by Brian Daley
She looked at them sidelong. "Are you two sayin' you were happier before all this happened to you?"
They didn't answer right away. Then, at almost the same time, Floyt said, "Nope," while Alacrity muttered to his pathfinder boots, "You got us there, Circe."
Alacrity went on, "Yeah, but: it's still no fun being Life's Makiwara-board. And speaking of adversity, you're in a position to do us a favor, if you feel like. I'm figuring we're gonna run into trouble trying to get to the White Ship meeting; people will be watching our crate, the Whelk, maybe even impound her or something by the time the meeting's called. But you've got a lot of pull around Spica; we might need a ride."
She patted his knee, her hand covering it. "Don't give it another thought; I'll get you there. Who're we up against?"
"Everybody," Floyt said sourly. "Like always."
"Worry no more." She took another sip. "Did I tell you I shot a musical number in that White Ship for my last Special?"
They talked and drank a lot more, swearing eternal fealty with some kind of complicated triple handshake Floyt had never seen before. Circe left by a connecting door between the two suites that opened only to a two-part combination, one part supplied by her and one by Alacrity.
Floyt and Alacrity found their way to their rooms. Floyt, head spinning, expected to go to sleep at once, but found himself thinking, instead, of Paloma Sudan, and wondering where she was.
Then all at once, Alacrity was shaking him and Spica's first light was pouring through the window.
"Hey, wake up! The board meeting! Ho, they've called it!"
Chapter 17
Or What's A Heaven For?
Hair meticulous and fluffed from the auto-grooming suite, Floyt was fastening himself into his freshly laundered and starched tux when Alacrity came trotting past his door.
"Make sure you've got everything you want to take, Ho. There's gonna be a limo here for us any second, and chances are we won't be back this way."
"But Alacrity! I thought we were going to take up Circe on her offer of a ride. I thought you said the Whelk isn't going to be permitted to raise."
Alacrity, who'd disappeared, backed up into the open doorway. He had his warbag in his hands. "Could be; I gave Circe a call and she'll be here in a few minutes, so hurry!"
Floyt did, but there wasn't much more to do and not much he wanted among the junk luggage they'd bought on Rocket Row. He took loving pleasure in settling his fob, chain, and new proteus into his blindingly white vest.
The limo was rakish and new, much bigger than the one they'd arrived in. Alacrity had ordered it so, with Circe in mind, but it was just as well for the chauffeur, too, a real ogre, bigger than the Sceptered Isle's Moloch doorman. His uniform, cap, and low-caste mask were all resplendent. He opened all passenger doors briskly and came one precise step into the drawing room.
"Number of passengers, sir?" the muffled voice said.
Alacrity was busy at a terminal. Floyt was looking through the provisions in the drawing-room larder, looking for something they could take along for a make-do breakfast-in-transit; he was ravenous and vitamin-starved from the drinking bout. Hangover remedies from the bath chamber pharmacy had taken hold and food was very much on his mind as he sipped at a tumbler of fruit juice.
"Three passengers, and just get the one bag, hmm?" Floyt gestured to the warbag; the chauffeur went to fetch it.
As the man passed by, Floyt caught a whiff of some strongly evocative scent, something the man's hygiene sprays and aromatics didn't quite overpower. It reminded Floyt vividly of some other specific time and place. He couldn't resurrect it, though, and was about to go back to his rummaging when he got a last faint whiff. And then it hit him.
Old Four Smokes Wallop! He'd smelled it for days, there in the Whelk before the traces had been absorbed by the ship's atmosphere regenerator, and had that one sickening swallow of the stuff the Golem drank, and would forever connect it with the Golem's huge makeshift bunk.
Floyt suppressed his first impulse, which was to drop the fruit juice and yell. Months of tight-sphincter situations in the company of Alacrity Fitzhugh had given the onetime Earthservice functionary object lessons in timing and the importance of that moment of deliberate setup.
Still bent at the waist in front of the big open larder, he set down the juice tumbler quietly and drew the bulky Webley from its shoulder holster, pinky hooked down to keep the lanyard ring on the butt from clinking, shielding the motion with his body. Floyt turned calmly, bringing the revolver up with both hands, cocking it with both thumbs.
"Alacrity!"
Floyt had to yell; jacket drawn up, the enormous chauffeur was pulling something from his waistband. Alacrity began to pivot and the chauffeur's head swung toward Floyt, the weapon coming clear with great speed.
But Floyt had already fired. The dum-dum round cracked, batting the air hard against their ears, impairing hearing, even in the vast drawing room, putting smoke and fire into the air. Whatever the intruder was pointing had almost but not quite come to bear; the hours Floyt had spent practicing on the target range at Old Raffles paid off in that he scored a first-round hit at some ten paces, a very respectable piece of marksmanship in the insanity of a pistol fight. Alacrity was frozen, his discarded Sam Browne and sidearm in Floyt's line of fire, near the chauffeur.
Gentry Standing Bear felt himself a human flame, as he always did on the hunt and especially at the pounce. It didn't bother him very much that his plan had gone wrong; plans were only a general guide anyway. Except he couldn't quite figure out how Floyt had pierced his disguise, which gave Standing Bear a vicious disquiet.
If his mission had been a mere execution, it would've been over the moment Standing Bear stepped in off the landing stage. But the orders had been changed; Langstretch wanted answers to some questions about the White Ship, and that required live prisoners. Standing Bear didn't usually tolerate that kind of restriction, but he felt a personal vindictiveness toward Fitzhugh and Floyt for the way they'd killed Plantos on Luna and for inconveniencing him, Standing Bear. And so he'd agreed.
He'd been inclined to hit them with the stungun from the doorway, but the angles of the halls were a little funny and suspicious, and there was no way to be sure, from there, that there was no one else waiting to take a shot from ambush.
And so he'd gone in, to see for himself that he wouldn't take a beam, or one of those deranged split-slugs like the Earther fired, in the back while loading the unconscious Floyt and Fitzhugh into the limo. Standing Bear now had Fitzhugh's weapon spotted and knew Alacrity couldn't get to it without the risk of getting shot by his sidekick. The Earther had only a bullet gun, as intel reported, so as far as. Gentry Standing Bear was concerned, things were still pretty much on schedule.
But that was just about the time Floyt's first dum-dum round missed Standing Bear's midsection and made a hit—almost square on the muzzle of the stungun. The stun-gun jumped in the giant's hand, fragments and pieces of bullet tearing at his clothes, his hand jolted and chewed up, blood weltering.
It numbed Standing Bear's right hand a bit and rendered some of the fingers useless, and the blood loss would have to be seen to. But beyond that the shot was no great bother; Standing Bear had long since concluded that he didn't feel pain as others did; he was in fact contemptuous of it.
But Floyt knew what he was doing; the Earther fired again, right away, single-action for accuracy, not waiting to see what the first shot had done. It was like the Langstretch reports said: Floyt wasn't some shakey little Earthservice functionary anymore. Standing Bear almost admired his calm.
Another dum-dum round hit, this one squarely, as Standing Bear heaved the stungun at Floyt, missing. The dum-dum broke against Standing Bear's body armor, ripping up the chauffeur's jacket. Standing Bear lurched for Alacrity's Sam Browne belt with a fierce exultation. Floyt fired again, this time missing, chewing up some textured wallpaper.
Alacrity saw the huge interloper going for the Captain's Sidearm an
d dove to beat him to it, yelling so that Floyt would notice him and not accidentally shoot holes in a pal.
But the big man was very fast. Alacrity bounced off him, not something Alacrity was used to, being swung aside and jounced into the air by the swing of an arm thicker than his waist.
Knowing his hand would never fit inside the pistol's basket handshield, nor his finger inside its trigger guard, Standing Bear grabbed the gunbelt and tossed the whole affair high into one of the lighting sconces.
Floyt held fire until he saw Alacrity smashed aside, then he let fly again. This time Floyt was sure it was a hit; the round broke up against the man's upflung forearm and pieces of it ripped at the mask.
None penetrated; Floyt realized the chauffeur's disguise was bulletproof and regretted that the Webley didn't throw something with a little more heft—like exploding tunnelpoints, or depleted transuranics.
Then Standing Bear was charging at Floyt. Floyt planted his feet, held the pistol in both trembling hands, thumbed back the hammer coolly, and fired for the right eye. And missed.
Standing Bear felt safe attending to the Earther before taking care of the breakabout; Fitzhugh seemed stunned when he was flung against the sculpture pedestal. To Floyt it looked like he was being charged by a rhino in a chauffeur's suit, but he did his best to steady his aim, squeezing the trigger again.
The hammer fell with a pinging click. Floyt had kept an empty chamber under the hammer, and five rounds were gone.
Standing Bear didn't hit Floyt full tilt. That would've snapped the Earther's spine across the bar and almost certainly killed him with various fractures and concussions and massive internal injuries. Standing Bear's giant hand, dripping his own blood, closed on Floyt's throat in a blood-choke hold, and the Langstretch stringer pulled out his injector kit.
But as Floyt began to go under, pinned and straining, helpless as a hatchling, Standing Bear took a quick look at Fitzhugh to make sure he hadn't come around yet. As he began to turn, he took a bar stool full in the face.
Alacrity had fallen back on doctrine, pretending to be hurt worse than he really was. The stool jolted Standing Bear's head around, wrenching the low-caste mask loose and opening a gash on his forehead that seeped blood, but not bothering him much otherwise. But he dropped the limp Floyt to see to this more immediate problem.
Alacrity made the mistake of looking at Standing Bear's face. It was distorted and horrific from old wounds, much of the nose gone and teethmarks still showing on what was left, which was also flattened and crooked from uncounted fractures. Eyes ridged with thick, scarred tissue stared at him madly, quite madly. The cheek was distorted from some terrible, ripping wound.
The sight made Alacrity a half-tick slow, and though he got a good hunk of Standing Bear's forehead with the second swing, it wasn't enough. Standing Bear rolled with it, coming up at Alacrity like an avalanche in reverse.
Standing Bear blocked a third lick with his invulnerable arm, which he then brought down across Alacrity's collarbone, dashing Alacrity back and bashing the remains of the bar stool from his hands. Standing Bear pulled his follow-up elbow-strike quite a bit, so as not to stove in Alacrity's chest, and stretched him out straight, first in the air and eventually on his back.
Standing Bear turned to get his injector kit, flipping it open one-handed on rows of prepared dosages. Floyt and Fitzhugh would be nice and quiet for the limo ride, and more than ready to talk when they got where they were going, entranced and ready to babble.
Alacrity had bumped his head and lost consciousness for a second; now he came back into focus as a titanic weight settled on his chest and arms. He winced up at the ogre, remembering what was going on after an instant, but at a loss as to even one move. Standing Bear knelt on him, bringing an autostyrette into line with his neck. Somewhere in the background, Floyt was wheezing and gasping pitifully.
And the next thing Alacrity knew, Standing Bear was arching back and up, the swing of the styrette missing Alacrity's neck by a few centimeters, the Langstretch man yanked partway off him. Standing Bear stabbed the styrette at the forearm, broad as his own, that had locked around his throat, but the pneumostyrette triggered against thick leather, the sleeve of a battle jacket, and puffed its charge harmlessly.
Standing Bear was limber as a snake in battle. He turned and secured some kind of hold; he and his opponent both lost balance and sprawled. Luckily for Alacrity, they fell away from him, and so he wasn't crushed.
Circe Minx tumbled and rolled clear, trying a kick to Standing Bear's head as she did. He barely ducked it, chopping hard at her ankle, but his slab-hand only slid along her calf. The floor drumrolled under their huge weight. Standing Bear tried to capitalize on his offensive but brought himself up short, Circe's snapping, backhand blow barely missing smashing in his face.
They were up in an instant, in fighting crouches—amazingly low and limber stances, considering their sizes. Circe had the reach and weight, but there was no telling about brute strength or skill, except that both of them had plenty. The wounded hand didn't hamper Standing Bear much.
Circe kicked an antique table out of her way with the flick of a foot. Gentry Standing Bear smiled hideously; her, at least, he didn't have to take alive. Too bad there wasn't time for more fun with her …
He went in low but was rocked by her first two-handed blow; thereafter he kept his head pulled in, blocked with forearms and legs. Circe was amazed when Standing Bear took the best she could throw at him and kept coming. She didn't take time out to chide herself for not bringing a gun when she'd heard the commotion in the western suite; she got on with the program at hand, which was, in short, to plant the monster for good.
Standing Bear got in under a kick—because she was out of practice, Circe was positive; she'd never missed in the old arena days—and started to footsweep her. But she hopped over the footsweep and rammed an elbow around into the side of his head, and he growled like some animal.
Circe was unbelieving that she hadn't knocked him unconscious; she'd concussed much bigger opponents with that same shot. Standing Bear grappled close with her, the two losing balance and hitting the thick carpet. She bridged, almost reversed his hold, but he resisted her with more strength than she'd ever come across in someone so much less than her own size. Standing Bear tried to knee her in the crotch but she twisted away, also avoiding the headlock he attempted.
They were rising to their feet. Circe Minx got in a hip throw, slamming her enemy down hard enough to knock a painting off a nearby wall and shatter the bones of a lesser opponent. Standing Bear grunted out a little breath but was squirming to come at her again almost immediately, unhurt. Panting, she left herself open a little; as he went for her eyes and got a one-knuckle punch into her short ribs, she grappled. A gorgeous antique settee fell to splinters under them as they went down again. Circe got him in the mouth with her fist as they fell, drawing blood but knowing it wasn't enough to stop a demon like this.
Then Alacrity was swaying over them with another bar stool. Alacrity couldn't reach his own gun and had no idea where Floyt's ammo was, and there was no time to go looking.
Circe was working a chokehold on Standing Bear from beneath. The stool came down, the blow jarring Alacrity's shoulders, without doing much more good than the first. The monster swept out an arm and grabbed Alacrity as Standing Bear wove and gathered Circe in, too, because she was hampered by not wanting to hit Alacrity.
Standing Bear began exerting pressure, hugging, gathering them tighter. Circe couldn't maintain her braced chokehold on Standing Bear without risking breaking Alacrity's neck in the press.
Circe Minx reflected on how the folks on Damfino would be disappointed if a local gal got herself beat by some overmuscled runt three quarters her size. She tried fingers to Standing Bear's eyes, but he buried his head against her and his chest, and tightened his grip, making Alacrity groan in agony.
The sound of that explained why Standing Bear didn't detect Floyt, who was staggering his way.
Floyt half knelt, half fell across Standing Bear's back, swung two hands wide, and brought them in to strike at both sides of the huge man's neck. Standing Bear batted him away with a brief snarl. Floyt was knocked back, dropping the two autostyrettes he'd snatched at random from the injector kit.
Bit by bit, Circe felt the machinelike pressure slacken. She was careful to push the thick arms loose without exerting more pressure on Alacrity, who was out. Floyt was trying to get to his feet, to help, without much success.
Gentry Standing Bear was unconscious, but his eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. And, whoever the man was, he liked violence; Circe could see that clearly from a certain very pronounced physiological response he'd had to the fight, one that was visible through the chauffeur's uniform.
* * * *
"Langstretch, all right," Circe pronounced a short time later. She was examining the injector kit. Floyt and Alacrity had come around and didn't appear to have any serious injuries. But they were a bit dopey and a lot shaken.
"Yeah; I think I've been using his bunk inboard the Whelk," Alacrity said, kneading his scalp. "What'd Ho shoot him up with?"
Circe squinted at the markings on the two empty styrettes. "Some sort of hypnoblank, looks to me. The fella 'pears to have a clean slate, here."
True enough. Standing Bear hadn't moved or done a thing since Floyt got the twin dosages into him. He simply sat on the floor, gazing off into space, mouth hanging open, a little saliva falling off his chin in a thread every so often.
"Hey, buddy! Close your mouth!" Circe said. Standing Bear did.
"I think I know what this stuff is," Alacrity concluded. "This ex-Langstretch agent, Victoria, told me about it back on Blackguard. This guy is a wipe, all right. Complete personality dump."
"Well, whatever it was, it wasn't what he was going to use on us," Floyt said, tending a bump on his head with an iced towel. He was holding the styrette Standing Bear had been about to use on him when Circe showed up. "This thing has the same markings as that other concoction Victoria showed us, Alacrity—that conversational elixir? At least Langstretch isn't trying to execute us outright these days."