Hangfire

by David Sherman

  Each day as the sky lightened into dawn, they were fed. The food wasn't the diet of fish, leaves, and tubers to which they were accustomed. Instead they were given a gruel with bits of fish, fragments of leaf, and strange, pulpy, white seeds of a kind they'd never seen before. The pulpy seeds, not in a gruel, seemed to be the major diet of the monsters, though they ate many fish and strange leaves as well. In the evening, as the sky was darkening to night, they were fed again. The inadequate diet weakened them even more.

  Then one day more creatures were brought in; frightened, bruised, and wailing. All were females of breeding age; no elders, no immature young. No males.

  When the new group arrived, the monsters stopped the six surviving females and herded the newcomers, about thirty of them, to them. Gabbling unintelligibly, the monsters got across what they wanted—the six were to teach the newcomers how to be slaves.

  How could they do that? They didn't know how to put the burdens on themselves; the monsters always loaded them and fastened the straps that kept the burdens on their backs. And they never knew when they were loaded from the flying nest which of the other nests they were to bear their loads to until a monster lashed them in the right direction.

  "Follow us," the oldest of the six called out. She staggered as she turned, but she didn't fall. She led the way to the huge, strange nest to which they were carrying their burdens.

  The newcomers were frightened, confused, but seeing that others of their kind were there and seemed to know what to do, they stopped wailing and fell in line behind the six. Soon, they were sure, their questions would be answered. Then the burdens were lifted from the six and the newcomers were filled with horror at sight of their oozing backs. They shrilled and cried and some of them tried to run.

  The monsters beat one of them to death as an example to the others. Then the heavily laden females followed the six to the flying nest, almost collapsing under their burdens. In line they moved along to another nest, each stumbling at least once. Each received blows, but struggled back to their feet. No more were killed that first day. Most adapted and became too dulled by exhaustion and weakness to care.

  The new mother was one of the third batch to be brought in. She gave birth little more than a week after her arrival. Her strength hadn't yet ebbed too low, and she thought she could manage. At each meal she allowed some of her gruel to dribble down from her mouth to the sac slit where her newborns lapped it up. She did her best to retain food in her mouth for her babes between her own meals, but often all she could give them was saliva she was barely able to work up. One of the two died several days after its birth, and, for a while it seemed that the other would survive. But it lasted only six days. Deprived of her babies, the young mother refused to rise for work the next morning. The monsters beat her to death. But the monsters didn't find the newborns; the other females had hidden the tiny corpses away.

  The Senior Master growled, "You were right. They make very good slaves. It is too bad they are so much weaker than their broad backs would suggest."

  The Junior Master bowed low to the Senior, uncertain whether to be pleased that the Senior Master thought his idea was good, or dishonored because the creatures were weaker than they looked. "Thank you, Master," he growled back. "You are right, Master."

  The two Masters stood in the lee of a porch roof, watching the centauroids struggle under their burdens.

  "If we had enough of them they would do nearly as much work as our tractors and we could unload the mothership in half the time."

  "Yes, Master." The Junior bowed again.

  The senior considered the slaves for a moment longer, then asked, "These are all females?"

  "Yes, Master."

  "The males are larger and stronger?"

  "They are larger, Master. I believe they are stronger."

  "Go out again. Bring back males this time."

  "The males are all armed, Master."

  "Kill any you must. Any you can disarm, bring back."

  "Yes, Master." The Junior Master bowed a third time and backed away.

  He lost two Fighters in the raid, but they brought back fifty male centauroids. The Senior Master had to laugh—the males were easier to break to the yoke than the females. And they were stronger. After additional raids, on which they lost only one more Fighter, they had more than two hundred male slaves. Construction and supplying of the staging base speeded up. The work was finished well ahead of schedule. The surviving beasts, all thirty-eight, were released.

  Thoroughly disoriented as well as weakened, the freed centauroids swam across the river and wandered into the forest. Most of them survived the swim.

  Two Junior Leaders watched the centauroids leaving, growled at each other, then went to the Senior Master with a proposal. The Senior Master barked out a laugh at their proposal and gave his permission for them to proceed. The two Junior Leaders stripped down to loincloths and took up swords. They followed the centauroids across the river and began hunting them. One hour later they returned and deposited the eyestalks they'd collected. One brought back twenty-one pair, the other seventeen.

  The Senior Master peered at the eyestalks. "Did you kill them all?" he asked.

  The Junior Leaders bowed.

  "I think so, Master," said one.

  "It is difficult to cut the heads off beasts that have no heads," the other replied.

  The Senior Master laughed.

  So did everyone else within hearing.

  Within the scheduled time, more Masters arrived, some senior even to the Senior Master in charge of the staging base. These Masters brought Leaders and Fighters with them. First they came in the thousands and then in the tens of thousands. When more than a hundred thousand had arrived, the operation was ready to begin. The most Senior Master ordered a ship to ferry the first wave to the target planet, a mere three light-years away.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was raining—again—on Thursday as the three Marines sat in the dining room at the Royal Frogmore, pecking away disconsolately at their breakfast. While none would admit to it, they were all very nervous as the hour of contact neared.

  "Goddamn rain," Claypoole muttered, "I don't see why anybody'd want to waste his money on this waterlogged hole. The skinks would love it."

  Pasquin cringed at the mention of skinks and looked hard at Claypoole.

  "I just don't give a damn," Claypoole responded, twirling a piece of beefsteak on the end of his fork. "And they can have this damned chow too." He threw his fork down. "Reindeer steaks are better than this cow shit stuff anyway."

  "Well, all this rain is depressing," Dean offered. "But Rock, don't forget, you met Katie here. The place can't be all bad then, can it?"

  Claypoole brightened at the mention of Katie. "Yeah! Hey! I wanna take you guys some place this afternoon."

  "That library you been talking about?" Pasquin asked.

  "Yeah. Let's go over after lunch. Hey, Raoul, maybe you can pick up a girl there!"

  "Afternoon's a long way off. What do we do until then?" Dean asked.

  "Get drunk?" Pasquin offered

  "I'll drink to that!" Claypoole responded. Then suddenly he shot straight up in his chair and the color drained completely out of his face.

  "Hey, buddy, what's up?" Pasquin asked, genuinely concerned. He turned around to follow Claypoole's gaze but could see nothing amiss in the dining room.

  "Rock, what is it? Are you sick?" Dean asked.

  Claypoole swallowed, "N-No. Turn around to your left, very slowly. Three tables over. She's sitting by herself. See her?" As he spoke, Claypoole concentrated on the food still left on his plate.

  Casually, as if stretching, Dean looked in the direction Claypoole indicated. He saw nothing out of the ordinary at first, two or three tables with early morning diners enjoying their food. Then he too stiffened. "My God," he sighed, "it's a small universe, ain't it?"

  "What? What? Whadaya see?" Pasquin followed Dean's gaze and then looked back at him anxiously and shru
gged his shoulders. "Whadaya looking at?"

  "That middle-aged woman sitting by herself over by the waterfall. See her?"

  "Yeah. So what?"

  "That's Juanita from Wanderjahr, Raoul," Dean answered.

  Pasquin regarded the two quizzically and then it hit him. "You mean the woman who ran that bar where...?" Everyone in 34th FIST knew that someone had tried to assassinate Dean and Claypoole as they sat out back of Juanita's, drinking with some girls. A woman named Maggie, apparently someone Claypoole had fallen for, was killed in his arms. He'd never quite gotten over it. "Jeez, what a coincidence," Pasquin muttered. "Do you think she still holds it against you?"

  Claypoole nodded.

  "Ah," Pasquin made a dismissive gesture, "who gives a shit? We're here, we got money, we're havin' a good time. No old bitch is gonna screw that up on us, right?"

  "I wonder what she's doing here?" Dean speculated aloud.

  "I don't know," Claypoole said, "but let's split. I've lost my appetite."

  As the three stood and gathered their rain gear, Juanita looked up at Claypoole. Their eyes locked.

  "Oh, shit," Claypoole sighed, "she's made us. Damn, what a way to start out an otherwise perfectly awful day."

  Juanita stared silently at the three. To Dean and Pasquin, it seemed she fixed Claypoole with a particularly icy stare. She only looked at them for an instant but to Claypoole it seemed an hour. Then she got up, spun on her heel and stalked out.

  "Whew!" Pasquin breathed again. "Someone just walked over my grave!"

  "Aw, jeez, Raoul, I could have gone all day without hearing a remark like that!" Claypoole muttered as he shrugged into his rain gear.

  By the time they got outside, Juanita had disappeared. "Now what?" Pasquin asked as he stood under the awning trying to avoid the pouring rain. Placetas boasted all the conveniences of modern life except the climate-controlled environment most twenty-fifth-century city planners preferred. It was thought natural weather enhanced the "atmosphere" of life on Havanagas, and for most visitors it did. But not for Marines. They got enough "natural" weather in the Corps.

  "Let's go to The Suicide King," Dean suggested.

  "And let's get drunk," Claypoole added, "but not too sautéed to pick up Tara and Katie and make it to the library this afternoon. Man, they got this book in there I want you guys to see—"

  Dean smiled to himself and winked at Pasquin. Claypoole was getting back to normal.

  It was a little past three p.m. when the cab let them out in front of the Free Library. None of them was feeling any pain by then. Laughing and shouting, they stumbled up the steps toward the giant doors. Impulsively, Katie tried to climb onto one of the mythical beasts standing guard, and on unsteady legs Claypoole tried to give her a boost, with the result that she slipped and they both rolled screaming with laughter down the stairs into the street. They lay there, gasping and laughing, as the rain streamed down from the skies and traffic swerved to avoid them.

  Wearily, Pasquin came to their aid, and as he helped Katie to her feet he couldn't resist laughing at the sight of them, soaked through and bedraggled as a pair of alley cats.

  The five of them stood, sopping, in the middle of the high-ceilinged foyer, tiny puddles of rainwater collecting on the floor about their feet. Tara giggled uncontrollably. Gerry Prost walked from behind his desk and, rubbing his hands together warmly, greeted Katie. "We'll have to get you out of those wet clothes," he said with a smile. "Can't have you handling our priceless books with all that water around."

  Several of the unoccupied girls inside had come out to see what the commotion was all about. "Any of you unattached?" an attractive brunette asked.

  "Yeah, him." Claypoole pointed at Pasquin and laughed.

  "See you later, then," she said, winking broadly at Pasquin.

  Prost gestured to one side of the foyer at doors marked with the ancient alchemical symbols for copper and iron. "In this season we have to be prepared for things like this. Put your clothes into the hampers provided and they'll be returned quickly, dried, cleaned, and pressed. Please come to my desk inside when you're ready."

  Twenty minutes later, with their dried clothes returned and themselves considerably sobered up, the five stood before Prost's desk. Surreptitiously, Pasquin glanced at the time. Good. They had a few minutes before Culloden was due to show up. Despite himself, Pasquin's pulse had quickened the closer they got to the meeting time. Nervously, he fingered the reader attached to his belt as Prost droned on about the old book he had spread out before him. He glanced about the room. The brunette, sitting in a carrel off to one side, nodded at him. A man and a woman, arms wrapped around each other, slowly mounted the grand staircase to the upper floors. He found himself wishing he had come to the library first off instead of that dive he'd wandered into that first night.

  "...by Anton Koberger of Nuremberg, Germany, in 1493," Prost was saying. "Imagine! That was only nine months after Columbus discovered America! Koberger probably wasn't even aware of that momentous event when he printed this copy of the Liber Chronicarum, commonly referred to as the Nuremberg Chronicle! And here you have before you, my dears, an original leaf from that very same edition. Just this one leaf, children, but it's a beaut, ain't it? Cost us a pure fortune!"

  "Gerry, is this a new acquisition? I've never seen it before," Katie exclaimed as she bent over Prost's desk, peering intently at the folio leaf in its slipcover.

  "Ah, my dear, it just arrived this afternoon! I was able to purchase it from an estate sale on Gymnestra!" What Prost didn't know is that the mob's capo on Gymnestra had put the word out that he wanted the item, so as soon as the reserve had been met, bidding, strangely, ceased. But it was obvious Prost was in his element. "Now," he rattled on, "the very interesting thing about the Chronicle is these woodcuts, hundreds of them. See on this leaf for instance, we have all the kings of Persia. In 1493 Darius and those boys were still mighty big names. Now look down here, under Artaxerxes, these two guys are Democritus and Heraclitus, the Greek philosophers. It says, ‘Heraclitus philosophus asianus cognomento,’—that's Latin—‘Scotinus hoc tempe in—’" Prost suddenly stiffened. He shifted his gaze to someone who'd just come in from the foyer. "Good afternoon, Lovat," he said, his voice carefully neutral. Katie and Tara did not greet the newcomer but it was evident they knew who he was and were afraid of him, because they looked nervously down at the floor as he approached.

  Lovat! The three Marines almost whirled as one to shout "Whores, fours, and one-eyed jacks!" but by now they'd learned to stifle such impulses.

  Lovat Culloden stood over six feet tall with a chest as broad as a horse's and flaming red hair to match, so red it looked orange, and Dean's own red hair looked positively dull by comparison. He stood there silently for a moment, regarding the three Marines.

  "Lovat is in charge of security in Placetas," Prost offered. "He often comes here to check on things," he added dryly.

  "W-Well," Pasquin stuttered. This was not starting out as they had expected. Not at all! "Uh, have we done something, sir? I mean—"

  "Button your goddamned lip, mister. You and your friends get your goddamned asses outside and into my car, pronto." He gestured toward the door. "You." He turned to Katie and Tara. "Don't wait up for these boys." He turned to Prost. "I'll see you later, Mr. Bookworm." The threat in his voice was obvious.

  Outside, they climbed into Culloden's car. He was driving and there was no one else inside. He fiddled with a small handheld device. "That'll screen us from surveillance," he said, "but we've only got a few seconds, otherwise someone'll wonder why I turned it on." He put the device away. "Now, just what in the ever-living hell does Nast think he's doing? Does he want to get us all killed?"

  "W-What do you mean?"

  Culloden snorted. "You been fingered, that's what! And look at it this way: two thousand people a day arrive here. Any one of 'em could be an agent, understand? Who do you look for first? Mom and Pop Blitzflick with their kids, or three bozos who stand o
ut like sore thumbs? You know the last time any discharged Marines visited Havanagas?"

  The three shook their heads.

  "Never. Never! I checked the records all the way back. Never. When does any Marine save enough of his pay to visit a place like this, huh? Any GI or any sailor for that matter? What was Nast thinking?" he pounded his knee in frustration.

  "Well, I mean—" Dean began.

  Culloden silenced him with a shake of his head. "I should have known it was you three. My office checks all the flight manifests. Now it looks as if I'm not doing my job and so I'm under suspicion too. Talk about dumb!" He smacked his palm into the side of his head.

  "Who fingered us?" Pasquin asked.

  Culloden shook his head. "Some old bitch, I don't know how the hell she knew who you were. Works as an independent agent for the mob and is very respected down here." Claypoole groaned out loud. "What? You know her?" Briefly, Dean explained, a sinking sensation growing in his stomach as he spoke. Culloden shook his head again. "Well, you guys better talk fast or we're all dead. Try to relax and get your stories straight. Act normal, or what passes for normal for Marines."

  "Uh, sir, who is it we're going to see?" Claypoole asked.

  "Johnny Sticks, counselor to the Ferris Family. He's your worst nightmare."

  One look at his emaciated body and it was easy to understand why Gozo Paoli was called Johnny Sticks. He sat comfortably in his office—more like a fortress than a place of business—in the hills some thirty kilometers north of Placetas. As they drove up the mountain into Paoli's compound the Marines instinctively noted checkpoints, the number of guards, their weapons, fields of fire. Third platoon could take the place easily, they concluded individually, and all three wished fervently the rest of third platoon was with them.

  The points of Johnny Sticks's bony knees showed clearly through the dressing gown he was wearing. "Enjoying your stay here?" he asked the three visitors. His voice rasped, dry as the wind across the Martac Waste. His eyes were too big for his narrow, hatchetlike face and, aside from his thinness, they were the most remarkable thing about him.