by M S Murdock
“Pardon, pardon,” said the creature, its head bouncing up and down like a yo-yo. “Arac wanted to see the pretty lady. Just see!”
Kane reached for the nearest piece of furniture, a wooden camp chair. He hefted it.
“Kane, no!” Wilma knew Kane. She knew he meant to smash the chair against the bars, breaking Arac’s grip.
“Why not? It’s an odious creature.”
“If it falls, it will die. We’re five stories up.”
“That’s what I intended.”
Wilma’s eyes narrowed. “It’s human.”
“Human? Look at it! It’s a nightmare.”
“It is Arac,” said the creature.
“If looks were all,” said Wilma, “you would have to put half the population of Earth to death.” “It is not fit to live. What can it possibly contribute? That horrific face is enough to warrant extermination.” “Only face I have,” said Arac.
“Can you walk up the side of a building?” Wilma asked Kane. “Creatures like that exist because of our genetic experiments. It has a right to live.”
Kane studied Wilma and decided not to press the point. He lowered the chair.
“Arne is going." said the creature. “He knows when he is not welcome." He crawled up the bars and disappeared.
Kane took Wilma by the shoulders and looked earnestly into the depths of her eyes. “You say that thing has a right to live. We have a right to live, Wilma! We have a right to the good things in life. I promise you; will give you all you ever dreamed of.”
“No. I cannot condone the choices you have made never will.”
Kane’s eyes grew cold, as flat as green ice. “Do not judge me too harshly,” he said. Wilma wrapped her arms around him, her head on his broad chest. She could hear the steady rhythm of his heart. “I don’t want to judge you at all. I don’t want to be your enemy.”
“But you will stay with NEO,” said Kane softly. His expression was sad. “I think you will see the Wisdom of my choice in the end. When that time comes, Wilma Deering, call, and I will be there.”
Wilma leaned back, a hopeless amusement in her eyes. “And I believe you will find you made a mistake in leaving us. If that should happen, I will be your advocate with NEO.” Her eyes grew serious. ‘Take care, Kane. Power can swallow you.”
“Not while you are around to rescue me. Goodbye, Wilma for now. We will meet again.” Kane released her, his hands sliding reluctantly from her hips.
“Good-bye, Kane.” In spite of her resolve, tears filled her eyes. She blinked them away, knowing she could not face Emmerich with anything but professional calm. She picked up her briefcase and pulled l tape from it. “Until then,” she said softly as she pressed the door signal.
The door slid open, and Wilma walked away. Her lithe grace caught at Kane’s heart. He sank downing the camp chair, melancholy a cold knot in his stomach, though he knew he had not seen the last of Wilma Deering. They would meet again. In the meantime, he had a job to do. He shifted his thoughts to the task ahead and to the technical difficulties of handling and transporting a five hundred-year-old corpse. The door thumped shut behind Wilma. She waved the tape under Emmerich’s nose. “An excellent session,” she said. “Ferricom---and RAM-will be pleased. Your help will be noted in my report. Now I require immediate transport.”
“Of course, Miss McFee. I am always glad to be of service. The shuttle is still on the landing pad.”
Within moments, Wilma was seated in the heliplane, again the lone passenger. The ship’s engine roared, and the rotors began to turn, whipping faster and faster until the craft vibrated. It lifted heavily from the landing pad and started over the trees. Wilma released her safety restraints. She opened her briefcase, dropped the blank tape inside, and extracted a laser pistol, placing it on her lap. Wollongong faded into the distance, and she searched the ground for a suitable clearing. Ahead, the trees opened on a grassy meadow. She leaned forward and jammed the pistol into the pilot’s ribs. “Land in that clearing,” she called, “or we’re going down together.”
The pilot obeyed. When the heliplane was safely down, he raised his hands. “Don’t shoot,” he said.
“That depends entirely on your actions,” answered Wilma. “Get out.”
The pilot complied. When he was on the ground, Wilma pulled the door shut, locked it, moved to the cockpit, and slipped into the pilot’s seat. The old shuttle rocked as she maneuvered it out of the clearing, and she paid homage to the pilot’s skill as she fought to keep it stable. She set a direct course across the treetops, heading for the ship she had flown to Australia. She had hidden the NE0 scout near the coast. By the time she reached her destination, the shuttle’s fuel gauge was nearing the safety margin. She set the old tub down at the end of the deserted road. She killed the engine and vaulted to the ground with the heliplane’s rotors still spinning.
Huddled under the trees at the side of the road was her ship. She pulled the camouflage cover from it, climbed into the cockpit, and fired the engines. The forest shuddered with their roar. She nosed carefully forward, pulling out from the protective canopy of the trees and onto the more open surface of the dirt road. It stretched out before her, an inviting, flat ribbon. It was a dangerous landing strip, but danger added spice to her task. Wilma started down it, engines roaring.
The ship picked up speed, bumping over the rough ground. Wilma’s expertise kept it on the track, and it was airborne. Once clear of the trees, she sent it skimming over the ocean. The sea was gunmetal laced with whitecaps. The ship slid over it at an efficient clip, but her heart was divided. She loved Kane, yet left him. A part of her would always love him. It was neither an end nor a beginning, and she was confused. She backed away from the problem, concentrating on something concrete, her upcoming job
with Ardala, the search for the body of Anthony “Buck” Rogers.
She punched her communications link. “Come in, six-f1ve-four,” she said. “Six-five-four, come in.”
“Six-five-four here. This is Beowulf.”
“I’ve come across some interesting information,” she said, deciding to undercut Ardala and reveal some of the details of her meeting with the information broker that took place before her trip to Australia. “RAM has discovered another twentieth century pilot in space.”
“Another one?” Beowulf sounded bored. “It’s probably nothing, like those toasted cosmonauts RAM just discovered.”
“I don’t know. . . ,” Wilma said contemplatively, remembering her conversation with Ardala, and just recently with Kane. “I think this one may be different . . . someone very important.” She shook away the vague thoughts and focused on a course of action. “I’m going to the Asteroid Belt,” she said decisively. “But first I’m stopping in Chicagorg to find out what this is all about.”
“We’ll be expecting you,” Beowulf said. “And I’ll put out some feelers, see if I can uncover anything about this astronaut.”
“Acknowledged,” she replied, lifting her ship’s nose and sending it into the upper atmosphere. She welcomed the clean, cold silence. The stars winked at her from above, beckoning. The lure of the unknown touched her pulse, and she let the siren sing to her as she went out to meet adventure.
TWO BARNEYS Ulrike O'Reill
Black Barney punched in his membership code and waited. His eyes, which revealed nothing of his emotions, swept the entrance corridors right and left. Just a good habit, he thought. Nothing to fear here. Nothing to fear anywhere.
In a moment the doors of the Club Noir “whooshed” open to reveal a vestibule. The attendant, who had been slumped on a stool in the corner, snapped erect when he saw that the newcomer was one of the celebrities of the membership, the dangerous and unpredictable Black Barney.
Young Bimwilly knew Black Barney on sight, of course. He was proud to boast that he, lowly Bimwilly, had diligently served the renowned space pirate several times in the course of his long duty as maitre d’ of the Club Noir.
It was rare that Black
Barney stopped, for a leisurely luncheon, at Club Noir. This was twice in, oh, ten months!
Young Bimwilly was excited, and he violated the usual decorum when he raised his black-robed arms and clapped his white-gloved hands together in the old-fashioned manner. “Mr. Barney!” the maitre d’ exclaimed a bit loudly.
No one heard his indiscretion, however, for the vestibule was empty of humanity or otherwise, bare of all furnishings except the stool and a control panel. The doors that led to private dining chambers were all but invisible to the naked eye, and patrons could rest assured that they were seamlessly sealed, and only Young Bimwilly could open them. That was his responsibility and his cachet.
Young Bimwilly had been guiding the Club Noir’s privileged members to their private chambers, for the most elegant dining experience in the Asteroid Belt, he liked to say, for as long as anyone could remember. Before him, it had been his father, Old Bimwilly, who enjoyed the exalted position of maitre d’, for a lifetime. Of course, Old Bimwilly was long dead. His son was in his seventh decade of life, if one could call it a life, and no longer spry or acute. Indeed, he had a red, fissured face beneath the makeup, and for some reason walked bent over. But in deference to the memory of his father, he preferred still to be called Young Bimwilly.
Not that anyone took particular notice of the old man. Black Barney, for example, did not return the maitre d’s salutation, and did not in the least remember the crippled old fool from any previous encounter.
Black Barney could not help but observe, with disdain, that the bent-over maitre d’ was wearing the obligatory costume of powdered wig, ruffled blouse, midbreeches, and flowing robe that some of the club’s regulars-though certainly not Black Barney, who did not consider himself a regular in any case-found so appropriate and amusing. Dressing Young Bimwilly as an Olde English high judge was one of the many touches from the archaic past that the Club Noir’s management had concocted to give the place a forced air of genteel ambiance.
“On the dot, Mr. Barney, as ever so,” Young Bimwilly said, cackling strangely to himself, as he pushed buttons and walked bent over in front of Black Barney, leading him through double doors and down a certain corridor to the exclusive room that was always reserved for Black Barney, and would remain vacant for months if he did not show up.
At Young Bimwilly’s touch, a panel slid upward, and he stepped back as Black Barney ducked his massive bulk into the room. The little man watched attentively as the fearsome space pirate positioned himself on a flat cushion on the marble floor, in front of a slab of wood low to the ground, which was appointed with silverware, flowers, incense, steaming cactus tea, and meatstick hors d’oeuvres. Young Bimwilly sighed with relief as Black Barney seemed to find things comfortable, but he waited, all the
same.
Black Barney knew that he was somehow obliged to acknowledge the maitre d’s obsequiousness, but he did not value that trait in the slightest, so he instead raised his eyes to meet Young Bimwilly’s and said, with a scowl, “The usual.”
“Of course,” said Young Bimwilly eagerly. He spoke with a phlegmy rasp. All of the club’s high muckamucks had standing orders, and Young Bimwilly naturally had reviewed the file of Black Barney’s past lunches at the Club Noir. “Baby buffalo liver . . .” he began in his phlegmy rasp, so that the words came out rough but coated.
There came no reaction from Black Barney.
“Stuffed artichoke hearts, green undersea salad, a side of tropical fruit, and Vichy water . . .” Young Bimwilly made a show of writing it all down, struggling with a thick pencil and note pad, just like wait~ ers did in the old days on Earth-he copied his attentive demeanor from ancient black-and-white movies he had seen. All part of the pretense of the Club Noir. Young Bimwilly lingered for a moment, looking rather intently at Black Barney, whose intense gaze was not on the maitre d’, but straight ahead at nothing in particular.
Young Bimwilly thought about those eerie eyes of the legendary Black Barney, eyes that gave away nothing, yet seemed to communicate something very specific. Young Bimwilly thought-a rather profound thought for him-that Black Barney’s eyes seemed imprisoned somehow, trapped in his formidable skull like an animal in a cage.
“Yes?” asked Black Barney, vaguely annoyed.
“I would like to mention, Mr. Barney-- Young Bimwilly chose his words carefully “that the baby buffalo is not the wild breed from the terrestrial mountain ranges, which are such a favorite of connoisseurs. It seems there has been some nonsense about a chemical cloud passing over the region, and thousands having to be slaughtered for safety’s sake. A temporary inconvenience, I assure you. Boom to the gum-jelly market, I dare say, since, as long as you don’t swallow the stuff, it’s perfectly safe.”
Black Barney cleared his throat, with growing irritation.
Young Bimwilly cleared his, too, more necessarily. “I mean to mention, Mr. Barney, that our baby buffalo, today, is domestically raised.” He wrinkled his nose to show his distaste, then continued. “Albeit, quite tasty, as the chef has devised a brown sauce to compensate . . . Black Barney’s face froze. He hated to be so bothered right before lunch. What the hell did he care where the blasted buffalo came from, as long as it was edible? “No matter,” growled Black Barney, hastening to add, “And forget the sauce!”
Young Bimwilly was not in the least offended by his patron’s menacing tone, and, if anything, his face brightened to have his existence acknowledged in a small way. “The vidscreen diversions,” he said, leaning to hand Black Barney a small black box with dials and controls. He then backed out of view, and the panel door slid back into place.
Black Barney could hear the withered attendant cackling to himself as he walked off toward the kitchen. He tuned in the black box, and while he waited for lunch he flicked between channels and gazed upward at the one hundred state-of-the-art mini-monitors built into the wall of his chambers, for his enjoyment and edification, as Young Bimwilly would say.
In ten minutes, he scanned all one hundred channels and digested the information that was beamed across the solar system. He dawdled on the news broadcasts and the access networks, which were always full of local weirdo doings. He tarried on the outlaw channel of a Martian free state, which aired official RAM speeches and proceedings in entertaining, light opera form. He also took more than a passing glance at the hard-core sex program of the “No-No TV” of the Jovian Cartel.
But honestly, Black Barney was bored. The system’s most amoral, brutal, and successful raider-fora hire had given his crew three days for R and R, and the only immediate thing on his agenda was lunch.
OOOOO
The Club Noir was part of a much larger sprawl, called Barbarosa that had been built into one of the medium-sized asteroids in the vast Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. Barbarosa was a private oasis, fuel and loading dock, conference annex, dining mecca, physical recreation (including old-style bowling hall and archery range) center, game hall extraordinaire, mental relaxation area, energy spa, semen rompery, and up-to-date medical facility operated for the exclusive use of the Rogues’ Guild. As such, it was frequented only by freebooters, mercenaries, rockhoppers, roustabouts, hell raisers, privateers, full-time space spies and informants (a fully certified profession), outlaw gennies, mutants, rock, jocks, and warrior clones of every stripe. One of many such R and R space stations owned and operated by the powerful no-nation anarchy, the Rogues’ Guild, it was generally recognized as a “neutral zone” by RAM and other world governments, and left alone, not only because neutral zones had been established facts of intersolar law for many decades, but also because any violation of the peacefulness of the complex-either by space pirate or outsider resulted in a lifetime revocation of one’s membership or guest card.
Barbarosa was divided into two massive, fully domed life-support systems, built into opposite sides of the barren, rocky, egg-shaped asteroid. On one side were spaceship landing, overhaul, and security offices, where vehicles docked and travelers disembarked, on the
other side of the asteroid was the honeycombed complex of health services and fun things to do. Connecting the asteroid’s poles, and pile-driven through its core, was a ninety-mile-long double monorail system that conveyed visitors from one end to the other in minutes. Barbarosa’s great buildings were held to the ground by gravity caused by the asteroid’s spin, as the asteroid orbited through space. The asteroid resembled a huge, slowly revolving dumbbell, for the two-ended dome system had been painted black to conserve precious energy.
In general, Barbarosa was too out of the way, and too innocuous, for anyone but space pirates to take the slightest interest in it. The Rogues’ Guild used it occasionally as a meeting place. Although Black Barney was an ad hoc, permanent delegate of the executive council-after all, he was twice as notorious, twice as rich, twice as murderous as anyone else in the Asteroid Belt-he almost never attended its meetings and rarely cast his vote in one of the chaotic, free-for-all elections that passed for democracy in the Rogues’ Guild.
In fact, Black Barney rarely stopped at Barbarosa, or any of the other Rogues’ Guild way stations, and when he did, it was usually on the spur of the moment and because of his crew. He took no particular pleasure in the famous fresh cuisine, the sports and gaming options, the sexual activities menu, or the catering to whim and ego that was a hallmark of the establishment. He took no particular pleasure in pleasure.
But the Free Enterprise had had a busy month. Black Barney had been cruising the outer orbits of Jupiter when he had intercepted a rich mineral shipment on its way to a new settlement. That “expropriation” had to be defended against a fleet of cruisers dispatched by the RAM admiralty of Deimos, and a rather nasty chase ensued. Black Barney smiled as he recollected it. Then, because his trajectory had been noted, he had had to reverse his path through the solar system and sell the raw material-at an inflated price, of course-to a needy terminus, way out beyond his usual territory, on an unclaimed moon.