by David Coy
Geary let go of Eddie’s arm and dug the slip of paper Eddie had given him out of his pocket. He crumpled it up into a little ball. “See you tomorrow,” he said. As he walked away, he flicked the little ball of paper over his shoulder at Eddie. It bounced off Eddie’s chest.
Geary was in no hurry. They had plenty of time. There was nobody to sell the Xercodan to anyway and no reason whatsoever to take an unnecessary risk. The hired guards were usually dim wits and slackards of the highest order, but they could bust you just the same. Geary had spent ten years in jail starting when he was just about the kid’s age over just such a mistake as being caught red-handed.
*The next afternoon, Eddie was there right on time, trussing up Geary’s faith in him. ”Where they gonna be?” Geary asked.
“That’s them over there on this side. The two right on the edge of the platform. See ‘em?”
Eddie pointed to two Number 10 containers side by side on the warehouse grid. They were conspicuously apart from the other containers in the warehouse and so close to the edge of the grid that Geary could have strolled over and opened them without climbing up. From where they were it would be impossible to see them from the guard shack.
“That’s better.”
“That’s about as far from view as I can put them,” he grinned. “If you can’t get to them there without being seen, I don’t want you as a partner.” Eddie smiled.
It was a good thing he did. It was just a little like a smartass remark. Geary didn’t like smart assed remarks from cocky smartasses.
That night, Geary waited far into the night before heading for the warehouse. It started to rain and the thunder and lightning were relentless. Before he got halfway there, he was soaked through and his thick cotton clothing was heavy with rainwater. Geary was sure the rain would keep the guard in his shack all night.
He’d brought a satchel with a shoulder strap on it to carry the booty. He didn’t think there would be a whole ten kilos, but you never knew.
He stopped behind a small backhoe about a hundred meters from the platform and took a look through binoculars at the target and the surrounding area. He could see the guard shack on the far side and true to form, the guard, sound asleep, was sitting there with his feet up and his head tilted back. Geary could almost hear him snoring. He watched as a particularly loud blast of thunder woke the guard, then watched as the lazy bastard cast an idle glance over the warehouse. He was soon asleep again.
He located the containers on the edge of the platform and scanned the area around them just to be on the safe side.
Nothing.
He moved away from the backhoe at a tangent until a high stack of containers on the platform obscured him from the guard shack completely. Then he changed direction and started straight for the target.
The containers weren’t locked; they never were unless the goods inside were something like copper wire or power tools. He lifted the lid on the nearest one. He wasn’t prepared for the number of kits. There were maybe a hundred of them packed neatly inside. He liked things neat. He grabbed one of the bags and opened it. It took him just a second to find the bottle of Xerc. He plucked it from the straps and deposited it in the bag, then closed the kit and put it back in place. His quick, skinny hands processed the next one in half the time.
In less than an hour, he’d harvested every last bottle of painkiller from the kits.
He pulled the locator from his pocket, turned it on and found the direction to the drums with a quick sweep back and forth. He’d be taking a new way in from where he was, but that was all right; the route might even be shorter.
The rain came down in sheets and lightning cast staccato shadows in the jungle as he worked his way through. He was soaked to the bone, and the wet material of his pants legs clung to him as he moved, making it difficult to step over the fallen trees and branches.
He stopped and took a reading on the locator. The distance seemed a little too far yet; but from the angle he was coming in, it was hard to tell.
Lightning flashed and something moved in a quick jerk of dark motion at the edge of his peripheral vision. He watched for a second, but saw nothing more. His mind went back to the black thing he’d seen in the cave. He moved on.
Another flash strobed, and the jungle around him burst into ragged strokes of black and green.
The something moved again, and before he could focus on it, the jungle blinked to darkness once more.
He raised the lamp and pressed the switch. The lamp flooded the area in front of him with white light. As he moved the light around, the shadows of branch, leaf and vine shifted in perfect synchronization, back and forth.
He decided to keep the light on for a while.
The incline at the cave’s entrance was slippery, and he slid and skied his way down, holding the lamp in one hand and grabbing at the plants with the other to keep his balance. The floor of the cave had puddled with water, and he had to slosh through it to get to the drums. The drums were in the deepest part of the chamber, sitting in a pool of water. If the water had been just a little deeper, he was sure the drums would have been floating. He was beginning to think the cave wasn’t such a good idea after all. He could feel the water squeezing through the seams of his already soaked boots.
He slogged over and opened the latch on one of the drums, lifted the top off and turned the light into it.
Then he pulled a large plastic bag out of a pocket on the satchel and transferred the bottles of Xerc into it by handfuls. He saved the last bottle for himself and slipped it into his pants pocket for a little celebration later.
He felt something against his ankle like a tickle and squirmed his foot around in his boot to clear it. As he was securing the latch on the drum, he felt another tickle on the sole of his other foot and wiggled that one away, too.
He didn’t notice, as he walked under it, that the cluster of eggs on the ceiling of the cave was now a mass of empty husks. He had no way of knowing that some biological sensor in the eggs had waited for just this particular rainstorm and that about an hour before he’d arrived, the ideal conditions of temperature and humidity had been met. Somehow knowing that the water under them had reached a sufficient depth, the eggs split open and dripped their viscous and squirming contents into the pool below. By the time Geary arrived, the cool, muddy water in the floor of the cave was teeming with tens of thousands of near-microscopic larvae.
Getting back out of the cave took some doing, but he inched his way up, keeping his feet splayed outward to maintain some grip.
It had stopped raining but distant lightning still lit the sky and thunder rolled through the jungle in bone-rumbling waves. Sensing a lull in the storm, the bugs came out in greater numbers than ever, flying at him and past him, alighting on the net covering his face and neck.
“That’s zylon netting you bastards,” he said to them. “Try to get through that.”
He squirmed his toes against another tickle. He couldn’t wait to get his wet boots off.
The light was on in the kitchen of the shelter when he got back.
It had to be Burkett. He’d have to vary his schedule to work around that little late-night eating problem of his. He didn’t want to be caught coming in at night too often by the dumb bastard. There was nothing to do this time but walk in and act
like everything was normal.
Soaked to the bone, he did just that.
Sure enough, Burkett was sitting there in his underwear, hunched over a platter of meat and potatoes.
“You been out in this mess?” Burkett mumbled through his food.
“I like it. You got a problem with that?” Geary asked, stepping out of the net suit.
“Nope. Guess I don’t.”
“Good.”
He got cleaned up, and by the time he came back out of his room, Burkett had gone back to his. He made himself a platter, took it back to his room and ate it quickly; it wasn’t a good idea to take Xerc on an empty stomach.
Time to cel
ebrate.
He took out two tabs and, using the flat bottom of a plastic cup, ground them into powder against the edge of the sink. He scooped the Xerc into the cup, ran some water in it and swished it around to dissolve it.
He downed it in one gulp.
He headed for the bed and was barely able to turn on his alarm before it hit him.
The large dose of dissolved Xerc flooded his system with a warm gush of pure bliss. The surge of euphoria pulled him down on the bed like a corpulent lover. He rolled on his back and stared up, mouth agape, adrift in a state of perfect ecstasy, in need of nothing.
He slept a deep non-sleep.
His feet were swollen and painful the next morning, so much so he could barely get his boots on. When he walked, it felt as if the bones in his ankles had been fused together, and he high-stepped, his legs working piston-like for the first few minutes. But, by the time he was ready to leave for work, the joints in his feet had loosened up and the pain had subsided somewhat.
Del Geary had no idea what could cause a condition like that. He thought he must have sprained or twisted his ankles somehow climbing up out of the cave.
He put the bottle of Xerc in his shirt pocket just in case he needed some later. You never knew.
6
He liked the looks of the place right off. There was plenty of jungle; lots of places for things to hide—lots of unknowns. He’d been in strange places all his adult life, and this one was the most alien. Kelly didn’t know much about biology or the names of things, but he knew enough. This was just right. With all that jungle and all the alien life in it, he’d have a perfect cover. No one would suspect a thing.
Henry Kelly stepped off the shuttle, breathed in the thick sweet air, took a long look around and nodded his head.
He lit a cigarette, held it up and watched the smoke rise up in a nearly straight line in the still air.
Nice breeze, too.
“You gonna stand there all day?” a woman’s voice behind him said.
“I might.”
“Well how about getting out of the way while you’re deciding.”
He ambled down the ramp, feeling the hostility bounce off his back . . . The heavy air seemed to get even thicker as he got to the bottom.
“Ain’t this some hot sonofabitch?” he said to the steward.
“You get used to it.”
“Where’s Rigging?”
“What’s your ID?”
“NWLD1088. Kelly, Henry.”
The steward checked his manifest and made an entry. Henry hated all the tracking and entering, deleting and checking, and computer shit that went on. He knew that somewhere on the end of that pad’s data link was a big fat file with his name all over it, containing every move he'd ever made, every report he'd ever received, every job he'd ever done. Well, most of them. Lot of good it’ll do the dumb bastards.
“What are you looking for again?”
“Rigging.” You dumb bastard.
“It’s over there—that box with the red band,” he said and pointed.
“We all set here?” Kelly asked. “I can go?”
The steward looked baffled. Kelly smirked and walked away. He ignored the stairs and hopped down off the platform at a spot that pleased him better. When he walked out into the sun, the dull heat of the red orb above made him squint and scowl.
This is one hot sonofabitch.
He kicked at the chopped and dried plant material under his feet. It was thick, spongy and almost over the tops of his boots in places. He could see the pale and twisted sprouts of new growth coming up under the blanket of debris. Ragged stumps, cut low to the ground, were scattered everywhere, and some of those had long, thin fingers of sprouts starting already. He stopped and toed a sprout with his boot. It broke off with a soft click, and he liked the sound. He kicked off a few more.
He walked into the Riggers office without knocking. It was as big as office boxes went. There were several desks in it and about a dozen chairs in rows in front of a projector screen against one wall. A long table with chairs was at the rear. Behind it was the coffee machine. Two Riggers were sitting at the table and eyed him when he walked in. One of them nodded at him. The tool shed was attached to the office, and he could see the racks of tools on the wall through the door.
“Where’s the dispatcher?” Kelly asked.
“Takin’ a crap,” one of the Riggers said. “You just get in?”
“That coffee worth a damn?” Kelly asked, heading over. “Not when Hinkle makes it,” one said and grinned stupidly at
the other. “Where’d you ship in from?”
“Home,” Kelly grinned and put out his hand. “Hank Kelly.”
“I’m Bob Hewlett. This is Wrongsideout Hinkle.”
“Shut up,” Hinkle said.
“Or Mr. Wrongsideout, if you like.”
“Shut up,” Hinkle repeated.
Both men were hardened and tough like thick leather and were impossible to piss off, especially by one another. Kelly could tell they’d worked together a long time.
“Ask him why they call him Wrongsideout,” Hewlett said. “Shut up,” Hinkle said.
“Hinkle here is the only Rigger in history to assemble a whole shelter inside-out.”
“I didn’t know that could be done,” Kelly said, barely interested.
“Yep.”
“This bastard’s a liar,” Hinkle said. “You gotta watch ‘im.”
“You should have seen the goddamned thing,” Hewlett said, smiling. “All inside-out and all the shit on the outside. One of a goddamn kind.”
“Shut up. It was one goddamned panel’s all.”
“We got pictures to prove it,” Hewlett said.
Kelly was tiring of the bullshit and looked away with a frown, hoping it would get Hewlett off the subject.
“Good pictures, too,” Hewlett persisted.
Kelly grunted and took a long drink of coffee. “How’s the work?” he asked.
“Not too bad. Plenty of it,” Hewlett said.
“Shelters mostly, huh?”
“For now,” Hewlett said. “They’re supposed to be bringing down some reactor parts next week, but nobody’s seen nothing on that yet. We put together some earth movers last month, that’s about it.”
“Any women?”
“Just Hinkle here,” Hewlett said. “You can greez him up anytime you want.”
“Shut up,” Hinkle said.
Hewlett laughed and made kissy noises at Hinkle.
“Oh, there’s some,” Hewlett said. “Mostly spoken for or married, though.”
That don’t matter, Kelly thought. Not one damn bit.
“There won’t be no whores until next year, I’d say. Hinkle here’s got a woman, ain’t that right, Hinkle?”
“Some people call it that,” Hinkle said.
Hewlett found that funny and laughed loud. “It. I like that. It. So she’s a it, huh? I like that.”
Kelly grinned just to act a little polite.
She will be when I get through with her.
He took another long drink of the shitty coffee.
The dispatcher, Frank Wallace, walked out of the toilet, tucking in his shirt. He nodded at Kelly as he walked past them. “New guy, Frank,” Hewlett said. “He just got in.”
“Henry Kelly,” Kelly said.
“Yeah, he’s on the list,” Frank said, pouring coffee and not looking at Kelly. “Looks like you come highly recommended, Kelly.”
“Maybe,” Kelly said.
“You got tools?”
Just one.
“Nope.”
“You got clothes, except what you’re wearin’?”
“I got clothes. Bag’s on the dock.”
“You better get it before it walks off.”
“It ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
Frank walked past him still not looking at him. “Suit yourself,” he said. “I’ll get you checked in. Looks like you got a roommate, Hewlett.”
“It don’
t matter to me,” Hewlett said.
Kelly needed a few things from the store and headed down after he got settled in. It would give him a chance to check things out; to get the lay of land and find out what was around. He didn’t think there were any cops yet, but it wouldn’t hurt to take a look just to be sure.
His shelter was located in roughly the middle of the cluster. Walking in and out would give him a good view of what there was, but that could work both ways; they could see him just as easily as he could see them. There was nowhere to hide between the rows of flat-sided shelters.
He walked through the cluster, going first left, then right, trying to cover as much ground as he could, looking. As he got to the end of a row, he saw one in the kitchen window of the last shelter. She was working at the sink, and he could hear the garbage grinder working. Tight-cropped brown hair, nice neck, strong shoulders. Perfect. He smiled up at her as he passed.
“Howdy,” she said with a brief smile.
He smiled back real nice.
He noticed the names as he passed the door: “William Habershaw /Joan Thomas.”
He wouldn’t forget the location of that one. When he got a few meters past the shelter, he turned around as if he’d lost his way just to see how the shelter was situated; where the windows were and who could see what. She was at the end of the last row. That was good; if he came in from the jungle, it would be damned hard to see him. He could duck in a few hundred meters down and make it in no time.
“Are you lost?” she said as he walked back by.
“Must have got turned around, but I’m never lost.”
“Where were you trying to go?”
“I thought I was going to the store.”
Joan pointed with a fork. “That way to the end, then turn right. You’ll see it.”
“Thank you.”
"Sure."
Nice smile. I’ll have to take care of that.
He picked up a few items he didn’t need—aspirin, toothpaste, razors, a pair of cotton socks—and carried them to the counter. The clerk rang it up and debited his account.
“Got any copper wire?”
“No copper. Just silver. Why do you need copper, anyways?”
Kelly hated question-asking bastards like this one. For a moment he thought he might make an exception and do him one night, too—just for the hell of it. There was a lot of meat on him.
