Homefall

by Chris Bunch

  "Nothing… except that your Kekri Katun has too much in the way of cosmetics, and interesting taste in lingerie."

  "Nothing?" Garvin said, a bit incredulously. "What does that mean? She isn't a spy?"

  "Don't get your hopes up," Njangu advised. "It just means that she's been trained a little better than I thought."

  Penwyth passed the com across to Freron, who heard the automated teller say he now had somewhere over half a million credits to his account.

  Freron smiled pleasantly, took keys from his pocket, and gave them to Erik.

  "The box is nine-eight-five-four, at the Military Banking Institute. It's quite large, so you might think of taking a confrere with you." He gave the address, added that no one would bother anyone carrying the keys.

  Penwyth went to the apartment door, opened it, and gave the keys, and where they were to be used, to Ben Dill. Two hulking roustabouts were behind him.

  "Now," Penwyth said, coming back and sitting down, "we'll just wait here until my friend Ben says he's back at the ship safely."

  Freron sighed.

  "I suppose, in this dirty business, no one trusts anyone else."

  "I trust you implicitly, Kuprin," Erik drawled. "I'd just like to hear a couple more stories about how it was, serving in a planetary force under the Confederation before I leave."

  "Everybody's on an Annie Oakley tonight," Garvin told Sopi Midt. "All political sorts, so don't rape them too badly."

  "Hadn't a thought of it. Naw," Midt said, "I'm lyin'. Always hated those bastards who think, 'cause they know which end of a ballot box to stuff, they're some-thin' special.

  "Still can't figure why you let them put us in their pocket."

  Garvin made a face. "Maybe I was worried about the gate, this first time out for real. Sure as blazes not something I'd be doing over again."

  "Ah well," Midt sympathized. "So far, outside of that poor showgirl, nothing's gone awry. I'll tell you, I'm glad we've got their buckos doing security. My people've taken a dozen or more guns off floppies in the midway."

  "Any idea who they were working for?" Garvin asked.

  "Di'n't ask. Somebody with a gun on my midway who ain't workin' for me is nothin' but trouble, so we disarmed them, give 'em a thick ear, sent 'em on their way."

  Midt leaned closer to Garvin.

  "Got a suggestion, Gaffer, if you don't mind. Are you plannin' to stick around until election day?"

  "I don't know," Garvin said. "I'm inclined to think not a chance."

  "Good. Good. Very good," Sopi approved. " 'Cause the minute the tab's taken, one side'll be thinkin' about revenge, believing we somehow turned the tide, and the other'll be trying to get out of paying us."

  "I've had the Social Democrats pay in front."

  " 'At's good," Midt approved. "Guess you are your father's kid."

  By dusk, the Social Democrats were thronging in from across the planet, and several ships had come in from other planets in the system. Garvin, looking out from the nose of Big Bertha, dimly hearing the band in the great hold below, was thankful for the outer screen of Fili's security people. This crowd, which promised to be a solid turnaway, was burying the ducat grabbers and circus security.

  He looked at himself in a mirror, adjusted his white top hat, curled his whip under his arm, and, the picture of youthful dignity, went to the lift taking him to the center ring.

  Overhead, several acrobats were tossing each other around, the ra'felan catching them. He saw Lir among them, doing a spinning twist, almost missing her catcher, and being swung back up to the trapeze.

  The man was tall, skeletal, with short hair and neat beard. He wore a shirt blazoned fili for premier, as did most of the other entrants. The shirt was too large for him, which helped hide the gun and shoulder stock in his belt. That wasn't intended for the task he'd hired on for, but to ensure his own escape amid the hoped-for debacle.

  There was a metal detector at the gangway, but there was a press around it, and it was easy for the man to sidestep the device and enter the ship's hold with the happy throng.

  Phraphas Phanon hadn't exaggerated when he said he might be able to come up with something more spectacular than Sir Douglas could envision.

  After much rehearsal, they had a number.

  A lion menaced Imp, one of the babies. Imp didn't see the trunk that took him around the waist, lifted him to safety on the top of another elephant. The lion reared, roaring.

  On a howdah on a third bull, Sir Douglas cracked a whip, as two tigers leapt onto the howdah with him. His pistol cracked, and they cowered back, jumped to the back of another elephant, just as three bulls reared, paws together, and a fourth lifted Imp to safety as other cats darted around the center ring.

  The audience was agape in amazement.

  And that was just the opening.

  Njangu Yoshitaro was prowling the midway, looking for any signs of trouble, when it found him.

  He'd ducked behind a wheel of fortune stand, intending to cut back to Big Bertha through the back, avoiding the crowd.

  Njangu had only a moment to notice a woman had followed him, turning to see what she wanted. The anesthetic dart snapped into his neck before he could draw his gun.

  Two men followed the woman, carrying a long canvas roll that looked as if it belonged somewhere in the circus.

  Njangu was rolled into the middle of it, and the men picked it up, and, moving without haste, went back down the rear of the midway, into the parking area, and slid the roll into a lifter.

  Seconds later, the three were aboard and the lifter was airborne, heading for the capital.

  Chapter 9

  "Welcome, welcome, Social Democrats of all ages," Garvin chanted, "to the finest show in the galaxy. We've got clowns and bears and lions and tigers and beautiful women, and men stronger than oxen… all brought to you by the good graces of Dorn Fili."

  The crowd cheered, and Garvin snapped his whip twice. As the clowns mobbed him, he tried to concentrate on the routine, but kept thinking that now, with Penwyth back with the loot from Freron… or what he hoped was loot, awaiting analysis… they could pull in their horns and get away from this mess.

  "Unroll him," the woman ordered, and one of the two men in the lifter obeyed. He turned on a small sensor, ran it around Njangu's neck, held it in front of his open mouth.

  "Sleepin' like a babe," he reported. "Vital signs just fine."

  "He'd better be," the woman said. "The man said alive only. And that there'd be paybacks if we screwed up and killed him."

  "Who is he?"

  The woman shrugged. "One of the offworld muc-keties."

  "So why'd these guys want him grabbed?"

  "Hell if I know," the woman said. "Blackmail, I guess."

  "You got any idea who we're working for?"

  "Yeh," the woman said. "That's why I went double on the price. Political types. The ones who're doing the campaign right now."

  "But that don't make sense," the man behind the controls of the lim complained. "I thought this auzlan circus was hired out by them."

  "Nothin' nobody does in politics ever makes sense," the man crouched over Njangu's unconscious body said. "How long we gotta be nannyin' him?"

  "There'll be somebody come get him as soon as we get to the dropoff point."

  "With the other half of our credits, I hope."

  "You think I'm some kind of virgin?" the woman growled.

  "Groundnuts, popcorn, candy as soft as your dreams, poppers, everything for the young and old," Maev chanted, moving through the stands, eyes constantly moving.

  An old man waved a bill at her, and she pitched him a bag of nuts, and bill and change went back and forth down the line.

  There were other butchers working the crowd—a few real candy salesmen, more security.

  The bear operator turned as the thin man entered his tiny booth, near one of the entrances. He had time to gape before the man's blade went into his heart. The other operator had been waylaid earlier on the m
idway, his body dragged out of sight.

  The man pushed the body under the console, examined the sensors. He'd come to the circus for eight nights running, watching only the robots, spending his days learning how to operate remote machinery.

  This setup, he decided, pulling on the helmet that gave him perspective through the "bear's" eyes, wasn't that different from what he learned. He would have no trouble carrying out his mission.

  He touched sensors, and a small screen showed him the two bears in their unnecessary cage, just offstage. One, then another, stirred as he moved the controls.

  One stood, waved its arms, walked back and forth.

  The man was ready.

  Danfin Froude, in his Kelly makeup, looked longingly at Kekri Katun, who smiled. He came closer, and, expression filled with the world's woes, started to take her hand, did a pratfall, rolled back to his feet.

  Katun didn't notice Ristori, who tumbled into view from nowhere, came up from behind, leering ostentatiously, eyebrows waggling insanely.

  He started to touch her bottom, and she spun, caught him by his collar… actually the harness under his ragged clothes… and tossed him high up into the safety gravs.

  Froude, looking even more unhappy, was slouched on the bench. Katun went to him, sat beside him, started stroking his hand.

  Ristori sank down through the layered antigravs, crept back up on the pair.

  This time, Froude moved first, grabbed Ristori, and they had a knockdown battle, hitting each other with fists, padded clubs, a huge ball, anything that came to hand.

  Around them other clowns were bedeviling, and being bedeviled, by the other showgirls.

  Kekri saw Ben Dill trot past, in his muscleman's outfit, considered him speculatively, then saw Garvin looking at her from center ring. She slowly, deliberately, smiled at him, and licked her finger. Garvin looked hastily away, and Katun laughed to herself.

  These were nice people, she thought. But they weren't very efficient. Her control had said she would be searched, and so she'd taken nothing aboard Big Bertha. She'd used dusting powder, sprinkled here and there, as a giveaway, and found marks that confirmed her baggage had been searched.

  This night she'd gone into the midway, as she'd been instructed, and been given a small, compact case by a man who approached her and whispered the code words she'd been given.

  The case held a small, powerful com, capable of in-system communication. She wasn't sure how useful it would be, but assumed she would be signaled at a certain time by the pickup team she'd been promised would be trailing the ship, and given instructions on what she was to report on, besides any information about the circus's intent and mission she would be able to get from Garvin. There had to be a secret intention, since innocents would hardly have searched her gear.

  Kekri Katun turned that part of her mind off, concentrated on cartwheeling and cheering for her champion, Froude.

  At last Ristori was down, and Froude, after jumping up and down on his chest, picked up the tall woman, aided by a dropper he had hidden under his baggy coat, and carried her off in his arms, to cheers from the audience.

  On the bridge of Big Bertha, a technician glanced at a screen, reacted. One of the tiny locators was moving steadily away, almost off the screen.

  He bent over its controls, started tracking the locator, called for the watch officer.

  "Have an ID on that?" the woman asked.

  The tech keyed a sensor.

  "Yes, ma'am. Yoshitaro."

  "Allat in a supporter! I better let the boss know… assuming that sneaky bastard isn't doing something nobody's supposed to know about."

  The officer went to another tech, had him key the emergency com that fed into Garvin's tiny earpiece.

  "Can he lift it? No one has ever been able to press a thousand kilos, and Mighty Ben is going to attempt it here, now, for your amazement," the talker brayed.

  "Let's cheer for him, wish for him, put all our energies behind Dill the Human Powerhouse."

  Dill, wearing pink leotards, a half shirt, and chrome rings around his biceps, leaned over, took a breath, made sure the droppers hidden inside the enormous weights were on, then heaved. He got a couple of centimeters off the ground before the weights smashed down. Again he tried, and again, the crowd moaning in sympathy.

  At last, every muscle bulging, he heaved the weights aloft, staggered back and forth, then, turning the droppers off, got out from under.

  The weights crashed down, and the noise from this side ring buried the yips from the risley act in center ring.

  Dill was about to bow, move into the finale of his act, when his earpiece burped, said, "Post. Emergency!"

  The talker gaped as Dill jumped out of the ring and went, at a dead run, toward one of the corridors into the ship, then he recovered and began improvising another spiel on the acrobats in the center ring bouncing each other about on their feet.

  Other select I&R people suddenly quit their tasks or performance around the circus and went after Dill.

  Security people throughout the ship stood by, waiting to find out what was going on.

  Darod Montagna concentrated on staying on the back of her horses as the animals poured out of the ring, to thundering applause, wondering what the hell was happening.

  She refiexively waved to the bear operator in his booth, a nice one who'd helped her curry some of the horses, a bit surprised to see him with his helmeted head in the open instead of glued to the screen in his booth. She was momentarily puzzled she got no return greeting, but guessed he was concentrating on the bears' turn, which came next.

  * * *

  "And now, the man who's brought you all here, the man of the hour, the week, the year, Dorn Fili, soon to be your next Premier," Garvin shouted, and the workers in the stands were on their feet, cheering. He suddenly froze and cocked his head, eyes going wide as the transmission about Njangu came in.

  Fili, beaming, waved to his campaign workers, let the cheers build.

  The thin man touched sensors, and the robot that Njangu had named Li'l Doni got up, pulled his cage open, and ambled through the entrance, then dropped to his four paws, and started toward the center ring, where Garvin and Fili stood.

  "My friends," Fili said, and his voice rolled around the hold, "and you are my friends. Tonight we're celebrating, maybe some say a bit in advance, but I say…"

  High above, swinging back and forth, waiting for the acrobats' second turn, Lir yawned, then saw the robot bear, moving at a run toward Garvin and the politician.

  Something wasn't right, and Lir was cursing that she couldn't hide a gun in her skimpy tights. She dropped off the perch, fell, tucking, toward the safety gravs below, knowing she was far too late.

  A little girl was looking through Maev's tray, trying to decide what she wanted, when Maev saw Li'l Doni.

  "Here, kid," she said, pulling the tray's sling off her neck. "Take everything and have fun."

  Gun in hand, she hurried back to the aisle, and ran down it, toward the circus floor.

  "… a little premature, but I'm confident that we'll see victory, only a week distant, and—" The bear was ten meters away when Garvin, about to bow away and head for the emergency post, saw him. It came to its feet and shambled toward Fili, arms open for a crushing embrace.

  Garvin's hand slid into his coat, came out with a small pistol. He shot Li'l Doni twice in the head to no effect, then tackled the bear from the side, knocking it down.

  Raf Aterton, the music director, heard the beginning screams and shots, cursed and grabbed a trumpet from a musician, and blasted into "Peace March."

  The other musicians goggled for an instant, then got it, and the ragged music swelled.

  And everywhere on the ship the women and men of the circus went to full alert.

  Li'l Doni rolled to its feet and went for Fili, who ran for a trapeze mast, found climbing rings, started up. Then Doni had him in its paws, and was pulling him down. Fili was screaming, and there were roustabouts there, wi
th benches, poles, smashing at the robot.

  Maev was behind the bears' operators' booth, pistol out. She snapshot, blowing most of the bear operator's helmet and head off.

  The skeletal man convulsed, fell dead.

  Li'l Doni went suddenly limp and fell, almost on one of the roustabouts, and Fili dropped on top of him.

  Garvin checked the robot, saw no signs of activity, pulled Fili to his feet, and made sure the politician's throat mike was still live.

  "Keep talking," he shouted. "Keep them calm. We don't need a panic."

  Fili, eyes wide, opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, nothing coming out.

  Erik Penwyth, dragging on a white formal jacket over the dark pants he'd worn to Freron's apartment, ran into the hold, clipping a mike to his throat.

  "Clowns, clowns, clowns, we've got 'em, and we don't want them," he shouted.

  Behind him ran every clown in the circus, and behind them the tumblers. The clowns ran the length of the ring, then back, peeling off into the stands, the tumblers end-over-ending along the ring banks.

  The audience was trying to see what had happened, if Fili was hurt, and finally his voice came back.

  "Everything's… fine," he said, his voice somewhat squeaky, then steadying. "That was a little stunt that didn't work out right… I guess I should've known I'm not cut out for the circus, but look at my friends around me, who are."

  His laughter sounded almost real, and the crowd settled back a little. A clown lifter zoomed toward Fili, and he was buried in joeys as two men muscled the Li'l Doni's "corpse" into it, lifted away. Another lifter was bundling the corpse of the thin man into it, unnoticed.

  "Clowns," Penwyth said, as Aterton batted his baton and the "Peace March" died away. "I promised 'em, you got 'em. Take one or two home with you, please. Next we've got the. high-wire artists, and artists they are, braver women and men than I surely am."

  A flyer launched herself out, was passed by another, and a ra'felan at each pole caught them, spun them, sent them back the way they came.

  Lir, climbing up, grabbed a trapeze, and started swinging, each time higher, pulling herself into a bird's nest, and the show was back to normal.