The door was gone. I fetched up against a wall. Suddenly Trub was there between me and the man with the club. He snarled and swung the weapon, grunting with effort, clearly intending to make a home run with her head.
She dodged the blow with a move that was pure kung-fu ballet in its grace and precision, at the same time burying her artificial hand in his bulging gut. The blow folded him over bug-eyed.
She stepped back lightly. The man dropped to his knees, clutching his belly and gagging.
“Don't get up,” she said mildly. “I know the way.” She glanced back at me. “Come on, let's go see Poppa Poppy.”
When she said that I was finally able to place the smell: the beguiling reek of opium, a smell that occasionally wafted from the back rooms of certain cribs in one part of the city I haunted.
I followed her as she stepped around the guy she'd felled and toward a wide doorway leading deeper into the shadowy structure. Two more big men armed with clubs suddenly filled the opening, blocking our way.
Trub paused, looking them over like a cat offered a pair of tasty mice. “I'm going in to talk with your boss,” she said in the tone of voice someone might use telling a restaurant hostess that she had a lunch reservation. “You've got two choices. Either I go past you, or through you.” A smile that had more than a little crazy in it. “Doesn't much matter to me.”
They checked out their compadre on the floor. He was still flopping and gasping like a walrus in need of the Heimlich Maneuver. One punch. The lady had a wicked left.
“We won't forget this, bitch,” the one on the left growled as he stepped aside.
Trub laughed. “And here I didn't think you people learned.”
“We'll learn you," the other blustered, but he too moved back out of her way.
“This is your lucky day, kid,” Trub said without looking back. “You get to meet one of the biggest slimeballs in this stretch of the Hoop.”
I wasn't sure I wanted to meet any slimeballs, figuring I already knew plenty of them. But staying out there with the two door-thugs wasn't that appealing an option either. They were already eyeing me like a safe, convenient outlet for their frustration.
“Why not?” I said, trailing behind as she pushed past the guards and through the doorway. It was even darker on the other side. The opium reek thickened.
As my eyes adjusted I was able to get a better look at our surroundings. We were in a large circular room with a conical ceiling. There were low pallets on either side of the door we'd just come through. Slumped figures filled some of these rude beds, puffing pipes or staring vacantly into dreamland. At the far side of the room was a raised dais piled high with cushions and pillows. An enormously fat man lolled atop them, tended by half a dozen young women and men, all naked. The fat man's hairy body glistened with sweat and oil, shining in the light of small braziers. A braided black beard grew from his broad face, and perched on his shaven head was a garland of bright red poppies.
He watched us approach with heavy-lidded junkie eyes, and if our arrival provoked any reaction at all, it was one of mild bemusement, like we were an especially interesting hallucination.
“To what do I owe this tremendous honor,” he said in a low, silky voice when we stood before him. The movements of his mouth didn't match the words I heard, and somehow I knew what I was hearing was being translated from Turkish.
Trub stood there gazing down at him. Her distaste showed in her tightened lips and the fixity of her stare. I had a feeling she was keeping a serious chunk of anger in check.
“You broke the rules,” she said at last.
“The rules," Poppa Poppy repeated. A shiver snaked along my spine at the way the man voiced that simple word. He made it sound like some tender and innocent thing ripe for defiling.
“That's right, you bloated toad, the rules. The buying and selling of children will not be tolerated.”
I stared. This drugged-out blob was buying kids?
Poppa Poppy roused himself enough to lift one hand, lazily waving away Trub's accusation. “I am an honest merchant.”
“You are a lucky merchant,” Trub answered sharply. “If it were up to me, you and your whole operation would be nothing more than a rancid grease spot.”
A wide, toothy smile, smug and superior. “But it is not up to you, is it?”
Trub crossed her arms. Although outwardly composed, I was sure what she really wanted to do was vaporize the fat man, blasting him into deep-fried suet. “You think you understand the rules well enough to break them without earning any punishment. No surprise, your brain has been turned to dog shit. So one last time, let me explain something about the rules you refuse to get. Are you paying attention?”
A languid shrug. “I listen.”
“Good. If I were to slaughter you and every one of your minions, burn this place to the ground, and put your head on a pole in the middle of the ashes, then I would have broken the rules.”
“Yes, you would,” Poppa Poppy breathed with a smirk. “And the rules are so important to you.”
“If I did that, I would be rebuked. Told to try to please be a little more low key next time, and asked to take down your head down because it was so butt ugly. That would be the extent of my punishment.”
“You would not—”
“Shut up,” Trub snapped. “You have no idea what I might do when I'm pissed off. Have you heard the story of how I got this eye patch and lost this arm?” She held up her prosthetic.
“I have heard stories.” Poppa Poppy held out his hand. One of the young men passed him a loaded pipe. He studied it, then lifted it toward his lips. “Wild stories. Made to frighten the credulous.”
Trub slapped the pipe out of his hand, moving so fast she was a blur. “Well, listen up. I'll give you the short version because you've smoked your brain too badly to have an attention span.” She paused to see if she had his undivided attention. She did. Had mine too.
“I was in Lebanon. There was a bomb. It went off. I lost an arm and a leg and an eye, not to mention some other odd bits. The bomber was a shithead, even by the standards of his kind. He snuck in to groove on his handiwork. When he turned me over I stabbed him in the throat with the shattered bones sticking out of my arm, dragged myself on top of him, and drowned the son of a bitch with my own blood.”
This was related in a flat, passionless voice that seemed to drop the temperature on the room by fifty degrees. I believed every word she said. That hadn't been a brag or a scare story, but a stone cold recitation of history. I even remembered hearing the story from the news five or so years before. Trub was that woman.
Poppa Poppy believed her too. His color had gone bad, and fresh sweat covered his face. He managed a queasy, unctuous smile. “I assure you, there is no reason for violence.”
“That's my call.” She turned to look at me. “See that curtain over there? Go through it. Bring back whatever you find behind it.”
“You cannot intrude on my privacy like this,” Poppa Poppy protested as I moved to obey. I couldn't imagine not doing as she asked.
“Shut up. If I want any shit from you, I'll squeeze your head.”
There was a doorway hung with tattered fabric. One of the ever-present bullyboys moved to bar my way. I forced myself to stare the man straight in the eye, hoping Trub's mojo extended to me. The guy was big enough to chew me up like a fifty-cent burrito and spit out the rat bones before burping.
The guard scowled and bared his teeth.
“Better move,” I said. After a few long seconds he did.
I pushed through the curtain into the room beyond.
“Aw shit,” I mumbled. There were two children in the room. Naked children in a crude wooden cage. A girl about nine, so skinny I could see every rib, and a boy about four just as thin. A chunky woman in ragged nurse's scrubs slouched in a chair by the door, presumably to watch them. She stared at me with blank glassy eyes as I came in, looking unsure whether I was real or a pipe dream.
I turned my att
ention back to the kids. They stared at me with the wide frightened eyes of animals in a trap.
“Hi, guys,” I said as I approached the cage. I squatted down in front of the door, dredging up a smile that made my face hurt. “My name is Glyph.”
They didn't respond, watching me like I was a closet monster that had come to get them. I realized they were probably drugged. The fumes alone were enough to waste anyone who breathed them.
I took a quick look around the gloomy, dirty room, then turned my attention to the inside of the cage. There were no toys, no books. Just a pile of rags to sleep on and a bucket for a bathroom. They were in a holding pen. I didn't want to think about what they were being held for.
“This place is pretty gross, isn't it?” I said gently.
The girl whispered, “Yes.” The boy nodded soberly.
“Want me to get you out of here?” While my impulse was to just break them loose and drag them away, I couldn't begin to guess what they'd gone through on the way to ending up in a cage. So I wanted them to have a say in what happened to them.
“Can we go home?” the girl asked.
“You sure can,” I said. I didn't know whether that was true or not, but was going to do my damnedest to make it so. I stood up, taking hold of the heavy wooden bar across the cage door. One of the big thugs must have put it there; it was all I could do to get it up and out of the way. Once the door was unbarred I opened it. “Come on, kids, let's get out of here.”
The girl had begun huddling in on herself, self-conscious about her nudity. I took off my coat and emptied its pockets into my vest. I held it up, offering it to her.
The girl crept out, and I helped her into the coat. It hung to her ankles. She hugged it to herself gratefully. The boy only came as far as the door. Scared. I didn't blame him.
“Would it be all right if I carried you, big guy?”
After a moment the boy nodded. He bolted to me, holding up thin arms.
“One piggy ride coming up.” I hoisted the boy up and settled him on one hip, then took the girl's small hand. I led them back toward where Trub waited. The woman watched us go by, smiling dreamily and drooling.
Trub glanced in our direction when we came through the curtained door, her scarred face hard and cold. The girl froze and the boy whimpered when they saw her.
“It's all right,” I said soothingly. “She's our friend, like a pirate superhero. She came here to help get you away from this bad man.”
Trub met my gaze for a moment, her face impassive, then turned her attention back to Poppa Poppy. “You have been warned,” she said. “If I have to come back here again I will break you.”
The drug lord regarded her though heavy-lidded eyes. “If you come back again I will have an army waiting to meet you.”
She smiled, pleased by the threat. “Go for it, smokebrain. You take the gloves off, so will I. Nothing would make me happier.”
This warning delivered, she came over to where I waited with the children. She called for transport, then the four of us went through the door that appeared, away from the dark and dreadful lair of Poppa Poppy.
* * * *
Bright light smacked me in the face, making me squint, and fresh air washed over me. I sucked it in greedily, trying to clear my head of the narcotic fumes I'd breathed, and the nastiness that had crawled into my lungs. The boy on my hip hid his face against my shoulder, and the girl mumbled something I didn't quite catch.
Trub had transported us to a wide spot on a path leading through a lightly wooded area. This time the vegetation looked, to my untutored eye, more like what you'd see in Central Park than in a travelogue. Ahead of us, on a low rise, was a cluster of the low round buildings that seemed to be standard on the Hoop. The largest of them had a crude wooden scaffold built over it, and atop that framework was a big wooden cross. The idea of a church on Venus seemed pretty strange, but then again the whole idea of churches had never particularly resonated with me.
Nearby was a sign reading NO ADMITTANCE TO PURITY WITHOUT PERMISSION, and beside it a crude ceramic bell.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Edge of a hamlet called Purity. Same segment, toward the opposite end, about six klicks away,” Trub said, studying the village with the frown of someone contemplating trash on their lawn.
“So who was Jabba the Hut?”
My reference earned a faint smile that faded quickly. “His real name is Jamal Papadopoulos. He's half Greek, half Turkish, all dirtbag. He's got himself a sleazy little poppy growing and processing operation going, trading what he produces for what he needs—” A glance at the kids, who were still clinging tightly to me. “Or wants.”
“Who the hell would trade children for drugs?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer to that terrible question. There were always willing participants for both ends of such a dark bargain. I'd postoed about a gang doing just that a few months before, raising such a stink that the cops finally moved in and stopped the trade.
She jerked her chin. “You're about to find out.”
I looked up the path toward the village. Four people were approaching.
“You didn't ring the bell.”
Trub snorted. “I didn't need to. I don't need to play their little keep-out game either, but this is me being nice.”
The man in the lead was big—football player big—with the stiff authoritarian bearing of someone with a fetish for spit-shined jackboots. Set jaw, smile-proof face, eyes as soft as the buttons on a uniform. He was wearing a heavy black jumpsuit, macho black boots a gangie would be proud to street, and on a chain around his neck was a big wooden cross. He reminded me of General Jack D. Ripper from Dr. Strangelove.
“Who's the big guy?”
“Calls himself Pastor Pureway.”
Two women and a man trailed behind him, dressed in shapeless gray robes. Their thin faces all wore the same guarded mix of hope and fear. When they saw the children their expressions brightened, and they started to rush forward. Pureway stopped them with a single word.
I looked to Trub for some clue as to what was supposed to happen. She was staring at the General Ripper rip-off. It was obvious that she wasn't any fonder of him than Poppa Poppy, and I had a feeling that her being nice wasn't going to last long.
“What is your business here?” the big man demanded, planting himself in front of Trub. His tone was brusque and challenging, and he looked down at her like a half-naked pole dancer who'd snuck into his choir.
“I'm returning two prodigals to the fold,” she said. “Though prodigal probably isn't the right term. They didn't run away. They were sold to Poppa Poppy by one of your devoted parishioners.” There was just as much confrontation in her voice, and just as much distaste, with an extra added edge of sarcasm.
Pastor Pureway's frown deepened. “You are mistaken. None of my flock would do such a thing.”
“You are either a liar or a fool. No, I take that back. You're both, and we both know it. Your repulsive little cult might as well live in a prison camp. No surprise people would want to escape any way they can. Being here sure makes me want to get fucked up big-time.”
His upper lip curled and his face reddened with anger. “You are a sinner, coarse and unredeemed.”
“Fuckin’ A,” Trub agreed with a grin. “Much as I'd love to spend the rest of the day pissing you off, I'm a busy woman and I've got more dirty jobs to handle after I finish with you. So here's the deal: When your people sell their children, children you condemn as being lesser beings since they weren't conceived by your brain-damaged rules, the stink is on you since you've set yourself up as the one in charge. Breaking the rules like this will not be tolerated. If it happens again you will be punished.”
The man drew himself up stiffly. “Only God rules here.”
Trub laughed in his face. “Yeah, right. Like it or not, the B'hlug are in charge here. They can send your puckered butt back to Earth any time they want, and it's only their fascination with just how stupid peo
ple can act that's keeping you here. They provide your air, your light, and most of what you eat and use. You are here on their sufferance. They are tolerant—far more tolerant than I am. But the mistreatment and selling of children will not be tolerated. By me or them. That's the law here. Period.”
The cult leader wasn't having any of it. “We follow the dictates of God, not alien heathens.”
“No, you make shit up and call it commandments.” She got right in his face. “I swear, if this happens again I'll ship your ass back to Earth and dump you in the worst place I can find. I'll empty Purity and scatter everyone in it all across the Hoop, arranging it so none of them ever find any of the others. Now get out of my way so I can talk to these kids’ families.”
The big preacher stared hard at her, lips white and muscles jumping in his jaw. Trub was a foot shorter and weighed half as much but radiated such furious energy and coiled menace that he had no choice but to back down. He turned abruptly and stalked back toward the village.
I let out the breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.
Trub's face softened, but only slightly as she turned her attention to the two women and one man who had accompanied their leader. They shrank back, tense and frightened as arrestees before a hanging judge.
“I know it wasn't you who sold these poor kids to Poppa Poppy.” She pointed at one woman. “You, Sandy, it was your husband Clay, and I know Purity rules say you can't have any say in what he does. You two are their aunt and uncle, tried to stop him, but failed. I'm releasing them back to you. But I warn you, unless Clay quits huffing what Poppa Poppy is selling because he can't cope with the way that charlatan runs things, he's going to do that or something even worse again.”
“I'm so sorry,” the kids’ mother said in a small voice. She could not look directly at Trub, but peered fearfully out from under hanging bangs. Her face wore a look I had seen before, seen too much when I did some posto for a women's shelter.
“Then do something about it!” Trub's voice was harsh enough to make them flinch. “Grab these kids and take a mystery door somewhere else. Get away from this cheapjack pulpit-thumper while you still have some self-respect left. He's no holier than you or me; he's a sadistic control-freak and a bully. If you want to let him ruin your lives, I can't stop you. But there isn't the slightest goddamn thing righteous about putting children in danger.”
Analog SFF, July-August 2010 Page 20