INFINITY HOLD3

by Longyear, Barry B.

The crack of a rifle behind me resolved all of the legal questions. They fired first. It was a single shot fired by one of the goons in the wing approaching Brain Drain and his group of popcorns. It was rapidly followed by two more single shots the sounds of which were drowned in the roar of automatic fire from the whacks.

  The sound was deafening, making it impossible to hear the approach of the main body. I was about to take a best guess shot when the Exterminator began screaming. "I'm a murderer!" he bellowed. "A bloody murderer! I did it! I killed all of those men and women! Murderer! Murderer!"

  He jumped to his feet, threw his weapon away, and took off into the grass toward the main trail. Prophet, the Victim, and Deadeye all jumped up at the same time, tackled him and brought the Exterminator down.

  The automatic fire from Brain Drain's bunch was dying down as I grabbed the whack by the front of his sheet and shook him. "Exterminator, you popcorn!" I hissed at him. "Whack! You dimension shuffling auto nut! This is not the time for a psychological breakthrough!"

  "I killed them all!" he wailed.

  "It's done past. Besides, they were only lawyers. Cockroaches."

  I pulled him to his feet, put him back in his place, picked up his weapon and handed it back to him. "I don't want to kill these people, Chief. I don't want to kill anyone."

  "Good. We're not here for the thrills. We're here because it's the job that needs to be done." I nodded my thanks to the others and they returned to their places as I settled in between the Exterminator and Deadeye. I looked over my shoulder and saw Show Biz with her right eye screwed into her camera. I couldn't find Jak Edge anywhere.

  "The bastard," I hissed beneath my breath. Had he taken off to warn Kegel? I swore to myself that if he had bugged on us, I'd have Jak's guts on a lamppost if it was the last thing I ever did.

  As the sounds of lughs crashing through the grass came from the direction of the trail, I heard a whisper on my left. "They weren't all lawyers."

  "What's that?"

  "The ones I killed," Exterminator explained. "They weren't all lawyers."

  "Nobody's perfect."

  He nodded and wiped the tears off his face with the back of his right hand. "There was this tax auditor." He looked at me with eyes that pleaded for understanding. "It was the third year in a row they did a full audit on me. For no reason. The first two times he didn't find any mistakes, yet he pulled me in the next year—"

  I held up my hand. "I can relate." I pointed toward the trail. "But right now we're kind of busy."

  The Exterminator put his weapon on full automatic and aimed into the grass as he said, "I never told them about the auditor."

  I aimed my own weapon and waited, the dust in the air making me want to sneeze. "Told who?"

  "At the hospital. I never told them about the auditor. I thought they'd be more sympathetic if I limited it to the lawyers."

  It struck me as funny. Maybe it was the tension, the adrenaline, the exhaustion, the hole in my head, the constant worry about Alna, but I started laughing. Exterminator laughed too, and so did Deadeye. As the grass in front of us darkened and parted revealing the horned and tusked head of a lugh coming down on us at full speed, I couldn't aim I was shaking so hard.

  The critter and its rider crashed over us before anyone could get off a shot. As we opened fire toward the trail, I saw Deadeye turn, flick his wrist, and the first rider fell from the back of his critter with a knife in his back. Deadeye turned back and opened fire with his piece, all without taking a breath.

  Power Tool, the one who used to hobby his victims to death, got off a short burst with his piece, then he screamed as the rod return on the rifle nipped off two of his fingers.

  With each burst from an automatic rifle, a steep sided canyon would appear in the grass. We watched those avenues through the grass, and each time a rider would appear in one, we'd give him a stitch. At first I tried to keep some kind of count, but it quickly became impossible. In seconds the air was choked with fumes from exploding propellant.

  One rider crashed through the haze and his critter was crushing everything in its path. He fired his rifle and caught the Victim right in the forehead. While Kegel's rider was levering a fresh round into his piece, the Exterminator reached up to pull the guy down. He put his boot in the Exterminator's face and pulled his critter around to escape. One of the popcorns stitched the rider's lugh, and as the critter keeled over, the rider jumped off and landed on me. My face was driven into the hard ground wound first, pain pulled my plug, and things became very slow and hazy.

  It was like some kind of ballet being done beneath water. I was surprised I could turn and grab the goon by his throat. It seemed to take me so long to do it I was astounded he didn't pull away. Part of me noticed that the grass was on fire while another part realized that the goon still had his weapon and was bringing it to bear against my gut. I squeezed harder, felt a dull thud against the side of my head, and felt myself go limp as blessed blackness lifted my pain.

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  From the Jaws of Victory

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  While my lights were out, I took the night horse ride through Hell. I came to after awhile, but I kept my eyelids shut for fear of my eyeballs falling out. They felt loose. My headache had me in orbit, but it was nothing compared to the stripes I laid on myself for being hardwood from ear to ear. By picking it up from the soldiers Bloody Sarah had trained, I knew enough to have a chain of command in case number one gets wiped. I knew enough, but the thought never crossed my mind. I guessed I thought I was immortal. My head was sending down the straight taps on that in large, loud, painful throbs. Not only was I mortal, because of the hole in my head I really wasn't in good enough shape to be on a combat mission, much less lead a patrol. I didn't even belong there. That wasn't all.

  I'd been suspicious of Jak Edge ever since the Razai wiped his patrol, yet for a guide I had picked him over Ondo Suth. The only reason was old thinking, yard smarts, from back in the crowbars. Ondo Suth had told us every last thing he knew about Kegel and his gang to help the Razai. Jak had never agreed to do anything except not fight us. So it was as clear as digital sound. Jak was reliable and Ondo wasn't. Jak never betrayed Kegel. Ondo was a squeal. That's Bando Nicos and his yard smarts at work. Stupid.

  I heard the sound of movement through the grass and I stopped breathing as I opened my eyes. The Eyes of the Spider were staring back. It was night. Even though I was certain I had seen the grass on fire before I fogged out, I saw no flames. Nothing smelled burnt. I didn't know if I was captured by Kegel or had been left for dead. Either way I figured I was done past. Kegel wasn't going to be very kind to anyone from the Razai, and if I was alone with no weapon and no critter on the edge of the Big Grass, all we'd be waiting for is Bando Nicos to tilt and chill.

  Again I heard that rustle in the grass and I rolled my head slightly to the right. Against the night sky I could see the silhouette of a figure wearing a Kegel desert sheet and hood. "Are you awake?" the figure asked out loud.

  "Who wants to know?"

  The figure squatted down next to me. "Murphy."

  "Who?"

  "You know. Murphy." There was a long, uncomfortable pause. He broke it by saying, "Brain Drain."

  "Sorry." I gingerly rolled onto my left side and pushed myself up into a sitting position. "I just forgot for a bit."

  "You remembered the Brain Drain tag easily enough."

  I held up a hand. "Don't lay a wad on me, Murphy. I said I was sorry. If that isn't good enough for you, then dip it in dogshit and suck on it."

  "No need to get hostile. I was just making an observation." As he moved his rifle from one hand to the other, it suddenly dawned on me that he was armed.

  I pushed myself to my feet and stood up, weaving. As Brain Drain stood next to me, I reached out and grabbed his shoulder for support. "What happened? What's going on? What about the attack?"

  "We killed c
lose to eighty. Only three that we know of got away. Victim caught a slug in the head and died. We buried her. A lugh stepped on the Exterminator's leg and Power Tool's right ear was shot off. Tool also nipped off a couple of fingers with his rifle. They're all bandaged and mobile."

  "You mean we won?"

  "Yeah," he answered with a puzzled tone in his voice. "We won."

  It was enough to make you want a god to thank. If there had been any justice in the world, all of us should've been dead and Bando Nicos should have been on infinity hold in Hell stoking the fires with his bare hands. "What about Jak? Where is he?"

  "Missing. I haven't seen him since before the fight. If you ask me, Chief, I don't think he's working for the good guys."

  "You wouldn't kid a cop, would you chup?"

  He gestured over his shoulder with his head. "After stripping Kegel's men, Martha and Wally took all the weapons, supplies, and the fifty-odd critters that were still in good shape back to the main column. That was the day before yesterday."

  "Martha and Wally?"

  "Mummy and Idiot son. Early this morning a heavy patrol came north on the trail looking for us. We'd already taken to the back trails, so they missed us. The patrol returned a couple of hours ago and is back with Kegel by now. The patrol didn't have any extra mounts with it, so Mummy and Idiot Son must've outrun it."

  It took a while for it to seep through the cracks in my headache. The posse was still a going concern. We had rides left on our ticket. The grass stalks began spinning around me. Using the brain eater for a banister, I lowered myself back to the ground. "They left with the guns and critters two days ago?"

  "That's right."

  There had to be something negative I could pull out of this situation. "Hell. You mean to tell me the posse's been sitting on its asses for two days?"

  "No. We've been hot on the trail. We rigged a litter between two of the lughs and hauled you along. Right now we're keeping a dark and silent camp off the main trail on a bluff overlooking a bivouac area. I think it's Kegel's main camp and it looks like the bunch that nabbed the boss operates out of it. I sent Bug Eyes back to bring the news to Cap Brady."

  I pursed my lips and studied the shadow before me. "So, Murphy. Who's been in charge all this time?"

  "Me."

  "Why not Deadeye?"

  "Ask him."

  "I'm asking you."

  "He's a hitter. I'm a soldier. That's the reason he gave me when he told me to take charge."

  Nobody plays survival odds as close as a hitter. If Deadeye wanted Murphy in charge, it was because he figured a cannibal commando had a better chance of bringing us through than a contract button. I shrugged at the cannibal. "I guess you did okay."

  "No need to gush."

  "Nobody likes a smartass, Murphy, even if he is a reformed cannibal." I regretted it as soon as I said it, but Murphy only laughed at me. When he was finished he pointed toward the southeast.

  "You want me to show you Kegel's camp?"

  I held out my hand for some help. "How can you make out anything in the dark?"

  "The reporter's camera. It has a night lens."

  "I remember."

  "And I went into the camp. I know how to do that." An eerie quality crept into Brain Drain's voice. "I've had lots of practice, you know."

  I rubbed my eyes as my skin began its hourly crawl. "You didn't go on any head hunting trips or anything—"

  His voice still sounded amused. "All I did in the camp was look at the layout and see who was there. How many men, how they were armed and supplied, that sort of thing."

  "How many men has he got?"

  "Between twenty two and twenty five hundred."

  My headache began making my teeth hurt. I held up my hand and shook it at him. "Help me up. Show me the camp." Once I was standing and my headache had decreased to a moderate agony, I asked, "What about the hostages?"

  "I couldn't get to where I could see them, but I'm pretty certain they're in there somewhere. I overheard several of the guards talking."

  The way his voice dropped off made the back of my neck tickle. "What is it? What did you hear?"

  "The guards. They were laughing. They were laughing about torturing someone. Making jokes about using pliers. Later, from a draw near one of the tents, I heard a scream. I don't know who let it out. It sounded like a woman's voice."

  My tongue felt dry and too large for my mouth. "That could've been anybody. It could even have been one of Kegel's own bits."

  "Maybe."

  My frustration pushed the words out of my mouth. "Dammit, Brain Drain, as long as you were there, why didn't you look?"

  "It was too well guarded. I couldn't get in. Sorry."

  I ground my teeth together as I grunted, "Show me the camp."

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  A Snowflake In Hell

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  The plain was split along an east-west rift with the southern part of the plain two hundred feet or so lower in elevation than the northern part. What had once been a cliff had been eroded by weather and time into a steeply gullied bluff. The main trail made a double switchback down the face of the bluff to the lower plain and there was a six-man post of guards at every turn. There were temporary and abandoned trails all through the grass on either side of the main trail, and it was through these that Brain Drain had led the posse to a place overlooking Kegel's position.

  As we approached the bluff, Deadeye and Show Biz were standing guard. "Glad to see you alive," said Deadeye. I took the reporter's camera from her, knelt down, and peered through the night lens. The camp stood out below in sharp greens and grays. As I zoomed in I muttered my damns.

  It was big. The critter pen held enough mounts for at least a couple thousand riders, and the clearing was pocked with burning fire cubes. There were several large tents and I couldn't even count the small ones. Next to the critter pen were over twenty of the big sand sleds, except these were fitted with steel-rimmed spoked wheels.

  Operating out of five main posts around the perimeter, dozens of double pairs of armed guards circled the area keeping watchful eyes on the darkness beyond. The grass around the camp had been cut so that between the guards and the edge of the uncut grass there was at least two hundred feet of clear space to cross.

  Kegel's troopers weren't as cocky as Pau Avanti's. They didn't stack arms. Each soldier kept his piece close by. It looked like his goons were divided up into three shifts. At any given time a third slept, a third cleaned rifles, ate, and took care of the lughs, and the remaining third stood guard.

  Hell, there wasn't any way at all to crack it. To get in there we'd need an army of our own, and our army was heading east, not south. It would take at least a day and a half for Bug Eyes to make it back to the main column, and another two days for a force of any size to ride from there to the bluff. I lowered the camera and looked at Brain Drain.

  "Does Kegel act like he's stupid enough to stay in the same place for three plus days?"

  "According to what I overheard the guards say, they've already been in that location for at least six days. From what they said, I think this is a permanent forward base they maintain for when they're in the neighborhood."

  "Six days," I repeated. Handing the camera back to Jontine, I looked back at the camp. Without the night lens it was a black blanket set with hundreds of orange fire gems. While I watched my wig was smoking. Would Kegel stay still long enough for Bug Eyes to return with a bigger hammer? Could Cap even spare the muscle? Would he? Could I afford to wait until I knew? Could Alna, Nance, and Mercy Jane? And what if Kegel's big column made it back before the Razai?

  Toward the east the sky was growing light, marking my forty third day on Tartaros. There was just no way over, under, around, or through the thing. Kegel had all the cards. My headache took over, I sat down, crossed my legs, and rested my head in my hands.

  As the pains paraded by, I worked on the thought
s in between. The posse wasn't going to get anywhere in a straightforward fight. Even if we could surprise them and knock out a hundred apiece we'd run out of shooters and ammo long before we put the waste on them.

  Kegel knew about his patrol being wiped. What's more, it was probable that Jak Edge was in the camp below sitting at Kegel's right hand, filling his shell-like ear with Razai gold. Because of that, and judging by the number of soldiers on guard, surprise wasn't on our side.

  There was this image of Alna in my head. It looked at me with glistening brown eyes that begged me to take her away. If I hadn't been so impatient to get after Alna, Nance, and Mercy Jane, maybe I could've brought something more persuasive to throw against Kegel than a bowl of popcorns.

  There was nothing I could do. As always, it brought the rage. I took some deep breaths, looked up at the Eyes, and prayed for the strength to last out the feelings. In a rage I was capable of anything except thought. Certainly I was capable of charging Kegel's whole army with nothing but popcorns and a couple of sheets of paper that say holding prisoners is against the law.

  A numbness took hold of me and I lifted my head. I heard Show Biz say, "Murphy can show us how to get into the camp."

  I glanced at her then faced Brain Drain. "How did you sneak in there last night?"

  He shook his head. "I didn't do it last night. I went in there a little after high noon yesterday."

  I could feel my eyebrows climbing toward the sky. "In the daylight?"

  "Sure. They expect someone to try it at night." He lifted up the edge of his sand-colored desert sheet to show me the white of the underside. "You people got these sheets from Kegel's patrol and he hasn't changed the uniform any. If you take the clip out of your rifle, it looks like one of theirs. We can pass."

  "What about your face?"

  He grinned at me and asked, "How many faces were there at the prison you were in?"

  "Seventy thousand, more or less, depending on business."

  He looked down at the camp. "We had up to around twenty thousand at CICI. Kegel only has two thousand or so down there, but the principle's the same."