by Allan Cole
"Base position. Now. Clot! Stick always goes across your body. Just above the waist. Then you're ready for any kind of defense."
"What about a knife?"
"You know stick—you'll be able to put that knife about eight inches up the lower intestine of the guy what pulled it on you. Now. One—swing your left up. Stick's straight up and down. Step in. . .naw. Naw. Naw! Stick's gonna go into the side of somebody's neck. You ain't askin' to dance with him. Do it again."
An hour before shift-change, the TASK COMPLETE light went on. Sten began flushing the mill's interior with neutralizer. He knew better than to hurry.
"You in a bibshop. Man breaks off a bottle. Comes at you. What'ya do?"
"Kick him."
"Naw. Naw. Naw. Hurt yourself that way. Throw somethin'. Anythin'. His arm's low, throw for his face. He's ice-pickin', slide a chair up his groin. Awright. You hit him. He goes back. What'ya do?"
"Kick. Kneecap. Arch if you can get close. Neck."
"Awright! He goes down. What next?"
"Put his bottle in his face."
"Sten, I'm startin' to get proud of you. Now. Get your tail in the head. Practice for the rest of the off-shift. Next off-shift, I'll show you what to do if you got a knife."
Sten unlatched the work-area cover and lifted out his tool.
His. For the first time in his life, he had something that wasn't borrowed or leased from the Company. That the material cost was a merchant prince's ransom and the machining techniques used enough power for an entire dome made it even sweeter.
Sten held a slim double-edged dagger in his clumsy suit gloves. The skeleton handle was custom-fit for Sten's fingers to curl around in the deadly knife-fighter's grip the little man had taught him.
There was no guard, just serrated lateral grooves between the haft and blade that tapered from 5 cm width down 15 cm to a needle tip. The knife was 22 cm long and only 2.5 cm thick.
It was possibly the deadliest fighting blade that had ever been constructed. The crystal tapered to a hair-edge barely 15 molecules wide, and the weight of the blade alone was enough pressure to cut a diamond in half.
Sten tucked the knife in an unused suit storage pocket. He already had the sheath built. Hite had done that for him.
He and Sten had hidden out in a normal-environment disused area. He'd put Sten out with a central anesthetic. And then delicately gone to work.
The sheath was inside Sten's lower arm. With pirated microsurgery tools, Hite laid back a section of Sten's skin down to the dermis. He put an undercoat of living plaskin next to the subcutaneous tissue, then body-cemented into place the alloy U-curve that Sten had already built. That would keep the knife's blade from touching anything—including the U-curve.
A wrist muscle was rerouted across the mouth of the sheath to keep the knife in place. Then Hite replaced the layer of dermis and epidermis over the surgical modifications and body-cemented Sten back together.
It took several cycles to heal. But Hite was satisfied the plaskin was nonirritative, and the skin over the sheath would continue to regenerate.
The shift buzzer in Sten's suit blatted. Sten shut down the mill and headed for the lock.
Nobody knew exactly what Hite had done to get stuck in Exotic Section. It was known that he'd been a pioneer-world doctor. It was known that he'd taken a Tech contract on Vulcan for an unknown reason. And it was obvious that he'd done something incredibly wrong.
Hite never told anyone—including Sten—about what he'd done.
He was not only the only medic the Migs had access to but he'd been in Exotic Section for years.
He was also the only friend Sten ever had.
"Sten, lad. The problem with you is you don't laugh enough."
"Laugh? I'm stuck in the anus of Vulcan. . .everybody's trying to kill me—they're gonna succeed—and you want me to laugh?"
"Of course, boy. Because what could be funnier than all that?"
"I don't get it."
Hite leaned closer. "It's because the gods hate you. Personally."
Sten considered. Then smiled slowly. And started laughing.
"Huh?"
"What's there to laugh about? You're up the arse of Vulcan and everyone's trying to kill you. I'd get worried if I were you."
Sten stared at him. Then shook his head and started howling.
In the shiftroom, Sten fed high-pressure disinfectant into his suit and resealed it. He waited. There was no leak. Sten dumped the disinfectant into the recycler and pegged the suit. In the Exotic Section, elderly vacuum worksuits, condemned by the Techs, were used. Leaks were very common. And in an area, there wasn't time to patch them. Sten yawned and pushed through the Barracks toward his bunk.
The knife was tucked inside Sten's arm. His open hand held it securely in position. Sten couldn't wait to show it to Hite.
Barracks smelled like The Row. Cubed and recubed. With no Sociopatrolmen. A couple of hulks were going through the meager effects of a young boy who lay sprawled in a pool of blood. One of them grinned up at Sten. "Got fresh meat in today."
Sten shrugged and kept walking. The ethanol stand was crowded as always. He stopped by his bunk. The female Mig who bunked over him had his blanket hung as a curtain, and paired grunts came from behind it.
Sten headed for Hite's square. The old man had been sick, and Sten hoped he was feeling semihuman. He wanted to ask him more about Pioneer Sector.
There was a knot of men around Hite's bunk. The foreman and some of his toadies. And beside them, a robot trundle.
Two of the thugs picked up a gray, frail, still form from the bunk and dumped it unceremoniously onto the trundle.
Sten broke into a run as the trundle automatically swiveled away. He smashed a fist into its control panel and the trundle stopped.
"Ain't no use," one of the toadies said. "Ol' basser's dead."
"What happened?"
"Guess he just died. Natural causes."
Sten started to turn. . .then pulled Hite's body over.
Blood still oozed from the slash in Hite's throat. Sten looked up at the foreman.
"He di'n't want to go on-shift. So, like Malek says, he just died. Naturally."
The foreman made the mistake of laughing.
Sten came off the floor at the foreman. One thug body-checked him and Sten went to the floor, twisted, and came back to his feet.
And the little man echoed in his brain. You're never angry. You never want anything. You are a response without a mind.
A toady moved in, and Sten's foot lashed. The man's kneecap shattered audibly and he dropped.
"Take him."
The toadies surged forward. One huge man had Sten from behind, crushing him with both hands. Sten wiggled an arm free and swung a fist back, thumb extended.
The tough dropped Sten and howled back, blood pouring from his eye socket.
Sten spun, his foot coming wide against the base of the bully's neck. It snapped and the man crashed to the deck.
"Get him, you clots!" the foreman thundered.
The two men left looked at the foreman and at Sten, trying to decide which was worse. One of the men ripped a bunk support free, and the second man's hand snaked into his pocket and flicked out with a gleaming knife, honed down from a hand chisel.
Sten dropped his right hand limply. Curled his fingers. The knife dropped into his hand. Cold. Comforting.
The man with the steel bar reached Sten first, swinging. Sten brought the knife up. . .and the blade razored through the steel. The man gaped for a second at the short steel stub he held, then Sten lashed in and cut his throat like soft butter.
The knifeman feinted once as Sten spun, then lunged for Sten's stomach. Sten overhanded a block. . .
The foreman stared, horrified, as his toady's arm, still holding a knife in writhing fingers, thudded to the deck.
Then the foreman turned and ran. The wrong way. Down, away from the guard capsule. Toward the areas.
Sten caught him just before t
he shiftroom. The foreman turned. Holding out both hands. Panicked eyes wide.
Sten slashed once.
The foreman screamed as his guts bulged out, and slopped wetly to the deck.
"That was for nothing."
Sten ran for his suit as alarms began to shrill.
Inside Area 35, Sten could hear the banging on the lock. He wasn't too worried. He'd dumped the lock air and wedged the inner door open. That'd take them some time to get through.
The guards had to figure Sten was trapped. There was no interconnection to another area. All that was outside Area 35 was hard vacuum.
Sten gingerly lifted the viral spray tank out of his bio-lathe and muscled it to the dome's curving outer wall. He flipped the bleed valve open and scrambled back toward the overturned gravsled as the red viral spray hissed against the dome's skin.
The gravsled was the biggest thing he could get into position. He'd put all of its anchors down, and hoped it would hold when everything went.
The wall cracked and peeled and bubbled out until. . .the wall dissolved and became exploding blackness. A storm of escaping gasses howled into space. Megacredits' worth of crystal boulders, vehicles, and tools pounded around the hole and then ripped their way out.
The gravsled cracked. . .anchors tore loose, and then, with a grinding crash, the sled came free and thundered toward the hole. It smashed across the hole but was just too large to fit between two main support beams.
And then the howling stopped. And what was left of Area 35 was silent.
Blood ran down into Sten's eyes where he'd slammed into his suit visor rim. He blinked it away and checked his suit carefully for leaks.
Then he slid around the sled and out the hole.
He swayed, momentarily vertiginous as blackness and harsh starlight rose around him.
One way or another, he was out of Exotic Section. And—he managed to grin wryly—achieving one of his dreams. He was out of Vulcan.
And then he was moving. Away from the hole, away from Exotic Section. Headed North, toward the only hole he could maybe hide in—the sprawling main mass of Vulcan.
He had no idea where he was going. First he took steps, then as he became bolder and realized there was enough magnetism left in the suit's boots to keep him from spinning off into space, in great meters-long bounds.
Several times he almost panicked and looked for a nonexistent hiding place, when repair craft and patrol boats speared down toward him.
Then he realized. . .all they were worrying about was the sudden expensive explosion kilometers away in Exotics. If they even spotted him, one man in a worksuit wouldn't be connected with the destruction.
Not yet, anyway.
He held out as long as he could—until his suit's air supply began to rasp in his ears, and he could hear the regulator gurgle at him—then went to the first hatchway he saw. Sten guessed it was for routine maintenance.
He fumbled with its catches, and suddenly the hatch slid smoothly open. He crawled in the tiny lock chamber, closed the outer door, and hit the cycle button.
The inner door creaked open—at least there was air on the other side to carry noise—and Sten stepped out.
A long, deserted corridor stretched away before and behind him. Dust was thick on the walkway, and several of the overheads were burnt out. Sten slumped down against a bulkhead. He was free. He was home.
He considered those two thoughts. And smiled. His smile became laughter.
Free. Until they caught him. Home? On Vulcan?
But he laughed, as Hite had taught him.
It seemed like the right thing to do.
CHAPTER TEN
THORESEN HURRIED OFF the gravsled toward the shuttle. A few more minutes and he would be off Prime World and heading back to Vulcan. He was still nervous about the Emperor and half believed that at any second he would be arrested.
The Baron tensed as several guardsmen walked around a corner. But they were deep in conversation and were obviously not after him. He relaxed.
A certain wild part of him almost wished for a confrontation. Thoresen was not used to bowing to other men. He didn't like the feeling of terror. He walked past the soldiers, thinking that he could take them. Instantly. His mind fingered the possibilities. He would rip the throat out of the first one. The second would die as he broke his nose and drove the cartilage into the brain. The third—he shook off the feeling. He was breathing easier as he started up the loading ramp.
A little later, he was on the shuttle and heading for the liner orbiting around Prime World. Settling back—really relaxing for the first time since he left Vulcan—Thoresen thought over his meeting with the Emperor.
There were several possibilities: (a) The Emperor was senile. Unlikely. (b) The man was really trying to soothe a few aides. Nonsense. It wasn't his style, (c) The Emperor knew about Bravo Project. Wrong. Thoresen was alive, wasn't he? (d) The Emperor suspected something was up but couldn't prove it. Hence the meeting to feel Thoresen out and issue a subtle warning. Now, that was more probable.
All right. What would be the Emperor's next move? That was easy. He'd tighten the investigation. Send more spies to Vulcan.
The Baron smiled to himself, feeling much better about the situation. He closed his eyes to take a brief nap. Just before he fell asleep he made a note to himself. He'd order Security to clear with him the credentials of all off-worlders. He looked forward to interviewing a few spies personally.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
STEN HAD BEEN on the run for about a month when he met the girl. She was about fifteen and dressed in a shapeless, grimy black coverall. Her face and hands were smeared with grease. And she came within a hair of killing him. Her name was Bet. Sten thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Sten had made it that far by hiding in the ventilation ducts that warrened Vulcan. They varied in size from twenty-meter-wide central ductways to shoulder-wide tubes to individual rooms. The ducts were caked with the grease of years and periodically blocked by huge filter screens. Sten used a small powerdriver he had stolen from a warehouse to get through the screens.
The ventilation ducts went everywhere, giving him quick access to food warehouses and empty apartments when he needed to forage. The only real danger he ever encountered was when he chanced on work parties servicing the filter screens. But they were easy to avoid. He had also heard strange scrabbling and scratching noises which he figured were groups of Delinqs. So far, he had steered clear of them, pretty sure of his reception.
The only thing he feared were the periodic extermination raids mounted by the Company against the Delinqs. From what he had heard back in his Mig days, the few survivors were guaranteed brainburn.
Still, he lived fairly well, and in fact had gained a kilo or two since his escape. He was just getting slightly bored and more than a little picky about his meals when he made a real find.
The hydroponics farm was a glistening green world that stretched out of sight into the mists. Towering purple ferns could be seen and row upon row of every conceivable plant, some in flower, some drooping with ripe vegetables and fruit. Sten had never seen anything like it before except at the vid library.
No humans were about. Only agricultural bots—the lowest form—tending and harvesting the plants. Sten dropped through the duct and landed on the ground. It was soft and green. Sten looked down at his feet. So that's what grass looks like.
He walked through the rows smelling—fresh air? Flowers? Soil? He picked a handful of what he thought might be grapes. Nibbled on them, his face lighting up at the fresh taste. Sten took off his shirt and started stuffing it until the seams nearly split.
A soft footfall. Sten whirled, his knife flashing out. Then he hesitated. It was a girl.
She carried a Sociopatrolman's stun rod, tied to a half-meter-long fiber rod. She hadn't spotted him yet and Sten started to slide back into a row of plants. Then he hesitated. She didn't behave like a Mig or a Tech. She had to be a Delinq.
Sten suddenly remembered one of his father's phrases: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." He stepped from behind a huge fern into full view.
The girl saw him, froze, then flipped the stun rod on and drew back her arm, ready to hurl the improvised spear at Sten. "Wait."
The girl stopped. Still ready to throw. No fear at all. Her eyes widened as his knife hand flickered and the blade disappeared from view. He held out his hands, palms up.
"You on the run?" Sten nodded. "From where?"
"Exotic Section."
The stun rod came up. "Liar! Nobody's ever—"
"I blew out an area. Came across the outside in a suit. I've been living in the ducts." The girl frowned.
"We heard there was an accident. But that's impossible." Sten waited.
"You've got the muscles that come from lifting. And those scars on your legs. . .You're a runaway."
"Then what am I doing here?"
The girl smiled humorlessly. "Who knows? Trying to infiltrate us. Just weird. Maybe a real runner." Sten shrugged.
"Hold your hands out again," the girl ordered. "Palms up."
Sten did as she asked. The girl inspected Sten's calloused and work-torn hands and looked closely at the grime-encrusted ragged nails.
"You could've faked that. Strip."
"What?" Sten managed.
"Take off your clothes. If you're an infiltrator, you'll have a soft body like a socioslime." Sten hesitated.
"This stun rod," the girl said evenly, "is power-jumped. It puts out about two hundred percent more force than it should for about two seconds. Then it burns out. But by then whoever it hits is ready for recycling."
Sten fingered the fastener, then stepped out of the suit The girl walked completely around him, then stood, considering for a moment, in front of him. The girl smiled slightly. "It's a very good body." Then her smile vanished.
"Come on. Get dressed. I'm Bet."
As he stepped into his clothes, she dumped his "harvest" out of his shirt and handed it to him. She began picking through the vegetables and fruits, tossing some away as too green, stuffing others into a sack.
