INFINITY HOLD3

by Longyear, Barry B.

  In the space of time that I had been away from the Razai, the pair of them had collected, repaired, and put into service almost a hundred rifles, which meant that the Razai now had around thirteen hundred armed sharks. They had converted one of the big sleds into a workshop, and the place was crowded with rifle parts, hunks of metal, and the crude tools that had been captured from the Hand. The cleanest tool they had was a pair of homemade bolt cutters.

  When I entered the ordinance sled, the pair of them were in deep conversation with Sarah. Gordo had designed a way to convert the pump action rifles into semiautomatic or full automatic weapons. Sarah was checking out one of the conversions. After greeting me, she turned to the Trolls. "Gordo, Emmet, considering what you've had to work with, this is a remarkable job."

  From the midst of their grease and metal filings, the pair of them blushed like a couple of school boys and immediately went into terminal "aw shucks" mode. Sarah held the rifle out to me. The pump lever was gone, the tube that held the cartridges had been welded shut for some kind of a gas operated bolt return, and they had made a clip that fed into the side of the weapon that looked like it held thirty or forty rounds. Sarah indicated a little switch next to the trigger.

  "That converts it from semiautomatic to full automatic fire." She smiled as she hefted the weapon and sighted down it. "Of course, we can't afford to fire these weapons that way until we get some more ammo, but we can begin the conversions right away. Maybe by the time we face Carlo T. and the Hand we won't have to have as many soldiers as they have."

  "Maybe," I said as I handed back the weapon to her. "I'd sure love to have a talk with that Quana Lido gang and find out where they get the guns and the blue goo."

  "All you need is a magic carpet." Bloody Sarah handed the rifle to Gordo. "This is terrific, guys. If things look clear tomorrow, I want you to take this thing out away from the column and try it out."

  Emmet Stant held his nose up in the air. "I'm afraid we've already tested it, general." He held his hand out toward a large wooden box. It had a hole in one end, and when Sarah opened its top, it was full of torn up rags. "With the door on the sled closed and the end of the weapon in the rags, it's fairly quiet."

  I stood over the box and began pawing through the rags. In a moment I managed to find three of the slugs the Trolls had fired into the box. I looked at them, and the tips were polished, but not blunted. The lands and grooves around the slugs were sharp and clear. "You two?"

  "Yeah?" answered Emmet.

  "I want you to root through this box and get all of the slugs out of it. Then, every time you get a rifle in here to fix or do a conversion, I want you to number the piece and take a test shot first in this box. Save me the slug and tag it with the rifle number and the name of the one carrying the piece. Understand?"

  "Yeah," answered Emmet, looking like I had just told him to eat a dead mouse. "I understand."

  "And keep your mouths shut about what you're doing. Understand?"

  Gordo stood up and folded his arms. He wasn't very tall, but he was wide with muscular arms that testified to some iron time with the yard monsters. "Look, amigo, we aren't the stains. You are. Right now we fix and convert guns and that's all we do. Don't try and stick us in the RCs."

  "Look, amigo," I answered, "the slug that got Nance Damas is still in her. If Mercy Jane can get it out, we have a bit of a chance to find out who drilled her. Right now we don't have any records of names and who's got rifles, and if I tried getting sample slugs on my own, you can count on the rifle we want getting conveniently lost out there in the sand. This conversion business is perfect, and no one has to know a thing about it."

  "Until we have to go to trial, right?" asked Emmet.

  I shrugged and held out my hands. "Only if it takes a jury to nail the perp."

  "Forget it, copperhead."

  I glanced at Sarah as I tried to keep my temper. "Look. A crime has been committed. Someone tried to kill Nance. Remember the trial where Jim Bennet executed those witnesses who refused to do anything? They wouldn't go for help and they refused to testify?"

  "We haven't witnessed anything," Gordo protested.

  "True," said Sarah. "But what I think Bando is getting at is you have an opportunity to be a witness. If you refuse to do anything, it sounds an awful lot like those three witnesses who Jimmy Bennet drilled."

  "We keep our noses clean and mind our own business," said Emmet, "just like back in the yard."

  I sat on my temper and said through clenched teeth, "I've said this a thousand times, dog drool. We aren't in the crowbars anymore. We are on the grit, the yard is done past, and who shot Nance is everybody's business. Keep those three witnesses of Jimmy Bennet's in mind. They only looked after their own business and kept their noses clean, and now the sand bats are eating their eyes."

  Gordo pointed at Bloody Sarah. "She's my boss, cop; not you." He looked at Sarah. "What about it, general? It'll take up lots of time, lots of ammo, and we really don't want to join the squeals. If anyone found out about what we'd be doing, we'd be maggot chow."

  Sarah folded her arms and ordered, "Do it."

  "But—"

  "Do it," she repeated. "And keep it quiet. I know how you feel, but what Bando wants is important. Besides, Nance made him number two, so he's my boss. Don't let me down."

  Gordo and Emmet looked at the floor as they nodded.

  As my face cooled, I nodded my thanks to Sarah and said, "I sent a bunch of the new sharks to each guard and the walking column."

  "Any soldiers?"

  "About seven hundred of the Mihvihtian sharks are leatherheads, for what that's worth. They were dumped out of a military prison."

  "Bando, did you run across any trained military officers?"

  "A few. There's a Mihvihtian colonel with the point guard named Indimi. I think you'll be able to use him. Anyway, he sure seems to be an admirer of yours. Sometime soon we're going to have to get together about how you're going to organize all the protos."

  I glared at the Trolls, exited through the door, and climbed down from the sled. I was still pretty hot about their anchor dragging. It wasn't that I had expected them to jump up and click their heels or anything, or say "Gee, Bando, what a great idea." What I did expect was a little more enthusiasm about nailing the handful of snot that had drilled Nance. Again I wondered if any of us had really escaped the crowbars. Was the yard really done past? There are all kinds of prisons. The deepest pits are the ones we tote in our lobes.

  "Bando?"

  I turned at the sound of Sarah's voice and looked up at the ordinance sled. She was standing on the sled's rear deck, her elbows resting on the railing that supported the roof.

  "What?"

  "Don't be too concerned about the boys in there. You must know that asking them to help the cops is asking a lot."

  "I know." I felt it in my gut, and since I was a recovering macho there wasn't any reason not to say it. "I think Nance made a big mistake fingering me. You or Stays should be running things as number two."

  Her eyebrows went up as her mouth fell open. Then she laughed and said, "You put the commander of the army in charge and the Razai would be a boss-run gang like any of the rest of the life takers on the sand. You put the law together. You must know that. Don't be silly." She turned and went back into the ordinance sled, pulling the curtain shut behind her.

  "What's silly about that?"

  After taking a few deep breaths, I noticed that the sun was almost down. Some walking column sharks were already pulling stakes and rolling the camouflage sheets. Sarah wouldn't have to be told about getting the column moving, so I turned to look for Stays.

  I could hear muffled voices coming from inside Nance's sled and I felt the bag of thumpers inside my pocket. I climbed up and entered the door. Marantha was sitting where I had been and Mercy Jane was seated on the opposite side of the bed. They fell silent as soon as I entered.

  "Cheese it, the cops," whispered Nance. Marantha and Mercy Jane laughed.
Nance still looked like hell in a hibachi, but much more alert. Her sheet was almost dry.

  "I guess you're feeling better," I said. "You ready to take back your job?"

  "Bando," she said in a stronger voice, "there's a whole lot of weasel in you, querido."

  "Got anything?"

  The corners of her mouth turned down as she nodded. "A few things."

  "Such as?"

  "Outside with that," Mercy Jane ordered. "I can't have you wearing out my patient by dragging her through all that again."

  "It's getting dark out," said Nance. "Is the column getting ready to move?"

  I nodded. "It's running itself, Nance. The Razai knows what to do and the new sharks'll stumble along somehow until they learn the ropes." I turned to Mercy Jane as I pulled Pill Phil's thumpers out from beneath my sheet. "Hey, Doc, you wanna see God?" I held out the bag. "Plug a couple of these into your hard drive."

  Her mouth dropped open in astonishment. "My god! Where did you get them?"

  "Guy I know. Made a donation."

  "What is it?" Nance whispered.

  Jane raised an eyebrow at me, then she turned, leaned over Nance's bed, and showed her the bag. "Diamond drops, honey. Look."

  Nance was silent for a moment, then she ordered, "Get out. Jane, you and Marantha get out. I want to be alone with the cop." She swallowed hard. "Go on. Get out"

  "I'll wait for you outside, Chief," said Marantha as she climbed down from the sled. Mercy Jane tucked away the sack of caplets and patted my arm on her way out.

  I walked over to Nance figuring from the tone of her voice she was going to bite off my other ear. I looked down at her and she was looking straight up at the overhead, the tears pooling in her dark eyes and running down the sides of her head. Her hands were in two tight fists, and I picked up one of them. We held hands for a moment, then she closed her eyes, nodded, and turned her face away from me. She let go of my hand and I left her like that.

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  Hercule Poirot, Where Are You?

  ▫

  Outside the desert was beginning to give up its heat. Two of the sleds had already been pulled off by their ten-critter teams of lughoxen. I glanced beneath the sled where the deadhead had been counting dimensions, but he wasn't there. When I returned from Nance's sled, Deadeye Jay and Bloody Sarah had joined Marantha and Mercy Jane, and all four of them were wriggling beneath their desert sheets putting on their heavy threads against the coming cold. I unbundled my own shirt and parka and put them on under my sheet as I joined them.

  I asked Marantha, "Did Sarah tell you about what the Trolls will be doing?"

  She nodded as she zipped up her pair of Mihvihtian leggings. I wanted a pair of those myself and wondered where she'd gotten hers. Then I remembered the hundred-odd Mihvihtian sharks we'd left out in the grit the night before. The Mihvihtians had stripped the defunct and departed in order to build up a little inventory for trading purposes before reaching the Razai. I sure did want a pair of those gloves.

  "We'll have to keep our eyes open for a magnification lens of some kind," said Marantha. "Unless we're lucky and the shooter's piece has a severe defect in the bore, we probably won't be able to tell enough by eye." She gave a tiny sigh. "Checking slugs'll probably produce more than the stuff I have to work with."

  "Nance couldn't think of anyone?"

  "She could think of a few, Chief. Just for openers, how about all those members of the Hand and of Boss Kegel's gang that are in the Razai? Every one of those sharks lost family or friends when we took them."

  I shrugged. "So, what's that? Four, five hundred suspects?"

  "Don't stop there. What about all of the sharks from Earth that lost someone in one of the battles? That puts the number up to a couple of thousand, at least. What about the friends or relatives of someone executed in one of our trials? She was in charge. She's the one who appointed you."

  I glanced at Jay Ostrow and he was giving me that deadeye look back. "That it?"

  "No. Throw in the machos who want her out because she's a woman, and the straights who want her out because she's a lesbian, and the whackos who want her out simply because they're homicidal maniacs on personal power trips, and maybe you'll get the picture."

  I rubbed the back of my neck and looked up at her. "I take it motive is not going to be our trail to the shooter."

  "Neither is opportunity," said Sarah. "Three thousand sharks on the sand at night, no one keeping track of anyone, a third of them armed, no one really guarding his or her own piece."

  "Didn't she mention anyone in particular?"

  Marantha pulled her arms in beneath her sheet and began putting on a pair of gloves. "There are some old crowbar beefs she mentioned; stuff from back before the landing." She pulled some papers from beneath her sheet and looked at her notes.

  "Jordie Woltz. He was in the Crotch for murder. He's the brother of the rapist that Nance tortured to death. She thinks she saw him in the rear guard." Marantha looked up from her notes. "Nance was down checking the Match's guard when she got hit." She looked back at her papers.

  "I have an ex-lover of hers, Dol Corlis, who may or may not be working a grudge. There were a lot of bad feelings when they parted company."

  "Who left and who got left?" I asked.

  "Nance dumped Dol."

  "Why?"

  Marantha smiled as her eyebrows went up. "Did you ever meet Dol Corlis?"

  I shook my head. "Nope."

  "Everything about her that's worth anything is on the outside. Great face and body, and a voice and manner that seem to fill the world with fun. Inside she has the attitude of a wolverine and all of the vulnerability of a cobra." Marantha pulled out a slip of paper and put it at the back of her slim stack.

  "There were a few of the sisters who tried to take Nance down back in the crowbars. It was a power thing. Nance thumped them pretty badly. There might be as many as six of them with the column. Their leader was Syl Hagen. There was also Alice Hill. Alice was a snitch, and Nance posted her."

  "Posted her? What's that?"

  "It's something we used to do to snitches on the women's side." Marantha looked me right in the eyes. "You find a snitch, then you take a big nail with a big wide head and stick it in the snitch's big mouth and nail her cheek to a post in the yard. When you're posted you're hands are tied. When the hammering is over, you're pulled out along the nail until the big flat head of the nail pulls against the inside of the cheek, then a rag is stuffed in your mouth."

  Marantha shrugged. "No one can hear you to help you, so there's not much you can do except yank yourself free by tearing open your cheek."

  I shook my head. "You bitches got some nasty rules."

  "Had. What'd you do with snitches on the men's side?"

  "We just pull a cutter and lay 'em open."

  "Very humane."

  I pointed at her papers. "How long ago was it the snitch got posted?"

  "Two years. I checked and Alice is with the left flank guard. She's very pretty, except for a badly scarred cheek." She folded her papers and tucked them in beneath her sheet. "That's about it."

  Sarah placed her hand on my arm. "Do you need me for anything?"

  I shook my head. "Where you off to now?"

  "I'm going to hit all the guards and make sure that the protos are settling in. I'll need to know where you are. I have some scout reports coming in soon."

  "Marantha, Deadeye, and me are going back to the rear guard to look up this Jordie Woltz and maybe nose around a little. If you see Stays, let him know. And tell everyone to keep an eye out for Nkuma. He's missing."

  There was one more thing, "Sarah?"

  "Yes?"

  "I didn't want to push Nance about this, but what kind of shape are we in? Can we reach the Sunrise Mountains?"

  "How well is the new bunch supplied?"

  "A lot better than we were. Their clothes are better designed, and t
hey were issued rations for ten days instead of five. So they still have six days left. Also, they haven't been in any battles."

  Sarah nodded. "Sounds good. Stores says that with the water and supplies we captured from the Hand, we're good for another twenty days, and with what the Mihvihtians are carrying," she raised her eyebrows as she ran a few numbers in her head, "that should give us a little over eight days."

  "How far are we from the Big Grass?"

  "Ondo told me this morning we're about three days from the grass, and maybe another three days to good water and some edible game. We'll make it if we're careful. The only things we really need to worry about are staying out of fights along the way and what we're going to do once we get there."

  "You mean the Hand?"

  "There's that, too."

  "What else?"

  Bloody Sarah nibbled on the inside of her lip. I'd never seen her display evidence of any kind of anxiety before. It put the rattles on me. "The thing I was thinking of is probably our biggest threat."

  I folded my arms across my chest. "Which is?"

  "Right now we have the desert keeping us together. Once we get off the sand and reach water and vegetation, is the mission to free the Hand's slaves going to be enough to keep us together? I don't think so. You see, we're not an army yet. We're still a collection of raving individualists. Right now the desert makes it so we need each other just to stay alive. So, for awhile at least, we act like a team. Once we get to water, that'll change. We won't need each other so much."

  "Sarah, maybe sharks know better than anyone else the difference between a mob that rules with a fist and what we got. I think that's why the crowbar rats from Mihviht joined up with us. Here we're the good guys. Maybe the law can keep us together."

  She gave a tiny shrug of neither agreement nor disagreement. It just meant that she didn't want to talk about it anymore. She cocked her head toward the east. "I'm heading on up to the point and see if I can find this new colonel you brought me."