The Albino Knife Read Online Free PDF Page A

redeeming virtues, save his much-vaunted abilities with guns and intrigue. She needed his help; that was the only reason she'd come to him.The only reason.
    Yeah, said her little inner voice,right .
    The small room Khadaji used for an office was not much. It had enough space for a desk and a couple of chairs, with an old couch against one wall that sometimes served as a bed for customers too stoned or drunk to try to make it home. Over the couch there was a painting of a figure wrapped in dark robes against a background of a starry night. The figure was of one of the Siblings of the Shroud and it was the only reminder of his past life that Khadaji kept in his office. Except for the pair of loaded spetsdods locked in the center drawer of the desk.
    Khadaji stood next to the desk, looking at the young woman who claimed to be his daughter. To say it had come as a shock was a massive understatement. He had a daughter, by Juete? She had never even hinted at it. She must have been pregnant before he had left her on the Darkworld, and for some reason, had decided to keep the child.
    That she was Juete's child he did not doubt; he could see her mother shining through her face. But that she was also his offspring still vibrated through him like a sudden thunderstorm. He had a child. It was not something he had ever seriously considered. His path had been in a different direction from home or family, and while he had sometimes wondered at that which he had turned away from, he had never regretted his choice.
    He believed her when she'd said it. He was not naive, but the truth had rung for him like a crystal bell in a quiet mountain zendo. He looked for some sign of himself in her features, but could not see it.
    The truth did not preclude the questions that arose in him, the thousand things he wanted to know all of an instant.
    "Your mother never told me," he said.
    "I know."
    It was said coolly, matter-of-factly, and it brought up in him another raft of emotion bouncing in the rapids of his amazement. "Do you know why?"
    "You left and went to save the galaxy. You were busy."
    Again, the comment was spoken evenly, without apparent anger or censure.
    "Even so, I loved her."
    "She has always spoken well of you," Veate said. "That I am alive indicates something."
    Khadaji nodded. Juete couldn't have known that he would become rich a few years after they parted and that he would arrange for her to be supported by part of his wealth for the rest of her life. Bringing another Exotic into the universe was risky, especially during the days of the Confederation.
    "And I've read all about you," she said. "The Man Who Never Missed, the father of the revolution that cleared away galactic injustice, the living legend who vanished after he had done his job. Some people think you're right up there with Chang or Buddha or Christo."
    There was the barest hint of sarcasm in her voice this time. He did not know her, had not known that she even existed before a few moments ago, and certainly he did not need to justify his actions to a stranger, albeit that this stranger was like no other to him. But it bothered him that she seemed to dislike him somehow.
    "But you don't approve," he said.
    "It's not my place to say."
    He let it pass. "How did you find me?" He already knew, but he wanted to hear how she would play it.
    "Pen told me."
    He nodded again. Pen was the only person who knew where Emile Khadaji had gone. And he would never send on anybody who didn't have good reason to see Khadaji. Surely this was as good a reason as he was likely to come across.Must have surprised the old man.Or, given Pen's integratic philosophy, maybe not.
    "Why now?"
    A fugue player would find worlds to think about in those two words, but it was not his intent to play fugue with his daughter. The simple answer to the basic question would do for a start.
    "I need your help." The cool reserve in her voice was still there, but for a moment, he saw the girl underneath the