The Tiger in Winter

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  “Find out what he’s up to, then we’ll decide how to handle him. Compared to deciding what to do with a student right at the pass/fail line, this is easy.”

  The group exited the room.

  Putting his ear to the door to listen to their footsteps and be sure that had they left, the old man then scurried from the living room to the bedroom. He knew he had to hurry.

  The plastic case he pulled out from under his bed held a black box twenty inches square and two inches high, which he took out and placed on the desk. When he opened the lid, it became a screen. The blue sphere that hung between it and the lower panel was Earth. It was a three-dimensional image.

  As tension turned his whole body to iron, the old man started running the fingers of both hands across the bottom section of the case. Part of a huge nebula appeared next to the earth.

  “Oops, that’s Andromeda.”

  Erasing the great nebula his overanxious fingers had called up, he spent a few minutes adjusting before finally getting the desired clarity to the image of Earth.

  “Display everything currently moving within a thirty-mile radius of the eastern Frontier village of Schwartzen!” he said.

  II

  The sixteenth, 6:40 p.m. Eastern Frontier Time

  The bartender/proprietor of the village saloon found it hard to believe the four patrons were actually from the Capital as they claimed, and he was on edge over the question of how he could possibly handle them if they acted up. Usually his sexy hostess would smooth things over, but she was off today.

  The one seated at the counter was of medium height and build, and had closely cropped red hair. Though the other three were all wearing coats, he was lightly dressed, wearing a t-shirt and shorts. But that wasn’t what drew attention. The average temperature was almost eighty degrees, and even the slightest exertion was enough to work up a sweat. It was the other three that were strange. The problem with the redhead was the black ring, eight inches wide and two inches thick, that he had looped over his shoulder. It was wrapped around the man as if to protect him, and it slowly rotated without ever touching his body.

  As the man on his left was as skinny as a knotweed plant and had a wild jungle of a beard, he looked as if he were trying to pass for a derelict, but it was his fingers that were sure to grab anyone’s attention. They were over a foot and a half long. Add the four-inch-long nails, and they came in around two feet long. What’s more, the nails were curved like talons. The bartender was clearly trying very hard not to look at them.

  The other two were seated at a rustic-looking round table, where they were engaged in a game of cards.

  “Two pair, queens up,” said an obese giant of a man with thick lips, a pug nose, and round spectacles, spreading his cards on the table. The belly of the faux-leather jacket he wore beneath his coat rippled with confidence. It looked like you could’ve pushed any part of him and fat would’ve oozed from his pores.

  “Three twos,” his opponent countered, and it may have been that his voice alone was youthful. The face that was turned toward the obese giant was hidden by a rivet-studded mask of iron that covered his head all the way down to the chin. Holes had been roughly cut in it for his eyes and mouth alone, revealing blue irises and bloodless lips.

  The old man came in with such force he nearly wrecked the batwing doors. The bartender just said, “Howdy, Professor,” but no one else even turned to look.

  “Go west on Vivant Road,” the old man—the Professor—ordered, displeasure covering every inch of his face.

  Two seconds of silence followed.

  The most unlikely candidate —the obese giant—said, “Okay, then—that’s me,” and stood up.

  “Wait just a second, Lascaux,” the man in the iron mask told him irritably. “You’re in for fifteen dalas. Lay your money down.”

  “I know, I know. I ain’t about to embarrass myself over a lousy fifteen dalas!” Flinging two coins at the man in the iron mask before he left, he said, “I’ll win it back from you next time, Mask.”

  Though he acknowledged the professor on the way out, there wasn’t the tiniest bit of respect in it. It didn’t look at all like an employer/employee relationship.

  Clucking his tongue, the Professor walked over to the counter. He ordered a whiskey.

  “For humans? Or for Nobles?”

  “Whaaat?” the Professor asked in an exaggerated manner, his expression shifting from one of surprise to delight. “Do you actually have anything like that?”

  “Yes siree!”

  “Then of course I’ll have the kind for Nobles.”

  The bartender finally showed a genuine smile, opening an iron door on the shelf. The fearful manner in which he took out the precious commodity made it seem more like a bomb, but it was a cut crystal bottle in a vivid shade of green.

  “I’d heard they had other kinds of spirits besides wine. Who knew whiskey would be one of them? Never thought I’d run into some in a saloon out in the sticks like this, that’s for sure. Is it the real deal?”

  “Go ahead and ask anybody in town. Ask ’em if they’ve ever once been ripped off at Den’s Place. We’ve been playing it nothing but straight here for thirty-five years. Once every ten years, Grand Duke Bergenzy offers some stuff for sale, which is where this bottle came from. Only four bottles like this were mixed in with a thousand bottles of wine, and I bid a pretty sum to get it. That’s why I only offer it to special guests. Five hundred dalas a glass—but a scholar would pay a hundred times that for a drink of this!”

  “You must be joking!” the Professor roared, his rage manifest. For less than a hundred dalas, he could have ten glasses of the very finest wine at any of the best bars in the Capital.

  Though he pounded on a table, the bartender didn’t even flinch.

  “If you’re not interested, forget I mentioned it. But I ain’t got all day.”

  “Okay. Here.”

  The flash and clatter of money on the counter made the bartender happy. Reaching for the bottle with an exaggerated motion, he gave it a powerful twist, all of which the Professor watched bitterly, but with eyes aglitter with expectation.

  The sixteenth, 11:09 p.m. Eastern Frontier Time

  Riding as hard as he could, Jacos arrived in the neighboring town—Velis.

  The sixteenth, 11:12 p.m. Eastern Frontier Time

  Jacos rushed into the wireless office. On the Frontier, there was one such office every sixty miles, on average. There, the various town halls and government offices in the Capital could send and receive messages. He’d been handed the text of this message by the mayor.

  The wireless operator was expressionless as he read it, and expressionless as he sent it.

  Once he’d finished, he turned to the customer and asked, “What happened?”

  Jacos just nodded at him from the floor, slowly getting back into his chair. His relief had been so great, he’d fallen right out of it.

  “Well, can’t say as I’m surprised,” the operator remarked knowingly. “Not after reading this. Could it be the grand duke’s up to something?” the man asked, his face full of dark curiosity.

  “Thank you kindly. Be seeing you,” was all Jacos told him, paying him before he went back outside.

  As the operator watched him go from his window, he couldn’t stop trembling.

  Poor bastards. Just because they happened to be near the castle, they were gonna end up with a village full of dead folks. But who’d have ever thought it? Who’d believe they’d send for him, of all people?

  Though frozen to the core, the operator’s body felt strangely feverish. Gotta be coming down with something, he thought.

  All that just from seeing one name.

  The seventeenth, 12:38 a.m. Eastern Frontier Time

  The operator was just bringing his sandwich to his mouth when the door suddenly opened.

  “Mmm, that looks tasty,” said the person who’d come in, a giant so obese the man nearly spat his food out in surprise. The floorboards creaked as h
e approached.

  “The secretary from the next village over came in here, right? No need to try and hide it. There ain’t any reason he’d come all the way over to your town unless it was to use the wireless office. Everything else they’ve got back in Schwartzen. Let’s have a look at that message.”

  “No can do, mister. I ain’t allowed to show other folks’ personal communication records to anyone. They’d have my head for that.”

  “Wouldn’t that be better than having it cut off for real?”

  The operator had decided he had no choice but to put up a fight. Even if he tried to cover it up, he’d wind up in the hangman’s noose or the guillotine for violating the privacy of their customers. For weapons, he had the sidearm on his hip or the knife strapped to his calf. Judging from his opponent’s physical condition, he’d have time enough to use either, but the fact that the giant was talking so tough while unarmed made the operator think he must’ve been pretty powerful. At a nearby village, for example, there was a school that taught martial arts for use against the Nobility. Most amazing of all was the fact that they also taught the Nobility’s martial arts—that is, the fighting techniques the Nobles had used. Such places took the good with the bad, training friend and foe alike.

  “Okay, I’ll let you see it. Hold on a minute.”

  The operator was just about to pull out the previous month’s list of messages when he noticed something strange about the obese giant.

  “You sure are sweating up a storm. Came by horse, did you?”

  “No.”

  “You walked, then?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You’re breathing hard, too. But if you walked here—did that fella who was in here earlier outrun you or something?”

  “Nope. And enough of the idle chitchat. Hurry up and show it to me.”

  “All righty,” the operator replied easily enough, tossing the list to the intruder.

  Catching it less than elegantly, the obese giant glared over at the operator, then began flipping through the pages. The look in his eye quickly changed, and he snarled, “Son of a bitch, you trying to pull a fast one on me?!”

  But by the time he slammed the list down on the floor, the operator had the barrel of his pistol pointed at the obese giant. Loudly cocking the hammer, he triumphantly declared, “Okay, what say you and me pay a call on the sheriff’s office?”

  Not seeming the least bit frightened, the obese giant replied, “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” and leaned way back.

  Apparently, the move wasn’t out of surprise. The proof of that was the way the giant’s stomach suddenly popped out. Over three hundred pounds to start, his body had just swollen to two or three times its former size.

  The operator pulled the trigger.

  A tiny hole opened in the wall of flesh that’d closed to within a foot and a half of the man. That was all.

  The flabby, pink wall jiggled closer.

  Early the next morning, the operator’s corpse would be discovered in the splintered remains of the building, a look of terror etched on his face. Examination by a doctor would reveal that he hadn’t suffocated, but rather that his heart and lungs were punctured by his ribs, all of which were broken, in addition to him succumbing to excessive fear.

  The seventeenth, 1:18 a.m. Eastern Frontier Time

  On hearing the obese giant’s news, the Professor leapt up.

  “It can’t be . . . Not him . . . Is he in the vicinity?”

  “The message should be posted at every sheriff’s office on the Frontier by now.”

  “So it’s too late, then? You think he’ll see it?”

  “He’ll see it, all right,” Lascaux assured the old man.

  “If that’s the case, we’ll have to get rid of him . . .”

  “A hundred thousand dalas.”

  “Whaaat?!” the Professor exclaimed, giving the giant a look that could kill.

  “That much, and I’ll do it.”

  “But we’re talking about—”

  “If he stands on two legs, that’s all that matters,” Lascaux replied. “Besides, I’ve always wanted to fight him. Got a plan and everything.”

  “Really?”

  The obese giant gave him a grave nod. His multiple chins jiggled.

  “I see. We’ll have to put in to the Capital for it as a special expense. So you’ll have to wait until later to get paid. Our current funds are for negotiations with Grand Duke Bergenzy.”

  “Sure,” Lascaux replied with a nod. Though from where the Professor was, he couldn’t see that because of the man’s enormous belly.

  “Is that okay with you?” the old man asked, needing to know for certain. Having a lackey whose face he couldn’t see presented its own problems.

  “It’ll be fine,” said the voice from the other side of the belly.

  “This is an urgent matter! I’ll check on his location immediately. Get rid of him before he makes it here.”

  “Just leave it to me,” the giant replied, slapping his belly with an arm as pale as a woman’s. Although the sound was normal, the Professor got the feeling he’d heard the striking of a big drum.

  The eighteenth, 10:15 a.m. Eastern Frontier Time

  After coming down from the Yogami Pass, the traveler in black halted his cyborg horse. He wore a wide-brimmed traveler’s hat, and a scarf as black as his coat covered his face from the nose down. Now all that remained was the road across the plains that would lead him to his destination. Beyond the flat expanses that spread to either side of him, chains of green mountains sat in solemn splendor. And beyond those were towering blue mountain peaks that averaged more than thirty thousand feet above sea level. Their summits were hidden by clouds. It was said that if only they could be knocked flat, life in the eastern Frontier would be ten times easier.

  Having been out in strong sunlight since dawn, the traveler seemed somewhat enervated. That was also partly due to the fact that the entire previous day had been spent in deadly battle with a formidable Noble.

  What brought him to a standstill was the rest area that stood to the right of the road. There was a post for hitching cyborg horses, as well as parking spots for wagons or light vans. Apparently the shop had opened recently, as it looked brand new.

  Tying the reins to the hitching post, the traveler passed through the doorway. Air-conditioning did nothing for the establishment, which looked large enough to accommodate around twenty, leaving the place even hotter than outside. There were three customers at the counter and another one at a table, and all were wiping at their sweat. Naturally, they were all enjoying some cold beer.

  “Welcome, stranger.”

  The traveler was greeted by an awfully fat shopkeeper and a slender but incredibly busty young lady, both behind the counter.

  “How about a nice, cold beer?” the shopkeeper asked the new customer, who’d just taken a seat on a stool.

  The answer was cold and steely. “Give me a big mug full of ice,” he said. “After that, anything will be fine.”

  “Beer?”

  “Whiskey.”

  The buxom young lady was even more surprised than the shopkeeper, her eyes going wide. Because the hoarse voice just now had sounded like a completely different person.

  Giving the traveler an indescribable look, the shopkeeper then told the young lady, who was giving him the very same look, “Get him that ice and some whiskey.”

  Even the other patrons were looking in that direction, dumbfounded.

  “What’s everyone gawking at? I ain’t on exhibit here!” the hoarse voice barked, and everyone faced forward again.

  His order came. Taking a fistful of ice from the mug, the traveler put it against his brow. After about five seconds, he moved it around to the back of his head. And that was without removing his scarf.

  “Got a little heatstroke, do you?” the shopkeeper asked somewhat dubiously.

  “Close enough,” the hoarse voice replied. “That, plus I’m wounded. You can see all the way
down to the bone!”

  “Sounds serious. Jessica, go get the first-aid kit.”

  “No need,” the traveler told the rattled shopkeeper in the first voice he’d used, pulling down his scarf.

  There was a dull thud over by the door that led to the back room. The young lady—Jessica—had fallen flat on her ass. Her face was melting with rapture.

  “What a . . . what a gorgeous man,” she managed to say, the words escaping like a moan, and no one there would contradict her. “You . . . you wouldn’t happen to be . . .”

  “He’s D,” one of the patrons said in a quiet tone that carried a touch of fear.

  III

  It seemed as if all sound had been lost from the world. They had gazed upon a being that carried the weight of both the sacred and the profane.

  “You’ll have to excuse him for that,” the shopkeeper said, unconsciously wiping his brow.

  The patrons all got up at the same time.

  “See you later.”

  “Nice place you’ve got here. Be seeing you,” they told the shopkeeper, leaving payment and a tip on the table as they left.

  “Whoa, you’re driving me outta business,” the shopkeeper said with a wry grin, looking over at D and then averting his eyes time and again.

  D’s left hand took hold of the whiskey glass, seeming to press it against his palm. On seeing the amber-hued liquid disappear completely, the young lady bugged her eyes.

  Grabbing another fistful of ice with the same hand, D got off his stool and said, “I’ll get out of your hair.”

  A coin rattled against the counter.

  “Hold up, there. We’ve precious little chance of any more customers coming by at this time of day. Instead of rushing off, sure you won’t stick around and have another drink?”

  “In that case, I’ll take three more whiskeys.”

  The hoarse voice nearly made the eyes pop out of the heads of both the shopkeeper and the young lady. And the same thing happened again when the palm of D’s hand downed the contents of those three glasses in rapid succession.

  “Sure can handle your liquor,” the shopkeeper said with a satisfied grunt. “How about it? Have another? Does my heart good to see somebody belting ’em back like that. Next one’s on the house!”