by Scott Sigler
A young one, just past adolescence, perhaps, came up from his right, angled across his back, then cut down and under, passing beneath his belly. The adolescent’s wing-flaps rippled with solid muscle, firm cartilage and a taut hide.
Doc Patah had just been looped.
All right, youngster, let’s see what you’ve got.
Doc broke left and abandoned the straight climb, the move taking him level with the ground far below. The adolescent matched the move, only losing a few meters of proximity. Good reactions, but Doc wasn’t finished testing the lad just yet.
He feinted upright, then bent his body and went into a power dive. Air whipped across his skin in flat-out, glorious speed. He sensed the youth staying with him. Doc’s feint had gained him a few more meters of space, but the youth’s speed was already eating that up. Doc dipped under an elderly couple, then pulled up hard and shot between them.
Something in his right wing-flap twinged, shooting pain all down his flank. He tucked, protecting the area, and felt a tap on his back.
Tag, you’re it. The youth had caught him.
Doc hovered, stingray-shaped bodies whizzing by on all sides and in all directions. The youth did a vertical loop while barrel-rolling the whole way through — probably the kid’s signature victory dance — then flew off, looking for a new playmate.
Doc did the Harrah equivalent of a heavy sigh. Splitting through the old couple would have worked, but he’d pulled a muscle of all things. Just another reminder that he wasn’t a youth anymore and was far closer to the leisurely flight of the elderly couple than he was the jet-burn joy of the youthful stranger.
That was enough workout time for one day. Doc flew up in a slow, straight line, his path making it easy for the Harrah whipping about the cylinder chamber to avoid him. He reached the top ring. One thing odd about all sentients — your station in life is reflected by your hotel floor.
He tapped the iris to his room airlock, watched it open, then slid inside. He tapped the inside iris but had to wait as the gas changed and the pressure dropped to match that inside his room.
Which meant he had visitors.
The iris opened, and Doc Patah floated inside. Waiting for him, a small, black-furred Quyth Leader sat in a chair. The chair was only there for non-Harrah company, and the Leader had helped himself. A Quyth Warrior stood on either side of him. They looked like they’d recently been in a fight ... a fight they hadn’t won.
“Doctor Patah,” the Leader said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Doc hovered. Whoever they were, they had connections. They didn’t just let anyone on the top floor, and they certainly didn’t let no-names into someone’s room.
“I see,” Doc said, his voice emitting from the box strapped to his back. “And to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”
“Gredok the Splithead,” the Leader said.
Oh.
The crime lord of Ionath City. Doc had assumed Gredok would try and get his pedipalps into Korak’s next fight, that’s what crime lords did, but Doc had never expected to be the focal point of such a visit. He was just the ring doctor.
“I may not be fully familiar with the cultural subtleties of Ionath City, your organization or your regional and tribal specifics,” Doc said. “So allow me to state, quite clearly and for the record, that I realize you are a sentient to be respected and if I should accidentally offend you, it is in no way intended.”
Gredok’s antennae twitched. “Did you just preemptively apologize for any possible sign of disrespect?”
“Yes,” Doc said.
Gredok looked up at the Warrior on his left. “Did you hear that, Virak? That is how to react intelligently to an unknown situation.”
“Only if you like to cower and grovel,” Virak said.
“Did I ask you to speak?” Gredok said.
“No, Shamakath, you did not ask me to speak.”
“Then do not do so.”
“Yes, Shamakath.”
Gredok turned his attention back to Doc. The Leader just stared with that one softball-sized eye.
Doc realized his hide was still sweating, even though the room’s low temperature should have already cooled him off. “I’m sure you have a very good reason for being in my private room, Gredok. I know you are a busy man, and I would not wish to waste your time, so if you’d like to tell me what I can do for you, I will do my best to oblige.”
Gredok again turned to Virak. “Did you hear that? What do you think he just said?”
Virak looked down. “Do you want me to speak this time?”
“Please.”
“I think he just said, in a very polite way, what the shuck do you want?”
Gredok again turned his attention on Doc. “Is that what you just said to me, Doctor? Did you just say what the shuck do you want to me?”
This was not going well. Doc was in trouble, and he knew it.
“Fortunate,” Gredok said, “that you apologized in advance. But you are right, Doctor — I have let myself in, so let me get down to business. I had my associates do some research on you.”
Doc felt a quick stab of fear ... but no; there was no way Gredok could know. “And what did you find out about me? I’m afraid I’m a rather boring individual.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Gredok said. “So imagine my surprise when I discovered that you are the most wanted sentient on the planet Yarah.”
Doc Patah stopped flapping. No. He simply could not know. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Doctor, please. I am not one of the punch-stupid sentients that you choose to associate with. I can’t actually pronounce your name, but I had an associate do it for me, just so I could be sure.”
Gredok extended his left pedipalp. He held a small piece of plastic, which he pressed, and Doc Patah heard the hissing syllables of a name he’d long thought dead.
How could Gredok have discovered this? How? Doc had changed his pigmentation, had his scent glands genetically modified, even had extra cartilage ridges implanted to change his silhouette. No one could recognize him.
Doc Patah realized he had stopped flapping, realized he was floating up slightly. He adjusted his buoyancy; let his skin ripple a bit to maintain a fixed hover.
“And once I found out who you were,” Gredok said, “further investigation revealed that the warlord Yashahon has been after you for some time. And from what I understand, she is a rather mean-spirited individual.”
“Gredok, I’ve done nothing to offend you,” Doc said. “Nothing to cross you, but please ... you don’t understand what she would do to me.”
“I do,” Gredok said. “She will send a skinner after you.”
A skinner. The word sounded bad enough in the native Harrah tongue, but from a groundling, it sounded far more brutal, more crude.
“And yes, I know what a skinner is,” Gredok said. “A Harrah, probably a bit larger, faster and stronger than you, will punch a spike through your lower nerve column, paralyzing your wings.”
He talked so calmly, like it was nothing more than a game, or a play, but Doc Patah had seen such things, had even done it himself once to settle a family score. He remembered the way his enemy had twitched and spasmed when he drove the spike in, remembered how satisfying it had been to see his enemy just float, unable to fly.
“Then,” Gredok said, “she will take a flaying hook and start scraping off strips of your hide.”
All of his past was coming back to haunt him. Not just the war, the battle, Yashahon’s son, but way back to his adolescence. Doc Patah remembered the feel of the flaying hooks sliding down his enemy’s body, the smell of the blood, the hissing screams. He’d been lost in the bloodlust at that moment, really worked it good and slow because the others had always admired his steady tentacles. It was only after, when Doc came out of the combat rage, that he’d realized what he had done to another sentient creature. That act of his youth had turned his life around, drove him into medical school. His bar
baric act had turned him into a life-saving doctor.
“It can get worse,” Gredok said. “I understand the more brutal individuals will make you eat those strips of hide.”
“Gredok ... please,” Doc said. “I’m sure we can work something out. My only chance of staying alive is that Yashahon doesn’t know who I am now, or where I am.”
“Of course, she does,” Gredok said. “I told her.”
Doc Patah felt heat blossom up in his air chambers. He was doomed.
“Why ... why would you do that?”
“We in the crime world have a certain ... camaraderie. If someone’s drug-addled hands, my apologies, drug-addled tentacles, cause the death of my offspring, I would want to be alerted to this sentient’s location. So once I found out who you were, I made a call. Several systems away, you should know. It was a very expensive call.”
“But I was not doing drugs! It was a battle, we were hit. I did everything I could! I was wounded, I had a collapsed buoyancy chamber, I had to operate from the ground like an animal.” Doc Patah rapped a tentacle against the front right quarter of his flat body. A Harrah would have heard the noise it made, heard the ultrasonic ping made by an artificial chamber lining, but he was talking to ground creatures, and all they heard was the fwap fwap fwap of tentacle muscle against cartilage ridges.
“Belief is a prerequisite of accepting fact,” Gredok said. “What happened doesn’t really matter, what she believes happened does. And you know this, Doctor, or you would still be on Yarah, still be a surgeon there. But you ran, which means you know what Yashahon believes, and since she believes you were under the influence when her son died, that makes it the same thing as fact.”
Doc tried to stay calm, tried to think. Gredok was here, not a skinner. At least not yet. “What do you want, Gredok?”
“I want two things,” Gredok said. “First, you will fix up Choto the Bright’s leg. And you had best be doing your top-level work, Tribal Surgeon Chapatah, because the Tier One season is coming up, and the Krakens need their starting outside linebacker.”
Doc Patah looked at the leg. It was broken, bleeding. Choto had strapped what looked like a broken chair leg to it, wrapped it with duct tape. Must have hurt horribly, but he was a Quyth Warrior, and a combat veteran judging by his enamels, and he was an enforcer for Gredok the Splithead. All of those things together meant he was tougher than battleship rivets.
“He’s old,” Doc said, the words emitting from his voice box before he could control them. “I ... I am not sure I can repair it. His natural healing ability is compromised by age.”
“I could show you how age impacts me,” Choto said.
“Choto,” Gredok said, “did I ask you to speak?” As always, Gredok’s voice was soft, calm.
“No, Shamakath,” Choto said. “You did not ask me to speak.”
“Then do not. And you, Doctor, please dismiss the illusion that you have a choice. Now that I know who you are, and know of your renowned skill, you can and will fix him up as good as new.”
The leg looked bad, but maybe not impossible. Doc fixed far worse on a daily basis, but that was with the benefit of implants and body mods. Choto would play in the GFL, which meant he couldn’t have those things. Oddly, it would be a chance to perform classic surgery, the challenge of repairing pure biological material.
“I will fix him,” Doc said. “How did he injure it?”
“We had a discussion with Chaiyal North. It did not go as well as I expected.”
For the second time in as many minutes, Doc Patah stopped flapping. He felt the situation slipping away. By the looks of the clotting around that wound, the “talk” had happened less than an hour ago. Gredok had talked to The Heretic, then come right here. The Heretic, the killing machine that had called out Korak the Cutter. Doc knew a game was already in play and that he was just a piece about to be moved.
“Which brings us to the second thing I want,” Gredok said. “I want you to put a particular body modification in your fighter. And he cannot know it is there.”
“I won’t do it.”
“Don’t you even want to know what the modification is?”
“It matters not,” Doc said. “I am in Korak’s camp. I am his physician! You cannot ask me to hurt him or compromise his ability to fight.”
“You might want to take your own advice,” Gredok said. “Korak the Cutter is old. He has maybe one good fight left, and since that fight will be against The Heretic, it will not end well.”
“Then why do you need me to do this?”
“Because unlike your distant enemy, I choose to put fact before belief. Fact makes money. If I have all the facts, then I know how to profit.”
“Gredok ... please. Please. I can fix your linebacker, but I will not do what you ask. I will not modify Korak without his knowledge.”
Gredok’s clear eye flooded black. “Very well. If I do not profit from an association with you, I will profit from my newfound association with the warlord Yashahon. Choto, bring in Yashahon’s emissary.”
Choto limped to the room’s outer airlock door, the one that led to the hallway. He opened the door, and a Harrah quietly flew in.
Not just a Harrah ... a skinner.
She was big, thick and solid. When she said his name, she didn’t need a recorder. It was the first time in twenty years he’d heard his real name spoken from another living mouth.
She spoke to him in the hissing, low frequency language of their species.
I’m lucky I was in Ionath City taking care of other business, she said. I get a very large payment for taking care of you. Yashahon wants me to skin you slowly. I hope you are not shy about having your picture taken because she asked me to record everything. I get a bonus if you beg.
The skinner reached her left tentacle into her backpack. She pulled out a black handle with a blue chain. The chain rattled as it came out, one end still connected to something inside the backpack, something Doc knew only too well. The short chain pulled taut — that something slid from the backpack and dropped, bounced once at the bottom of the chain’s length, then swung slightly, spinning just a bit.
A flaying hook.
The chain connected to a swivel joint attached to a thin, curved piece of metal. At the bottom of that half-circle, a straight piece of that same metal running from end to end. Small, razor-sharp, undulating curves lined all the edges, the half-circle part and the flat.
The skinner would lay that device against Doc’s body, then pull the chain taut until the flaying hook slid across his skin. The undulating edges would catch, dig in, slide under the skin and continue down the body. When done with skill and precision, you could peel off a 3-inch-wide swath of hide that ran 4 feet in length, from the eyespots all the way down the tail.
Doc had seen a holo once where a Harrah had explained a flaying hook to the Human hero who had just been captured, describing it as a “potato peeler for the skin.”
Her other tentacle reached back and came out with a barbed spike. That tool was meant for the back of his head. She would drive the point in at an angle until it split his nervous column, making his wings still and rigid. He would not be able to move, but he would feel everything.
Doc Patah could not speak. If he had died back on Yarah, or in the battle, that would have been one thing. But to have fled across the galaxy, to have started a new life, only to have that taken away in a long, slow, agonizing death ... that was far worse. Worse because it just wasn’t fair.
Doc’s tentacles shot into his own backpack and came out with a pair of scalpels. She was faster, bigger, stronger, younger, but he’d been born a Sahanna, he’d been bred a Sahanna, and he’d go out fighting like a Sahanna.
She floated forward, her body vibrating with pleasure, anticipation.
“Virak,” Gredok said.
Virak reached into his waistband and pulled out a revolver. The skinner instantly realized she’d been tricked, turned on him and flew up and at him so fast Doc couldn’t track th
e motion.
The revolver fired twice.
Bullets tore through her body, misting in the air with the yellow gas that escaped her punctured air bladder. The flaying hook and chain rattled when they hit the floor. The skinner dropped to the ground, flopping, flapping, hissing with pain.
“Doctor,” Gredok said. “Since you have your tools out, would you like to finish her?”
No, he did not. He wanted nothing to do with this. He stayed silent.
“Fine,” Gredok said. “Virak?”
The linebacker lowered his revolver, aimed between the eyespots and fired twice more.
The skinner stopped moving.
“Interesting,” Gredok said. “It looks like I saved your life. Warlord Yashahon doesn’t know where you are, exactly. She also doesn’t know who you are, exactly, doesn’t know your adopted identity. She just knows that I found you on Ionath City and offered to give your location to her employee. Now that said employee is deceased, Yashahon is going to invest resources in finding you, Doctor. So in addition to owing me for saving you, you also require my protection.”
There was no point in arguing that Gredok was the reason Doc was in danger. Gredok had delivered a message as clearly, as viscerally, as one could be delivered.
“All right,” Doc said. “I will do what you ask.”
“Of course, you will,” Gredok said. “Interesting that you ever thought you had a choice.”
Round Six: The Gym
It took some time for the wheels of the fight game to turn. Not surprising. Those gears are always rusty, slow, and they don’t really move until they are lubricated with money. Money and lies.
Six weeks to the day after Chai was called on the carpet and stripped of his heavyweight title, the headlines created a shock wave that crushed all other media in its path. Chaiyal “The Heretic” North released from his GFA contract. The Heretic signed to six-fight deal with the Intergalactic Fighting Association.