Stellar Ranger

by Steve Perry

  Apparently somebody had overriden the springdog’s visual-attack-only program, There was nothing in the universe that could save Brilly. The sound of human flesh and bones being torn and crunched filled the night. Brilly stopped cursing.

  Cinch turned away, feeling sick. He found his rifle and hurried to find his horse while the blind springdog finished its grisly work.

  “WELL? Did you find Brilly?”

  Lobang nodded, his face grim. “What was left of him.”

  The two men were in the Twist shack.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Something happened, I can’t tell what exactly,” Lobang said. “The springdog jumped Brilly. It came at me, I had to use the fry-circuit code to failsafe it. The dog’Il need to be reprogrammed. And it looks like it needs new eyes, too. Ain’t nobody gonna be fixing Brilly, though.”

  “What about the dog’s memory?”

  “Might be able to pull it up, might not. The fry-circuit is not a good way to shut the system down. You almost always get major damage.”

  Tuluk said, “Damn. When Briny called, he said the dog was chasing something in the weed. Why would it turn on him? And what was it chasing?”

  “I dunno the answer to either of those. If the dog was chasing something, it ain’t out there now. If whoever it was could tum the springdog around and sic it on Briny, he knows a fuck of a lot more about biomechs than I do.”

  Tuluk refrained from saying anything. Whatever else Lobang might be, he was more familiar with the operations of the spring dog than anybody else locally. This was not good.

  “All right. Get the dog repaired, see if you can get a recording from it as to what it saw. Get some men out here and take care of Briny’s body. He have any family?”

  “A couple of sisters in the East Hemi.”

  “Send them his pension, tell them he died in an accident. Fell and broke his neck or something, Have our medic fill out the proper forms.”

  Tuluk stared into the warm darkness, listened to the wind rustle the blueweed. “They’re not that clever.”

  “I guess that only leaves one guy it could be, huh?”

  Tuluk nodded. He was afraid so.

  * * *

  Cinch had passed better nights. His flight through the blueweed from the biomechanical dog had given him the beginnings of a dozen bruises on his arms, shoulders and torso, as well as hi s legs. His ribs were sore on the left side, his left wrist ached from when the rifle had been twisted loose from his grip, and he’d pulled a hamstring in the panicky sprint. His right ankle had what felt like a mild sprain. Every time the horse took a step it jolted something. It wasn’t so bad now, but after he’d had a day or so to stiffen up, he was going to want to lie down and not move for a long time.

  Nothing like running through what could pass for a thick grove of small trees at full steam to remind a man of how stupid that was. Given the other option, he had really had no choice, but it had cost. Maybe he was getting too old to be out in the field.

  He had a jector of painkiller in his medikit and if it got much worse he’d use it, but for now he gutted it out. Somebody would find the dead man and wounded springdog, probably sooner rather than later, and he needed to be far away with his wits–such that they were–as clear as they could be. The warm fog of painkiller would make him feel better physically, but it would also slow his reactions and make him stupid. He couldn’t afford that.

  He changed lanes a number of times, angling away but not heading directly back toward Kohl’s station. Rather he moved north. There wasn’t supposed to be anything in that direction for several hundred klicks except more blueweed and mesa. If anybody started looking for him, they probably wouldn’t think he’d go that way.

  The ground was still wet, but the lane was a mix of dirt and springy blueweed mulch and didn’t seeln to take a hoof print very well. He was glad of that, not only for the lack of a trail but for the relative softness. Once he got back to hard ground, it was going to jolt him a lot worse.

  Now the question that loomed large in his mind:

  Why would there be a springdog and a human guard out there in the middle of nowhere? True, he hadn’t seen anything, but you didn’t drop the kind of money a biomech cost just to leave it running around for no reason.

  Tuluk had something there he wanted to hide. Bad enough to leave a biomech programmed to kin to protect it.

  That was very interesting.

  * * *

  “Nothing,’ Lobang said. “I got our men covering the ground like a blanket and if he was here, he ain’t here now.”

  Once again in his office, Tuluk nodded. “All right. Call them off. It’s been almost three days. He’s had plenty of time to get off my land.”

  “The pulse fence didn’t show him come in.”

  “Jesus, Lobang, any nitwit with a cheap radio com can rascal a pulse fence. The damned thing is only supposed to let us know if a stray with a bad transponder steps past it. I would imagine a Stellar Ranger has access to enough technology to slip a fence undetected, coming or going.”

  “Yeah, I expect you’re right.”

  Tuluk shook his head. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He’ll be going back to Gus Kohl’s station. We’ll wait and see what happens after that.”

  “You’re the boss–”

  Tuluk cut him off. “I know that. You don’t need to keep telling me.”

  * * *

  Cinch was, unfortunately, right about how he was going to feel once his bruises had time to set. The assorted pains were bearable without resorting to drugs, but the time on horseback was not in the least bit pleasant. By the time he got back to Kohl’s, all he wanted to do was lie down in a tub of hot water and sleep for a week or two.

  But he took time to brush the mare and give her a bag of whatever local grain she was used to before he went into the house.

  He met Gus as he used the shoe caddy to pull his boots off just inside the door.

  “You look like ten klicks of bad road, son.”

  “Feel like it, too.”

  “Have a nice camping trip?’

  Cinch nodded. “Real interesting. I feel pretty sure the rangers are going to be able to help you take care of your problem.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Meanwhile, I think I’m going to take a shower,” Cinch said.

  “There’s a rojowood soak tub behind the house, under that little gazebo. You’re welcome to use it.”

  “Thanks. I believe I will.”

  Cinch went to his room and dumped his gear. He stripped, took a good look at himself in the mirror. He had more than a few bruises, some of which were already shading from brown to yellow at the edges.

  He wrapped a big towel around himself and went to find the soak tub.

  * * *

  The gods surely must have built a special palace for the person who invented hot water, Cinch thought. He was stretched out almost full-length in the oval tub, his head resting on the edge, one hand gripping the side to keep him from sinking. Vapor rose into the evening air, which was warm itself. Oh, man, this felt good. He couldn’t imagine anything else that would feel quite this great at the moment,

  “Hi,” Baji said.

  Cinch twisted his head to one side and saw her standing there, also wrapped in a towel. As he watched, she unwrapped herself and stood nude under his gaze. She smiled.

  He had seen better-looking women, he was sure; he just couldn’t remember when or where at the moment. There wasn’t a blemish on her, she was young, beautiful, and very aware of both. She gave him a good, long look.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  Before he could speak, she moved to the tub and climbed the little ramp. Her pubic hair nearly touched his nose as she stepped down into the hot water.

  Oh, great.

  Baji eased herself into the wa
ter until she was directly across from him, settled down on the seat so that her nipples were level with the surface. Must be sitting on her feet, he decided. The water should come up to her neck on that side of the tub. She leaned back, face toward the evening sky.

  “Ah,’ she said. Then she looked at him. “And where have you been for the last week?”

  “Camping,” he said.

  “Camping. I thought we were going to have lunch.”

  “Next time it rolls around, if you want.”

  She pouted or pretended to. “Around here it’s not considered polite to take off for six days and not tell people where you’re going.”

  “Sorry. Part of my job.”

  She bobbed up, brought those perfect breasts clear of the water for a beat, then settled down lower than before. The thin stream of bubbles from the spa machinery made anything under the surface mostly invisible. Just as well.

  “Find out anything interesting?”

  He shrugged. “Not much. It’s a big country, lots of open space. Not a lot going on.”

  “Gramps said you looked like you’d fallen off a cliff. That’s an ugly bruise on your shoulder.”

  “Sometimes I’m clumsy.”

  Something touched lightly the inside of his thigh, very near his groin. It was so faint that he t.hought maybe he imagined it. Despite the usual effect hot water had on him, what he’d heard referred to as the “boiled noodle effect,” the nearness of this very attractive and very naked young woman was somewhat ... stirring.

  “I wouldn’t have thought that,” she said. “That you were clumsy. I heard about the fight in town. I heard you moved better than Lobang does when he fights.”

  The touch came again, a little higher. Definitely not his imagination. Another centimeter and her foot was going to discover Cinch’s own personal version of a rapidly lengthening flagpole.

  Yes! All right!

  No. Not a good idea. Remember what we promised Gus?

  Fuck Gus. After you fuck her, of course.

  Not a chance.

  You really are getting old. Cinchy. Lost vour nerve .

  It was time to get out of the water, all right. But doing so right at the moment would certainly show Baji that the effect she wanted was, in fact, a reality. Cinch tried to think about other things. Icebergs. Snow banks. The Tasmanian Flu. None of which seemed to help.

  “Baji,” came Gus’s voice.

  She frowned and looked toward the house.

  “Baji, you out there?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “We’re over here,” Cinch called back. “In the tub.”

  If looks could kill, Cinch would have become a radioactive scum floating on the surface of the hot water.

  Gus ambled over. “Ah, There’s a call for you. Madeline. She says you were supposed to let her know about the alterations on the boots.”

  Baji looked disgusted. “”I forgot.”

  “She’s holding.”

  “You could have brought me a com.”

  Gus smiled. “I forgot.”

  “Tell her I’ll call her back.”

  “You see a sign that says ‘lackey’ on me?”

  Her eyes flashed and she stood.

  Cinch was careful not to look directly at that glorious backside as she stepped out of the tub, grabbed her towel, and hurried off. She moved quickly, and it was obvious she was angry.

  Gus looked at Cinch.

  “Thanks, Gus.”

  He nodded. “I figured you might be a little too worn out to deal with her. Better get to your room before she finishes her call, though.”

  “I’II do that.”

  “And you might want to lock the door, son.”

  Cinch nodded again. And prop a chair against it, too.

  CINCH lay in the bed, too tired to drop off. He thought about Baji, about her youth; and while he didn’t have the energy to smile, he wanted to. He could remember back to his youth.

  At twenty, Cinch Carsten was invulnerable. He would stroll through the killing zone of a Gorn ghetto at midnight and smile at the cutters sharpening their talon gloves. Nobody ever bothered him. The smugglers he ran with thought he was crazy. The Gorns thought so too, and that’s why he wasn’t sliced to bloody ribbons. A cutter he met in a bar once, who’d seen him on his late night walks, told him:

  “Humanboy cakewalkin through de zone all by heself, aigh? The uncles, deh figure he not right, he eyes too bright, he walk too springy. Not drugbrave, he, but crazybrother humanboy. Any two, three uncles, deh can rake him down, the uncles deh know dis, but–who gonna be first uncle in de chute? Crazy humanboy must be carryin’ somethin’ maybe bomb, maybe some disease, maybe de crazy, it catchin’ and deh don’ wanna get it.”

  Cinch had laughed when he heard the story. He wasn’t crazy. He just figured when your number came up you got called, and until it did why worry?

  At twenty-two, he made the Dimple Run with Wormy Rogers and Deluxe Antoon. With half the system police laying traps and the other half chasing them, they’d threaded the needle and got clear. The three of them risked their lives to smuggle six cases of Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve to Dryworld, where drinking was a mortal sin punishable by beheading. When they split the profits after expenses, they each earned about three hundred C’s. Almost as much as the basic dole on Rimrock where they started the operation. They laughed all the way home.

  At twenty-five, while Cinch was spending a little time in the outworlder jail on Kuhara for smuggling in sexual toys to the pasha’s second-level harem, Cinch was braced by Dogman Belvedere, who had been put into the cell by friends of the pasha to teach the smuggler a lesson in humility. The Dogman had nine confirmed kills in hand-to-hand combat, Six of the legendary Dogman’s kills were legal, these being ronin gunning for his reputation or he for theirs. Three deaths were more questionable; and while there was not enough proof to indict him, the conventional wisdom thought these three murders-for-hire. In addition to the nine confirmed, rumor had it that Dogman could notch the handle clean off a big power pistol with his unconfirmed kills if he wanted to, not counting the legions of maimed but not dead people he had created. The Dogman was nobody to fuck with.

  When the Dogman stepped into his cell, Cinch knew exactly who he was. The Dogman was a head taller, ten years smarter, fifteen kilos heavier and supposedly fearless.

  Three seconds after he entered Cinch’s cell, Cinch put the Dogman down with a sweep, then kicked his head hard enough so the meanest man on the combat circuit slept for a week.

  When he woke up, the Dogman retired from competition.

  At thirty, Cinch Carston tracked and hunted down the Ordinian Axe, the worst mass murderer in recent galactic history, six hundred and forty-seven known victims on eight planets in twelve years. At the final moment, the new ranger found himself barehanded against the Axe, a giant of a man who deadlifted GE cars for exercise. He took the Axe’s weapon–which was actually a machete–and buried it in the man’s belly. The Axe was certifiably insane and there never would have been a trial, he would have gone straight to the nearest bughouse for life. Cinch didn’t think that was fair to the victims.

  So as he lay in bed, thinking about his recent encounter with Baji, he was to tired to smile but he thought about it. He wasn’t a coward. But he was older and maybe that meant he was a little wiser and a little less foolish and he had learned one thing:

  A man could get hurt messing with the wrong women.

  * * *

  As he’d expected, Cinch woke up sore. Not that he had slept all that long or well. He felt as if he were a couple hundred years old and had spent the last century or so rolling down a rocky mountainside. Maybe he was getting too soft for this. Maybe it was time to pack it in, find a rocking chair on a porch somewhere and watch the grass grow.

  He managed a grin through the pain. It
wasn’t like he’d never been bruised before. He’d be okay once he got moving and loosened up a little. At least nobody had picked the lock to his door–nobody meaning Baji–and hopped into bed with him. He had a certain amount of resolve, sure enough, but if that beautiful creature he’d seen in the hot tub had sneaked into his room naked when he felt as miserable as he had last night, he would surely have taken some comfort there. He wasn’t that old.

  It was early, dawn not quite ready to take over from the darkness. Baji seemed to be a late sleeper and with any luck, he could be away from the house by the time she got up.

  He chuckled to himself. Big, heroic ranger, running from a little girl. Better to have drowned in the rain-swollen gully and be laughed at by his fellow peace officers than let that get out, despite his reputation. In the rangers, it was always a case of “What have you done lately?” Everybody had old war stories.

  He climbed from the bed, went into the fresher and attended to his bodily functions, ran a hot shower that helped him feel a little better, and dried off.

  Now what, O professional investigator? How are you going to find out what it is that Tuluk thinks is so valuable he’s willing to kill to keep it hidden?

  As Cinch stretched a little to loosen the tight muscles in his back and legs, he considered the problem. It was surely illegal, whatever it was, and that might narrow things down some. What could you hide in a big field full of blueweed?

  Well, truth be told, a lot of things. A couple billion in gems would be easy enough to bury. Guns. Drugs. Stolen electric components, flashchips and the like, would take less room than emeralds or diamonds. Pirated software ...

  No, that wasn’t the way to go, there could be all manner of things stashed out there in the fields.

  Cinch finished stretching and examined himself in the mirror. He looked like hell, all bruised and scratched, but felt some better. He could survive without doping himself. He had an idea that he didn’t want to dull his wits–however sharp they might be–as long as he was on this world. Too many people seemed to want him fucked–one way or another.