Jinx On a Terran Inheritance

by Brian Daley

  They looked out at the night. Alacrity gazed up at constellations he'd begun memorizing during night work details with Gute.

  "It never occurred to me who you are," Victoria said. "I mean, who you really are. Until Tilla started cadging information on the flight back from the Harpy."

  "I sort of thought something like that might happen. I was hoping maybe people wouldn't be interested in me anymore."

  "Langstretch is always interested when someone will pay, Alacrity. I don't think you want to know how much you're worth to them."

  "You, ah, you have a kind of truce with Janusz. I thought we could declare one too."

  She raked back strands of her windblown hair. "What's between Janusz and me is different; it doesn't have anything to do with Langstretch anymore. It has to do with seeing that a debt is paid, because it has to be paid."

  "And me?"

  "With you it's rather different. I don't think I'd target you for Langstretch even if I still worked for them, much less now. Friends?"

  "Uh-huh." They clasped wrists.

  "Let's go back in, Alacrity; you're shivering and I'm icing over."

  "All right."

  As they walked back, she said, "There were some reports that you were dead, you know."

  "I started a few of them myself."

  "Well, you can forget about that, now that you've gotten yourself involved in this Inheritance affair. My guess is you're not too many jumps ahead of a gang of field ops. In a way, this getting shanghaied to the compounds was a stroke of luck; your tail's cold, cold. But only for a little while."

  "I read you. But once this is over—who knows?" He looked the starship over. "I might have some first-class transportation. That'd change the odds."

  "That's so. My advice to you is a new identity, not just a new alias. How did you pick such an unlikely name, anyway?"

  "Oh, some go-bloods were taking care of me when I was younger. They gave it to me. It's a Terranglish pun: Alacrity Fitzhugh."

  "Well, you'd better think up another."

  "I'm used to it; it's been so long now. But—no arguments. I'm just finding it a little hard to think beyond this Repository operation. I'm worried about us all, and it's hard to keep my mind on what I have to do afterward."

  "Very hard," she said, hugging the bathrobe around herself, head lowered. "Oh, very hard."

  "Which Custodian is it, Alacrity?"

  Alacrity focused the tripod-mounted vision enhancers tightly, coming in close on the front door of the rundown mansions that served as a front for the Repository. "It's the oldish one with the white vane hairdo. Number, uh, twelve, isn't it? No identifying marks or scars. Managgia! How d'you tell clones apart?"

  "I recommend we corral them all and brand them," Floyt said as he noted the sighting. "His codename in the surveillance book is Nicodemas. Anything to put under 'remarks'?"

  Alacrity backed away from the enhancers and the mirrored viewpane. "Tall, slender, esthetic, like all of 'em. Same Pinkish complexion. Prominent nose and Adam's apple; fine hair balding in the back. He was wearing a working smock, like a lab jacket or whatever, brown. There was a guard with him."

  "Did you happen to see which guard?"

  "Just like every other guard: two hundred-kilo sumo wrestler. They just receipted for the packet from the armed couriers and closed the door again."

  Notch, sprawled on the single desk in the cluttered little office, phlegmatically fast-forwarding through a porn-spool, paused. He said in a monumentally bored voice, "Did they look healthy? Worried? Tired? Could you get a look inside the door? Were they carrying any tools or weapons? Was there anything new or different visible in or through the entranceway ? Which courier team was it? That's the kind of stuff Janusz wants logged."

  Alacrity settled back on his adjust-stool, resuming his watch. "I recorded it. Janusz told us what he wants, kid."

  Notch yawned, showing the bedizened gold teeth, shoving the reader aside. It slid off the table to bounce on the floor. He didn't bother to pick it up. Alacrity's upper lip thinned to a line in anger reflex.

  "That's more than he tells me," Notch said, rummaging among the thermatrays to see if anything appetizing was left. "So you two are getting along good with your hosts, huh?" He smiled. "That's fine. It must be quite a change for the others with seven of you sharing the chateau now."

  Floyt turned to Notch before Alacrity had a chance to make a slip. "What makes you say that?"

  Notch licked bits of frosting off an empty sweetroll wrapper. "That's the way I have it figured, is why. Even though you two are the only new ones I met. The way I see it, two more came with you and there's the other one who's been in Raffles all along, the one nobody ever sees."

  "I got a hot tip for you, smiley," Alacrity said with his back still to Notch. "You better spend more time worrying about yourself and your cribmates doing your jobs right and less time snorkling around. There's a lot riding on this deal, and if you screw up you won't know what landed on you."

  Notch got to his feet. "Don't panic, Slats. You either, Old-timer, We're ready. We been ready for something like this for a long time."

  Alacrity swung his stool around. "Not something like this, you silly little fart. This, precisely, to the split second. If you mess up, just leave word where I should ship the body. I mean that."

  Notch looked at Alacrity for a second, then raised a middle finger to him. "Know what I mean, Slats? If I ain't afraid of Janusz, I sure ain't afraid of you."

  "You little scumwad—"

  "Alacrity—"

  The old commo relay tower's asthmatic liftshaft was making sounds. The three forgot the skirmish and listened. Floyt punched up the view from a shaft pickup. It showed Victoria being floated up on a lift platform, coming to a stop at the top-level landing. The three relaxed.

  She was wearing a subdued, all-concealing travel robe in a style favored by some of the Parish tribeswomen, but her lean, graceful sway set her apart from the natives.

  "Hello, Victoria," Notch said, moving to intercept her at the door, looking up at her with a gems-and-hardware smile much more earnest than his usual simper.

  "Oh, get back," Alacrity growled. "Can't you see you make her skin crawl, kid?"

  Notch whirled on him, furious. "That did it. I just made up my mind about you, Slats."

  Alacrity came off the stool. "What mind, Chromosome Damage?" Floyt grabbed Alacrity's elbow and Victoria put herself between the two.

  "That's enough!" she snapped. "Alacrity, Hobart: we're closing down here. Please make sure the remotes are working properly. Notch, I want you to be certain your group is ready."

  "We are, we are! When are you going to let us in on the details, Victoria?"

  "Soon. Please listen carefully. I left a surface lorry parked outside. When you leave here, take it and bring your group—all of them—to Old Raffles at one-niner-point-five-oh tonight. Don't tell any of them where you're bringing them. Don't let any of them contact anyone. Don't warn any of them ahead of time and don't let any of them out of your sight once you give the marching orders, do you hear me? Do not draw any attention to yourselves; and be there on time, will you please do that for me?"

  He was nodding, eager and receptive, a completely different person. Alacrity made a sour face.

  "I'll see you then." Notch leaned forward all at once and gave her a kiss on the cheek she couldn't quite avoid. He paused in the doorway for a last jeering look at Alacrity, then he was out of sight.

  Alacrity started to help Floyt square the place away, stuffing empty food cartons in the disposal, gathering their things, making sure the automatics were picking up the Repository. He waited until the pickup showed Notch driving off in the surface lorry. "Jeez, Vic; that little bubo worships you."

  She let her breath out all at once as she sank into a chair. "I know. I don't like to, but I use that sometimes. Otherwise he'd have fallen out with Janusz and tried to sell us out, I think, and then I'd have had to kill him."

  Victoria see
med to be feeling a sudden chill. "Come; we should be going."

  Alacrity dumped a last cluster of trash down the disposal. "I hope you brought your crash helmet. Vapor Trail Floyt here, never settles for the copilot's poz these days."

  "Care to see a perfect Immelmann?" Floyt inquired proudly.

  "Lynx rufus," Janusz said, dropping the bullets onto Floyt's palm. They were on a firing range in Old Raffles' first subsurface level, a small one laid out for short-range work. "I told you the arms dealers of Parish Below could duplicate anything."

  Lynx rufus—wildcat ammunition. Floyd looked one over. He couldn't tell it from the dum-dums he'd acquired along with the Webley; they had the same look and feel.

  "I fired a few when I accepted the order," Janusz was saying. "They are reliable. And they do damage."

  "Yes, they do that." Floyt nodded soberly. He broke the revolver and emptied the old rounds into a tray, the lanyard fixture ringing.

  Janusz was watching him. "You know, you don't have to come along on this op, Hobart. Neither does Alacrity, for that matter, nor Heart, nor Tilla. Victoria, Corva, and I have this thing well set up; it's not necessary that you put yourself through this."

  Floyt, fitting new rounds into the chambers, half grimaced. "You mean, you would have had everything perfect if Alacrity and I hadn't come along and gotten matters all stirred up; that's not a new feeling for us. Anyway, thank you, Janusz, but when I get back to Terra there'll be a lot of questions, no matter what. I'll have to bear witness. I have to be able to tell what happened." He closed the pistol.

  "In that case, make sure you keep one thing in mind," Janusz told him. "We are going in shooting, Citizen Floyt. I'm not sure you understand what that means, not really. But it means that everyone at the Repository, except for our group, will be the enemy. Everyone! I'm warning you, don't hesitate or dither. If you spot anybody, light his fuse before he lights yours. To be candid, you're the least proficient one among us."

  "I see," Floyt said thoughtfully.

  "I hope you do, but I despair of it. Bear in mind what I've said."

  "I will. Shall we try a few rounds?"

  Janusz activated the target sequence.

  Lights came up out in the target zone. Floyt hadn't felt ready for anything ambitious like moving holoimages or a "funhouse" situation walk. Simu-soma targets popped up. He blazed away at a distance of about fifteen paces.

  Alacrity had said the Webley had surprisingly little kick for an old-fashioned bullet firearm, but Floyt still found it disconcerting as the pistol recoiled in his hand, spewing flame, throwing out acrid smoke, with a cracking report. The simu-soma targets contained flesh-and-bone analogs structured something like a human head and torso, marked for hit value. When hit, they reacted somewhat as a human body would.

  Floyt's round hit the first pop-up dead center. The jellied, translucent flesh, quivering mock-up organs, and dark, linear bone structure jarred with the impact, splintering and splashing, driven backward, creating a wound channel shaped something like a beehive. For a moment Floyt thought he could see light through the target.

  But the recoil and report brought back his flinching reflex, and he closed his eyes as he fired the second time, missing completely. He fired even before aiming on the third, another miss. He let the next pop-up rise and fall without firing, calming himself.

  He only partially overcame the reflex, but caught a piece of the next target, in the region of the collarbone. His fifth shot would've made a fatal belly wound; the final one went high.

  Janusz brought the lights back up. "Great Gehenna! What a mess! How can you concentrate with all that pop and belch?"

  "It's not easy." Floyt broke the pistol again, ejecting the spent shells.

  "I should think not. Hobart, we'll all be carrying other firearms, but take my advice: let me give you an energy weapon to carry as your backup. If you need one, it will be more accurate, easier to handle, less prone to stoppage, and quicker to use."

  "That's very kind of you. I've practiced enough to use a shockgun if I have to, but trying to pull a beam pistol in a hurry I'd probably end up burning my own foot off. I think I should stick to what I know."

  "Mmmm, just the way Alacrity feels about that precious field piece he carts about. Well, how did the ammunition feel?"

  "If there's any difference, I can't tell."

  "Good. We've got plenty; I would deem it wise that you get in more practice."

  "You're quite right; I haven't done this very much."

  "I'll reload for you; you can check your targets."

  Floyt went out to the target zone. The carnage was less than it might have been, because the simu-soma was designed not to resemble human blood, organs, and bones too closely, to avoid traumatizing shooters. "It's a lot prettier than the real thing," he muttered, looking over his hits and noting where his misses had struck.

  "That is exactly what I think to myself whenever I come down here," Janusz said.

  Floyt returned, accepting the Webley. Janusz hit the lights; the pop-up started.

  Floyt squeezed one off, trying not to flinch. High. The next one was another hit, but it was pure luck. On the third round he squeezed the trigger and the hammer fell on an empty chamber with a pinging click. Floyt had his eyes nearly shut, against a report that didn't come.

  Janusz grabbed his arm with one hand, bringing up the lights with the other. "You see, Hobart? You see? By the Benign! Don't you think it's impolite to kill someone without at least looking at him?"

  "You did that to me on purpose!"

  "An old, old trick. Now, do you want to learn how to use that blunderbuss properly? Because your life will depend upon it, and others' lives as well."

  "Yes." He looked at the pistol in his hand. "I'd be very grateful if you'd help me."

  "Right. Keep your eyes on your target. Concentrate."

  He restarted the target sequence. Floyt brought the Webley up in both hands, cocking it. A target popped up and he squeezed the trigger.

  The hammer fell on another empty chamber. This time his eyes were wide open.

  "Pay attention," Victoria ordered. The two youngest kids in Notch's gang stopped grab-assing, menaced into silence by the others. The whole bunch, two dozen in all, shifted and looked around uncomfortably, fascinated but intimidated by the formal holoviewing amphitheater on the chateau's first surface level.

  Victoria and Notch had made them sit down front and center in direct contradiction to the kids' habits and instincts. As it was, the alley runners hunkered their heads down between their shoulders and glanced around every few seconds.

  "You ought to change the name from Old Raffles to Fagin's," Alacrity observed, sitting in the last row with Janusz to his right and Floyt to his left.

  "These are children who feel they've lost control over their situation if they aren't stealing, intimidating, terrorizing, or otherwise proving their hostility," Janusz replied. "They're just fine for our purposes, as good as any tribal militiamen—better than most, in fact. Stronger killer instincts."

  Alacrity and Floyt both nodded knowingly.

  "Again," Victoria said firmly. She was standing in a speaker's pulpit off to the left of the proscenium, controlling the displays, conducting the briefing. She was above the kids and dressed in severe, majestic robes, and her lighting had been carefully arranged. She was creating just the impression to keep the boxtowners at least minimally attentive and quiet. The kids had already seen and—after some dangerous experimentation—accepted the chateau's security restrictions, and a form of house arrest.

  "Eanna's team here," Victoria went on, "with the other smarts launcher." An arrow-cursor darted through the ghostly projection of the Repository's grounds and structure, to the reverse side of a nearby hilltop.

  "Smarts teams fire their missions on my say-so. The smart rounds will be targeted here, here, here, and here." The arrow-cursor flew to show them. The kids watched sullenly, having heard it all before, but didn't dare heckle or act-up. They kne
w how Notch felt about her; nobody wanted to be slapped down.

  "Questions? All right then, that's the last run through; you all know what you have to do. Double-check all weapons and supplies; tomorrow we pull the take. You will get half your money before we move out, the remainder upon completion. Upon returning to your quarters you'll all get a full night's forced sleep and imprinting treatments to make sure no one forgets or fouls up."

  Unkempt heads turned toward Notch, who stood behind them, impassive. A few of the kids were shifting in their seats, but they held their places, even more frightened of Notch than of being subjected to sleep programming.

  "Why should we?" someone managed to yell without being identified, at least as far as Floyt was concerned.

  "Because I say so," Notch decreed, materializing behind one girl and whacking her on the back of her head with his knuckles. None of the others had anything to say. Notch got them all on their feet, Gippo and one or two other young lieutenants taking over, and moving for the secure quarters in the chateau's first subsurface level.

  Notch went in Victoria's direction. Janusz was no longer in his seat. Scowling, the outlaw interposed himself, moving into the middle of an aisle. Notch was indecisive for a moment, then flashed his most infuriating smirk and moved off after the rest of his gang. "Sleep tight, Victoria," he called. "See you later."

  Alacrity watched him go. "We'll give them a few minutes, then go in and make sure they're bedded down, Alacrity," Janusz said. "Would you mind giving us a hand?"

  "Not at all." To Floyt, Alacrity added, "Victoria dosed their last round of coffee and whatnot; they're all gonna be tired in a few minutes. I wonder what'll happen to them after the raid. They'll have money, but—I dunno; what do you do with kids like that? Will they change?"

  "I'll tell you what Earthservice did," Floyt said. "They had a thing called Operation Vidocq. Rounded up the roaming troupe that ran the urbanplex corridors. I just missed being picked up myself; I'd dropped out of one."

  "What did Earthservice do?"

  "Most of them were dispersed, put into labor programs with very carefully indoctrinated peer leaders. The important part was to keep them from forming a children's subculture. Most of them, that is."