Outland

by Alan Dean Foster

  O'Niel watched him work, noting his attitude and skill as he handled the lifter. He wasn't as quick with the complicated machine as some of the others, nor as smooth, but he did not make any mistakes.

  The Marshal's attention bounced back and forth between two screens: talk and load, load and talk. Spota and Yario. It was going to be a long day.

  The Club was never quiet, never closed. Like the miners, administrative flunkies, and service personnel there were different shifts of bartenders, dancers, and prostitutes. New dancers performed old steps and ancient bumps and grinds to the beat of fresh music.

  O'Niel's cameras changed to follow Yario in to the Club, where the overhead pickup latched onto him. As he watched he chewed mechanically on a sandwich of three slices of soy-based "meat" trapped between two slices of real bread. Like O'Niel, the wheat was a long way from home.

  He reached out and adjusted the zoom switch. The ceiling surveillance camera closed in on Yario but did not exclude from pickup those workers joking, drinking, and dancing immediately next to him.

  The shipping operator finally confronted a tall, smiling brunette. They immediately commenced negotiations. Io had no time for subtleties.

  Spota, meanwhile, had completed his outside tour and was on his way to the showers. The camera tracked him as O'Niel struggled to stay conscious.

  Later he watched Yario wolf down breakfast. Something had to break soon, he told himself. It had too, and it's likely to be me, O'Niel told himself.

  He picked at the remnants of the previous night's sandwich, attempting to masticate a stale mouthful. On screen, Yario continued to down his food, shoveling it in. O'Niel's mouth turned damp. The food looked wonderful.

  Morning turned into afternoon. Spota played some pinball and filled out a few reports, while Yario pushed ore around. O'Niel's eyelids felt like lead.

  Night again, the Club teeming with customers, the music tapes changed again and the dancers endeavoring their best to change steps to match it. People packed two and three deep around the bar.

  Yario was walking down a passageway, Spota down another. O'Niel used a wet wash cloth on his face. Both men walked on out of range of their respective cameras. The images on the two monitors flickered uncertainly for a few moments, then shifted automatically to new pickups.

  Spota entered the Club. So did Yario, from the rear entrance. O'Niel tossed the damp cloth aside, shook his head to clear it.

  Shoving his way through the crowd, Spota made his way toward the bar where he opened conversation with a male prostitute. Yario, sitting at an empty table, was soon joined by a redhead. Interesting, O'Niel thought absently, how people always differ from what you expect. He would have picked Spota for the ladies' man. He welcomed such surprises. They kept him wary.

  About an hour, he guessed. It was actually some five minutes sooner when Spota escorted his date across to the table where Yario was sitting. The foursome ordered drinks and chatted amiably.

  Workers swirled around the table, one spilling a drink on Yario, who displayed admirable restraint in simply ignoring the incident. To O'Niel's mind, that made the big man that much more dangerous.

  So far everything had gone about as he'd expected. Two new figures came into camera range and joined the foursome's conversation. One of them was Sheppard. That was a bit of a surprise, since the Club was such a public place.

  The other was Montone, which was a shock.

  O'Niel's body tensed as his eyes left Yario, left Spota, and ignored Sheppard. He concentrated on the other new arrival: no question but that it was the sergeant.

  While Spota and Yario stood making excuses to their intended dates, the camera tracked to follow the four men as they moved to a table at the rear of the Club. As soon as all were seated they launched into an intense conversation, leaning close to one another so as not to be overheard.

  O'Niel's fingers drummed on the side of the keyboard. His lips were pressed tightly together.

  The conversation didn't last long. Spota and Yario left the table first. As per instructions the overhead camera moved along with them. O'Niel hurriedly activated a second monitor and locked it on the table where Sheppard and Montone continued to talk.

  O'Niel kept watching them ignoring Spota and Yario for now. Eventually Sheppard rose, left Montone alone at the table. O'Niel left the pickup running, forced himself to turn his attention away from the sergeant and back to his two principal subjects.

  They'd returned to their former table, where their respective dates awaited them. Montone sat by himself for awhile, nursing his drink. Eventually O'Niel cut him off . . .

  VII

  The ball slammed off the smooth wall and rocketed toward the back of the court. It was larger and heavier than a normal tennis ball, and the racket O'Niel attacked it with was latticed with extra-strength nylon cable.

  The ball flew toward the rear of the twenty-foot high court. Gray sweat shirt and pants flapping, Montone lunged at the ball just in time to undercut a return. O'Niel played in shorts and old track shoes and moved as though slightly possessed, assaulting the ball as if it were a live enemy only he could destroy.

  Both men were perspiring freely, their jittery figures nearly lost within the comparative immensity of the scuffed white court. Despite the expanse and heavier ball, the low artificial gravity still made the ball relatively easy to chase down.

  Neither player exhibited much skill. Montone was slightly older and more experienced, relying mostly on spins and position. O'Niel, on the other hand, simply mugged the ball and attempted to overpower his opponent.

  The sergeant anticipated the location of his boss's next return and was able to slice the ball out of reach. O'Niel started for it, then slowed when it was clear he'd never reach it in time.

  "Shit," he muttered, hands on hips. He turned to await Montone's serve.

  "Nine seven." The sergeant dumped the ball high off the front wall. O'Niel went high to get it, followed Montone's diagonal return with a cut to a corner. Eventually the Marshal won the point.

  Breathless, he bent over and put his hands on his knees, fighting to get his wind. Montone ambled over, breathing equally as hard.

  "You going to tell me about it?" O'Niel asked his sergeant abruptly, between gasps. "Or are you going to sit on it all day?"

  Montone said nothing, handed the ball over, and returned to his line. O'Niel served it hard to his right but Montone blocked it, lifting a return nigh off the wall that make the Marshal leap for it.

  "Tell you about what?" the older man asked.

  O'Niel just managed to get his racket on the ball. His return was feeble, leaving Montone an easy put-away which he lofted softly into an unreachable corner.

  "Sheppard," the Marshal said.

  Montone's face paled slightly. He bounced the ball a few times, not acknowledging his partner. Eventually he served, putting a lot of backspin on the ball.

  "What do you want to know?"

  The serve didn't fool O'Niel who was ready and waiting for the backspin. He grunted with the effort as he powered the ball back toward the wall.

  "How deep are you in?"

  Montone used a kick off the side wall to gain leverage and chopped the ball upward, putting topspin on it this time and trying to richochet it off the ceiling.

  "Not too deep."

  "How deep is not too deep?" O'Niel held his position close to the front wall, waiting for the ball to descend and slamming it floorward. Montone lunged and hit it to the far side.

  "I'm paid to look the other way."

  "I get it." O'Niel was content just to return the ball. "You don't do anything bad, you don't actually help. You just don't do anything good. Right?"

  Montone didn't answer as he countered the shot, but his expression was pained.

  O'Niel continued. "I'm going to bust Sheppard."

  That brought a louder response from the sergeant; one of disbelief. "Are you serious?" He sliced the ball wickedly into a corner, cutting the velocity sharply.


  "Yes." O'Niel dove for the dying ball and just missed it. He rolled over on the floor, panting hard and not in any hurry to get up.

  Montone used the opportunity to try and regain his own wind. "This isn't the place for heroes. There's no publicity value to a big bust out here, no promotion and raise waiting for you if you succeed. Which you won't." He shook his head slowly.

  "You try to bust him, you're messing with more than you think."

  O'Niel slowly climbed to his feet, balanced his racket in the palm of his left hand while gripping it hard with the right. He stood and waited for the next serve. Montone bounced the ball, staring sideways at the Marshal and waiting for a comment.

  "You going to serve or not?" O'Niel asked him.

  With a weary frown, the sergeant whacked the ball toward the distant wall.

  "You're talking about the General Manager here," he said urgently, "not some penny ante pusher out to make a few bucks on the side. He's a real hot shot with the Company . . . I know, he's shown me his commendations."

  I bet he has, O'Niel thought tightly.

  "You're talking about big money," Montone went on. "You're talking about people and places that we only know of from letterheads, and people who never use letterheads because they don't want to be known."

  O'Niel missed the return, turned and poised himself patiently for the next delivery. Montone didn't bounce the ball this time but just stood on his line and turned to face the Marshal. A pleading tone crept into his voice.

  "I've got to warn you, the guy's connected, and to more than just the Company. I mean it. There's some serious stuff involved. Heavyweights. The kind you don't want messing around in your territory. Don't fool with them and they leave you alone. That's better all around."

  O'Niel looked sharply at him, his expression unchanged. "Better for whom?"

  Montone sighed, bounced the ball once, and spoke while gazing at the floor. "I don't understand you, Marshal. Busting Sheppard. What would it prove?"

  O'Niel returned his attention to the forward wall, still waiting for the next serve. "I'm not trying to prove anything."

  "Aren't you?"

  "No. I gave up trying to prove things a long time ago. But I've got to stop this, and I'm going to.

  "First of all, I don't like Sheppard. I don't like his face, I don't like his voice, I don't like him, period. Second, this stuff they're selling is killing people. I don't much like that either."

  Montone kept his eyes on his feet. He was still breathing hard, sweat dripping from his chin, and his gray sweats stained dark.

  "What are you going to do with me?" he muttered.

  O'Niel looked over at him, considering. Finally he said quietly, "I honestly don't know."

  "You want me to resign?"

  "No." He thought another moment. Both men stood quietly, one waiting, the other debating with himself.

  Finally O'Niel reached a decision. He'd known men like Montone before, just marking time until retirement, trying not to get in anybody's way, working hard to avoid stepping on important folks' toes. Montone wasn't evil—just weak.

  "Don't come between me and Sheppard," he told him. "Don't tell him anything, don't mention this conversation or the fact that I know what's going on. Just take your money and look the other way. Do for me what you're doing for him. I don't want you. You're small fry. I want him."

  Montone swallowed, his words barely audible. "I'm sorry I didn't turn out better."

  O'Niel was staring at the wall. "So am I."

  "My wife was no dummy." Montone's knuckles were white where he gripped his racket.

  "Your serve," O'Niel said curtly.

  Montone readied the ball, smacked it solidly toward the wall. O'Niel pounced on it furiously . . .

  Yario's fingernails were black with dirt and grime. He drew the back of a hand across his forehead just above the encircling bandana, then put the lifter back in gear and started it forward.

  O'Niel divided his attention between the view on the monitor and the paperwork that glared at him insistently from another screen. It wasn't hard to watch Yario while working on the bureaucratese. The latter was mostly routine stuff. It kept his mind busy.

  Clouds of ever-present dust swirled in the lights of the busy loading dock as massive lifters and cranes wrestled with the next cargo load of ore. Men and women shouted to be heard above the rumble of machinery.

  A familiar shape strode into the loading area, walking down a long aisle of ranked containers.

  O'Niel's hands left the keyboard as he turned his full attention to the two monitor screens. Spota, heading for Yario's lifter, walked right past it without so much as glancing up toward its operator.

  Several minutes passed before Yario finished aligning the ore carrier he'd been shifting, then touched switches. The huge armature stopped, the engine grinding to a halt. He swung himself down and started off in Spota's wake.

  Puffing on a fresh cigarette, O'Niel watched patiently. He'd been watching for a couple of days now, and eventually the monitors would show him what he'd been waiting for. O'Niel tried hard not to get excited. He'd been disappointed before.

  Spota turned down another aisle and stepped behind a row of containers that placed him beyond the overhead camera's line of sight. Yario had been walking faster now and was just behind him. Neither man reappeared immediately.

  Cursing the positioning of the surveillance camera, O'Niel leaned forward toward the screen.

  Yario re-emerged first and Spota let him get a fair distance away before re-entering the light. They walked off in opposite directions. Neither said a word to the other or exchanged any sign of recognition. Yario returned to his waiting lifter while Spota strolled casually out of the loading dock area.

  O'Niel played with the keyboard and controls, filling the center screen with the view from first one monitor, then another. At this critical moment he didn't trust the automatics to keep track of Spota. The man made his way through a succession of accessways, greeting those he knew in passing as though nothing unusual had happened. Which it hadn't.

  There was one frantic moment when Spota entered one accessway interchange and failed to appear on the other side. It took O'Niel several minutes of hectic manipulation before visual contact was re-established. Spota was now strolling down access corridor Twenty-seven. That was fairly close to the Security section.

  Close enough, O'Niel suddenly decided. He was fed up with watching screens.

  Grabbing the stubby riot gun from the rack behind his desk he tore out of the office, ignoring the startled salute of the deputy on station.

  Spota continued on his way toward the locker room, blithely unaware he was now being tracked by something less tenuous than a video monitor. O'Niel had already assumed that was his intended destination and where most of the exchanges were likely to have taken place.

  Of course, if Spota was fast enough, he'd be able to dump whatever he was holding into one of the disposal johns and face the Marshal with clean hands and dirty smile.

  At the moment there was nothing to induce Spota to take such reckless action, nothing to hint that today would be any different from the smooth routine of the previous day or previous weeks. The man continued deliberately on his way, only occasionally pausing to smile at a passing acquaintance or customer.

  O'Niel nearly knocked down the woman who was walking in the middle of his accessway. He was running full speed now, faster than he'd pursued the racket ball. The woman yelled after him but he didn't hear her curse, having already rounded the next corner.

  Spota reached the hatchway leading to the mens' locker room, opened it, and walked inside. He made his way past the video stations, past the lockers, past men dressing and undressing, past the oxygen fillup station where the next shift was finishing topping off prior to going Outside.

  O'Niel reached the hatchway half a minute late.

  Spota's progress through the room was slow, impeded by men coming off work who were in the process of removing their
bulky atmosphere suits. He didn't shove or push but took his time working a path through them.

  The hatchway slid aside with maddening slowness, though its reaction time was no slower than usual. It only seemed that way to O'Niel. He charged into the locker room, hesitated, searched the aisles anxiously. A few of the men looked up curiously from the noisy video screens, their eyes going wide at the sight of the riot gun.

  Spota was nowhere to be seen.

  Those workers who noticed the gun threw questions at O'Niel. Ignoring them, he ran the length of the locker room, peering intently down each aisle in hopes of catching a glimpse of his quarry.

  In the congested aisles it was difficult to tell one man from another. If Spota had planned his arrival for maximum concealment he couldn't have chosen a better time than shift changeover.

  Easy, O'Niel admonished himself, take it easy. They have no idea anyone knows anything about their operation. There's no reason for Spota to suspect and take evasive action. Unless Montone talked. He doubted that. The sergeant wasn't a doer.

  Spota turned a corner and started down an other aisle. O'Niel saw him just as he disappeared behind another row of lockers. The Marshal meandered through the busy workers, still ignoring questions, not caring who he bumped out of the way.

  A few of the miners elbowed aside turned to protest but most of them shut up when they saw the Marshal's bars on O'Niel's collar. The more pugnacious shut up when they got a glimpse of the riot gun.

  A younger worker far down the aisle had opened his locker and was stowing his work gear. He did it indifferently, not caring where the sometimes sensitive electronic components were placed. Most of his attention was devoted not to undressing but to the men up-aisle from his locker. He was evidently expecting someone.

  That someone was Spota. A flicker of recognition passed between the two. The younger man continued undressing, his movements becoming even more casual. His thoughts were not on his work.