INFINITY HOLD3

by Longyear, Barry B.

  There was that frown on his face. Kind of confused, like somehow I had broken the rules. He didn't make much noise, just a lot of gasps before he stopped twitching. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but I could swear his lips were trying to form the word "objection" just before he went still.

  I went back to Yvonne and stood next to her as I spoke to the crowd about another new rule which immediately became known as the Mad Dog Rule.

  "The Law of the Razai is for people. It's for settling beefs between people. Now if you've got problems with a rock, a windstorm, or a mad dog, the law only applies to you. It doesn't protect the rock, the tree, or the mad dog. The law only applies to people, and a people is someone who can choose not to kill." I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This was not something I wanted to do. "If all you are is a killing machine, and you can't choose not to kill, then you aren't a person."

  I pointed around the circle at all of them. "The way I understand it is that you are all killers that can't help yourselves. That's what I just called a mad dog. What happened before you landed is done past. But you kill here, you better do it according to the law. If you're in a firefight with the Hand or Kegel, if you're defending yourself, if you're executing a perp in a trial according to the law, go for it. But if all you have is an overwhelming need to kill, the kind of need you can't do anything about," I turned and fired my rifle at Yvonne, striking her in the chest. Still seated on her calves, she flopped backward and faced up to the belly of the Spider, her legs still folded beneath her. "Then there's no difference between you and a mad dog."

  The crowd stood silently for a long time. There was a cry here, a whimper there, a laugh or two. Finally it started breaking up and they moved off to join the column heading east. Booker Dry was one of the ones who lingered behind. I had left him in some kind of doubt about his occupational status.

  "Booker, about being an RC—"

  "Forget it, Nicos. You don't have to fire me. I quit. I wouldn't do what you do for a free ride back home." He turned and headed east to join the column. Not being good enough for the likes of Booker Dry was a strange place to be. I didn't know whether I had been moved up or down in status.

  In moments there was only myself, Yvonne, and the dead cockroach with the strange sense of humor. Killing the cockroach was almost fun. I sort of wanted to wake him up and kill him all over again. Yvonne was something else. She would make a very interesting addition to my ghost collection. When she haunted my nightmares, I wondered if she would finally speak.

  I turned around, slogged through the sand over the dune, and came back to my critter and the rest of the party. By the light of a fire cube I looked through my copy of the law until I found a sheet that was only two thirds full. I copied down the two new rules twice. Once I'd ripped off one copy of the new rules I handed it to Zarika. "Have one of your people run this back to Stays with the details."

  She folded the scrap of paper as her eyes studied me. "What if Stays doesn't like the new rules? Isn't he the clearinghouse for new rules? Didn't you appoint him the clearinghouse for new rules? Weren't you supposed to clear new rules with him before you started killing people with them?"

  "Is getting that scrap of paper back to Stays too much for you to handle?"

  "I can handle it." She cocked her head toward one of the soldiers, a haystack from Lewisburg named Boats. Zarika gave him the paper and nodded toward the east. Boats took the paper, tucked it in his belt, mounted his critter, gave me a power salute, and was gone.

  Looking back at me, Zarika said, "I was just asking a few questions that needed to be asked. Maybe I was just being a Devil's advocate."

  As I pulled myself up on my critter I said to her, "Reach into your shorts, yank some short and curly, and wake up. If you want to pound pork with the cockroaches, grab a black rag. Go be a lawyer. Asshole questions is all they're good for. What I need are answers, not more asshole questions."

  Everyone was quiet, and the silence almost shouted that killing Yvonne was wrong. It wasn't her fault. She was insane. Sick. What did it matter that our guts were tuned to different worlds while reality was taking place on Tartaros. We probably didn't even need the new rules. Max payback for a life taken was already in the law. All the new rules did was clear up a for instance. You take a life not according to the rules, bang, you pay a life. Period.

  Jontine Ru was mounted and her face was devoid of expression as she held up her little vid camera. "I've got it on tape, Nicos. All of it."

  "And?"

  She aimed it at me and began recording, her voice like St. Peter at the gate totaling up final accounts. "Is there anything you want to say for the record? Worlds want to know."

  "Yeah." I turned on my critter's back and faced her. "Take your little camera and stick it up your tight little ass." I shot her and all those worlds a middle fingered salute, dug my heels into my critter's sides, and moved off.

  Sure, Yvonne was sick. Something to think about, though: There's sick and there's sick. When your kind of sick starts killing others, then you lose your ticket on the ride. You become not a person. I didn't expect the popcorns to like it. I didn't expect Jontine Ru or anyone else to like it. I didn't even like it myself. I just didn't have a better answer.

  An hour after leaving the Cici column behind, I glanced up and stared the Spider in the eyes. I needed help in shutting up the committee that was camped out and shouting between my ears. I didn't care that the Spider was a big cloud of dust in space. I needed one of those powers of the universe I used to hear about at the CSA meetings. I asked the Spider for just a little peace of mind. I closed my eyes, gave the critter its head, and tried to catch a doze or two before we reached the new bunch from Earth. I needed sleep. Tomorrow's light would signal the first day of my third week on Tartaros. My third week on infinity hold.

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  ▫

  A Shot In The Dark

  ▫

  Over the next four days we made contact with five more ship loads of sharks that Nkuma had steered in our direction. There was the new load from Earth, a consignment from a planet called Adramelech, two loads from Nyakate which were made up of nothing but chops, and a load of mostly India Indians from Rhitan. One accent or another, they all spoke Crowbar.

  Each group had its Nkuma appointed RCs, a few hardheads, and a case or two that needed immediate attention. Nkuma seemed to have two great gifts. The first was tracking down landing spots and selling the new convict-exiles on the Razai and the law, even when language was a big problem. The second gift was appointing absolute disasters as RCs. By the time we caught up with him we had executed three dirty cops and had found it necessary to untangle any number of dangerous situations Nkuma's bum RCs had created or made worse.

  With me watching I had Deadeye do a little on the job training on trial investigations and executions. When it came time to blow away a perp, Deadeye would pull the trigger, sling his piece, and be done with it. He still wasn't emotionally involved. It made him really good. There were the rules, here was a situation, add them together and subtract the perp. He was like a machine. I envied him.

  There was another new rule I had to make, though. Rule 60, said that only the chief RC, or whoever he says, can appoint new RCs. The rule made it okay for any RC to finger someone as a deputy, but deputies couldn't conduct trials or do anything else except follow the orders of a regular RC. When Nkuma took off again to harvest the desert crop he had three Bando-trained RCs with him. When Deadeye, Jontine, and me made it back to the main column, I made arrangements with Stays to send more RCs to Nkuma as they were trained. Because Nance and her bunch'd been left behind, all of this time I'd been without Alna. We'd send messages back and forth with the couriers when we could, but neither of us were big letter writers. Instead we looked at the Eyes and talked to each other. Sometimes it was like speaking directly to her and hearing her answer. Most times it was like hollering into an empty box.


  Bloody Sarah had whacked Kegel's gang three more times with hit-and-run raids and had managed to force Kegel to split his double column. This left a force of around fifteen thousand mounted rifles and most of the supply column chasing east after the signal flares while the remaining fifteen thousand turned south after Sarah. I would've preferred to been riding with Sarah, or even back in the column thinning perps, but my job was to be there, be strong, and trust my people.

  ▫

  It was late evening and I was beginning to feel that Bando Nicos being in charge of the Razai wasn't the tremendous disaster I'd thought it was going to be. Messengers had brought the word that the Kegeleros were off chasing each other around the dunes, Mercy Jane and the Wolf had finished their carving on Nance, and Nance's sled was back on the trail.

  Deadeye was training new RCs. Stays, the Magic Mountain, and me had just finished a CSA meeting and were working on our rations. All my little ducks were all lined up in a row, a condition that had more than once announced the end of a good time for Bando Nicos. At the meeting I'd talked about how things seemed to be going too well for me. I told them that the success was making me real nervous. It was like the happy feeling you had just before the cops dropped the sting in your lap.

  They told me to turn off my projector and work it one day at a time. All of the worrying is nothing but trying to control the future. From experience we all knew that if the future was something that could be controlled none of us would've been on Tartaros.

  We'd just finished our rations, the Eyes high in the sky, when Cap Brady and Margo Hoyt returned from an old business hunting trip. They had been chasing down and executing the Hand's fifty rape perps who had made a run for it.

  After the greetings Cap unfolded his lanky frame on the other side of the fire cube and stretched out on the sand facing me. Margo sat to my right, leaned her elbows on her knees and rested her chin on her clasped hands. Neither one of them looked like they gave a crap about anything.

  Margo kept staring at the fire cube like if she could fill her mind with the fire, it would put out the nightmare of thoughts nesting behind her eyes. I looked at Cap, and he was also looking at Margo. He dropped his gaze, then looked up at me.

  Stays and Marietta orbed each other for a bit, then Stays looked at Cap and asked, "So, how'd it go?"

  The left side of Cap's mouth curled down, he nodded, and looked at me. "They're all dead. Four were jumped by scavengers, eleven died from exposure, and Margo, Herb, and I did the remaining thirty-five."

  "Where's Herb?" I asked.

  "Looking for Marantha." Cap glanced at Margo then turned his gaze toward the fire cube. "Find something else for us to do, Bando. Something besides hunting and killing."

  I looked at Margo and her large blue eyes were looking at me. They were filled with tears. "What's happening, Margo? A few days ago you had a razor in your teeth and were after every swingin' dick in the Hand. Is that off?"

  "No." She slowly shook her head. "Not as far as I'm concerned, it's not. We've got to end that horror. It's just that—" She covered her face with her hands. "They're people. They're humans. When we started out they were just rapists and murderers: monsters. Especially the two who raped me. But they aren't monsters. One of them was dying of thirst and begging for his mother when I drilled him. One of the men who raped me, when he saw it was me who had come after him, looked relieved. He really believed he was off the hook. He believed that because what I called rape he really thought was love. He simply couldn't understand why I shot him."

  She was silent for a moment as she dried her face with the heel of her hand. "You're right," she said, "I was filled with hate and anger before we started out." She looked up at me. "I'm empty."

  A bit of a wind was up, and the icy chill of the desert night made us all wrap a little tighter, move a little closer. I said to Margo. "I've got a ghost collection, too."

  Cap pushed himself to a sitting position and said, "Margo doesn't want to add to hers."

  I rubbed my chin and thought for a bit. When I wanted out, Nance had told me to either do the job or hit the dunes. These two were like Alna. They just didn't want to kill any more. That was why Bloody Sarah had made Alna a nurse. Besides, thanks to the popcorns from Cumaris, we now had plenty of folks in the Razai who weren't bothered by some killing. I would have to think some more on that.

  I didn't feel real cozy about making a compulsive killer one of the hunters any more than I'd trust an active alcoholic to be any good as a wine taster. It was just like with my addiction, rage. It isn't that there aren't any reasons that are good enough to make you angry. It's the difficulty in stopping it once it gets started. Well, there wasn't any reason why Cap and Margo had to do all of the exterminating.

  "I might have a couple of other slots open. Margo, you were born here and lived with the Hand for quite a while. I want you to stick by headquarters and advise me and Nance about who's who and what's what. Okay?"

  She took a deep breath and let it out as she closed her eyes and nodded. "Okay."

  I looked at Cap. "I have something for you, too."

  He raised his eyebrows and said, "I turned down being your number two cop once before."

  "No problem." I pointed at Stays with my thumb. "Right now I got Watson doing that and I wouldn't trade him for a pack of peanuts. I've got something else in mind for you."

  "Like what?"

  I tossed the remainder of my awful bar into my sack. Tying the sack closed, I pushed it aside. "I'm not sure what to call it. An understudy, maybe."

  "An understudy to whom?"

  I smiled. "Me."

  He held up his hands. "Bando, I already said I can't boss the RCs—"

  "I'm not talking about the RCs. I'm talking about bossing the Razai. Nance fingered me for number two. Right now we need a number two for number two."

  His mouth hung open in such a comical manner that it made me chuckle. "That's right, Cap. I need a number three."

  "No." He shook his head and said with more force, "No. That would be a mistake."

  "How so?"

  He held out his hands, "Bando, I killed a man."

  "Great jammed Jesus, Cap! By now, who in the hell hasn't?"

  "I mean on Earth."

  I shrugged. "I killed a man on Earth, too."

  "I was a police captain!"

  "I was unemployed."

  There was still a lot of pain in that mental wound of his. It was time to begin washing it out. "You were a police captain. So that means you have a lot of experience commanding people and all of that administration stuff that I don't even know what I don't know."

  Cap shook his head then looked at me. "To tell you the truth I'd rather be out on the dunes whacking perps."

  "You are a hard man to please, Cap."

  He wrapped his arms around his knees, stared into the glow of the fire cube and pressed his lips shut tight. Margo got up from her place and kneeled next to Cap, her right hand rubbing the back of his neck.

  I looked at Stays. "What do you think?"

  "I think it's a brilliant pick."

  We both looked at Marietta and I asked, "What do you think?"

  "You know what I think?" Her huge face remained impassive as she stared at me and answered in an even voice, "I think the capital of Tonga is Nukualofa. That's what I think."

  It was her special way of letting me know that she knew what my responsibilities were even if I didn't. Stays laughed, and then Marietta laughed. Margo was smiling but Cap was shaking his head. I began to see that there was a lot of Fodder in ol' Cap Brady. Man, he was beating himself up so bad it's a wonder he was still alive. Fodder needed to forgive himself, which is a lot different than letting himself off the hook. He needed to accept that nothing, including beating himself up, could change the past. Cap needed the same thing. I didn't know exactly how to say it, and I didn't have time to write a sermon, so I let my mouth do the talking and hoped for the best.

  "Back on Earth, Cap, when you thinned Diaper L
ou Imagia, you really crossed your threads. You broke your oath, you dropped all your responsibilities, you murdered a man, and maybe to you it isn't important that the law never was going to get Diaper Lou. Maybe it doesn't make any difference that that child molesting, kiddie snuffin', sack of bat shit deserved killing more than any form of life that ever existed on Earth. You were a cop and you did a murder."

  "That's right."

  "Unh huh. And now you ain't worthy to chief the RCs and you ain't good enough to boss the Razai."

  "That's right."

  I held out my hands. "Who is, Cap? It sure as hell isn't Nance. The people she murdered she tortured to death. It isn't me. I've got blood all over my hands. We've both thinned a few. Everybody on the Forever Sand's killed somebody or did something else."

  "But they weren't police officers!"

  "Some of them were. I leaned forward and poked at my fire cube with my greenstick. "Cap, we got a lot happening right now. If we're going to come out of this mess on top of Kegel and the Hand, everybody's shoulders have to be in there." I pointed my greenstick at Cap. "Here's what I think, haystack. You still feel bad about what you did, but you're using it."

  "Using it?"

  I nodded. "Suckin' it dry for everything it's worth. One big excuse to shuck off responsibility. I know you're no coward, Cap. That's why I figure you're only doing what you're doing because you can't see it." I stood up and kicked sand over the fire cube. The Eyes of the Spider were sharp in the night sky, Blue Moon was on the rise. I pulled my parka hood up and put on my gloves as I silently asked Alna how I was doing. She figured I was doing okay.

  I looked down at Cap Brady. "The job's yours Cap. As Nance once told me, either do it or hit the dunes." I started to bend over to pick up my sack and a light exploded in my face, the force of it spinning my head around so far that I was certain it had twisted completely off my body. There were a million blue moons in the sky.

  I could see myself hurtling down a bottomless black well. There was no sound. It was like no one had noticed I'd been hit.