But what if it came to a contest between the law and Bando Nicos? I'm talking about a gang that hadn't seen its fortieth day. A bunch of the law was stuff I'd made up myself on the spot. The only reason we still knew about any of it was because Stays wrote it down in his little book. Was that little collection of scribbles more important than Bando Nicos? I knew what my gut said, and it'd spent a lot of years learning its smarts in the yard. The talk was wearing me out.
"Look, Jak, talk to Stays or the cockroaches about stuff like that. Maybe Lomon Paxati. The Pres is a philosophy prof. All I know is that Kegel's goons've got Alna, Nance, and Mercy Jane, and my job is to get 'em back. That's all."
I looked at his narrowed eyes as he pulled his gaze away from me and pointed south. "Chief, beneath those clouds is the Sea of Stars. It's a huge fresh water ocean. Kegel owns the north shore."
"How close are we to Kegel's territory?" asked Show Biz.
Jak glanced at her and her camera. His face didn't change expression. "We've been in it since we left the sand."
I rubbed my eyes and looked at the trail ahead left by Kegel's raiders. We were off the anvil of the desert, but Alsvid still cooked this part of the planet enough to turn the soil into cement. I could see from our own trail that we weren't leaving much in the way of hoof marks in the hard soil. The only clear sign of our passing was the trampled down grass. The same, of course, was true for Kegel. It would be easy for the kidnappers to backtrack, hide in the grass, and spring all kinds of traps. For all I knew, Kegel was right in front of us, or behind us, waiting. The fear of it tightened my guts and sent another thunderbolt of pain through my right eye and out the back of my head.
Jontine Ru aimed her camera at Jak once more and made an announcement. "Jak Edge, I know something that doesn't fight for power."
Jak and I both turned toward her and asked, "What?"
Jontine looked up from her view finder at me like she couldn't believe how stupid I was. "The Razai. The Razai fights for justice, not power."
Oh yeah, the Razai, I thought as Jak snorted out what sounded like a bitter laugh. I nodded as I gently rubbed the remains of my right temple. It was still swollen and sickeningly squishy from a lack of bone. I lowered my hand and thought that maybe she was right. The gang even voted on it. We go and do the right thing, even if it means the end of us.
Edge spat on the grass and looked at me. "I been with you chups since your second day on the sand when you took out my patrol. I saw how you fought and how you started. Any number of times your gang's done somethin' I figured would end you, like that stupid No Prisoners Law, and puttin' who's going to be gang boss to a vote. I figured that last vote of yours, to ride off on a wild hair rescue mission wherever a crime is being committed, would be the last anyone ever heard of the Razai. I mean you people made sticking your nose where it doesn't belong part of your law" He held up his hand and dropped it upon the back of his critter. "But then you took out Pau Avanti's Hand patrol and rescued all those women. At the end of it, you were stronger than when you went in. Sometimes I just can't figure why you people are still alive."
"In the Razai we came up with something different. I can't say I understand how or why we got that way, but we are different."
He wiped his beard with the palm of his right hand as he glared at the southern clouds. "Maybe given more time the Razai could've become somethin' that could've changed the world. I'd like to see that. This world could stand a whole lot of change. But not now; not this way."
The way he was talking it sounded like a last minute conscience easing exercise before slipping the sharp and narrow to a near and dear. I half expected Kegel's gang to suddenly spring out of the grass at us.
"What're you saying?" He looked down at his hands, his head shaking. "It's a lot of things. All of these new yucks coming in, a lot of them never had any crowbar time, and none of them knows why the Razai even has the Law."
"What's your point?"
Jak pursed his lips, looked at the east, then swung his gaze south. "I seen how Bloody Sarah trains the squats, and how the Razai fights. Maybe with a good-sized miracle the Razai could've whipped Kegel. With an even bigger miracle, maybe you could've taken the Hand. But both gangs? And at the same time?" He waved his hand in a gesture of disappointed disgust.
The thoughts about Kegel's raiders setting an ambush for us still chewed at the back of my head. "Jak, instead of riding this trail, I want to head east first," I pointed with my hand, "then turn south and parallel Kegel."
"Worried about a trap?"
I climbed up on my critter. "Yeah. I'm worried about a trap. Keep the right flank in touch with Kegel's trail and far enough apart so they both can't be jumped at the same time."
He scratched his chin and looked south. "We can do that for maybe a day or so, but the further south we get, the taller the grass gets. Once it's over our heads, we're going to lose touch with our guards. We'll have to call them in. After that we can't push through because it's so thick. Kegel'll stick to the usual trails because it's faster, and that's the way we'll have to do it. Choppin' through that tall grass is a dead slow monster."
I didn't trust him at all, and it was mainly because he looked as nervous as a straightmeat trying to make up his mind about pulling his first job. "For now, let's do it my way.
Jak nodded and moved his critter down slope. I unslung my rifle and jumped as Jontine gasped making my critter start. "What is it?" I whispered.
She pointed at me. "What are you doing with your rifle?"
"Is that what you're jumpy about?"
"I thought you we're going to shoot Jak."
Anger squeezed a bit of a laugh out of me. "A little murder to start off my morning?" A bit steamed, I turned my rifle and pointed with my finger at the auto nut. "These things. I got to tell the rest of the posse about taking out the auto nuts in case a weapon get captured. I don't want to wind up putting automatic weapons in Kegel's hands. I figured on taking mine out to see how it's done."
I rested the stock on my right thigh and pointed the muzzle up in the air. "Why'd you think I'd want to whack Jak?"
Her shoulders gave a tiny shrug as she turned off her camera and packed it away. "If it was up to me, I would. Didn't you see how he's acting? I think he's leading us into a trap."
"Maybe." I looked at her as I placed my weapon across my thighs and began fiddling with the auto nut. "Personally I think he's trying to make up his mind. Since he's the only guide I got, I figure on making do for now."
"Making do," she muttered as she urged her critter down slope. As she rode she turned on her critter's back and said, "You know, Bando, I really don't want to die for this story."
"Everybody's got to die of something."
She glanced away, then looked back at me. "I might be wrong about you, but I keep getting the feeling you're a walking death wish looking for the right time and place to get honest with yourself."
I didn't answer her. What can you say to something like that? I turned back to my weapon and busied myself with figuring out the auto nut. I cut my finger on a sharp edge, swore, and tried again.
The death wish was bullshit. Maybe it was true back in the crowbars, but things were different on Tartaros. There was Alna, there was the law, and there was feeling good about what I was doing, discounting a few ghosts here and there. I didn't want to die, and I figured Jak Edge didn't want to die either. I didn't know about the popcorns.
I paused as I remembered someone who did want to die, given the proper nightmare. Several times in the dark Alna had whispered to me about her horror of being raped again. It chilled me to hear her because you knew if it happened she was going to kill and someone was going to die. It wasn't something I could understand, but right then I feared her fear.
I didn't know what Kegel's goons were doing with Alna, or if they had even kept her alive. I couldn't afford to think of those things. All I knew was that I had to catch up, and fast. If I showed up and was too late, I was pretty certain my ideas
about staying alive, dying, and killing would be a lot different. Loving someone more than my life was a new feeling and it was a wrestle trying to figure out where to put it.
"Nicos," said the Prophet as he ambled past me on his critter, "Tend to business. Put this nigger wench out of your mind."
I swung my piece, aimed at him, and was still pulling on the auto nut as I jammed my finger into the trigger guard and tried to squeeze off a round. As my finger touched the trigger the auto nut slipped out and my weapon was so much junk. Someone was looking out for the Prophet, because the only reason my finger had been on that trigger was to soup that bastard's head.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. My monster was getting the better of me. I was tired, my defenses low. I had to stop thinking of Alna and stop listening to popcorns. But where was Alna? What was happening to her? And Nance. What about that big tough yard monster bitch who cried as I held her hand? Was she even alive? I didn't know, not knowing was driving me crazy, and being crazy was making me very sloppy. It was time to kill all my feelings and put them away in that box that held them safe for all those years in the crowbars. That box was hate, and it was as comfortable as your old cell on your third time through the juicer.
I reinserted the auto nut, chambered a round, kept my piece across my lap, and urged my critter down the slope after the Prophet. The popcorn hadn't seen anything, but Show Biz and Deadeye were all of a sudden looking anywhere but in my direction.
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Auto Nuts
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The deeper we went into the Big Grass, the taller it got. As it grew taller, it became thicker, with broad, sun dried leaves, sort of like skinny sugar cane. Jak said the tall grass is where the greensticks come from. Once the center stalks were finger thick, it was thick enough to break and suck for water. The lughs uprooted entire plants with their tusks before eating them, roots and all.
There had to be insects, and the Big Grass had a fat yellow fly, clumsy-looking gray beetles, and a nasty little green mosquito that had a bite like fire. Jak told us how to use the grass juice mixed with dirt for a repellant, and soon skin color was no longer an issue. We were all slate gray. There were disgusting snake things which were actually four foot long worms the exact color of the grass. They would slither up grass stalks tail first and wait with their mouths next to the ground for something disgusting to creep by so they could do a little munch and drool. It was easy to grab some grass to push it aside and have one or two green worms in the handful. They were pretty delicate and stank like the warden's socks when the guts got on your fingers.
There were birds, too. They were big bluish things with thick, stubby legs, a body the size of a cat, a head from a reptile farm, and wings that must've been eight or ten feet across. By the time the grass got so tall and thick that we had to stick to the main trail, four of the birds circled over the column for a few minutes, then flew on. I looked at Jak and saw that he had a fear of the things.
"Garbage birds," he said.
"What're they looking for?" I asked.
"Children, wounded, the dead. Garbage." He looked at the sky, searching. "They didn't used to come this far out of the mountains. There wasn't enough food. They only began ranging this far north the last few years. All the traffic through the grass with the new exiles coming in keeps 'em fed. Because of fights there's always food where humans make trails. But they won't bother a large column. They prefer stragglers. Anyone who's helpless." He looked back at me. "If they're hungry enough, they'll gang up and go after a healthy adult. Rare, but it happens."
"Kind of makes me homesick for the sand bats."
"Cheer up, chup. This close to the sand we got them, too." He didn't smile at all at his little joke. The talk was cut short by one of the point riders coming back down the trail. I looked at Jak. "What's up?"
"Maybe contact."
Deadeye checked the setting of his auto nut and I aimed my gaze toward the trail. The rider was Brain Drain. He pulled up next to me and rasped out a high whisper. "A trap. Kegel's been waiting for us. He's got a big force moving down the trail and two wings out there on the flanks moving through the grass to get in back of us."
"How big and how far ahead?" Jak demanded.
"Forty or fifty riders in the force coming down the trail, maybe fifteen in each wing. I don't think we can get out before the wings close behind us. Get that white off your head, stand on your critter's back, and take a look."
I pushed the hood off my head, climbed up into a weaving squat on the back of my lugh, and, using Alna's umbrella against the back of the animal for balance, I slowly straightened up until my eyes were level with the tops of the stalks. My headache was throbbing, making my eyes go in and out of focus. I straightened up a little more and then saw the eastern wing. Kegel's riders wore their traditional white desert sheets with the pointed hoods up which made it look like a mob of upended pillows was skimming along the grass tops. They were closing in far behind us.
I turned around and could just catch a glimpse of the other wing. There was no way we could get back down the trail. I looked toward the south but I couldn't make out the main body. Squatting back down and straddling my critter, I said to Jak, "Get in the left outriders and bring 'em here."
Jak frowned. "Are you sure we shouldn't make for the main column?"
"I'm sure, and stick a rocket up your ass! Move!" Jak pulled out and began dusting for the left flank riders. I turned behind me and hissed at Deadeye. "Bring in the right flank outriders." He dug his heels into his critter and took off through the grass. As he rode off I looked at Brain Drain.
"I'll get in the rear guard. You bring in the other point rider." The brain eater took off and I waved my hand at Show Biz. "Let's cruise." I turned my critter north and dug in my heels.
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Smoking a Little Grass
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By the time we returned I had everyone ride back and forth across the trail making it look like we had made a dozen paths away from the main track. Finally I located the posse deep in the veg and put the grass back up that we had trampled down. It wouldn't fool anybody for long, but we didn't need long.
Putting Mummy and Idiot Son in charge of the critters, I told them to get the lughs to lie down and keep quiet. Posting Bug Eyes, Head Start, Brain Drain, and the cannibals around the lughs, I made the rest up into a mobile strike unit. I told everybody to turn their auto nuts to full automatic fire. Show Biz opted to stay with the mobiles.
I was still breathing hard when the sounds of Kegel's west wing moving through the grass hit my ears. I scurried over to Brain Drain's group and whispered, "It looks like the west wing'll hit first. Once you're sure where they are, open up on full automatic, mow down the grass until you see them, then kill them. Understand?"
He nodded and I pointed toward the south. "I'm taking my bunch down to ambush the main body. I'll try to get back here before the east wing closes. If I don't make it back in time, you'll have to take on those chups, too."
"I got it." He turned his auto nut and got down into a sitting position behind a critter.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"You know what they call me. Brain Drain."
"What's your name?"
He looked up from sighting along his weapon. "Murphy. Dean Murphy."
I pointed with my thumb toward the noises. "Keep an eye open, Murphy."
He nodded and I scurried as quietly as I could to the mobiles. I moved them through the grass until we were strung out along the road twenty feet or so into the grass. The idea was simple. It was just an armed version of the stunt Pussyface Garoit had led the unarmed Razai to pull on Jak Edge's patrol of five hundred mounted rifles. Wait until the whole bunch was in front of us, then mow them down. This time, thanks to the Trolls and their auto nuts, we had a mower.
I turned the nut on my weapon to full automatic fire and tried to quiet the pounding of my heart so that I could hear. Kegel's goons trolloping through the grass on their critters was only one sound among many crowding my head. Next to it was a voice filled with hell and dripping with joy at the prospect of a straight up or down fight. As I hunkered down into the grass and wrapped my finger around the trigger, the darkness filled me. I could see them, body after body, screaming and spurting blood, falling before my fire. It was my monster, my rage, straining against its chains, begging to be cut loose.
I closed my eyes as I cursed myself for being as big a whack as any coconut in the grass. I took deep breaths and made an acknowledgment of reality to put the monster back into its box. Hello, monster, I called to it. Don't you remember? We do stupid things when you're running the show. Remember trying to pistol whip all those cops in Philly? Remember taking a swing at Iron Mountain Mike back in the Crotch? That was a shrewd move. We got five months in the prison hospital for that one.
The sounds in the grass became louder. I could pick out a voice or two. My hands stopped shaking, I opened my eyes, and sighted down my weapon at the grass. There was nothing to zero in on just then, but once we mowed the grass, I wanted my aim in place.
For just a moment the odor of mildewed hay passed my nostrils, and it reminded me of the hay fields that surrounded the blocks at Lancaster Juve. The slight memory faded and was replaced by a question. How did I know for a fact that the riders coming down on us were from Kegel's gang? If we ambushed them and it turned out that they were innocent, what then? Would we be a bunch of murderers? But what if I stepped out on the trail and tried to parley with them? Find out who they were, what their intentions were, whether or not they want to join the Razai? So I could either be a live murderer or a dead asshole.
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