McCade on the Run (Sam McCade Omnibus)

by William C. Dietz

  Now both players were taking turns replacing up to five of their ten cards in an effort to build a full system. A full system included twin stars, six planets, a comet, and one moon. But a full system was pretty rare, so lesser hands usually won.

  So when Reba said, “Read ’em and weep, a full system takes the pot,” Mc-Cade groaned in disgust.

  The gambler managed to smile as Reba raked in the pot, but McCade could see the perspiration running down his neck. Chances were the gambler was close to tapped out. If so, he’d pull out pretty soon.

  And the gambler was just about to say something when the pirate saved the day.

  The pirate was young, no more than twenty-five, and walked across the room with a drunken swagger. He wore a slug gun low on his right hip, like someone who fancies himself a quick-draw artist and worries about what other people think.

  From McCade’s point of view the pirate was a godsend, just what he’d hoped for in the first place and failed to get.

  “Any chance of dealing myself in?”

  The gambler spoke quickly.“It’s all right with me if the lady has no objection.” Maybe another player would change his luck and reduce the magnitude of his losses.

  Reba made a show of thinking the proposition over as she tossed off her latest Tail Spin.

  Finally, when McCade thought she’d pushed it too far and the pirate would leave in disgust, she gestured toward an empty chair. “Sure, why not. Let’s see the color of your money.”

  The pirate fumbled around in a pocket for a moment before dragging out a wad big enough to choke an Envo Beast. He slapped it down on the table, called for a drink, and shuffled the cards.

  Reba’s luck took a turn for the worse a few minutes later. The pirate won, and continued to win, until the gambler’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. Was she throwing the game? But that wouldn’t make any sense. Why cheat to lose? Besides, he was winning, and so long as that continued he’d keep his mouth shut.

  An hour passed, and as it did Reba became increasingly careless, forgetting which cards her opponents had and making a series of stupid mistakes.

  The others put it down to her heavy drinking, and McCade would have too, except he’d seen her surreptitiously pour them into the semiliquid slush that covered the floor.

  Finally it was over and Reba’s money was nearly gone. A large pot occupied the center of the greasy table and Reba burped as she threw down her remaining credits. “Well, thaz it, gentlemen. Outside of gark breath over there, and juz enough to cover a number four power board, I’m broke.”

  The pirate looked down at his hand and up to Reba. His bloodshot eyes gleamed with anticipation. “Fine. Throw in gark breath and I’ll show you what I’ve got.”

  A frown creased Reba’s forehead as though she was trying to understand the pirate’s proposal and, finding that hard to do, was pretending to think it over.

  The gambler had decided something was fishy. He didn’t know what and didn’t care. He was slightly ahead and wanted to stay that way. He spread the fingers on both hands. “It’s getting too rich for me. I fold.”

  Reba tried to focus bleary eyes on his face. She nodded heavily. “Zur, just when things get interestin’ you bail out. Well, not me. I hereby add gark breath to the pot. Read ’em and weep.”

  Though not overly thrilled about the name “gark breath,” McCade was happy that things were finally moving in the right direction. He watched Reba and the pirate spread their cards out on the table.

  There was a long silence.

  Reba was the first to frown, followed by the pirate, followed by McCade himself. He couldn’t see the cards from where he sat, but something was wrong.

  While Reba should be frowning, the pirate should be jubilant, and he wasn’t. Suddenly McCade understood. Reba had won! The miserable so and so had won the pot! All that work, all that hobbling around in shackles, all of it a waste of time!

  And that’s when Reba did the only thing she could. She swayed in her chair, held a dramatic hand up to her forehead, and fell over backward. Her chair hit the floor with a tremendous crash.

  Conversation stopped, heads turned, but things were back to normal a few seconds later. No big deal, just another drunk hitting the floor. A somewhat routine occurrence in that or any other rim world bar.

  The gambler looked at the pirate. The pirate looked at the gambler. They grinned. “Fifty-fifty?” the gambler asked.

  “Done,” the pirate agreed. And the two men wasted little time splitting the pot. With that accomplished they turned to McCade.

  “You have a ship and I don’t,” the gambler said thoughtfully. “Give me a hundred credits and gark breath is yours.”

  McCade knew that fifty percent of a prime slave was worth more than a hundred credits and so did the pirate. “Agreed. One hundred credits it is.”

  The pirate counted out a hundred credits, stepped over Reba’s prostrate body, and jerked McCade to his feet. McCade cringed, thanked the pirate for hitting him, and shuffled toward the lock.

  Meanwhile the rest of the pirates were headed for the lock as well. Two were busy trying to out belch each other, while the rest bumped into furniture and cracked crude jokes.

  McCade felt his new owner give him a push, and heard him say, “Hurry up, gark breath, we’re headed home.”

  McCade did his best to snivel. “And where would that be, master?”

  “Why the Rock, gark breath, the Rock. Where else would members of the Brotherhood go?”

  Sixteen

  McCade spent the first part of the trip locked up in a small storage compartment with a broken-down maintenance bot. McCade ignored the robot at first, but eventually the loneliness wore him down, and he tried to make conversation.

  “Hi there. What’s a nice robot like you doing in a place like this?”

  There was a whir of servos as the robot turned its bulbous head. “I have a defective logic board. I am awaiting repair.”

  McCade nodded sympathetically. “That’s a tough break. Say, you’re a maintenance bot, aren’t you?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Well, if you’re a maintenance bot, and you need maintenance, why not fix yourself?”

  Time passed during which the robot made no reply. Finally, just as Mc-Cade was about to drift off to sleep, the robot spoke.

  “I apologize for my delayed response. At first I couldn’t understand why you would ask me such a question. Then I realized that you were stored in here for the same reason I was. When did your logic board burn out?”

  McCade smiled in spite of himself. “I think it was the moment when I allowed Swanson-Pierce to rescue me from Molaria.”

  “Oh,” the robot replied, and lapsed into silence.

  Time passed and eventually, after much boot-licking, McCade was allowed to perform menial chores under the watchful eye of his owner.

  His owner was an up-and-coming young pirate who went by the name of Ace, but was actually named Harold, and who lived in fear that his friends might discover his terrible secret.

  But it wasn’t Ace’s friends who discovered the secret, it was McCade. There he was, cleaning up the pirate’s filthy cabin, when he came across a stash of letters. They all started out with “Dear Harold,”and were signed,“Love, Mommy.”

  Thus armed McCade blackmailed his owner into some extra food and the occasional cigar. When you’re a slave the small comforts mean a lot.

  Meanwhile, Ace took very little interest in McCade’s past, accepting his lies with bored indifference, eager to sell him and drink up the profits.

  This attitude suited McCade to a T, so he made himself the model slave, always cooperative and eager to please.

  This strategy worked so well that after a while the crew began to take him for granted and allowed him a certain amount of freedom.

  As a result he was in the control room as the ship approached the first weapons platform. The weapons platforms were located approximately one light out from the Ro
ck and constituted its first line of defense. They were heavily armed, completely automated, and capable of identifying friendly ships via a code printed into each vessel’s atomic structure. If you had the code, you could pass; if not, boom!

  McCade knew that much from past experience. What he didn’t know, and wanted to find out, was whether the pirates had added anything new since then.

  So McCade was swabbing the deck when the DE came into range of the nearest weapons platform. Never mind the fact that robots normally swabbed the deck. The pirates never asked any questions as long as he did something menial.

  “Platform alpha sixteen coming up, Skipper.” The pilot sounded bored. And why not? The DE had the proper codes and he knew it.

  “That’s a roger,” the skipper replied, looking up from a skin mag. “Hey, gark breath, how ’bout a cup of coffee?”

  “Right away, sir,” McCade sniveled, and shuffled his way toward the small alcove at the rear of the bridge.

  The pilot ran his hand through a shaggy head of brown hair, picked his cavernous nose, and tapped out a short rhythm on his keyboard.

  Peeking out from the small pantry, McCade saw the words “Brotherhood vessel 6456 Delta cleared for planetfall” appear on the pilot’s com screen and vanish again as the pilot cleared his board.

  “We’re cleared for planetfall, Skipper.”

  “That’s real good, Murph. Hey, gark breath! Where the hell’s my coffee?”

  McCade had an idiotic grin on his face as he shuffled his way over and spilled scalding hot coffee on the captain’s leg.

  “You idiot!” The skipper jumped to his feet, hit the coffee pot with his arm, and sloshed more hot liquid onto his right foot.

  There was quite a commotion for a while as the captain swore and hopped around the control room on his one good foot with McCade in sniveling pursuit.

  Finally the officer stopped in one place long enough for McCade to dab ineffectually at his leg and analyze what he’d seen.

  The system hadn’t changed, and later on that would play an important part in his escape, assuming there was an escape. First of course he’d have to get on the Rock, avoid detection, and find the vial. Just take it one step at a time, he told himself, that way you won’t realize how completely stupid the whole thing really is.

  The skipper was still glowering a few hours later when the pilot put the ship down on the planet’s light side on the inner ring of Port Seven.

  Being devoted to both military and commercial enterprises the Rock had some sixty spaceports, number seven being entirely dedicated to the repair and maintenance of raiders.

  McCade had never seen someone clean out their ears and land a spaceship at the same time before, but the pilot not only pulled it off, he did it rather neatly as well. The landing jacks made only the slightest bump as they touched down.

  A small army of robo tenders scuttled out to refuel and perform maintenance on the ship as the whine of the ship’s repellors died away.

  Eager to see their families, or to tie one on, the crew wasted no time gathering their personal belongings together and heading for the main hatch. And, as one of Ace’s belongings, McCade found himself wearing shackles and struggling to keep up with his owner.

  As he clanked his way down the robo stairs to the durocrete pad below, McCade took a look around. This was a military spaceport, but with the exception of the ships themselves, it looked a lot like the commercial version he’d seen during his previous visit. Long orderly rows of ships, and beyond them the endless vista of black rock that stretched to the far horizon.

  And interspersed among the ships were the black towers. Each one was a hundred feet high and topped off with a bulbous turret that bristled with weapons and sensors. Up there, behind armored glass, members of the Brotherhood’s planetary police stood watch, and the knowledge sent a chill down McCade’s spine.

  Wouldn’t they just love to catch him! On his last visit he’d almost leveled a spaceport, destroyed dozens of ships, and caused the destruction of an orbital weapons platform. Now he was back, and if the police found out, slavery would look good by comparison.

  His heart leaped into his throat. There were four members of the planetary police waiting at the edge of the pad! Their black uniforms and military appearance were supposed to strike fear into the hearts of miscreants everywhere and it worked. The muscle in McCade’s cheek started to twitch and his emotions clamored for attention.

  “Run for it!” they screamed. “Kill! Run! Hide! Do something!”

  “Now wait a minute,” his mind replied. “This doesn’t make sense. They couldn’t know about me. They’re here for some other reason.”

  “Oh, yeah?” his emotions asked. “And what the hell do you know? We’d have been dead years ago if we listened to you. Hide! Run! Kill!”

  McCade was looking for a place to hide when the line jerked to a halt and the pilot dumped his flight bag in front of the police. It was mostly dirty laundry and as the police pawed through it they made a number of crude jokes about his purple underwear. Of course! A customs check!

  “See,” McCade told his emotions, “there was nothing to worry about.”

  “Maybe,” they grudgingly admitted, “but let’s delay the celebration until after the customs check.”

  Having finished with his flight bag, the police were running sensors over the pilot’s body. It made sense. Without a search the crew would start to skim loot off the top of their haul and the Brotherhood would lose out.

  The pilot was cleared and the line jerked ahead. As Ace stepped up to the table he gestured for McCade to follow.

  The police flicked a retinal scanner across Ace’s eyes while they pressed his right hand onto an electro pad. Somewhere a computer compared the incoming prints with the ones on file, achieved a match, and signaled its approval.

  Three of the police had their visors down, all the more to intimidate you with, but the fourth wore hers tilted up. And surprise, surprise, she had a sense of humor.

  “Name?”

  “Ace Javers.”

  The woman consulted her hand-held comp. “Gee, Ace, looks like we’ve got a mix-up here. The computer thinks you’re some guy named Harold.”

  Ace mumbled something.

  The policewoman pretended not to hear. “What was that? Harold? Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? Glad we settled that. Now, who’s the guy in chains? Prince Alexander?”

  “We call him gark breath,” Ace responded, eager to regain some of his lost composure. “I won him playing Flash.”

  “Witnesses?”

  “The skipper was there.”

  “Good enough. We’ll take him from here. Usual deal, ninety percent for you, ten for the Brotherhood.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Okay, give me your seal.”

  Ace pressed his right hand on the electro pad for a second time and was waved through the checkpoint. He took off without so much as a backward glance at McCade.

  The policewoman gestured for McCade to step forward.“Okay,gark breath, let’s check you in.”

  McCade was scanned, printed, and cleared all within a couple of minutes. Even so the seconds dragged by like hours, each one bringing the very real possibility that the central computer would cough up his real identity and finish his mission right there.

  But his real identity had never been properly recorded during his previous visit to the Rock, so nothing happened.

  The policewoman looked up from her comp and smiled. “Hey, buddy, you’re now WM 89546. It ain’t much, but it sure beats the hell out of gark breath. Next!”

  Two hours and a series of rides later McCade found himself in an all-male holding pen. For someone who’d done time in Molaria’s Pit 47, it was all too familiar: the hopeless eyes of his fellow prisoners, the subjugation of the weak by the strong, and the desperate scramble for food. McCade faded into the dog-eat-dog structure of it without conscious thought.

  But all things considered, the
holding pen was nicer than Pit 47. It was well lit, fairly spacious, and furnished with durasteel furniture. You couldn’t move it, you couldn’t burn it, but you could sit on it and McCade did.

  There were other differences as well. Where Pit 47 had housed the same men for months at a time, there was constant turnover in the holding pen, and that slowed the emergence of a strong pecking order. And that was fine with McCade because beating the hell out of people was not his idea of a good time.

  “Aha,” said a voice from behind him. “A fellow anomaly I trust?”

  McCade turned to find himself face-to-face with a little man with bright inquisitive eyes, a long, thin nose, and ears that stuck out like handles on a cup. Like McCade he was dressed in little more than rags.

  “An anomaly?” McCade asked.

  “Why yes,” the man replied. “You know, a deviation from the norm.”

  McCade smiled patiently. “Yes, I know the meaning of the word, I just don’t understand how it applies.”

  The little man looked surprised. “You don’t? How strange. It’s quite obvious to me.” The bright little eyes looked McCade up and down. “You’re in good shape, you’re well fed, and you’re wearing nice rags.”

  “Nice rags?”

  “Um-hmm,” the little man said. “Nice leathers that were ripped and torn to look like rags. And there’s your body language. While most of us are scared, wondering what’ll happen next, you’re relaxed. So, you’re an anomaly. And where there’s an anomaly there’s a reason.”

  “And you have a big mouth,” McCade said thoughtfully. “Which doesn’t qualify you as an anomaly, but could get you in deep trouble.”

  The little man looked around to make sure that no one else was listening. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.” He stuck out his hand. “They call me Chips.”

  As McCade shook the other man’s hand he found it was dry and surprisingly hard. “Chips?”

  “Yeah, Chips, like in computers. That’s what makes me different than the rest of this herd. I’m smarter than they are.”