L. Neil Smith - North American Confederacy 02 (18 page)

It’s a fragile thing, this
believing
in life. I gain it and I lose it, day by day, minute by minute. I gain it and lose it again. Yet I’ve learned that I must
never
reveal the part of me which doesn’t believe, that which hurts eternally and despairs of ever again finding a reason for believing. Friends claim such revelation doesn’t bother them—it’s what they want to be trusted to see—but it isn’t true. At least not for very long.

We are
all
predators, my friend, and the only roles we truly understand are conqueror—or clown.

It’s a dog’s life.

The Freenies gathered around sympathetically, dis-provin’ Howell’s thesis—as he’d disproved it by tellin’ us about it. One of ’em extruded a manipulator, pattin’ the coyote on the shoulder. I sniffed back a tear an’ got up woozily from the bed. Sober t’drunk t’hung-over, all in an hour an’ a half. Some mornin’!

“Well,” Howell said, doin’ some recoverin’ himself, “I didn’t intend telling the story of my life. We must get out of here and join Win at his house.”

I looked around—hadn’t
brought
anything, an’ I wasn’t collectin’ little plastic razors. “How d’we check outa this upholstered dump?”

“Follow me.” He shook his head, an’ his eyes crossed again momentarily.

Every footstep bangin’ in m’head like a gong, we trooped down the hall to the front desk. The clerk was lookin’ unhappy, too. Howell gave him some Telecom coordinates.

“As you see,” the private nose said, “charges against Captain Gruenblum and his associates have been vacated.

I suggest you return his weapons and effects.”

“Who’s paying?” the chimpanzee tersely said, probably on accounta I hadn’t rendered him a gratuity the night before.

“Gimme my stuff, pal, an’ I’ll take care of you—say, what’s that ruckus outside?”

“Your public,” the clerk answered. “You wouldn’t want to sign this waiver before you leave, would you? Clears us of personal liability and—no, I didn’t think so.”

Through the glass front doors, I could see an ugly-lookin’ crowd gathered in the parkin’ lot, laden with some kinda equipment. I slung the gunbelt around my middle, buckled it, an’ plopped a gold coin on the counter. “That cover the damage?”

The chimp’s eyebrows shot up. He punched more numbers an’ returned a fistful of silver an’ copper. “Your receipt’s been registered in the net. I’d say come back and see us, but—”

SLAM!
Both front doors bashed aside, pressed to the walls by a pink an’ furry avalanche of sapients, most of ’em pointin’ microphones an’ twin-lensed cameras. Lights, brighter’n the sun, burned into my optics.

"Gruenblum!”
someone shouted, a big guy with a southern accent an’ a thin gray caterpillar of a moustache. ‘Turner, Channel 17. What’s it like to go free after cold-bloodedly slaughtering two human beings?”

I turned. “What’s it like havin’ your bicuspids shoved down your gullet? Wanna find out?” He stepped back from my raised fist. I blinked, eyes waterin’.

“You’ve got to get these people
out
of here!” the clerk cried behind me. “Look what they’re doing to my carpet!” We were trapped up against the desk by the crowd-pres-sure. “I know—the press ain’t never been well housetrained.” I shot a middle finger at a camera. Its lights winked out suddenly, sparing the sensitive home-viewers such a hideous sight. I got an idea.

“Batshit!” I hollered, shootin’ birds with both fists. “Iguana manure! Cow floppies! Big juicy piles of anteater feces—!”

One by one the cameras started shuttin’ down.
This
was the same medium that broadcast porno on the momin’ show?

Howell barked abruptly. “Privacy! My client demands the right of privacy!”

A camera relit, glared down at him. “Oh, look! A talking doggie! And there are the
monsters
who—
-Yeeeowch!”
Somethin’ shoved the nosy simian reporter from behind. The crowd opened like a boiled clam, an’ there were T. W. Sanders an’ his two amazons, plowin’ their way t’my side. Will’s toadstickers were in his hands. He pinked Channel 17’s hired mouth in the behind an’ was through.

“Gather up the Ganymedii and let’s get out of here!” the gunsmith said. “Win’s keeping the getaway car warm!”

14 The Magnificent Eleven

“
H
ELLO, TRICKSTER!”
W
IN GREETED
H
OWELL
as we leaped into the ground-effect machine, a long low fan-driven Packard-Fedders. He folded his right-hand steering wheel as Mary-Beth slid in beside him. She gunned it, and we were away in a storm of prop-wash before the first reporter made it to the curb.

“Hello yourself, gumshoe!” Howell answered cheerily. “Glad you’rall havin’ such a swell time. We missin’ anybody?” I counted Freenies—three; I counted gunsmiths—one; I counted detectives, human an’ otherwise— two; I counted girls—four... but then they’d had me seein’ double since the beginnin'. That left only me, an’ I was here.

Buildin’, trees, an’ garbage cans flashed by.

“We saw you on the ’com this morning!” Fran punched my shoulder. She was perched on a jumpseat with an alien in her lap. “Rather, the snoopies interviewing themselves
about
you. Looked like you could use rescuing—they’d really worked themselves up!”

“You’re tellin’ me! What happens now?”

Win swiveled his seat t’face us. “Back to my place. I guess the Sanderses have enlisted for the duration. They were waiting for me when I got back from Denv—St. Charles-Auraria. Howell, you got anything?”

“No chance yet,” answered the coyote. “It’s a pretty large area, where Bemie’s saucer could have set down.”

Win shook his head. “Griswold’s people are hopping mad. Their client came to the St. Charles office yesterday, filed his complaint, paid a purely nominal deposit, and
zip!
The number he’d given turned out to be a mortuary in Leadville. They checked—nobody’s talking in
that
place!”

I grimaced. “Any other good news?”

“Not for Griswold’s. They’re stuck with the indemnity and owe you enough restitution to pay me, repay Olongo, and go into business for—but here we are. Let’s go inside.” The nine of us occupied maybe five percent of Win’s gymnasium-sized living-room. Drinks all around. I had a beer.

“As I was saying,” Win started up a cigar he’d dampened down with brandy, “we’ve got two leads: this”—he pointed to my lumpy pocket where the equalizer frammis was hid-in’—“and
this."

From a pocket of his own, he pulled a plastic bag containin’ what appeared t’be a handkerchief, frayin’ at the edges. “A section of mechanical towel from Griswold’s washroom. I’ll have to claim credit for this flash: Kent made a pit-stop, and we caught it before it rolled into the wall and washed itself.”

Howell’s ears perked. Win opened the bag and held it while the coyote thrust his nose inside. “There’s you,” observed the animal after a moment’s consideration. “Even through the plastic, those cigars of yours. And both chimpanzee—a youngish one—and gorilla. The gorilla’s recently returned from a Chicago business trip, is left-handed like Fran here, and has three children, two sons arid a—” “Hold on there!” I protested. “How can y’smell somethin’ like
that?"

He looked up at Win an’ winked. “You know my methods, Pauling.”

“That’s
Watson."
Win laughed. “The gorilla’s Captain Andy M’bongo; he and Asta here have been playing chess once a week for three years.”

Howell: “There’s also someone, perhaps
two
someone elses. A man in his late thirties—yes, I
can
discriminate age and gender—who’s recently suffered grievous injury: blood, medicinals, faint traces of staphylococcus...”

“Makes m’whole day. What else?”

“A woman who ought to change her perfume—it’s virtually indistinguishable from Black Flag Ant and Roach Kil—”

“Edna!"
the Freenies an’ I shouted.

“Not in evidence at Griswold’s,” Win cautioned. “Just Denny, with a bad limp and his arm in a sling. You play rough, Bernie.”

“Not rough enough! Can’t understand how he survived (hat .45 slug! Oh, well, what’s m’field-density equalizer got t’do with anything?”

Win tucked away the evidence bag. “They’ve got two courses of action, too. They need the device and can either get it back from you—”

Fran sat up.
“That’s
why the phony murder charge, to locate Bernie!”

“Won’t do them any good,” observed her husband. “I
know
that tight-lipped bunch at Griswold’s...
brrrr!”

“The discretion of the telemedia is another proposition,” the Ambassador chipped in. “Had I not an armored carapace, ihis morning ! should be little more than a collection of body-fluids and footprints. Why is it, that in every culture, reporters are invariably—”

“Cultivatedly rude, militantly ignorant lounge lizards who don’t know anything but city-room politics?” Howell offered.

“Or the best brands of hair-spray.” Will grunted.

“No argument,” I said, “but go on, Win. Do we let Cromney come t’us or what?”

“Or what. I’ve contacted a couple university friends who can analyze this device of yours, make a guess where Crom-ney’ll be looking for parts, and track him down—”

“No good, Your Deductiveness. It’ll be Heplar doin’ the fabricatin’, an’ there ain’t no lacka basic components in
Georgie
's stores. Heplar’s got the education t’ handle the job; question is does he have the smarts?”

There came a chimin’. Win punched buttons, an entire wall, fireplace an’ all, vanished, replaced by a giant close-up of a pretty platinum blonde. “Oh, a party!” She surveyed the room. “I got your message, Win. What’s up?”

“A false alarm, it appears. Oh, well, Deejay Thorens, meet... now let me see: Bernie Gruenblum; his friends Charm, Color, and Spin; you know Howell, of course. Have you met the Sanderses, Mary-Beth, Fran, and Will?”

She nodded cheerily. “Hi, Fran—it’s a small campus, isn’t it. Hello, everybody else. I repeat, sir, what’s up?” Win gave her a summary, includin’ the defunctitude of his spare-parts idea. Halfway through, the screen divided, an’ we were starin’ at the perpetual Mona Lisa grin of a
Tursiops truncatus
—that’s Latin for Flipper.

“You may forego introductions, Edward William Bear, I overheard them, though too occupied with an experiment to attend the ’com. Estimable land-dwellers, I am Ooloorie Eckickeck P’wheet. Set aside the question of fabricating a field-density equalizer and pray continue with your story. It has its interesting points.”

“Everybody’s doing Conan Doyle this season.” Win groaned. He explained that Ooloorie wasn’t in Laporte but did business electronically from the Emperor Norton University. I resisted askin’ after Nasty Jim Brannigan.

The detective finished. Against m’better judgment, an’ for no better reason than satisfyin’ her scientific curiosity plus a perverse desire t’defy my Academy conditionin’, I agreed t’tum the all-important frammis over t’Deejay. She assured me it’d be safe, though I had m’doubts about
any
institution called Mulligan’s Bank & Grill.

In return, she promised t’find other ways t’be helpful. Ooloorie asked a lotta questions about
Georgie—
not about Ochskahrt’s Effect, I mighta expected that from the inventor of the Broach, but she apparently regarded Academy applications as an inferior variant—mostly she wanted t’know
Georgie
's talents as a computer, an’ the range of radiofrequencies the saucer commonly used.

“You’re certain, landling, that the vessel is capable of real-time communication above the Turing level?”

“If you’re talkin’ ’bout stuff like Telecom cartoons, ’.s how I program m’own, er... well, custom DreamCassettes.

’Course she ain’t good for much else while we’re doin’ that—uses up a lotta capacity. Why?”

The faraway cetacean turned to her partner. “You see it, of course.” Deejay nodded assent. “We are agreed, then,” the porpoise said. “There is a
third
approach if contact can he established and capacities augmented through remote peripherals.”

Win nodded vigorously. “I
like
it.”

Mary-Beth clapped her hands. “And Cromney’s resulting legal status!”

Inexplicable laughter all around.

“What the flamin’ Ochskahrt’re you people talkin’ about?” “Would you prefer,” Howell suggested, muddyin’ the water further, “that Cromney be permitted to tinker with
Georgie
as he wishes? What Ooloorie has in mind is relatively simple—in fact, Confederate industry must take positive steps to
avoid
it—painless, and a considerable improvement.”

Still not understandin’ what was goin’ on, I supplied Deejay with more information while Howell got sent to the comer mailbox t’stick m’equalizer frammis in a Bellamy Tube. At Deejay’s suggestion, I also sent along m’poor beat-up Academy wristwatch in hopes somebody at the University could fix it.

Fran an’ Deejay caught up with campus gossip. Apparently, the same sorta thing that went on every when, ’ceptin’ that here the red-hot question was what species was sleepin’ with what. Will got up t’pour another rounda drinks, stickin’ to a decocainated softdrink, himself. The Freenies were amusin’ Mary-Beth: they’d gotten a tennis ball from somewhere an’ were puttin’ a disgustin’ new wrinkle in the old shell-game.

I refused t’watch.

Instead, I was admirin’ Win’s hardware collection in a glass-fronted walnut case. Some kinda single-shot derringer with a BIG hole in the front end, a laser-pistol, what looked like a bowie knife. These Confederates sure loved their—
CRASH!!!

Suddenly I found m’self on the floor, an’ it seemed like a good place t’stay. The room was filled with smoke, pourin’ up from the front door downstairs. I scanned around for casualties: Win lay behind the coffee-table, a cracked ’com pad on the floor in fronta him, goin’ for his .41; Will’d dropped a whole pitchera margueritas an’ been blown clear to the kitchen steps. He levered himself into a crouch, blood runnin’ down one forearm, an’ drew his swords. Both women were horizontal, but fillin’ their hands with Confederate iron. My little alien buddies were nowhere t’be seen.