Fall of the White Ship Avatar

by Brian Daley

  Just then there was a crash from over the hill, in Marcus's direction. Floyt and Alacrity hit the dirt and froze.

  Marcus called out, "Albrecht! Albrecht! Come here to me!" from a spot close to the top of the rise. Then, "Vinzix, stay where you are and be alert! I thought I saw them, but it was only a duffroller. They're somewhere close though! I can feel it!"

  The two friends could hear a running translation coming from the near distance. Alacrity was trying to make up his mind whether now was the time to jump Marcus, before he could rearm. But Marcus was out in the open, and maybe Vinzix would be more than happy to kill all three humans. Then again, another chance might not come along …

  He heard a sudden thrashing behind him. Alacrity turned, prepared to see Vinzix charging his way, only to see Floyt thrashing and wrestling with Albrecht, trying to drag the robo down. Albrecht's course between Vinzix and Marcus had brought him directly to them; Floyt had seized the chance without hesitating. Disabling Albrecht would leave Vinzix the only one armed, and that with only one bolt, improving the outlook a lot.

  The problem was, Albreeht was no drone tea wagon. He spun and bucked, impossible to bring down, emitting bleats of distress. It gave Alacrity an instant's pause, seeing Floyt's daring and fast reaction. I'd like to know how many other quiet little functionary third classes like him there are; you scratch some Earther's surface and all of a sudden you're dealing with a pit dog! Even before he'd finished the thought, he'd thrown himself into battle.

  The two found out right away that while he wasn't made for hand-to-hand combat, Albrecht was definitely put together with durability in mind. His hoverthruster blared full power, unable to lift him with the added weight clinging to him, but keeping him from being grounded. He slewed and slid and twirled around as they wrenched and grappled at him haphazardly.

  Alacrity's club splintered over Albrecht's gleaming cranial turret without making a dent. Floyt's efforts to lever an arm out and wring it off got three of his fingers lacerated and several nails loosened, and almost got his own shoulder dislocated.

  Luckily, Albrecht's defenses didn't include use of the roverbolts, or they'd have been parboiled. As it was, the machine tried to throw them off, pumping his arms in and out, rocking back and forth on his thrusters like a metronome.

  Floyt lost his grip with one hand, clinging stoically with the other, half boots scraping and digging for purchase. Alacrity couldn't quite get a leglock on Albrecht's shiny, rounded torso and was fighting with one of the many arms. He didn't think that he and Floyt had more than another few seconds before Albrecht broke free, and was worrying hard about Vinzix's blazing boomerang, too.

  Gripping the arm, Alacrity was yanked up close to the robot's head. All Albrecht's important machinery was well protected, naturally, including his pickups and detectors. About the only thing open to attack was the receptor for his programming augmentation. It abruptly came to Alacrity what it was he was staring at; he abandoned all thought of doing Albrecht harm.

  Albrecht broke free of Floyt's grasp and grappled clumsily with Alacrity, while Alacrity concentrated on the receptor. One mechanical appendage opened Alacrity's forehead. Another came down hard across his collarbone, nearly stunning him. He locked his teeth and held on, trying to work while blood ran into his eyes.

  Floyt was up again, circling to reenter the bizarre dustup, just as Albrecht pried Alacrity loose and shoved him backward, flailing. Alacrity landed in Floyt's arms, bearing them both to the ground, as the robo lifted free and floated away quickly in Lord Marcus's direction.

  Marcus, hearing Albrecht's alarm stridences, was shouting for Vinzix and heading in the two companions' direction. Albrecht, homing on Marcus, was uttering loud translations in Vinzix's language.

  Alacrity grabbed Floyt and the pair crawled, knee-walked, and tumbled for cover. In the denser undergrowth, they moved in a half crouch, ducking around trees and snagging themselves on vines, losing all sense of direction.

  They stopped to get their bearings and catch then-breath. Alacrity tucked something into his pocket, but Floyt was too winded and too concerned about being burnt to charcoal to ask what. Alacrity peeped around a lolling, paravaned leviathan tree.

  Marcus was bellowing, not far off. "Vinzix! Over this way!" Albrecht translated at high decibels.

  Floyt was all for running. But Alacrity stopped him, tugging him into a niche further up in the folds of the enormous roots. To Floyt's mind that was a sure way of getting cornered, and yet Alacrity was insistent. They silently found a crouching place, peering down on a nearby clearing. Vinzix bounded into it from one side, looking all around, the boomerang held ready.

  Lord Marcus entered from the other side, the pulsing sheaf of a dart-spread in his gauntleted fist, arm reared back for a release. The two onlookers felt a lot of tiny things crawling around on the bark and in the humus beneath them, but kept absolutely still.

  Floyt waited for Marcus or Vinzix to spot their prey, or Albrecht, who trailed along after Marcus, to detect them somehow. Floyt had heard about "the smell of fear" and always thought it a literary convention until he started traveling with Alacrity. Now, once again, he smelled it pouring from himself, from every pore, a thick reek that he was sure those below would catch, an acid stench that made him even more frightened.

  "Where have they gone?" Marcus called to the Dar. Albrecht rasped the translation, which sounded rather short and curt.

  Vinzix's head swung to Marcus, the pointy-toothed mouth opening to hiss something fierce in answer.

  Albrecht piped to Marcus, "Stub-toothed groveler! Cease thy pulings, or I shall burn out thy sphincter as well as theirs!"

  Alacrity grinned in triumph.

  "Wh-what?" stuttered Marcus, disbelieving. "How's that again?"

  Vinzix sounded like ice on a hot skillet. Albrecht rendered it as rage. "Address me with proper reverence, despised sublife! Use the respect you owe a noble of Darwin's Star, pallid vermin! I ought to smite you and give you over to the Pain Guild!"

  Floyt couldn't grasp exactly what was going on until he stole a quick glance at Alacrity, who was holding up the protocol augmentation module he'd snatched from Albrecht's translating gear.

  Floyt saw it all: Why, they're getting literal translations now! For the first time, Albrecht's not greasing the wheels!

  "Now, just a moment, Vinzix, old man," fumbled Marcus as dutiful Albrecht kept up the translation. "Are you threatening me? I'll remind you that you're my partner, my junior partner; let's have no more of that talk! We've got more serious things to—"

  "Partner?" Albrecht screamed as Vinzix hopped from foot to foot. "Junior? You dare speak so to one of the Master Species? Compulsive defiler of public comfort stations!"

  Alacrity looked to Floyt with raised eyebrows and a nod of satisfaction. He'd said the Dars were the abrasive sort.

  Lord Marcus's face was going magenta, eyes bulging. He shook his sheaf of Jovian darts. "Of all the impertinent, misbegotten heathen upstarts!"

  "Aii!" Vinzix's nasal flaps were rolling up and down and his pupils appeared to be spinning in tight circles. Albrecht conscientiously did his best to put across the exact flavor of the Dar's spirited retort.

  "You contemptible little subcreature! I have aberrant sex with your deity! I treat the gametes of your aunties as I would soil samples!"

  "You, you what?" Marcus demanded, outraged but confused.

  "And I laugh at your mother's ungainliness and place noxious elements in the fetish nooks of your elected representatives!"

  Marcus stuttered and burbled a bit, trying to catch his breath, before supplying the capable Albrecht with more work: "You pompous, anchovy-brained scum! One more word and I'll teach you who's master here, you pelvis-faced castrato! And, and what's more, you cheat at rovers!"

  That last proved too much to bear. With a gurgling sound, Vinzix launched himself at Marcus, ready to release his boomerang in a fast, aggressive windup.

  Marcus stumbled back, coming up against the
bole of the leviathan tree from which Floyt and Alacrity watched.

  Marcus turned to the hovering robocaddy. "Albrecht! Emergency override Caliban! Target—"

  But before Marcus could rattle off the rest, Vinzix jumped him. Damn voice commands are so slow, Alacrity reflected.

  Vinzix moved fast as an adder, but somehow Marcus blocked the boomerang lightshape by bringing up his dart-spread to ward it off. It turned out to be an unwise tactic. The two energy bolts met in the middle of the meter and a half or so that separated the two disgruntled sportsbeings. There was a synergistic outsurge of energy, a sphere that engulfed them both, though Marcus took the worst of it.

  The detonation shook the clearing, knocking Albrecht thrusters-over-cranial dome, even as he was readying new bolts. Marcus collapsed, body smoking a bit, quite dead. Vinzix was thrown to the ground and lay unmoving.

  When Alacrity and Floyt had blinked back their vision, they saw the caddy circling the clearing aimlessly with a double helix pulsing in one hand and a flat disc glowing and humming dangerously in the other.

  They looked at each other. Alacrity motioned that they should try to sneak down. Floyt concurred, deeming it imprudent simply to sit in the tree waiting for autumn.

  They crept down cautiously and quietly as they could, but as Floyt was about to lend Alacrity a hand down, Albrecht made a loud, peremptory beep directly behind him. The two companions let out a shriek, Alacrity lost his grip, and Floyt ended up catching him. The pair froze, Alacrity in Floyt's arms, Floyt's knees quaking, as Albrecht studied them, energy bolts ready. Floyt shut his eyes, resigned to death.

  "Further instructions needed," Albrecht said in a strange, neutral voice of his own. "Emergency override Caliban running."

  Floyt dropped Alacrity, who yelped, then swallowed and said, "Clarify, Albrecht!" in a shaky voice.

  The robocaddy didn't appear to recall his violent encounter with them of only a few minutes before. While Alacrity scrambled to his feet, Albrecht drew nearer. Floyt could feel the eddy currents from the rover bolts making the hair rise on his arms and head, stirring his beard.

  "Caliban override in place," Albrecht clarified. "Weapons response ready, but Marcus-User disabled." Albrecht shook his weapons. "Target confirmation required."

  Without hesitation, Floyt and Alacrity instantly pointed to Vinzix.

  Albrecht released his lightning. Vinzix's body went up in fire and smithereens with such a blast that the humans were partly deafened. Albrecht took up position by Marcus's corpse as Floyt and Alacrity dropped hands away from their ringing ears.

  "Do we hide the evidence or just run?" Floyt yelled, finding it difficult to hear himself.

  "I like the idea of just running," Alacrity voted loudly. He was calculating times and distances. "We go back and have Tomasina call another cab, or even better, tell her Marcus wants her to take us to the starport herself. Tell her he and Vinzix are playing out the game together. I'm betting she's not in on the plot; murder's a serious deal here, so the fewer people involved, the better. We can be in Hawking by the time they find the remains."

  Floyt drew a deep breath and moved his jaw around. A little more hearing returned. "That makes sense to me, but what shall we do in regard to him?"

  He meant Albrecht, who was still on station in a hover. "He might have recorded everything—but no, Marcus wouldn't have wanted him to do that, would he? Albrecht, clarify, please, like a good fellow?"

  "Recording mode not running," Albrecht chimed in. "Special accesses open. Standard restrictions suspended. Disinformation programs running."

  "Well, that would appear to say it all," Floyt observed sourly. "Only what in the world does it mean?"

  Alacrity combed sticks and moss and dirt and leaves out of his long mane of hair with his fingers. "Sez everything's status quo until someone tells him differently, I think. So there'll be no indication that anything out of the ordinary is going on, because Caliban's conducting a little business. That right, Albrecht?"

  "Affirmative, subject to amending instructions from Marcus-User."

  So Marcus tooled up his own skulduggery program, but he wasn't as good at it as he thought, Floyt realized. "Albrecht, see here, can you play rovers? Make the releases and so forth?"

  Albrecht fixed him with glassy optical pickups. Floyt saw himself twinned in fisheye miniature. "Of course, sir. Does this indicate that the game's not over?"

  "No, the game's not over. I want you to finish it; go to the next release point and carry on! But take your time; you're playing for two, don't forget. And when you've finished, go back to the first release point and wait for us. Confirm?"

  "Confirmed, sir." Albrecht spun on his thrusters, Floyt's command ringing in his presets, and glided off to play the rest of the course. If anyone in Ends Well was monitoring the game, there was a chance they'd think all was as it should be. At least Albrecht was happy.

  Floyt, coming to accept that he would live awhile longer, belabored himself, You still haven't told Alacrity the truth. You'll have to soon!

  "Nope, the game's not over," Alacrity said with a laugh.

  They straightened their clothes and cleaned themselves up as best they could as they made their way back to Ends Well. Floyt mulled over the various appalling revenges concubines had inflicted throughout history and tried hard to put together bright, convincing alibis.

  Then they came around a big, flourishing clump of spit-burrs and saw what was going on at Ends Well. "Now what, Alacrity?"

  Alacrity smiled wolfishly. "It's like I've told you: there's hardly ever a down-market in accomplices."

  Two long, luxurious touring motorcarriages and a shuttletruck had been pulled up by the tall main doors. Soldier-ant lines of Lord Marcus's adored, interchangeable bacchantes were dumping armloads of stuff into them. Some cargo was wardrobe bags and personal luggage, but the truck was taking on expensive pieces of systemry and a few artworks. There were at least a dozen look-alike women in the looting relay, all in the burgundy glowtulle harem getups. Now, though, many wore rings, bracelets, or other plunder.

  One, clutching Larrup the minibuffalo, was directing matters from the front steps. To her livery she'd added a magnificent bib of Satan's tears trimmed with diamond-droplet pendants.

  "Hello, Tomasina." Floyt smiled amiably as the women paused in their work to watch the two men warily.

  She patted Larrup, who bumped his tiny, blunted horns against her. "Very good guess, sir. Or was it?"

  Floyt blushed. "I, ah, happened to notice your dimples earlier. Briefly." It seemed more decorous not to mention their location.

  Tomasina smiled slowly. "Yes, We're not truly identical, are we?"

  "Look, don't let us interrupt the clearance sale," Alacrity bade. Some of the women looked to one another, then resumed.

  "Now, what happened out there?" another harem member—Callisto, Floyt thought she was—wanted to know. She'd gotten herself a scintillating garter of white wavestones and blood-red ardors from Lord Marcus's trove. "Telemetry says the old perv is dead, but not how."

  "Him and Vinzix discovered their partnership was based on mutual ignorance," Alacrity explained vaguely.

  "How much time do we have before the cops come calling?"

  Tomasina shook her wimpled head. "Marcus left the Caliban program running. It's set for times when he didn't want interruptions or the law. So, no alarms, no security monitoring, no nothing. The APs and systemry will pretend to the outside world that nothing's wrong, no matter what, even using his own voice-image simulacrum. I'd say we have hours, possibly days, before anybody gets nosy."

  Possibly-Callisto slipped an arm through Tomasina's. "But by then we'll just be a memory on Windfall. There's a passenger packet heading out-system."

  Alacrity indicated the swag. "Even this might not be enough to buy you all interstellar tickets."

  "I told you," Tomasina answered, "Caliban's running, but Marcus wasn't around long enough to give follow-up orders. That's the first time that ever happe
ned; now we have access to most of the system, otherwise Marcus's deadman programs would be running and we'd all be dead, too, by now."

  Floyt, still unsettled by the violence of the rovers game, shuddered. Callisto—Floyt was about certain it was she—said, "But as it is, the reservations are confirmed and the tickets were billed to Marcus's account, on his personal coded order. And as far as customs is concerned, he's ordered us to precede him on a business trip. We've got ourselves some very hefty bank drafts and power of attorney over some of his secret accounts, too. Not a clean sweep, but not bad either."

  I wonder how long they've been planning it, Marcus's precious odalisques? Floyt wondered. Not that he could blame them. "Speaking of trips, Alacrity, it's time we were going."

  "Waitaminute, waitaminute," Alacrity said with a calm-down gesture. "Tomasina, if you really have access to Marcus's data files, there's something I need to know from them."

  "Not top-secret stuff, but most of it," she told him. "Help yourself, but move fast if you want a lift to the starport."

  Over Floyt's protests, Alacrity dragged him inside to a systems terminal. "Remember Marcus talking about that woman, Hecate? We need a line on where to find her, and whatever else there is."

  Floyt reluctantly began accessing and searching. Alacrity disappeared, promising to return quickly. Ends Well's equipment was unfamiliar to Floyt, but he'd had a lot of experience in learning new systems lately. He was soon transferring info from Marcus's files to his proteus, scanning it as he went, fascinated in spite of his agonizing fear that he would hear the convoy gunning away without him.

  Alacrity returned with an appropriated shoulder bag. "I raided the clinic stores and the autodocs," he told Floyt. "We can get rid of that peripheral neuropathy while we're in jump. Uh, that is, presuming we have a destination?"

  Floyt shut down the terminal and clapped his proteus back on his wrist. "That we have. The story gets curiouser and curiouser, Alacrity."

  "When was it otherwise?"

  Outside, several of the women now wore different attire, conservative traveling clothes, and were getting behind the controls of the three vehicles, warming them up. Their russet hair, freed from the wimples, was fashioned in close caps of tight ringlets.