by M S Murdock
Quinta had the advantage where the pig was concerned-he was very adept with his hands-but Black Barney was the clear leader in tackle tactics. Neither of them had made “the circuit” more than once or twice, meaning, had not scored all four touches without knockdown or fumbles. The score had evened out over the course of the game.
The eleventh pig, this one the size of a torpedo, had just escaped through the slothole after weathening a long and vehement round.
Quinta had been totaled to the floor, and got up dazedly. Black Barney, who had salvaged points in the round, threw a glance at the score and managed to smile to himself with grim anticipation. It was going to be nip and tuck. But Black Barney knew an ear.
While they awaited the twelfth and second-telnet pig, both Barneys breathed deeply and squirted a little pepjuice into their mouths. Black Barney cast a sidelong glance at Quinta.
“What I find mysterious,” muttered Black Barney under his breath, “is all this mystery about a little ‘nothing’ job. I’m picking up something of great valus to RAM, but of no value to anyone else. And I can’t be told where I’m going, or what it is, until I get there. . . . “
Quinta shrugged amiably. “What do you care,” he said, “as long as you get paid?”
“Curiosity,” said Black Barney tersely.
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” guffawed Quinta.
Black Barney was getting tired of Quinto’s laughing-boy routine.
The twelfth pig, at least two hundred pounds of sow, hurtled down the tumblechute. The balcony spectators were on their feet, open-mouthed and pointing, screaming and cheering, anticipating the rigors of the stretch.
Black Barney and Quinto lumbered, neck and neck, toward the pig, then slowed to a halt as they cornered it, each daring the other to make the first move. Face-to-face, they began to lower themselves toward the squalling pig. Their massive foreheads were inches from each other, their blank, intimidating eyes locked in concentration, their great, sculpted hands reaching out to probe for some handle on the Pig.
“I don’t like mysteries," Black Barney snarled. Then without warning, he rammed his head ferociously into Quinto’s, making good contact.
Crack! Some of the balcony spectators gasped.
Quinta slumped to the ground-a temporary commission! Bonus points land Black Barney hefted the huge pig and began the sprint across the room to the first touch-button. He scored the first touch, the second, the third . . . . But Quinta was up, and incredibly, he did a showoff double-handspring across the court, landing full force onto Black Barney’s back, collapsing his opponent. The squealing pig dropped to the floor. No! Quinto managed to catch it before it hit the court, as he reached over and pressed the fourth touch-button. Nice recovery.
The spectators roared.
“Nothing personal,” said Quinta with a smirk.
Cumulative score: Tied.
Black Barney got up. His right arm had lost feeling, he had excruciating sciatic pain, his neck had gone stiff, and he had a deep gash on his right leg that trailed blood.
One of Quinto’s ears dangled from his skull, he limped noticeably on the left side, at least three fingers were broken, and his fetid breath came in short, agonizing puffs.
The two Barneys stood shoulder to shoulder, awaiting the thirteenth pig.
“I’d be very upset if you were holding anything back from me,” said Black Barney in a low, purposeful voice, spitting the words through gritted teeth.
Quinta looked momentarily disconcerted. He squeezed himself a dose of pepjuice. “Last pig,” Quinto snorted in reply.
The thirteenth and final pig came sloshing down the tumblechute. It was a Whopper of a stonepig-maybe 350 pounds-and after landing with a splat, it could barely struggle to its feet and lumber off repose, oinking and shuffling, in the far corner.
It was all but forgotten.
Before Quinto could act Black Barney had stepped in front of him blocking his path Quinta tried to sidestep his opponent, but Black Barney again blocked his movement Quinta pushed forward but Black Barney would not budge Quinto throw a jab but Black Barney brushed it away His back was to the stonepig, and his mind, boiling with anger, Wag fixed on Quinta “Who else is in on this?” demanded Black Barney with sudden fury.
“Why,” said Quinta ingenuously, “I’m not sure I catch your meaning."
Without warning, Black Barney punched him as hard as he could in the flat of the stomach Quinto’s eyes gave away nothing, and his face barely flinched, but his legs wobbled and he clutched at his stomach.
In the alcove, the spectators were surprised and confused what were the two Barneys doing down there, having an intimate conversation? What about the pig?
Black Barney stepped back and let his clone brother have another terrific blow to the upper chest Quinta was momentarily stunned, and unable to react.
Black Barney pushed his heaving chest against Quinto’s and screamed into his face, “At least two other errand boys are headed for the same sector! Both from Earth!” He spread his arms in an arc and drove them sharply downward, into Quinto’s ribs.
“Two!” exhaled Quinta. He sounded genuinely surprised (not to mention winded). Again, Quinta tried to edge away from Black Barney, but was pushed farther back toward the quartergym wall
“The pig: ’murmured Quinta.
“Screw the pig? said Black Barney with a my steely on his face, all he leaned into Quinta "You knew about the other two all along, didn’t you? He shoved Quinto. “Didn’t you?" Quinta shoved back sulkily. “One!" he said pointedly, “I only knew about one”
“You didn’t tell me!" bellowed Black Barney.
Black Barney drew back and threw a powerful shot to the head, which Quinta saw coming and ducked, reacting with one of his own, which connected. Black Barney jerked away, but then wheeled and kicked upward, catching Quinta squarely in the mouth. Quinta had nowhere to retreat. and before he could angle his defense, Black Barney executed an uppercut that drove him off his feet and into the wall. Quinta crumpled and as he did, Black Barney jumped onto his back, landing on him with his full weight and grabbing him from behind by his long, stringy hair. Slowly, Black Barney began to twist Quinto’s neck backward.
The balcony spectators were on their feet-pounding on the glass enclosure above-thrilled with the spectacle of two Barneys improvising for their benefit. By now, they, too, had forgotten the stonepig oinking away at the far end.
“I was going to tell you,” sputtered Quinta, “all in good time.”
Black Barney bent Quinto’s neck back until he could bear the vertebrae crackle and pop.
“Which do you know about, NEO or Australia?” asked Black Barney, without lessening the pressure. “NEO?” stammered Quinta, “I don t know dirt about NEO. Hey!” he cried in genuine discomfort. “Take it easy, pilgrim.”
Black Barney twisted even harder, and Quinto a vein bulged. The massive clonecreature could barely wriggle, pinned to the floor as he was with Black Barney straddling his back.
Desperately, Quinto dug the fingers of his free hand, his right hand, under the skin, trying to inch out his wristknife. Black Barney saw it coming and stomped heavily on Quinto’s wrist. He reached over and pulled the dagger out, and with one arm held it up high.
The spectators “oohed” and “aahed.”
“My, my," said Black Barney accusingly.
Quinto could barely form words anymore, his discolored tongue was so questing for air.
“Who in Australia?” whispered Black Barney, fingering the dagger.
“K-K-Killer Kane,” gasped Quinto.
With that, Black Barney let the dagger fly, across the room, perfectly targeted, so that it pierced the great stonepig, whose honking and snorting was abruptly silenced. So hard was the dagger thrown that it passed through the pig’s throat and stuck, reverberating, in the wall behind it.
Black Barney let up for a moment and reached over with his free hand and grabbed Quinto’s arms. He jerked them both behind his opponent’s
back, yanked off his pepjuice belt, and roped Quinto from behind, like a steer. He gave the knot a final vicious tug, and Quinto groaned.
“He works for RAM,” sneered Black Barney. “Why would RAM employ Killer Kane if they also wanted to hire me?”
The balcony crowd was in hysterics, screaming, gesticulating, pawing the glass enclosure. What a time! Two Barneys playing pigsmear and now another unprecedented thing-the pig had been exterminated! Violation of, all known rules! Very costly! Not fair! Plenty entertaining . . . but not fair!
“Insurance,” croaked Quinto. “They want you both to go after the package. The two best mercenaries in the system. They don’t care who gets there first, or who dies in the bargain. They’ll deal with whoever retrieves it. What it is, I don’t know, I swear. But I know it’s important enough to RAM to hire backup, and to pay whatever the costs.”
“It’s a trap,” muttered Black Barney ferociously.
“Sort of,” admitted Quinto. “But,” he added, “I always figured Black Barney to come out on top.”
“Thanks, pal,” said Black Barney.
Before Quinto could respond, Black Barney grabbed him by the hair again, jerked his head backward, and then with incredible force slammed it savagely down on the floor, once, twice, three times, again and again. When Black Barney stood up at last, Quinto was not moving. Just to be sure, Black Barney drop-kicked him in the teeth, as he lay there. Then he picked Quinto up by his knotted hands and, hefting him like a bale of hay, ran the length of the quartergym and smashed Quinto, headfirst, into the first touch-button . . . the second touch-button . . . the third touch-button . . . and the fourth touch-button.
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” he bellowed.
Black Barney dropped his burden to the floor and regally strode off the court.
He took no notice of the bedlam above.
In the balcony, the incorrigibles of Barbarosa who had witnessed the historic pigsmear rivalry between the two Barneys were cursing and wailing and slugging it out over the truly difficult question of who had won the match.
00000
The crew of the Free Enterprise had had their R and R curtailed, were summoned back to quarters, and now sat waiting for some signal from Black Barney
The ship was fueled and the logistics charted. In the control room, Baring Gould, Pelletier, Dolph-X and several others stood at their posts, eyes riveted on Black Barney, who stood contemplatively with his back to them, studying a map. Several minutes had gone by 1n tense silence, without anyone speaking. A panel door opened, and Xeno, the ship’s security officer, entered, dragging a whining and cringing Young Bimwilly by the collar. He tossed him in a heap in front of Black Barney, who turned dramatically.
“MMMister Barney,’ stammered Young Bimwilly in his phlegmy rasp, “I know not what I am doing here, but this gentleman insisted . . .”
He trailed off into awkward burbling as Black Barney did not immediately deign to say anything. The commander of the Free Enterprise looked directly at Young Bimwilly, but his eyes appeared to concentrate elsewhere.
“That scoundrel, Quinto,” said Young Bimwilly nervously, producing a silken handkerchief to mop his perspiring brow. “He has absconded. Gone. Mortified by defeat, I’m sure. But he 1s not in the least available for the upbraiding he deserves.
From his knees Young Bimwilly looked up at Black Barney pleadingly.
“I like Quinto,” said Black Barney at last. “Good pigsmear player.”
No words could have been more confusing to the terrified Young Bimwilly. “But I thought.” the maitre d’ of the Club Noir began.
“We have a deal, Quinto and I,” said Black Barney.
Young Bimwilly said nothing, having the vague and growing suspicion that he had said too much already, perhaps.
“I am much more interested in you at the moment and in how Quinto found out I was going to be here, on Barbarosa, enjoying a private little lunch at the Club Noir, on this particular day.”
Young Bimwilly began to twitch and drool.
“There is only one person,” said Black Barney matter-of-factly, “who knew in advance that the Free Enterprise was due here and that I would be having my lunch. Only one person who knew precisely when and where I would be dining-”
“I thought . . .” confessed Young Bimwilly shrilly, “I thought that he, being a Barney, much like yourself, that you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Barney. Quinto asked me if I would let him know if you were in the vicinity. It was no treachery. I was not paid anything at all-apart from my usual gratituity. It was meant to be a . . . a . . .” He searched for the word. “A kindness.” Young Bimwilly practically shrieked the word.
“I believe you,” said Black Barney softly, after a long, uncomfortable, and silent interlude.
He reached over and grabbed Young Bimwilly by the scruff of the neck, removed the dagger from under his left wrist, and, in a movement too swift to fathom, slashed the right side of Young Bimwilly’s face from brow to chin. Young Bimwilly cried out and slumped forward. Blood gushed from the wound. The maitre d’ wailed as he did his best to cup it in his hands, but it spilled to the floor. No one rushed to his side. No one said anything. In time, there was more silence as Young Bimwilly’s sobbing ebbed to a whimper.
“That is how I repay kindness,’ said Black Barney, “which, in a word, is stupidity.”
At a gesture, Xeno dragged the abject Young Bimwilly to his feet and out the panel door. The rest of the command crew turned away as Black Barney gazed around the room defiantly. Pelletier, Dolph-X and Baring-Gould hovered near the command chair.
In a moment, they were joined by Xeno.
“Dolph-X?” asked Black Barney.
“It can be done,” said the warship’s requisition Officer. Pelletier, his assistant, a female gennie soberly nodded her agreement.
“Baring-Gould?” asked Barney.
“I have a good fix on the whereabouts,” said the Warship’s astrogation officer, “within fifty square miles. I’ll narrow it down further en route.”
“Any other data from the archives?”
“Negative. But I will define the prize long before we get there, you can be sure of that.”
“Good,” said Black Barney. “Xeno?”
As the" ship’s security officer, Xeno was as close as anyone could get to being trustworthy, from Black Barney’s point of View. He had a flattop crew cut, dark green eyes, and a silvery wisp of beard. Xena never blustered, but spoke plainly.
“It is some sort of trap,” said Xeno flatly. “Or at the least, a double-bind. Too many unknowns. Too many risk factors.”
“Your opinion?” pressed Black Barney.
“The prize could be some sort of lure. RAM wants you-or Killer Kane-or both of you-dead. And now Quinto will tip them off that you know more than you should.”
“Quinta will tell them nothing,” said Black Barney confidently. “He will wait to see what I do, to confirm whether or not we still have a deal.”
“Perhaps,” responded Xeno, “but RAM is very astute. They may have counted on Quinto tripping up. They may have counted on your decision to proceed, in any case. They may have counted on everything.”
“So, why?” asked Black Barney. “Why me?”
Xeno thought for a moment. “Because they know you are fueled by jeopardy. They know you fear nothing. They know that your curiosity is heightened by peril. They know that anyone else in the system would think twice, but not you. They know that nothing will deter you, once you are hooked, and that you believe yourself invincible in any equation. They count on all of this, but above all, they count on the fact that you are Black Barney.”
Xeno spoke well. An imperceptible flicker of emotion registered across Black Barney’s face. Anyone else might have missed it, but Baring-Gould knew it for what it was, and the other members of the senior command crew took their cue from the astrogation officer, turning to their positions and strapping into their seats in readiness.
“Let there be no doubt,” said Black
Barney.
THE RELlC Flint Dine
I: Incident at a trading post In the Juno-Vesta arc
Vic Fritzell peered into his tracking monitor, only one of many in his trading post, and marveled at what he saw there: an asterover, a small spaceship of RAM design, studded with thrusters and stubby maneuvering fins, the RAM corporate insignia and serial number blazing conspicuously on its nose. The powerful little ship tore through the dusty asteroid fields between Juno and Vesta and headed straight at Vic’s converted, motley-looking, twenty-third century space station turned wayside trading post.
Trader Vic, as his customers called him-he had no friends, only customers-was used to strange ships arriving unexpectedly. He had made the Asteroid Belt his home. The belt was also home to several prisons, genetic flops, obsolete robots gone amuck, and other dubious life forms. Only the hearty or the foolish ever came to the belt. The pilot of the tiny asterover must surely be of the latter group, Vic thought, laughing. The coarse sound whistled through his grotesquely scarred mouth.
“Out here, a small ship like that should have been robbed and scrapped by now,” he said aloud to himself.
His only companion on the station, a spacer in his employ named Gwill, grunted in agreement. Spacers man’s most far flung genetic experiment, were intelligent enough, but probably the most cruelly ambitions of the gennies. Their slit of a mouth was used only to ingest water or powdered nutrients.
Gwill’s inability to speak except through sign language or a voder around his neck, activated by natural electric currents, was his strongest recommendation to the solace-seeking trader, when the odd-looking spacer had decided to make a waystop a little more permanent several months before. Vic trusted him as much as he trusted anyone, which wasn’t much.
“Either it’s a slow day in the belt, or this guy is a lot smarter than he looks,” Vic mumbled, frowning in thought. Taking no chances, he flicked on his ship to ship communicator.
“Asterover 19102. This is Victor Fritzell. You have crossed into the security perimeter of my trading post. Please identify yourself.” Vic waited. There was no response from the asterover.