by Chris Bunch
“Yeh,” Garvin said. “I just wish somebody’d help mine.”
“Well,” Njangu said, “it does look like you maybe weren’t everything Katun dreams of … or maybe she was just curious, and that was part of her investigation, since the notes she took are all over the map.
“She might as well be some kind of ologist, doing a holo on circus folk. Go buy some flowers for Darod. Maybe that’ll help, and she’ll get over her piss-off, you betrayin’ bastard, in an aeon or epoch or two.”
“Thanks,” Garvin muttered. “So now you’re going to make a run at making yourself into her honey-trap?”
“Not me, brother,” Njangu said. “First there’s Maev, who’s one mean piece of work. Second, I’m hardly a superman, which maybe is what our Kekri is looking for. Third is, unlike some tall, blond sorts, who pose nobly in charges and circus rings, I know my limitations.”
“B … but … but you’re the one who told me to do this,” Garvin sputtered.
“Ah well,” Njangu said. “I’ve learned to move on from my triumphs. What I’m looking for right now, after examining your fuzzy, out-of-focus holos of the Berta plants, is a nice, reliable midget.”
CHAPTER
12
“Thank you enormously for inviting me out,” Kekri Katun said.
“Thank you for coming with me,” Ben Dill said. “It’s nice, taking the prettiest woman in the ship out to help you buy maybe a painting or something with my ill-gotten wages.”
Kekri smiled wryly.
“I don’t seem to get asked anywhere much. I feel like some kind of pariah, sometimes. Maybe because I’m from another world than the rest of you.”
“Aw balls,” Dill said rudely. “Nobody’s pariahing you,” he lied. “We’re from as many worlds as you can think of, so that doesn’t matter. More likely, it’s ‘cause you’re so pretty. Notice that a lot of the showgirls don’t get taken anywhere? Don’t think you’re anything special in the way of a martyr.”
Kekri grinned, squeezed Dill’s arm.
“Careful, lady,” he said. “Don’t go messin’ with the pilot, even if he is the best in six systems and it is only a stinkin’ lifter.”
“What’re those weird-looking ships you usually fly?”
“The aksai,” Dill said. “Built by the Musth … like Alikhan. They flew in combat …” and Ben suddenly remembered Njangu’s warning, and his cover story, “… against some Confederation ships, just before the collapse.
“We know some people who know some people, and bought some of them.”
“You get along with the Musth?”
“Circus people get along with everyone,” Ben said.
Kekri seemed to feel a warning, for she found another topic.
“So what, exactly, am I supposed to do?”
“I prob’ly have the taste of a water buffalo as far as art goes,” Dill said. “But my compartment looks pretty damn’ bare. They told me about this art thing they do every weeks-end, along the river that runs through Pendu, and I thought maybe you could help me find something that isn’t too atrocious.”
“A pilot,” Kekri mused. “You want something with flying, or space in it?”
“Not a chance,” Ben said. “I do it, and don’t much want to look at it. Something abstract’s more my line.”
Kekri looked at him with a bit of respect.
“So you have advanced taste in art, can lift a ton of weights, can fly aksai — ”
“And just about anything else,” Ben said. “No boasting.”
“And anything else,” Kekri said. “What other talents do you have?”
“I’m a balding secret sex maniac, and modest as a sumbitch to boot.”
Kekri laughed, reached over, and patted him on the upper thigh.
“ ‘Kay, Mr. Modest. Isn’t that a landing field down there?”
“Surely is, lady. Now watch this, and hang on to your stomach.”
Dill flipped the lifter on its side and dived straight down for the small field. He flared at the last minute and set it down, with never a scrape from its skids.
“And here we be,” he said. “The river’s right over there, so let’s go see if there’s anything worth buying.”
They climbed out, and an attendant approached, a bit wide-eyed at the woman and the monster of a man.
“Here,” Dill said, spinning a credit through the air. “Don’t let anybody put their initials on the pig, and keep it easy for me to get out!”
“Sir,” the attendant said, bowing repeatedly. “Yes, sir! Would you like me to wash and polish it, as well?”
“Naah,” Dill said. “It’d on’y get dusty all over again.”
As they walked away, he said, “What’d I do wrong? Throw him the wrong coin or something? I thought he was gonna propose marriage.”
“One Confederation credit converts, somebody told me, if you can find a place to convert it,” Kekri said, “to about a week’s wages in local currency.”
“Be damned! The hell with art,” Dill said. “Let’s go find us a temple and set up as money changers.”
• • •
The midget’s name was Felip Mand’l, and he frequently referred to himself as “Lucky Felip.”
“Of course Lucky Felip is delighted to help the circus, for doesn’t my contract call for me to be ‘generally useful,’ besides my act? And I do know how to keep silent, and will admit I thought our troupe has some dark secrets, especially considering how we are now dressed, which is certainly not the norm for most troupes,” he said, a little adrenalined.
“But how did you come to pick Lucky Felip? There are over a dozen little people with Circus Jaansma.”
“I did a little asking about,” Njangu said. “About people’s pasts.”
“Ah! All that was a mistake,” Mand’l said. “I was very young, and she was very pretty, and she swore those jewels had been taken from her by a jealous lover, and I was the only one who could climb up into the man’s penthouse, and I almost got away with it.”
“Relax,” Njangu said. “Back some time ago there were things I almost got away with, too.”
Mand’l looked at the other three in the back of the lifter. Like him and Njangu, Penwyth, Lir, and an electronics technician named Limodo wore black from head to toe, with roll-down watch caps on their heads, amplified light goggles on their foreheads, throat mikes in place. All wore small patrol packs.
“I, uh, notice that the four of you are carrying guns. Why was I not offered one?” Felip asked, trying to sound indignant.
“Do you know how to use a blaster?” Lir asked.
“Unfortunately, not. Not one of the talents I’ve been able to cultivate. But I am deadly with an old-timey projectile weapon, and can’t think there’s that much difference.”
“There is,” Monique said. “We don’t want you shooting yourself in the foot. Or me, either.”
“Ah,” the midget said, and subsided into his seat as the lifter low-flew into the mountains.
• • •
“Good farpadoodle,” Dill muttered, staring at a semiactive holo/painting almost as tall as he was. “I didn’t know there were that many shades of red, or that many ways of looking stupid waving a blaster about.”
“Sssh,” Kekri nudged. “I think that’s the artist over there.”
“Introduce me,” Ben said, “and Mrs. Dill’s favorite son’ll pitch him right over that embankment into the river. He’s too lousy to live.”
Artists, maybe two hundred, maybe more, had their works strung along a wide sidewalk, some leaning against the stone wall. On the other side was a three-meter drop to the gray, wintry river, with an occasional boat tied up along the wall.
“Come on,” Kekri said, tugging at his arm. “We’ve barely begun.”
“Isn’t there a bar somewhere? My taste seems connected to my taste buds, and maybe if I had a beer or six, some of this crap might look better.”
“Never buy art when you’re blasted,” Kekri said. “That’s an
old saying of my grandmother’s.”
“Oh yeh? What’d she do to earn her keep to be so wise?”
“I think she ran a bordello.”
“By the Sun God’s suppository, I better hang on to you,” Ben said. “A whorehouse is just what I want to retire into.”
He snorted laughter.
“All right,” Kekri said. “You’re obviously in no frame of mind to look at any more art.”
“Especially not this shit. Why anybody thinks there’s something mournful about a stupid painting of a stupid busted-up starship, its ribs showing through, at sunset is way beyond me,” Dill said. “Maybe I better stick to finger painting. My own.”
“That, I think, is one of their public houses,” Katun said, pointing.
“Awright! Now, we’ll just wait for this convoy to float on past, and — ”
The convoy was half a dozen heavy lifters, with covered camion backs. The canvas came away, and men with guns piled out.
“Ohboy,” Dill said, grabbing Kekri’s arm, and pulling her back toward the art booths. “What the hell are we in the middle of?”
“Over there,” Kekri pointed, and ten or more lifters were crossing the river on a low bridge.
The men behind Dill started shooting at the second convoy, and men leapt from those lifters and returned fire. Heavy blasters atop the lifters slammed rounds at each other, and there were screams of fear, of pain.
Dill was flat on the pavement, half-atop Kekri, and the artist whose work he’d hated was beside him.
“What the hell is going on?”
The artist shook his head rapidly.
“Probably the anarchists are shooting each other up again. They can’t agree as to the form of their organization.”
He screamed, flopped as bolts chattered along the walk, and through his back.
“This isn’t safe,” Dill said, glanced around, then grabbed Kekri, who screeched in surprise. He ran backward, kicking over easels, cursing that he was unarmed, and someone saw him, fired, and missed.
Dill went over the embankment wall, and dropped into the river, going under, still with one hand firmly on Kekri’s leg.
The two came up, Kekri sputtering.
“You better know how to swim,” Dill said.
“I do,” she said. “Your little jumping act took me by surprise.”
“ ‘Kay,” Ben said. “We’ll go for that little boat over there, cut it loose, stay in the water on the far side, and let it take us downstream for a while.”
“Good,” Kekri said, starting to swim, then rolling on her back. “You think fast.”
“A man my size has got to. Now shaddup and keep stroking.”
They swam hard for a few meters, then Dill spat water like a sounding whale.
“Shit,” Dill said. “Anarchists fighting each other. What a truly screwed-up world this is.”
• • •
“Lucky Felip could dance the gavotte on this slab of steel,” Mand’l said into his mike as he went quickly up the webbed glass of Beta Industry Archives. “I could do it on my hands.”
“Sharrup and bust us in,” Njangu answered.
Mand’l knelt, and there was a tiny flare as his torch lit. He took half-melted glass out with asbestos-gloved fingers, reached inside, found the catch, and opened the skylight.
“Enter voose,” he said.
“Toss the rope down first,” Limodo said. “I’m no goddamned acrobat.”
Mand’l tied the rope off on something sturdy inside the archive building and threw it down to her. She went quickly up, hand over hand, and the other three followed.
Inside, they were on an iron platform, high above Berta’s records.
They held for a moment in silence, scanning the dark inside of the building. All of the Legion troops held up circled thumbs and forefingers.
No watchmen. At least, none seen so far.
Njangu pointed down, and they crept down stairways to the main floor.
Limodo checked terminals, turned one on. For long minutes she stared at the blue light, occasionally touching sensors. Finally, she nodded.
“I think I’ve got it,” and began her search, checking against a tiny screen she’d taken from her patrol pack with the serial numbers gotten on Tiborg.
An hour passed, then another as she wove her way into the bowels of the archives.
“At least there aren’t any booby traps or firewalls,” she reported. “Seems fairly straightforward.”
“FREEZE!” was Njangu’s response, and they obeyed, seeing two men outside the main door, shining normal lights inside. No one moved, the men went away, and the search went on.
• • •
“And here we are,” Dill said, guiding the small boat in to a dock, jumping out with a painter, and tying the craft up.
“You impress me,” Kekri said.
Dill hopped back in the boat. It rocked and he caught himself against the roof of the tiny cabin.
“Then you might reward me, m’lady, with a kiss. Then we’ll call for a liftout, let somebody come back for that damned lifter, and the hell with my artistic sensibilities ever again.”
Kekri lifted her lips to his, mouth opening. The kiss lasted, then got a little more intense. Her arms slid down from around his neck down his back, and then around and down his stomach.
Katun suddenly broke from the kiss.
“Ohm’gods!” she breathed.
“Uh … you knew I was a pretty big guy,” Dill said, slightly embarrassed. “That includes — ”
“Shut up,” Kekri ordered. “Is that cabin unlocked?”
“Uh … yeh.”
“Then inside. Hurry!”
“Uh … ‘kay.”
• • •
“Got it,” Limodo reported, attaching a small vampire recorder to the side of the terminal.
“Five, maybe ten minutes, and we’ll have everything. Another five for me to clean up my tracks.”
Lucky Felip stirred from where he was hiding, just inside a lectern.
“You make things easy. I was expecting excitement.”
“Quiet,” Penwyth whispered into his com. He and Lir were on either side of the entrance, guns ready against intruders. “It’s bad luck to be confident.”
“Remember those jewels you went after,” Lir echoed. “Almost ain’t is.”
• • •
“Tails up, tails up,” Thanon and Phanon chanted, and the elephants obeyed, even the small Imp and Loti, linking trunks and tails, and the line swayed out of the tent as the lights came up.
“And that’s all there is, ladies, gentlemen, children,” Garvin chanted. “It’s all out and over,” and the butchers swarmed the crowd.
“Don’t forget your souvenir programs, a real memento of Circus Jaansma, something for you to keep for your memories until we come back this way again.”
“Early in the next frigging century,” Montagna muttered to herself. “Or the one after that.”
She saw, in a front row seat, Graav Ganeel, staring after the elephants, face most wistful.
• • •
Big Bertha lifted two hours before dawn.
Monique Lir was on the bridge, looking down as the lights of Pendu vanished into the cloud cover.
“This frigging planet,” she observed to no one in particular, not knowing she was echoing Lady Libnah Berta, “damned well needs the Confederation back. Or they’re gonna end up marching in lockstep to some real fool and all end up dead or worse.”
CHAPTER
13
N-space
“Probably most of you have an idea of what was going on,” Njangu told the Legion officers assembled on the bridge of Big Bertha, “but here’s the real skinny. I’ll let Dr. Froude explain.”
“We’ve made some interesting progress so far,” Froude said. “We now have … or think we have … a skeleton key of sorts to the Confederation, which hopefully will keep us from being killed by our own people or robots,” Froude said. “From the nav
points we’re close to now, there’s a six-jump sequence that will put us in the Capella system.
“However, I favor an eight-jump series, for one reason: This second set of navpoints, and I indicate them here on a greatly simplified chart holo, are ‘nearer’ to the systems around Capella.
“I would like to nose around a bit, as close to Centrum as we dare, before committing ourselves.
“Comments? Questions? Additions?”
There were none, and so Big Bertha jumped again into N-space.
• • •
“This is most interestin’,” Njangu observed as he checked several screens. “This system, W-R-whocares, was supposedly empty. No listing on settlements, no listing on fortification, carried as UNOCCUPIED.
“Yet over on that world the detectors picked up a big chunk of metal.”
He keyed a mike.
“Ben, what do you have?,” not bothering with formal call signs.
Silence for a moment, then:
“On my second orbit. What we’ve got is damned weird, Njangu. The detectors picked up what looks to me like a big goddamned fortress, modern, most of it underground. I’m transmitting pictures and realtime data for you to eyeball.
“But what’s interesting is the thing’s abandoned.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, my detectors pick up nothin’ on no waves from nobody. Nothing on IR, nothing on radar, nothing on heat imaging, not even residue. On visual, there are hangar bays, nit and cleverly camouflaged, but the doors are hangin’ open like the seat of my pants when I was poor day before yestidday,” Dill went on. “I see what I think are weapons launchers, but with no missiles on the mounts. I’ve got me some scanners and some antennae. I chanced a low sweep, and nothin’ went BINGO at me.
“It looks to me like people just got bored and up and left.”
“Could you bring Big Bertha in closer?” Froude asked the ship captain.
“Affirm,” Liskeard said, and the planet blurred, the screen showed the whorl of N-space, and then the planet filled the main screen.
“Sorry, Ben,” Njangu said. “Forgot to tell you we were jumping in closer.”
“Oh, ‘at’s all right,” Dill said. “I just saw you guys pull out on me, and now somebody’s gonna have to clean up this here aksai cabin. This is not the place I want to grow old gracefully in all by myself.”