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It was a strange kind of high, walking into the mouth of a volcano, hoping that the lava wouldn't notice. Adrenaline was making my heart pound so hard that it hurt and I exhausted every ounce of control I had trying to look calm. In all the time we spent walking around the camp we didn't see Jak Edge, and there was no mention of him in all of the conversations we overheard or participated in. That had my wig smoking.
There wasn't any way that a power mokk like one of Kegel's patrol leaders, could vanish for some forty days and then show up again without his men without the crowbar gossips being all a bubble about it. Yet there wasn't a word. All I could figure was that after he'd taken off Jak hadn't run to Kegel's camp. According to the Law, he was free to go his own way so long as his way didn't include fighting against or betraying the Razai. He might've been abiding by the Law of Silence. He might've been thinned during the fight back in the grass and we just hadn't found his body. That I didn't want to ment on.
As we passed more of Kegel's soldiers the gloom seemed to cover the entire camp without so much as a seam. If they weren't pissing and moaning about food, fighting, or the leaders, they were hiding their thoughts behind forbidding glowers or expressionless poker pans. The exceptions were always the same, and they were called the Hellborn.
They had crude insignia on the sides of their hoods that looked like crossed pitchforks, they always carried their weapons at the ready, and they were always watching and listening to everybody else. The others called them the Forks. Whenever the Forks were around, conversation termed and we strolled.
At one point we were close to the big tents near the center of the camp when we came upon a small rectangular clear space. The nearby tents all had their openings facing away from the square except for the biggest tent which opened directly on to the south side. I figured the big tent was Kegel's and it wasn't just that it was the biggest tent in camp. It faced the place where Kegel played in the guts.
There were five of the grass stalk tripods set up in a row. Three of them were empty. The two on the left were occupied by the sharks who'd made the gossip run that morning. The one on the first tripod, hanging just above the ground, was definitely dead. He was just so much rotten meat hung in a butcher shop. The second man, hung only a little higher, appeared unconscious. His breathing hardly made his chest move. Around the cut through which his guts had been yanked were burn marks where the bleeding had been seared to a stop. We were close enough to see what looked like some kind of green slime writhing around the lengths and loops of intestines. I stepped a little closer and it wasn't slime at all. It was thousands and thousands of tiny grass-colored maggots.
I looked around, and not one of Kegel's men was looking in our direction. We could have been a squad of bare assed angel cake vid stars and no one would have noticed. No one wanted to look at the stringing place. I glanced at the opening of Kegel's tent. "No one but Kegel and Anna Tane," I muttered to myself. Jabbing Brain Drain, I whispered to him, "Let's go. We got to find the hostages. I think if I leave Alna here a second longer than I have to, I'll start gibbering."
"South side of camp. Gray tent," whispered a male voice. I turned around. Prophet and Show Biz were behind me.
I asked Prophet, "How do you know?"
He held out his hands and just looked confused. Jontine pointed with her finger and said, "There."
I looked and it had been the shark who was strung out on the second tripod who had whispered. His eyes were open and glazed with unimaginable pain, although his face remained slack and impassive. "My god," the reporter whispered. "He isn't even moaning."
I could feel my heart crack with pride. That was a hell of a man hanging there. "Not in front of Kegel," I answered. His eyes thanked me as he said, "You owe me. Now do me." I held out my hand to the Keeper.
"Give me your cutter." Without looking at me, Keeper reached beneath his sheet and handed me his blade. I tested the point and it was needle sharp. I glanced around once, made sure no one was looking, stepped up to the man who had whispered, and nicked open the vein in his neck. As the remainder of the man's life pumped out on the ground, I handed the blade back to Keeper and looked up at the Drain. "Let's get moving."
As we approached the critter pens toward the south edge of camp, I didn't look back. It was crowbar instinct. If someone had seen me facing back, chances were they'd turn to see what it was that I was looking at. I thought about him, though. I thought about the man on the sticks who was so full of hate he could pretend the whole thing didn't hurt, just to piss Kegel. He seemed like he ought to be someone very special, and I would've liked to have gotten to known him.
Something inside of me shrugged at the thought. Maybe he was just someone who was very ordinary but had been called upon to do exceptional things, like all of us. I'd seen that happen a lot of times since the pit ship dumped us on the sand. There had been Pussyface, Nkuma, Fodder, Nance, Ice Fingers, and the whole popcorn posse. Even me. Since I'd hit the Forever Sand, I'd been doing things I never would have imagined possible back in the crowbars. Maybe heroes and super greats are nothing more than run of the mill squats caught at a good moment.
I've hated before. I've been so full of hate I went blind with rage and killed. But I couldn't imagine the hate it would take to do like the man on the sticks. I could admire what he did, but I couldn't imagine what it would take. That was a challenge I didn't want to mess with, and for a long moment all I could see when I looked down was chicken feet.
After we reached the critter pens, Brain Drain led us past rows and rows of tents. Kegel's sharks slept three to a tent, which allowed the three shift split and someone still back at the tent keeping it safe from thieves, of which that society had more than just a sprinkle. There was a lot of gloom in the camp. No grabass, no smiles, no joking except for bitter little sarcasms aimed at the fight, the gang, or the bosses.
Kegel only had one hold on them that I could see, and that was their families down by the Sea of Stars. They were also dead afraid of the gut thing on the sticks. Both threats would be removed, I thought, by removing Kegel. Without him it seemed like everyone would be much happier.
By the time we reached the large gray tent at the edge of the camp, I was pretty well convinced that it wouldn't take much to move Kegel's whole gang over to the side of the Razai, just as long as I ignored the Hellborn. But what to do with the whole gang wasn't the problem right then. The problem of the moment was the six Forks standing guard over the hostages.
Two of the guards were slouching and flapping their gums at the tent's entrance while three more were stationed at the sides and rear. The sixth guard seemed to spend his time checking on the other five. The five of us walking by didn't seem to raise any interest and we continued south until we came to another group of grunt tents. The Drain called a rest and we sat down in the shade of a pile of grass bales used to make mattresses. Kegel's boys had all the luxuries.
"We can take 'em," said Show Biz. She was really getting into the commando thing.
I could feel my eyebrows climbing. "Hey, flash, don't you think jumping in there and ripping out a few throats might have an effect on your journalistic objectivity?"
She looked at me and her eyes were filled with fury. "Nicos, that's your girl they've got in there."
"That explains what I'm doing here. What about you?"
"That man back there." She looked down and shook her head as her voice became a whisper. Her eyes glistened. "Enough is enough. I'm off the sidelines. There are sides to this thing and I know what side I'm on." She looked back at me, and right then she was overflowing with hate and was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
She had it, all right. She was tapped into that same hate monster that fed the man on the sticks. Was that courage, then? Hate without limits. Hate that admitted to no other priorities. My headache crept back into my skull like a foot entering a comfortable old shoe. I looked at Brain Drain. "What're we going to do about the couple of thousand rifles that'll f
all on us as soon as one of those squats raises a cry?"
"We'll just have to make certain they don't. We'll do 'em tonight."
If it hadn't been for Alna, maybe I would have gotten wise and remembered I was the only one there with any crowbar time. Jontine Ru was a vid star and everyone else was undiluted whack. There wasn't a chance's shadow that we could spring them. Alna was in there, though, and my imagination was flooded with what might be happening to her. I still had my hole in the head, too.
I looked at the gray tent as I bit my lower lip and wondered if we could pull it off. Maybe we'd just make things worse. Then I thought how much worse can it get when you're being held prisoner by a chup who hangs out people by their guts?
Everyone except me and Jontine had cutters, and Brain Drain did a little review about how to sneak up behind someone, stick a knee in his back at the same time that you wrap an arm around his throat, lift, then pull your edge through his main ducts and cables. Once the fellow went limp, he was to be lowered to the ground quietly, rather than dumped. For Jontine and me, he tore strips from our sheets, braided them into very strong cords, looped them at the ends, stuck short greenstick handles through the loops, and taught us how to use a choker or garrote.
The knee in the back was the same, and there would be less mess with the garrote. However, the choker took more strength and more time. I've always been one for an edge, so I swapped my rope for Keeper's cutter. Jontine swapped hers for Brain Drain's wicked-looking bayonet. He called it his lid opener. He was smirking when he said it, so maybe it was a joke. Jontine didn't laugh. As the sun went down, I watched her until I realized what that strange ache in my chest was.
I was there to rescue Alna. In my way I loved her and was afraid for her. But Alna was only the most recent in a long line of cripples I'd hoped might be grateful to Bando Nicos for entering their lives. Up until that moment I had been calling what I felt for her by the name of love. I didn't know any better. Right then, however, I knew it wasn't love because I was staring right at the genuine article. I loved Jontine Ru with such intensity that I thought I might cry out. The pain was real because I knew that if I ever told the reporter about my feelings she would hate me until Tartaros became a garden. Show Biz believed in fairness, and Bando Nicos loving her instead of Alna Moah would not be fair. She was willing to kill and die for fairness, which is why she could never allow me to love her.
I turned away and watched the few clouds that lined the western horizon as I mentally kicked myself. "Timing is everything," I muttered as I shook my head. I couldn't leave Alna like that. I couldn't leave Alna at all. It was a different kind of love, but it was love. I loved her.
I rubbed my eyes as the image of Jontine's face, electric with fury, filled my mind. Her image drew upon feelings that had been dead in me for years. Love, of course. But there was an ocean of guilt. Guilt for the love. Pain for the guilt. Anger for the pain. Confusion for the anger. Life sure had been a whole lot simpler when I'd been impotent.
I lowered my hand and opened my eyes. Prophet was looking back at me and sadly shaking his head. He placed a gentle hand on my arm and quietly chided, "Bando. Not another nigger."
I was stunned for a moment. My breath was jammed in my throat. My grip on Keeper's knife threatened to begin ripping my finger muscles apart when, at last, a few of the cells inhabiting the remains of my brain began firing. I took a deep breath and removed my hand from the knife's handle.
Looking at him I said, "You're crazy, Prophet. You don't know what you're saying. You're sick. You're bald crazy out of your gourd sick."
"Maybe." He smiled at me with genuine warmth. "But I'm not the one who's suffering." He patted my shoulder and turned to watch the western clouds while my fingers itched and my mind reviewed its definitions.
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Another Breakthrough
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The watches changed, the critters were fed, and Alsvid went behind the clouds as a curious chilling wind rippled the grass. We were left pretty much to ourselves as long as we stayed out of the way and helped out when asked. Prophet and Keeper helped a couple of goons named Boris and Zate to haul hay to the critters, and Jontine jokingly turned down a couple of intimate offers that were less than serious. Only one time did it get close, and that was when the famous Yulik, newly appointed patrol chief, came by.
Yulik demanded to know why we were just lazing around when there was so much work to be done, and the Drain took him behind the hay to explain things. I had to admit. The garrote is really quiet and not all that slow if enough force is applied. Murphy was really strong. We covered the remains with grass leaves and continued to wait for full dark. I wondered if Murphy had given Yulik the choice between joining the Razai or getting termed before knotting his necktie. Since Yulik hadn't brought any charges, I minded my own business and concentrated on staying alive.
After the dark watch came on and settled in, we gathered around the gray tent, reversed our sheets from the white to the darker green sides, and became shadows as we waited for the commander of the Hellborn guarding the hostages to go inside or go away. The guards at the rear and sides of the tent were loners and there were enough of us to take them out while, at the same time, entertain the two entrance guards posted at the north end of the tent.
The entertainment was Show Biz. It had worked when we took Pau Avanti and the Hand back in the desert, and Kegel's goons hadn't given me any reason to think that they were any different. I told her, "Just flash a little this and that on them and we'll do the rest."
I guess she saw the need. She didn't argue but she did shake her head. "It must be terrible to be a man," she remarked, her voice loaded with scorn. "I don't think life would be much for a person who could be led around so easily by a silly little flap of flesh."
"It's the cryin' truth," I confirmed.
I remembered that as I hugged the darkness across from the east side of the tent. The critters in the pen were quieting down and the slack was being taken up by the noon watch cooking chow and bitching about the fate of the common squat. The guard I was watching kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other, yawning, and making like he was bored out of his mind. However, he kept facing my direction, his piece at the ready. It was very dark, but I figured if I could see him, then he could see me if I moved.
Jontine's performance was only supposed to keep the entrance guards busy so that when the side guards were snatched the entrance guards wouldn't notice. But I hadn't been able to work my way around behind my side guard. As I saw Jontine moving into the light of the entrance, I sent up a plea to the Spider that my guard would notice her, too.
Jontine had put on the slightest little stagger, making like she was lit. The guards in front noticed, especially when she stopped, stretched, and yawned, her arms far over her head, revealing the fact that she had nothing on beneath her sheet except God-issue. I was steamed. I'd told her to give them a little flash, not a god damned inventory.
My guard glanced in her direction, shook his head, and continued looking in my direction. It took a little for it to sink in. He was gay! I could feel the universe laughing at my pitiful attempts to rescue Alna and Nance. Keeper and Prophet were probably already taking out their guards while my guard was turning up his nose at the most beautiful eyeful ever to hit Tartaros.
There was a sound from the rear of the tent, and to me it sounded like someone had dropped, rather than lowered, his corpse to the ground. My guard took a step to the rear which put the guard's face into a dim light from a burning ice cube. The guard was not gay. She was a she.
Jontine was still warming up the entrance guards, and I figured if she could do it, so could I. It was time to sprinkle the area with my musk and try out my irresistible charm. I stood and whispered, "What's your name?"
She snapped around and brought up her piece. She stared at me for a few seconds until she said, "No one's supposed to be
near the tent. What are you doing here? Who are you?"
She wasn't a yard monster, but she was healthy for an angel cake bit. Not bad either.
"What's your name?" she demanded.
I couldn't think of a name so I said, "I want you."
I could see her teeth flash in the dark as she grinned. In a split second the grin vanished as a shadow lifted her head then lowered her body to the ground. It was Keeper. When he was certain that she was dead he moved toward the north end of the tent, his garrote held before him. I watched as he took out the entrance guard I could see. Prophet took out the other one out of my view. I knew that because Brain Drain came up behind me as Keeper lowered his corpse to the ground.
"Were you trying to make a date?" he asked in a whisper.
Before I could tell him to bite it off and shove it, the Keeper waved as he was joined by Jontine and the Prophet. Brain Drain faced me and smiled. "We just might make it, Chief. I took a peek inside when I termed the head fork. That's the last of the guards. All we have to do now is get the boss and the others out."
I resumed breathing and nodded. "Okay." Looking at Prophet I said, "Pull the sheets off three of the Forks for our people. We'll need 'em to get out of here." I faced Murphy and nodded. He turned and stooped to lift the side of the tent when the night silence was shattered by a hideous scream that came from the north end of camp. There was the sound of a shot, a second shot, then the roar of automatic fire.
"My God!" said Show Biz. "What was that?"
I recognized that scream. "Great jumpin' Jesus, it's another breakthrough!"
The Drain looked at me in horror. "The Exterminator?"
The sparkle of muzzle flashes dotted the north edge of camp as alarms went up, shouts and orders erupted from all sides, and Kegel's soldiers raced for their combat positions. "Let's get 'em out," I shouted. "Get 'em out in the confusion!" I began reaching for the side of the tent.
"What's this? What's this?" There was a shot that deafened my left ear and knocked me to the ground. I turned and looked up in time to see the Drain, a fist-sized hole where his heart should have been, wrap his garrote around one of Kegel's grunts and damn near tear off his head. There were more shots and I saw Jontine and the Keeper drop as the area before the tent's entrance filled with armed goons. I began screaming as I dived for the tent and lifted the side. Alna, her hands tied behind a pole, was looking at me with dull eyes.
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