Jinx On a Terran Inheritance

by Brian Daley

  Floyt looked up. "Love potions?"

  "Any and every sort! Well, aphrodisiacs, really. Erotimax, hedonol, cantharidone, stimulex—and for you, sir, I reduce my price. To ninety ovals."

  Floyt was thinking of Yumi. "What about candies? Chocolate ones with liqueur centers?"

  The shopkeeper canted his head so that his halo was tilted, giving Floyt a dismayed look. "I suppose I could throw some in; Angel's Kiss, a box of four, free, and you can have the whole pot for seventy-five ovals!"

  Amarok was puzzled. "Why would you need such things, Hobart?"

  Floyt's first reaction was shock, then anger; the chocolates the Eried showed him were the same sort he'd eaten with Yumi, before they'd made love. So it was an assignment from her Daimyo and she couldn't bear being with me without it? But … a box of four; there were four on the bento tray. She may have been unsure of me, but Yumi didn't feel the need of one.

  But then he remembered her parting kiss, her grace note. The preliminary motives didn't matter then. Floyt brightened as Amarok's words sank in.

  "You're right; why should I need 'em, Rok?"

  The Eried was nearly weeping. "Sixty ovals, my final offer!"

  He was down to forty by the time they passed out of earshot. At Amarok's suggestion, he and Floyt exited through one of Caveat Emptor's aft locks into another concession ship, a smaller one, the Rantipole, which was setup for contests, competitions, and other betting events.

  Rantipole was joined to the attack transport by an elbow of temporary passageway with a contoured gravity field. Floyt found great novelty in watching the far bulkhead become the deck as he walked. Rantipole's main lock was marked with symbols indicating, Amarok clarified, a slightly higher gravity and a somewhat thinner atmosphere than Standard, which was, more or less, Terra's. Admission was ten ovals each.

  Inboard, they found polyspecies crowds wagering and screaming over various bloodsports. Pit-fights were being staged between animals from assorted worlds; target and fastdraw contests were fought with stunguns and more permanent firearms; duels saw carnage wrought with razorwhip, knife, combustorbags, and biosynergic weapons.

  In one arena, a small, transparent dome, two heavily drugged men were having it out with blistermist projectors. Floyt averted his eyes.

  "Why did we come here?"

  "Mostly so that I could remind myself why I don't like Grapples, Hobart."

  "If you've had enough, let's go."

  They made their way past a compartment with contests in geeking—swallowing XT creepy-crawlies whole—and heavy-gee arm wrestling and more, headed for the Rantipole's bow lock for a shortcut back to the Caveat.

  On the way they passed a small hold where unarmed combats were being fought. The place reeked of sweat, blood, and hatred. Amazing amounts of money were changing hands. Floyt thought he detected a feral enthusiasm under Amarok's reserve.

  "If you want to enter, Rok, I'll hold your shirt."

  Amarok spit on the deck. "With those bunglers? It would be a betrayal of Someone's training and teacher."

  They came across another commotion in the next hold along. A crowd of raucous, besotted, and overmedicated onlookers was gathered along a marked-off area like a tenpin lane or a fencing piste, howling bets and putting up cash. Off to one side, some standing upright, some scattered about, all dented and crumpled from impact, were what looked like ordinary lockers of sheet metal.

  At one end of the lane were men and one or two women, a few of them bleeding from scalp wounds, most drinking or taking deep breaths from inhalers, puffing on pipes, or popping pills.

  As Floyt and Amarok watched, two intoxicated officials set one of the lockers up at the far end of the lane, a meter past the foul line, squaring it carefully. One yelled, "We've got another challenger for you here, Lugo!"

  From among the contestants stepped a squat, powerful-looking man who resembled a champion shot-putter gone to fat. His shaved skull, like a pink bullet, bore livid marks but was unbloodied. Thick swirls of black hair grew like fur on his chest, back, belly, and shoulders.

  Intrigued, Amarok slipped quietly into the hold, headed for the sideline. Floyt tagged along watchfully.

  The squat man—Lugo—waved to acknowledge news of the challenge, drinking slugs of pale-blue rum from a glass cylinder like a long, wide stylus.

  "This looks like something This One has heard about. Let's see how Lugo does, Hobart."

  Floyt wasn't really in the mood, but could hardly refuse, given how Amarok had accompanied him around the Grapple. Officials of the strange contest loaded metal plates into the locker under the inspection of seconds. Another contestant, a powerful young man put together like a heroic statue, wearing only soleskins and a loinstrap, toed the starting line. Lugo didn't seem in the least worried.

  Floyt, since he didn't know what was coming, wasn't looking, and missed the new opponent's take-off. He was playing with his survival tool, getting the hang of the blade releases and various features.

  As Amarok watched, the challenger started down the lane at a fast walk that quickly became a trot, then a full run, his head lowered like that of a charging bull, arms pumping. He left the deck in a tremendous dive just at the foul line, arms held stiffly behind him, to ram dead center into the locker with a fearful crash.

  The locker went flying back from the collision, but not as far as Amarok had expected, given the circumstances. It hit the deck with a resonant crash, disturbing an area of white powder that had been dusted there. The human battering ram caught himself in a semisprawl on the deck. There were whines and moans from those who'd bet on him.

  Floyt, who'd looked up from his survival tool too late, gaped. Two officials, each stratoed on a different substance, brought out a measuring scanner and tried to meld their separate realities to establish how far the locker had been knocked.

  "One and one-half meters," it was determined. Among those who'd backed the challenger there was more bellyaching, and hands were waved in the air.

  Now Lugo toed the starting line, ready for his defending effort. "Heavy gravity type," Amarok concluded. Floyt paid attention this time.

  The champ launched himself in a ponderous run that drummed the deck. But he gathered speed very quickly, catapulted himself headfirst, and bashed the locker with the din of a deepspace collision.

  This time it flew like a frightened bird, as Lugo neatly caught himself on the deck. It landed nearly twice as far as it had for the challenger.

  Onlookers were yeowling and sloshing drinks, cursing or exulting; fists were shaken on high and caps flung aloft. Bets were being paid even before the befuddled officials could confirm the winner.

  Payoffs were in Spican Bank notes, ovals, ducats, personal markers, precious stones and metals, weapons, and other personal possessions. One very distinguished-looking woman appeared to be transferring ownership of her very handsome-looking young male companion to an even more distinguished-looking woman. The boy seemed pleased with the whole idea, embracing his new patron.

  "We might as well be going," Amarok decided. "Something's wrong here, but This One can't tell what."

  "That's fine with me, Rok. But before we go back to the Pihoquiaq or whatever, I want to double back and exchange this." Floyt held up the survival tool. "The compass is broken."

  Amarok was about to shrug that off, but then became suddenly and predatorily interested. "You said what? What makes you think so?" He drew Floyt over to one side, shielding the conversation with his body.

  Floyt said, "Uh, the damn thing went crazy a few moments ago, spinning around and around. It seems all right now, but since that merchant said it was guaranteed—"

  Amarok was shushing him. The Innuit was looking around, eyeing in particular the foul line, where the locker had been positioned. He rubbed his jaw, muttering, "Could it be that simple?"

  Then he laughed aloud, took Floyt by the elbow, and made for the hatch. The rest of the crowd was laughing and carrying on; Amarok and the trailing Floyt went unnoticed.
Floyt tucked the tool in a pocket, along with the book he'd bought.

  Reading frame markings, Amarok found the spot, one deck down, directly beneath the wall-locker-head-knocker hold and, more to the point, the foul line. From a nearby compartment a cable was routed up through the overhead, toward the deck-plates beneath the lockers.

  "Well, hole Someone and blow Him away!" Amarok breathed.

  Floyt was beginning to understand. He followed as Amarok stole over to the compartment from which the cable emerged. The hatch had been left a little ajar, a common practice in the dilapidated Rantipole, with its aged environmental systems. They both hunkered down low, to peer within.

  An old man seated at a small table, was drawing ecstatically on a smoke carburetor and failed to notice them. Before him several monitors showed the wall-locker competition area from various angles.

  Amarok, glancing around, spied a tool locker in the passageway. He went to it and began sorting through the things he found there, returning with a clamplike device, making adjustments to its instrumentation, setting it.

  "Surge breaker," Amarok explained in a whisper, thrusting it into Floyt's hands and putting his back up against the bulkhead. Bending his knees and making a stirrup of his hands, he whispered, "Hurry!"

  Floyt, still feeling the effects of the meltdowns, didn't even know where to begin demurring. So he put his foot in Amarok's big palms and stepped up onto his shoulders, a bit wobbly until the trader clamped strong hands around his calves. The cuff of the surge breaker adjusted itself to the cable, locking around it with a conspiratorial click.

  When Floyt was back down, Amarok went back to the locker. He selected a flat length of some leathery synthetic stuff and trimmed it with the ultrasharp scissors of Floyt's survival tool. He shucked his top and somehow inserted the piece into his roll-top collar.

  "Every little edge helps. Now, let's get back," he said in a hushed voice, "before someone beats us to it!"

  Back at the scene of the outlandish contest, Lugo was having difficulty finding a new opponent. No one felt like collecting a concussion or injuring their spinal column in a match Lugo seemed destined to win. The champion showed surprise when Amarok swaggered up to him and casually inquired about having a bash at it.

  Floyt found himself called upon to witness the setting up of the locker and the arrangement of the weights in its bottom. One of the reeling officials ran a quick detectorscan on Amarok, to be sure he didn't have an armored skull, reinforced skeleton, or other unfair advantage.

  It wasn't hard at all to lay off five hundred ovals on Amarok at three-to-one odds; in fact, bettors were climbing over each other to try to get in on the action. Amarok was betting even more than Floyt. It was the first time Floyt had seen Amarok cough up any money. Soon fortune was in the offing.

  Amarok handed Floyt his gunbelt, then toed the line. He raced off down the lane, moving like a young god.

  Amarok launched himself cleanly, arms well back, When he struck the locker, it flew backward as if it had been yanked by a hawser, not landing in the dust at all but beyond it, sliding until it fetched up against the bulkhead.

  Lugo stood slack-jawed. There were whistles and salutes from the bystanders. Amarok rose, rubbing his head, smiling at Floyt. He hadn't been injured, due in part to the black hair padding his head, but one side of the locker was stove-in.

  Lugo, faced with the alternatives of forfeiting or denouncing Amarok for having somehow sabotaged Lugo's own con, went on instead with the contest. Huffing and puffing, he took his mark, working his arms, pawing the deck like a bull. He was, Floyt admitted to himself, a human projectile. Those who'd wagered on him called encouragement.

  "He appears to be getting ready to put it through the bulkhead," Floyt observed, despairing over his five hundred ovals.

  Lugo lumbered off again with that same prompt gathering of momentum. But his coordination seemed a bit off, either because he'd been unnerved by Amarok's showing or due to the number of licks he'd already taken on the head.

  Lugo threw everything he had into a ferocious take-off, smashing into the locker with a sound like a peal of sheet-metal thunder. It lofted in a long arc but crashed to the deck short of Amarok's feat, scraping an all-too-visible smear in the rearmost area of the white dust.

  Lugo thundered to the deck and stayed there, out cold.

  The crowd lost all control. Lugo's backers and shills were collared at once by those who'd taken a chance on Amarok. Bottles and jugs were passed as the winner was kissed and slapped on the back, punched on the arms and patted on the seat of the pants. Floyt hurried to collect his and Amarok's winnings. It took six people to haul Lugo from the scene.

  Floyt and Amarok made a hasty departure, wished a fond farewell by those who'd bet with them, cursed and reviled by the Lugo contingent.

  They agreed that the situation called for several more melt-downs, and made their way forward, following homemade arrows that exhibited a universal EXIT symbol underneath, off to meet Professor K'ek at the Oasis. Every so often Floyt, in an uncharacteristic display, kissed his winnings.

  They went down stairwells and through passageways, causing Amarok to frown. "This somehow does not feel right; it can't be the correct route to the for'd airlock, no matter what the signs say."

  They were halfway through an echoing cargo hold that was empty but for some huge crates. Its few lights cast more shadows than illumination.

  Floyt heard no warning sound, sensed no movement. Something flicked his neck with cold lightning and he found himself paralyzed. Dropping, he was whirled around, the revolver whisked neatly from his belt, and discarded in a heap on the deck.

  As Floyt slumped, conscious but helpless, Amarok spun, hand dipping for the hammergun on his hip. But a green, glassy stave struck his wrist as the pistol came clear; the gun whirled, clattering, across the deckplates.

  Clasping his hand, Amarok backpedaled away from the expected followup, but none came. The pneuma-warrior, in a fighting stance, stave ready, waited until Amarok was well out of range.

  Then he quickly picked up the hammergun and hurled it, along with Floyt's Webley, high atop a huge packing crate.

  Amarok came forward a step, massaging his bicep; the stave whirled and came on the ready.

  Chapter 9

  If We Should

  Die Before We Wake

  Merrywell and Alacrity were obliged to check their sidearms and leave their bodyguard behind at Bulkhead Twenty, far forward in Caveat Emptor toward the bridge and the living quarters of her owner and master, Costa.

  The dividing line was heavily guarded. Nearly all other visitors, wanderers, or would-be deal makers were turned away. On the other side of Bulkhead Twenty a very different ambience prevailed. There was quiet and calm, in richly appointed compartments and elegantly decorated passageways. Even the security fixtures and defensive implacements were chic.

  The enforcers who'd accompanied Alacrity and Merrywell that far were left behind too. Their new escort was a comely young woman with mounds of ringleted red hair, who went barefoot on the deck shag and wore an ensemble of something resembling scarlet cobweb. Alacrity spotted a number of other females and a few males dressed the same way.

  "Costa's social directors," Merrywell commented. He seemed inclined to take his time, slouching along, dragging his feet. Their escort didn't appear to mind. Neither did Alacrity, who relished a chance to look around the Grapple's most exclusive neighborhood.

  They walked slowly past a roomy compartment draped and curtained in lush copper velvet. In it was gathered a crowd of Grapple attendees totally different from the rabble on the downhill side of Bulkhead Twenty. Costa's special servitors circulated among them with trays. Sprightly, unobtrusive music played. In the center of the compartment was a low, plush, circular dais under a strong spotlight. On it was a naked woman, a healthy, wholesome-looking wheat-blonde, eighteen or so. Her cheeks were slick with tears she'd cried a short time before, but she looked cried out. To the sides, holographic di
splays gave pertinent data: medical exam results, skills and education, warranties.

  Merrywell spied her too. Both men heard the bids as they passed by.

  "Most likely she was abducted," Merrywell told Alacrity, puffing a red cigarette, more dour than ever. "Damnfool kids from some civilized place—Gemütlichtkeit, maybe, or Eclat—they go off on their wanderjahr or Grand Tour or what the hell ever, without the first idea what can happen to them or what to watch out for. There's a little back-passageway trade in run-of-the-mill merchandise, back of Bulkhead Twenty, but the prime stuff gets the gold-gavel treatment."

  Merrywell spoke softly; their escort didn't appear to take any notice. Alacrity tried to put the scene out of his mind. He could do nothing about it.

  For now, he amended. He opened the trove of his hopes for a moment and looked at an image he'd held for a long time, of a time when, if he did everything just right, human history would change for the better. And he recalled the flaring of the causality harp.

  Not for the security-minded Costa to sit in a winter garden out on the hull of his ship; their escort led them to a compartment below and forward of the bridge. The captain's quarters were in one of the best-armored, best-protected parts of the attack transport. They were lavishly decorated in iron-and-gold tech-deco.

  Captain Jobold Costa sat in an airfloat conformer behind a landing-field desk of jet-black wood. He wore a tissuey green lounging jacquard. He had dense gray eyebrows that looked as though he combed them backward. He also had a direct gaze, but his eyes were pouchy and bloodshot. He wasn't much overweight, but had a lot of slack flesh. He struck Alacrity as a man whose business had gotten the upper hand on him.

  And here's a guy who's got a piece of who-knows-how-many rejuvenation clinics, antigeronic centers, health spas, and whatever. Maybe he doesn't realize he looks like he's ready for planting? Alacrity thought.