by James Axler
Well, he could remember where he had been, if nothing else. The woman who had been haunting him for the past few days, the gaudy slut…No, wait, she wasn’t that. He could remember her saying something about a husband who never paid her any attention. Shit, some crazie with a blaster coming after him because his wife had been bedded by another man was all J.B. needed. Hell, he was confident he could best anyone in Hollowstar in a one-on one showdown. The trouble was, it wouldn’t stop there. Trader would get involved, that fat bastard Baron Emmerton would stick his flabby paws in, and it could turn into a real situation.
Wait, Dix, he cautioned himself, don’t get too carried away with the possibilities yet. Try and piece together what actually happened.
It came back to him, hazy at first, but starting to make sense as he was able to put pieces together. She’d asked them if they would buy her a drink.
Them?
Shit, he was supposed to be babysitting Hunn, seeing that she didn’t get out of hand. Trader would have his ass for that.
It had been early, the bar hadn’t been full. He could feel Hunn itching to get at the woman as she had come over. Hunn offering her whatever she wanted in a voice that made it clear she wasn’t talking about brew. Hunn making no effort to show her displeasure when she was lightly rebuffed and the woman had introduced herself to J.B.
“Sorry, sugar, but when I was asking for a drink I was kinda looking at the one with the dick. I’m just not that kind of a girl. But, hey, I can’t just call you the one with the dick, can I? So what does everyone else call you?”
J.B. smiled—the effort making his face hurt—as he remembered Hunn shaping some smart-ass answer before his eye caught hers.
So the Armorer had introduced himself, feeling less at ease than at any time he could remember for a long way back. That was one of the reasons he’d drunk so much. Why, when he’d faced more situations of danger than he could think of, should talking to a beautiful woman have caused him so much anxiety?
Because she was beautiful. Because she liked him. And maybe because he was aware of Hunn simmering in the background, getting more and more drunk, more and more bellicose with each round that slipped down her throat.
Her name was Laurel, and she had a voice like molasses—dark, low, slow and smoky with a sweetness laying over it all. Hell, that was about as poetic as J. B. Dix ever got, and even if it wasn’t that great, she’d seemed impressed when he told it to her.
She asked him what he did, and why she’d only just noticed him. He told her, and had noticed her face change when he explained that he was Trader’s armorer. He asked her what the matter was, and she replied only that it meant he wouldn’t be sticking around. He hadn’t known what to say to that, and she laughed in that low, smoky voice, saying that quiet men were a weakness of hers.
They talked about where he’d come from, and what he’d seen. He told her things that he hadn’t even told Trader. Why, he couldn’t say. Even in his inebriated state, he’d never felt the urge to unload his past onto anyone else.
She listened. Hell, she’d even been interested—or so it seemed. And yet, when he asked her about herself, she’d been less forthcoming. All she would say was that she was married to a man in the ville who had jack, but who neglected her. He was so absorbed in his work, and the little world he’d built around it, that he didn’t even notice whether or not she was there. J.B. had asked her who would be that stupe, but she hadn’t answered. She had remained silent, staring into his eyes, stirring up feelings within him that he wasn’t sure he had ever felt before.
Then she had leaned into him, and they had kissed. He could taste the alcohol on her breath, and the urgency. He knew that she wanted him like he wanted her.
Oh, yeah, and then Hunn had started a fight. All the while he and Laurel had been talking, Hunn had been drinking, and the bar had been filling up as the night drew on. At the edges of his attention, he had been aware that Hunn had been arguing with some big guy with a port wine birthmark on his face about who was the better hunter, who was the better shooter.
He had a loud, bragging voice, and had told her that women were shit at everything except cooking and fucking. Hunn had asked him how the hell he knew, as he was too ugly to get a woman cook for him, let alone fuck him. His answer was to pull out his cock and slap it on the bar, saying she’d soon change her mind if she tasted his meat. Her answer, unsurprisingly, had been to unsheathe her knife and nearly circumcise the fool.
J.B. had seen all this on the periphery of his attention and had ignored it. Hunn always picked a fight, when she was roaring drunk, and it was exactly why Trader had sent him out to babysit her. His job was to head this kind of shit off at the pass, not to be distracted by women and let Hunn practice amateur surgery.
He remembered pushing past Laurel, putting her behind him and telling her to take cover or get the hell out, before trying to get between Hunn and the big guy, who had just pulled his dick out of the way in time, and was reaching for his blaster—with his dick still dangling—while Hunn was trying to pry her knife from the bar surface, where it had stuck when she had rammed it down. A stinging, ringing blow to the side of the head was all he got for his pains.
And then it had broken loose. The blaster had gone off into the ceiling, plunging the bar into semidarkness as some of the lamps were knocked over in the rush to escape the shot. The bar was too well contained for anyone—apart from the enraged victim of Hunn’s anger—to risk letting off a blaster, it had become a battle of knives, blunt objects, fists and boots. J.B. was already too drunk to keep track of what was happening, but he did remember getting hit on the head.
So that was why he hurt so much—not just the brew. Scant consolation, but at least Trader would see that he went down trying to stop the fight.
He risked opening his eyes again and rolled over on the bunk. Hunn was beside him, covered in blood splatters that were not her own, snoring softly.
And there he had been, expecting to roll over and see Laurel. Maybe that was just as well, in the circumstances. J.B. risked pulling himself upright and was surprised, as his eyes focused properly and the room ceased to spin, to see Abe standing on the other side of rusty bars, watching him. A faint smile creased the rangy man’s face.
“Lucky for you that Emmerton prefers his men to take prisoners. Lot of villes would have seen you and Hunn buying the farm for this.”
“Mebbe the farm would be better than how my head feels right now,” J.B. countered.
“Don’t think that kinda shit will work with Trader.” Abe grinned. “Wake that stupe bitch up, and let’s get out of here before Emmerton changes his mind.”
“Eh?” J.B. rubbed his aching head with one hand and prodded Hunn with the other. She mumbled and moaned, but refused to awaken.
“Works like this,” Abe explained. “Hollowstar is pretty small, and they’re rich compared to a lot of villes because they make the most of what they’ve got, which means everything is stretched as far as it’ll go. Emmerton starts chilling people for bar fights, like most places, he ain’t gonna have much of a workforce before too long. And that’d fuck everything up. So if they step outta line, they get punished by a few days in here, stuff taken, working without jack for a while…anything to make their life harder, make them think before they do it again. Called ‘restitution’ or something. Ask Trader. He explained it to me once.”
“I figure he may have a few other things to say to me,” J.B. murmured, attempting once more to awaken Hunn.
Abe chuckled. “Yeah, you might be right at that.”
Hunn had moaned like hell when he had managed to get her awake, partly because she felt like shit, partly because she knew what Trader would say when they got out of jail. But she had to face it sooner or later, and once it was done it was done.
J.B. wasn’t as resigned. He knew he’d let Trader down, and as a man who prided himself on holding on to some honor in this pesthole of a world, he felt that he’d let himself down, too. The confron
tation with Trader wasn’t something he was looking forward to with any kind of relish.
Yet there were some consolations. The memory of how Laurel tasted when he kissed her. And, more importantly, the fact that when he left the jail building with Hunn and Abe, and made his way across the town square, he could see her. Everyone else was too wrapped up in their every day business to notice. Anyway, why should they care? Abe didn’t know who she was. And Hunn was too concerned with her aching head and the thought of having Trader rip into her.
But J.B. noticed her, standing on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the square, near the old storefront next to Luke’s. She was leaning against a stanchion, and when she caught his eye she blew him a kiss and mouthed “thank you.” For saving her from harm last night, he assumed. She had to have been waiting—for how long?
After that, anything Trader had to say to him wouldn’t matter.
PUNISHMENT WAS NOTHING more than a few harsh words and some detail cleaning out the wag latrines. Hunn had it worse—stripped of jack and her shares on this trip. She accepted it, and she accepted that J.B.’s punishment should be the lesser.
“Trader should have known putting a lightweight like you in to cover my ass was a mistake, John Barrymore,” she said with a grin as they stripped and cleaned yet another cesspool wag latrine.
“If you weren’t such a stupe, it wouldn’t matter,” he replied.
She looked up and away from the encrusted receptacle, glad to get some fresher air into her lungs. “All the same, you want to watch that bitch.”
“Why, because she prefers me to you?” J.B. questioned, with good humor.
Hunn shook her head. “Because you like her a lot. I see it all over your face, even though you’re in the middle of shit and piss. But soon we’ll move on, and she’ll still be here. Don’t want the iron man of the convoy distracted at the wrong moment. It could chill us all. Anyways, she’ll still be here. She’s always been here. That means she’s got people here, and people that could be trouble if they don’t like you messing with her.”
J.B. paused in his task. “I’ve thought of that, don’t you worry,” he said softly.
And he had. There wasn’t much else that had occupied his mind since he left the jail and had seen her waiting for him. Not that it was going to make a blind bit of difference. The Armorer was stubborn and single-minded when he fixed on an idea.
And he was fixed.
“I DON’T KNOW how much longer we’re going to be here,” J.B. said.
“Hon, it could be an hour, it could be a week. Emmerton’s an asshole when it comes to getting the jack rolling in. Shit, he never pays my old man when he should, always has to chase it. That don’t improve his temper none.”
She rolled over to face him, propping herself up on one elbow, squinting against the ray of light that penetrated the thin drape over the window. Her hair tumbled over one eye, the other screwed up, the better to see him. She had a thin sheet over her, and he could see the line of her breast beneath it. Her arm moved beneath the sheet, her hand reaching for him and squeezing.
“Mmm, you recover quick,” she said with a raise of the eyebrow. “Bet you’re real popular up and down the trade route.”
J.B. laughed. “You’d never believe me.”
“Try me.”
“I don’t usually do this. Mebbe a gaudy house now and again, but never like this. Never getting distracted from work. Keeping Trader’s armory in condition, building it for him, checking ordnance for trade…keeps me busy.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s a lot to be done.”
“No, I mean why work so hard for him?”
J.B. didn’t really have to consider his answer. “I owe Trader a lot. He took me out of nowhere, gave me something to live for. It’s a hard world to live in, and being with Trader makes it a whole lot easier. ’Sides, I like my work. Always been fascinated by blasters and explosives. Ordnance makes the world tick. Not much survived skydark, but those little beauties did. Machinery, engineering…intricate pieces that could survive anything. Got to admire work like that. And then there’s what they mean. Ordnance is power. It means you can get it, then keep it. Man with the best armory is the most secure, can run the best convoy, the best ville.”
It was as close to a philosophy as J.B. had ever gotten, and from the look on her face he could see that it had an impact on her.
“Haven’t heard you talk that much before now,” she said, shaking her head.
“Been too busy to talk much,” he countered.
“Yeah, that’s true,” she answered with a grin. Then her face dropped into a more serious expression. “I know why it is I like you. Why I want you.”
“And that is?”
She shrugged. “You remind me of someone. We were happy once. But he was like you. The only thing that mattered was what he did for the baron. Took up all his time, all his attention. Truth is that after a while I might as well have not been there.”
“That’s hard to believe,” J.B. said softly.
“Yeah, you say that now. But it’ll come down to that in the end. It always does.”
“So what does he do that keeps him away from you?”
“Aw, hon, we don’t want to talk about that,” she said gently, squeezing him under the sheet. “We got better things to do.”
HE CONTINUED TO SEE her every day. Before Laurel, his life had been orderly. Work was everything. And since they had been in Hollowstar, his friendship with Luke had been equally as important. But now he found himself juggling time that he didn’t have. He still wanted to get the work done, and spend time with the taciturn weapons master of the ville. Then again, he burned every time he thought of Laurel. Moreover, he had to keep his liaison with her secret. So he had to act normally and not call attention to himself while making time for her.
J. B. Dix was not a naturally devious man. It took Hunn no time at all to spot that something was amiss.
“Your trouble, John Barrymore, is that you’re incapable of lying,” she told him. And, when he demurred, she qualified, “Okay, so mebbe if it was life or death you could do it, and if it was a one-off. But a sustained lie is a harder thing to keep going. Sneaking around just isn’t you. Me? I dunno if I could do it, either. But I don’t put myself in that position. And you have. And man, do you suck at it.”
It made him a little more wary, but it did nothing to deter him. He was willing to take any amount of risks for her in a way that he had never considered before. J. B. Dix was a man who had weighed the odds on everything, and had never put himself or others at risk unless it was strictly necessary. Hunn had been telling him that this was now exactly what he was doing. The bizarre thing—the thing that he found it the hardest to assimilate in so many ways—was that the liberation it gave him to be acting in this way was more exhilarating that anything he had ever known.
Which was dangerous. It made him careless.
He would go about his everyday business as though in a trance. Things got done; conversations were held; the world of Hollowstar passed by his eyes. But it was all flat, in black and white. Even the heated conversations with Luke over the qualities of blasters and explosives no longer held the sparkle and fire that they had on the first meeting.
Despite that, even J.B. was living enough in the real world to realize that it wasn’t one-sided. After they had been standing side by side in silence for some time, J.B. watching Luke reconvert a recovered MP-5 from gas to real ordnance, the Armorer decided to broach new territory.
“You’re quiet.”
“I’m always quiet. It’s what I’m known for.”
“Yeah, but that’s with those stupes who know nothing about ordnance. Never heard you this quiet since I got here.”
Luke shrugged. “Mebbe I’ve got things on my mind.”
“Things that have nothing to do with blasters?”
“Life would be simpler if there was nothing but that. But there isn’t. That’s where it gets difficult.”
J.B., thinking of his recent complex life, could only agree. But he said nothing of this, only, “Any shit you want to talk about?”
Luke looked at him, puzzled. “J.B., do I strike you as the kind that likes to share shit?”
The Armorer shook his head. “No, but it’s what people are supposed to ask their friends, right?”
Luke’s face creased into something between a smile and a frown. “Appreciate that. But it don’t do no good. Not in the long run. Only action counts.”
“Guess you’re right there,” J.B. replied at length.
The two men lapsed into silence once more, with Luke working assiduously, until J.B. checked his wrist chron.
“Shit—Trader wanted me, and I’m late.”
“Never keep the boss man waiting, J.B. I’ll be seeing you,” Luke murmured without looking up.
J.B. nodded—to himself as Luke was still looking down—and made his way out of the workshop, past the cluster of old guys who were still in the storefront, playing cards in a concentrated silence.
When he got out onto the covered sidewalk, he didn’t turn and head for the area where Trader’s convoy was sequestered. He turned the opposite way, and set off for the far end of the ville. Between the goods spilling out of the storefronts, and the cluster of people going about their business, he saw her. She was standing at the farthest reach of the covered sidewalk, and it seemed to him that the crowds parted so that he could see her. Her hair blew out behind her in the breeze, dark curls tossed in the currents. A flicker of a smile played across her full lips, and her dark eyes met his with a playful sparkle.
It didn’t look exactly like that to the two people who were watching J.B. as he headed toward her. What they saw was more prosaic—Laurel leaning against a stanchion, pushing the hair from her eyes as the breeze blew it across her face, a pout on her face at not looking her best as her current squeeze hurried toward her. They saw J.B. push past people, step over goods and produce, without seeming to even notice they were there. Nothing could stay him from his destination; indeed, he seemed to speed up as he approached her.