"I must apologise most profoundly to you all, and particularly to our guests. But sometimes these things go this way."
The man chewing stim-gum snorted at this, and said something unpleasant about pasty-faced weaklings, and no real blood, and he was damned-well taking a rain check on this one.
"Certainly, my dear Felton. As I say, our control does sometimes let us down like this. I'll have the techs check the Exper out first thing."
Hook wondered what they were talking about.
He was well aware — now! — what Exper was all about. He would have said these people had had their money's worth. But this creep Felton was complaining. The Exper hadn't been bloody enough for him. Either that, or there was more to this than Hook supposed. He knew, now, what the Exper was all about; he still couldn't say how far the Curlmen of Stellopolis had taken their vicarious experiences of terror and death.
No wonder Terifia had been so off-hand about her reaction to his suggestion that she ought to experience death as a sure way of proving the proverb wrong!
This was one of the things Exper could do; it could give a man or woman the surrogate impressions of dying. Hook hadn't liked it. Yes, it was obscene, indecent, amoral; he could understand the scientific reasons for Exper experimentation; this use of the device debauched a man's spirit.
Fear! Ryder Hook had shaken with fear, back there in the forest, struggling with the broken wagon wheel, cursing the fates that had brought him to this, feeling the cruel ripping talons tearing out his throat, spilling his intestines into the mud, shocked and destroyed by spine-freezing fear. Fear! There were men in the galaxy who fed on fear. They joyed in the dark forces latent in the human brain, relishing that infinitely painful drawing out of terror and loathing.
And the obverse was true. The joy and hunger in killing, in destroying, in ravaging the humble and weak. That was a concomitant of galactic life, seen at its most refined in the way the multi-system conglomerates blindly drove over all opposition to encompass their desires. Of what value to them a culture or a people if that culture did not return the profits for which the econorgs craved? The two dark forces of fear and destruction had paraded like bestial phantoms in Hook's mind, and he felt the uncleanness of himself as a consequence.
"Well, Hook? Isn't Exper all they said it was?"
Hook lifted his chin at Felton, who was booming away in his complaining voice to Foylty. He, it was clear, felt he had been cheated of some very powerful experience.
"He don't think so, Terifia." Hook looked at her and kept the puzzlement out of his face. "You really enjoyed that?"
"You were the one talking about enjoying every experience possible. Now you've experienced death —"
About to say that the experience was no novelty, Hook silenced himself. This woman could understand nothing of the linkages as between operative and control and second operative over the flashing non-telepathic links criss-crossing the galaxy. She wouldn't understand.
"And you're a better woman for that?"
"You are stuffy tonight, Hook! The Curlmen did us a favour. It costs to Exper, you know."
"I appreciate that, Terifia."
"Let's go, Hook."
"Yes. I think that would be — practical."
But he was not to escape thus lightly.
Lars Cu-Foylty approached, smiling, not arrogant with his power but exuding his consciousness of his position. Hook found a tiny trickle of amusement at the way Terifia automatically bristled up.
"I trust you enjoyed yourself, Taynor Hook. Although, as I have explained, the Voydun were not really co-operative. I am arranging a hunting party and would esteem it an honour if you would join us." As Terifia moved her shoulders, gleaming golden in the mellow glow, Foylty added smoothly: "You would care to accompany the lady Terifia, of course, Taynor Hook."
It was a statement.
"Oh, yes, Hook!" Terifia beamed happily at the Curlman, and put a beringed hand to that electric hair. "That sounds like great fun!"
"Then have your robots kit you up and, dear lady, be here after occultation tomorrow. I can promise you a marvellous time."
The stim-gun chewing Felton said: "I'll hold you to that, Foylty. After tonight I'm hungry for some experience."
"You'll get it, Felton. That I promise you."
As he left with Terifia hanging onto his arm and smiling happily, Hook wondered why on star city he'd allowed himself to be thus talked into a corner. But one thing was sure. Terifia and Foylty between them had agreed he should go hunting.
Maybe, Ryder Hook surmised with a burst of passion, just maybe he might liven up the hunt for them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TERIFIA wanted Hook to wear the new pair of boots she had her robots buy for him.
The three-dimensional cube appearance tv glimmered away all across the far wall. They'd been showing over the network some of the selected items purchased from Hook's fifty kilos and everyone agreed the material was of first quality. There was even some music from the pre-space age, long since forgotten and known only from records that mentioned it in passing, or as footnotes. There would be a lot more to be said about that cache of pre-space age music; right now Hook was arguing with Terifia about his boots.
He'd lost his boots before, of course, and was likely to do so again. But it was a damned inconvenient business having to have new ones made for him. He waved his left boot in the lady Terifia's face so that she backed a step.
"Look at it, Terifia! What's wrong with it? I like my boots —"
"But they're worn, Hook! Surely you can see that!"
She had no need to explain the reason for her statement. No-one in this galaxy wore old or worn out clothes when new ones were available. Only slaves and those unfortunates of a similar kind had to descend to that banality.
"They've lasted well. Look, love, your new boots are great, fine; but I'd prefer to wear my own on this safari."
Safari. That was what Lars Cu-Foylty called the coming trip to the planet around whose flanks they eternally orbited.
Terifia would not be placated until Hook upended her on a suspended bed and ripped off her flimsy negligee. She wore a new one every single night, as was customary for a lady of her position. He studiously ignored her short fat legs and concentrated on those parts of her female form he really could admire and soon she was gasping and moaning and clawing at him and completely forgot all about boots, old or new. "You're a devil, Hook! A black devil!"
"Yes."
"Give me some air — I'm suffocating."
"Finished already?" He nudged her flank and she laughed and they set to again. By the time he could crawl into his own bed Hook felt she wouldn't bother about boots. Mind you he'd have to organise a pair of boots with a built in ag-pak in each one. He felt a distaste in the thought of sponging on Terifia for that. But a real pair of spring-heel-jacks would have been useful before now. He'd think about it ... He'd had a pair once; but they'd been burned off him and that had been that. Just before he slept he had an apocalyptic vision of the furry aliens with their unlovely features and brilliant bone-hooded eyes and flat clumsy feet and nauseous smell being ripped into bloody shreds by the bat-shaped monsters. Hell and damnation!
The quicker he was off Stellopolis the better.
In the morning Terifia put up a tremendous fuss organising her outfit for the hunt.
She had the catalogues running through half a dozen different screens at the same time, picking and choosing, then discarding, until finally, with a pile to her waist of discarded garments she'd ordered and which had been made to her measurements and specifications, she kicked them all petulantly and flopped into a lounger.
"Nothing suits me, Hook!"
"Everything suits you, Terifia. Now, listen, you must have been hunting before —"
"Of course!"
"Well, wear something simple and easy and indestructible. Something to give you overall protection and fitted with a life-support system ... That's all there is to that. You should gi
ve this kind of concern to your weapons —"
"Go on, preach!"
"We don't even know what the hell it is we're hunting."
"Lars said to take a projectile weapon. He recommended a Swan-Durk magnum for a waist gun. And —" Terifia put a hand to her forehead, pursing her lips, concentrating. "Now what did he say for the rifle? Oh, I don't know. Give him a call, love, and ask, will you?"
Hook found Foylty's com-robots patching the call through to the matra block. There was a slight delay and then the heavy authoritative face of the Curlman came on screen.
"Taynor Hook. I've been checking out the matra for our safari. You know the superstitions —" He lifted his left hand, negligently, and the sleeve fell back so that the credit card flashed in the illumination.
"Sure I know. They're not superstitions."
Foylty's heavy eyebrows drew down, a gesture with which he no doubt cowed his subordinates. "You are not — apprehensive, Taynor Hook?"
"Of course I am, Curlman Cu-Foylty." Hook felt it circumspect to address the man by a polite mode. "The transmat malfunctions-statistically-proven-one in a million times.
I have no desire to be the millionth."
"Nor has anyone. I believe I can assure you that our matra here in Stellopolis will function well above the statistically-proven average. Is this why you called? I am rather busy —"
Hook kept his face its usual gargoyle of impassiveness.
"The lady Terifia wishes to be reminded of the rifle you recommended her to carry."
"Is that all?" The Curlman's reply spat too quickly, before he had time to think. Hook waited and Foylty caught himself.
Naked power was never pleasant. "I recommended her a Krifarm Sharpshooter model four." Foylty turned his head to speak to a tech shadowed as a blur at the side of the matra fade-spot. "Fifteen point three two, you gonil! I'll have you castrated if you make a mistake!" He swung back to Hook, and he found a polite smile somewhere. "You know weapons?"
Hook decided that needling this Curlman would not pay a profit. "A little." He told a thumping great lie. "I'm no expert. But — a Krifarm, you said? In a Sharpshooter? Not a Zable-White?"
Foylty's expression would have curdled butter.
"I prefer a Krifarm Sharpshooter. The Zable-White has an electronic recoil reload system that I distrust. The Krifarm make a superior weapon with a magnetic action — as I am sure you know."
Sarcastic bastard, said Hook to himself. The curd clearly assumed Hook knew nothing.
"Very well, Curlman Cu-Foylty. I'll have the lady Terifia order herself a Krifarm."
"And you?" That came sharply.
"Oh," said Hook, and he remembered he was Ryder Hook or at least, a little of what Ryder Hook was, in this damned star city. "I'll take the advice of my friend and stick with Zable-White Sharpshooter model nine star."
"As you wish." Foylty was huffed over this, and Hook cut the connection and would have sniggered had that paid dividend, too.
Terifia pranced about the apartment wearing a silver glitter safety suit that clung to her most attractively. It had been sculpted to slide smoothly over breasts and hips and thighs, and the stretch under arms and between legs was ample and yet fashionable. Hook supposed he'd have to put up with a hunting companion who imagined the wild monsters and the vermin and suchlike they were hunting, were going to study her critically as a fashion plate.
"Make sure, Terifia, you've got everything tucked in comfortably."
"Everything, Hook? Tucked in?"
Their relationship had progressed far enough for Hook to essay a laugh, and pass a country-remark that made Terifia giggle. She wasn't bad. Aware though he was that star city was working insidiously upon him and altering some of the values he associated with life in the galaxy, Hook felt in a hazy way secure in his own integrity, confident that he would remain Ryder Hook no matter what inducements were placed in his path. The slippery descent into the rich and comfortable life was all too damned easy.
The rifles came through the delivery chute, and Hook inspected them with the quick sure competence of the professional. He clicked the Krifarm up and handed it to Terifia.
"Don't blow your head off, love. You might find it useful."
She made the obvious retort as he checked out the Zable-White. Projectile weapons were always interesting in a culture where energy guns could vapourise metal and whiff the constituent atoms of people into nothingness. The linear magnetic field could whip the round out at high velocity, without the noise, confusion and recoil of explosive. The bullet itself was high grain, and of Spitzer fashion, perfectly streamlined, for there was no need of a squared off base. The rounds provided came in solid and explosive varieties. Hook checked Terifia out as to the fit of her bandoleer. Some women had a natural difficulty in carrying bandoleers across their chests, Hook was thankful to know. The only forethought he gave to the damned safari was to have ordered the same calibre in the rifles.
When he put on his own safety suit of dark green Terifia cocked her head on one side and tut-tutted and said : "That's dangerous, Hook. You should wear orange, or a glitter suit like mine."
"So they tell me."
He clamped up the suit and made sure he felt comfortable. An ag-pak snugged in the small of his back. He discarded the notion of taking an anti-grav waistcoat. It was unlikely the safari would travel far from the matra block on Voyden. The med-pak was standard. He kept his Tonota-Eighty. In a society where guns might be worn, or not, Hook had been forced into the dismal position of feeling naked without a gun. That was a comment on the particular society in which he moved. Had he been a robot-clerk supervisor, say, or a tech, unexcitingly living out his life on a safe planet, he might never even see a gun from birth to death. But Ryder Hook did not live on a nice safe civilised planet. He spent his hectic life out on the frontiers, between the stars, and even this lazy hedonistic life in star city hadn't changed that in him, however much it had sapped his willpower in other ways.
He'd told Terifia in terms that would brook no argument that he would repay her — and with interest, if necessary. Hook had no holy idea that women were innately superior to men; but, equally, he wouldn't stand beholden to man or woman. He knew he was too damned independent for his own good. But Terifia knew that she could stop stone cold dead any thoughts she might harbour that Hook was a kept man.
They ate a long leisurely meal and watched some more selected items from the fifty kilos of arts material Hook had brought in, then he upended her on the bed again and showed her that despite having short fat legs he liked everything else she had, more than somewhat, and then they took themselves off to Lars Cu-Foylty at the matra block.
Terifia did say, however — and making Hook more resentful over her having to say it rather than what she said — that had Bunji's father been half the man Hook was he might still be alive now. Hook let that pass.
"You insist on wearing that dangerous colour?" Foylty looked annoyed.
"I happen to like it." Hook spoke lazily. Hell, if the monkey wanted to start a fight now Hook was in the frame of mind where he wouldn't walk away. As soon as the safari had been finished he'd be off. Terifia was bringing two of her new bodyguards; Hook suspected she might need a little more muscle than that down on Voyden.
"Very well," said Foylty. "We will go in as a party, we will take four trips, eight a time." He smiled his dark and powerful smile on Terifia, the smile Hook surmised he kept when he was plotting a big deal. "I shall fade with you, Terifia."
"That will be nice, Lars."
The matra block housing the fade-spot had been built early on in the life of star city and was situated out on a perimeter hub, a separate section of the city free-wheeling away in orbit around the planet. Enormous masses of power were required; but transporting down to the surface via matra was quicker and far less fussy than spacing down in a shuttle. Mind you, Hook felt a touch of the twinges when he stood on the red-painted fade-spot and the booth walls lowered around the party of eight. Breaking do
wn a human being's atoms and shooting them through space and re-assembling them was a routine enough operation in this day and age; thought of that statistical probability that one in a million fades would result in error could bring out the goose-pimples.
"All set?" They all nodded like robots. Foylty gave the order, there followed a brief surge of power, the sensation of being kicked up the backside — but gently — and a vague disorientation. Then they were standing on the fade-spot on the surface of the planet Voyden.
Hook looked up.
They'd landed in daylight and in a wooded space floored with closely-growing ferns and there was absolutely no sign of Stellopolis circling high over their heads.
Terifia said, in a voice a quarter-octave too sharp: "We're all here."
Hook hadn't bothered to check. If the millionth chance had struck this time out, it hadn't struck him.
"This way."
Foylty led off, walking with a swing, his orange safety suit glowing under the sun of Purlon Major. The others followed. Almost immediately Terifia swore, and unclamped her kit and began pasting ointment on her skin. There were three other women in the party and they, too, began anointing themselves. Hook had slapped a fly off his forehead; strange how, although a spaceman, he didn't bother about physical discomfort that he understood was very real. They walked on towards the trees and the other three parties of eight faded down through the matra and followed them.
The day promised nice sunshine, no rain, and whatever sport the planet of Voyden could produce.
Terifia's two bodyguards walked alertly over the undulating carpet of low ferns, one in advance and to the left, the other in rear and to the right. Terifia, insisting that Hook walk at her side, walked on chattering away to Murl, the older and uglier of the two women she had told Hook she could put up with. The group squelched a little over the ferns. "Easier going on the edge of the forest," called Foylty. "But I wanted a clear sighting for the matra to transport us down."
Despite her chattering and the fact that one of her guards carried her rifle, Terifia at last swore roundly and said: "I'm not walking another step. I didn't bring an ag-pak for nothing."
Star City Page 8
