FORTUNE'S LIGHT

by Michael Jan Friedman

  As before, their voices rose, cutting through the overall din, and subsided after a moment or two. Riker could tell now that they were gathered around something, but he couldn’t tell what.

  As he and Lyneea approached, he got a better idea.

  There was a pit in the back of the tavern, cut somewhat haphazardly into the floor. Inside it, leaping and snarling, was a black and sinewy isak.

  Unlike the big ones Riker had seen used as watchdogs and zoo exhibits, this isak was barely an adult. But still, it must have stood a good three feet high at its powerful shoulder, and it sported a collection of teeth already too prodigious to fit easily into its cruel, blunted snout.

  What’s more, the isak was spitting mad, its blood lust fanned to a frenzy, and for good reason. An Impriman had been lowered into the pit and was being passed around its perimeter, from one pair of hands to the next, his heels dangling just inches above the swiping paws of the enraged beast.

  Will took Lyneea’s arm, and she looked up at him. “This,” he asked, “is what we’re supposed to take part in? This is our test?”

  She nodded. “We’ll put our lives in the hands of these people. If none of them have a reason to distrust us—and they should have no such reason—we will come through unscathed. However, if one of them believes that we are dangerous or that we are something other than what we seem . . .” She regarded Riker meaningfully. “Someone’s hands may slip. It will be officially considered an accident.”

  He looked at the pit and the isak, then back at Lyneea. “How often does one of these accidents take place?”

  “Not often. But then, one does not generally offer oneself up if there is a possibility of slippery hands.”

  Riker winced a little as the animal’s claws raked the boot of the Impriman suspended over the pit. The man pulled his feet up instinctively, and the crowd lifted him another hand’s breadth.

  “And in our case?” he asked. “What are the chances of someone here knowing what we’re about?”

  She shook her head. “It’s highly unlikely. We’ve taken every precaution to keep our mission a secret. Of course, if you are concerned about your safety, I can go first.”

  Will felt the heat of his machismo rising into his face.

  “No,” he told her. “It will be my pleasure.”

  A couple of moments later the Impriman in the pit was raised up—sweat dripping off him, a rictus of a grin on his face.

  “Who’s next?” called a tall, broad-shouldered Pandrilite. He looked around the group that circled the pit. “Who’s got the guts?”

  As if echoing the question, the isak snarled. It was a sound like ripping metal.

  “I do,” said Riker, turning sideways to cut a path through the tightly clustered bodies.

  Suddenly all eyes were on him, sizing him up, trying to figure out why a man who wasn’t even drunk yet would want to take his chances in the pit.

  But at least some of them had figured it out, because they were looking in the bartender’s direction. Looking and understanding.

  “All right,” said the Pandrilite. “Step right up and have your heels cleaned.”

  With a last glance at Lyneea—whose grin might not have been all for show—he took hold of the Pandrilite’s hand and then that of someone else—a Maratekkan, but thankfully a big one.

  If he thought they were going to lower him slowly, he had another think coming. For a fraction of a second he felt as if they had simply thrown him to the beast.

  Instinctively he brought his knees up, tried to grab for the edge of the pit. But they hadn’t let go of him after all.

  The isak leapt and snapped, and he could feel its muzzle brush the soles of his boots, just barely feel it, as if a feather had touched him, instead of the business end of a flesh-and-blood killing machine.

  Then the passing began, the hand-off from one sweaty grip to the next. Up top, the faces quickly became indistinguishable from one another. Pandrilite blurred into Andorian, Andorian into Rhadamanthan, Rhadamanthan into Impriman. Down below, the beast in the pit was death on a spring—leaping up for a meal one moment, falling to earth the next.

  The music and the laughter and the cries of encouragement made a din in his ears, amplified by the korsch, punctuated by the isak’s blood-stopping screams. A stench came up to him, of rotting meat and animal droppings and Impriman parasites.

  But underneath it all, underneath the madness, judgments were being made. Judgments that would determine how close he came to those gnashing teeth and razor-sharp claws.

  His arms and shoulders were growing sore from the strain; his lower back was aching. He felt a sharp pain as a claw raked his ankle—nothing crippling, but bad enough to draw blood.

  Damn, Riker. How could you let yourself be talked into this?

  And then it happened. One hand let go of him. Another took its place, but it never got a good enough grip. Whether the hand was too slick with perspiration or the slip was purposeful he would never know.

  He swung sideways, held only by a single hand now, and glanced off the hard dirt wall of the pit, his stretchedout rib muscles bellowing in agony. Felt the grip that was his only hope start to yield, unable to bear his entire weight.

  Riker heard someone shriek—just before he fell.

  If it had all happened at once, he would have been isak meat—period. But in the couple of seconds he spent dangling by one hand, he’d had time to prepare himself. To gather his wits.

  So as he slid down the side of the pit, he was ready for the beast’s frantic charge. As soon as he saw the first hint of those hell-coal eyes, those flashing teeth, he ducked and rolled.

  A bolt of black lightning struck the dirt wall where he’d been, but by then he was on the other side of the pit, trying to get his balance. The isak didn’t waste any time. It whirled and pounced—this time, before he could quite set himself.

  Somehow he managed to elude it again. His tunic was torn away where the beast had gotten its jaws into it, but the body beneath seemed to be intact.

  Riker hadn’t expected to survive one charge, much less two. By the time the isak collected itself a third time, he knew he’d run out of luck.

  Panting, trembling with his exertions, he couldn’t scramble to his feet fast enough. He saw the beast spring—a slavering, roiling mass of coal-black fury—and braced himself as best he could.

  The animal was heavier than it looked—the impact of its charge knocked the breath out of him. He fell back against the pit wall, wrestling with the isak, trying to keep its nightmare of a muzzle away from the soft flesh of his throat.

  Strangely it wasn’t all that difficult. In fact, it was laughably easy. The isak wasn’t struggling at all.

  The damned thing was unconscious! Something had stunned it as it went for him.

  Thrusting the beast off him, Riker looked up. And saw confusion among the revelers—the turning of heads to determine who had ruined their fun.

  But Riker knew who it had been. The same slender Impriman who now leaned out from the brink of the pit and offered him her hand.

  In her other hand, he saw, was a crude-looking pistol, which she was just now restoring to its place of concealment. The weapon was primitive enough, no doubt, to get around the Besidian prohibition against high technology at carnival time. If he searched the pit, he’d probably find the projectile that had knocked out the isak.

  “Nice shot,” he told her as he accepted the offer of help. “Though it might have come a few seconds sooner.”

  “Stop talking,” she said, “and start climbing. If we hurry, we can turn this fiasco into something productive.”

  Lyneea proved stronger than she looked. Bracing herself, she gave him all the leverage he needed to scramble up the wall and out of the pit.

  “Productive?” he asked, brushing himself off, feeling the pain in his ankle now where the beast had clawed him. He returned a couple of the stares he was getting from disgruntled patrons as they complained about the unfair use of a g
un against a poor defenseless isak.

  “Yes,” she said, grabbing his wrist and dragging him after her through the crowd. “Productive. Nobody here is going to talk to us, not after you failed their sincerity test.” She shoved aside a fellow Impriman who’d made the mistake of getting in her way. “But just as you fell into the pit, I saw someone bolt out of here. And if I’m not mistaken, it was the muzza who dropped you.”

  Riker caught her drift. Anyone might have let him slip—all it meant was that they didn’t like the smell of him. But to drop him and then run—that suggested something more. That suggested a measure of guilt—if they were lucky—in the matter of Teller Conlon and Fortune’s Light.

  Suddenly he and Lyneea were out of the tavern and into the frigid white vault of Besidia. She let go of his wrist, scanned the snow-covered ground for a moment, and pointed.

  There were lots of footprints there, but most of them had been filled in with drift. Only one set stood out clear and distinct, fresh as baby’s breath and twice as sweet.

  Without another word, Lyneea took off along the path described by the tracks. They led across a small plaza into a benighted alleyway, but that didn’t seem to daunt her one bit.

  Riker couldn’t stand there while his reluctant companion was giving chase. Tugging his tunic closed where the isak had ripped it open, he plunged after her into the shadows.

  Chapter Four

  BASEBALL WAS one of the topics for which Data had no references in his positronic memory. But in the short time since he’d left the locker room, he had managed to learn a great deal about it. First, during batting practice, he had observed and familiarized himself with its component acts—pitching, hitting, running, throwing, and catching, all of which had been in progress on one part of the field or another.

  Then came the more difficult part—identifying the game’s objectives and rules. He could deduce some of that from the physical characteristics of the playing field and even more from offhand references made around the batting cage. The android had been able to clear up much of his confusion through casual conversations with the other players. He also found out that, due to the injuries the clubhouse man had referred to, Terwilliger had no choice but to start him in this game.

  However, even after the game began, there were gaps in Data’s comprehension. So during the first half of the first inning, while he stood beside third base with his glove on his hand, he observed as carefully as he could—not only the occurrences at home plate but also those on the pitcher’s mound, in the field, on the scoreboard, and even in the stands.

  Before he knew it, however, his teammates were trotting off, abandoning their positions. Taking the hint, he trotted off with them.

  But no sooner was he in the dugout than Terwilliger grabbed him by his shirtfront. The man was half a head shorter than Data, with a rounded physique that one did not associate with physical presence. But there was something about Terwilliger’s eyes that the android found compelling.

  “Listen,” he said, “you cocky son of a bitch, I don’t know where you think you are, but I want that empty, echoing head of yours in the game!”

  “In the game?” the android repeated, groping for comprehension. Here, as elsewhere, much of the vernacular still eluded him.

  “That’s right, you worthless heap of Triple A garbage! Here you are, a rookie, privileged to play in a game like this one, and you’re staring at the sky, the stands—everywhere but where you should be staring! Those guys know you’re a green apple. You think they’re not going to test you? Maybe lay down a little ol’ bunt and see how badly you trip over your feet trying to come up with it?”

  It took Data a moment to glean some sense out of Terwilliger’s tirade. “Are you suggesting,” he asked, “that my attention should have been more focused? Actually I would welcome any recommendations in that regard.”

  The man’s face seemed to change colors then. Yes, decided the android. It was noticeably redder, noticeably darker.

  “Is that back talk?” he asked, in a hushed voice.

  Data shrugged. “I do not know what back talk is. I was merely attempting to improve my understanding of baseball.”

  Terwilliger’s eyes narrowed. He seemed to hesitate—as confused, in a way, as Data himself. When he spoke—not to the android, but to one of his coaches—his voice was still hushed, but it had a cutting edge to it.

  “Is this guy for real?” he asked.

  “They say he is,” came the response. “And, Willie, we need a guy with some punch in the lineup.”

  Terwilliger spat. He turned to Data again. “Tell you what, Bogdonovich. I got a game to manage here. But we’ll discuss this later—you can be sure of that.”

  “Thank you,” said the android. Naturally he understood that the man was preoccupied with the situation at hand. His questions could wait. He was grateful that Terwilliger was offering to answer them at all.

  As Data watched the manager stalk off, he reflected that he was already profiting from this holodeck experience. Terwilliger’s management style was different from Captain Picard’s—vastly different. His approach seemed to hinge more on emotion and physical confrontation than on confidence and clear thinking. It was most intriguing.

  Suddenly there was a hand on Data’s shoulder. He turned and traced it to its owner—Denyabe, the second baseman.

  “Pay no attention,” said the black man, grinning. “You just play your game.”

  Recognizing it for the encouragement it was, the android smiled back and watched Denyabe stride out onto the field, bat in hand.

  Removing his glove, Data chose a spot on the bench and sat down. As the Icebreaker second baseman approached the plate, the crowd responded with a huge roar. It could be felt in the vibration of the stadium structure as well as heard.

  Cordoban, the left fielder, had explained to Data during batting practice that this was the Icebreakers’ home field. Therefore the spectators were expected to cheer for them more than for the visitors, though after the Icebreakers’ spate of defeats in recent weeks, the fans were as likely to jeer as to provide positive reinforcement.

  Apparently, in Denyabe’s case, the crowd had decided to be charitable. The android heard nothing but accolades.

  Nor did their optimism go unrewarded. On the very first pitch Denyabe drove a ball between the shortstop and the third baseman. It bounced twice before it reached the outfielder, and by that time Denyabe had reached first base.

  It was, as Data had learned earlier, a single—a promising development, though one that did not necessarily result in a score. That would depend on the success of the batters who followed.

  The next man in the lineup was Sakahara, the Icebreaker catcher. He walked with a slight limp, and his left wrist was taped—reflecting injuries that had hampered his performance of late and contributed to the team’s decline. Or so the android gathered from his conversations with the clubhouse man and others.

  “If Sakahara gets some hits, we win.” That had been Cordoban’s opinion, expressed as they watched the catcher take batting practice. “He goes hitless, we lose. It’s that simple.”

  With that in mind, the android was intent on Sakahara’s performance. Apparently, so was the opposing team; as the first pitch was delivered, the infielders participated in a complicated maneuver that had the first and third basemen approaching the batter rather precipitously—with little regard, it appeared, for their safety.

  A second later Data saw the reason for the move—as Sakahara squared around to bunt. However, after the ball hit his bat, it plunked down in foul territory.

  “Stee-rike!” called the umpire.

  On the next pitch, the fielders shifted again, and again Sakahara failed to bunt effectively. This time, in fact, he missed the ball entirely.

  “Stee-rike two!”

  The crowd responded by hooting volubly. It was an unpleasant sound. For Sakahara it must have been even more so.

  On the third pitch he was not expected to bunt. As Dat
a had learned, one did not bunt with two strikes. If the ball went foul, it would mean the end of the batter’s opportunity to score runs for his team—at least until it was his turn again to bat.

  This time the infielders remained at their positions. No one charged toward home plate.

  Then, to everyone’s surprise, Sakahara bunted down the third base line—a fair ball. Limp and all, he raced toward first base while Denyabe headed for second.

  Caught unaware, the opposing team’s third baseman started in for the ball. However, by the time he picked it up, he was too late to make a play. Both Sakahara and Denyabe had secured safe positions on their respective bases.

  The hit was a source of great satisfaction to all in the Icebreaker dugout as well as to the crowd.

  Only Terwilliger seemed unencouraged by it. He just glared at Data.

  “You see?” he said, pointing to the field of play as he approached the android. “The third baseman was in dreamland—just like you, Bogdonovich. If he’d known anything about Sakahara, he’d have charged that ball and nailed him at first. Take a lesson, rookie. And get your rear end out to the on-deck circle—or do I have to get someone to show you where it is?”

  Data held up his hand. “That will not be necessary. I know where it is.”

  Terwilliger looked at him. That was all—he just looked at him. His eyes seemed rounder than usual, and they were red around the edges.

  “Come on,” one of the coaches said to Data. “Get out of here before Terwilliger has a heart attack.”

  Like much he had encountered in this program, Data didn’t understand the implied causality of the remark. But it was his turn to be on deck, so he chose a bat from the rack and headed for the appropriate spot.

  In the meantime, the Icebreakers’ first baseman, a big fellow named Galanti, had come up to bat. The first pitch thrown to him was a ball—a term that Data had thought a bit obvious until he learned its specialized meaning. The second pitch, too, was a ball.