TableofContents

by Low Bo

He would have said more, but there was a muffled thump and a thud from the dining room. Kess headed for the dining hall. "Bee, I told you I'd get you another book when..."

  There were almost a dozen men in the dining hall. Eleven large men. Strangers. The north door lay drunkenly off its hinges. Bee, small and silent, was trapped between them and the locked south door.

  So stupid! To have forgotten, in the pleasure of Mac's company, the reason for his presence. Kess cursed herself viciously. even as her face drew into impassive lines.

  "Dinner isn't until ten," she said, cool and calm. "Cane at eight, Haps at nine. Everyone else until midnight."

  One of the men, with a blue kerchief, snorted. "We're hungry now."

  "That's regrettable, but not my problem."

  "We could make it your problem," said another miner, skinny one.

  She gave him a disintegrating smile. "Not you."

  Even as he flushed, another man pushed forward. She didn't step back, but she wanted to. He was shorter, this man. A little broader than the first, a little cleaner than the second. The focus of them all. That he was the lynchpin, she had no doubt.

  That she was in serious, serious trouble, she was certain.

  "Just like we heard," he said. Pleasant, affable. "A hot meal, and a pretty little angel to serve it to us."

  "You've been misled," she said, her voice calm. Her mind thinking frantically of escape, of Bee, of Mac, stuck in the kitchen. Of Ash. "This is the Angel's Kitchen, yes. But not the angel."

  "Well, I might just make my own judgment on that," said. His eyes were pale and dead. "After."

  Behind her, the kitchen door opened. Mac pressed the handle of a heavy kitchen knife into her hand. Then he stepped up beside her. His voice was steady and strong. "I think you gentlemen should be on your way."

  There was laughter at that, and Blue Kerchief made a grab for Bee.

  His mistake. Kess was on him before he could get there. One hard jab to the throat, and he stumbled. She forced him to his knees, set her knife to his throat. "Bee."

  Bee flew to Mac's side. The skinny one jerked forward, stopped when Kess drew a drop of his colleague's blood.

  "I've been in the Darks for ten years," she told them, her eyes on the leader. "Do you really think I spent all that time in the kitchen?"

  The leader smiled. "You wouldn't dare."

  Later, Kess knew, she'd remember. She'd shake, she'd cry. She'd probably throw up: she had last time. But that was for later. Now, without losing the leader's gaze, she put the point of the knife under the man's dirty blue kerchief, and sank it home. Sliced down, across.

  Dropped the body as the blood began to spray.

  The leader wasn't smiling anymore. Kess turned the bloody knife till it lay against her arm and took three steps back. Let them stumble over the body. "Come on, then."

  She'd evened the odds, but only a little. These were tough fighting men, not scared drunks. But this was her place. And she was not alone.

  "Bee, go to my room. Pull the ladder up behind you. Get Ash. Get Johns. Go now. Don't argue, go. Mac, we're back to back. No rules. Do whatever you can."

  Then the world narrowed sharply.

  There was a rhythm to knife fighting, one she hadn't forgotten. The first man to test her died swiftly, surprised. The second took a cut, but backed away. She had to follow, to keep them from having room enough to swing a length of razor wire, gods, don't even think it...

  It was a frenzy of slashing, of ducking, dodging, lashing out in every direction. Of punching, kicking, howling. Of broken chairs, of aching limbs. Of feeling Mac's solid presence stumble, fall...

  ...He was down, his bright hair splattered with blood. There was a man in front of him. With a knife. And dead blue eyes...

  Kess cried out, she knew it. But she couldn't hear. Because a storm erupted in the Angel's Kitchen. A fury of wind, of scouring rain. A desert storm of whipping, blinding sand. Pounding thunder, the sound of a million wings, or possibly screams. And in the center, a fire. Of flashing teeth, of claws. A bolt of lightning, concentrated into the size of a fragile eight year old...

  Then...

  ...Slowly, warily, wounded, the silence crept back.

  Bleeding, gasping, Kess stumbled over something that might have been human, once, to get to Mac. His bright eyes gazed up, saw nothing. His chest was a bloody ruin. She sank to his side. "Oh, Mac. Oh baby. Oh Mac..."

  A small hand reached across his broken body, took hers. There was blood on the hand, blood on Bee's clothes. Bee's teeth. But Bee's eyes were dark, and warm. And so very deep.

  "Bee," she said helplessly, "Mac's dead!" And she sobbed once.

  "Yes."

  Kess scrubbed at the tears that kept coming. "I have to take care of him. I have to..."

  "I'll take care of him now." Bee's voice was like a rolling wave, a distant star.

  No wonder, Kess thought ridiculously, I couldn't tell. Not young, not old. Ageless. "Bee..."

  There was a light had it always been there? around Bee, and Mac. "Ash is coming," said Bee. "And Johns, and the rest. Let them help you."

  "But Bee... How..." She stopped, sat down hard. Everything hurt, suddenly. From the inside out. Especially inside. Her breath hitched. "What do I do now?"

  "You keep on. You feed. You shelter. You teach. And you take care of the Angel's Kitchen."

  "Okay," she managed weakly. Tired. Her muscles were oil, loose and greasy. And there was a slice along one arm that was beginning to burn. Kess struggled to keep her eyes open. She could see stars, and wasn't certain that was a metaphor. "I mean, where else are you going to eat?"

  And Bee smiled.

  When Ash flew in, all his shadows behind him, and found her bleeding but whole, in a mess of blood and bone, Kess was still seeing that smile. A smile of sweetness, and strength, with blood on its hands, on its teeth. She could do worse than to live up to that smile, here in the Darks.

  She would try.

  LAIR OF THE LESBIAN LOVE GODDESS

  Edward McKeown

  I strained to read the movie marquee through the rainsmeared windows. The sonics weren't doing a very good of keeping the windscreen clear. Sometimes I think we were better off with the old style solid wipers. A gust blew a clear spot on the windscreen. "Lair of the Lesbian Love Goddess," I read aloud.

  "Yeah, great," said my new partner, Regina Delmar. "You sure he went in there? It's a duplex. What's the other movie?"

  "Countdown to Cannibalism," I said. "Hey, I've heard of that one. A bunch of writers get stuck in a turbovator and end up eating each other. The survivor writes a book and wins a Pulitzer."

  "Maybe he went in there?"

  I looked at her. "Reg, he may be Arcturian, but he's male. He went into Lair of the Lesbian Love Goddess."

  "What is it with men always wanting to watch two women have sex?" she said, obviously disgusted with males of all species. "And I prefer Regina."

  Rather than debate the basic psyche of the male gender, I changed the subject. "Do you want to catch this bozo or what?"

  "Did Command have any idea what the Arcturians are smuggling?"

  "Nope. just a buzz that there's something new, hot and illicit driving Arcturians wild and this Toldas Harkarian is the Arcturian at the bottom of it. Don't know if it's tech, drugs or biologicals. just that there's a lot of money flowing all of a sudden. Who knows, maybe it's some new version of cyberfeelies for the movies."

  "Like we don't have enough of that now," sniffed Regina. "Seems like there's another of these porno, cyber feelie palaces every week in the offport. Just more sleazy films."

  "Hey, are you a Port Authority Cop or a movie critic?"

  "Okay, okay. Let's nail this creep. And no watching the movie."

  "Yes, ma'am," I grumbled.

  We exited the unmarked into the cold, wet streets of what used to be Red Hook, Brooklyn. New York City in the late twenty second century burst its old bounds, adding artificial reefs and islands. Redhook was no longer the sh
oreline; it was part of the off port. In the distance we could hear the gathering rumble of a climbing starship as it took off from what used to be part of the Atlantic Ocean.

  Regina was out front, as usual, hotdogging again. Young, ambitious, and just out of uniform into the detective ranks, she was grimly determined to be the youngest NYPA captain on the force. I'm only three years away from getting my twenty in and retiring; the last thing I needed was a hotshot bucking for rank.

  The Lieutenant stuck me with her after Frank retired as punishment for one of my periodic dust ups with Command. I never could learn to keep my mouth shut. So I inherited Regina. She had all the hallmarks for success: she was young, pretty, fearless, and tough. My wife hated her with the dispassionate hatred wives reserve for good looking women who spend all day with their husbands. Me, I was just afraid she was going to get me killed.

  We flashed our tin at the old guy in the ticket booth. Regina leaned into his box as we walked in. "You give any alarm and they'll be washing what's left of you off the walls."

  The old man gulped and dove back into his newspaper. I groaned inwardly and thought of Internal Affairs.

  We started looking for our Harkarian. Arcturians were common in this area of the Port of New York, but I didn't think we'd see many in here. Like most of his species, our boy would be about eight feet tall and gray skinned. Fortunately, he also had a big patch of white scarring on the dorsal fin that rises from the crest of his head. It would suffice to identify him.

  Regina stopped and I almost ran into her. Silently, she pointed at a small mirror over the long disused concession stand. There he was, around the corner from us. He was handing a package to someone we couldn't see.

  "Come on Brian, let's get him," she whispered.

  "Wait," I replied, "stun settings don't work on Arcturians. We better call for back..." too late, Regina was off and running. "Halt, police," she yelled.

  "Oh, hell," I said.

  The Arcturian bolted. Whoever had been with him was gone already. All eight feet of the alien sped for the entrance to the movie theater.

  Just as I started running, the door to the john opened and I slammed into it full tilt. "Hey," yelled a bearded man as we both crashed to the ground.

  "Police," I snarled, struggling to my feet. I looked around frantically for Regina. She was closing with the Arcturian when he turned and threw a glass sphere that hit her in the chest and shattered. Immediately, smoke started to rise from her clothes.

  "Reg," I yelled, running toward her. "Molecular acid! Get out of your armor before it eats through." I pulled my service pistol, but my partner was jumping up and down, frantically stripping right in my line of fire.

  I reached Regina's side. Her jacket and the body armor on her shoulders and chest protected her from having her skin dissolved immediately, but the acid worked fast. She dropped the big chest panel as holes began to appear in it. I kicked open a door and found what I desperately hoped for, a janitor's bucket full of water. Regina had stripped down to a bra but a dot must have hit the strap. It parted and the bra practically blew off. I upended the big bucket of cold, filthy water over her, the best chemical base handy to counter any acid left. She let out a howl as the water hit her back.

  "That should do it," I said, looking over my now topless partner for any sign of acid burning. I couldn't help noticing that she kept a spectacular pair concealed under her armor. God bless body armor.

  "I'll kill him," yelled Regina, pulling her sidearm. Before I could stop her she plunged through the doors into the Lair of the Lesbian Love Goddess . This time I was only a few steps behind my track star partner.

  The Arcturian was just battering down the exit door diagonal from us when I came in. Regina hurdled over the rows of seats. Not being a gazelle, I ran down the long way. I cheated on Regina's early admonition and looked up at the screen. At least three women writhed in an erotic tangle, doing something very unusual. I ran into a seat. Concentrate, I thought to myself. The moviegoers with their visual and sensory helmets were either too distracted by the agile minxes on screen, or they assumed the topless Regina and the Arcturian were part of the film. Well, I thought, porno is usually short on plot anyway.

  Regina tripped and landed on one guy. He promptly grabbed her breasts. "Man, this is some great simulation," he said to his friend. Regina whacked him over the head with her pistol and he slid out of sight, disappearing into the general ick that coated the floor. I went past Regina, for once in the lead, and dashed out what was left of the door. The Arcturian was gone, its two-meter stride having taken it out of sight.

  Regina dashed up behind me and looked both ways.

  "Shit," she said, breathing hard.

  "Did you see the other guy?" I asked.

  "No," she said, "Just a foot as he went though the other door."

  I looked at her. "Your magnificent bosom is heaving," I observed.

  Glare.

  I slipped out of my jacket and handed it to her.

  "Thanks," she growled.

  "I'm never telling my wife about this little chase," I said, "and neither are you."

  Unexpectedly, Regina gave a rueful laugh. "I guess I went a little gung ho."

  "Just a bit," I replied. "You spooked a big tough alien that our stunners can't stop. That means we either had to use deadly force or take him down by hand. The former is undesirable, as he's our only lead and the latter was probably impossible."

  "Plus, God damn it," I added, "you almost got the aforementioned magnificent bosom, which I now have to forget I ever saw, chewed up by an anti personnel acid ball."

  "Boy, I sure don't sound too smart," she replied. She gave me a rather enigmatic look. "So why do you have to forget my magnificent bosom, having saved it?"

  "I got involved with a woman partner twenty years ago when I was single. It redefined utter, complete disaster. Now that I am married it would be utter, complete disaster squared."

  Reg grinned at me. Sometimes I really had to work at staying mad at her. "I'll bear that in mind," she said. "Thanks anyway."

  "Back to business," she continued. "How do we find our guy now? There's a thousand Arcturians or better in their section of the port."

  "Well, we're not going to get anything else done tonight. It'll be sunrise in a few hours. Start of shift tomorrow night we'll go talk to Frederica."

  "Who's she?"

  "Funny you should ask," I said, holstering my gun.

  * * *

  We found Freddie, or Frederica, as he preferred, trolling for spacers around some of the wilder off port bars in what used to be Governor's Island. Freddie did an astonishing job of passing for a good-looking girl: with black hair, a splendid surgically enhanced rack and nice legs. Freddie had the brains to do other things but his soul had turned dark early. Or as he put it, 'I like the night life.'

  We cruised over to the curb. Freddie spotted the unmarked and smiled a lop sided smile after he saw it was me. We got out of the car. It was still raining, always seemed to be lately.

  "McManus," said Freddie, looking out from under an umbrella at me. "You finally come to your senses and leave your wife for me?" The husky voice didn't quite give Freddie away. A whisky voice my dad would have called it.

  "Sorry, Freddie," I replied. "Not that you don't look good."

  Freddie did a mock pirouette, his dress swirling up around legs that were unfairly feminine. "So what can I do for you, Flatfoot?" he asked, using my street name.

  "Knock off the crap," snapped Reg.

  Freddie raised an eyebrow at Regina. "Ooohhh, she's a cutey. New girlfriend, Brian?"

  "Freddie, meet Detective Regina Delmar. Reg, meet Freddie."

  "That's Regina," she said archly, then looking at Freddie added, and to you it's Detective Delmar."

  Freddie extended a hand. Reg ignored it, so Freddie turned it into a curtsey. I could see Regina going into a slow bum.

  "Come on, ladies, there's a coffee shop across the street. We can get out of the rain. I'l
l even buy."

  "See," said Freddie with a wicked grin. "Brian thinks I'm a lady."

  Reg muttered something obscene under her breath.

  Hoping gunfire wouldn't break out behind me, I led the way to a little Greek shop. We slipped in out of the rain and grabbed a table by the window. Gusts of errant wind scrubbed rain into the gutters outside. The waiter, a Rigellian, looked like a cross between an old man and a goat. He smelled like the goat. He brought us coffee and danishes.

  "So, Freddie," I said, "what do you know about Arcturians?"

  "Bad people," said Freddie with a delicate shudder. "Got a lot of weight and like throwing it around."

  "Lately there's one who seems to be moving into the smuggling racket," I said. I sipped the coffee, savoring its warmth and smell. The danish was good too.

  "Heard that," said Freddie.

  "What else have you heard?" asked Regina.

  Freddie gave me an expectant look.

  I slipped a small envelope across the table to Freddie. He took it without looking inside. It was the usual. Not much, but it was a ritual. It insulated us from any thought that our relationship was anything other than business.

  "There's an Arcturian named Toldas Harkarian," said Freddie, "trying to set up a network to move something past a few corrupt customs guys over in Area Eighty Eight. Haven't heard what it is. You tangled with him last night, I hear."

  "How do you know that?" asked Reg.

  "Oh, honey," said Freddie. "When a beautiful female cop goes running topless through a feelie porno, whacking people on the head... well... word gets around. You've got a street handle now, Topless."

  I could hear Regina's teeth grinding.

  Freddie continued. "The Arcturian is working with Ratface Moestel. He owns the theater. Say, did you catch any of Lair of the Lesbian Love Goddess?"

  "I was too busy to watch," I lied, not daring to look at Regina.

  "Film's got artistic merit," said Freddie, "especially the scenes where the Love Goddess ties up-"

  "Freddie," I said, exasperated.

  "Oh, all right. You know Moestel?"

  "Yeah, I know him," I replied. "Never heard of him being mixed up in anything other than sleazy movies."