The 97th Step

by Steve Perry

  One.

  They continued to throb together for another four heartbeats, and then she went limp again, laying her cheek against his lips. He cupped her buttocks, holding her against him, reluctant to allow any space in their connection. The scent of their musk covered them, as did the sweat of their exertions, and both mingled with her perfume, something based on spice, sharp and sweet. The combination smelted to Ferret of more than sex; it was the pungent fragrance of love.

  Later, she rolled over and pulled the silk sheet up to cover them. She nestled under his arm, kissing him on the nipple. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming to the Singularity?"

  "I wasn't sure I was going until the last minute."

  "Sheeit," she said. She leaned over quickly and jerked one of his chest hairs out with her teeth.

  "Hey, ow!"

  "You deserve it for lying to me."

  "Well, okay. I wanted to see you dance, but I didn't want you to see me. You always do the same thing when you see me. It—it—"

  "—embarrasses you," she finished.

  "No—" he began. She leaned over and grabbed a mouthful of his chest hair in her teeth.

  "All right, yes, it embarrasses me!"

  She let go of his hair and snuggled closer to him. "I love it! Ferret the smuggler, the diamond-hard thief, shy about being kissed in public! You blush every time, it's so cute! You're blushing right now! It makes you appealing, you know."

  He growled at her, a mock carnivore rumble, and she squealed and hid her face in his armpit. After a moment, she pulled back and propped herself up on one elbow to look at him. She traced the line of his nose, then his lips with one finger. "Most of the men I have been with would make love to me on the court of a crowded poisonball stadium, and in view of the entire Confed broadcast net without a second thought. They want me that bad. You want me too, but you are so reserved, so proper. Even when we're alone. I find it absolutely charming."

  He managed a chuckle. "All my women say that."

  She sat up, crosslegged, and glared at him. "What women? You'd better not have any other women!"

  "Hey, this is supposed to be an open relationship. You have other men when I'm gone, don't you?"

  "Sometimes. But that doesn't count! I don't love them!"

  "So, who says I love my other women?"

  "I'm going to hit you, Mwili Ferret Rat Turd!" She snatched up the pillow and raised it threateningly over her head.

  He laughed. "All right, all right! There aren't any other women!"

  "You promise?" She lowered the pillow slightly.

  "I promise."

  "Any men?"

  He shook his head, suddenly serious. "Not for a long time. I have a… bad association with that."

  She dropped the pillow, immediately contrite, and practically leaped on him, hugging him tightly. "I know.

  I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said it."

  It was Ferret's turn to prop himself away from her. "How do you know? I've never said anything about male lovers I might have had."

  "That's how I know."

  He shook his head. "Ah, Jesu, you and Stoll, you must get together and compare tapes. He knows things I don't say, too." He paused for a second, remembering.

  "Well. There have been a few. Not pleasant memories, most of them."

  She reached out to lay one hand on his tight shoulder. She stroked the muscle softly. "You don't have to talk about it," she said.

  He opened his eyes and looked at her. She was talented, beautiful, and she loved him. As he did her.

  Counting Stoll, she made two, the only two real friends he'd ever had. No, that wasn't quite true. There had once been another, met during the years of lane running, but that was down the exhaust a long time ago. If he couldn't trust Shar by now, he never would. They had been lovers for years. He still did not understand what she saw in him.

  "It's not that pretty a story," he said. "But I'll tell you, if you want."

  "More than anything," she said.

  He looked at her perfect face, and he believed her.

  "It began when I left Cibule," he said. "On a freighter bound for Krishna…"

  Seven

  SEX HAD BEEN a major shock to Mwili.

  Sex was not something spoken of on the farm. He had viewed the instruction tapes for his schooling, of course, though they had been rather limited. There had been an illicit info ball passed around among some of the boys his age, and it had described, but not shown, certain practices common between men and women, men and men, and even two women. But seeing a slack-faced man lecture via holoproj was a light-year from the actual experience. The fat First Officer, Benjo, had been as gentle as he could, but it had not been pleasant for Mwili. More than the pain was the shame. He was tainted forever; kjere, and damned by God. Much, if not all, of the crew was also damned. Aside from normal male and female relations, men paired with men, women with women, there were groups*, and casual fornication was the rule rather than the exception. It seemed that nearly everyone on the ship was either doing it, bragging about just having done it, or talking about preparing to do it.

  Mwili did not doubt that his father would have nodded grimly and knowingly, had he been aware of his son's companions. And, in truth, the boy began to wonder if perhaps his father wasn't right.

  It was all so disgusting.

  He was ashamed and disgusted, and his first thought was to jump ship at Kalk. To be away from the perversions he had to endure. But he didn't. He stayed on the ship until it reached Krishna. He did not know why, then.

  In her bed, Shar laid a gentle hand on Ferret's shoulder. He looked at her, and his smile was less than happy, but more than bitter.

  "You understand why I didn't leave?"

  Softly, she said, "I think so."

  He nodded. "It took me years to learn why. I couldn't begin to see it at the time, and I didn't want to admit it to myself later when it finally became clear."

  She said it for him. "You were excited by it."

  He nodded again. "Oh, yes. Backplanet boy that I was, knowing I was going to burn for eternity because of it, even so, yes, I was caught up in it. It was heady. And Benjo was the first person, save for my mother, who had ever demonstrated any real affection for me. Even a perverse love was better than no love at all. He wasn't an evil man, he was even tender with me, in his own way."

  "I understand. Go on."

  He took a deep breath, remembering the far away time and place. "I grew up fast. There was no choice."

  There was an underground of sorts in the space lanes, a network of people and mues who traveled constantly the galactic wastes back and forth between the few habitable planets, moons and wheelworlds. People who fell into the Confed's cracks, faceless, worldless, people who lived on the fringe. The lanes were harsh places, danger could come from the Confed or other laners, because the law did not have a place for such folk. If the cools caught you, it was locktime; if you were hit and hurt by another laner, there was no one to take the complaint—you watched your own ass, first and last, because nobody else would.

  It took Ferret awhile to plug into it, to find his way into a lifestyle that was less than luxurious, but more than survival. There were some who did it legally, rich people who were gypsies, never staying in one place for more than a few days, those with enough stads to bribe their way. But mostly, the laners existed by working illegal trades. Many were whores; some were smugglers; there were scam artists, ticket forgers, stowaways and rebels against the Confed.

  And, of course, there were thieves.

  One of the first things Ferret learned was the need for proper identification. Benjo had a forged ID cube he gave the boy, one that would allow him basic Confederation passage onto and off of Krishna. But each world was different, aside from the hard and ubiquitous Confederation rules. There were a lot of things he needed to know, things he would have to pay to learn.

  Reluctantly, for the First Officer had come to enjoy his company, Benjo put Ferret in touch with a
laner he knew on Krishna. The man took his payment from the boy in the same manner as the fat First Officer had done.

  Within a month, Ferret was much wiser in the ways of the galaxy than any boy his age on Cibule. Much wiser.

  The laner called himself Wall Eye, for a weak muscle that allowed his right eye to drift somewhat when he was tired. He was maybe forty T.S. years old, thin and sharp-featured, with gray hair worn plastered flat to his head in a style popular on Baszel a decade past. His clothes were cheap, but clean, synlin coveralls and fast-track athletic shoes. He always smelled of roses, and Ferret never knew why. He taught Ferret things.

  "Y'see that machine, boy?'

  Ferret nodded. They were in the main spaceport in the city of Rama, the largest city on Krishna. The machine was a robotic ticket dispenser. A customer inserted his stad cube, punched up his destination, and the proper amount was deducted from his bank balance, while the "ticket" was credited to his cube.

  Every spaceport had dozens of such devices.

  "Watch as Old Hairy takes it for a ride."

  Old Hairy was a laner Ferret had met briefly. He was as bald as an egg on top, though he was supposed to be layered with a thick mat of fur like hair everywhere his clothes covered. Ferret didn't know, and didn't want to find out.

  The man approached the machine and inserted a cube. Then, before the machine could do more than acknowledge the insertion, Old Hairy punched the retrieve key, removed the cube, and quickly inserted another cube. The small holoproj screen started to clear.

  "Lookit his hand."

  Ferret looked. "I don't see—"

  Old Hairy removed the second cube just as quickly, then shoved a third cube into the machine. As he did so. Ferret caught sight of at least two or three more cubes clutched and mostly hidden in his left hand.

  The machine's screen flowed with numbers, but it was not getting to finish a transaction before Old Hairy started working it again. He moved precisely, no wasted movements, and Ferret was reminded of a magician he had seen once on Cibule.

  Within a minute, the laner had inserted and removed at least five cubes into and from the machine. The screen pulsed once, flashing an amber light.

  "Here he goes," Wall Eye said.

  Old Hairy began tapping at the keyboard, his fingers flashing like a champion word processor. The ticket machine emitted a sharp bleat! but the man kept typing. After a moment, he stopped, sighed deeply, and smiled at the machine. Without being obvious, Old Hairy looked around. He spotted Wall Eye and Ferret, and nodded once, acknowledging them. Wall Eye smiled and nodded back.

  The ticket machine clicked, and after a second. Old Hairy touched the retrieve control and removed a cube. He turned and walked away, fast, but not excessively so, as might a man intent on catching a shuttle for which he was running late.

  "C'mon," Wall Eye said. "Best we footprint."

  "Why?"

  "We don't want to be here when the cools come looking for Old Hairy, that's why."

  As they walked, Wall Eye explained.

  "Old Hairy's a ticket mechanic, y'see? Them machines got a programming flaw. Y'know what to do, you can confuse 'em and get a free ticket."

  "Really?"

  "Well, you couldn't, but a good mechanic can. All the ticket machines in a given port are run by a mainframe, so y'got to know the system and the codes to get past the safeties. Takes skill and practice, and y'got to keep up with the changes the Confed and private companies keep making. Old Hairy used to work for 'em, so he's got an edge."

  "Seems like a lot of work for a free ticket."

  Wall Eye glanced at Ferret. "Ha! You really are a backrocket baby, ain'tcha? Like as not, Old Hairy just got an open-ended ticket for a blank ID. Y'know what a ticket like that is worth, to the right people? Old Hairy can get maybe five, six thousand standards for that cube from an honest man who just wants to travel. A man on the run for killing a cool or blowing away a Confed trooper would give everything he had to be holding a ticket to anywhere."

  "It seems too easy."

  "Got a lot of 'seems' in you, don'tcha? Yeah, well, there's disadvantages. He has to get rid of the cube pretty fast. They're getting a lot faster at filtering stolen tickets. They'll put a cruncher on it, straining out every ticket sold, and eventually, they'll run it down. It'll take maybe three days 'fore they put a stop on it.

  Whoever gets the ticket had better use it by then."

  They were maybe fifty meters away from the ticket machine Old Hairy had just rascaled. Wall Eye stopped. The long and wide main corridor was thick with passengers, and there was nothing to make him and Ferret stand out. The man with the slicked-down hair twitched his head and pointed back at the machine with his nose. "Take a look," he said.

  Ferret did. Two men, dressed in the can't-miss-it flaming orange orthoskin Confed uniform jumpsuits that instantly identified them as spaceport security, had just arrived at the ticket machine. They scanned the nearby passengers.

  "Even Old Hairy hasn't figured out a way to bypass the security system. The machine screams when it gets taken. A good mechanic is not only sharp, he's gotta be fast."

  Ferret watched the cools for a moment.

  A smallish man close to the machine glanced over at the two Confed agents. A mistake.

  Before he could move, the small man was grabbed and slammed into the nearest wall, face first. Ferret saw blood spray from the man's smashed nose. One of the Confed men swung his elbow into the man's back, over the right kidney. Ferret could hear the strike, and the man's yell of pain.

  "Jesu! What are they doing that for? He didn't do anything!"

  "Them's Confed, boy. It don't matter if that cit did anything or not. He's in the wrong place at the wrong time."

  The small man took another shot, this time from a knee. He began to slide down the wall, his hands dragging the smooth surface. Blood from his smashed face left a red smear on the plastic.

  "That's not right!" Ferret said.

  Wall Eye laughed. "Where you from, boy? A cave? Right? Shit, whatever the Confed does is right. That cit knows he'll get worse, he complains."

  One of the security men kicked the fallen man a final time, then looked to see if anybody nearby was watching. Nobody was. People hurried past, looking away from the brutality.

  "They couldn't catch Old Hairy, so they took it out on the first guy they could catch. The lesson's there, boy."

  Ferret shook his head, stunned by the violence. Even Baba had to have a reason to strap him. "What lesson?"

  "Don't fuck with the Confed, boy. Real simple."

  The two security men walked away, moving as if they owned the port, swaggering as if they were gods and the people around them were no more than cattle. Ferret could hear one of them laugh, loud enough to carry even this far. Jesu, damn! How could they get away with it?

  Ferret sighed. He had a lot to learn, all right.

  "C'mon," Wall Eye said. "Old Hairy'll need a broker, and I just happen to know a man what's looking for a fast exit to points spin ward."

  Wall Eye turned away from the cools and walked away. That was how he made it in the world of laners.

  He was a middle man, buying and selling goods and information. He knew most of the scams and most of the scammers, and putting one in touch with another was worth money at times. Ferret followed him, but he kept looking back at the injured man lying sprawled on the cold floor. Nobody stopped to help him.

  They must be afraid somebody might be watching.

  After a month, Ferret knew his path was not going to be either a scam artist or a sexual companion to one. He listened and he learned, and after a month, he made his decision. All right, it was going to be a hard life. Fine. He would be as hard as he needed to be.

  It was on Koji, the Holy World, in the Heiwa System, at the spaceport in Rakkaus—called the City of Love, by people who had never been there. He was still traveling with Wall Eye, who liked him well enough, and he wanted to be sure he had the nerve to pull it off before he broke
away from the man and moved out on his own.

  In the end, it was simple enough to do. Getting up the balls for it was another matter. As when he had left his father's flitter near the police station back on Cibule, Ferret felt as if everyone in the port were watching him. He felt cold sweat beading on his body, and runnels of it flowing down the crease over his spine. His heart thumped so loudly he was sure people could hear it; he had to remember to breathe, and his skin itched and tingled. He stopped at a water fountain, to try and wash the dry ness from his mouth.

  He went into the public fresher across from the first-class sleeping rooms. The port was a full-service operation: there were shops that sold everything from clothes and food to luggage and livestock; within the main terminal were also restaurants, gymnasiums, theaters and even a casino.

  The first-class sleeping rooms on this corridor were plush, if small, units. At fifty stads the quarter-day, only people with means used them for naps. It followed that at least some of the people using the fresher across from the rooms were well-padded.

  The fresher was unisex, catering to men and women, and it had privacy stalls, entered by paying a small fee to the fresher's computer. The row of a dozen stalls, each containing a bidet toilet and sink, was set against a long wall, just past the public communal sink and open squat toilets. Each stall was enclosed and had a lockable door, but there was a short gap at the bottom, for cleaning the tile floor; additionally, the top was open, and the walls were only two meters or so high.

  Ferret swallowed dryly, and moved to wash his hands at the communal sink. Two men and a woman were also cleaning their hands. After a moment, they left.

  Ferret didn't bother to use the air dryers, but instead jammed one hand into his tunic pocket and removed a string gun. It was a simple device. It fired a four-meter-long string; one end remained attached at the barrel, the other end carried a small wad of reusable quikstik. The quikstik was activated by the compressed gas that fired it from the slippery lofric barrel of the gun. Whatever the wad of plastic touched after that became attached to it with an almost unbreakable adhesion, until a let-go solvent was applied.