"You can stop thanking me," said Johnny after it yelped for the fifth time. "Forget it."
The jeep's vestigial wheels bumped and skidded across a road designed for slow-moving horses and carts. The rear left wheel was in serious need of oiling and screeched on a regular basis.
The Gronk looked back at Wulf's vehicle, tailing at a respectful distance.
"Are you angry?" said the Gronk, after a time.
"No, Gronk."
"You are not happy," observed the Gronk.
Johnny didn't take his eyes off the road ahead. Without operational repulsor fields, a driver had to pay a lot more attention. Johnny could do with something to take his mind off things. Things like an interplanetary network of kidnappers, organ-leggers and pirates, and a trail he had been following for weeks.
"Don't worry, Gronk," he said. "It's not you."
"Is it Mister Wulf?"
There was a pause. Johnny down-shifted the primitive gears and kept the car pointing in a straight line.
"No, Gronk. He did fine." He did fine and now the trail was stone-cold dead.
A cluster of sheds, pre-fabs and shanties could be seen ahead. The town of Black Rock, if you could call it a town, no better than it ought to be. Few of the buildings made it above two storeys. Space was not at a premium on a desert world like Vaara, so people just tended to build outwards. The sheriff's office comprised several bungalows built one next to the other, joined by suspect attachments of corrugated iron, plywood and other bodges.
Nobody was home.
Heaving a deep sigh, Johnny got back into his jeep as Wulf was pulling up.
"We could wait here," suggested the viking.
"Yeah," said Johnny, starting the engine. "We could do that."
Drinking started early in Black Rock. There wasn't a whole lot else to do. The forty-hour days played havoc with human biorhythms. Some people held to the twenty-four-hour clock and slept with the blinds down when they had to. Others threw themselves into the local cycle and tended to burn out.
Sheriff Steinman was one of the former. He clung to the time zone of his father, and his father before him, all the way back to Earth, where apparently, right now, it was four o'clock in the afternoon, and not just past noon at all. Somewhere on Earth, the sun was above the yard-arm, and it was time for a drink.
Sheriff Steinman did his part for the local economy by cracking open a beer. He liked to do it at Daphne's Bar because there was a floor show on Wednesdays and he liked to watch the girls.
There was a time when Daphne's had six dance tracks. After an accident a couple of months ago, they were down to five. One was a slow number that only got an airing before closing time, like a national anthem for gropers. That left four, and much as everyone hated them, just two tended to stay on a loop. Most of the time it was "Mutie Cutie" by Split Dog. For the first time in weeks, someone put something different on the decks, and it was a thumping old track from Earth; a remix of "Umpty Got Some Sugar" by Chill Bill and the Passion Pilgrim.
Someone was making a statement, and much as he disliked what he heard, Steinman liked what he saw. The new dancer was giving it all she had. Nice legs, thought Steinman, admiring the mutie girl gyrating in front of him. Shame about the face, though. Still, a paper bag was often a necessary accessory to bedtime bliss on Vaara. Steinman rifled through his mental inventory of favours owed and kickbacks yet to come. He was pretty sure that the owner of Daphne's Bar owed him something. He tried to think if there was anything in town that was a better bet than the new dancer but he was having trouble thinking straight. He watched as she peeled off a grubby sweater and realised that he had just forgotten what he was thinking about. Steinman stared hungrily at the girl as she began to unhook her bra, and remembered better days.
Suddenly, she stopped dancing. The music kept on going, but it seemed empty without her gyrating movements. The dancer folded her arms across her chest, suddenly shy. She was staring past Steinman's shoulder at the entrance to the bar.
The double doors of the entrance flapped noisily back and forth. A pair of booted feet advanced through the bar. Steinman heard someone even larger come through the doors, a giant of a man, followed by the pitter-patter of tiny feet. With a thunk, the lower edge of one of the swing doors slammed into an alien head. Only a Gronk would be that stupid. And if it was walking free, reasoned Steinman, that meant...
Over by the bar, someone killed the music. Steinman breathed deeply and wondered if he could have this meeting without lifting his feet from the edge of the stage. He was kind of settled in and he could do without the hassle.
"Johnny Alpha, I presume," said Steinman with a sniff.
"Disappointed?" said Johnny, blocking Steinman's view of the interrupted dancer.
"Unsurprised," said Steinman. "What have you got for me, Alpha?"
"All five from Tuka's gang," said Johnny.
"Dammit, Alpha," said Steinman. "I haven't got that much room in the cells."
"You only need the morgue," said Johnny.
Steinman looked from Johnny to Wulf, who stood beside him with his arms folded, smiling inappropriately at the dancer. The Gronk stood in between them, rubbing the bruise on the top of its head. It was a decidedly unlikely trio of bounty hunters.
"All right," said Steinman, easing his feet off the front of the stage. "Let's take a look."
He took his half-finished beer with him - there was no telling how long this would take.
"Dead or alive," said Wulf to Steinman's retreating back. "There still is der reward for dead, yes?"
"Yeah, yeah," said Steinman, wondering if there was any money in the kitty to cover it.
"Did you get Tuka, though?" he said. "That's the big money, the boss-man!"
"Just minions," said Johnny.
Good, thought Steinman. Thank sneck for that. Last thing he wanted was a major bust attracting attention. Vaara attracted its fair share of people hiding out. Steinman didn't mind low-lifes so long as they stayed low. But every now and then he had to deal with mercenary do-gooders like Alpha. But at least Tuka's boys were worth taking out. Last thing Steinman wanted was more missing persons, turning up months later in a dustbin minus vital organs. Body sharks liked high quality meat, and that meant they strayed all too often from low-life victims to people who voted and paid their taxes.
Steinman stepped out into the Vaara day, the glare stinging his eyes. He stood half off the kerb and swigged on his beer.
"Okay then," he said. "Let's see 'em."
"They're right there..." began Johnny, until he was fully out of the bar and realised that they weren't.
"Wulf? Where'd you park?" hissed Johnny.
"I parked right here," said Wulf. "They were here."
"Habeas corpus, boys," said Steinman sternly. "And it looks like you don't hab yerselves any corpuses."
Johnny slapped Wulf on the shoulder.
"Where's the snecking car?" he yelled.
"It was here," said Wulf.
"Is this some kind of joke?" said Steinman. "Because I'm not in the mood."
"Please," said Johnny quietly to the Viking, "please tell me that you didn't leave the keys in the ignition."
"Well," said Wulf, "I, er..."
"You did," said Johnny, his white eyes boiling with rage.
"But who would steal a car full of dead bodies?" said Wulf.
"If you wanna report a theft," said Steinman, "you can find me in my office. Later."
He swaggered back into Daphne's Bar while Johnny glowered at Wulf in the street.
"If music be the food of love," bellowed Steinman inside the bar, "then get 'em off."
The awful music whirred unceremoniously back into life while Johnny and Wulf stared each other down. Chasing out of the bar after them, the Gronk bumped its head on the bottom of the swinging doors again.
"Ouch," it said. "Where did the car go, Mister Misters?"
Johnny slowly withdrew his own key from his pocket and marched over to the remaining vehicl
e.
"Come on, Gronk," said Wulf forlornly. "It's been a bad day."
A jeep full of dead bodies was an unusual sight, even in an outlaw town like Black Rock. Johnny bumped the jeep around what passed for streets in the area and collared any passers-by who looked like they could manage a sentence in reply.
Nobody had seen a thing.
After too many dusty streets and depressing one-storey buildings, he shunted the jeep to a halt and turned the engine off.
The trio sat there in the afternoon sun, listening hopelessly for the sound of birdsong that would never come. The Vaara sky was now a dark mauve, shot through with yellow streaks as the sun began its slow crawl below the horizon.
Wulf and the Gronk sat meekly in their seats, the Gronk because he had little choice, and Wulf because he knew this was his fault. They were light years off the beaten track, low on cash, and now someone had stolen their next meal ticket.
Johnny rubbed his eyes.
"This is wrong," he said quietly after a while.
"There might be some more places to try outside town?" suggested Wulf.
"No," said Johnny, "just being here is wrong."
Wulf and the Gronk waited patiently.
"We're too far out on the edge," said Johnny.
"Okay," said Wulf, not sure if his companion was speaking astronomically or psychologically.
"Wulf," said Johnny. "You saved my life this morning. I forgot to say thanks."
"It's my duty," said Wulf. "As a true son of Odin, I am obliged-"
"I know," said Johnny. "But we're getting strung out."
He was right. Vaara was a backwater in the back end of nowhere. Pretty much everyone was up to something illegal, and that meant that bounty pickings were plentiful, but hotly fought-over. The five bandits were the best they had done for a while, and now even they hadn't been worth the effort.
"You think we should head back towards der Core?" asked Wulf.
Johnny nodded.
"I've had enough of nickel and diming it over jaywalkers and tax dodgers," he said.
"Me too," admitted Wulf.
"Let's go back towards civilisation. Get ourselves on a shuttle out of here," said Johnny.
Two streets back, they found the Hack Shack, a tiny ten-seater diner dwarfed by the massive dish on its roof. Johnny was out of the car and through the front door before Wulf could help the Gronk out of its seatbelt.
"I need an uplink," said Johnny without waiting for a hello.
The shack's sole occupant was hunched over the counter reading the desert world's equivalent of sci-fi - an old gardening magazine. He blinked at Johnny through eyes tormented by a lifetime of drinking too much coffee. Johnny pretended not to notice the skin grafts that snaked across his cheekbones and along his nose in a strangely symmetrical patchwork. Someone had once worked outdoors in the forty-hour sun.
"It's ten creds an hour," Patch said.
"Fine," said Johnny, digging in his pockets.
"But we're closing in ten minutes," he added. "You can come back tomorrow, or-"
"Here," said Johnny. "Just take the ten."
"Mister Wulf?" said the Gronk. "Where is the computer?"
Patch stared in mild panic at the furry non-human creature by the side of the imposing Viking.
"This is a cybercafé," insisted the server. "No cyber without the café part. So you better order something."
"Okay," said Johnny, not wanting to argue. "Three coffees."
"We haven't got any milk."
"Three black coffees."
"Fine."
The man turned away and then looked back again.
"Actually," he said, "we're out of coffee as well."
Johnny stared into the man's brain, looking for the telltale red glow of someone trying it on. Just the faintest tinge at that end of the spectrum and he was ready for a fight - it had been one of those days, and on Vaara it had gone on significantly longer than usual.
But there wasn't a whole lot going on inside the man's head. His concerns were cleaning the counter before closing time, remembering to lock up properly for once, and a niggling concern that the white furry creature with the two strangers was a Gronkus Laxativus. But the man was on the level. There really wasn't any coffee. He might be stupid, but he wasn't malicious.
"Three cups of anything you have that you can make with boiled water."
"Tea?"
"Fine."
"Johnny, make sure it is boiled," said Wulf.
"He heard me the first time," said Johnny, ushering Wulf over to the single grubby workstation.
Johnny hesitated. He had a problem with viewscreens. Focussing his mutant eyes on a cathode ray tube, LCD display, or a holographic projection really screwed him up. He had a habit of seeing the inside of the machine rather than the illusion it transmitted.
"Don't worry," said Wulf cheerily, cracking his knuckles. "Wulf can be doing der typing."
"All right," Johnny said. "Just don't start complaining about-"
"These runes are unfamiliar," said Wulf. "There is no 'ö' key, for a start."
"You'll just have to work around it," said Johnny diplomatically.
Wulf began typing carefully into the keyboard, pressing each key with slow, uncharacteristic delicacy. He never tired of the little plastic keys, watching them make runes in front of his face. It was a lot less trouble than carving them in a stone that only passing Swedes would see.
"Trace a line back towards Earth," said Johnny.
"We're going back to Earth?"
"No, of course not," said Johnny. The very thought gave him the creeps. "Just that general direction. Find us somewhere with more people."
More people meant more criminals.
"Beltane?" said Wulf.
"Okay," said Johnny. "What is it?"
"It is der virtual vandalism," said Wulf. "A girl wanted for website damage."
"Forget it," said Johnny. It was probably some kid messing around on her daddy's computer. It wouldn't be worthy of Search/Destroy Agents like themselves. Beating up a teenager for a few credits wasn't Johnny's style.
"What about Teutonica?"
"Is it a white collar job?" They could be good. Easy to track, easy to bring in, and the money could be big, too.
Wulf scrolled carefully down.
"It is a parking fine."
"Don't waste my time," said Johnny. "Are there no good murders any more?"
"He skipped on der fine," said Wulf hopefully. "Der interest has gone up a long way."
"No," said Johnny. "That's just pathetic."
The server brought them rancid tea in three chipped and mismatched mugs. Johnny and Wulf ignored theirs completely. The Gronk sniffed its cup experimentally and then began munching on the spoon.
"Here's something," said Wulf.
"Where is it?"
"Tammerfors," said Wulf. "It is not so far and there is a weekly shuttle all der way to Mars."
"Sounds good," said Johnny. Now all they needed was a reason to head that way. Johnny crossed his fingers and hoped for a murder or a kidnapping. Something really, really bad that he could enjoy making right again with extreme prejudice.
Wulf squinted at the screen while Tammerfortian misdemeanours scrolled past.
"Nobody's committing any crimes," said Wulf. "They're too scared."
"Of what?" asked Johnny. The phrase "one-way ticket to Tammerfors" meant the same in criminal circles as "sleeping with the fishes". So many ships to Tammerfors went missing that it got to be a joke.
"Der navy," said Wulf.
Someone was running for office and they promised to clean stuff up. And that meant that ships out of Tammerfors had a naval escort all the way to the jump point. There wasn't a pirate problem any more, which meant there weren't any pirates.
"There must be some criminals," said Johnny. "Come on, anything! Anything to justify getting us there!"
Wulf suddenly looked excited, but then seemed to change his mind.
"Wait,
" he said. "I don't think we are wanting this one. It is a domestic. Looks like an argument got out of hand, and missy wife person left her husband, Niggle Less, in der hospital." Wulf chortled to himself. "She must have Scandinavian blood. Did I ever tell you about a girl called Freydis? She had this-"
"What was the name again?" said Johnny, suddenly alert.
"Niggle Less."
"Nigel," said Johnny.
"Nigel, then. I'll find something else."
Johnny's hand slapped down on Wulf's, keeping him from shifting the unwieldy, antique mouse. He stared hard at the screen, willing his eyes to stop focussing on the innards behind the glass, staring instead at the fuzzy patterns drawn on the glass itself.
It made his eyes sting, but Johnny saw what he wanted. Or rather, what he had hoped he would never see.
"Get the details," he said, letting go of Wulf's hand.
"Johnny?" said Wulf. "This is a bad idea. They will kiss and make up, and we will be left with no reward."
"We'll take it," said Johnny. "Tell the Doghouse."
"But we are bounty hunters," pleaded Wulf. "Not der novelty marriage counsellors!"
"We're taking this case," insisted Johnny. "It's a fit-up."
Wulf looked at the screen, and then back at Johnny.
"Who's up-fitting who?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Johnny. "But there's more to this than the Doghouse is letting on. Maybe even more than they know."
"What makes you so sure?"
"I know Nigel Less," said Johnny. "His wife wouldn't do something like that."
"But how do you know?" asked Wulf.
Johnny leaned against the window and looked out at the Vaara sky.
"Because," he said, "she's my sister."
RELENTLESS
They sat in a glum row at the China's polished steel bar, behind cocktails festooned with ludicrous umbrellas and slices of cucumber. The Gronk munched as quietly as possible on half a metal ashtray that tasted faintly of peaches.
The screens around the walls were set to calming vistas of the Tammerfors system, growing ponderously, steadily larger as the China neared its destination.
It was all a lie. The images were a movie, carefully judged to match the flight time of the cruiser. Outside beyond the hull, the ether was a screaming hell of warp flurries, tearing at the very bonds that held the ship's atoms together. A wafer-thin forcefield was the only thing between a safe journey and an explosion of infinite pain, followed by asphyxiation back in normal space for anyone who survived the explosion. Johnny and Wulf knew the risks and were used to the idea. They had learned not to bring the subject up with the Gronk, who remained convinced that it was looking out of a "window".
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