The stranger winked at the robot, “It appears as if this tavern is in violation of the law. My, yes! I do hope we don’t get raided.”
“Why? I’ve got nothing to hide. Have you?”
Raising his beaker, the stranger took a tiny sip of brandy. He opened his mouth wide and, with the edge of his tongue, gently licked his lips.
Abruptly, Urikov made a decision. He would let this pervert squirm. A buyer who acted this much like a sitpissy deserved to be scared. Besides, a good dose of fear, properly applied, usually produced a better deal for Urikov. If this bastard was as rich as he looked, it should be relatively easy to squeeze some extra money out of him.
Urikov gave a hand signal. A pair of monstrous bald men got up from a nearby table and approached. Dell One laid a huge palm across the back of the stranger’s neck. The stranger continued smiling.
The Dell twins had first names, but Urikov preferred to call them Dell One and Dell Two. They did not mind. They were dumb but intensely loyal. Last month, a union grafter had tried to sell Urikov false data on the practice of organized farmland thievery. Dell One had held the man down on a warehouse floor while Dell Two had carefully kicked the grafter’s balls up into his chest.
The stranger’s grin grew more intense, “Your friend has strong hands.”
Urikov smiled. “He likes to break things with his hands. It makes him happy.”
Dell Two sat down and laid a thick palm on the stranger’s knee. Dell Two squeezed. The stranger chuckled.
“I wish I could get my bodyguard to use his hands more. My. But instead, he just loves blasting away with that thruster of his.”
Urikov leaned back and studied the stranger for a moment. He nodded to the Dell twins. They released the stranger.
Urikov had misjudged. The man did not scare easily.
“Would your bodyguard like to join us?”
“No.” The grin became fiercer. “He’s close enough.”
Urikov glanced around the tavern. If the stranger was telling the truth, his bodyguard had preceded him. There were about fifteen losers scattered across the main floor and another half dozen at the bar. None looked like a professional backup.
At a center table, four drunken men traded shouts and laughter. As Urikov watched, one of the burly losers turned his chair toward a trio of giggling young whores in the far corner. The man began making obscene hand gestures. The women tried to ignore him. Stupid silkies.
Adjacent to the whores’ table sat the only other woman in the tavern: an aging silky, nursing her beer and trying to ignore everyone.
At the bar, two men sat alone. One was built like a miniature Dell twin—squat and broad-shouldered with a stone face. The other, a slender and nervous-looking youth, was garbed like a pirate, wearing heavily stained trousers and a beaten leather shirt. An odorant bag hung from his waist.
Urikov sniffed. The youth was not a real pirate. He did not have the odor. Another loser, playing games.
By mutual agreement, this was one of the taverns that was off-limits to real Costeaus. Of course, if the damn pirates suddenly decided to break that pact, there was not a hell of a lot anyone was going to do about it. Even the Dell twins were not so dumb as to pick trouble with Costeaus.
“Is my package in transit?” asked the stranger.
Urikov turned his attention back to the grinning face.
“It was crated and shipped this morning. It’ll arrive tomorrow.” Urikov reached under his coat and handed the stranger a small key disk. “This’ll get you into my warehouse. All you have to do is show this to my men and pick up your package.”
The stranger fingered the key disk. “Is she fertile, as I requested?”
“They tell me she’s fertile,” Christ, this sitpissy should run for governor of Velvet-on-the-Green. What a fuckin’ pervert!
“Is she as young as I asked for?”
Urikov allowed his face to darken. “She’s as young as she’s going to be. There are goddamn limits to these things. You’re talking major genetic alteration and there isn’t exactly a huge market—”
“Of course,” interrupted the stranger. “Just as long as she’s between one and two.”
“You gotta take what you can get.”
“What if my package isn’t at the warehouse tomorrow?” asked the stranger.
Urikov felt a rush of anger. “I don’t talk shit, hotface.” The Dell brothers inched closer. “When I say something’s so, it’s so.”
The stranger frowned, then burst into laughter. “My, we’re tough!”
Stupid fuck loser! If I weren’t making such good money on this deal, I’d have the Dells rip your tongue out.
The stranger settled back in his chair. “Do you want the money here?”
No, clonecock, I want us to shuttle to Irrya and have you pay me on the steps of the ICN. What a dumb fuck!
“We’re in a rather public place,” offered the stranger.
Urikov spoke coldly. “You’re giving me money that you owe me, right? I don’t see any illegal exchange goin’ on.” He turned to Dell One. “Do you?”
Dell One thought for a moment. “No,” he growled. Dell Two nodded in assent.
Urikov sneered. “So why don’t you just lay it on the table where I can see it.”
Chuckling, the stranger reached into the vest pocket of his jumpsuit. His hand froze.
A commotion had erupted at the far end of the tavern. The burly loser, tired of pestering the three whores, had arisen from his table. He had crossed the room and was now standing in front of the old prostie. The silky kept her head lowered and her fingers tapped out a sharp rhythm on the rim of an empty seltzer mug.
“This ain’t no sitpissy!” shouted the burly loser. “It’s a fuckin’ silky misfit, dressed to be stern-cocked! We shouldn’t let this crap in here!”
The young whores whispered to each other and shook their heads in disapproval. One of them got up from the table and wiggled her ass over to the lavatory cubicle opposite the bar.
The old prostie raised her eyes and stared across the tavern. She seemed to be looking straight at Urikov, or at the back of the stranger’s head.
“I oughta hammer a sandram up your ass and set your balls on fire,” growled the loser.
“If she’s got any, Klaus!” yelled one of his drunken friends from the center of the room. Several of the other men howled with laughter. The man Klaus turned slightly to display a wicked grin.
He spun back to the prostie. “You hear that, shiteater? They want to see if you really got balls under that skirt.”
Urikov shook his head. Goddamn losers.
The stranger’s hand was still frozen inside his pocket. His smile became brittle. Music stopped. The fat sax player and his drummer leaned back in their chairs to watch the show. They took turns swilling beer from a huge mug.
“Stand your ass up, silky!” shouted the burly loser. “I wanna see what you’re hiding in your panties!”
Urikov glanced toward the bar and smiled. The squat, broad-shouldered man had spun his stool around and was poised for action.
So that’s your bodyguard, eh? thought Urikov. Thrusters or not, the broad-shouldered man did not look like a match for the Dell twins.
“Perhaps,” said the stranger quietly, “your men can break this up.”
Urikov grinned. “What’s the matter? That old prostie a friend of yours?”
The stranger shook his head. “I just don’t want any trouble.”
“Last chance!” shouted the prostie’s abuser. “Either get up and strip or I’ll do it for ya’!”
“Rape him, Klaus!” yelled one of the others. “His asshole’s probably been stretched enough to take your little cock!”
A heavy round of laughter flooded the tavern. The phony pirate quivered on his barstool.
The stranger tensed. His smile vanished. His voice fell to a whisper. “I’ll pay you an extra five hundred if your men break this up.”
So, you’re a frightened little
sitpissy after all! Urikov laughed. “Why don’t you get your bodyguard to take care of it for you?”
“I’ll give you a thousand,” hissed the stranger. “End it. Now!”
“A thousand, eh?” Urikov rubbed his hand across his chin and pretended to consider the stranger’s offer.
“No,” he said finally. “I think I’m going to let that sitpissy get his ass stretched.” He laughed at the stranger’s astonished expression. “I didn’t tike the way you talked to me just now. Maybe if you’d been a little more polite...”
The Dell twins chuckled. Tension suddenly went out of the stranger’s body. His shoulders drooped.
A chilling scream erupted from the prostie’s abuser. The man—Klaus—turned and fell to his knees. From neck to waist, his chest had been slashed open. Dark fluid gushed to the floor.
The prostie was on her feet. A beam of jet-black light whipped from her hand, crossed the tavern, curled around Dell One’s neck. Dell One’s head flew from his shoulders and plopped to the floor. The decapitated body shook for a moment, then fell backward over a chair.
Urikov’s mouth dropped open. One moment, the stranger was seated. The next, he was on his feet. Urikov had never seen anyone move so fast. A thruster appeared in the stranger’s left hand. His right palm clutched some tiny object.
A cluster of tiny darts shot out from below the stranger’s waistband. The darts pierced the side of Dell Two’s cheek. Dell Two grunted, then screamed as the side of his face exploded into flames. He bolted from his chair and tripped blindly over his brother’s torso.
Thrusters wailed. Black light crisscrossed the tavern. Urikov knew he should be reaching for his own weapon, energizing his crescent web. He could not. Or perhaps he was trying to and events were simply occurring so fast that his muscles had not yet responded to the survival commands.
It’s not real, he thought. This isn’t happening.
One of the young prosties flew against the wall as the invisible energy from a thruster shattered her ribcage. The men at the center tables jerked like puppets as thruster fire hit them from both sides of the room. Along the bar, black light chopped off arms and heads. The phony pirate leaped from his stool and made a run for the door. The stranger’s beam sliced him in two. The top half crashed headfirst into the edge of the bar.
Urikov fumbled beneath his coat, activated his crescent web. He gripped the handle of his thruster and pulled it out into the open. One of the black beams whipped across the tabletop. Urikov stared dumbly at his weapon. The barrel had been sheared off by the disintegrating light. It felt hot. He dropped it.
The sax player got hit in the face by a thruster blast. The drummer gripped his dead companion from behind and tried to use him as a shield. A black beam circled in from behind and punched a hole in the back of the drummer’s skull. Both bodies tumbled from the stage.
The lavatory door opened. The young whore emerged shrieking. Two thruster blasts lifted her into the air and sent her body somersaulting backward into the cubicle.
I can’t die. Urikov stared at his hands. They were shaking.
The broad-shouldered man, whom Urikov had mistaken for the stranger’s bodyguard, had also managed to activate a crescent web. He jerked from side to side, absorbing thruster blasts, twisting his body desperately in an effort to keep the deadly black light from piercing the weak side portals of the web.
With a chill, Urikov realized that he and the broad-shouldered man were the last survivors.
Abruptly, the stranger and the prostie stopped firing. Calmness gripped the tavern.
“He’s good,” said the stranger.
“Very good,” added the prostie. She cackled like a witch.
The broad-shouldered man ran for the door. The prostie’s hand flashed. A black beam tore into the side of the man’s neck. He gasped. Blood spurted out both sides of his neck, spraying the floor. Some of the blood became trapped inside the web, outlining the front and rear energy crescents in a sea of red. The broad shoulders collapsed, the man hit the floor.
The demon turned its two heads to face Urikov. Urikov felt himself shuddering uncontrollably.
“A million!” he screamed. “Let me live! A million for each of you!” Each of you! Each of you! A spasm of laughter threatened to tear itself from his belly.
The stranger laughed. “Don’t you wish you had broken up that fight?”
“Naughty!” barked the prostie.
Urikov felt himself gasping for air. “Anything! Anything you want!”
“Lower your web,” said the stranger calmly.
“Wha ... what?”
“You did say anything, didn’t you? Well, lower your web.”
“We’ll let you live,” offered the prostie.
Urikov reached under his coat and deactivated his crescents.
“Only joking!” cackled the prostie.
Blackness emerged from the stranger’s hand. Urikov felt the hot beam touch his forehead. And then it was inside him and he felt nothing.
O}o{O
On the cracked plastic steps of the Hotel Costello, Jerem Marth sat and sulked.
“I told you,” the boy whined, “I’m not ready to see my mom yet. Why can’t we wait till tomorrow?”
Gillian wondered where the taxi was. He stepped off the curb and gazed up the street in both directions. The darkened boulevard ran east-west, circumnavigating the colony; one of the few streets that actually crossed the cosmishield strips to link together Sirak-Brath’s three livable sectors.
“Can’t we at least get something to eat?” the boy pleaded.
“Your mother will be waiting,” Gillian explained patiently, for the third time. “If we’re late, she might become worried about you all over again.”
“I don’t care. I want to stay with you a while longer.”
“Yes, I know you do.” But you can’t.
Gillian had awakened this morning feeling recovered from last night’s torment. Sleep, as usual, seemed to have corralled his pain, fenced it away from his conscious mind. The day with Jerem had passed quickly and he had been able to deal with the boy’s emotional demands. But now, Gillian was beginning to feel anxious again. The boy had to go.
It had been dark out for less than ten minutes, yet already the boulevard had come alive with night denizens. Silkies gathered on corners. Aspiring smugglers, laden with trinkets, searched for buyers. Young skin dancers swarmed beneath the streetlamps like moths drawn to the light, their bikini-clad bodies gyrating wildly to whatever silent music clamored through their heads. Two old women, wearing pleated miniskirts and dragging ten-foot aluminum chains, sneered at Gillian and crossed the street to avoid him.
“I won’t be glad to see my mom,” Jerem stated boldly, “but I will be glad to get off this colony.”
Paula Marth had placed an ad on several of the trade channels, offering a reward for the return of her son. Earlier today, Gillian had spotted the ad and had responded anonymously. A meeting had been arranged through the personnel agency. They were to contact Paula at Kevin’s Hide, one of the colony’s largest shuttle ports.
Jerem frowned. “I wonder if my mom is still with those pirates?”
This morning, over breakfast, Jerem had related to Gillian what little he knew about the killing of Bob Max. The boy confirmed what E-Tech already suspected: the Paratwa appeared to be a Termi, a breed Gillian had hunted on several distant occasions. The boy’s memory of the tways fit the parameters of a Terminus assassin perfectly.
Gillian no longer felt particularly anxious to talk to Paula Marth about the killing. He doubted she would be able to add anything new to the Paratwa profile. But he did very badly want to meet the pirates who had kidnapped Jerem and his mother. The Alexanders had, at the direction of Bob Max, awakened this Paratwa. Eleven of their clan had died as a result. According to Jerem, the clan now sought vengeance.
Hopefully, Gillian had stumbled upon a way to break through that cultural wall. The clan of Alexander might just provide him wi
th his combat team.
Jerem let out a deep sigh. “Are you sure you gave that taxi the right address?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Then why isn’t it here yet?”
Gillian found himself wondering how Paula Marth would have answered such a question.
With a wail of sirens, two vehicles roared down from the west. The first car, a green convertible, was their taxi. The driver whipped the steering wheel and screeched to a halt three feet out from the curb. Behind him, a wailing police hardtop swerved and shot past.
Gillian wondered what was happening. It was the third police cruiser they had seen in the past ten minutes. And multiple sirens seemed to be emanating from distant areas of the colony.
The taxi driver wore a space helmet with a modified faceshield; a jagged hole had been sliced through the lower part of the clear panel so that he could talk. The helmet was painted fluorescent orange and labeled Awlspate Shuttle and Taxi Service.
“Where to?” the driver yelped.
Jerem hopped over the door and splashed down in the soft cushions of the back seat. Gillian took the passenger side.
“Take us to Kevin’s Hide.”
“You gettin’ out?” asked the driver, as he accelerated from the curb.
“Getting out?”
“Sure! I would if I could. Christ! If that sonna-bitch killed Urikov, ain’t no one safe.”
“Who killed Urikov?”
“Christ! You didn’t hear?” The driver spun the wheel to dodge a young woman who had stepped into the street without looking. She cursed as they shot by.
“Stupid silky!” screamed the driver.
Gillian repeated his question.
“That damned Paratwa did it. Sonna-bitch slaughtered a whole batch of people over on the Zell Strip.”
“When did this happen?”
The driver raised his faceshield and blew snot into his sleeve. “Hell, it’s been on the news for the past twenty minutes. Couldn’t have happened more than a half-hour ago.”
“Take us there,” Gillian demanded.
“What? Hell, no, I ain’t goin’ near that place!”
Liege-Killer Page 26
