of the most important cities on the planet.
Dasslak descended on the position indicated to him, landed his ship in one of the city's hangars, and left the control cabin in order to gather his things and get out the ship with Cora. He would take her immediately to be scanned, just where the son of the important figure was waiting for him. But the girl had analysed the situation during the journey; she had things to say to Dasslak.
"Don't take me to the scanner. I'll tell you where The Augur is. But promise me you’ll let me go afterwards."
Dasslak looked at her, annoyed. For him, it was now too late for that.
"I'm sorry. We’re already here."
"Please, Vaquero. I'll take you to The Augur. I'll tell you everything I know. Don't take me to the scanner."
Dasslak got her up from the place where he had kept her for the last few days, secured the girl’s hands behind her back with the magnetic handcuffs and opened the door to his ship.
"Vaquero! Please!"
“Wasn't it the case that you were prepared to die? You should have talked when you had the option. We already made the journey here. With the scanner, I’ll be sure of knowing all the details.”
“I’m begging you, Vaquero... You said you weren’t cruel.”
“I already told you. It’s been two days getting here; I’m not going to allow it to become wasted time. I hate wasting my time.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Vaquero; it isn’t wasted time. You would have had to do the journey anyway.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The person you’re looking for, The Augur, is right here in Ranore. I’ll take you right to him.”