Free Stories 2014

by Baen Books

  “To Funhouse?”

  “Makes sense, doesn’t it? Talk about an up-and-coming contender.”

  “And this cub is what pinged me?”

  “That’s my working hypothesis. Your report was the only lead the real spooks could come up with fast. I’m assuming the cub’s probably being kept at that monster fight club next door.” Jamieson shifted in his seat, nodded at his cuffed wrists. “My fingers are turning white. Do you mind?”

  She leaned across, then paused with her fingertips on Jamieson’s wrists. “If I let you go, the cops will raid the place, save the bear, and you’ll leave me in peace?”

  Jamieson squirmed. “Well –”

  “Goddam it! What well?”

  “You got pinged again during the show, didn’t you?”

  Tam nodded.

  “What was it like?”

  “This time? Different. At first it was just, like, a question.”

  “What question?”

  Tam shrugged. “Not specific, like did I hold an ace. Just curious. Like a baby, maybe.”

  “But this time was different?”

  Tam nodded. “It was like – growling. Angry.” She leaned toward the slight Earthman. “What does it mean, Jamieson?”

  He frowned, swore. “That it’s growing up fast. That’s why it’s just me chasing this thing. There’s no time to get operations specialists in place. These people – hell, these murdering kidnapers - have no idea what the physical capabilities of even an infant grezz are. If we don’t get the cub back before it starts developing ... Well, at best, they’ll get themselves killed. At worst, the cub will have to be killed.”

  “And that won’t help our relations with our co-intelligent species?”

  Jamieson nodded. “Or my conscience. I knew the cub’s mother.”

  Tam unlocked the cuffs, and Jamieson rubbed his wrists.

  She said, “There. Now call in the cops.”

  Jamieson shook his head. “I told you. We – mankind – promised the grezz we’d keep their secret. Look what just one bunch of poachers did, just to trap a better pit bull. Imagine what some people, just here on Funhouse, would do to get their hands on a telepath.”

  “You’re the frukin’ government. You can protect them.”

  “Presuming they’d trust us to, if we can’t even make this incident right. Telepaths don’t know how to lie, but they understand that we do. And they’ve already had a belly full of it.”

  “So you’re gonna try to rescue the baby by yourself? All hundred sixty-five pounds of you?”

  “One sixty-eight. I was hoping for some help.”

  “And since I’m the only one here who already knows the big secret, that could only be me?” Tam shook her head and raised her palms at Jamieson. “Sorry. My family’s done being recruited by spies we’ve got nothing in common with.”

  “Fair enough. But you don’t like the bloodsport charnel houses on this planet any more than I do. And you’ve got plenty in common with the cub.”

  “It’s a six legged bear. I’m a lounge magician.”

  “You’re both orphans.” Jamieson raised a finger. “Tam, a baby bird will imprint on a sock puppet if it’s the first maternal figure it encounters. Once before we’ve seen an orphaned grezz imprint telepathically on a nearby human female presence.”

  “I have a kid? And I didn’t even get laid?”

  “Not exactly. But the cub could respond to you as a maternal surrogate.”

  “I’m not breast feeding an alien.”

  Jamieson turned pink. “The bond’s just mental. But if the cub recognizes you, it might trust you. If it trusts you, it might physically follow you.”

  “Or it might eat me.”

  “They usually just dismember humans. We’re too bony.”

  “There are nine million women on Funhouse. Why did this thing pick my life to screw up?”

  “Well, you were physically near by. And I suspect you reminded it of its mother.”

  “What?”

  “Grezzen females are absolute matriarchs and apex predators. They confront any challenger head on. The human equivalent could correspond to a headstrong woman with an absolute hardon for competing authority.”

  “Oh.”

  “Any more questions?”

  Tam shook her head.

  Jamieson called up a real time overhead image of the Critter Fest grounds on his handheld. “First, we’ll need to break in to the animal pens. Then locate the enclosure where the cub’s held.” Jamieson pointed at the image. There’s a fence all the way around. High one, by the shadow on the ground. We’ll need cutting equipment.” He scratched his head. “Guard post here. Probably cameras –”

  Tam laid her palm on Jamieson’s wrist. “Jamieson, it’s not that hard.”

  “It isn’t?”

  * * *

  Eleven hours later, in the chill three a.m. moonless

  darkness, Tam pulled her coupe silently in around the electrobus in Merlin’s deserted parking lot.

  As bugs trilled in the surrounding trees, Jamieson sat on the pavement, head down and elbows on knees. The bus’s dismantled seats lay beside him in a neat row and wrenches littered the pavement at his feet.

  When Tam lifted the coupe’s door, Jamieson massaged his skinned knuckles. “You said this wasn’t hard.”

  “My part wasn’t. Now follow me in the bus, park it, and I’ll pick you up.”

  Ten minutes later Jamieson sat beside Tam in the coupe, parked in the shadow of a woodline fifty yards from Critter Fest’s main rear service gate. The Earthman peered through night binoculars out the windscreen at the lone watchman, who sat in the guardhouse window, scowling as he polished a pistol. “It’s not much security. But he’s got a gun.”

  “They don’t need much security, if you think about it. Monsters are their own best watchdogs. And there’s no point in sneaking in here to drug the contestants, because they get tested before any tickets pay.”

  Behind the guardhouse a fifteen foot tall fence topped with razor wire secured vast ranks of bar-fronted sheds and stables within which hundreds of vast, dark, disparate shapes groaned, snored, undulated and rumbled. Occasionally something snarled or shrieked, and set off a chorus of its neighbors.

  Jamieson asked, “You think he’ll just let you drive up and walk in the door?”

  “Yep. He’s Oscar the bouncer’s cousin. A couple times a month one of us brings him leftovers from the Merlin’s buffet. Get out and wait here.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Jamieson climbed back in Tam’s coupe with her.

  As they drove to pick up the bus parked on the opposite side of the compound from the guardhouse, Tam told Jamieson, “He recognized the grezzen when I described it. This place bought it for cash no-questions-asked a couple months ago. It doesn’t eat much, but it’s still growing.”

  “You found out where it’s caged?”

  “And where the nearest auxiliary gate is to the cage.” Tam held up a fob with a keypad on its top. “And this is the master key to all the gates and cages. Also to the security camera junction box. But we won’t need to mess with it. He never watches the screens while he eats because the animals do disgusting things.”

  “He gave you that key?”

  “Loaned it. But he doesn’t know he did. He doesn’t make rounds for an hour. By then I’ll come back for the cake plate and then his keys will be back on his belt. He’ll never miss ‘em.”

  After a further fifteen minutes, the electrobus had driven silently through the auxiliary gate nearest the cub’s cage.

  Tam and Jamieson crept to the cage’s bars and peered in at the snoring lump inside.

  Tam pulled her blouse collar across her nose with one hand and breathed through her mouth while she rested the other hand on one of the bars. “Do they all smell like this?”

  “Think how we smell to them. You get used to it.”

  “Now whuddo I do? Sing to it?”

  “Actually, I’m surprised it hasn’t already se
nsed your –

  “Baaoum.”

  When the grezzen leapt at Tam, and crashed against the bars, its momentum knocked her onto the ground on her back.

  The cub retreated, and Jamieson stepped to the bars. He thumbed the fresh claw gouges on them, then whistled. “A week older and he’d have broken through.

  Tam scrambled to her feet, her eyes glued to the cub in the tiny cage and her jaw slack.

  The infant was already larger than the largest bear she had seen in a wildlife park. It paced back and forth in its cage, ambling on six claw-footed legs that supported a long-haired, muscular body.

  But the thing – things, actually - that riveted her were the cub’s eyes. Three glowing red coals, glowing in a line above a ragged mouth filled with razor teeth and the stubby beginnings of down-pointed tusks.

  They were not the eyes of a brute, but the eyes of a being as curious and sentient as she was.

  Jamieson opened the bus’s back door and Tam climbed in and faced the grezzen as Jamieson backed the vehicle up against the cage’s locked door.

  The grezzen stared at her, mute and still as a three-eyed sphinx, betraying no intention.

  Jamieson leaned back from the driver’s seat, thumb on the master key’s unlock button. “Ready?”

  Tam, mouth dry, heart pounding, shook her head. “It doesn’t know me.”

  Then she felt it. The cub was in her head, and the fire in its eyes died back to a warm glow.

  Tam whispered out of the corner of her mouth. “Open it.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Tam nodded.

  And then there was nothing between her and the cub but open air.

  The cub stared at her, then crouched, its already-bulging muscles flexing, scimitar claws scraping the cage floor. Then it slid a forepaw out of its cage, into the old electrobus, and tapped a claw against metal.

  Then the cub purred, and Tam cooed back at him.

  * * *

  Forty-eight hours later Tam stood facing Jamieson, once again in a star cruiser’s shadow at the base of its extended gangway.

  Jamieson said, “The cub took sedation perfectly. It’s in a hold with no other cargo, and I’ve got the only passcard. My cabin’s one deck forward. Once he’s home, he should have no trouble bonding with a childless female.”

  Tam smiled. “He’ll do fine. I feel it. What will you do after that, Jamieson?”

  The Earthman shrugged. “I was on my way to Earth for leave when this business blew up.”

  Tam made an “o” with her lips. “I’ve never been. But they say it’s magic.”

  Jamieson shook his head. “At best, an honest lie. I was actually thinking of coming back here, instead. If you’d keep me out of trouble.”

  She smiled again. “Maybe, Jamieson. Maybe.”

  Soft Casualty

  by Michael Z. Williamson

  Jandro Hauer waited in the hot, bright light of Iota Persei for his shuttle to clear for boarding. On his forearm was a medication patch feeding a steady dose of strong tranquilizer. Above that was an IV line from a bottle hanging off his collar. He'd be in orbit in a few hours, and then transferred to a starship home. Perhaps then he could calm down.

  "Hey, Soldier," someone called. There were eighty or so people at this boarding. He looked toward the voice to see another uniform. A US Marine with a powered prosthesis on his right leg gave a slight wave.

  "Hey, Marine," he replied. "Soldier" wasn't strictly accurate for the combined South American Service Contingent, but it was close enough.

  "I noticed the meds,” the man said, pantomiming at his own arm. "Are you a casualty? If it's okay to ask."

  Jefferson was a beautiful city, or at least it had been before the war.

  Jandro Hauer looked out from his quarters. This building had once been apartments for the middling wealthy. The enlisted people had a good view, the officers were lower down. That's because the locals occasionally fired a missile. Usually Air Defense intercepted it. Usually. Three floors up there was a hole, and a sealed off area, where one had gotten through and killed two troops. That's why he was inside the window with the lights off, not out on the balcony. He could see the towers of brilliant white clouds rising over the coastal hills just fine from here.

  Support troops spent a lot of time indoors, not interacting with the planet or its residents. It was safer that way. That, and it meant not having to deal with the bright local light, thin air, and vicious fauna.

  He still didn't get it. The former colonists were so willing to fight the UN and Earth they'd destroy their own city in the process, which would just guarantee whatever was rebuilt would look like all the other major colonial cities. Being independent had let them develop a unique architecture and style. That wasn't going to last with them reverting to Colony status.

  It was 1900, but still full light here. The local day was twenty-eight and some odd hours. The UN Forces stuck to Earth's 24 hour clock. That led to some really surreal days where it would be midnight at noon.

  A chime at the door indicate his roommate returning. He stepped aside because…

  Jason Jardine swiped the lights on as he stepped in.

  "Off!" Jandron shouted.

  Jason scrabbled with the touch plate. "Sorry," he said as the room darkened.

  "Always check the window first, Jase," he said. Jase was a Senior Corporal in Finance, but had only been here a week. He was still adapting. It was his first offworld mobilization.

  The man nodded. "Yeah."

  Some troops even kept the windows opaque 24/7, or 28/10 here. That was safer, but it didn't let them have a view.

  "Goddamn, it's a hell of a city," Jardine said, walking over to the window.

  "It is. That concentration of wealth thing is pretty dang good, if you're the one with the wealth." He looked around inside.

  Troops had scribbled notes, art, tags and names on the walls. There had been decorations. Even though war trophies weren't allowed, there were ways to get stuff out.

  Jardine looked where he was looking.

  He said, "Just pay some local a few Marks to sign it over as something sold to you, and as long as it passes Customs, you're fine. The guy you replaced picked up quite a few neat things in town."

  "It's that easy?"

  "Depends. If they have kids to feed, they'll sell just about anything. You know prostitution was legal here, right?"

  "I heard. Not just legal, but unregulated."

  "Pretty much. So some of them are still in business, and others are freelance."

  Jardine said, "Just wear an all-over polybarrier."

  "Not really. Most are actually clean. That was one of things they were very strict on."

  "I heard they're cheap, too." Jardine stowed his day pack on a rack by the door.

  "I've heard that. Never tried, not planning to. I also hear some of them made a fortune."

  "Doing what?"

  "Doing rich guys. Apparently when you have a lot of money, you want to spend it."

  "Makes sense. Almost like a tax."

  "Hah. Good." He hadn't thought of it that way. What would you do if you had all that money? "Heading for chow?"

  Jase said, "Nah, I was wondering if we could go out and eat? Into the compound area, I mean. I know there's vendors out there. Do you know much about them?"

  "Yeah, I'll go with you. I've eaten at several. That will be a change from the chow hall. They're doing lameo chili again anyway." He hated military chili. It wasn't chili with paprika and rice and whatever else they put in to make it international. It was nothing like the chili he'd had when visiting Texas, or that you got in a restaurant back home. He’d also had enough sandwiches lately. He didn’t want another bland burger thing.

  He took a step, looked down, and said, "Let me change into casuals." He was still wearing a battle uniform, even though he never went out on patrol. They had orders to "support the battlefighters." That meant dressing up like them during the work day.

  He went to his room
, undressed and tossed the Battle Uniform onto the bed for later. It was a nice room. Most of the furnishings were still there and in good shape. The dresser was real wood of some figured sort. He grabbed a clean Casual Uniform from the top drawer and pulled it on. He was back into the common room in two minutes.

  "Let's go," he said to Jase.

  Six squares of this area was controlled compound, barricaded off with triple concrete and polyarmor walls. Inside that were military and UN contractors only. Outside that was another four blocks of restricted area, where local contractors took care of nonessential functions. Outside that, chaos.

  Though even there, most of the fighting was subtle. It wasn't until you got outside of the metroplex that violence started in earnest. Here, they didn't even need armor. As long as it was stored in their quarters, it was considered "within reach."

  They walked the two blocks to the inner perimeter and berm, scanned out through the gate, and entered the Gray Zone. It was patrolled by bots with cameras, and there were a few MPs rolling around in carts. He still wasn't sure how many, but there was usually a cart in sight. He looked both ways and saw one patrol. There were probably a hundred troops in sight, more around the rest of the perimeter.

  The local sun was gradually going down. It was late summer, and it was merely hot, not scorching. It reminded him a bit of Rio, except for the thin air and higher gravity. The sky was clearer, though, and this city had a split personality. Most of it continued to function, its business and politics monitored by the Interim Government in this compound and in those two buildings to the south, protected by lots heavy floater platforms, manned air support and ground-based lasers. Very little got shot at it these days, but occasional gunfire happened to little effect.

  This area was a low-intensity war zone.

  To punctuate that, his phone chimed a message.

  He looked fast, wondering if there was something inbound, some political change.

  It was from Kaela Smith at the MP station.

  The screen read, "Jandro, the sniper casualty earlier today. Moritz got shot. Sorry.—Kay."

  He didn't even swear, he just wiped the screen.