by Eric Flint
And there were others crisscrossing the great atrium. For example, a covey of short-limbed figures stomped by, laden in chainmail and bearing double-sided axes, refused to give ground to a pair of willowy types, with flaxen hair and albino features—pointy-of-ear and smug of expression. I hadn't seen variety like this since my last visit to an Alliance headquarters planet.
Most surprising were all the standards—normal humanoids of both sexes, sometimes accompanied by children—who crossed the busy expanse pulling wheeled suitcases, while gawking at lavish neon displays.
Casino Evil flashed one large banner above a broad entrance, accompanied by a glittering animation—a neon monkey covered both eyes, then peeked out from behind one hand, repeating the sly motion, over and over again. Underneath his swishing tail, a rotating marquee touted several entertainments.
The headline act—Pomp & Cirque Du Stance!—apparently featured scantily clad acrobats, holding each other in rigid poses. Reviewer comments deemed this "The Greatest Show Unearthed."
Below the headliner, in smaller letters, another flashing sign blared: Also Appearing! Erica Tile performs her arousing Rigor-More Tease!
And, in still-smaller type at the bottom . . .
Returning from their Millennium Tour . . .
Penn & Teller.
I let out a sigh of realization.
Of course. Casinos. Gambling.
No wonder standards were made to feel welcome here, safe from the more overt kinds of blood-sucking that they faced back in the city. This giant emporium of excess featured a more subtle style of predation, one that had been outlawed on most civilized worlds. But it seemed quite fitting, here on Oxytocin 41.
Well, well. If this really was a truce zone—or neutral ground—then I needn't walk in complete terror of being discovered with warm blood and a beating heart. My pulse slowed just a little.
I turned around. Apparently this giant pyramid—the Golden Palace—housed a variety of specialty establishments, each with its own overdecorated entranceway. Aside from Casino Evil, they ranged from the Bellalugosio with lavish, crimson fountains, to the retro-looking StratosFear. From Geronimo's, featuring a gilded parachute motif, all the way to the lower-priced Motel Styx, which—despite a cadaverous-looking doorman—tried to brighten its drab portal with a cheery light over the door.
Wondering which way to go, I kept turning till at last I spotted one gateway that bore a simple logo—a shimmering, jeweled coronet—a glowing, tiara—fit to be worn by royalty. And suddenly, I recalled the words spoken by our erstwhile guide, Earl Dragonlord, the first denizen of this world that our landing party came upon, a few days ago, just after we slurried down to this strange planet.
"Come along, cousins," he had said to Captain Olm and my other Demmie comrades, no-doubt thinking that their pointy teeth made them fellow nomorts. "Sunshine is bad enough, but we definitely should not be out by moonlight! I'll get you appropriate clothes. Then we can go to the Crown."
It was about the last thing I remembered, before getting jumped and separated from the others on that awful evening, when everything went suddenly wrong.
And, well, this looked like a "Crown" to me.
As I headed toward that broad entryway, I gradually realized that the throng of Standard tourists was thinning and the proportion of cape-clad individuals went up. Some establishments apparently specialized in catering to the predatory castes. So much for any opportunity to relax.
But this was where I needed to go. I straightened my posture and gathered my borrowed cloak, keeping my mouth closed in a feral scowl and hoping for a look of confidence and panache as I passed between a pair of greeters dressed in black livery with yellow trim. Bowing courteously, one of them pushed aside a paneled door for me and I had to lean forward against a fresh wave of that low, jangling sound that had been with me ever since I crossed the river.
Ahead of me stretched row upon row of ornate, garish machines, flashing and chiming while clients dropped coins and tokens into slots, or eagerly scooped up rewards that tumbled noisily into trays. Gambling devices, I realized, recognizing the basic idea from museum exhibits, back home. One-armed bandits. Robotic shears for sheep. During Earth's wild and woolly twenty-first century, tremendous ingenuity and energy had gone into creating gadgets that could read a person's iris dilation, flush tones, heartbeat, electrical tension and even neuronal reactions, finely tuning the rate of winning-rewards—along with sound and light—in order to condition users, keeping them transfixed, hopeful, reluctant to leave, even while their wallets lightened.
Only now, imagine it happening on a planet where predation is the rule of daily life? Something felt deeply compelling about the rhythms, drawing me toward the labyrinth of seductive, glittering lights—a seductive pull that felt eerily related to the hypnotic glitter that the undead-Demmie, Gala Morrell, had aimed at me, a while ago. Only here I was immersed, submerged in a spell cast by relentless, remorseless machinery.
A little numbly, I recalled how things went during the similar phase back in my own species history, a few centuries ago. When laws and regulation and moral appeals proved useless, it took a wave of medical interventions—mass inoculations—to overcome this commercial variant of mind-suasion. As the throbbing sensory enticement pulled at me, I couldn't help wondering if those booster shots I had taken at the Academy were still any good.
Nearby, a fellow with slicked hair and a widow's peak dropped coin after coin, as if hypnotized, into a machine that rewarded him with bloops and beeps and whirling flashes . . . and an occasional trickle of change.
Who'd have figured. Vampires and the undead . . . just as vulnerable to this sort of thing as the living. I guess some things transcend even life and death.
Tearing my gaze away, I turned around, trying to focus my thoughts.
Aha, that looks like a hotel front desk or information booth. Maybe I can simply ask where to find Earl Dragonlord.
It sounded risky. I had no way of knowing whether that fellow had been part of the ambush, guiding me and my comrades into a trap. And yet, I was feeling as impatient as a Demmie who had missed lunch. Sometimes the direct approach is exactly what's called for.
I approached the desk, where several liveried clerks were checking in guests. There was a queue, so I took my place in line, behind a pair of exotic-looking vodouns and a businessvamp carrying a heavy sample case that clinked as if it held glass bottles. A dusty and travel-weary hunchback leaned against a wheeled coffin that bore decals and stickers from faraway cities. "Just a little while longer!" I heard him whisper through a crack in the sarcophagus.
One member of the the hotel staff smiled ingratiatingly, with pointy canines, at a rather vexed-looking customer. "I'm sorry about the delays with your luggage. As you may have observed, our regular crew of corpambulist servants has gone on strike. We'll all just have to be patient with the replacements."
It was the same at all the other check-in stations. So I shifted my weight as the line crept forward. Reading announcements on a nearby notice board, I noted (for example) that the pre-dawn Die-Chi class had been canceled on account of daylight savings time and tonight's buffet would feature Brain Drain Special. Idly, I wondered why the menu proudly avowed that "no wine will be served."
. . . when, abruptly, I felt a hand on my shoulder and sharp pressure between two of my ribs.
"Don't make a move," growled a gravelly voice, close behind my left ear. "I have a stake-shooter that's aimed straight at your heart."
"I'm . . . I'm not moving," I managed to murmur, with a suddenly dry mouth.
"That's good. Now turn to the left, slowly. Start walking toward that exit. Easy pace. Keep it natural."
I did as I was told, making sure that none of my movements were jerky or sudden. Though I did wonder. On this world, if you shot a normal-alive person in the heart and killed him, would the same stake-propelling method work when he was undead?
I must be really, really tired, I realized, for my thoughts to w
ander so, in a tense situation. I had been battered, knocked unconscious (three times), harried, threatened . . . and now worse seemed to be in the offing.
Yet, as my captor propelled me forward with pointy jabs, I couldn't help suddenly noticing a pair of hotel workers in drab bellboy uniforms, pushing an overloaded luggage cart nearby. They seemed clumsy and inexperienced. They also seemed to be glancing my way, I noticed. In fact, one of them even jerked her head a little, as if to draw my eye.
Sully?
I barely recognized the recently-deceased young zombie who had befriended and protected me in the Cal'mari graveyard, the evening of that haunting cemetery serenade. Now she wore coats of heavy makeup that seemed aimed at making her look more hideously postmortem, rather than less. Nearby, helping with the cart, was a male figure who—missing one eye and part of his cranium—seemed quite scabrous and at home in the role as a strike-breaking undead luggage handler.
Moulder?
Sully seemed about to say something. She mouthed a couple of words . . .
. . . but the man or creature behind me gave a hard push and I stumbled forward, moving toward the portal he had indicated, an exit that would take me out of an emporium of blood-sucking monsters, toward some place that would, presumably, be far worse.
* * *
To be continued
Comments? Complaints? Wretched-awful ideas? Send them to [email protected].
David Brin is the author of many novels and short stories.
Fish Story, Episode 6
Written by Andrew Dennis, Dave Freer and Eric Flint
Where we left matters in the last installment was a little ways up Bifrost. I was there; it actually happened. You can call me all the kinds of drunk you want, but I'd had nothing but American beer for hours, so we can rule that nonsense right out. Had I been at the Old Tom I'd be the first to hold my hand up to a charge of delirium. Riggwelter would cause me, indeed, to question my own veracity, and if it could be proven to my entire satisfaction that I'd been at the brandy, island single malt or any of the other ardent spirits I'm partial to, I'd be a very relieved man. Because it would mean none of this ever happened. Alas, while I was definitely under the influence, I wasn't anywhere near the edges of reality and certainly not off hunting the white-eared elephant (don't ask, or at least don't ask me when I'm drunk. I'm apt to show you.)
Existential musings aside, the next bit was beyond the most arrantly peculiar hallucination. There was a tollbooth. On Bifrost.
Thor began patting his pockets and rummaging in the capacious nail pockets on his tool belt. "Change, change," he murmured.
"I've a few nuggets," Sheila said, brightly. I kept mum—humorous protestations notwithstanding, I don't mind getting a few drinks in, but paying the toll on a ride I'd never have agreed to go on without being chased into it by a giant and frankly mythical serpent was a bit steep—and peered ahead at this altogether unlikely cash sieve. The usual barrier and booth was present, manned by the standard-issue elderly bloke who looked like he'd lost ten bob and found a farthing, and other time-honoured metaphors for tight-mouthed miserygutsitude.
"Very Norse, he looks," Sheila remarked.
"Danelaw," said Thor, shrugging. "Yorkshire. One of our cultural remnants. Side effect of being gods."
Never one to miss a point of experimental theology, I wondered aloud how that worked. "Is this the old trope about gods existing because of belief?" I asked, after a brief, but not presently germane, disquisition on the Gnostic heresies and the works of Fritz Leiber.
"Not . . . quite," Thor averred, as he finally cracked and produced coin for Heimdall, who was sat in his booth apparently enjoying the aftertaste of the multitude of lemons he'd just sucked.
"Exact change only," Heimdall snapped. "And I'm this way because I got the Danelaw. You think I like being a mean-spirited Yorkshireman? Or, for that matter, spending eternity on stage here?"
Thor handed over change . "Give it a rest," he said to his fellow Aesir, "rank has its privileges, and I was ahead of you and got Minnesota."
"And can still follow the Vikings, even if they're playing that poncey American football stuff. What's my choice? Sheffield Wednesday or Leeds United." Heimdall harrumphed and gave us the most peevish beady eye I, for one, have ever seen.
I shuddered in sympathy. There was a certain amount of logic to it, if by "certain amount" you mean "completely demented and insane." The Danelaw, the north and east of England, was settled by assorted Scandihoovian nut cases—and if you think that culture didn't survive, bear in mind that one of the most notorious football hooligan gangs was the Leeds Wrecking Crew. Which meant that a sports-minded Aesir was stuck with what was, in those days, two of the most deadly dull premiership teams to follow. Oh, certainly, Liverpool and Manchester—hack, spit—United were in the technical Danelaw, but the east side had been counter-invaded by the Celts from the other direction.
"Don't get started on football," Sheila snapped, this being in the days before the likes of Beckham—and their massive salaries, but that's a darkly cynical rant for another time—got ladies interested in football.
"That's right, don't," Thor said, "and it's soccer, anyway. Girls' game."
Both Heimdall and I bristled. "Take a hacking in the six-yard box and say that," Heimdall snapped.
"Right!" I said, "and no fairy armour to keep you from messing up your nails, either." They'd tried to get American football going in the UK at about the time this was going on, to widespread derision.
"Both games for great wet wendies," Sheila snapped. "Rugby, that's a proper game."
I contented myself with harrumphing. If I was going to make remarks about sports for outsize specimens with no pain centres, teeth and muscles between the ears, my voce would have to be pretty damned sotto to avoid getting my head kicked in. Besides, when it came to following sports, it was cricket first and last, for me. Now there's a sport for people with attention spans.
Even Thor could see it was time to move swiftly on. "Quit whining," he told Heimdall. "You could've gotten Swedish Lutherans. Or Danish Hippies."
Both Aesir and I shuddered at that last.
"Who got the Norwegian Death Metal fans?" I asked, unable to resist.
"Modi and Magni," Heimdall said, a wry smile of schadenfreude ghosting over his prune-like features. "Only consolation of being out here on Bifrost at all hours. Can't hear that racket."
"Don't ask," Thor sighed, "those boys are a disappointment in so many ways."
I wasn't terribly well informed on Norse mythology, beyond a vague sense that Kirk Douglas was involved somewhere, but I could recognize the sound of parental disappointment from long experience of being on the receiving end. And it wasn't like the whole purposes of thrash metal wasn't to piss off your dad in any event. Not hard to do with my own father, whose tastes ran to the Carpenters of all things. To this day he thinks the Beatles were a bit racy.
As our conveyance moved off, Spivey sighed loudly. "You know, you sidestepped the subject rather neatly there, big fella. You're going to lose that reputation for lunkheadedness you worked on."
"Since we're headed for Asgard anyway we ought to let the old man fill them in," Thor said, keeping his eyes on the road ahead, "You know how he hates to miss an opportunity to lecture."
"We're going to meet Odin?" Sheila asked, more than a hint of the fangirl creeping in to her voice. Now I thought about it, she'd seemed a tad shiny-eyed since she'd learned that she'd shared a round of drinks with Thor. One of the more elaborate tattoos was a Valkyrie, and given enough drink she'd flex her back muscles to make the horse's wings flap while singing Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries—the Apocalypse Now tune, for those of you not paying attention at the back there. As for Sheila's singing voice, all I can say is that Wagner has had that coming a long time.
Sheila's sudden perkiness of manner caused me to mutter an unkind remark, which earned me a withering look. "A lady," she said, rime-frost condensing around her, "does not ask to see anyone's
horn on first meeting, let alone Heimdall's."
"Lady," said Watters, "if I took all the cheap shots . . ."
But he didn't. Without looking, she straight-armed him in the side of the head. His eyes rolled up white and he slumped in his seat to trouble us no further for the rest of the journey.
"Nice," Thor remarked.
What to say of Asgard? All of the mythological stuff was there—Gimli, plain of Idavoll, Yggdrasil clearly visible. Looking it up after, I see that it's supposed to be the most beautiful place imaginable, but bear in mind that in Sweden "Adequate" is considered high praise. It was very nice, if you like bland. I found my self—north of England boy that I am—longing for a few Dark Satanic Mills to liven up the landscape. There's something about a massive rectangular pile of mid-Victorian brickwork with a huge chimney stack that makes me feel right at home. And before you start scrambling teams of world-class Freudians to shoot down the remark about big chimneys, I know, alright? Mill-owners used to compete as to who had the biggest ahem chimney. There's one still standing in Blackburn—yes, the place from the Sergeant Pepper album, and take it from me, there's no need to count the holes, the place is one big one—with a big bulge at the top end. The owner said he was styling it to look like the Campanile of Venice, but really, there is such a thing as overdoing it.
