The 97th Step

by Steve Perry

  Ferret had time to notice that the man was well built, save for too much belly, covered with a layer of curly, black body hair, and just as startled to see them as they were to see him.

  Gworn's movement drew the man's attention. He tracked left with the spring pistol, yelled, "Hold still!" and fired the weapon. The twang of the weapon seemed loud in the room. The dart hit one of the display cases; thincris shattered, chips flew. Ferret felt as if he were mired in thick gel, moving in a nightmare, so slowly that he might die of old age before he finished his action.

  Later, he would have all the time there was to remember his moves; later, he would think endlessly about what he did; now, however, his mind went blank, and his instinct to live surged forth and took control.

  He jerked the revolver from his pocket and cocked it, then thrust it toward the man and fired. It was a single, smooth move, as if he had practiced it a thousand times.

  The explosion filled the room, lapping against the walls and bouncing back against Ferret's ears, making them ring.

  The bullet hit the man just over the bridge of his nose, snapping his head back, knocking him backward.

  The naked man collapsed onto the floor. The sound of his fall was loud in the silence after the shots.

  Ferret lowered the gun and stared at the man. He blinked, and for a moment, couldn't track. What—?

  Where was he—?

  Gworn ran to the down man and kicked the spring pistol away, then kneeled. After a few seconds, he stood again.

  "Oh, shit, Willie, he's dead. You killed the fucker."

  Ferret shook his head. Killed him? No, that wasn't possible. He didn't kill people. He walked over to where the man lay and looked down. The front of the man's bead was a dark red and grayish-pink edged hole, big enough to stick your hand into. Ferret felt his stomach churn.

  In all his years, on the farm and in the lanes, Ferret had never seen a dead man this close. Sure, he'd been on Pentr'ado when a boxcar crashed and spewed thirty people all over the landscape, but he'd been a half-klick away from that. They had just been distant lumps on the landscape, not like this. And he hadn't killed them—

  "Come on, come on, we got to get the fuck out of here!" Gworn grabbed Ferret's arm and tugged him away from the dead man. Ferret pulled his arm free, stuck the revolver into his pocket, and bent to see what the man had held in his other hand. He lifted the small rectangular box and stared at it.

  "Fuck, that's a screamer!" Gworn yelled. "He's called the cools! Come on, man! We have to barrel now!"

  They ran for the door, it was faster than the window, and inside ten seconds were sprinting toward the stolen electric car. Another ten seconds, and they would be there and gone—

  Too long. The first flitter fanned around the corner, blue lights blinking, but no sound from the hooter.

  Ferret had come back from his initial shock. He pivoted to his left and sprinted for the gap between the nearest houses. "This way, Benny!" he yelled.

  A second police flitter thrummed into view behind the running pair, lights dancing over the houses. An amplified voice boomed out into the darkness: "POLICE! STOP WHERE YOU ARE!"

  Like fuck I will. Ferret darted past between the houses, jumped a child's unicycle lying on the ground, and cut to the right behind the corner of the carport. He heard Gworn's heavy breathing right behind him.

  There was a wooden fence just ahead. It was a good two meters tall, but if they could get over it, they had a chance.

  Ferret reached the fence, caught the top and hurled himself upward. He swung himself over it, dropped, and hit a hard surface. He rolled and came up, just as Gworn flew over the top, barely touching the wood. Ferret was already sprinting away when he heard and felt Gworn hit, hard.

  "Ow, oh, shit, my leg!"

  Ferret skidded to a stop. He heard the cools hollering on the other side of the fence. He looked at Gworn, who was sprawled on the plastcrete next to the fence. "Come on, Benny—!"

  "I can't! My leg, I think it's broke! I can't get up! You gotta help me, Willie!"

  Ferret stood frozen. His heart thumped wildly, and his breath came hard and fast. Of course. He had to help Gworn. No question.

  "Over that fence," one of the cools yelled. Beams of handheld lights waved and stabbed the air not three meters away. Only the wooden fence stood between Ferret and Gworn and the oncoming cools.

  "Willie!"

  Ferret started to move toward Gworn. He took three quick steps, got within a meter and was bending to pull his friend up when the first cool clambered up the fence and threw one leg over. He crested the top and saw the two young men. "There they are!" He cleared his other hand, showing a military-class stun beamer. He pointed the weapon at Ferret. The hole in the end looked big enough to swallow him.

  Ferret's breath caught in his throat. He was going to die!

  Ferret pulled the revolver from his pocket and fired at the cool. He didn't know if he hit him or not, but the man fell backward, screaming. By then, the light beams showed at least four or five more cools were at the fence. One of them tossed a sleepgas grenade over the top. The throw was too hard; the grenade trailed an arc of thin smoke and bounced on the plastcrete, rolling to a stop ten meters past Ferret. It oozed narcogenic smoke.

  It was a timeless moment and it was all too intense. It seemed to last his whole lifetime. Ferret felt sick, as if he might vomit. He had killed a man, maybe two men, and half the cools on the planet were on the other side of that fence. In another few seconds, they would surround him, and he would be caught. A primal fear gripped him, fear of dying, fear of spending his life in a cage, fear of having his mind deleted by drugs and reconditioning. How could this be happening? It wasn't real, it couldn't be real.

  Even so, he was not going to leave Benny. He stretched out his free hand. "Come on, Benny! Give me your hand—!"

  One of the cools threw something over the top of the fence, something that dangled over the edge and swung back and forth against the wood, scraping it lightly. Ferret never knew what it was, not for sure, not as many times as he would replay that scene, but what it looked like in that hot microsecond of his life was… a strap.

  Just like the one his father used to beat him with.

  The strap.

  The already overwhelming fear only took an instant to escalate into full, mindless, mewling panic. Nothing rational could stand before that feeling, it was the final touch of frost, the deadly chill, reaching for Ferret with icy talons, coated with all the guilt he had ever felt.

  Time to meet God, Ferret. Come with me—!

  "No!" The sound was raw, from his bowels, and when it left him, so did his reason. Human no longer, he was an animal with only one thing left to him, only one thing:

  Ferret turned and ran. He ran until he couldn't see for the red haze pounding in his eyes; he ran until his legs turned to jelly; he ran until he couldn't breathe, then he stopped and was sick. He puked until he felt as if he would turn inside out. His pants were wet, he didn't remember doing that, and he had no idea of where he was or how he had gotten there.

  He must have been five kilometers away when he finally dropped, exhausted, but he could still hear Gworn's cries echoing in his mind. "Willie! Willie, don't leave me! Willie—!"

  Ferret had saved his life and freedom, but in that moment of cowardice, in that panicked flight, he had lost something: his image of himself as a live-forever hero.

  He left Bennet Gworn, his only friend, to a vengeful justice. He would never get over that. Not in a billion years.

  He had deserted his only friend to save himself, and what it had cost was more than he could stand.

  Thirteen

  AFTER WHAT SEEMED a billion years, the ship put down on Vishnu, and Ferret hurried away from it.

  With the jewels he had collected during the theft on Thompson^ Gazelle, he was likely a millionaire, even after paying everybody's share. He still wore the bracelet they had been sent to steal; he would have to return it to the rightful owner l
ater.

  Ferret had sent messages to Shar; she would be hiding, if she believed the frantic tone of his pleading to do so. They had time-shares in a kiosk owned by Stoll's nephew; it was in the gentle hills that passed for mountains, a hundred klicks from the city. It was unlikely that Gworn would know of the place, and Shar would be safe there.

  Meanwhile, he had to decide what he was going to do about Gworn.

  He hailed a public flitter, and climbed in. The driver was a programmed din. He told it to take him to his cube. The flitter pulled smoothly away from the private section of the spaceport.

  His first thought was that he could try to buy Gworn off. It was appealing, but it didn't scan. If Gworn could put together the kind of trap that had killed Shanti, he didn't need money. Mercenary troopers didn't come cheap, and the buy-off for local cools and hotel staff would have also been expensive.

  However he had gotten them, Gworn had more than a few stads.

  How had he escaped from prison or brainwipe? How long had Gworn been looking for him? How had he found him?

  Too many questions, no answers.

  Maybe he could sit down and explain to Gworn about how he had panicked, and try to show his own remorse. Gworn had a valid grievance, but he had killed Ferret's partner, maybe he could let it go at that.

  Right. Ferret had heard his ex-friend screaming at him as he ran from the hotel. Just as he had heard him screaming that night when Ferret had rim and left him to be captured.

  Gworn didn't want justice, he wanted vengeance.

  Ferret had suffered over this for more than ten years, and now it had cost Shanti his life. Gworn might have good reason to be bitter, but it shouldn't extend to anybody else. It was between the two of them, only Gworn wanted more.

  He could. Ferret supposed, hire guards. With the money he now had, he could get top, skilled people.

  No. Guards weren't the answer. If Gworn had money, and it was obvious he did, then he could bribe somebody someday. What might feel like an impervious shield could have a fatal crack hidden in it, and Ferret did not trust his and Shar's life to some stranger. His recent experience was a testimony to that.

  Shanti was dead, and the people they had trusted had betrayed them.

  Abruptly, Ferret leaned forward and spoke to the din.

  "Reprogram destination. To the Intergalos Bank, Main Branch."

  The din acknowledged the order, and Ferret leaned back against the seat cushion. His gut was still clenched with the fear that had stabbed him on Thompson's Gazelle. He was afraid, but he was not going to roll onto his back and die. He had regrets, but he wasn't willing to pay with his life for a mistake born of panic. Or pay with anybody else's.

  At the bank, Ferret removed his lock box from the vault and went to one of the small enclosed privacy rooms with it. The box had been unopened for a decade, ever since he had first come to Vishnu.

  As the footsteps of the bank officer retreated, he unlocked the lid of the box, to reveal the contents: the handgun Gworn had given him, and a single carton of ammunition, both sealed in blocks of stripgel.

  Ferret stared at the weapon with mixed emotions. He had also had mixed emotions when he'd put it here, years past. He hated the thing for what he had caused it to do. The gun was a killing machine, and he was forever a homicidist because of it. He would have destroyed it, but he had not been able to bring himself to it. It was too valuable, he had told himself then. It was his only link with Gworn, and it was a concrete reminder of what he could never forget. Good reasons to keep it.

  But more than this, the revolver held a fascination for him. Despite what it represented, he liked the thing, he enjoyed the touch and heft of it, the way it felt in his hand, the actual firing of it. Though he had not held it since first he'd put it here, he remembered it as if it had been but a few moments.

  Until the recently botched caper, he hadn't fired any weapon since the night he'd run from Gworn. He had carried one only at Stoll's insistence. He was a thief, a smuggler, and he had fought more than a few men with his hands, but he did not want to kill another human or mue again. Somehow, along the way, he had acquired a reverence for life, even before the killing. It made no sense, given his background, but it was there. Some holdover from the Holy Rules, maybe; some pounded-in reverence he hadn't noticed sticking at the time. Whatever. More than once, a weapon would have saved him personal grief. Six years back, his left knee had been lasered during a hovertruck theft, and if he had shot the guard first, he could have saved himself weeks of pain and effort after the new joint had been built. Another time. Little Gib had been caught by the cools on a counterfeit wine caper, and he'd be free if Ferret had thought to bring even a hand wand.

  Maybe it was because he didn't trust himself. Maybe it was because he connected Gworn's capture with killing, and couldn't reconcile the two. Maybe it didn't matter, because here he was, staring down at the goddamned gun again. And, despite his resolve about using a weapon, feeling a thrill of anticipation.

  Damn. It was the wrong thing to be feeling, he should be sickened at the sight of the fucking thing. But he wasn't.

  Damn.

  He stripped the preservative away and checked the action. The ammunition would normally go bad after so long, but it had been sealed against moisture and temperature change, and was supposed to retain its potency.

  He loaded the weapon, five rounds, and slipped it into his belt, under his jacket. He put the remainder of the ammunition into his pocket. He found that when he stood, he was shaking. He might try to get Gworn to listen to reason. But, if the man would not, he would be able to protect himself.

  And he would protect Shar Li.

  The kiosk lay at the end of a winding road through a forest thick with evergreens. Tall trees reached for the sun, armored bark stalks sheathed in dark greenery, rising from a blanket of dried needles that carpeted the earth beneath them. Ferret drove a rented flitter along the narrow road, watching the rear screens for any sign of pursuit. He had learned about running over the years, and there was no indication of a tail.

  There were other recreational kiosks in the area, but none close to the one he sought. He arrived, shut the flitter down, and hurried to the small wooden building. He had sent a message that he would be arriving, and he expected to find Shar waiting for him.

  She was gone. She had left a note:

  "Willie—the day is too perfect to waste. I've gone for a hike, and I should be back by evening. Love, Shar." i Ferret walked out into the sunshine. It was a beautiful day. A few fleecy clouds marred the otherwise clear blue sky; Krishna and Brahma hung in space, pearly blue-green globes, while Shiva was below the horizon and not visible; everything in delicate gravitational balance. Birds and insects peeped and buzzed in the greenery, and the scene held no sense of danger. Maybe he could even relax and enjoy it until Shar returned from her hike.

  He found a chair leaning against the kiosk and sat in it, under the shade of the rustic wooden building's overhang. It was warm, with a gentle breeze blowing the woody smells about him. But the gun weighed heavy under his belt, and the knot inside him would not relax under the gentle ministrations of the forest's quiet beauty. He slipped off the jacket and carefully laid it next to the chair where he could reach it easily.

  He wished that Shar would hurry her return.

  Despite himself, Ferret dozed. He awoke to find that the day had wound down into the beginnings of dusk. A thunderstorm built in the distance, the clouds mushrooming up and flattening at the top, going from white to gray to almost purple at the bottom. There was a smell of impending rain in the air.

  Where was Shar?

  He stood, and worked the kinked muscles of his back and legs loose. There was a cut-off point at which he would begin to worry, but her note had said "evening," and that covered a wide stretch. It could mean by dark, it could mean midnight. Shar had little concept of time; she was almost always late for any meeting.

  He found a package of cutlets in the freezer and a loaf of br
ead. He popped the thick slice of soypro into the microwave oven. When it was done, he made a sandwich and ate it slowly, washing it down with sips of splash from a can he found in the cooler. His stomach felt jittery, and the food was nourishing, but tasteless.

  He heard a rattle at the back door, and he went to check it, gun in hand. Some small catlike creature with dark-striped fur stood there on its hind legs, begging for food. He smiled at it, and tossed it the last of his sandwich. The thing caught the quarter-slice of bread and soypro, and darted out into the darkness.

  Apparently the local animals were used to man's encroachment on their territory. Can't beat 'em, make'em feed you. There were probably worse philosophies.

  Ferret powered up the unit's holoproj and tuned it to an entertainment broadcast. The story, as nearly as he was able to tell, involved a rich athlete and his sexual conquests. He watched it with half his attention.

  By nineteen hundred, despite his resolve, he began to worry. The storm was apparently moving this way; the wind had picked up, and the nearby trees swayed and rustled under the gusts. He shut off the holoproj and stared through one of the windows into the windy night.

  Shar arrived just before the storm broke over the kiosk. The wind was so loud by then, he didn't hear her open the door.

  He was startled by the sight of her, and he had the gun halfway up before he managed to smile and put it away.

  Her smile matched his, but only for a moment.

  "All right," she said, suddenly serious. "What is going on, Willie?" She pointed at the gun. "What are you doing with that?"

  "Come sit down, love. I've got a story to tell you."

  He hugged her first, then began to unwind the whole thing, starting when he'd first met Gworn and working through to that bungled theft on Mwanamamke, ending with the death of Stoll on Thompson's Gazelle.

  She had known about Stoll—he'd included that in his first message, to assure that she'd hide like he asked. Even so, her tears flowed when he talked about it. He found himself starting to cry, too. The grief that had been blocked by the fear broke through, and the two of them clutched each other like children.