The Harriers Book One: Of War and Honor

by S. N. Lewitt

  When the door opened, the first thing Gain noticed was the stink; dead fish with just a whiff of stopped-up toilet.

  Chan grinned at Gain. "Ah, the delightful bouquet of the entertainment capital of Feddalsi Oasis. You'll get used to it."

  And the look of the place was something else, too.

  The normally squared-off and clean hallways had been decorated with all manner of graffiti. The very shape of the wall was rounded in many of the corners. There was a big open area outside the liftchutes that on other levels held fountains or artwork; here, there were stalls, so that the place resembled an outdoor bazaar. These were made of cheap stressed plastic, or in some cases, billowing and colorful fabric, and the patrons and sellers were every bit as brightly dressed as the shops. Gain saw people wearing neosilk pantaloons and tictack boots; full body tattoos and little else; thinskin combat suits; and all manner of dress and undress in between.

  It looked like a freak show.

  "That corridor, to the left," Chan said. "Let's show some teeth, boys and girls."

  Shoulders, Tin, and Rook pulled their concealed weapons from hiding and rebelted or holstered them in full view. Chan moved his inside-the-waistband holster with his flexmetal gun around to the front.

  Gain started to reach for his tangler.

  "Why don't you leave that out of sight, Luck? Most everybody is armed here, and it's better to let 'em think you've got a killing weapon. A guy who knows he's gonna wake up after you shoot him is a lot braver than one who knows he won't.''

  Gain nodded. But he bent and slid his pant leg up to show the boot knife Rook had given him.

  "Nice move," Tin said. "They think all you're carrying is a dead steel blade, they'll figure you're either real dangerous or real stupid. Me, I'd bet on dangerous in Fishtown."

  Gain knew a little about knives, but Tin's evaluation made him feel better. And hey, he was a Petit officer, wasn't he? Yeah, but he was also beginning to understand the SC's comment about the whosis rangers. Nothing about this mission conformed to regulations.

  Somebody screamed down a side hallway as the five Petits moved along the corridor. Rook looked that way, but Chan said, "Not our biz, Rook." To Gain, Chan said, "We chase every noise we hear down here, we'll never get anything done." They turned away from the sound.

  There were some hard-looking souls in the corridor, men, women and even children. About half the wall lumes were burned out or graffed over, but even so, there was enough light to see that virtually everybody carried some kind of weapon. Gain recognized buzz-buckles, fireblades, cobrateeth, dartguns and assorted low-output energy wands. He also saw several items he guessed were weapons but could not recognize. One guy carried a big stick. Nice place.

  Some of the people were doing business: whores selling their reusable goods, drugs changing hands, energy chits and illegally-detached small-power units in plain sight. None of the dealers or buyers spared the Petits more than a wary glance or two before getting back to their transactions.

  "Law doesn't come down here much," Chan said, answering Gain's unasked question.

  "Hi, soldier," a tall woman with shocked green hair said to Gain. "Looking for a good time?" She wore snake-patterned skintights that covered her completely in iridescent green from neck to ankles to wrists—except for sections artfully cut out to reveal parts normally concealed. "I'm Trish."

  "No, thanks," Gain said.

  The trull laughed, and glanced at the other Petits.

  Rook said, "You know the Zamalah Variation?"

  Trish looked surprised, and when her smile returned, it was not of the same professional caliber as before. "You know it?"

  "To Level Six."

  "Honey, I'd pay you for that."

  "Catch me on the way up," Rook said. "We can work something out, maybe."

  Chan said to Gain, "You don't want to know."

  "There's the stairs," Tin said.

  Stairs?

  "We got four more levels down," Shoulders said.

  A small boy of maybe seven or eight, armed with a contact zapper, leaned against the wall next to the open door to the stairway. Tin moved toward him and said, "Kid, here's a fiver chit for you." He flipped the small disc at the boy, who deftly caught it.

  "Whaddya want for it?"

  "Go tell Madam Howzu that Royal Tinner's in town. Tell her to save me a couple of hours in the next day or two. She'll give you another five."

  "Gone," the kid said. He tucked the coin away and pulled his zapper out, in case anybody had thoughts of taking his money. He ducked into the stairway and ran.

  "Okay, let's go down, people," Chan said. "Rook, you got the nose, Tin, you're the tail. Shoulders, you backstop Rook, Me and the Luck, we'll ride in the pocket."

  "Life is hard," Rook said.

  "Yeah, ain't it? Let's walk." Chan turned to Gain. "The stairs sometimes get a little busy."

  Rook pulled her pistol and checked the magazine, flipped the safety off, and moved into the entrance to the stairs with the weapon in pointfire hold. Shoulders pulled his own handgun and moved in behind her. He was pretty quick and surefooted for a guy his size.

  "You 'n' me, Luck." Chan moved up behind Shoulders.

  Gain pulled his tangler. Maybe it wasn't much, but in a stairwell, it would reach far enough to be useful.

  Tin followed them, his sidearm pointed up in order arms.

  They passed two men standing on the first landing—two beefy men who looked like ad vids for black leather and chrome, but who kept their hands in sight, fingers spread. Both men wore sickly smiles.

  On the second landing a big man, almost as big as Shoulders, lay on his side, clutching his scrotum and whimpering softly. A tackdriver rod lay next to him.

  "You feeling merciful?" Chan asked. He nodded at Gain's tangler.

  Gain returned the nod. He pointed the tangler at the injured man and thumbed the firing stud. The man's brain scrambled under the energy beam and he slid into what was probably a welcome unconsciousness.

  On the third landing there were two more unconscious men hanging by their belts from the short metal tines of a support strut, their feet well clear of the expanded aluminum floor.

  There was a doorway with the door removed and propped next to it at the bottom of the stairs. Chan removed his hand cannon and moved to stand to one side of the door, motioning for Gain to stand clear on the opposite side. Tin stayed on the stairs three meters back.

  "Clear," came Rook's voice from the other side of the door.

  Chan holstered his weapon.

  Beyond the door was a narrow hallway with several exits along it, all of which were closed. The five of them moved along the corridor, which twisted and turned, the lighting growing dimmer. Gain estimated that they had gone maybe five hundred meters when they came to a door that looked like the others. Rook rapped on the door—metal, from the way it rang—with the butt of her pistol.

  "Yeah?" came a voice from the air. The speaker sounded bored, mean, and ugly.

  "Chan Singa and some friends," the Sub said. "Gimme the line."

  " 'The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on.' "

  Juddah. It seemed as if he might die wearing a puzzled look, Gain thought; it was getting to be second nature lately. As the door slid open, Chan said to the LUC, "The scanner can recognize voices. I'm in the bank, but Jaskeen likes to make his customers recite his favorite poet. They got visual, too."

  The door opened into an even narrower corridor that was somewhat better lit than the previous one. The hall ran straight ahead for ten meters to another doorway. Instead of a door, though, there was a curtain of beads undulating in a faint breeze.

  Halfway down the hall, a large drawer suddenly slid out of the wall at waist height. Rook put her handgun into the drawer, then unloaded a small arsenal she had hidden about her. Gain saw knives, stun caps, a pen-sized shockstick, and a reel of saw wire, plus a couple things he couldn't put a name to. The others began unloading weaponry into the drawer, and Gain didn't n
eed to be told to put his own gear into the receptacle. All he had was the tangler and the boot knife; all the others had at least four or five implements they deposited.

  "This is the only public way in or out," Chan said. "Everybody gets scanned hard, and anything detectable as a weapon gets checked."

  The five of them moved past the drawer toward the bead curtain. A bright blue light flashed, once.

  "The left bootheel, girlie,'' came the bored voice.

  Rook grinned and went back to the drawer. She did something to her boot and the heel came off, and she plucked something from the sole of her boot and dropped it into the drawer.

  "They're pretty thorough," Chan said.

  "So I see."

  There must have been a soundstop built into the doorway, because as they pushed through the beads, the noise of a fairly busy pub surrounded Gain. He looked around.

  The first thing he noticed was that the air did indeed feel hot and damp. There was that ubiquitous fishy stink, and a hint of machine lube under that, plus some other smells Gain didn't know but didn't like.

  The layout was on three levels, concentric circles, with the outer ring being the highest and dropping down about a meter for each of the other two levels. Thick permoplastic rails protected the patrons on the outer perimeter and on the upper and middle levels where the mushroom tables came close to the edges. The bar was a circular affair in the center of the bottom level, manned by a pair of tenders. Stock and liquor cabinets displayed wares in a floor-to-ceiling mechanical servex column in the exact middle of the room.

  The tables and chairs were all bolted to the floor. It was larger than Gain would have guessed: there was enough room for maybe 150 people if they were packed in fairly tight. As it was, maybe half that number sat or stood around drinking, smoking, or doing what passed for socializing. The blend of dress seemed much the same as Gain had seen in Fishtown, but there were some patrons in expensive clothes—slummers, probably—and a few that the LUC would have guessed to be military, despite their cit clothing. Servers moved up and down the short ramps from level to level, carrying drinks or other rec chem.

  The buzz of conversation and activity muted some when the five Petits entered, but didn't stay that way long. Everybody seemed to go back to their own business, though Gain felt that crawly sensation he sometimes got when he thought he was being watched. Well, if the bad guys were here, at least they'd be unarmed.

  Rook led the others to a pair of tables on the upper level opposite the door. From there, they could see most of the place laid out below them, and the entrance. A male server, depil-bald but with three-dee tattoos on his head made to look like blue hair, arrived in front of them.

  "Keep it light," Chan said. "Local beer all the way around."

  The server flashed black enamel teeth and left.

  "Now what?" Gain asked.

  "We drink our beer and wait. Jaskeen'll show up sooner or later."

  Gain felt impatient. It must have shown.

  "Relax, Luck. We got here alive and without major problems. We're ahead of the game. The beer is pretty good."

  10

  Given how tough this place was supposed to be, Gain was a little disappointed. Yeah, he still felt as if somebody were eyeing him, but that could have been simple camera pressure. Given the weapon-scanning gear, surely Jaskeen would have spyviewers in the pub itself. This could have been any off-duty toke n' slosh place in a dozen base towns from what he'd seen so far.

  "—Hey, drop dead, pal! I say you're so full of it your blasted eyes are going brown!"

  Gain looked over to see two men glaring at each other across a table ten meters to his left. The speaker was halfway to his feet, halfway to being roaring drunk, and halfway to throwing a punch. He wore freight-handler blues and looked to be physically hard under the thin coveralls.

  The second man was dressed in like fashion, also good-sized and fit, and not going to take such insults sitting down. He was rising, plastic tankard clenched in one hand, some purple fluid sloshing from the container.

  "How'd you like to eat this stein, elbowsucker?!" the second man said.

  There would be a bouncer here somewhere, Gain knew. He wondered how long it would take the guy to get to the two. A couple of punches from either side, maybe.

  He was wrong. Before the two men came fully to their feet, there was a third man standing there.

  Gain was not impressed. The man was short, slight, and had white hair. Looked old enough to be Gain's father, maybe his grandfather. Didn't seem to have any land of weapon, and hardly seemed the kind of bouncer Gain would have hired. Either one of the two freight handlers could probably wipe the table top with the old guy without working up much of a sweat. He got in between them, they'd chop him into soypro patties. The old guy wore an old-fashioned silksuit, lots of flowing folds from his narrow shoulders to the gray plastic boots.

  "Who the Yellow Yazoo are—?" began the first freight handler.

  "Sit down," the old man ordered.

  The two words were not particularly harsh, nor were they loud. Sit down. Very simple. And yet, the tone, something in it, carried in it a . . . power. Sit. Down. It hit Gain like a punch, like a sudden hard fist in the solar plexus, and for a moment, he couldn't breathe.

  If he had been standing, Gain knew he would have sat as ordered, no question about it.

  Juddah.

  The two freight handlers sat. The old man leaned over and said something that Gain didn't catch, and they nodded dumbly, as if they were two children listening to instructions from their father. Both men looked pale and frightened. When he'd finished, the old man smiled and nodded, and moved away. Toward where Gain and his party sat.

  "Hello, Chan," the old man said. The power was hidden, but a faint hint of it echoed through his words. Something about the voice was familiar to Gain, as if he'd heard it before. Where—?

  "Hello, Limos," the Sub said.

  Holy Hershaw! This was Limos Jaskeen?

  The old man slid onto a seat and grinned. "Lot of skill for a little visit to Fishtown." There was some kind of drawly accent to the words. He nodded at the group.

  "Some of us are slowing down as we get older," Chan said. "This is Rook, the big one is Shoulders, you know Tin the gambler. And this is Stelo Gain, he's just on-station."

  The owner of the Hot and Moist took in Gain with a quick glance. It reminded the LUC of Rook's earlier assessment of him.

  "Officer," Jaskeen said, a hint of disgust in the word. "First mission, eh, bub?"

  Now Gain placed the voice. The station computer. Same voice exactly. How—?

  "What makes you think we're here for anything but R&R?" Chan said.

  At that moment a tall woman walked by and smiled at Rook. It took a second for Gain to place her. Her hair wasn't green or shocked now, and she was covered in the same dark silks as Jaskeen. The Fishtown lady of the evening.

  "Chan, Chan. Don't you think I try and keep up with what goes on in my part of the world?"

  Chan shook his head. "Never know but that you could have gone senile."

  "You should live so long, bub. What do you want?"

  Chan glanced at Gain. Your move, his look said.

  "We need your help," Gain said. "It's a matter of—"

  "—galactic importance," Jaskeen said, cutting Gain off. "Always is, bub. What crack has uplevels got itself in now?"

  "I, uh . . ." Gain floundered. How much could he tell this old man? "It concerns one of . . . of the Twelve," Gain said. Best to be cautious.

  "The one who's skyed on yadjak? Thinks it's God, can wave its paw and create Universes? Spends half its time contemplating its navel and like that?"

  Oh, man! How can he possibly know that? This is supposed to be top secret!

  Jaskeen grinned at Gain's obvious surprise.

  Chan shook his head.

  "Like I said, I try to keep up, even down here in the basement."

  "Uh, uh—"

  "And you want me to help you
corner the market on kabid urchins so the Petits and not the Grands can string the addict along, right?"

  Who was this guy?

  "Sorry, bub. I'm a simple pub owner now. I don't mess in greasy politics anymore."

  Jaskeen nodded at Chan. "Have another beer, on the house." He started to stand.

  "Wait!" Gain said.

  "Sorry, bub, I hardly ever change my mind about such things."

  Rook said, "Just how good is your scanning gear?"

  Jaskeen looked at her.

  "Guy by the door, in black on black," she said. "He's got the feel."

  Jaskeen reseated himself. He grinned. For a moment, Gain had the distinct feeling that the old man had been hoping one of them would say something that would make him stay. Jaskeen said, "Why, I do believe you're right, sister. The gear's good enough so he can't be alone."

  "This beautiful young lady," Jaskeen volunteered for Gain's benefit, "has just told me that the lightfoot by the door is probably armed, and I told her that our sensor gear is sharp enough so that the only way to smuggle any weaponry past it would be to do so in a number of pieces, each of which would have to be pretty innocuous by itself to get by." Gain had understood the first part of that all right, but not the second.

  "Can you figure out who his friends are?" Chan asked.

  "He came in alone. The computer can probably nail it, given time. But I don't expect we'll have the luxury."

  "You armed?"

  "Sure. I can take the lightfoot easy enough. Or I can kiai the room, but if they were told how to bring in guns, they might have also been told to be earplugged."

  "Zap field?"

  "Yeah, but I'd just as soon avoid the hangover," Jaskeen said. "Better we should do it manually. Ah. There's one, blue slicker and yellow dabs, at 169, back to the wall."

  "Got him," Rook said quietly.

  Gain still felt that pressure of being watched, and a quick glance to his right gave him the source. A tall and thin man with black hair, dressed in a jumpshipper's greens, pretending to be staring at somebody past him. The man was maybe eight meters away. "There's a guy in jump greens three tables over who's watching us," Gain said.

  "Good read, bub. That's three. I'd figure two more."