The Builders by Daniel Polansky Read Free Book Online Page A

humor had been well and fully satisfied by this point, however, and he refused to continue the jest. Zapata took another pull from the jug, then plugged it and set it back on the table. “Well, Captain, as far as I am concerned, it was worth the trip out here simply to see you. But I imagine you had a purpose in contacting me.”
    “I need to find the Elder.”
    Zapata pulled at the roots of his long mustache. “Why would I know where your old patron resides?”
    “I know he fled to the south after everything went sour. And it would be in your country’s interest to keep him alive. You’ve got the connections with the new government to know where he is. And besides—there aren’t so many folks left from the old days to call on.”
    Zapata nodded, as if the Captain’s last words contained some great weight of profundity. “That is true, Captain, that is very true. There are few enough of us alive who can still remember the war. Why do you think that is?”
    “It’s a dangerous world.”
    “You misunderstand—I am not asking why you think so many have fallen. I’m asking you why you think I’ve survived.”
    “I guess it’s because you’re so damned good looking,” the Captain said, though he seemed unamused with his joke.
    Zapata, by contrast, slapped his hands against his knees and roared with laughter. “I had forgotten how funny you were, Captain. But no, that is not why. The reason I have survived is very simple—it is because I am a survivor.”
    “And I’m not?”
    “No, Captain, I do not think you are. Don’t misunderstand me—you survive, obviously, or we wouldn’t be talking right now. But I do not think you are a survivor, if you see the difference.”
    “I imagine it’s about to be explained.”
    “You see, my old friend—I do what needs to be done at the moment I need to do it, and I don’t concern myself overmuch with the day before or after. When the Kingdom to the South looked weak, I raised the flag of rebellion. When it grew stronger, I made peace, and reaped the rewards. The wind blows, and I let it carry me along. Not you—quite the opposite, really. You find the fiercest gale you can and spit into its face! Now one might admire your audacity, and even the strength it takes to stand your comeuppance. But still, the wind blows, does it not? And you . . . you are still wet.”
    The Captain nodded vaguely. “Thanks for the advice.”
    Zapata smiled, laughed, scratched himself, slapped the table, took up a lot of space and attention. Somewhere in the midst of his buffoonery he shot his rat a look that he didn’t intend the Captain to see.
    The mouse is a curious animal. He is small and weak. If he is not slow, he is slower than the cat, the fox, and the owl, his natural predators—which is to say he is not nearly fast enough. His claws and teeth are fragile things, unsuited to violence. Generally speaking he cannot even blend in to his surroundings. In short, the mouse is perhaps the single most helpless animal on earth, blessed with nary a resource to defend himself against the cruel privations of a savage world.
    Save one—the mouse knows it. The mouse is too feeble to cling to any illusions of safety. From the instant he leaves the flesh of the womb, he knows his life is there for the taking, and he grows cagey, and sharp. He sees the goshawk above him, sniffs out the polecat lurking in the shadows.
    All of which is to say that when the rat leveled his sawed-off shotgun the Captain was already moving, kicking his chair backward and falling with it, the load of buckshot passing swiftly through the space he had occupied and nestling itself into Zapata’s ripe and unsuspecting chest. The Captain had meanwhile shaken a holdout pistol from the sleeve of his coat, and he used the first two of its chambers to make sure his would-be assassin would not have time to regret the mistake. The rat staggered into a corner, counting down its last breaths. The Captain turned his weapon on