"It's genuine, then? A genuine Viking hammer." Isaiah flicked his monocle back over his larger eye and studied the business end very closely.
"Oh,
jah
," said Wulf, brightening up a little. "It's as genuine as I am!"
Gingerly, reverently, Isaiah took the hammer from Wulf, its weight causing him to bend visibly. He let it rest on the arms of his wheelchair and stared appreciatively at it.
"And runes, runes as well." said Isaiah.
"What were you expecting?" said a puzzled Wulf. "A smiley face?"
"Do you know what they say?" asked Isaiah.
"Of course." Wulf had carved them himself, so he had a very good idea. Most of them were about the physical appearance of a girl called Ulrika. But there was some stuff in there about some of his greatest battles, too. And just in case he ever forgot it, the phone number for the Doghouse and his S/D ID number.
"This is fantastic," said Isaiah. "I'll take it."
"But it is my Happy Stick!" complained Wulf. "And it is not for der sale."
"Mister...?"
"Sternhammer. See? Stern
hammer
."
"Mister Hammer, this is-"
"No, no,
Stern
hammer."
"Mister Wulf," said the Gronk, eager to leave, but unable to get Wulf's attention.
"Wulf, Stern, Hammer, whatever."
"That's it."
"I see words are very important for you."
"As important as feet."
"Right," said Isaiah, really not wanting to know what that meant. "Do you realise where you are?"
"I am in your shop"
"No! You are on Tammerfors, in the Baltic Nebula."
"I am not stupid."
"I am sure you are not," enthused Isaiah, patting him on the arm.
Realising that they wouldn't be heading back to Johnny any time soon, the Gronk let go of Wulf's hand and began poking around the lowermost shelves on the wall. Something metallic to munch on would be nice, it reasoned. It stole a glance back at the two men who were still rapt in conversation.
"The
Baltic
Nebula!" urged Isaiah.
"
Jah
, I heard you the first time."
"But Mister Hammer, half the human settlers in this region are from Scandinavia! Their grandparents, or their great grandparents, or whatever, they're mad for it!"
"Mad? For what?"
"For Viking stuff! They love it! The hammers, the swords, the horned helmets..."
"Well, technically, Vikings never had-"
"What-
ever
! Don't you see? They will kill to have this stuck over the fireplace. This is wonderful. They can brag about it to all their neighbours."
"Keep up with the Johansens?"
"Now you see."
"Well..."
Wulf looked down at his Happy Stick. It had been his constant companion for even longer than Johnny Alpha. It had mashed skulls at the Spine of the World, and beyond the cataracts of the Volga. He had borne it far into Aifur, against the Serks and the Blue Men. He had carried it through time itself, to smite a thousand enemies among the stars. It was part of him, as inseparable as his beard and his white Gronk-fur cape. He could never part with it. He would sooner sell a friend.
"I'll give you ten thousand credits," said Isaiah.
"Done," said Wulf.
THANKLESS
As Johnny reached the top of the steps, he scowled through Nigel's door with the full force of his alpha eyes. Someone was standing by the bedside, hands on hips, nodding slowly as Nigel gestured with his hands. The figure's posture was hunched and lop-sided; it was Sick Squid, no mistake. Through the door, Johnny saw the standing silhouette turn and walk towards the door, one hand upraised behind it in a cheery farewell.
"Sneck," hissed Johnny. He swung himself bodily over a banister and hunched in the alcove underneath. Wedged in between a stack of sponges and a laundry bin, Johnny waited, listening for a sign that the coast was clear. Soon, he heard the familiar squelching sound of Squid's footfalls.
"Remember," Squid called out. "If you think of anything, give me a call."
"I will," came the faint reply from Nigel.
"You get better soon, pal," said Squid. The sloshy steps continued down the corridor to the steps out of the annex. As they receded, Johnny heard a phone on speed-dial.
"It's me," Squid said into his wrist. "No, I didn't. We stick with what you've got. Uh-huh... Uh-
huh
..." Squid was soon out of earshot.
Johnny frowned in confusion. It wasn't like Squid to have a partner. What kind of idiot would buddy up with a loser like him? Johnny forced himself to count slowly to fifty. When he was absolutely sure that Squid wouldn't be back, he bolted up the stairs and back into Nigel's room.
"Where's the guard?" he demanded.
Nigel had just begun to doze off again.
"Him?" he said. "He took off before your friend arrived."
"Squid isn't my friend."
"Not him, the Viking."
Johnny stopped for a moment. Sneck it, Nigel was right. The Betelgeusian hadn't been there when Wulf arrived.
"What kind of guard just takes off like that?"
"Beats me."
Johnny chewed on his lip thoughtfully. He was starting to think that he had only been the second Strontium Dog to get to Nigel. And the first had been cunning enough to hang outside and eavesdrop. Johnny wondered if Blarg the Betelgeusian was Squid's mystery interlocutor. If he was, it meant his cover was blown and Squid knew he was ahead.
"Give me the external." Johnny held out one hand while the other fished in one of his belt pouches for his warrant meter. Nigel reached over to the bedside table and grabbed the small control box for the wall screen.
"Listen," he said. "Trading closes in a couple of minutes, can we just-"
Johnny tugged Nigel's card out of the external. Behind his head, the screen suddenly blanked out to be replaced with an error message. Johnny jammed his own card in and thumbed the menu button.
"What did you tell Squid?"
"Nothing. I lied through my teeth."
"Good. Take a look at this." Johnny whirled through a series of images from the Doghouse mainframe. He'd been sitting on the pictures for weeks and some were out of date. A picture of the bandit Wulf had shot through the chest with a rocket launcher came up first, the sheet still showing him as alive and at large. Johnny reminded himself to update his mugshots, but there never seemed much incentive. It hurt his head to stare at them for too long, so they were more for Wulf's benefit, and for situations like this. Johnny finally found the man he wanted, clustered among the high end of the bounties. The reward was an impressive procession of zeroes. The crime sheet went on for pages. This was the man whose pirate allies had recently taken on the navy near Tammerfors, and lost.
"Do you recognise this man?" he asked. Even as he was speaking he was heading across the room to the wardrobe. He snatched Nigel's clothes and began throwing them on the bed.
Nigel stared in mute surprise at the image on the screen.
"Holy sneck," he whispered.
"His name's Alnitak," said Johnny. "If you're talking to a body shark anywhere within a hundred light years of here, you're talking to one of his boys, or one of his affiliates, or someone he's just about to kill."
"I... never..." said Nigel, having trouble with the words. He was unable to take his eyes off the image on the screen, an old image, blurred and scratched and indistinct, snatched on the run by a long-forgotten paparazzo. The floozy hanging off his arm hid half his face, but there was still plenty to see.
"I know what you're thinking," said Johnny. "But he's not a mutant. He's a norm."
"But..."
"Yeah. Bet you've never seen a norm like that."
"Do you know this... Alnitak?"
Johnny chuckled.
"Know him? No. And this is the only picture we have of him. But he's the kingpin, all right, and he's funny in the head."
"What do you mean?" Nigel sat up nervously in the bed, his eyes never leaving the image before him.
"It's like he's turned on by the idea of being a mutant. He's got this thing about his personal body image, you know."
Nigel shook his head in confusion, his gaze locked on the screen. "No," he admitted, "really, I don't know..."
"That," said Johnny, pointing at the screen, "is how Alnitak thinks he
ought
to look."
"I see."
The figure in the photograph bordered on the horrific. His skin was jet black, but was streaked with tiger-stripes of white. From the centre of his forehead protruded a long horn, like that of a unicorn. He was snarling playfully into the camera, revealing long, modified fangs.
"Doesn't show up in this picture," continued Johnny, "but he's seven feet tall, and he likes to wear a big long cape."
"That sounds..."
"Pretentious beyond belief? Yeah. He's richer than God, he can do what the sneck he likes..." Johnny's voice trailed off. He had found a small low-calibre revolver in Nigel's belongings, its pearly white material scorched with powder burns. He sniffed it. It had been fired recently. Snapping the gun open, Johnny saw just six chambers and only two contained live rounds. The others had empty casings. He held up the gun inquisitively.
Nigel looked downcast. Johnny could see that the pathetic little gun had been little help against his assailants.
"He's the guy I want," said Johnny.
"But, what about Ruthie?"
"We get the guys who have her, we'll be on a trail to him as well."
"Ah, I see."
Johnny pointed meaningfully at the clothes on the bed. Nigel took the hint and climbed out. He waited for a moment for Johnny to turn his back, but the featureless eyes just continued to stare at him.
"Wulf and I took out some of his guys on Vaara, but..." Johnny resisted the urge to rant about it. "There was a problem with our interview technique."
Nigel stripped off his hospital-issue smock, revealing a body smeared with purple and red welts. He wasn't bluffing, someone had really roughed him up. Johnny counted at least three places where a bone-mender had been applied to the skin, chiefly on the ribs. Pale blue inky patches on the chest were the semi-permanent residue of a mender set to maximum. A blue ring right around his thigh pointed at a complete break of the bone.
"I'm sorry?"
"They kidnapped an associate of ours and we ended up taking them out."
"Taking them out?"
Johnny mimed a pistol firing. "Taking them out. As in dead." He looked down at Nigel's feet and couldn't help wincing.
"Sneck," he said simply. Nigel's feet were blue and hairless; a mender must have been set to full for days on end. Nigel had been kicked, clubbed and stabbed. From the looks of his hands and feet, he had also been tortured for quite a while. Someone had spent a long time putting his feet back together. From the looks of it, the skin on his extremities had been completely regrown.
"It must have been tough for you," Johnny said.
Nigel pulled on his trousers and turned to look his brother-in-law in the eye.
"I don't want to talk about it," he said, stuffing the half-empty revolver into the back of his waistband.
"Nige," said Johnny. "I'm going to get them for you, I promise."
Nigel said nothing, tugging his shirt over his head, hiding the worst of the wounds and repair-marks.
"We'll get Ruth back. We'll get her out of stasis, and-"
"No," said Nigel. "You can't."
Johnny looked at his brother-in-law quizzically.
"She's nine months gone, Johnny. The moment you bring her back, she could go into labour."
"And this is a problem?"
Nigel nodded sadly.
The rapids coursed through the middle of the city. On a clear day, there were cascades and mini rainbows. Lovers would stroll on the banks and shout above the din. Then they could retire into one of the soundproof cafés and whisper sweet nothings to each other. There were plenty of couples about today, taking in the sun and the bracing view of the waters. It was what made the bridge such an ideal place for a criminal discussion.
"But I don't understand," said Wulf, propping himself up on the dashboard of their rental hover-car. He peered through the binoculars at the bridge. Nigel stood on the near side, by some payphones, his hands in his jacket pockets. Tammerfortians and more human-looking humanoids bustled past him. You could identify the tourists quite easily since they were trying to yell at each other. The locals just marched on with earplugs, and if there was any communicating to be done, they did it with hand signals. A vendor in the middle of the bridge seemed to have a bustling business selling notepads.
Johnny shifted in the driver's seat of the rental hover-car, the change in displacement causing the whole vehicle to rock. The engine was off, but the repulsors were set to full, keeping the entire vehicle a few inches off the ground, ready to spring at any moment.
He checked his watch again. It was three minutes since the phone was supposed to ring, and still nothing. The sound of wind and the rustling of cloth could be heard in the car speakers from the microphone under Nigel's lapel. Fragments of distant conversations rippled past, along with snatches of Nigel whistling an old song. Beneath it all was the dull roar of the rapids, as the local river crashed and bubbled over a series of waterfalls. On a clear day, so said the brochures that Wulf so enjoyed, it was a picturesque sight. To a group of Strontium Dogs on a stakeout, it played havoc with the audio.
Through the binoculars, Wulf saw Nigel pressing his hand against his ear. He scratched his top lip, momentarily obscuring his mouth from view.
"When Ruthie was a kid," said Nigel's voice over the car stereo, "she was caught in a storm of strontium rain." In the distance, Nigel dropped his arm again, and resumed his poor attempt at nonchalance.
"Oh dear," said Wulf, leaning into the dashboard microphone. "That can be bad."
Johnny looked out the window for a moment, then back at Wulf.
"Yeah," he said, deadpan.
"Is she all right?"
Nigel cleared his throat, unwilling to be seen talking too much. The chances were high that the Strontium Dogs were not the only people watching him from a distance.