Outlanders Closing the Cosmic Eye, page 16
A flatbed grav-crawler, loaded down to within twelve inches of the street by a pile of scorched parts salvaged from a recently crashed spacecraft, backed suddenly out of an alley in defiance of all sense and traffic regulations. Vartan's own grav-sled, despite his high-pitched bellow of alarm to his driver, promptly smacked into the flatbed. Suppressing an urge to belabor his driver, Vartan opened his door of the cab and dropped to the street. Though the sled had not yet grounded and he had a good yard to fall to the cracked and sun-hot pavement, he felt as if he fell down with featherlike grace. His own planet of origin had a surface gravity of over five G’s. This place, which couldn't even muster one g of pull, was the next thing to orbit to him. It tended to reinforce his sense of superiority. Indeed, invulnerability.
The driver's door of the salvage floater banged open, adding some dents to its already impressive collection. The driver hopped out: a female human, not much taller than Vartan himself, wearing a battered billed cap, a gray short-sleeved shirt with a dark line of sweat down the belly, baggy mauve cargo pants. Her eyes were obscured by dark sunglasses against the primary's ultraviolet-rich glare. "What's the matter with you, you big ugly bastard?" she yelped.
Vartan felt an urge to smash the impertinent being's misshapen face with a tentacle. He only recognized it as a female of its species because of his experience in dealing in antisocial detainees, throughout the Far Ann the space rats made up a disproportionate percentage of the indentured laborers. He had to remind himself that this specimen was not one of his clients. It actually had rights.
I had best settle this, he thought, irked, especially since the thing continued to screech its half-translatable imprecations at him. I don't want to be delayed to the auction. It's poor form to keep the paying customers waiting. And later, he would see to remedying the legal fluke by which this pale, paper-skinned, obscenely binary being was able to abuse him, a respected servant of the council's will!
His aural sensors, like every other organ of consequence arrayed in sextuplicate around his circumference, detected the comforting sound of his enforcer, Urd, getting out of the other side of the vehicle. Had his six lipless ingestion-mouths been capable of smiling, they would have.
"Here now," he said, forcing himself to use the tones that the translator device he more would render conciliatory, "we are both reasonable beings. What can I do to assuage your anger'?"
His radio-frequency sense tickled, then, briefly.
The creature's whole demeanor changed. The previously unbroken stream of obscenities issuing from its unnatural single maw ceased. Instead it produced that distortion of its grotesque features Vartan knew constituted an expression of pleasure.
"Die," it said.
And before his giant Slump bodyguard could even find his way around the long grav-sled, whose snout was inextricably locked with the bed of the other floater, and had a ton or so of twisted metal plate toppled over on it like a grapnel—the unspeakable space rat had drawn a short concealed blaster and fired a bright yellow particle beam straight into the wide dome of Vartan's skull.
THESE REBELS GOT some ace tech, Kane thought as the electrically sealed rear hatches of the seventy-foot-long slave wagon popped open in response to the defeater bar that had just bonded itself to its adamantine armor plate.
Inside two guards stared out in the dismay of complete surprise. Like the boss slaver himself they were off-worlders: Bug Mama had told the Terrans it was common practice for slavers to be of races other than those dominant in the area they worked, lest fellow feelings tempt them to give species members a break.
The guard to Kane's left was a humanoid with yellow, damp-looking skin and eyes on stalks: a Talladora, from a star system not far from Sidra along a major faster-than-light transit route, which Kane understood dimly wasn't the same as being near in normal space. The Talladora were commonly used as muscle by the council and its contractors, since they were loyal, once bought, and their loyalty most cheap to anyone they feared.
What they weren't was particularly elite. This one goggled a moment, its eyes literally standing out like a character of a twentieth-century cartoon vid. They did that anyway, of course, but now they seemed to reach like little supplicating arms toward the bearded, tan-visaged human who stood outside in the Sun's blue glare. The alien grabbed for its side arm. Unfortunately, the holster was covered by a heavy flap, doubtless to discourage a quick snatch by one of the "clients." It wouldn't have made much difference. Kane already had the pressor pistol the coalition had given him up and ready.
He squeezed the firing stud once. It made a weird poit sound, not loud but penetrating. A ripple of distortion appeared at the end of its barrel, which to Kane's eye was just a piece of some kind of shiny silver alloy bar stock, either solid or tubular with a sealed end. The distortion flowed swiftly to a spot between the stalked eyes, where as if by magic a circular indentation appeared between them. It was as if an invisible glass rod a half inch in diameter had been hammered into the Talladora's skull. The eyes stood out at forty-five-degree angles as the skull deformed, bulged and then exploded from the sudden drastic fluid overpressure the pressor-pulse induced in its brain. Purple juice with green chunks squirted out seams along the sides of the thing's head. It fell twitching, and from the sudden sulfurous stink, fouling itself.
Its partner was a vaguely humanoid object that wore nothing but harness and was covered crown to sole with spiny gray-edged black and brown bristles. They reminded Kane unpleasantly, in the flash glimpse he got, of the hairs on a tarantula, not mammalian fur. No features whatever showed through the bristles but a triangle of small black convex eyes in the midst of its head.
With better presence of mind than its now writhing and reeking companion, it made no attempt for its purposely hard-to-draw side arm. Instead it lunged straight for Kane with the shockstick it carried in a hand with two pairs of opposed digits.
Its speed made a rattlesnake seem slow. Not even Kane's panther reflexes were up to the challenge. He tried to switch aim, but felt as if he were moving through mud. A rippling polychromatic flash lit the inside of the long compartment, illuminating stunned expressions and postures among the clients within. A score of micro lasers each fired three-millisecond pulses in a random primary color from the short, stubby two-hand blaster Brigid Baptiste held at the level of her slim waist.
The laser shotgun was designed to defeat any kind of armor keyed to reflect or absorb a single wavelength of coherent light, as well as to cause maximal damage to the target, with each successive discharge of each cell burning deeper into the target. It was tunable and set currently to fan its discharges to the breadth of a human palm at five yards, which was the distance from which Baptiste fired.
It was overkill here. The spider-ape guard flew backward into the compartment trailing streamers of smoke and orange-and-blue flames, propelled by the sudden explosion of body fluids in its chest cavity into steam. It bounced off knobbly knees and fetched up on the floor of the compartment, where it ignited the skins of several twittering females of some avian species with fur instead of feathers.
Letting the laser weapon snap back to her waist on its retractable sling, Brigid clambered quickly past Kane into the compartment to combo the slaves and make sure the three captives she'd inadvertently ignited were safely extinguished. Which they were. As clients seated to either side of the now-hysterical bird-creatures beat the flames out themselves with horny purple hands, driven by urgent self- interest if nothing else.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Kane said, "step outside. Your contracts have been canceled."
A huge three-fingered gray hand reached over his shoulder and plucked his pressor pistol from his grasp. Then another hand clamped down on his left shoulder and tossed him like a toy five yards down the street.
Chapter 21
“Now might be a good time," Kane had said to his coalition hosts, "to tell us just how it is you come to know so much about our pal Gilgamesh Bates and his cosmic doomsday device."
His smile had been wolfish in the gloom of the shelter, and anything but friendly. "A real good time."
Bug Mama's chief aide turned a worried look and a flickering tongue toward the slight robed figure. "Elder—" She waved a tiny, chitinous brown hand at him. "Hold your fudge, Servillon. We need these people and they need us. And there's no time for games. Barely enough time for subtlety. But then, there's always time for subtlety."
"There's always room for Jell-O," Reichert echoed.
Robison leaned forward and felt the young man's cheek. "He's a bit feverish," he explained.
Bug Mama waved away both interruption and explanation, "Your answer is simple, Kane—spies and psi’s." "What the hell does that mean?" Grant asked. "All respect, here."
Thand glowered at the big black man. Kane thought it might be amusing to watch a stare-down between the two: the rebel chieftain was even bigger and bulkier than Grant, and well equipped for glowering by reason of exceptionally ferocious eyebrows. But Kane's money would be on Grant. He always bet on Grant.
"What it says," Bug Mama said. "Clear out the ear wax, junior."
"We have moles within the major council factions," Pine said hurriedly. "People from afflicted races or in fear of repression. Defectors disgusted by the acts of other members of their own species—"
"And, of course, the normal numbers of purchased or blackmailed traitors and foolish fellow travelers," Bug Mama said.
"Don't look so pained, child," she added to Pine, with what Kane thought was remarkable skill at reading facial expressions totally dissimilar to her own. He made amen note to be very, very careful around the diminutive alien. "We have scruples—in that we differ from our foes on the council and their lackeys. But survival forces us to be highly selective about even the scruples we allow ourselves. Or at least adroit at rationalization."
"And changing the subject," Brigid said crisply. "How do you know about Bates?"
"And mebbe more," Domi added, "how much do you know?"
Brigid raised an eyebrow at her. Even after spending so much time she had a tendency to underestimate the albino feral woman.
"Several weeks ago," Bug Mama said, "Bates made contact with a Paa corvette in orbit around Sidra. Why exactly he made contact inside this system we don't know— and if our enemies have learned, they've grown damn cagier about hiding secrets from us. But he did.
"The Paa rule the Circle of Life faction within the Grand Council. Their gift for diplomacy isn't why they have so much power. Indeed, their notion of wielding power is. if at first you don't succeed, beat the burden-beast harder. That creates compliance through fear, as they have been demonstrating for about twenty thousand years, and races before them fees couple million years of patchily known history. But it creates damn little loyalty. Paa clients are some of our likeliest allies."
"And that accounts for how you were able to program your translators to handle English," Brigid said.
Kane looked at her, nodding. "Not bad, Baptiste." "Correct," Bug Mama said. "The council races analyzed Bates' speech and created software for the translator system. We availed ourselves of it."
"How'd all these other folks get word of the party?" Major Mike Hays said, waving a hand toward the ceiling. The alien waggled her antennae in amusement. "There were other council craft on the surface or in orbit who might have intercepted some of the communications," she said. "Also, we aren't the only ones who know how to suborn spies. Especially among Paa clients."
Pine had been sitting quietly through this. She had never looked once at Thand, whose skull seemed to have finally been penetrated by the realization she wasn't in a touchy-feely frame of mind. He now sat back, great arms crossed, beard down, glowering.
Kane hoped he didn't notice the way the girl's eyes kept flicking toward Kane. It wasn't that Kane feared the big bastard, but their asses were hanging way out here in the middle of nowhere. The last thing any of them needed was any sort of complication.
NOW Pine leaned toward Bug Mama, who seemed to be her personal mentor or guru, and spoke so softly Kane couldn't hear. Bug Mama nodded.
"Yes, dear," the alien said. "I fear my love of digression has got the better of me again. But our new friends did ask." She turned toward Kane and Brigid. "You and we have a common interest," she said.
"All life in the universe has a common interest," Servillon said.
"Stopping Bates," Brigid declared.
"Precisely."
"Stopping," Mike Hays asked deliberately. "Or maybe...taking his place?"
Bug Mama clacked her mandibles in amusement. "Do I look like I want to rule the universe? I got troubles enough riding herd on this motley assortment of outcasts, misfits and individualists."
"How do you propose we go about stopping this clown?" Grant asked.
"Only one way I can see," Bug Mama said. "Find the location of the device called the Cosmic Eye—" tension ran around the group of displaced Terrans like a shock wave —and neutralize it. As in, blow the damn thing to Hell for good and all!"
"Why not," Grant asked, "just kill Bates?"
"Oh, no, no." Servillon shook his flat-skulled head. Kane began to wonder if certain "human" gestures were universal. Or whether, like so much else, they had been brought along to Earth by the Annunaki from the stars millennia ago. "The council races fighting over him would simply slap his head into a stasis field and proceed with their contest. The winner would unspool his memory chains at its leisure."
"Unless we vaporized him.” Reichert said.
"You're still feverish," Bug Mama said. "He's in the middle of the biggest concentration of collapsed-matter and firepower the Far Arm has seen in fifty thousand years or more." "Then, what?" Kane asked.
"Only a psi can extract the secret from his living brain," Bug Mama said. "Only the most powerful human psi on the planet.”
"My brother," Pine said with quiet emphasis.
"Who is held as a slave," Bug Mama added, "by the biggest dealer in sophont flesh on Sidra!"
"MAGIC VOICE!" Kane shouted as he skidded backward along the street on his rump, away from the slave wagon. His eyes still watered from the painful impact of landing on his tailbone. "Tell Phoenix to light the candle now!" Grinning off a lantern jaw, the giant gray-skinned humanoid dropped Kane's pistol and lumbered toward him. They were known as Slumps, as least to the translator software. They came from a system not far from Sidra along the hyperspace transit net. They were fairly prevalent in this part of space, though not as widely dispersed as humans. They were prized for obvious reasons as soldiers and enforcers; Kane had seen at least one last night, its vast form swathed in robe and hood, among the initial rescue riders.
The creature's skin had a thick, leathery quality that reminded Kane of rhinoceros hide. It wore only a pair of short trunks and a harness holding various unidentifiable items of equipment. Kane saw nothing that looked unmistakably like a weapon.
But then, it might not feel the need for one.
Beyond it Brigid appeared in the back of the wag with her laser shotgun. She hesitated. Kane realized she feared hitting him with the spreading spray of multicolored beams.
"Baptiste!" he shouted. "Get the slaves out! I got this." I hope. Sitting at rest now, he stretched out his right arm. His Sin Eater ripped through the baggy sleeve of his white natural-fabric blouse and slammed, blasting, into his hand.
A LITTLE OVER A MILE away, now perched on a small volcanic tit of hill overlooking the ville from the east, Major Mike Hays thumbed open a cover on the small device he held in his right hand and pressed the red button. Down in the ville itself, two hundred yards from the position he and his two functional teammates had pulled back to, the satchel charge most off with a glass-edged crack. Had they wanted to destroy the uplink shack they would have tossed the charge into the open door. Instead they wanted to draw maximum attention to the event. So they left it leaning against the wall outside.
Somewhere in the town an alien siren began to keen a strange, skirling, three-note progression.
Without hanging around to view their handiwork, the three teammates pulled back down the back-slope. A squadron of coalition cavalry was already on the way with riding beasts for a low-tech extraction.
KANE'S TRIBURST slammed home in the center of the Slump's broad bare chest. He saw the depressions ripple against the thick hide.
The creature's grin widened.
"Damn," Kane said. "Natural Kevlar skin. Figures." Can't be armored everywhere, bastard! Kane exulted.
The creature inclined its head slightly and bullets bounced off the brow shelf as from a slab of granite. Kane fired another triburst, then another. To no greater effect. The slump raised its head again. The bullet strikes to the skull had had some slight effect: rivulets of blood ran black down craggy, distorted features. It smiled, showing yellow teeth stained with green like moss on the stones of a waterfall.
Behind the Slump, Brigid and Domi were helping confused slaves of several species from the back of the vehicle. "Best step it up," Marina's voice said in Kane's head. "Our local pals report their sensors detect a pair of peacekeeper monitors headed your way."
Kane got to his feet, a little more gingerly than he would have liked. All we need, he thought. The monitors were the real weight of the generally ineffectual peacekeepers, dressed in half a metric ton each of power armor with the firepower of a twentieth-century armored battalion. It had been hoped that they, along with the ville's civic patrol and standard peacekeepers, would he drawn to the diversion created by Team Phoenix.
And when did you ever know a plan to come off like it was supposed to?
The Slump stopped three yards from Kane. Raising a huge hand, it tapped two of its three fingers on the black-bloody abraded patch above its eyes.
"You want my best shot?" Kane asked. "You got it." The Sin Eater slammed back into its holster. He took two rapid steps and launched himself in a dive between the widespread legs of the behemoth.
