The Chronicles of Riddick - Alan Dean Foster [15]
Wending his way through side streets, occasionally pausing to chat with those he met, it took Imam longer than he planned to get home. While Helion Prime’s streets were reasonably safe, no society was perfect. These rumors and whispers that currently fogged the streets were exactly the kind inclined to fuel antisocial behavior. Better even for a known and respected delegate to be home before dark.
As he came within sight of his destination, the nearest wall glowed to life, bathing the approach to his home in soft white illumination. The automated reaction to his presence calmed him almost as much as the light itself. Out there, beyond the reach of Helion’s sun, something inimical and unknown might be stalking, but here, for now, all was as it should be.
Reading and responding to his biometrics, the doorway opened to admit him. Once inside, he had begun to relax when a sound informed him that he had been wrong: all was not as it should be. That he recognized the sound did not trouble him a tenth as much as the fact that he recognized the voice that spoke to him over the steady scrape, scrape of blade against synthetic stone.
“It was the worst place I could find. The worst place where I could survive by myself, without the burden of having to lug around special gear. See, I wanted to be free, but I also wanted to be ignored.”
Imam turned toward the voice. He knew that if its owner had wanted him dead, he would already be lying on the floor, a test-drive for decomposing bacteria. Or perhaps, he thought fearfully, his visitor was only taking his time.
There were any number of depilatory sprays on the market, as well as a plethora of advanced hair-removal gadgets. Disdaining them all, honoring selfsufficiency or possibly some unknown tradition, the big man leaning over the small hallway fountain was using the blade he held to shave his head in a manner that was as time-honored as it was currently unfashionable. As he spoke, he concentrated on what he was doing. Imam might have been in the room, or it might have been empty. The delegate knew one thing for certain. If he tried to flee before his visitor had finished whatever it was he had entered to say and do, he would not make it as far as the nearest doorway.
“Where?” he heard himself asking.
“Some frozen heap,” Riddick was murmuring as he worked. The blade slid smoothly over his increasingly bare skull; long, thick locks dropping like dead mambas into the small basin. “No real name, no real sun. Just scientific designations. No need for real names for a place nobody would want to go. Chose it just to get away from all the brightness. All the— temptation. Glare from snow and ice, but funny light. Thought it would put certain people off. Did, for a while. Just hoping to exist in the shadows of nowhere.” Straightening, he studied his handiwork in the mirror, almost as if he could see in the darkness that enveloped the anteroom. Except that, as Imam knew, there was no “almost” about it.
Riddick turned to the silent Imam. “But someone wouldn’t let me do it. Somebody couldn’t leave bad enough alone. Suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. People have always been a disappointment to me.”
In the poor light, eye contact was made. Imam said nothing. There was no point, until commentary was required, and he particularly did not want to do or say anything that might upset his uninvited guest. From experience, he knew that it might not take very much to do so. Without thinking he cast a glance upstairs. As soon as he did, he was sorry he had done it.
It didn’t matter.