Collected Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by Rosel G Brown

  “What about me?”

  “Umm. If I were to cut into you, I daresay I’d encounter all sorts of anomalies. How many hearts do you have?”

  “I don’t know. I thought you said alien biology wasn’t a hobby of yours.”

  “One can’t help picking up a few—”

  There was a loud thud from above and plaster fell down on the burl desk. Uncle Targ screeched and jumped for the trap-door button. The lid sprang open and a solid slug whanged off the gold wall by Roan’s ear. The ancient being’s profanity cut off in mid-curse.

  Roan yanked out his gun and flattened himself against the wall. Through the trap door he could see Askor holding Uncle Targ’s nephew by the neck and slamming the feathered head against the desk. A small ragged slave was scrabbling frantically for the beaded hanging, but Sidis’s unsheathed claws had him pinned by a trailing cloak. Roan fired a shot into the ventilator grill. It made an echo like eternity bursting.

  “All right, boys, break it up,” he called and clambered up into the shop. Sidis looked at him, grinning his metallic grin, and the slave broke free and bolted from the room. Askor waved the dealer in a wide gesture as though he had forgotten he were holding him.

  “Poion seen you come in here, and we thought we heard some shots. And then we couldn’t find you.”

  “So all you rowdies could think of was to shoot the place up. I told you to go shopping.”

  “Pay for stuff?” Askor tossed the dealer aside; he struck with a clatter of beak and claws and bangles and crept to a neutral corner. “We figured you was kidding.”

  Roan glanced down into Uncle Targ’s private retreat. The ancient lay on his back, glazed eyes wide, with his mouth full of blood.

  “Come on,” Roan said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Back in the plaza the bazaar had died as though a sudden storm had slammed it shut. Roan could feel the eyes staring at him from behind blind shutters and past barely parted hangings at narrow windows and through cracks in sagging facades. Askor glanced around, strutting.

  “I guess they know we been to town, hey, Chief?”

  “Shut up and march,” Roan said. This is what I always leave behind me, he thought. Fear.

  “I don’t get it, Chief.” Askor grumbled, sitting beside Roan in the eerie light of the control panel. “For better’n a year and a half now—ever since we lost Warlock—we been by-passing dandy targets, blasting balls to bulkheads from one two-bit world to another. And when we get there—no shooting, you say. Go shopping, you say. The boys are getting kinda fed up.”

  “We stopped and took on supplies once or twice,” Roan said. “But I suppose that wasn’t enough to satisfy your sporting instincts.”

  “Huh?” Aw, that was peanuts. Just grocery shopping, like.”

  “With a few good-natured killings thrown in, just to keep your hand in. You can tell the crew there’ll be plenty of action now.”

  “Yeah? Say, that’s great, Cap’n! What you got in mind? A run through the Spider Cluster, maybe? Knock off a few of them market towns that ain’t been hit for a hundred years?”

  “Nothing so pedestrian. Set your course for Galactic East.”

  Askor scratched at his hairless skull. “East? Why do we want to head out that way, Chief? That’s rough territory. Damn few worlds to hit, and them, poor ones.”

  “There’ll be plenty of worlds. And after the first couple years’ travel, we’ll be in a part of space no one’s visited for a few thousand years.”

  “A couple years’ run out the Arm? Cripes, Cap’n, that’ll put us in No-man’s-space! The ghost-ships—”

  “I don’t believe in ghost-ships. We may run into Niss, though. That’s where the last big engagements were fought.”

  “Look, Chief,” Askor said quickly. “What about if we talk this over, huh? I mean, what the hell, there’s plenty of good worlds right here in this sector to keep us eating good for the next two hundred years. What I say is, why look for trouble?”

  “You’re afraid, Askor? That surprises me.”

  “Now wait a minute, Cap’n! I didn’t say I was scared. I just . . .” His voice trailed off. “What I’m getting at is, what the hell’s out there? Why leave good hunting grounds for nothing?”

  “Alpha Centauri’s out there,” Roan said.

  “Alpha . . . That’s the place you said the real ITN was. Cripes, Chief, I thought you said we was through with that chasing around.”

  Roan came to his feet. “What do you think this is, a ladies’ discussion circle? I gave you an order, and by the nine hells, you’ll carry it out!”

  Askor looked at him. “You sound more like old Cap’n Dread all the time,” he said. “I’ll follow your orders, Cap’n. I always have. I know I ain’t smart; I need somebody with brains to tell me what to do. I just made the mistake of thinking we could talk about it.”

  “We’ve talked enough,” Roan cut him off. “You plot your course to raid every second-rate planet between here and Alpha, if that’s what it takes to make you happy. Just don’t forget where we’re headed.”

  Askor was grinning again. “That’s more like it, Chief,” he said. “This is what the boys been waiting for. Boy, what a cruise; It’ll be a ten-year run, cutting into new territory all the way!”

  “And no more talk about ghost-ships! Or live Niss either.”

  “Okay, Cap’n. But with some good targets in sight, it’ll take more than a shipload of spooks to scare the boys off.”

  After Askor left the bridge, Roan sat for a long time staring into the main viewscreen, with its spreading pattern of glittering stars.

  So much for the next ten years, he thought. After that. . . .

  But there’d be time enough to plan that when the sun called Alpha Centauri filled the screens.

  XXVII

  Roan sprawled in his favorite deep-leather chair in the genuine wood-paneled officer’s lounge of the heavy cruiser Archaeopteryx—which had served the freebooters as home for seven years now, since a stray missile had uncovered the underground depot in which the retreating ITN had concealed it, fifty-seven hundred years before.

  Sidis sat across from him. His grin was ragged now with the Absence of five front teeth, carried away by a shell fragment in an engagement off Rastoum the previous year. Poion perched in his special seat, fitted up to ease the stump of his left leg, toying with a massive silver wine goblet. Askor was tilted back with a boot on the mahogany table-top, paring chunks from a wedge of black cheese and forcing them into his capacious mouth.

  “I called you here,” Roan said, “to tell you the cruise is nearly over. The story that last batch of prisoners told fits in. The sun ahead is Alpha.”

  “Not many of the old bunch still around, hey, Cap’n?” Sidis observed. “Bolu, Honest Max, Yack—all gone.”

  “Whaddaya expect?” Askor inquired, with his mouth full. He lifted his alabaster chalice and washed the cheese down with green Bacchus wine, then belched heartily. “We been on, lessee, twenty-one raids in the last eleven years, and fought three deep-space engagements with wise-guy local patrols.”

  “You can reminisce later,” Roan said. “I expect the ITN to pick us up on their screens any day now. I don’t like that, but it can’t be helped. If they let us alone however, I’m making planetfall on the fourth world of the system. According to the records. ITN Headquarters is on the second. “I’ll take one of our scout boats from there and make the run in alone.”

  “Whaddaya mean, alone?” Askor butted in. “You need all the boys along on that caper, Chief, if I know my Terries!”

  “I don’t expect any trouble. And if I did, I’d still go in alone. A show of force wouldn’t buy me anything against the whole ITN. I’m paying a peaceful call, that’s all.”

  “From the stories we been hearing, I got my doubts the ITN has a cheery welcome for nosy strangers. What you want with them Terries anyways, Chief?”

  “I’m a Terry myself,” Roan said shortly.

  “In his origins a b
eing finds hints of his destiny,” Poion murmured. “Alas, our captain knows his not.”

  wait for me on planet I four,” Roan went on. “And stay under cover. If I’m not back in . . . ten days, you’re on your own.”

  “Hey, you mean . . .?” Sidis grin was sagging, hooked up on the bad side by twisted scar tissue. He looked from Roan to Askor to Poion. “You’re talking about letting the captain walk in there alone? And where does that leave the rest of us?”

  “You’ll be all right,” Roan said. “You’ll be happy. You can raid back down through the Eastern Arm and shoot up everything in sight, without me to nag you.”

  “Just like that, huh? Thirteen years together, and then, srrikk!” He made a cutting motion across his throat.

  “I didn’t take you to raise,” Roan growled. “I remember you the day we met. You were pounding some Ycthan’s brains out against the bulkhead. You were doing all right.”

  “Back out through the Ghost Fleet, alone?” Sidis’s grin was a grimace now. “To the Ninth Hell with that! I’m going with you, Cap’n!”

  “I’m going alone,” Roan said flatly.

  “Then you’ll have to shoot me, Cap’n,” Sidis said distinctly.

  Roan nodded quietly. “That could be arranged.”

  “And me too,” Askor said. “Count me in.”

  “And I,” Poion said. “I shall go or die, as my captain wills.”

  Roan looked from one to another. He lifted his glass and took a long draught, put it back on the table.

  “You’re that scared of the ghosts of departed Terries?”

  Nobody spoke.

  “You Gooks amaze me,” Roan said. “All right, we four. But no more.”

  Sidis’s grin was back in place. Askor grunted and carved off another slab of cheese. Poion nodded.

  “It is well,” he said. “We four.”

  “Gungle,” Roan asked, “you think you can navigate the Archaeopteryx now?”

  “Yeah, Chief,” Gungle said, grinning his snaggle-toothed Minid grin.

  “Yeah, I think. You show me what to feed in, I feed it in.”

  “Suppose you were captain now. What course would you set?”

  “No offense, Chief, but I’d plug in a straight line back to East Sector. Me and the boys, we heard back on Leeto about the Terry Ghost Fleets. There ain’t no civilization for parsecs. Just these dead worlds like Centaurus Four here, without even no air.”

  “What are your coordinates for the nearest allblood joy city?” Gungle grinned wider, flicked a chart of the Eastern Sector on the navigation screen and punched out a course to Leeto.

  “Okay,” said Roan. “You’re captain in full charge until I get back.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m taking Poion, Askor and Sidis with me to Centaurus Two.” Gungle gaped. Roan took the heavy gem he’d worn on his chest since Alda Cerise and tossed it to the Minid, who hung it around his neck and threw his shoulders back and stood proud, the grin turning to a stern look of dignity.

  “Now pipe the crew up,” Roan told him.

  “Men,” he said, when they had all assembled. “I’m going to leave you for a while.” He raised a hand to still the muttering that started up. “Meanwhile Gungle’s captain, and he’ll do any gut-splitting that’s necessary. And anybody that’s got any ideas about anybody else being captain had better think twice. That’s my Terran magic jewel Gungle’s wearing. As long as he wears it nothing can touch him.”

  The men rolled their eyes at Gungle and made magical signs in twenty-four different religions. But no one raised any objection.

  XXVIII

  “That thing really magic?” Sidis asked, as the scout boat nosed on toward the brilliant star that was Centaurus Two, with Archaeopteryx four days astern, outward bound for Leeto.

  “It created magic in the heart of Gungle,” Poion answered. “He is now a man and a leader. It created magic in the hearts of the crew as well. They fear him. All this I could feel very plainly.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not what I mean,” Sidis started.

  “Look!” Roan was pointing at the forward viewscreen.

  “A ship,” Askor said. “Heavy stuff, too!”

  “It didn’t take ’em long to spot us,” Sidis said. “Somebody’s awake in these parts.”

  “We’ll hold our course steady as she goes,” Roan said. “Leave the first move up to them.”

  “What if the first move is a fifty megaton her amidships?” Sidis inquired.

  “That’ll be a sign we ain’t wanted,” Askor grunted.

  Roan tuned the all wave receiver, picked up star-static, a faint murmur of distant planetary communications. Then the drone of a powerful carrier came through.

  “Inbound boat, heave to and identify yourself,” a voice barked in a peculiarly intoned Panterran.

  “Survivors from the merchant vessel Archaeopteryx,” Roan transmitted. “On course for the second planet. Who are you?”

  “This is the Imperial Terran Navy talking. Ye’re in Navy space. Stand by to receive a boarding party and ho tricks or we’ll blow ye to kingdom come.”

  “Are we glad to see you” Roan transmitted. “Any hot coffee aboard?”

  But there was no answer, and the four ex-pirates watched the Terran vessel growing in their tiny view screen.

  “Ah, Captain,” Poion observed sadly, “again the Terran Navy is a disappointment. You look for home and there is no home.”

  “Your emotion receiver’s working overtime.” Roan said. “But I admit our welcome lacked warmth.”

  “Me, I feel like a fly that’s about to get swatted,” Sidis said. “Why don’t you ever read my emotions, Poion?”

  “You’re too stupid to have emotions,” Askor said. “We shoulda brought Trixie in. She could handle that Terry tub.”

  The ITN vessel came in, paced the tiny scout boat at a distance of fifty miles and then came alongside, looming like a dull-metal planetoid. There was a heavy shock as its magnetic grapples embraced the boat.

  “Open up there!” the harsh but strangely cultivated sounding voice said from the communicator.

  Roan nodded to Askor. He operated the control and the four pairs of eyes watched the lock cycle open. Hot, dense air wooshed into the boat from the higher-pressure interior of the naval vessel, bringing odors of food and tobacco and a pervading animal stink.

  Askor snorted. “Terries! I can smell ’em!”

  Boots clanged against metal decking. A tall, lean man wearing an open blue tunic over a bare chest ducked through the lock. He had a lined, triangular face, and there was sweat glittering across his forehead and chest. His, pale eyes were restless. He gripped a powerful rifle with both hands and looked at the three massive humanoids and then past them at Roan.

  “Who are ye?” he demanded of Roan, ignoring the others.

  “Roan Cornay, master of the Archaeopteryx.”

  “Who’re these beauties?” he jerked his chin at the three Gooks, not looking at them.

  “My crew. We were all that got out.”

  “You go aboard,” the man said to Roan, keeping the power rifle pointed at him. “These others stay here.”

  Roan hesitated a moment. Poion caught his feeling and nodded imperceptibly at Askor. Then Roan stepped accommodatingly toward the port behind the Man, and as he passed he half-turned, quickly, slammed the gun from the Terran’s hands with a lightning blow. Askor caught it, flipped it up and let it point casually at its former owner.

  “I prefer to keep my crew with me,” Roan said calmly.

  The Man had flattened his back against a bulkhead and his mouth was open. “Ye’re stark, raving mad!” he said. “I’m Navy. One yell . . .”

  “. . . and I’ll have your guts plastered on the ceiling,” Askor said, grinning. “Whattaya say, Cap’n. Let him have it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Roan said, watching a rivulet of sweat that was crawling along the Man’s neck. “Maybe he’s going to be nice after all. Maybe he’ll extend the hosp
itality of his ship to all of us. How about it, Terry?”

  And Roan smiled an ironic grin at himself. This was the first time he’d called anybody else Terry. And it came out like a dirty word.

  Askor nodded. “He’ll need to point his pop gun at us.” Askor pushed a thumb against the firing stud of the Man’s power rifle and bent it out of line. He tossed it back to the Man. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We won’t tell nobody it don’t shoot.”

  Roan walked close behind the Man as he went through the port into the Navy ship. “No need to be nervous.” Roan told the Terran. “Just say all the right things when you see your buddies.”

  A small, roundly built man with a high, pale forehead stood waiting for them in the hold. He wore the tarnished silver leaf of an ITN commander on the shoulder of his uniform and he was flanked by four armed Men. He had small, dim eyes that squinted at Roan and his companions, as though the brilliant lighting of the hold blinded him.

  “Some reason why ye didn’t dump ’em back out into space, Draco?”

  Draco cleared his throat. “Distressed spacemen, Commander Hullwright.”

  Commander Hullwright frowned, still looking hard at Roan. “Aren’t they all. But I see. This one seems . . .”

  “Yes, sir,” Draco said quickly. “He’s Terran, but I don’t think he even knows it. That’s why I brought him in to you.”

  Hullwright grunted, but to Draca’s obvious relief he was looking at Roan and ignoring the others.

  “Ye speak a little Panterran?” the commander asked Roan.

  “Yes. I recognized your voice.”

  “Then why didn’t ye answer me hail?”

  “I did.”

  “Hmmmph. Blasted receiver’s prob’ly out again. Draco, see to it.” Draco drifted back, eyeing Askor and Sidis nervously, and Commander Hullwright forgot about him again.