Nagasaki Vector

by L. Neil Smith

  "Gruenblum!” someone shouted, a big guy with a southern accent an’ a thin gray caterpillar of a moustache. ‘Turner, Channel 17. What’s it like to go free after cold-bloodedly slaughtering two human beings?”

  I turned. “What’s it like havin’ your bicuspids shoved down your gullet? Wanna find out?” He stepped back from my raised fist. I blinked, eyes waterin’.

  “You’ve got to get these people out of here!” the clerk cried behind me. “Look what they’re doing to my carpet!” We were trapped up against the desk by the crowd-pres-sure. “I know—the press ain’t never been well housetrained.” I shot a middle finger at a camera. Its lights winked out suddenly, sparing the sensitive home-viewers such a hideous sight. I got an idea.

  “Batshit!” I hollered, shootin’ birds with both fists. “Iguana manure! Cow floppies! Big juicy piles of anteater feces—!”

  One by one the cameras started shuttin’ down. This was the same medium that broadcast porno on the momin’ show?

  Howell barked abruptly. “Privacy! My client demands the right of privacy!”

  A camera relit, glared down at him. “Oh, look! A talking doggie! And there are the monsters who—-Yeeeowch!” Somethin’ shoved the nosy simian reporter from behind. The crowd opened like a boiled clam, an’ there were T. W. Sanders an’ his two amazons, plowin’ their way t’my side. Will’s toadstickers were in his hands. He pinked Channel 17’s hired mouth in the behind an’ was through.

  “Gather up the Ganymedii and let’s get out of here!” the gunsmith said. “Win’s keeping the getaway car warm!”

  14 The Magnificent Eleven

  “HELLO, TRICKSTER!” WIN GREETED HOWELL as we leaped into the ground-effect machine, a long low fan-driven Packard-Fedders. He folded his right-hand steering wheel as Mary-Beth slid in beside him. She gunned it, and we were away in a storm of prop-wash before the first reporter made it to the curb.

  “Hello yourself, gumshoe!” Howell answered cheerily. “Glad you’rall havin’ such a swell time. We missin’ anybody?” I counted Freenies—three; I counted gunsmiths—one; I counted detectives, human an’ otherwise— two; I counted girls—four... but then they’d had me seein’ double since the beginnin'. That left only me, an’ I was here.

  Buildin’, trees, an’ garbage cans flashed by.

  “We saw you on the ’com this morning!” Fran punched my shoulder. She was perched on a jumpseat with an alien in her lap. “Rather, the snoopies interviewing themselves about you. Looked like you could use rescuing—they’d really worked themselves up!”

  “You’re tellin’ me! What happens now?”

  Win swiveled his seat t’face us. “Back to my place. I guess the Sanderses have enlisted for the duration. They were waiting for me when I got back from Denv—St. Charles-Auraria. Howell, you got anything?”

  “No chance yet,” answered the coyote. “It’s a pretty large area, where Bemie’s saucer could have set down.”

  Win shook his head. “Griswold’s people are hopping mad. Their client came to the St. Charles office yesterday, filed his complaint, paid a purely nominal deposit, and zip! The number he’d given turned out to be a mortuary in Leadville. They checked—nobody’s talking in that place!”

  I grimaced. “Any other good news?”

  “Not for Griswold’s. They’re stuck with the indemnity and owe you enough restitution to pay me, repay Olongo, and go into business for—but here we are. Let’s go inside.” The nine of us occupied maybe five percent of Win’s gymnasium-sized living-room. Drinks all around. I had a beer.

  “As I was saying,” Win started up a cigar he’d dampened down with brandy, “we’ve got two leads: this”—he pointed to my lumpy pocket where the equalizer frammis was hid-in’—“and this."

  From a pocket of his own, he pulled a plastic bag containin’ what appeared t’be a handkerchief, frayin’ at the edges. “A section of mechanical towel from Griswold’s washroom. I’ll have to claim credit for this flash: Kent made a pit-stop, and we caught it before it rolled into the wall and washed itself.”

  Howell’s ears perked. Win opened the bag and held it while the coyote thrust his nose inside. “There’s you,” observed the animal after a moment’s consideration. “Even through the plastic, those cigars of yours. And both chimpanzee—a youngish one—and gorilla. The gorilla’s recently returned from a Chicago business trip, is left-handed like Fran here, and has three children, two sons arid a—” “Hold on there!” I protested. “How can y’smell somethin’ like that?"

  He looked up at Win an’ winked. “You know my methods, Pauling.”

  “That’s Watson." Win laughed. “The gorilla’s Captain Andy M’bongo; he and Asta here have been playing chess once a week for three years.”

  Howell: “There’s also someone, perhaps two someone elses. A man in his late thirties—yes, I can discriminate age and gender—who’s recently suffered grievous injury: blood, medicinals, faint traces of staphylococcus...”

  “Makes m’whole day. What else?”

  “A woman who ought to change her perfume—it’s virtually indistinguishable from Black Flag Ant and Roach Kil—”

  “Edna!" the Freenies an’ I shouted.

  “Not in evidence at Griswold’s,” Win cautioned. “Just Denny, with a bad limp and his arm in a sling. You play rough, Bernie.”

  “Not rough enough! Can’t understand how he survived (hat .45 slug! Oh, well, what’s m’field-density equalizer got t’do with anything?”

  Win tucked away the evidence bag. “They’ve got two courses of action, too. They need the device and can either get it back from you—”

  Fran sat up. “That’s why the phony murder charge, to locate Bernie!”

  “Won’t do them any good,” observed her husband. “I know that tight-lipped bunch at Griswold’s... brrrr!”

  “The discretion of the telemedia is another proposition,” the Ambassador chipped in. “Had I not an armored carapace, ihis morning ! should be little more than a collection of body-fluids and footprints. Why is it, that in every culture, reporters are invariably—”

  “Cultivatedly rude, militantly ignorant lounge lizards who don’t know anything but city-room politics?” Howell offered.

  “Or the best brands of hair-spray.” Will grunted.

  “No argument,” I said, “but go on, Win. Do we let Cromney come t’us or what?”

  “Or what. I’ve contacted a couple university friends who can analyze this device of yours, make a guess where Crom-ney’ll be looking for parts, and track him down—”

  “No good, Your Deductiveness. It’ll be Heplar doin’ the fabricatin’, an’ there ain’t no lacka basic components in Georgie's stores. Heplar’s got the education t’ handle the job; question is does he have the smarts?”

  There came a chimin’. Win punched buttons, an entire wall, fireplace an’ all, vanished, replaced by a giant close-up of a pretty platinum blonde. “Oh, a party!” She surveyed the room. “I got your message, Win. What’s up?”

  “A false alarm, it appears. Oh, well, Deejay Thorens, meet... now let me see: Bernie Gruenblum; his friends Charm, Color, and Spin; you know Howell, of course. Have you met the Sanderses, Mary-Beth, Fran, and Will?”

  She nodded cheerily. “Hi, Fran—it’s a small campus, isn’t it. Hello, everybody else. I repeat, sir, what’s up?” Win gave her a summary, includin’ the defunctitude of his spare-parts idea. Halfway through, the screen divided, an’ we were starin’ at the perpetual Mona Lisa grin of a Tursiops truncatus—that’s Latin for Flipper.

  “You may forego introductions, Edward William Bear, I overheard them, though too occupied with an experiment to attend the ’com. Estimable land-dwellers, I am Ooloorie Eckickeck P’wheet. Set aside the question of fabricating a field-density equalizer and pray continue with your story. It has its interesting points.”

  “Everybody’s doing Conan Doyle this season.” Win groaned. He explained that Ooloorie wasn’t in Laporte but did business electronically from the Emp
eror Norton University. I resisted askin’ after Nasty Jim Brannigan.

  The detective finished. Against m’better judgment, an’ for no better reason than satisfyin’ her scientific curiosity plus a perverse desire t’defy my Academy conditionin’, I agreed t’tum the all-important frammis over t’Deejay. She assured me it’d be safe, though I had m’doubts about any institution called Mulligan’s Bank & Grill.

  In return, she promised t’find other ways t’be helpful. Ooloorie asked a lotta questions about Georgie— not about Ochskahrt’s Effect, I mighta expected that from the inventor of the Broach, but she apparently regarded Academy applications as an inferior variant—mostly she wanted t’know Georgie's talents as a computer, an’ the range of radiofrequencies the saucer commonly used.

  “You’re certain, landling, that the vessel is capable of real-time communication above the Turing level?”

  “If you’re talkin’ ’bout stuff like Telecom cartoons, ’.s how I program m’own, er... well, custom DreamCassettes.

  ’Course she ain’t good for much else while we’re doin’ that—uses up a lotta capacity. Why?”

  The faraway cetacean turned to her partner. “You see it, of course.” Deejay nodded assent. “We are agreed, then,” the porpoise said. “There is a third approach if contact can he established and capacities augmented through remote peripherals.”

  Win nodded vigorously. “I like it.”

  Mary-Beth clapped her hands. “And Cromney’s resulting legal status!”

  Inexplicable laughter all around.

  “What the flamin’ Ochskahrt’re you people talkin’ about?” “Would you prefer,” Howell suggested, muddyin’ the water further, “that Cromney be permitted to tinker with Georgie as he wishes? What Ooloorie has in mind is relatively simple—in fact, Confederate industry must take positive steps to avoid it—painless, and a considerable improvement.”

  Still not understandin’ what was goin’ on, I supplied Deejay with more information while Howell got sent to the comer mailbox t’stick m’equalizer frammis in a Bellamy Tube. At Deejay’s suggestion, I also sent along m’poor beat-up Academy wristwatch in hopes somebody at the University could fix it.

  Fran an’ Deejay caught up with campus gossip. Apparently, the same sorta thing that went on every when, ’ceptin’ that here the red-hot question was what species was sleepin’ with what. Will got up t’pour another rounda drinks, stickin’ to a decocainated softdrink, himself. The Freenies were amusin’ Mary-Beth: they’d gotten a tennis ball from somewhere an’ were puttin’ a disgustin’ new wrinkle in the old shell-game.

  I refused t’watch.

  Instead, I was admirin’ Win’s hardware collection in a glass-fronted walnut case. Some kinda single-shot derringer with a BIG hole in the front end, a laser-pistol, what looked like a bowie knife. These Confederates sure loved their— CRASH!!!

  Suddenly I found m’self on the floor, an’ it seemed like a good place t’stay. The room was filled with smoke, pourin’ up from the front door downstairs. I scanned around for casualties: Win lay behind the coffee-table, a cracked ’com pad on the floor in fronta him, goin’ for his .41; Will’d dropped a whole pitchera margueritas an’ been blown clear to the kitchen steps. He levered himself into a crouch, blood runnin’ down one forearm, an’ drew his swords. Both women were horizontal, but fillin’ their hands with Confederate iron. My little alien buddies were nowhere t’be seen.

  Which meant they were okay.

  I slid my Colt outa the leather. I’d been closest when the door exploded. It still stood, splintered an’ swayin’ on one hinge. I crawled forward to the four or five steps leadin’ t’ground level an’ snicked off the thumb-safety.

  There was a crunch, an’ a furry foot smashed through the ruined door, followed by the chimp it belonged to. Decked out in commando paisley, he carried a pistol in each mitt. Behind me I felt, rather than saw, Fran Sanders raisin’ her plasma-gun t’pick him off. I breast-stroked with my left hand, tellin’ her t’hold fire until we saw what else we were up against.

  The first chimp was followed by a second in a disgustin’ squash-colored leisure suit, then by a very familiar paira faces: Denny Kent an’ Edna Janof squeezed into the entry hall, each carryin’ some kinda huge-bored two-handed weapon. Coulda been grenade-launchers, judgin’ by what’d happened to the door. Whatever they were, that gave Denny an’ Edna first priority as targets, even if I hadn’t been inclined that way in the first place. I let ’em have another coupla seconds, then drew a bead on Denny’s left knee an’ pulled the trigger.

  WHAM!

  He jerked like a broken marionette an’ slapped against the wall, droppin’ his artillery. I shifted m’sights.

  Ssssspakkk!

  Blommm!

  Ka-bammm!

  That shot of mine’d been the signal for everybody else t’open up. Edna leveled her cannon at me, but outa nowhere a pink fluorescent hemisphere, fringed in green, dropped on her head. She shrieked an’ tore it off, threw it to the entryway flaggin’, an’ bashed it, over an’ over, with the butt-stock of her weapon. There was a sickenin’ crackle.

  WHAM! I fired an’ missed. But somethin’ bright an’ slender sizzled toward her upraised arm, an’ suddenly, as if it’d sprouted there, one of Sanders’ smallswords stood quiverin’ through her wrist. She didn’t utter a sound, but snatched the blade out, cast it away. Before I could line up again, she leaped backward through the wreckage of the door an’ was gone.

  I almost teleported down the steps. Denny stretched grog-gily for a fallen pistol, an’ I kicked him in the face. The delay was satisfyin’ but costly: by that time, a buncha pissed-off Confederates’d stacked up on the stairs behind me, tram-plin’ over me on their way out the door after Edna.

  I got back t’my feet, decided t’quit while I was ahead.

  Looked like two enemy simians were dead. Denny wasn’t goin’ anywhere. Little Spin had an ugly ragged split across his shell from rim t’rim, oozin’ purple fluid. Upstairs through a thinnin’ cloud of smoke, the Telecom conveyed a worried female demand: “What’s going on over there? Bemie, what’s happening?”

  Holsterin’ m’pistol, I lifted the little Yamaguchian carefully in a crooked arm, caught the semiconscious Kent by a pants-cuff, an’ dragged him up the stairs, his head bounce-thumpin’ at every step. I was too worried about Spin t’enjoy it.

  Much.

  I propped Kent against the coffee table, put a foot on his crotch t’keep him in place, an’ set the injured Freenie down as gently as I could on the couch. His pals were there immediately.

  I’d misjudged ’em again: in the scant few seconds after the door exploded, they’d arrayed themselves against the intruders over by the front window where they could drop off into the entry way. Spin’d had the bad luck t’be first in line.

  “Bemie?”

  “It’s okay, Deejay,” I replied to the Telecom at last. “Win was right—one way t’get the equalizer frammis was from me. The posse comitatus'll be back with Edna, on her shield or wearin’ it up her—owch!

  Feelin’ a dribble of blood on m’neck, I reached up. Somethin’d pierced m’right earlobe, a wood-splinter or scrappa metal—no—I plucked it out: a teensy little steel arrow, point, fins an’ all.

  “Bemie?” the feminine voice said. “Are you okay?”

  “Busy now, Deejay, I—”

  There was a feral snarlin’ down at the door. A third chimp clumped up the steps, holster empty, hands on the backa his head. Behind him was a brand-new Nahuatl I hadn’t seen before, muzzle accordioned up an’ fangs bared.

  “Apparently, I got back just in time, Bemie. This one was keeping watch from a hovercraft. What I cannot fathom is why a chimpanzee should be working with the Hamiltonians.”

  “Hamiltonians!” the captured simian exclaimed. “Why it’s you people who’re the Hamiltonians!”

  I gestured with m’.45, an’ he sat down beside Kent, hands still on his head, lookin’ like a new addition t’Hear, See, an’ Spea
k No Evil.

  “Bemie?” the Telecom insisted, “please speak to me. I’m scared! Bemie? This is Georgie!”

  15 The Ship Who What?

  “It’s a flechette," Will Sanders commented, watchin’ me as Fran dabbed at his arm with some kinda cloth. He winced suddenly. She seized somethin’ between her fingers an’ plucked it outa the wound.

  “Ungh! Just like this one!”

  I kept moppin’ at my bloodied earlobe, dumfounded by about six things at once. ’Cross the room, Win an’ Mary-Beth finished gloppin’ cyanoacrylate over Spin’s fractured shell, as Color an’ Charm patted his little tentacles. He wheepled an’ bravely tried t’hold his eyestalk erect.

  Our simian prisoner moved an elbow—Howell snarled— the offendin’ appendage snapped back into place.

  We’d tied a tourniquet above Denny Kent’s disintegrated knee. I’d wanted it around his neck, but’d been persuaded otherwise by those who take unfair advantage by bein’ girls. Thanks t’Deejay an’ Ooloorie, professional helpa various kinds’d been summoned, but it seemed a mite slow cornin’.

  “A flechette,” the gunsmith repeated between gritted teeth. Gone were the glitterin’ toys he’d been wearin’, replaced now with a heavy long-barreled .40-caliber Stateside Bren, slung low from a dirty olive-drab web belt. Dunno what he’d been back home; here he was a gunfighter.

  High on the right hip, he carried a U.S.M.C. combat knife.

  Those weapons our friends brought with them,” he explained, “like shotguns, only with steel darts, about 8-gauge, good for four hundred meters. That’s what took the door out, Bernie. We only caught a few after they were spent.”

  Will seen to, Fran offered me the projectile from his arm. Bent, as if it’d ricocheted offa somethin’. Will’d made her fetch his serious weapons—started t’go himself on the way back from their wild-Edna-chase—before he’d let her look at the ragged wound. “Want this for your other ear, Bernie?” She touched m’punctured lobe with somethin’ that stung a moment, then went cold. “We could mount one on a post and the other on a screwback.”