by Steve Perry
Then the man with the air pistol grinned widely and pointed the weapon at Juete. “Your time is come, twat.”
Khadaji went cold. Without pausing, he vaulted the bar, hit the floor, and took two running steps. He reached out, clamped his hands onto the air pistol and twisted, swinging his arms in a hard half-circle in front of his face. The torque snapped the gunman from his feet; Khadaji heard the man’s wrist break as the pistol clattered onto the wooden floor. All of Pen’s training seemed to focus as Khadaji kicked the pistol away and watched the killer fall. Khadaji was in control, he knew just what he had to do. He turned to face the second man, who was also trying to turn and bring the hand wand to bear. He didn’t need to be accurate, the pulse was much like a shot sprayer, and he was almost there—
Khadaji saw the flash of bright steel, a blur in the dim light—
The hand holding the wand jerked away from the rest of the man’s arm and fell with a clump and clatter. The man screamed and clutched his bloody wrist with his other hand.
He went pale and collapsed, the red pumping from the stump with each pulse. Khadaji looked away from the bleeding man to see Kamus holding a sword with both wrinkled and knobby hands. For a second, the younger man could see what the older must have been like many years past, the fire was dimmer now, but still there.
“Get the medics,” Kamus said.
Somebody ran for the com.
Gretyl found a pressure patch and managed to fit it to the severed wrist, to stop the bleeding.
“Save the hand,” Kamus ordered. “Stick it in a foam bag and put in the cooler for the medics.”
Khadaji was feeling ill. The adrenalin in him was ebbing and he felt tired, afraid, and shaky. It was a reaction he’d felt after battles, he knew it would pass, but the desire to run and hide was strong.
Someone touched his shoulder. Juete. “Thank you,” she said. “He was going to kill me.”
Despite a feeling of nausea and his jittery hands, Khadaji felt a strong desire for the exotic, he wanted to grab her, to kiss her, to tear the thin body stocking away and feel her naked against him. Was it the violence? Or were her pheromones raging from her own fear, singing to him? He managed a short nod. “No problem,” he said. “You know them?”
“I used to work for him.” She glanced at the man with the broken wrist. “He was my… agent.”
Khadaji nodded again. He didn’t ask what kind of work she had done for a man who had just killed another. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Juete reached up to touch Khadaji’s arm, just above the elbow. Her fingers were warm even through the shirt he wore. “You took a great risk for me.” Her voice was soft, deep and it seemed to draw at something in his core.
“Well. I can’t have people shooting my servers, can I?” It sounded inept and foolish even as he said it, but it broke the tension. Juete laughed, and Khadaji with her. She smiled at him, her hand still touching his arm. “Yes. There is more to you than you would reveal, I can sense that. Perhaps we can talk later?”
Khadaji’s mouth was full of glue, his tongue was made of lead, his throat constricted with plastcrete; he couldn’t even nod this time. But she could see it in his face, and she smiled again.
“Fun’s over, people,” Kamus said. “Suppose we clean up and get back to work.” He prodded the man with the broken wrist with the tip of the sword and the man stood and walked toward the bar. In a few moments, the medics and nabs arrived to haul away the dead and injured. Mang would survive, but he would be out of action for a month, the other customers would live, as well. Only the man Juete’s “agent” had killed was beyond help, and that because of the brain injury. Kamus’s sword hadn’t damaged the wrist or hand of the wandslinger too badly, the limb would be reconnected easily enough. But despite the deaths and injuries, Khadaji counted the affair as a plus. Juete had smiled at him, had touched him.
The rest of the shift passed in a kind of limbo. Khadaji mixed the drinks automatically, while Kamus polished the blood from his sword, occasionally laughing to himself softly as he wiped the mirror steel.
Chapter Ten
PEN SHOWED HIM the knife before they went outside. Khadaji hefted the weapon, made a few slashes in the air, then stared at the blade. “It looks like a banana,” he said.
Pen nodded. “It’s based on the shape of a tooth, actually. In the southern part of the subcontinent there used to be a saber-toothed carnivore, a large cat-like beast. It had a set of slashing tusks on the sides of its mouth, four of them, pointing down.”
Khadaji had learned to pay attention to the next question any such statement by Pen invariably brought up. So he asked it. “Why would a creature evolve such natural weaponry, I wonder?”
“Roots,” Pen said. Khadaji thought he detected a pleased note in his voice. “The southern region is rocky and full of caves. A lot of wildlife used to inhabit the caves, and that’s where the predator did its hunting. There is a kind of plant which traps its victims in a sticky root system and then drains the fluids from the body. The tusks seemed to have evolved for slashing the roots.”
“Interesting. And efficient.”
“Not in the long run,” Pen said. “The plants are still there, they are very tenacious. Men have put the predators down.”
Khadaji glanced at the knife. The handle was of some dark and close-grained wood; there was a brass cap where it met the curved steel, which was sharp on the inner edge of the curve; the back of the blade had a notched, serrated pattern near the handle. Holding the knife with the point toward the floor, it was easy to imagine it being the tooth of some meat-eating creature.
“There is a lot of mining done in that region,” Pen continued. “The saber-tooth knives were popular among the miners in the early days of men on this world. Hand-burners sometimes flamed out or had power packs go dead. A knife was more dependable.”
Khadaji got the distinct impression Pen was trying to make some point, but he wasn’t certain just what it was. “Seems to me it would be easier to avoid the roots,” he said.
“Ah, but that’s the trick. The things grew incredibly fast, were resistant to most herbicides, and had a trick of hugging the roof or walls of a cave or tunnel, of blending into the surface so they were difficult to see. Then, when an animal—or man—moved past, they were triggered.”
When did he learn all this? “I see.”
“Yes. Sometimes trouble cannot be avoided. And in some cases, the most simple preparations are the wisest.”
Pen extended his hand and Khadaji passed the knife to him. “Shall we?” Pen turned toward the door of their cubicle. Khadaji followed him outside.
It was dark, of course. One of the planet’s two moons was visible, and there were thousands of stars in the galaxy’s edge to the clump of the Whore’s Pubes. It was warm and humid and insects buzzed drowsily in air which smelled faintly of wood smoke. The two men walked to a clear patch under a circle of low-sode light cast by the yard lamp.
Pen turned and faced Khadaji. The man in the gray shroud seemed relaxed, there was no special stance to mark his intent. The curved knife was held low, by his right leg, invisible. Khadaji knew it was there, just as he knew what his teacher was about to do with—
Pen… shifted. He didn’t lunge or leap or fly; he simply moved, somehow scooting across the two meters which separated them; it was incredibly fast. He snapped the knife up, edge leading sickle-like, the point aimed at Khadaji’s scrotum. If it connected it would gut him from groin to sternum, Khadaji knew.
Khadaji stepped aside. There was no jerkiness in his movement, it was an unhurried shift much like Pen’s own motion.
Pen converted the upward slash into a loop across his body and out to his side, a backhand for Khadaji’s throat.
Khadaji ducked and the knife cut only air over his head. He slid back another step, anticipating Pen’s next strike.
Pen continued his circular motion, whipping the knife over and down, so it would have buried its point in the top of Kha
daji’s skull—had he not moved.
Pen stepped back a meter and faced Khadaji. He brought the knife behind his back, out of sight. “Ah. So your encounter last night in the pub has changed you.”
Khadaji smiled. “Those men would have killed me.”
“And if you fail to move, I won’t?” Pen edged closer. “You think I would pull my strike?”
“No. But you don’t want me to die. If you hit me, I think you would drop the knife and do your best to keep me alive.”
“You think so? If my sumito teaching is a failure, why would you be worth keeping alive?” He moved, and the knife became a blur as he slashed, a figure-eight criss-cross.
Khadaji backed up easily, staying just out of range. He said, “There’s a difference. It’s hard to explain. I feel the energy—you’re a teacher—they were killers.”
Pen laughed. “Were you afraid of them?”
“Yes. More after it was over.”
“Good. But you didn’t let your fear paralyze you.”
Khadaji shifted a hair to his left, ready for Pen’s next attack. “There’s something else,” he said. “I was afraid, but I was also a lot more alive. And I was… worried.”
Pen made another pass, slicing the warm darkness with the knife based on the tooth of a long-dead predator. Khadaji moved from his path; this time, he snapped his own hand up, the edge leading, and chopped at Pen’s wrist. Pen managed to pull his hand back, twisting the knife to cut, but both attacks missed. “Good,” Pen said. “You were worried, you said. About the exotic?”
“Yes.”
Pen spun in toward Khadaji, the knife whirling like a rotor blade. Khadaji dropped to the ground and rolled to the side, then back up, out of range. He tried a sweep with his right leg, but Pen jumped over his foot and stabbed at his face. This time, Khadaji’s block connected solidly and knocked the hand with the weapon away. Pen switched the knife to his opposite hand.
“I’m not one to give advice on such things,” Pen said. “We of the Shroud tend to believe in teaching those things we know we can teach, and in affairs of the heart—or gonads—there are no real experts. Love, like zen, cannot be learned, only felt.”
Khadaji thought about that for a moment as Pen circled to his left, holding the knife loosely. “But you have an opinion about her.”
Pen shrugged. “What I think isn’t important. What you think is, in this case. I have been on the Disk for what seems a long time; one passes the same point more than once, even though it is usually at an upward or downward spiral.”
Again, Pen moved, the knife leading.
Again, Khadaji shifted away from the killing blade. He tried to trip his teacher as he passed, but missed.
“Is that why you don’t tell me about the Shroud?” Khadaji asked. “Do you feel as if it’s something which can’t be taught?”
“Hardly. It’s just that your circuit lies in another plane. You’ll never be a priest, Emile. You will be a great man, in your own way. Eventually.”
There came another attack. Even as he moved, Khadaji saw the end of this series. He knew he was in perfect balance, in total control of himself. Since Pen was attacking, he had that small disadvantage of the attacker, despite his own years of sumito practice. An attacker must reach beyond himself; a defender did not need to; this gave the edge to a defender, assuming equal skill otherwise.
Pen cut downward with the root knife; Khadaji pivoted and flipped the heel of his right hand into Pen’s shoulder, at the same time he caught Pen’s left wrist with his own left hand. Khadaji twisted, and the knife spun from Pen’s grip, falling in a lazy twirl to stick in the bare ground. Khadaji continued the movement, levering Pen past him as he dropped to one knee. Pen stumbled as Khadaji released his grip, then dived into a perfect roll, an egg rather than a ball. He came up and stepped around casually to face Khadaji. “Very good,” he said. “Excellent.”
Khadaji grinned. It was the first time since they’d begun training, almost a year now, that he’d ever thrown Pen. He was both pleased and proud. Although there was a small voice in the back of his mind which wondered if maybe the old man hadn’t allowed it, for reasons of his own.
The dim lights reflected in the bright red plastic of the bar’s surface gave her face a rosy glow as she smiled at him. “Would you like to have breakfast with me after the shift ends?”
“Yes,” he said, feeling his heart pound faster. “I’d like that very much.”
“Good. I have some stuffed Mikkel leaves a friend brought back from the bright belt, I’ll cook them for us.”
Khadaji swallowed dryness as he watched her walk away carrying her tray of chem. Breakfast. In her cube. Alone. He felt the beginnings of an erection stir, and he quickly turned back to his next order. She only asked you to have breakfast with her, fool, nothing more. That’s all. But he spilled half a bottle of wine as he visualized her stripping the body stocking away. It would never happen, he thought.
She had black silk sheets on her bed and the contrast between them and her naked skin was incredible. His own brown arm looked somehow alien as he reached across her breasts to squeeze her shoulder. He pulled her against him, kissing her softly. Her lips flowered and parted and her tongue slowly slid along the sides of his own tongue. “Ummm.” Her voice was a small moan. He leaned back, breaking the kiss, and looked at her. Definitely pink eyes. And pink nipples, budded up like tiny hard roses now. Perfectly white pubic hair, as fine and downy as that on a baby’s head. Her body was slender and taut, the muscles firm as she moved back against him. He slid his hand down her back and over one buttock, marvelling at the smoothness of her perfect too-pale skin. He moved his hand around over her hip, feeling the padded sharpness of the bone pointing at him. She lifted her leg and pointed her toes at the ceiling, opening up for him. Her vaginal lips were delicate, hot and slick, and she moaned again as he traced them, first the outer, then the inner. She shuddered as he touched her clitoris, and dug her fingers into the hard muscles of his back. He slid down, then, to taste her there, to smell the musk of her as he softly waggled his tongue back and forth, following the path his fingers had taken a moment before, tasting and probing gently, then deeper, nibbling at her lips with his own.
“Oh, gods,” she said. “Yes!”
He lifted her legs with his hands, pushing her knees back, raising her higher and wider. He stabbed deeper with his tongue. She began to move against his mouth, in that oldest of rhythms. She came hard, he could feel the pulse around his tongue, against his lips, and he grinned. He flicked his tongue back and forth a few more times.
She tangled her hands in his hair and pulled his face away. “Easy. Let me catch my breath before you do any more of that.”
“No problem,” he said.
She moved suddenly, sliding across the jet silk, turning and taking his penis into her mouth in a single, smooth motion. He felt her lips touch the base as she took the length of him into her throat. Damn! She moved, and he felt like a boy again, so hard he was afraid his organ would burst. All the learned techniques with all the partners over all the years meant nothing, his control was completely gone. When she found the base of his prostate with her finger and pressed, he felt as if a dam had burst within his groin. Oh, God!
When he stopped throbbing, she pulled away slowly, flicking the tip of his still-hard penis with her tongue.
She turned around to snuggle next to him.
“Now I know what an avalanche must feel like,” he said.
“It was pretty good, wasn’t it?” She smiled at him.
Khadaji propped himself up on one elbow. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, he was sure of that. And she seemed to exude sexual attraction, more now than before the shattering climax she’d just given him. He reached for her and hugged her to him, sliding into her as she rolled onto her back and clasped his buttocks with both hands. She was tight, but lubricated, and they fit together as if they had been custom-designed for each other. The dance became frantic, as they p
ounded each other faster and faster. “I—love—you,” he said, his voice keeping time with his thrusts. But the words were lost in the storm.
Pen was sitting quietly in the center of his bed, his eyes closed, when Khadaji came into the room. It was late, only a couple of hours before Khadaji’s shift was to begin and he was tired. Though hardly unhappy.
Pen said, “And…?”
There was no need to say more. They had developed a feel for each other’s mood, at times. “She is wonderful,” Khadaji said. “I love her.”
Pen nodded, but said nothing. There was a long pause.
“I can’t explain it,” Khadaji began. “She—”
“There is no need to explain. I understand. The time was approaching and now it is here.”
Somehow, that sounded ominous. “The time?”
“For me to continue upon my circuit. And you on yours.”
Khadaji was stunned. “What?”
Pen smiled. “You will want to be with your beloved. You have things to learn from her.”
“But—but—that doesn’t mean—”
“Ah, but it does,” Pen said, his voice soft. He unfolded his legs from the meditation knot and shifted to the edge of the bed, then stood. He faced Khadaji, still smiling. “You’ve learned what I can teach you. What you need now is new teachers, and time. Experience will fill in many of the gaps.”
Khadaji stared at the robed figure, still feeling shocked. Sure, he’d said in the beginning it was only temporary, but, this wasn’t right. It was Juete, she was the crux, that was why he was leaving. He thought about her, and about Pen, who had been father-brother-teacher since they’d met. In that moment, Khadaji knew, he knew that if he offered to forget her, Pen would stay. This was some kind of test. He thought again about Juete, about the day they had spent together, only leaving the bed long enough to pee or get a drink, about the passion he’d felt, he still felt for her. Was it any more than lust? Did he love her, as he’d said? Yes, he was sure he did. Could he give her up, to keep Pen? But if he was planning to leave anyway, it would be a wasted gesture to even offer, wouldn’t it? He remembered her hands and mouth, touching him. Pen was going anyhow, Juete was only making it happen a few days or weeks sooner. Khadaji told himself it wasn’t a rationalization on his part; but far back in his mind, a little voice laughed malevolently.
