Under the Eye of God (2 page)

The rich quality of the underlife here draws supplicants from all over the cluster—to buy or to sell, but almost never to settle.
²
They come only for so long as it takes to conclude their disparate purposes. Some come to market: they sell their bodies, their memories, their wit, and if necessary, even the tattered remnants of their souls—whatever commerce necessary to provide survival or provoke advancement. Some come to purchase—the market belongs to them. The jingling of a fat purse always commands the world. Others come merely to inspect the wares, not knowing in particular what they seek, but hoping nevertheless to find some interesting novelty or diverting artifice to excite their pitifully atrophied spirits. These frenetic souls create much entertainment on Thoska-Roole, if not for themselves, then certainly for the local inhabitants. “The Eye of God always watches. The mouth of the Devil always eats.”

Of those who come to Thoska-Roole for legitimate purposes, most do not willingly seek out the underculture, preferring to have as little as possible to do with the low-principled denizens of the endless deserts, the badlands and the bottomless crevasses. They finish their business quickly and depart as fast as they can arrange passage.

Those few who
do
seek out the practitioners of the dark trade, select themselves into three categories:

The lawless.

Those who wish to do business with the lawless.

And those stupid enough to think that they can bring one of the lawless to justice.

A small ramshackle building persisted on the southern lip of the Lesser Desert. It stood alone, two forlorn stories, near a great tumbled ruin.

Behind it, not standing, but scattered like the forgotten toys of a child, lay the remnants of countless other constructions. Here, a twisted crane, its back broken like a crushed scorpion; there, the remains of an old ore-cracking plant, the hardened slag still pouring raggedly across the rock; and all around, poking up through the hard-baked dirt, the fallen walls and marbled avenues of a forgotten, transitory civilization that passed this way and disappeared two thousand years before.

An orange light faded from the building's windows, the only sign of life for kilometers in every glittering direction. This tumbledown refuge, this last wretched attempt to hold back the hot dry night and the dull red dust, seemed poised in the final desolate moments preceding its ultimate collapse. The ceramic and metal walls of the structure creaked and groaned alarmingly every time the day spangled into night, and each time the night lapsed back into day.

Time plucked at the building with fingers of wind and malice. Quakes rumbled beneath it, rolling and shaking and trying to unbalance it. Sandstorms scoured it till it shone. The parched sear of the day baked the resilience out of it, fatiguing the weathered old walls until they sagged in their frames. And of course, blazing over all, night after night, the Eye of God scorched and blasted everything with unseen radiation.

The sad structure endured, not in defiance, but in resignation. Inertia ruled. Too tired to complete the job of collapsing, it stood. Dismal brown light outlined its dirty windows and plaintive music slouched out of the single lit doorway, escaping away into the bright night and the empty desert. The bloody glow of the little building marked a long southward descent into the bowels of gloom.

Nearby . . .

Two men appeared on the crest of a low, barren hill, the feeble northernmost finger of Misdemeanor Ridge, a hardened tumble of slag and gravel. The ridge stretched across two hundred leagues of desert, bearing witness to the long forgotten crime; here sprawled the discarded part of the land, the dross and refuse of centuries of ore-cracking.

Thoska-Roole wore the face of a hag. Misdemeanor Ridge and the long gouge beside it betrayed the greedy history of those who'd come to plunder here. Long gone, and long since turned into the same kind of dust they'd churned this planet into, they'd left as the only sign of their passing one more desolate scar, another appalling wound carved into the old crone's visage.

Here, where the northernmost slope of the ridge faded away into desert, lay the tail of the descent, a glistening notch of scoured and broken rocks. Here, the old machines had clattered back up out of the earth, having found nothing more to grind and melt. Here, the mines had died, leaving the tortured scar across the desert as the only sign of their passing. A thousand years had neither erased nor polished the wound. The ugliness remained.

The two men paused on the rounded crest of the hill and looked down the slope at the only charted settlement in a thousand leagues. They studied the little structure through high-powered scanning-binoculars for a long silent time. The place looked lonely and very dangerous. The pale one looked to the dark one. The dark one grunted. They both unshouldered their rifles, grim expressions in their eyes.

The pale one stood tall and thin; the other, the dark one, much broader in the chest, came up only to his shoulders. Both wore long black coats, ankle-length and made of thick, heavy material. Both wore wide-brimmed black hats and black silk scarves wrapped tightly around the lower halves of their faces.

The dark stubby man growled something unintelligible. The tall man understood it anyway and agreed. They started carefully down the hill.

They moved with delicate precise steps. Although the hill consisted of layer upon ancient layer of hard-packed gravel and earth, the surface stones still came loose too easily, slipping and tumbling away in miniature avalanches. The skittering noises echoed brilliantly in the night. Too conscious of the sound, the men picked their way with elaborate caution, keeping their separate attentions fixed on the shallow building below.

Behind them, the Eye of God began to open. It crept up over the horizon, casting long pale shadows before it. As it rose, a great wash of light poured slantwise across the desert, illuminating every irregularity, every twisted rock and gully. The shadows writhed and flickered like souls in torment. As the
Eye
climbed toward zenith, the shadows would start to shrink and fade; the spangled blaze would turn everything simultaneously bright and ghostly, but that would not occur for hours yet. Down the hill, still hidden from the
Eye
, the dying little building cowered in the purple shade.

The two men circled it once, keeping wide away from it while they checked the alley and the back exit. They glanced over the few scooters and floats parked at the side, then came back around to the front.

Inside . . .

They entered. They carried their rifles at their sides; low, but ready. Their eyes narrowed. Each scanned the room quickly, professionally:

A deflated poker game. A cheerless bar. Two plastic whores in wilted feathers. Worn-out ceramic furniture, greasy ceramic walls. They'd seen all this before, smelled corroded hope on a thousand different worlds. They could describe the room with their eyes closed, the customers too: a technoid tinkering with gritty distortion on the keyboard of a howling synth, a couple of nervous bioforms whispering illicitly in a dark corner, and of course, the usual sweaty collection of sullen toughs and slow-dying prospectors. Everywhere, the frontiers of desperation weighed the same.

The blue-skinned bartender glanced up distastefully. He recognized not the men, but the mission.

“Slow night,” remarked the tall man, pulling his scarf down to reveal clear even features. Sawyer Markham grinned, a wild bright flash of laughter in a gloomy hole.

The bartender ignored Sawyer, his comment, and his grin; he continued wiping disinterestedly at a glass.

Sawyer shrugged and stepped sideways so the bartender could see his partner behind him.
Finn
Markham.

Now
the bartender looked up. Finn Markham had an ominous look; his eyes shone like coal, glowing in the dark space beneath his hat. His scarf still covered his mouth, and when he spoke, his voice rumbled like death. “Where's Murdock?” he asked quietly.

The bartender considered the question. He considered putting down the glass and picking up the hand-weapon under the folded towels. His eyes flicked up and across and down again, quickly assessing the two men and the power of their rifles. Slowly, he put down the glass. Then he picked up the next one and began to wash it carefully. “Don't know anyone named Murdock,” he said noncommittally.

Sawyer snorted.

Finn glanced over, then flicked his eyes upward. Sawyer nodded in response. They headed for the stairs.

Finn went swiftly up the hard ceramic steps, treading as lightly as he could. Still, his footsteps caused the boards to creak. Sawyer waited at the bottom; he turned and studied the room, his gun casually covering a wide arc. The synth fell silent. The technoid closed the cover on its keyboard and faded into a corner. In the silence, conversation ebbed. A few of the more cautious patrons moved out of the center of the room.

Finn paused at the landing. He listened at the first door. Nothing. He moved to the second—

The bartender started to move. Sawyer looked over at him, one eyebrow raised questioningly. His rifle swung meaningfully. The bartender stopped; he shrugged apologetically. What the hell—Murdock meant nothing to him. Sawyer grinned and looked up to the top of the stairs again, watching his brother with great interest.

At the third door, Finn paused. He glanced down and nodded.
This one
. He lifted his rifle; then he kicked—

The door crashed open with a
bang
! Finn plunged in like a charging buffalo. A scream and a roar—“Murdock! I have a warrant for your arrest!” Something crashed against the wall, shaking it visibly, and then another shuddering crash, and a chair came flying out the door, arcing over the railing, tumbling down into the bar and shattering on the floor below. The crashing, smashing noises continued, punctuated by painful grunts and other meaty sounds.

A naked young man—no, only a boy—just a little too young and a little too pretty, came running out the door carrying his clothes in his hands. He looked terrified. He came flying, skidding, tripping down the stairs. He slipped and skidded the last few steps.

Sawyer's eyes widened in surprise at the sight of the voluptuous boy, but he let him pass. “That's not Murdock,” he decided. Apparently, this establishment kept a wider variety of erotic talents available for the entertainment of its guests than he had previously assumed.

“Hm,” said Sawyer, looking after the boy's rosy cheeks. “I didn't think Murdock liked humans of
any
sex.”

Another thundering crunch from above pulled Sawyer's attention around again. The sudden sound of rifle fire spattered loudly above—a fast-crackling whistle, the sound of
air burning
—and then a sudden
oof!
and an even greater loud crash! Large pieces of ceramic molding cracked and shattered from the ceiling, from the walls. They fell to the floor in a lacerating shower, spattering fragments in all directions. Customers gasped and jumped out of the way. The bartender looked up alarmed.

A second chair came hurtling out the door, followed by the two halves of Finn's rifle. The chair bounced once and broke apart. The fuel cell in the stock of the rifle discharged itself in a terrific flash of light and energy. Another frightful impact from above hit the building like the fist of god. The brittle front wall cracked with the shock; all three windows shattered at once, spraying shards of glass outward into the lambent night. For just the briefest moment, they glittered like diamonds in the air.

Sawyer Markham listened thoughtfully. Then, nodding to himself, he admitted, “This one could get serious.” He listened half an instant more to the shuddering, thumping, crashing, clattering, thundering sounds of the titanic battle overhead—yes,
very
serious—then headed out the back door.

Sawyer stepped into the brightening alley, starting to sparkle now with lambent starlight. A row of metal-roofed storage sheds leaned exhaustedly against the sagging rear of the building. Yes, new cracks outlined the wall. He looked up above them to the second floor. As he watched, the surface shook again. The wall shuddered. The fissures lengthened.

Sawyer narrowed his eyes as if estimating something. Absent-mindedly, he reached into a pocket and pulled out a piece of red and white striped candy. He unwrapped it methodically and popped it into his mouth, never taking his eyes from the old ceramic wall. Suddenly, there came a terrible crash and Sawyer looked pleased.

“Four . . . three . . . two. . . . “He counted and took a step back—

Abruptly, right on cue, an incredibly huge, ugly, barrel-shaped monster of a human—at least, it
looked
vaguely human—came fracturing through the boards almost directly above Sawyer's head. He stepped easily out of the way as the elephantine creature crunched, bounced, rolled, flopped and plopped onto the roof of the row of weak-looking sheds. They collapsed instantly and the enormous beast continued its horrendous fall, now crashing and sliding and tumbling down amid the splintering walls and the crumpling metal roofs, surrounded by the terrible clattering of cracking boards and the labored groans of folding metal beams. The monster thumped to the hard-packed earth with a wet, meaty sound, rolled a few meters and came to rest directly in front of Sawyer Markham, but facing the other way.

Murdock.

Also known as
Murdock the Mountain
.

Upright, she stood three and a half meters tall. She had shoulders the size of a catastrophe. Sawyer began edging around to face her head on. She looked like eight hundred kilos of fun all rolled into one.

She also looked very
angry
.

Sawyer blinked. And gulped. And said, “Urk.”

Murdock's layers of fat and her inch-thick body-armor had softened the impact of her fall. Now, grunting like a sow, she began to lever herself back to her feet. She rose up slowly, a rising avalanche of flesh, a rolling wave of meat and bone and muscle. Her armor glistened with wet-looking reflections; she glittered like a leviathan, a great gray dragon lifting majestically out of the sea.