The Venus Belt (27 page)

I was good enough with the instruments by now to see that the thing’s apparent size was mostly an illusion, exaggerated by the plastic atmospheric envelope whose contents were noxious-looking green and yellow soupy ga
s
es. Lucy maneuvered us to one pole, where a metal tower pierced the plastic bubble, and set us down on a landing pad. I zipped my hood and drew the Webley to check its charge again.

“Hold on there, Pecos Bill, leave that hogleg in th’ car.” She began u
n
buckling her own gunbelt, a sight I’d never thought I’d see. It left her loo
k
ing sort of lopsided.

“Lucy, are you leaking nutrient solution? I’m not going into that muck without—”

“You wanna wind up just like Charlie Montgomery? This here’s a
bugranch
, Winnie, one big nasty anaerobic crudsy-culture. Touch off a round in that atmosphere, an’ it’ll go up like—”

“The Second of July. Okay, you’ve convinced me. Where do I hang my belt?” I started unbuckling.

“Th’ peashooter, too, son. I saw you tuck that little .25 inside yer suit. Don’t matter how big th’ spark is, the bang’ll be big enough to—”

“Okay, okay! Should I leave my Rezin, too? And where do I check my fingernails and teeth?”

“Don’t get testy! I don’t like this any better’n you. Pox, I’d leave m’ Darling gun, but it’d take half an hour to unship, an’ anyway, I’m a sta
b
ler personality type than you. Keep aholda yer knife, that alloy won’t spark none.
An’ mind yer suit integrity
—one whiff of that junk in there, it’ll be pla
n
tin’ time fer Ma Bear’s only son.”

Said suit was relaying an automated permission-to-land signal. At the end of the elevator ride, a warning flashed in lurid colors and about twenty-seven languages on the inside of the door, reminding us this wasn’t any health-resort. Except maybe for bacteria. We waited for the lock to cycle. “What’s this bugranch business all about, Lucy, some kind of glorified Co
n
federate ant farm?”

Her arms retracted and emerged again, thinly sheathed in rubbery smartsuit material. “It’s th’ very latest thing, Winnie. Specially invented m
i
crowigglies out there, crawlin’ around, breedin’, eatin’, goin’ to th’ little te
e
ny toilet—burnin’ rock an’ metal into mush that can be refined an’ distilled: metal, chemicals, pharmaceuticals. Watch yer step, now.”

The door slid aside and we sticky-footed out onto a plastic-coated ca
t
walk that branched in half a dozen directions before us. I looked up at the “sky,” a view of Jupiter, inside out. Twelve feet below the catwalk, plopping, bubbling, and smoking, it looked like the final scene of
The Magic Christian
.

I preferred the sky.

“Eventually,” continued Lucy as we made our way along the grillework toward a small, piling-supported dome, “they’ll collapse the envelope, irr
a
diate th’ whole shebang, an’ bake it sterile in an induction field fer months. Then they’ll introduce new strains of bugs, a few million nightcrawlers, an’ this’ll be th’ nicest little north forty y’ever did see. Sure wish they’d thought of this when Eddie an’ I got started. Woulda saved a passel of elbow grease. As it is, I been expectin’ ‘em t’try it out on Venus fer years, but no one—”

We’d reached the dome, apparently a terrestrial refuge from the no
x
ious atmosphere, fronted by a special decontamination lock. Judging from his slashed and tattered smartsuit, that was Farmer Schroeder, the guy I’d planned on talking to, lying in the outer door, keeping it from sliding shut. You
had
to go by the smartsuit; what was left of its contents were semi-liquid, bubbling and steaming, humping with germ-infested hype
r
activity. Something crawled as I tried to tear my eyes away from the glistening r
e
mains, and I realized it was my stomach.

“Lucy, I’m going to be sick. How do I—”

“
Urrrk!
”
Lucy shook all over, lurched, and started going round and round in circles. She bumped against the catwalk’s guardrail, dangerously bending it outward, circled round again, and hit it in a slightly different place, where it groaned and squeaked with strain. I cast about in desper
a
tion, snatching at my absent holster.

Suddenly, behind me, a smartsuited figure screamed out a challenge. I whirled just as he lunged, the glint of steel naked in his hand.

Somehow I squirmed aside, and once the shock boiled away, settled i
n
to that icy, slow-motion clarity of mind I’ve learned to call “second-order panic,” an exhilarating stupidity which, if you live to tell about it, is always i
m
possible to explain: smugglers, downhill racers, shoplifters, parachutists, nod their heads and grin—
they
know. My hands were steady now, fingers curled around the Rezin’s grip without memory of its being drawn.

Maybe a head taller, my antagonist was lightly built, with not too much advantage in the way of reach—and that little offset by the greater length of my knife. His smartsuit was a lustrous pale gray, the face sealed in anonym
i
ty. But a Hamiltonian medallion glinted openly around his neck, removing Lucy from the picture. He seemed to understand the ground rules here, showed no interest in using the pistol strapped to his waist, and took not a martial artist’s stance, but that of a fencer.

Something, anyway,

It wasn’t much. I kept thinking: I’m fifty-nine years old, already out of breath, twenty pounds overweight at a charitable estimate. In this sort of ceremony, victory—and life—are to the swift; the first guy to get in and out again leaves the other fellow leaking.

He circled, a short dagger extended in his left glove, making tiny di
s
tracting figure eights in what passed for the air. Grateful for the practice I’d inflicted on myself, I stood my ground, let him bring the fight to me, u
n
winding from a reflexive Korean walking-stance, turning with him, holding my weapon raised halfway before me, its tip level with his throat.

He
lunged,
knifepoint streaking at me! I pivoted,
kicked,
let him dash himself against a solid heel to the short-ribs. His suit took most of the grief; as he shook himself alert again, I saw a transient glitter in his
other
hand, a second blade tucked defensively along the forearm. If I’d known about
that,
I might’ve canceled the sidekick. Sure enough, there was a whitened scuff along my shin.

Given the climate, I’d nearly bought it, right there.

Okay, we’d felt each other out. The question’s always which side of your blade the other guy’ll come in on, especially with southpaws. I made his decision for him, shifting to a diagonal guard, his right shoulder lined up with my bowie tip. Now he’d
have
to come in on the right.

So I told myself.

He circled, shadow-fencing in the air beyond my reach, then
lunged
again, straight for my midsection. I began a parry, somehow sensed the i
n
sincerity of his thrust, and barely blocked a low strike he’d essayed with his other blade, just saving my groin.

Idiotic thoughts about the
nick
of time. I’d seen that putrefying c
a
daver in the doorway: it wouldn’t take much; one good cut, the hellish enviro
n
ment would finish the job—clear down to the bone. Abruptly, something
slammed
me hard against the catwalk rail. It was Lucy, quac
k
ing mindlessly. I nearly lost the knife as pain surged through my legs from hip to toe, my opponent closing for the kidneys. With a grunt of agony I twisted, half a tick from flopping into bottomless corrosives. He leaped, both knives e
x
tended like the swords they poke at fighting bulls,
and struck!

Supported from the armpits by the guardrail, I snapkicked; he took it squarely in the crotch, lifted off his feet, but I was busy regaining mine and couldn’t press the minimal advantage. He stumbled crookedly away, preo
c
cupied. Somehow, he’d connected, too: the right sleeve of my suit was dee
p
ly sliced, not
quite
through the fabric. Edges stirred, trying to reseal. They wouldn’t stand much more strain.

The guy must have been made of stone. He outclassed me all around, and he had two blades—he wouldn’t fall for any more dirty footwork.
I rushed him
. He stepped back just in time to get run down by Lucy on another careening circuit. As they crashed, the knife in his left hand went flying and vanished in the muck with an evil hiss and a wisp of yellow steam.

I charged again, blocked a right-hand cut, and gave him pommel and quillon in the face. He slashed blindly, blade skittering across my suit co
n
trols. I chopped two-handed, aiming for his neck. The blade arrived off-center. I felt his suit’s resistance, the greasy parting of flesh. My edge grated to a sickening halt in green shoulder bone.

He screamed, scrabbling for the cross-draw holster on his hip. Despe
r
ate, I recovered,
lunged
. The Rezin disappeared into his body, his blood bu
b
bling and boiling around it with a thick cloud of oily smoke. I wrenched the blade out as he fell, then snatched his medallion, crushing it on the rail with the pommel of my knife.

Lucy gathered up her senses in an instant, grabbed the guy’s uninjured arm, half carrying him to the air-lock. I wasn’t much help: the exe
r
tion had about finished me off—and not a little smoke was rising from my own sleeve now. I slapped a palm across the tear and stumped along behind her, blind with pain and exhaustion. The assassin died as we were cycling the door.

***

Decontamination
hurt
. Half the little telltales on my arm were blinking hysterically as my exposed flesh, scalded by the caustic spray—and probably infected with a billion voracious artificial microbes—was screaming for a
t
tention. Maybe even amputation.

Finally I passed some psychological limit; when I woke up, Lucy had stashed my assailant in stasis—just in case we’d diagnosed wrong—and peeled a portion of my suit to examine my injured forearm. She spent fully as much time on the goddamned damaged sleeve. “Best thing for it, Winnie. If we can hurry th’ repairs along, it’ll repair
you
. Hold still!”

“
Jesus X. Bushman!
Try keeping your fingers out of the hamburger, please! Damn near killed me out there, now you’re trying to finish the job.” To make things worse, I’d broken three cigars I was carrying. I trimmed and lit a reasonably undamaged half, dribbling sparks and ashes all over my lap.

“Least I crashed th’ opposition, too—can’t say I ain’t fair.” She sprayed on tissue-sealant—the kind that’s illegal, Stateside—from the shelter’s cop
i
ous
materia medica
, and returned her attention to my suit. Apparently our late host had actually
lived
down here in the slime: we were sitting in a comfort
a
ble, well-appointed living room.

“Yeah, well, you’re supposed to be on
my
side.”

“Which I am, when I’m m’self. Thanks fer smashin’ that medallion, Win. One more go-round, I’da ended up in th’ swamp. Ugly way t’die.” She put my sleeve aside. “Guess you’ll mend now. Soon’s yer pressure-tight agin, we can get on outa here.”

I grunted. “We sure won’t be interviewing Ed’s former client, will we? I shouldn’t have called ahead, Lucy. You suppose I’ve killed the others I Te
l
ecommed, too?”

“Don’t be a ninny. That hatcheteer was after us. We must be gettin’ close t’somethin’. Sure wish I knew what th’ plague it is. Seal yer suit an’ let’s make like a hockey team.”

I looked down at the sleeve, which hung there good as new—more than I could say for my plastic-coated arm. “I want a look around, first. The Civil Liberties Association is going to love us—we’re starting to leave a trail.” Something else occurred to me: “Lucy, about this bugranch bus
i
ness—how come I haven’t come down with acute Andromeditis or som
e
thing?”

“ ‘Cause them microcritters ain’t designed t’chew on people. It’s their metabolic byproducts does th’ damage. An’ we ain’t callin’
no
Civil Libe
r
tines—time we got discreet. That feller in th’ lock ain’t gonna mind none, an’ th’ one in stasis, she’s fixed up as well as anyone can fix her.”

“
She?
A brain-bore victim, I presume.” Lucy nodded. “At least the other side’s consistent—a highly overrated virtue, if you ask me. Say, how come the medallion around her neck didn’t scramble her
own
circuitry?”