“Suppose I grab this chair before the crowd steals it away. Thank you for having me over in my moment of need.” Sitting back in his chair, he placed his drink on the table and waited.
The woman frowned slightly. “You’re a strange one. A lovely girl invites you over to her table and you simply sit there. No big line to impress me, no heavy masculine ego buildup trying to seduce me. I find it hard to believe you’re — ”
Nightwind shrugged. “I’m not. And I find you very lovely. But it was you who called me over. I assumed you had something you wanted to say to me.” He didn’t stir. His cold black eyes bored into the woman’s softer brown eyes until she looked away in sudden discomfort.
“I … nothing. I just wanted someone to talk to. Sorry to have bothered you.”
Nightwind still didn’t move. “You seemed to be amused at the short conversation I had with the Maezen.”
“You don’t say much, do you?” she snapped, her eyes blazing again. Impulsively she said, “I’m Steorra.”
“Steorra? A lovely name. Is that your name or your home planet?”
“My name, silly! There’s no planet named Steorra. Though I think it would be such a nice … vanity! Yes, a vanity!”
Nightwind wondered at the woman’s intentions. She was working hard to maintain the conversation. He wondered why. He might possess a masculine charm, but he doubted it. Cold, ebon eyes such as his were sure to drive off all but the most determined woman. And he was not that physically attractive. He was too tall, too thin. Lacking in bulky muscles, Nightwind made up for it with quickness and brains. And being a shrewd judge of character, Steorra wasn’t stupid; she was play-acting to make him think she was just another bored, rich traveler. He was sure Steorra wanted something from him, something more than companionship for one tired of being locked inside the belly of a starship.
“I just don’t understand you. Don’t I interest you at all?” The woman was beginning to look perplexed. That put Nightwind on his guard. She should have been vexed. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have been as witty and charming as possible to her. But some small thing refused to leave Nightwind’s mind, kept nagging at him that Steorra was more than she appeared.
“Yes, you are very attractive to me. I just don’t understand what you see in me.” Before she could answer, he went on, “It’s not mere boredom. Not with almost two hundred passengers from a dozen planets on this ship.”
“Why can’t I find you more attractive than the others?” Again the fake determination, the set to her lips telling him more than her words. Nightwind sensed the truth. Information was all he possessed that Steorra could want. He idly wondered if she was interested in his and Heuser’s little treasure hunt to Rhyl? Was she competition for the prize, whatever it might be?
Rhyl, the desert world where Dr. Alfen had made a monumental discovery of treasure beyond belief.
“No reason.” Nightwind sipped his lemonade as Heuser entered the lounge. Seeing his friend occupied with a woman, the cyborg simply went to the bar. His order pleased the robot bartender, giving the machine something more demanding to do than dispensing lemonade like any cheap home-unit model.
Nightwind said, “It’s just that I’ve worked as a security guard. Maybe I worked at it too long and have grown … suspicious.”
“A security guard? That’s awfully dangerous work, isn’t it?” Steorra’s face showed concern. Her eyes told a completely different tale.
“Not really. My friend at the bar and I worked for a drug cartel on Earth. We finally decided to take a vacation, have a leisurely sightseeing tour of the galaxy. How about you?”
For a moment, panic filled the girl’s eyes. She quickly covered it, and Nightwind knew whatever she said would be a lie. “I came into a bit of money and decided to see a couple different worlds, too. Been on Earth all my life. You can appreciate wanting to get away from there.”
“Overcrowding, yeah.” That part rang true, at least. Earth had more people than any planet should reasonably have to support. It hung suspended on a thin thread having to import most of its food in exchange for the dubious export of a well-run bureaucracy.
“You must have dozens and dozens of exciting stories to tell about your time in space. Tell me some! Something recent and shivery!” Steorra leaned forward, eager.
There it was. The woman might as well have carried a sign advertising her intent. Nightwind dismissed the girl as unimportant. She was probably as young as she looked. Certainly lacking in experience, Steorra was no trained interrogator. He had always played fair with the drug cartel; she couldn’t work for them. And he scrupulously avoided politics. No world government would have the slightest interest in him. That left his trip to Rhyl as the object of her interest.
Nightwind began telling stories, mostly fabricated on the spot. Steorra’s impatience grew steadily as Nightwind steadfastly avoided any mention of his last trip in space and the salvage of Dr. Alfen’s expedition ship.
The brunette finally broke down and asked, “What about your last trip? Surely, something wonderful happened?”
“Ummm, no. Fairly routine trip.” Nightwind was beginning to enjoy Steorra’s agitation. Her emotions could be seen as easily as the overacted tri-dim recorded play running in the far corner of the lounge. She’d have to have a lot of experience before she could move into the league that Nightwind enjoyed pitting his wits against.
“Surely something — ” she started. Steorra’s words were cut off by a loud argument coming from the bar. Both the brunette and Nightwind turned to see a massively built man shove Heuser off his stool. Heuser’s face never changed from its innocent set. The stranger read no sign of menace in the blazing, intensely blue eyes. Nightwind did. Heuser would break this impudent drunk into small pieces and never work up a sweat.
Nightwind gracefully rose, bowed to Steorra saying, “Excuse me, milady. I’ll return in a moment,” then pivoted and grabbed the man’s arm before he could complete his swing at Heuser.
The vise grip on his forearm stopped the man as surely as the cold words, “Don’t even think of hitting him again,” pouring like melted snow from Nightwind’s thin lips.
“Nobody says what he did to Dhal Shu-tri!” the man cried.
“Says what?”
“He said I reeked!”
Heuser raised himself to his full one-and-six-tenths-meter height and looked completely ineffectual. Nightwind knew his friend would be able to bend steel bars in his current rage.
“I’m sure he didn’t mean it quite the way you seem to have taken it. He could’ve been more diplomatic.”
“What’ya mean?” Dhal bellowed.
Nightwind said sweetly, a smile lingering on his lips, “He might have recommended the ship’s excellent sanitary facilities to a person obviously not fully availing himself of them.”
“Huh?”
“Okay, mister,” Nightwind said, losing patience. “You reek. And it was a fool mistake hitting someone half your size.” Nightwind felt the muscles of the forearm tense and knew what was coming.
He easily ducked the awkward swing. As Dhal’s fist cut the air centimeters over his head, Nightwind’s arms encircled the man’s body. Without any display of strain on his part, Nightwind lifted Dhal and tossed him to the far end of the bar.
In a deceptively soft voice, he told Dhal, “Leave before you get hurt. You’re outclassed, Dhal Shu-tri.”
The use of the man’s name seemed to shock, then enrage. Dhal recovered, bellowed like a bull and charged. Nightwind waited until the last possible moment before acting. Reaching out almost tenderly, he gripped Dhal’s right arm and lapel, stuck a foot out that caught the attacking man’s kneecap, then twisted to the left. Nightwind watched Dhal cartwheeling to the other side of the room. Before the man could regain his feet, Nightwind grabbed both ankles and quickly dragged him from the room. In less than a minute, the thin man returned looking as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
He leaned on the bar and
said in a controlled voice, “Lemonade, please. Hazmal VI is fine.”
The robot bartender buzzed and produced another goblet. Nightwind sardonically nodded his thanks to the machine and went back to Steorra’s table.
“Now that’s over and done with, where were we?” he asked, as if bouncing obnoxious drunks was all in a day’s business.
“You … you handled him so easily!” the girl blurted out.
“No matter. He was drunk. At least, I think he was.” Nightwind analyzed the woman’s reaction. The abortive attack on Heuser seemed more than just a drunk making trouble for another customer. Dhal hadn’t moved or acted like he was intoxicated, not as much as if he were intentionally looking for a fight. And Steorra acted as if she knew what was going to happen — up to the point where Dhal was bounced like a rubber ball.
Nightwind shrugged it off. Maybe Dhal was merely a bully looking for someone to beat up. If so, he’d picked the wrong one. Heuser had no sense of propriety; he would have killed his attacker with little sense of loss or guilt.
“You seem to be quite expert at taking care of yourself,” the woman pressed. “You must have positively exciting tales to tell.” Again the blatant request for him to spill — what? There was only one thing Nightwind had to discuss that could be of interest to the lovely, brown-tressed Steorra.
The diary and maps of Dr. Alfen. How had she found out he had them? Did she know for certain or was she probing for information? Was she positive and merely looking for confirmation? What was Steorra’s game?
“I lead a dull life.”
A voice from behind angrily bellowed, “Your life’s about over! Nobody beats up my friend and lives to brag about it!”
Nightwind swiveled and looked over his shoulder at another hulk of a man. Tall, well muscled, but lacking the massiveness of Dhal. Nightwind could sense they were two of a kind. He wondered if he would have to kill this one as an object lesson.
“What’s your name, sire? I might as well know who’s annoying me.”
“Slayton. Lane Slayton. Ever hear of me?” The voice was tinged with pride and arrogance. Nightwind sighed. He had heard of Slayton. The man had made a reputation for himself as a law-enforcement officer on several frontier worlds. His methods, however, smacked more of the vigilante than legal. Rumors said Slayton would rather kill than let a man stand trial where lie detector and telepath might prove innocence.
The law meant nothing to Slayton. He simply enjoyed killing.
Seeing the way his arms hung, slightly bent, told Nightwind that Slayton was both carrying a weapon and was ready to use it. An experienced appraisal indicated Slayton’s gun was in a cross-draw holster at his belt.
With a movement so fast he left a blurred track across Slayton’s field of vision, Nightwind whipped out of the chair, seized the gunman’s left arm and pulled. Taken off guard, Slayton found himself facing in the opposite direction, Nightwind close behind him.
“I’ve got a needlegun pressed firmly against your spine.” Nightwind jabbed to let the man know it wasn’t a bluff. “After I relieve you of your firearm, you may leave. If you don’t, would you prefer burial in space or on the next planet we land on?”
“I … I — ” Slayton stuttered.
“Good man.” A deft flick lifted Slayton’s blaster, a small, compact model obviously well used. “And good-bye!”
Nightwind sent Slayton stumbling with a powerful shove. The man half turned and glared back, hatred flaring in his washed-out blue eyes. His lips curled back in a feral snarl, then he hastily left.
“Such dreary people on board pleasure ships these days,” Nightwind commented as he sat down again. “Ever since the Covenant allowed everyone to go armed, things like this happen. Heuser keeps telling me I should teach those fools some manners. His idea is to kill them. I can’t quite agree, but sometimes I think my friend has the right idea.”
Nightwind watched Steorra pale visibly. On impulse, he slid Slayton’s blaster across the table to her. “Here. You can have this as a souvenir. I don’t really need one.” He smiled ingenuously.
He watched a frightened animal look cross the lovely creature. She tried to hide her unease and failed miserably. A shaky hand timidly touched the pistol. Steorra suddenly scooped up the blaster and left without another word.
Nightwind wondered how long it would be before Slayton had his blaster back in its holster.
The trio met in Steorra’s suite. Dhal sat slump shouldered. The dejection on his face told that he wasn’t used to being tossed around like a feather pillow. His hands unconsciously clenched and unclenched as if longing for Nightwind’s throat under his powerful fingers.
Steorra was still pale. In stark contrast was Lane Slayton. His face was contorted in fierce rage. He grabbed the blaster from the young woman and blazed, “I ought to go burn him to a cinder!”
Steorra’s lips thinned to a line as she spoke. “You’ll do no such thing, Lane! I hired you for one reason and one reason only. And it wasn’t killing. If Nightwind forces you into self-defense, that’s something else. But we’ve got to get my father’s diary back. This Nightwind’s out to discredit him. Maybe even steal whatever discovery my father made on Rhyl. His letters…” Her voice faded as she thought of the glowing words Dr. Lorric Alfen had sent her about his find on the desert world. Once, he’d even said it was of greater magnitude than the deserted cities on Sigma Draconis IV. And Steorra knew that discovery was the basis for her father’s wealth and deserved reputation as a leading archeologist. Selling the secrets of that lost race had enabled the man to continue his expensive archeological digs on a myriad of worlds without having to kowtow to a board of directors intent on publications and prestige.
Even though Dr. Alfen had never mentioned specifics, he’d thought Rhyl to be an even more significant find than the spidery cities on the other long-dead planet.
Dhal broke Steorra’s fond remembrances of her father, saying, “I’d say what he done to us is good enough to burn him.”
Slayton waved his hand to silence his partner. “That’s not true, Dhal. We’ll play along like the lady says. She’s the boss.”
Steorra relaxed slightly at his words. She needed these men, as unstable as they seemed. She had been living too long in that university to cope with primitive worlds, scrabbling just to stay alive.
Steorra said, “I think it’s be best not to cross paths with this Roderick Nightwind again. He seems to be able to take care of himself.”
“And that runty assistant of his, too,” Dhal added.
“I wonder about that. He didn’t seem to be taking care of him as much as worrying about you,” Steorra mused, a thoughtful look on her face.
Dhal scowled. He said, “I don’t need anyone looking after me. Least of all the likes of Nightwind.”
“I think Steorra’s right about just following them,” Slayton hastily said. “Let them lead us to the prof’s find, then … well, we’ll see about Nightwind.”
“I knew it was the right thing hiring you,” Steorra said. “Some of the rumors had you a little bloodthirsty, but you’ve been a policeman on too many worlds too long. You’ll do the right thing, the legal thing. I’m confident you’ll be able to stop Nightwind from stealing my father’s work.”
Slayton and Dhal exchanged knowing grins. Slayton said, “Don’t worry, we’ll stop him dead in his tracks.”
CHAPTER TWO
THE DAYS REMAINING until Nightwind and Heuser disembarked dragged. The pair argued endlessly over the incident with Slayton and Dhal. The best Nightwind could do was keep his diminutive companion in a state of semicalm. The cyborg said over and over he wanted nothing more than to tear the two men apart with his bare hands.
Nightwind reasoned with him, “Look at it like this, Heuser. If we string them along, sooner or later their real reason will surface. Then, we can see how much force to use. It’s just possible they’re a pair of spacebums that just enjoy going around stirring up trouble. They might not know a thing about ou
r little venture to Rhyl.”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do,” the cyborg snorted, peering up from his hundred-sixty-centimeter height to his hundred-ninety-centimeter-tall companion. “You don’t believe that any more than I could, even if I’d taken a snootful of happy dust. Slayton’s got a lousy reputation. When he was a cop out on the Rim, he didn’t bring in as many men as he burned on the spot. He’s cold-blooded, a filthy butcher and you know it. And that Dhal fellow must grow on the same vine. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be hanging around with Slayton.”
Nightwind said nothing. What Heuser was pointing out was true. The only piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit — quite — was Steorra. Her part in the encounter was anything but clear to the man. He knew she was involved with Slayton and Dhal, but how? Why?
The landing and leaving the ship provided a welcome change in routine for the two. Never ones to fall into an easy pattern, they rejoiced when they were allowed to go planetside after six solar standard weeks in space.
Heuser cried joyously, “Air! Fresh, unrecycled air!” and promptly coughed. The dust hung like a dull brown curtain in the air. Vision from the top of the lift was cut to a mere hundred meters, so thick was the tan haze. Nightwind couldn’t help but see his friend’s eyes watering. His own were beginning to leak a little, too. After an asthmatic gasping, the cyborg started choking on the thick dust.
“What’s wrong, Heuser? Don’t you like this nice, clean air? After the scrubbed clean stuff we’ve been breathing for the last couple months, I would have thought you would enjoy this.”
“You knew it would be like this!” accused the smaller man. “You knew! You’ve got on a respirator!”
Nightwind’s hand instinctively went to the noseplugs he wore. The tiny filters spread his nostrils slightly, giving his nose a flattened appearance. He hadn’t believed it would be possible for the dust to be this thick, but it was pointless taking a chance. He’d brought his Earthside smog filters.
“Well, it’s still better than the ship’s air!” doggedly declared Heuser as he spat a mouthful of sand over the side of the descending elevator.
Sandcats of Rhyl Page 2