Imperial Bounty

by William C. Dietz

  For the next half hour they studied the information the satellite had sent them. It quickly became clear that the winds which whipped across the surface of the planet below were not all that random. In fact most were quite predictable. Which explained why the spaceport was located at the very center of a large, circular, semipermanent storm. Although the storm occasionally shifted a little from north to south, and from east to west, it didn't go far. In fact, according to the information supplied by FG65, it stayed right where it was most of the time. Once in a while it would vanish for a time, but it always returned to take up the same position.

  The com set buzzed, and satellite FG65 said, "Please initiate your descent. Based on past weather patterns, a brief period of relative calm should prevail in all layers of the atmosphere above Deadeye during the next hour or so."

  "Understood," McCade replied. And while one didn't usually thank computers, in FG65's case, it seemed quite natural to say "thank you."

  McCade assumed control from the ship's computer as Pegasus entered the planet's atmosphere. Tricky atmospheric landings were one of the few things human pilots usually did better than computers. Lots of research had been done trying to figure out why, since logic seemed to suggest it should work the other way around, but no one had come up with any really believable answers. The best they could do was suggest that sentients were capable of something called kinesthetic intuition, which meant human pilots could "feel" subtle things computers couldn't, and could then "guess" what to do about them.

  The ship shuddered as the wind hit and shoved it sideways. McCade corrected, and then swore when the wind suddenly fell off, forcing him to compensate.

  "If this is 'relative calm,' then I'm a Tobarian Zerk monkey," Rico said, frowning at his instruments.

  "Now that you mention it, I do see a certain family resemblance," Phil growled.

  McCade grinned, but quickly lost track of their friendly insults as he fought his way down through layer after layer of disturbed air. Finally, after a braking orbit which seemed years long, they came in on final approach. Below, the storm which surrounded Deadeye raged on as it had for more than a thousand years. Ahead, clouds swirled around a vertical tube of calm air which marked the eye of the storm. All he had to do was stop Pegasus in midair and drop her straight down that tube. "Nothing to it," he told himself. "Child's play for a pilot of my experience." But as the critical moment approached, sweat trickled down his spine, and the tic in his left cheek locked into permanent spasm. Then it was too late to worry. He killed power, kicked the nose up, felt her drop, goosed the drives to slow their descent. Now all he could do was sit back and hope for the best.

  And much to his surprise he got it. Pegasus dropped as smoothly as a lift tube in an expensive hotel, giving him a chance to grab a quick look at the planet's surface. Where the rest of the surface was hidden by wind-driven sand and dust, the area directly below was clear. The first thing he noticed was the relative sameness of the land. Yes, he could see distant mountains poking their peaks above the roiling storms, but directly below the land was flat, ridged here and there where the eternal hand of the wind had carved topsoil away from solid rock, but otherwise smooth and featureless. He saw nothing resembling vegetation, and quickly checked the computer to confirm a breathable atmosphere. Sure enough, the atmosphere was within a couple of points of Earth normal, so there was some biomass somewhere even if he couldn't see it at the moment.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing of a proximity alarm as the ground rose to meet them. He turned his attention back to the controls, and a few minutes later felt a gentle thump as the ship settled onto its landing jacks.

  He was still congratulating himself when the com set buzzed. This voice was real, somewhat nasal, and belonged to a fat woman. Her hair had been braided and then piled on top of her head. She had laughing eyes, a button nose, and at least four chins. Due to where the viewscreen cut her off, McCade couldn't see below the level of her chest, but if her enormous bosom was any indication, she was very, very large. "Hey, good lookin', unless you plan to stay here the rest of your life, you'd better move that toy. The winds'll shift soon, and when they do, that little thing's goin' bye-bye. So follow the red drone, and then come on down to Momma's Saloon for a drink." She winked a tiny eye, and then disappeared.

  McCade had dropped into some pretty casual spaceports in his time, but this was the first time he'd run into a combination air traffic controller-saloon keeper. He checked the main viewscreen, and found a large red sphere had indeed appeared, and was waiting for them to move. The words "follow me" flashed on and off across the front of it, and as a small gust of wind hit, the drone bobbed slightly.

  McCade fired his repellors, lifted the ship off the ground, and danced her toward the red ball. The drone drifted left and he followed. As Pegasus moved, her repellors cut shallow trails through the dirt, throwing up rooster tails of dust, which were quickly blown away by the light breeze.

  There wasn't much to look at, and what there was didn't qualify as works of art. To the right, a heavily reinforced, all-purpose antenna housing pointed a dark finger toward the sky, looking like some sort of primitive obelisk. And to the left, a pylon shaped like a vertical airplane wing soared upward, ending in a sleek housing, and a slowly turning propeller. When the wind was blowing full force, the aero-dynamically shaped pylon would rotate to meet it, and the propeller would turn at incredible speeds. Wind power made practical. So, while the surrounding countryside looked a bit bleak, at least the locals had plenty of cheap nonpolluting power.

  And things did look bleak. The sky, the ground, and the rocks were all done in different shades of gray. As a result, the red ball seemed even brighter than it was. It stopped, and McCade did likewise, noticing that the ground below had given way to a huge durasteel plate. Now the words "follow me" disappeared, and were replaced by "cut repellors." McCade obeyed, dropping Pegasus gently onto the scarred metal surface.

  Moments later he felt a slight jerk, and the metal plate, ship and all, began to sink underground. It didn't surprise him, since the arrangement was quite similar to the underground hangars on Alice, which also served to get ships down and out of the weather.

  The rock walls which slid upward around them were as smooth and uniform as duracrete. Suddenly the walls vanished, giving way to a large, brightly lit open space, rectangular in shape, and quite uniform in construction. This was no work of nature but a well-executed creation of man.

  The red ball had dropped with them, and now its "follow me" sign reappeared. McCade fired his repellors again, lifting Pegasus only inches off the deck, and followed the sphere into a rather generous berth. Once in place, he killed the drives, and delegated control to the ship's computer. It began a post-flight diagnostic check on all systems. When McCade looked up he found the red ball had disappeared.

  "Well, gentlemen," McCade said, releasing his harness, "the lady said we should have a drink, and I think it would be rude to ignore her invitation."

  "Hear, hear," Phil said. "Never let it be said that we were rude."

  "I wouldn't think o' such a thing," Rico agreed solemnly, heading for the lock.

  A few minutes later, McCade and Phil waited as Rico set all the ship's security systems. It never hurt to be careful.

  McCade noticed there were only three other ships in sight, although the hangar could have easily handled three times that number. One was a beat-up lifeboat, with a for sale sign painted across its port side in sloppy lettering, the second was a fairly well-maintained freighter, probably on a supply run, and the third was a wreck, a twisted pile of junk only vaguely resembling a ship. Although there was no one in sight, the scaffolding which surrounded the wreck suggested an optimist at work, someone who thought it could be put back together. He'd seen a few spaceports even more deserted, but not many.

  Rico sealed the ship's lock and then joined them. Together they followed a series of signs which simply read, "Momma's," through a series of clean, but des
erted passageways. A short time later they descended a steep flight of stairs, and went through a narrow doorway. Over it hung a sign which spelled out "Momma's" in pink neon letters.

  They found themselves in a large open room. In the tradition of bars everywhere it was dimly lit and filled with smoke. A huge mirror dominated the far wall making the room seem bigger than it really was. Below it was a massive bar of polished black rock. Huge columns of the same stuff reached up at regular intervals to support a vaulted ceiling. The columns and the high ceiling combined to give the bar an aura of dignity more appropriate to the lobby of a grand hotel than a spaceport saloon on a remote frontier planet. It was also well furnished and quite clean. A most unusual rim world bar indeed.

  As he approached the bar, McCade felt the other customers watching him. Not too surprising, since the newcomers were probably the most interesting event of the day, or maybe the week. Nonetheless he sensed that while most were simply curious, others had deeper, darker thoughts. He sighed. Some things never changed.

  As they bellied up to the bar McCade found himself face-to-face with the combination air traffic controller-saloon keeper. "Well, look what the wind blew in. Welcome to Momma's, and if ya ain't guessed yet, I'm Momma." Her eyes twinkled, and her chins rippled when she spoke. "Your berth is costin' you two hunnert credits a day, my rooms are clean, the food's good, my booze ain't been watered down, and if you shoot anybody in here, you pay for damages and clean up the mess. Now what'll it be for you, gentlemen?"

  "Let's start with some o' that booze which ain't been watered down," Rico said pragmatically, "and then maybe some o' that food you mentioned."

  "An excellent choice," Phil rumbled. "Make that two."

  McCade nodded in response to Momma's inquiring look, and as she waddled off to fill their order he used the big mirror behind the bar to check out the rest of her clientele. Off to his right there were three women and a man all seated together. From their matching uniforms, he figured them for the freighter crew, and the oldest of the three women as the captain. A short distance away, an older man and a boy still in his teens sat locked in earnest conversation, their worn gear somehow reminding him of the wreck he'd seen in the hangar. Beyond them sat two men and a woman, all dressed in gray one-piece suits of a style he'd never seen before, and all watching him while pretending not to. As their eyes brushed his, he nodded gravely, as if already acquainted. And in a way he was. He'd met their kind a thousand times before, in a thousand other bars. The users and the takers. Every planet had its share, and the Wind World was apparently no exception. They avoided his gaze as they stood, threw something metallic on the table, and ambled toward the door. He noticed all three wore blasters.

  "Cute, aren't they," Phil said, his eyes on the mirror.

  "Probably on their way to church," Rico observed, picking up the large tankard Momma had just placed before him, and taking a noisy sip.

  "Not unless it's worth robbing," McCade said dryly, pulling out a cigar and puffing it into life.

  And then an interesting thing happened. A tall black woman stepped into the bar and stopped as the three hardcases blocked her way. She wore a seamless, black one-piece suit and two blasters, one low on her right thigh, the other in a shoulder holster under her left arm. Except for a round island of kinky black hair on the very top of her skull, her head was shaved, and she was very beautiful. Her eyes flashed when she spoke. "Either get out of my way . . . or make your move." Her fingers hung just above the butt of her blaster.

  The three hardcases just stood there, fingers twitching, trying to decide. They'd seen her in action, and knew that even with the odds on their side, the outcome was still in doubt. Even if they won it would be a close thing.

  As the seconds ticked slowly by, McCade blew smoke at the mirror, and allowed his left hand to drift down toward his handgun. Finally, when the moment was stretched thin, one of the men said, "This isn't over, Mara."

  "Thanks for the warning," she replied calmly. "I'll watch my back." Then she walked straight toward them, showing no surprise when they parted to let her through.

  She seemed to take the bar in with one sweeping glance, her eyes stopping on McCade as she headed for the bar. McCade turned in time to see the hardcases leave the bar, and to accept her out-thrust hand.

  She had a strong grip and a low melodious voice. "Welcome to Wind World. I'm Mara, the Walkers of The Way sent me to meet you." She looked from one to another. "Which one of you is Sam McCade?"

  "I am," McCade replied, "and I'd like you to meet my friends, Rico and Phil." As Rico and Phil said their hellos, McCade had already taken a liking to her, and knew his friends had too. Rico insisted on giving her his seat, while Phil kissed her hand, something most men couldn't do gracefully, but which worked somehow when the big variant did it.

  Then a brief battle was fought to see who would buy her a drink, with Rico emerging the winner, and Mara laughing at the competition. "Really, gentlemen, this will never do. I'm supposed to guide you to Chimehome, not sit around while you buy me drinks."

  "Chimehome?" McCade asked.

  Mara threw her drink back and nodded. "Chimehome's the name of the Walker monastery. Say, where's my old friend Pollard? Isn't he with you?"

  At first McCade didn't understand, then he realized that "Pollard" must be Walker's real name. For a moment he said nothing, stubbing out his cigar, and stalling for time. Finally he looked up into deep brown eyes.

  "I'm sorry, Mara, but Pollard's dead. Right after he programmed that message torp and sent it your way he was killed. He saved my life, along with quite a few others."

  He saw his words hit Mara like physical blows. She looked down at the surface of the bar and closed her eyes. It didn't take a genius to see that Mara and Pollard had been more than just friends. They sat that way for a couple of minutes, Mara silent and withdrawn, the three men awkward and embarrassed. Then she looked up and smiled, twin tracks marking the path of the tears which had trickled down her cheeks. "This round is on me."

  As if by magic, Momma appeared with a new round of drinks, and then waddled away to serve other customers. Mara raised her glass. "To one helluva man."

  "To one helluva man," the others echoed, and drained their glasses.

  "Tell me about Pollard," Mara asked softly.

  So McCade told her: how they'd met, the plan they'd agreed on, and how her friend had died. To his surprise she showed no further signs of grief as he spoke. She laughed when he described how Pollard invaded his hallucinations, nodded while he explained their plan, and winced when he told her about the door. But she didn't cry, and remembering his own farewell at Pollard's grave, McCade knew that at least for the moment, she too had found a way to deal with his death.

  When he'd finished both were silent for a moment. Hoping to take her mind off Pollard, and genuinely curious, McCade cleared his throat. "Now it's your turn. Tell me all about a beautiful lady who packs two blasters . . . and doesn't step aside for anyone."

  Mara laughed. "You make me sound so dangerous! There isn't much to tell. I was born on an ag planet called Weller's World. Ever heard of it?"

  McCade nodded. "I've been there."

  "You're one of the few," Mara replied with a grin. "Anyway, my mother died while I was still quite young, and my father raised me. He's the one who taught me how to fight. 'When it's you or them, honey,' he used to say, 'make damn sure it's them.'"

  "Words to live by," McCade agreed solemnly, sipping his drink.

  "Ain't it the truth," Mara said, her face softening. "He never told me everything, but I suspect he was a soldier of fortune . . . or maybe something worse before settling on Weller's World. I know this for a fact, during my childhood he never worked a single day on-planet, yet we lived quite well. Once each year he always went off-planet saying, 'I've got some business to take care of, honey . . . I'll be back in a few weeks.' And sure enough, a few weeks later he'd be back, wearing a big smile and loaded down with presents."

  Mara frown
ed. "I didn't think anything of it, back then, but now I believe those trips were somehow connected with money, and whatever he did to get it. Anyway the years passed, and as my father grew older, he became increasingly interested in religion. He was never willing to admit it, but I suspect the prospect of death scared him, and like many others, he hoped to find some guarantee of continued existence. Yes, please."

  Mara paused while Momma freshened her drink, and then picked up where she'd left off. "During his research, Father came across occasional mention of the Walkers and their philosophy. For some reason it fascinated him. The funny thing was he didn't know that much about them or 'The Way,' but nonetheless he became certain they were right. Somewhere he learned of the monastery here on Wind World, and decided to come." Mara smiled as she remembered. "Frankly I opposed it, but his mind was made up, and he was determined to go, with or without me."

  Mara looked up into McCade's eyes. "By this time Father was quite elderly. I couldn't let him go alone. So we sold our place on Weller's World, and hopped a series of freighters, eventually landing here. During the trip, Father's health deteriorated, and by the time we arrived was quite bad. At his insistence we finished the trip to Chimehome, and he died a month later. His last words to me were, 'Take care, honey, I'll be around.' And you know what?"