by Brian Daley
The starport was situated at one end of town, in a deep depression, the locals not trusting starcraft not to blow up or release radiation and yet not wanting the port too far from their center of governmental control.
Horselaugh, Lebensraum's only city, was actually just a modest company town, built in functional, uninspired Aerospace Doric. It was mostly admin and operations structures and company housing, interspersed with blankly identical service/retail centers.
Here and there noncompany businesses or dwellings were mostly crammed in the crannies, hovels, and arc-shelters, marked by eye-catching lightsigns. Horselaugh was a workers' town; what the Lebensraum Company couldn't stifle in human nature it had to learn to live with.
Alacrity gritted his teeth as they entered the customs shed. Floyt got the picture when he saw that the currency-exchange and assayer's booths were side by side with the inspection station. The two visitors were given med and immunity tests, then scanned and searched and questioned in a local language that was not too far from Terranglish, by surly officials dressed in the ominous black of the company police.
In due course Floyt exchanged the resplendent garter at a surprisingly fair rate, was immediately hit with a ruinous tax on the transaction, and signed over much of the rest of his money for docking fees and security. The only break they got, as far as Alacrity could see, was that the actual starport operations were overseen by Bali Hai officials. With any luck, that would mean company goons wouldn't have access to the Whelk. Over strenuous objections, Floyt accepted his change in company scrip.
There were frowns all around when the two listed their business as "Talent Promotion," and three different officials told them what terrible things would be done to them if they strayed beyond Horselaugh without permission. All told, what with approach, landing and interminable bureauwanking, it was over four hours after hearing from Hecate that they were given visas and permission to explore Horselaugh.
They ventured out into the evening along an elevated walkway. Company police were patrolling, swinging clubs and chukas, watching. Traffic cruised by below and the sky was open above except for the occasional cop aircruiser or company limoflier.
Alacrity wore a shipsuit, his pathfinder boots, and a big blue bandanna. Floyt had on bush fatigues—high-waisted pants and thigh-length jacket over the sweater—and lug-soled lace-up hiking boots that reached above his ankles. The boots were a bit narrow but long enough, so he'd chosen them; Floyt had long since learned the kind of things you can step in, in a starportside town.
If the two didn't exactly blend in with the locals, at least they didn't stand out too terribly.
These were contract miners, but not the pick-and-shovel variety. Most worked hard for their money, but their standard of living was adequate and their off-duty clothing showed it. They looked prosperous, but similar. The fashion in women's hair ran to a white cotton-candy look, floating like spindrift. Clothing tended to be comfortable and durable. Perhaps as a reaction to their industrial surroundings, many of the Horselaughers wore or carried fresh flowers.
In the midst of all this, Alacrity and Floyt got a few strange looks, but nobody bothered them.
The company employees would retire comfortably—offworld—if they did their jobs and behaved; that benefit had enormous appeal in the uncertain times of the Third Breath.
Alacrity had in his proteus a legal transaction program he'd prepared with Floyt's help and frequent references to the various legal data stores inboard the Whelk. If he could just get Hecate to validate it with the proper Interested Party codes, it would give him voting power over her long-dormant shares. In one stroke, he'd go from nonentity spacebum to major power broker.
There was no visible boxtown at the Horselaugh spaceport, a fact that surprised Floyt and aroused caution in Alacrity. The fact that no technological slum had arisen there where there should have been one meant Lebensraum was tightly controlled indeed, even if it gave the Bali Hai Republic lip service.
They passed on the cramped-looking cabs and crowded public transport to stretch their legs after the long confinement of their Hawking jump. Alacrity asked some locals for directions to the Wicked Wickiup. The couple looked at the two offworlders curiously, but obliged, saying Hecate's bigtop was within easy strolling distance.
Alacrity found his way as much by instinct as by the city map he'd cadged in the customs house. Every turn took the two friends onto seedier streets. Soon company cops were patrolling in threes and fours.
Steerers and gatehawks beckoned passers-by into shows, things like customers'-choice sexshows, toxin races, and badger-in-the-barrel. Still, Floyt noticed none of the wax-skinned addicts or hollow-eyed starveling children he'd seen elsewhere in the Third Breath. On Terra, under the Earthservice, there were none either (or at least, none to be seen) and yet he'd rejected it and had no regrets.
Floyt and Alacrity turned a corner in a district that seemed to consist mainly of awful-smelling breweries and came into sight of an extruded-glassfroth hemisphere covering two or three hectares of ground a few hundred meters beyond the edge of town. The blossoming light-effect fireworks, goodtime music, and crowd-tumult didn't leave much room for doubt, but a revolving holo-flash sign, like some Old Testament show-stopper, announced THE WICKED WICKIUP.
There was some crowd-press as they got close to the entrance, but it wasn't bad; the place had opened at dusk and the main performance had been going on for almost two hours.
Inside, it smelled in ways Floyt could never hope to describe, especially the odors, drifting in from that part of the dome set apart as a menagerie.
The Lebensraum wildlife on display there was interesting but sad to see, and the few offworld specimens downright depressing. Floyt traded bleak looks with a couple of them and didn't mind when Alacrity said that they should be seeing to business.
They passed an assortment of Karmic readers, growth hosts and other freaks, radiation eaters, and similar sideshow fodder. Vendors and concessionaires offered food, drinks, drugs, and souvenirs, particularly Hecate memorabilia.
The main arena of the Wicked Wickiup was crowded, even though the next day was a workday for most of the people there. In the center was a traditional ring bounded by low blocks, carpeted with shredded celluline. Above were the retracted riggings for aerial and highwire acts, bounce-jousting, and such. Floyt and Alacrity had arrived too late for Hecate's animal taming and knife-throwing performances, but in time for her finale.
An act was just finishing up, a mock battle of some kind, attended by very effective and convincing special effects, imitation blood gushing as blades glittered and swung. The acting wasn't very good, but the crowd loved it, rooting for one side and then the other, whistling piercingly and stomping their feet so that the Wicked Wickiup shook. Having seen the real thing, Floyt watched with a certain queasiness. Alacrity looked on indifferently.
The seating areas were sold out, occupied mostly by well-heeled company execs. Floyt looked up and around and noticed a box with only one occupant, a motionless, silent figure in a hooded robe, face concealed by the cowl's deep shadow.
Like most of the others Floyt and Alacrity jostled their way up onto the low, sloping terraces of gluefused dirt. Each terrace was only a half meter above the one before, and only three meters wide, with a few rows of railings to lean on.
People were eating tiny, glazed birdlike delicacies that were swallowed whole, bones and all, and skewers of dog and cat meat. Shots of aquavit were popular, and strong dark porter in vitrilex mugs cast in the shapes of squatting totem figures. Popular local drugs were brain-spark, jangle, and perceptimax.
The throng was predominantly male and rowdy. It was obvious from the smell of the gluefused terraces that a lot of them weren't troubling to search out a urinal when the urge hit. There was a lot of scuffling, and several fights were in progress. The ones Floyt could see well weren't too interesting.
The phoney bloodletting ended, and the fake casualties were taken away. The lights lowe
red. Expectant silence—or at least a lowering of the general commotion—prevailed. Free-floating lighting cones swooped in to focus spots on a semicircular gate. A fan-fare blew as the gate opened and a mounted figure plunged into the arena in a convergence of spots.
Everybody who was sitting came to their feet; those standing threw hands, hats, glasses into the air. Floyt and Alacrity winced from the volume as the whole house shouted, "HECATE!"
She cantered her mount around the ring, a splendid figure in her high-gloss black bodysuit with its glittery silver stitching, padded shoulders built in upflared tiers, cleavage cut below her navel to show off the taut, sinewy body. Hecate wore tall cavalier boots, and a low-slung gunbelt supported a pair of pistols riding in deep scabbards, butts forward.
A silver fillet held to the center of her forehead a frosty blue-white moonpure at least three centimeters wide; her jet-black hair streamed and tossed behind her.
She rode the standard Lebensraum saddle animal, a Clydesdale-size thing that put Floyt in mind of a tapir with an extra set of legs and delusions of grace. Its horns were flecked with motes of sparkle and its saddle and tack inlaid with gold.
The audience was still going wild, shouting her name. She waved to them, throwing kisses with both hands.
"Alacrity?" Floyt yelled, to make himself heard. "Does that woman look to be in her mid-sixties to you? She doesn't to me."
He was staring down at the smooth, cameo-lovely face and full breasts that seemed to linger in the air for a split-instant longer than the rest of her at the top of each bounce, rooting for them to bob free of the wonderful bodysuit.
"Tough to tell, Ho. She might've troweled on that stage makeup. Or maybe she's just in fantastic shape. Or she could've gotten treatments. But yeah, I was just thinking the same thing."
He was thinking, too, that she might know Precursor secrets that would make time and age irrelevant.
Hecate set herself in the saddle of her tapir-beast, which was known as a hoofalong, its ancestors having been imported from Shalimar, and began doing fancy riding tricks as the creature pounded patiently around the ring. She turned completely around in the saddle, then hung off to either side and did touch-and-go remounts. She hung off behind, pulled along by the hoof-along's tail, and vaulted back into the saddle, then clambored completely around the thing, sliding under its belly and hauling herself up again on the opposite side.
She did a handstand on the yoke-saddlehorn, then knelt on her steed's back, arms out to receive her ovation. Next, Hecate stood on her mount's bobbing croup, body rolling with its gait, hips moving in wave-curls.
"Look at this; they love 'er," Alacrity said. They did; the people in the Wicked Wickiup, especially on the terraces, were cheering themselves hoarse, women as much as the men or more.
"Quit salivating," Floyt advised Alacrity. "The White Ship, remember?"
Floyt meant it as a kind of weary joke; the effect wasn't so funny. The salacious look left Alacrity's face, and he inclined his head to himself a few times, taciturn and distant. "Mm-hmm; the Ship," he mouthed silently.
This sense of destiny stuff is starting to take precedence over his libido; it's completely out of hand! Floyt decided. But he held his peace. The terraces of the Wicked Wickiup were no place for a shouting match over the causality harp and Alacrity's dangerous secrets.
But as soon as we're back inboard the Lightning Whelk, Floyt made his mind up for the dozenth time …
Target holos orbited down into place, projected miniatures in shapes of celestial bodies, strange life forms, and darting starcraft.
The woman dropped back into the saddle and drew both long-barreled pistols, and began potting the targets out of the air. Each shot was a filament of yellow-green energy; each one popped a holotarget out of existence in a girandole of spark swarms and novabursts. New ones moved down from the darkness to take their places.
"I thought firearms were forbidden here," Floyt said at high volume, so that Alacrity could hear him.
Alacrity made an unsure face. "Bird guns, or maybe just flashlights, harmless. Or maybe she's just the exception to all the rules."
All at once Hecate swung around to ride backward, firing with the same speed and accuracy.
The targets started coming faster. She lay on her back plinking them from the air. On the next lap she was standing on her mount's croup again, both guns blazing, skeeting targets that destructed like skyrockets. Flowers and coins and gifts were showering around her.
A sunflare hoop was lowered, and a bed of up-ended bayonets. She took the jump expertly and trotted to the center of the ring to take her bows standing on the hoof-along's back. Only the antipersonnel repel field around the ring kept the smitten, aroused, and buzzed crowd from swarming down to show their feelings more emphatically or kidnap her or perhaps make her mayor of the planet.
Hecate was still bowing to mass adoration when Alacrity and Floyt worked their way down off the terraces. No one else seemed inclined to leave. The stomping, handclapping, cheering, and whistling echoed through the dome's back corridor as the two finally found the door leading backstage.
Leaving, Floyt happened to notice the lone, hooded occupant of the box. Whoever it was was still seated, motionless in the bedlam.
When at last they made their way to the dressing-room section, Floyt commented, "On ancient Earth they used to call this type here 'stage-door Johnnies.' "
The way was guarded by a trio of big, burly men with bouncer written all over them. Held at bay were assorted admirers, swells, playboys, and suitors, and some quite stunning stage-door Janes, all trying to get in to see Hecate.
Gifts ran to extravagantly wrapped boxes and bottles, and exotic flowers. Diverse bribes, ruses, and pleas were being plied on the door guards, who looked immune. Floyt and Alacrity forged their way toward the front of the crowd.
A Johnny in an erminelike robe scowled at them and barked, "Repair from here! Hecate has sworn to have dinner with me!"
Alacrity got ready to do a little detail work on the man with his brolly, but the remark provoked the toff in the silken lounging suit, standing nearby, who was under the impression that he had a firm date with the Queen of Lebensraum. They were soon pushing and shoving one another; Alacrity and Floyt bore on.
People began to notice their offworld clothes. That gave them a certain leeway to attract the attention of the Three Heads of Cerberus, at the portal.
"Now, how d'we get in?" muttered Alacrity.
As answer, Floyt pulled out his Wonderment, the gift he'd been given by the Sockwallet Outfit on his first visit to Luna. It was a commemorative coin with Yuri Gagarin's face on it, encircled by the inscription, April 12, 1961—April 12, 2461, and TERRA: 500 YEARS IN SPACE.
Alacrity watched admiringly as Floyt showed it to a guard, saying "I believe we're expected," then flipped it to him. The coin spun, throwing off light, as many people watched it, willingly or not. The Head of Cerberus snatched it from the air and inspected it.
"Right this way," he said. The two hustled to follow him through the door before the crowd could recover and get ugly. The corridor led partway around the curve of the dome's base. Eventually the guard stopped at another door and knocked, then opened it and leaned in to say something Floyt and Alacrity couldn't catch. He pulled back out and motioned them in.
Floyt, in the lead, paused with his empty palm in front of the guard's face, snapping his fingers. The husky glared but returned his Wonderment. The sidekicks entered, and the Head of Cerberus closed the door behind them with a bang.
Hecate was sitting at a makeup console, multiple pickups and imagers showing her face, neckline, and hair from all angles. The dressing room was filled with bouquets and wreaths. There were also stacks of gifts, most still wrapped.
She was glamorously lanky, her breasts too generous for the long-legged body. She still wore the guns and bodysuit, its exaggerated shoulders suggesting athletic padding, or armor. Seeing it at close range, Floyt couldn't decide if the mater
ial was leather, fishskin, dynamaflex, or what.
Her eye makeup made her look like a female pharaoh; her thick, musky perfume mingled with the cosmetics' smell, her perspiration, and the fragrances of the flowers. She looked to be a biological age of twenty or so, Alacrity saw, and had bright-red duraglaze glamornails on every finger.
She was pouring herself a shotglass of some violet liquor and inspecting them curiously, dark eyes shining and penetrating. "How'd you like the show?" She flipped the drink back and started pouring another.
"I thought you were superb," Floyt declared.
She raised her shoulders casually, accepting her due. She looked to Alacrity for another compliment but he blankfaced. "Do I know you two?" She rested the heel of one hand on a pistol butt.
Alacrity'd been ready to swear they weren't real weapons she was hauling, but suddenly he wasn't so sure. "Yes and no," he replied. "We've got something for you."
"And what might that be?"
"Some news," Floyt put in. "And an offer."
"We know about Loebelia Curry," Alacrity went on. "We know about her stock in the Ship. If we can find you, believe me, other people can, too. We've come to strike a deal. If you won't vote your stock, I want you to empower me to." He began slipping off his proteus.
She'd become uneasy. "I think you'd better go. We have nothing to discuss."
"Before we do, we should warn you," Floyt interrupted calmly. "Whoever you are, you're in over your head pretending to be Hecate. Your life's in danger, or will be soon if anybody's picked up our trail."
She was on her feet, taller than he. "What d'you mean, 'pretending'?"
"You enjoy the spotlight, wealth, and presents, and you still remain on Lebensraum. If you truly were Hecate you could have more of those than just about anybody alive, simply by going and claiming them."
Her eyes were slits painted for drama as her teeth clenched. "The company did send you to make trouble for me, didn't they? All I have to do is yell for help—not that I need it—and you two'll be ripped into such little pieces they won't be able to find you without litmus paper!"