by Brian Daley
He laughed out her name a little hysterically and rushed to take her up in his arms, lifting her off the ground even though she was nearly as tall as he. Her full breasts flattened against him a bit; her corselet pinched the skin of his midsection and her shinguards banged his kneecaps. He also bumped his forehead on the side of her helmet as he kissed her. They lost track of time until they had to come up for air.
"How did you get here? Is your father here? How'd you find me?" Alacrity suddenly felt a clenching in his gut, and he was trembling, thinking of Dincrist, Sile, and Constance, and the diversions of the compounds.
"Look, Ho's here too, but I don't know where they've got him. D'you have a way out of this place? Those hunters could come back looking for their buddy. Oh, yeah, and by the way, thanks a lot for saving my life."
He took her up and kissed her again, until she protested a little, trying to push them apart.
"Hobart's being sought, Alacrity. Father's not here yet, but he's due at any moment. We're working on a way to get you off Blackguard."
" 'We'?"
She gave him a sly grin. "I'll tell you later."
"But I mean, how'd you know I'd be right here?" He suddenly went deathly pale. "Don't tell me you—"
"I what?"
"Never mind."
She gave him a chilly look. "Was I really part of the Wild Hunt, you were going to ask?"
"Forget I said it!" He threw his hands up, indicating Blackguard and all it entailed. "You can see why I'm not thinking right, can't you? You found me with a jot tracer, isn't that it?"
She mussed his thick mane of silver-shot gray hair. "Yes. And I think it's time we were gone from here."
"Hold on." Alacrity ran to the edge of the cliff and looked down. The broken figure in dark skinfilm lay draped on the rocks not far from the shattered remains of the quarry. Twisted wreckage of the sphinx rostrum was strewn all over the place. Gute was nowhere to be seen.
Good analysis, Gute, Alacrity approved; the furor this would raise would be no place for a local. Chances were, Gute was halfway back to his runabout by then, planning an alibi.
Heart had come up behind him, taking his hand. "We have to leave. Do you think you're up to riding tailgate on that thing?"
He looked the flight frame over. It wasn't much more than a small, prettied-up pod containing a power pack, with an instrument panel attached. Styled to suggest exotic pinions, gracefully contoured handlebars and footrest posts swept from it. The shallow bowl of fairing was just enough to protect the pilot's face. Definitely a one-rider craft.
"Up to it? How come we're not gone yet?"
There was just enough room for his feet to crowd next to hers under the loops of the footrest plates; none for him to squeeze inside the waist bar. Heart put her hands inside the cupping control guards at the handlebars' ends. The flight frame rose unsteadily. Alacrity clung to her. "Couldn't you afford an air-brougham?"
"You don't know how lucky I was to get this clotheshorse, or you wouldn't complain."
"At least it goes with your outfit."
She laughed as they made a shaky ascent, then accelerated. The frame answered sluggishly. Heart cut a course away from the main grouping of compounds, bound for a peak some twenty kilometers distant.
The wind made it impossible to talk, but Alacrity's elation grew even while he thought over the practical aspects of the situation.
There were probably only hours before knave-face was missed, and not much chance that Gute wouldn't crack and spill what had happened. By that time, Alacrity would have to be offworld, or the Control Complex would send out a signal that would jot him silly. Then they'd find him with a tracer and hand him over to a Torquemada aficionado.
Hours. With the right luck, he and Heart and Floyt would be in Hawking by then.
Heart nursed from the flight frame all the speed it had to give. They soared up the slopes leading to the summit. The semiwilderness was deserted except for a few distant craft making their late way back to the compounds. Nested in a midway glen was a chalet set aside for use by the Betters for trysts, seclusion, and such. It was technically the property of Orion Compound, Alacrity knew, just as various other compounds had their hermitages and lovenests. In practice, the places were commonly loaned and shared; there was supposed to be a certain lofty cordiality among the Betters.
Not dressed for the higher altitude, he was shivering as they landed. The chalet was a frothy cluster of onion domes and flanged turrets and reticulations in the style called Arabian Nights Dymaxion.
They came to rest on a high-gloss green deck outside the main entrance. Heart dismounted after Alacrity and went to the doors, removing her white gauntlet, saying, "I've never seen this place, but it's supposed to be a plush little hideaway."
She held a big ring she was wearing up to a decorative curleycue in the wall pattern. The doors swung open. Alacrity, holding the battle rifle, made ready to enter.
Heart saw it and made a sour face. "The place is empty; don't you think I asked? We have to stay hidden for a little while."
"I can bear that, but you just can't be too careful. I've had all the surprises I want for a lifetime."
But she was right. The controls to the place were somehow keyed to the ringwearer's hands; Heart wandered around the overdone birdcage-harem of a chalet, making grand gestures like a symphonic conductor. Curtains closed and lights came up; alcoves slid open and hospitality modules appeared as service automata came forth. Something vaguely light-classical began playing in the background.
Alacrity sank into a pillowlift sofa, looking nonplussed, the rifle across his knees. A cyberwaiter drifted past, all salvers, trays, platters, and lazy susans. He grabbed a plate of tea cakes, the first thing that came his way, and a big tumbler of something fizzy and blue that tasted like lemonade.
Heart pulled off the helm, tossing it aside, shaking out the wavy chalk-blond hair, running her long fingers through it until it hung around her shoulders. She watched Alacrity watching her as he wolfed down the cakes and drank deeply.
"You look like you missed lunch, Alacrity. Also breakfast and dinner. Damn! You were skinny enough as it was!"
"I had it better than most around here, but they don't go out of their way to fatten us up. Besides, they keep us busy. I must say I prefer this place of yours. Look, do we have to listen to that racket? Isn't there something a little more appropriate for you and me?"
She went to a control plate and started making finger motions. He finished the cakes and drained the tumbler. Ballroom music came over the sound system, making it seem like they were standing in the middle of the band. He put the rifle and bandolier of tagging equipment aside and went to her, snapping off his slave collar and hanging it around the neck of a passing robot domestic.
She arched one eyebrow. "You're not dressing for the dance?"
"They told me informal would be all right."
He took her in his arms and they began to dance, easily and very well, as they had on the first night they'd met one another. He inhaled her and held her and closed his eyes, trying to force the memory of the hunt out of his mind.
They swayed and circled; they'd been good together, matched to each other's rhythms and movements and grace, right from the start. The elegant enchantment of it took hold of him after a bit—a rapture, he reflected, that he didn't seem to bring to anything else in his life.
Well, almost nothing, he amended.
They moved and glided together, holding each other close. "That's a ravishing outfit," he said after a time. "How does it come off?"
"What's the matter, an adventurous high-mover's afraid to experiment?"
"Step into my laboratory." He steered them toward a long, wide chaise, figuring out the side seam first. Her broad, ornate cincher-belt went, and her mantlet. The beautiful blouse unwrapped and fell open. He helped her with the sleeves and they left it behind them.
She'd been busy too. "Da-dah!"
"So what? The tough thing about loincloths isn
't taking them off; it's keeping them on."
"It is around here."
She helped with the kneeboots and reinforced tights. Underneath she wore only a winding creeper of black fleshpeel, which meandered from the instep of her left foot to the lithe curve of her right shoulder, stark against the incredible whiteness of her skin.
He bent to kiss it. Suddenly the quarry's hopeless eyes came back to him and he felt everything go still and dead inside him. But she pulled him close, caressed him, and brought him back to her again.
She trailed fingertips along his rib cage. "I'm going to have to fatten you up."
"I'm all for that. Only let's do it far away." His head lay on the taut, pallid lowlands of her stomach. She had one knee raised and he was admiring a faint blue vein under the alabaster skin of her inner thigh.
"Yes, yes. Very soon now."
"Will your father come after us?"
"I hope not. Alacrity, I don't want a confrontation with my father. I mean for us to be gone before he gets here."
"I know. I put you in a bad spot with him at Frostpile, wooing and pursuing you, I understand that, but—"
"You don't understand."
She propped herself up on one elbow, so he rolled around to look deep into her hazel eyes. And she could see his big, sloe topaz ones, eyes that might, she thought, almost be some animal's.
"Alacrity, it mustn't come to a head-on with my father. Not yet. So I obeyed him on Epiphany, and if everything goes the way I have it planned here, I'll still be able to claim I'm innocent. The thing is, there's a lot more involved than just Heart the Nonpareil getting out from under her daddy's thumb."
"Such as what?"
"Such as the family business. I'm not the only one who's unhappy with … with some of the things he's doing. But I have to be very careful."
He nodded slowly. "There's a medium-size mountain of money involved, hm?"
"It isn't the money, at least not primarily. There are some parts of the family empire—holdings, businesses, controlling interests—that are vitally important to me. Even more important than money."
He whistled softly. "Pretty important." He licked her hip.
"Yes. I'll tell you about it later, if you want to hear."
"So you took an awful chance, coming here."
"Well, he always left me the option of visiting Orion Compound if I wanted, although he never dreamed I'd come here without him. He knows how I loathe this place."
"You've been here before?"
"Once, when I was little. I didn't see much of it then; I don't think my father meant for me to see much of it now, just his guided tour. But his personal servants at Orion know me; they were afraid to confine me, so I commandeered a disguise and some transportation and came after you just as soon as I could."
"When did you get here?"
"A few hours ago. I have a ship at the field. As soon as Hobart's been sprung, we're leaving."
"How are you going to explain this to your old man?"
Those lips that aroused him so easily curved upward a little. "You're going to kidnap me."
"Great idea. Are you going to enjoy the ransom! But who's looking for Ho? It's a big place, and if whoever it is doesn't know their way around, we'll all be—"
She put a finger to his lips. "It's an experienced operator. You're not going to believe how experi—"
A soft alert-tone sounded from somewhere among her clothing—her proteus. Heart slid past Alacrity and went searching for it.
He watched her avidly. She had the most smashing derriere he'd ever seen; the most mouth-watering haunches; she was so fragrant and lithe …
Squatting, she poked through the stuff and found her proteus, a ne-plus-ultra Impéria Opitech disguised as a gyve of natural wavestones, ardors, and satan's tears, and precious metals. She spoke a word or two, then listened for a moment.
The Nonpareil jumped to her feet, switching off the prote and clapping it onto her wrist. "My father's arrived!"
He was already grabbing for his loincloth. "Does he know you're here? Or me?"
"I don't think so; not yet." She threw a heavy white lock back from her eyes with a toss of her head as she pulled on her tights.
"Who was that you were talking to?"
"Can't you guess, 'Bright eyes'?"
He got it then, recalling who'd given him the name back in Riffraff Alley. "Here, you'd better take this," Heart said, picking up her corselet and the cincher belt. She handed him a glittery little device that reminded him of a bos'n's pipe. "Short range and limited power—nothing like that dinosaur gun of yours, so if you have to use it, take careful aim."
He looked it over, then concealed it in a fold of his loincloth, smoothed on his ratty soleskins, and went to check the battle rifle. Two servant robos startled him from behind with their irritating pinging and beeping for attention. He impatiently touched a control in the armrest of the sofa and sent them back to their places in the kitchen.
He picked up the rifle again. "We have to try your plan now: you get your ship from the spacefield and—"
"Alacrity!"
He pivoted, hearing the alarm in her voice and starting to raise the rifle, even as he heard a faint tff! and felt something sting him hard over his left shoulder blade. He began to fall, getting a glimpse of Heart leaping toward him and human figures in the doorway.
Something made the tff! sound again and Heart's breath hissed from her in pain. He felt very disoriented and couldn't move, staring at the ceiling.
After a while somebody came into his line of vision. It was the male Better who'd been riding the 'dopter, the one dressed as a slavetaker from Friends' World. He waved a jot tracer at Alacrity.
"Like I told you: this one's jot doesn't register," he called. "He isn't the one Mason wants."
"Well, this one is," a woman's voice answered. She was the one who'd piloted the butterfly aircraft, the ersatz dagger-dancer. "She's the one he wants, all right; help me get her on the 'dopter, and you can pilot her flight frame back."
"But what about him?"
"Who cares? The tracer says he's not the one. Kill him if you feel like; we can't carry him. Only hurry. I want to get back to Grand Guignol before we ran into trouble with Dincrist."
The slavetaker picked up the white battle rifle as he thought it over, the muzzle pointed right between Alacrity's glassy eyes.
"Shame to mess the place up," he said.
"Then just give him a max jotting."
"But he might even be one of ours. What the hell; we can always send somebody out for him. He won't be going far."
"Then come here and give me a hand with this white sow; she weighs a ton."
The slavetaker shouldered the rifle and passed out of Alacrity's vision.
Chapter 14
Fast Moves On Blackguard
Pollolo had commanded Floyt to return to the inner sanctum within an hour, so the Earther dawdled a bit, walking back through the main corridors of the Central Complex. He only dared defy the creature enough to irritate without making it worth Pollolo's bothering Baron Mason with a complaint.
Not that Mason had any right to be vexed. Floyt had been drawing information out of the various computer systems, raiding and collating, with increasing skill. Mason's game was blackmail, or at least pressure politics; Floyt was making himself as useful as possible.
As he strolled, he kept his tunic collar up straight, hiding the iron slave collar Pollolo insisted he wear. It wasn't that Floyt could keep the guards or Betters from realizing his status; his bracelet gave that away when it slid down his wrist, and so did his plain clothing, although he was still wearing the mask Mason had gotten him that first day. But now staff members in the outer rooms of the computer facility were used to his upturned collar, so that they never noticed when he entered wearing a neck shackle and left without one.
He browsed along displays in the shops of the main concourse. At one infocenter he scanned the Whereabouts. Among the images there was a face he recogniz
ed from the Grapple.
This time Janusz, the Rasputin lookalike outlaw, appeared in a forthright Wanted blurb. The blurb had been sponsored by the Langstretch Detective Agency, which in turn started Floyt fretting over Alacrity and wondering what was happening to him.
Preoccupied, he wandered past the display case of the infoemporium a few steps before registering what he'd just seen. He paused literally in midstep, one foot in the air, then backed up.
There were piles of them in a mountain range display: hardback books, info-wafers, and a half-dozen other formats. The mountain range was flanked and fronted by holopromos and subliminal pulsers, pyrotechnic flashers and computer-generated dramatizations of selected passages.
The window was just about filled with Hobart Floyt and Alacrity Fitzhugh in the Castle of the Death Addicts and Hobart Floyt and Alacrity Fitzhugh Challenge the Amazon Slave Women of the Supernova.
Oddly enough, Floyt's first coherent reaction was, Great and Holy Spirit of Terra! Didn't Sintilla even tell them what we really look like? That's not me; it's some triathalon champion with eye makeup! The Alacrity figure was an even more perfect specimen, slightly younger, and had nicer hair.
The illustrators had pulled out the chocks. Floyt, mesmerized by one of the promo loops, had to admit he didn't recall attacking a fangster with his bare hands and teeth. And if Alacrity really had participated in something called the Ecstasy Ritual of the Vortex Viragos, he'd neglected to invite Floyt along.
The ads proclaimed the books instant smash hits. As Floyt watched, the proprietor of the shop retrieved a microfiche edition from the window display for a masked Better.
Floyt gawped, wondering what Sintilla was going to do with all her money. He was speculating idly on where she might be and what she might be doing when he felt a tap at his shoulder.
He knew instant dread. He whirled, prepared to look up into the face of one of the outsize guards, stuttering an excuse for his loitering. But he was looking into empty space. He panned downward past a mop of brown curls, two of the merriest eyes he knew, and a sunburst smile on a round-cheeked face.
"That collar just does not become you, Hobart. I don't think iron's your look. Have you thought about a twillsilk ascot?"
