Star Risk - 04 The Dog From Hell (14 page)

Riss admired a store selling designer holsters, plus grenade and ammo cases to fit most of the currently popular smaller blasters, in an interesting assortment of colors.

She weakened and bought a small thigh holster with what looked like black lace that wouldn't get in the way of a rapid draw.

After a quiet consultation with the sales clerk, she paid an only slightly out of line amount for a matching, quite lethal, hideout gun to go with it.

She went on along the promenade. She saw several obvious mercenaries�a little too loud, a little too swaggering, their eyes a little too hungry�and their chosen partners, clearly looking for work.

She spotted one that she'd hired a couple or three assignments ago. She didn't think the woman would recognize her, but she ducked into a store specializing in seductive undergarments and body armor that was promised to be "comfortable for any occasion," until the mercenary passed.

As she came out, she heard the howl of a lifter under power and backed into the storefront as the lifter with men hanging out shooting back at a second lifter, also with gunnies at full tilt, roared past.

It turned out this was the payoff-in-progress of that month's particular pastime: kidnapping�for either immediate profit or for political advancement. Generally, no one got hurt, and there was an amicable exchange. Frequently this week's kidnapper became next week's kidnappee. Only when things went distinctly sour did the guns come out.

After a fashion�

Another evening, Goodnight�feeling either bulletproof, cat-dead curious, or inordinately full of bravado�paid a very reluctant Jorkens to take the crew down "that street" to see what the People were made of.

"If we go and get grabbed, sir," he said, "I'm depending on you to ransom me out. M' old woman surely won't pay a damned disme."

Goodnight agreed.

The People's quarter was a blaze of color and noise. The stores were mostly open-air bazaars packed with tiny booths.

No one seemed to discuss anything below a shout or a shrill. But the food was good, if spiced into the pain level, the costumery was equally breathtaking, the people were striking, and the artistry singular.

The People seemed to laugh a lot, but Riss noted that most of the men, and a near majority of the women, carried knives. Some of them were quite elaborately worked, but all were worn in very functional sheathes. M'chel inquired about the custom, and was told that a woman or man was given a knife when she or he was considered a full citizen, and they only gave them up when they decided to bear children or to otherwise practice nonviolence. Duels, either "to the blood" or "to the death," were fairly common.

Children swarmed everywhere.

M'chel and Chas ended up in a small amphitheater, with a band that seemed made up of "run what you brung" musicians.

"It looks almost civilized here," Chas told M'chel, his impression confirmed by his first taste of what the hostile, but terribly efficient, waiter called a Slammer.

He offered a taste to Riss, who had barely that, and had trouble speaking for the next few minutes.

Chas didn't notice�he was watching a dance that had begun on the floor that seemed to be little more than people coming onto the floor, spinning around from person to person, then ricocheting back into the audience.

The waiter, somewhat superciliously, explained that this was one of the People's Great Dances, symbolizing how they had been ejected by invaders in their own homes, which were beautiful beyond words or even music. They were driven out, but sooner or later�and this was signified by all of the dancers suddenly rushing back onto the floor�they would return and claim their heritage.

"A sad story," he told Riss.

"If it's true," she said cynically.

"Why should it not be?"

"I've never heard of any refugee, anywhere, who didn't claim he was unjustly driven from his wonderful home� or else he fled a tyranny."

"You should have more faith and trust in people," Chas said, trying to sound pacifistic as he signaled for another Slammer.

"Why?"

Chas had no answer to that.

One night they went down to dinner, stopping at one of the hotel bars for a cocktail. It was appropriately dark, with nooks and crannies and snugs galore.

Two rather goonish sorts who had obviously been drinking for a while got into an argument about who was going to pay, each insisting it was his turn.

Knives came out, and flashed silver for an instant in the light from the light-bowls on the tables.

The bar's conversation slackened and mild curiosity turned to the floor show.

Both the mercenaries went down, clutching themselves, and writhed about.

Waiters dragged the casualties out, and the murmur of conversation picked up again.

The three of them went in to dinner, and when they got back to their suite, a message waited.

Redon Spada, Grok, and Jasmine were on the ground.

They could start looking for trouble.

And work.

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TWENTY-TWO � ^ � The coordination with Redon Spada, Grok, and Jasmine took only a little while. Grok was pretty well trapped in Spada's ship, at least until Star Risk was able to come into the open. Jasmine slept in the ship one night and in the hotel the next, and again Riss wondered about her arrangement with Grok, but said nothing.

Spada was a little more complicated for M'chel. He made calves' eyes at Riss, clearly wanting to resume their former romantic relationship, but M'chel held back, at least for the moment. She wasn't, she told herself, in this for romance.

First was to find out who Cerberus's client was, and, hopefully, what they were hoping to gain from this backing.

That was a bit easier than they'd figured it would be in the beginning, even though things got a little complicated thereafter.

A beginning assumption was made that Cerberus was backing the new president, considering his militia's flashy new gear and all, not to mention the Dog from Hell's love of always backing someone on top.

So, an unobtrusive electronic net was put around the presidential palace and set to transmit on a frequency Grok decided no one else on the planet was using.

Star Risk had rapidly expanded beyond one suite at the Excelsior. One room of one suite was set up as a purported laboratory, and the maids had been banned from it. In the room were all of Star Risk's necessary electronics. In another larger and equally well-sealed room, was stored the part of their weaponry not aboard the yacht.

"All that we have to do now," Goodnight told Riss, "is watch the monitors and see who crops up that looks Cerberus-y."

"Which means?" M'chel asked.

"A certain air of complacency, crookedness, amorality, and such."

"Be careful," Riss warned, "you're not looking in a mirror, Chas."

But it was actually quite simple.

Jasmine was skimming fiches of the bug planted on the main entrance, and suddenly she started gurgling.

At first, Grok thought she was choking, and was trying to remember the first aid techniques he'd been taught for use on humans, then realized King was combining growls of rage and spatters of obscenity.

She finally pointed to the monitor.

"That is he," Jasmine said quite calmly.

"Not quite, at least as I understand the language, my dear," Grok corrected. "That is�holy shit! as you beings say, it is him!"

M'chel, who'd been at another console, looked utterly perplexed.

"That," Grok managed, "and please forgive my overly human excitement, is one Frabord Held, of Cerberus Systems."

"Ah-hah," Riss gloated. "The liaison!"

"Probably a great deal more than that," Grok said. "He is a very high level operative."

Jasmine recovered. "He is also the person who decided it would be a feather in his cap if I were declared a robot, not human, and one of Cerberus's possessions."

"Oh, dear," Riss said.

"Oh, no," Jasmine said. "Not oh, dear. Maybe oh, pity the fool. He is now in my�sorry, our�frigging web."

"Your language," Riss said. "You're talking like Goodnight, now."

King caught herself.

"I am, aren't I? But Held's the one who� who ruined me!"

"No," Grok corrected. "Having read some rather amusing early Earth Vickytorian works of the imagination, as I believe the period was called, being ruined is what would have happened, as I understand it, if he had plans to cozen or bludgeon you into his bedchamber, and work his lack of will on you.

"As for any other sense of the word, the best thing that ever happened to you was being cast out of Cerberus."

Jasmine caught herself, grinned a bit sheepishly.

"I'm sorry. I was making a production out of it, wasn't I?"

"A production out of what?" Friedrich said, wandering into the room.

"Jasmine's found our scumbucket," M'chel said.

Grok explained further, and ran the playback. Von Baldur studied the image carefully.

"He looks somewhat self-satisfied as well as self-assured, does he not?"

"He's that," King said fiercely. "The bastard is all of that."

Riss shook her head.

"You're still taking this too seriously, kid. Come on. I'll buy you a drink. I found a new bar that nobody but artists drink in. Guaranteed nothing but trouble, but not the kind we give much of a damn about.

"And we can plot the demise of Mister Held and the ruination of Cerberus."

The bar, Minnie's Home, was a prize�if you liked things a little on the rowdy side.

M'chel figured that Minnie must have been raised in either a carnival or a gladiatorial arena.

Minnie might have been the rather modish, very soft-spoken woman whom Riss had seen walk up to a trio of obnoxious drunks, sucker punch one, offer the second a drink, kick him well below the belt when he smiled acceptance, and then club the third with a candelabra, but M'chel would never be able to ask, since she was instinctively terrified of her.

Minnie's was in a bad part of town, between two warring militia check points, with wandering bands of thugs practicing nefariousnesses between them.

The bar was signposted, if that was the right word, by a quadrant of lasers positioned around the closest crossroads, all of whose beams centered on a mirror outside the bar that, in turn, directed the beams in through a transom window.

If Minnie's ever closed, no one seemed to know about it.

There were bands playing incessantly and loudly, but no one listened.

In the front room were the heavy drinkers.

In the back room were the heavy drug users.

No one bothered anyone.

Or so the sign promised.

Everyone bothered everyone.

That was the reality.

But it didn't get physical. At least, not more than once an hour.

Riss had fallen in love with the joint because all of the incessant arguments were heated, and none of them were about anything important, at least as far as she was concerned.

Riss had seen, in her short time at Minnie's, lifelong enmities and some interesting brawls happen over such vital points as whether Mars was settled before Earth; whether Michelangelo learned what little he knew about sculpture from the Vegans; whether war is the only thing that keeps humanity evolving; and other important matters.

No one seemed to give a damn about Alsaoud's politics or personalities, which, after a hard day of scheming on how to make money and eternal damnation to Cerberus out of the system, was just what Riss needed.

When Jasmine and M'chel walked in, a rather large sort was wrapping his nostrils around an inhaler. He saw King, his eyes bugged out even more than the drug was already making them, and he stepped in front of her.

"Hody, sister, awrap for some cuddlin'?"

Minnie, if it was Minnie, was suddenly between them.

"First, 'hody' is no way to greet someone, second, this woman isn't your sister, third she would rather cuddle a slug than someone with your breath, and fourth you're out of here."

The hulk looked at Minnie, and his lower lip pouted out.

"Awww�"

"Barred, barred, barred," Minnie snarled. "For at least three days."

Obediently, he lurched toward the exit.

"See?" Riss said, and led Jasmine to a tiny bare table somewhat drenched in beer.

A few hours later, a bit awash in beer and the brandies of Alsaoud they'd sampled as chasers, plus Jasmine's occasional Veronica's Revenge, they started back for the hotel.

"I think we should call Jorkens and ride back," King said.

"It's a wonderful night for a walk," Riss insisted.

King shrugged and followed her out.

They'd not even gotten to the first laser when two lifters rode over the sidewalk before and after them and skidded to halts.

M'chel didn't even have a moment to reach for one of her two hideout guns.

They were covered, front and rear, by two crew-served blasters, whose gunners kept them covered while two other types shook them efficiently down.

"Now," one of the men said, "if you two ladies wouldn't mind getting into the first vehicle, you may consider yourselves kidnapped."

At least, M'chel thought a bit forlornly, feeling like an idiot for not taking Jasmine up on her suggestion of calling Jorkens, the thugs were courteous.

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TWENTY-THREE � ^ � The kidnappers were not only polite, but efficient, as well.

Neither Jasmine nor M'chel was blindfolded. It wasn't necessary.

The windows of the lifter were opaqued.

The two lifters sped along, taking several turns that M'chel was pretty sure were intended to keep them from being able to ID their destination.

Then the lifter canted down, and, from that and the echoing sound of the drive mechanism, she figured they were going underground.

The lifter braked to a stop, and the doors came open. They were in an underground garage.

Again, two men stood ready with blasters, and the pair was hustled to an elevator. Two gunnies went in first, two after the women.