by John Shirley
“I am. There’s something I need. You in orbit?”
“We are.”
“Can you pinpoint my transmission? Locate me?”
“We can. But I’m not sending my personnel down there.”
“That won’t be necessary. There’s something else I want you to send. And I need it fast.”
• • •
Smartun hadn’t slept all night. He had gotten up from his bunk in the small officers’ quarters building and gone out into the moonlight, to pace back and forth on the parade ground, hands in his pockets, under the puzzled gaze of the sentries.
Every so often he’d looked toward the headquarters building, hoping to see her sending Roland out, preferably in chains.
But he never came.
Now it was morning, and he was exhausted, but he stood in the middle of the parade ground, alone, arms at his side, staring at that door.
She’d kept him there overnight. Perhaps she’d given him to Dr. Vialle. Her bodyguard was there, squatting against the wall outside, sleeping still. He wouldn’t know . . .
But there—Fwah was coming out now, yawning, scratching her ass. She slept in a storeroom, near the office, in case she was needed. She was part of Gynella’s personal guard.
Smartun strode over to her, breathless. She seemed startled when he stalked up to her. “Fwah!”
“What? What did I do?”
“Listen—where’s Roland? Did Vialle get him?
“No. No—she got him.” She tittered nastily. “I could hear them going at it. They shook the whole building sometimes. I guess she was tired of waiting. I heard her say once there was no man here who was her match in bed. She had to import one.”
A white light burst behind Smartun’s eyes. “She said that . . .”
“Oh yeah. You were thinking that you . . . ?” She chuckled. “No disrespect, commander, but she’d-a broken your back, that woman, if she took you into her bed. But say, you and me, now . . .”
He shook his head impatiently. “He must die. You know that, don’t you? He cannot be trusted. At the first chance, he will betray her! I saw that she was becoming obsessed with him. She watched the footage of him in action, over and over. She’s not thinking rationally! He should be her slave—but she’s become his!”
“Gynella? The General Goddess? She’s no one’s slave, Smartun. Hell, you know that.”
“She must not trust him! He’ll wait his chance—and kill her. He slaughtered half a division, him and his rebels! He’s filled with hate for all of us!”
She ran a thoughtful finger down one of her tusks. “You could be right. But you’d need an excuse to kill him. A good reason. Maybe . . . make it look like he’s plottin’ against her, like. You know?”
“Yes. You’ll help me with that, to protect the General Goddess from him . . . won’t you?”
“On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
Her eyes shone, and she licked her crystalline lips, making them shine. “I get to kill him!”
“Just so long as you get it done. But you’d better not take him on face-to-face unless he’s got no shield and no weapon.”
“Oh, of course not—I’ll step up behind him, stick a gun against the back of his head . . . and blow it right off!”
• • •
Roland was pacing, himself, back and forth in the locked office. He’d tried kicking the door down. But it was specially reinforced. He swore to himself that he’d snap that pendant off the queen bitch’s neck, first time he got within reach, before he’d let her use it on him—even if that risked her using that special offworld “meat cutter.” He didn’t want anyone tinkering in his brain, turning him into a puppet.
He looked at the table, thought about breaking it up, using it to make tools, and then—
The door was clicking; the door was unlocking.
He positioned himself close to the door, but not too close, and waited. The door swung outward, and there was Spung, with a shotgun in one hand, hulking and reeking in the hallway. He was so tall he had to stoop under the ceiling, leaning a little toward Roland. That could be useful.
Roland noticed Spung was wearing a shield too. And the shield was flickering a little. Which didn’t mean much of anything. But it might seem to mean something. Because he’d noticed something else about Spung.
Spung was stupid.
“You come with me,” Spung rumbled. “She wants you outside.”
“Does she? Sounds good, bro. Hey—what’s wrong with your shield there?” Roland frowned and pointed at the shield. “See that? That a Hyperion shield? Yeah, those’ll flicker and go out—it’s the weather. Too much moisture in the air. But you can fix that.”
“Fix it? How?”
“Reboot it, man. Just turn it off and then on. A quick reset. Click off, click on. Like that.”
“Like this?” Spung clicked the shield off—
And Roland struck, straight-arming up at the bridge of Spung’s nose. He had only one shot at this, and he made it good. He slammed the heel of his hand in an ancient martial-arts move, with all his speed and strength, into that nose. And Spung was leaning toward him because of the ceiling—the perfect angle.
He felt the cartilage crunch and the bone, at the top of the nose, shatter and turn into shards . . .
To stab back, into Spung’s brain.
He didn’t know if it would work—he’d only pulled off that move once before.
Spung stared at Roland in astonishment, the big Psycho rocking on the balls of his feet, mouth gaping open. Blood gushed from his nose and trickled from the corners of his mouth. “You . . .”
“Yes?” Roland asked, curious.
“Can’t . . .”
“I can’t what?”
“Kill me . . . like . . .”
Then Spung fell over backward, hit the floor with a thud that shook the building.
“I can’t kill you like that?” Roland asked, bending to grab Spung’s ankles. “If it’s done just right, I bet I can.”
He looked around, saw no one else in the hall, and dragged the deadweight of the big Psycho through the door. Spung barely fit. Roland had to jerk the body hard to get the arms through the door, breaking one of them. He dragged Spung back into the shower room, dumped him under the shower spigot. He started the shower. “Your one and only shower, Spung. Everyone should have at least one.” He hoped the sound of the shower would deceive Gynella a short while, if she came in. He closed the back room’s door, hustled to the shotgun on the floor, picked it up, and looked around. Still no one around. That couldn’t last.
He crossed to the door of Vialle’s lab and found it unlocked. He opened it quietly as possible, and saw Vialle inside, leaning over a bandit strapped to a gurney.
It was a Midget Psycho, strapped on his back, naked, without his mask, chattering mindlessly, struggling with his bonds. Vialle was crooning to the Psycho, leaning over him with a syringe. Around Vialle’s neck was a pendant. Did Gynella even know Vialle had one of those?
Didn’t matter. He wouldn’t have it much longer.
Roland strode over to Vialle and snapped the pendant from the chain with his left hand, tossed it onto a shiny metal table; with his right hand he grabbed Vialle’s wrist. “Drop the syringe, Dr. Screwloose.”
He squeezed Vialle’s wrist till it was close to breaking. Vialle squeaked and dropped the syringe—it fell to the table right by the Midget’s hand.
“Hee-heeeeeee!” the Psycho Midget tittered. “Now I gots it!”
“What do you imagine will happen to you,” Vialle began, “when she finds out—”
“What’s going to happen to you,” Roland wondered aloud, twisting Vialle’s arm behind his back, “if you don’t tell me where the rest of the drug is? You know the drug I mean. The SusDrug. Your pretty princess told me about it last night—where is it?”
“She will remove your skin from your body and drag you behind an outrider and—” The rest was lost in a long squeal as Rolan
d cracked his arm, beginning to break it. With his left hand he pressed Vialle down over the Midget on the gurney, so that Vialle’s head was close to the Midget’s right hand. The hand that held the syringe.
The Midget slammed the syringe into Vialle’s ear, right through the eardrum. And pressed the plunger.
Blood spurted out along the syringe, and Vialle screamed.
“It’s in the steel outbuilding, behind the headquarters! There are barrels of it, they—take it away, don’t, don’t do it!”
Roland let go of Vialle, who pulled away from the Midget, snatched the syringe from his ear, then bent double in agony, moaning.
Roland looked at the pendant on the table, then he looked at Vialle. He picked up the pendant thoughtfully.
Vialle looked up at him. “No! Don’t touch that! I’ve been injected!”
“I took some orally last night, Doctor. How long’s the stuff last?”
“Orally? Only a few hours, four at most. She wanted to give you the shot this morning, for the five-day release—oh my.” He realized he’d revealed that the pendant wouldn’t affect Roland unless he got a booster shot.
Roland grinned at him. “You know what? I believe you! Let’s see what that stuff does to you . . . when you get a big dose shot right into the ear, eh, Doc?”
“No! It’s a new serum, I don’t know what it’ll—no!”
Roland was turning the dial on the pendant, turning it all the way around.
Vialle quivered and fell to his knees, wracked with a nightmarishly powerful ecstasy. Then his eyes widened and began to bulge from his head. His tongue extended from his mouth . . . and extended more. And more. His neck was swelling; his face was bloating; his body was inflating like a balloon. Bigger, bigger yet . . .
Vialle shrieked in pain and horror.
Roland vaulted over the table, ducked down, rolled away—just in time to stay out of the explosion.
Vialle exploded, splashing blood, body parts, and bits of clothing over half the room. Roland only caught a few splatters.
“New serum, I guess,” Roland said, getting up. He found a scalpel, tossed it over to the gurney so it fell next to the Midget’s hand. “You can cut yourself loose with that. It’ll take a little time. Don’t say I never did you a favor.”
He put the pendant in his pocket, picked up the shotgun, went to the door—
It burst open, and Fwah was there, a combat rifle in her hands; Smartun was behind her.
“I told you I heard something!” Smartun said, almost dancing with excitement. “Kill him! Kill him fast!”
Fwah was too slow, too clumsy. Swinging the rifle toward Roland, she caught its muzzle on the frame of the door, just for a moment. Long enough. Roland jabbed the shotgun muzzle through Fwah’s shield, into her open mouth, and pulled the trigger. The top of her head vanished—the rest of her sagged to the floor.
He looked for Smartun, but he was already rushing out through the front door.
Roland sighed. “Great. Alerting the troops.”
He jumped over Fwah’s body, then turned back, tossed the shotgun away, and picked up the Cobra combat rifle. He was going to need some effective range.
He looked around, then ran toward the back of the building. A Bruiser Psycho in a vault mask turned the corner, submachine gun propped on his shoulder.
Roland rushed him, smashed the butt of his gun through the Psycho’s shield, crunching the shield hardware. The Psycho staggered back, unslinging the submachine gun. He didn’t have a chance to use it. Roland stuck the barrel of the Cobra under the Psycho’s chin and let loose a long burst of bullets, painting the ceiling with blood and brains.
He was past the Psycho before he had quite fallen dead, running down the hall to the back door. It opened easily enough—but that was the end of easy. First of all, the “special delivery” he’d ordered from Feldsrum wasn’t waiting for him out back as planned. Second, a couple of outriders full of Psycho soldiers were roaring up from opposite directions, barely stopping before colliding head-on.
One of them swung a mounted gun toward him, and he threw himself to the left, into the space between the main building and the locked, reinforced storage shed they kept the drug in.
Bullets clanged into the metal of the shed, thudded into the building. Roland jumped to his feet, put the rifle strap over his shoulder, then did a pull-up, till he could get his elbows onto the back of the shed. Grunting, he wormed up onto it, staying flat. It angled up a little, toward the front, giving him some cover if he stayed low. He unslung the rifle—but it occurred to him that he had another weapon. He dug in his pocket, pulled out the pendant, and then got into a hunkering position—lifted up just enough so he could see the Psychos running from the outrunners toward the shed. They’d have him trapped there in a moment.
He waited till they were close—then he turned the dial on the pendant. The pendant chimed, and all six Psycho soldiers fell to their knees, crying out in ecstatic abandon. Roland couldn’t keep from laughing. “Ha! They love me! Man, it’s good to feel loved!”
Then he heard a hissing sound, and a shadow fell over him. He looked up and saw the skimmer he’d requested from Feldsrum, descending to him. It was a silvery delta-shaped flyer, about ten meters long, wingspan of fifteen meters, capable of rapid flight or hovering, with smart missiles attached to the lower side. Roland had been checked out on them—this looked like a new model, but with luck he could fly it.
He noticed that on the underside of the wings, some insignia had been sanded off. Probably the Dahl logo had been removed. Maybe that accounted for the delay.
Repulsors hissing, the skimmer lowered itself to hover just beyond the edge of the roof. It was unoccupied, remote-controlled at the moment from orbit. The cockpit was open and inviting.
Roland grinned and sprinted for it, running along the rooftop, unleashing suppressive fire at an onrushing group of Psycho soldiers. He jumped onto the nearer wing of the small craft; it rocked a little, then adjusted for his weight. He tossed away the rifle, took two more strides, and dropped into the cockpit; settling into the seat, he hurriedly assessed the controls. What did that lever in the corner do? “If you don’t know what it is, don’t use it,” he muttered. He found the external control switch and turned it off. The vessel went instantly to manual, the hissing of its repulsors increasing in volume as if it were impatient to be going.
Something sizzled by just overhead, and he looked to his right to see a smoking rocket launcher in the hands of a Bruiser not more than twenty paces away.
Roland pulled back on the control stick gently, and the skimmer rose straight up about ten meters. He tapped the forward tilt tab and skewed the skimmer over just as the Bruiser raised his reloaded weapon to his shoulder. There was no time to aim; Roland hit the fire button for the right-hand projectile. The missile shot out from under the wing, and the Bruiser vanished in a ball of flame.
He reached up, twisted the pendant one more time, and heard a moan from the Psychos in range. He chuckled and pulled the stick back for quick elevation. His stomach lurched as the vehicle whooshed straight up into the air, so fast and far that before he leveled off he knocked a rakk out of the sky with the tip of his wing.
Humming a half-remembered song, Roland turned the skimmer, tilted it sharply, and fired three missiles at the reinforced storage shed. His aim was good; the projectiles made impact, and the shed spurted flame. He waited, hearing bullets clack into the armored underside of the skimmer—then the smoke cleared, and he saw that the storage shed was largely intact. There was a big hole in it, though. He reduced elevation, spiraling slowly down. About ten meters over the storage shed, he stabilized the skimmer, aimed, and fired the forward machine gun at the drug casks visible through the smoking hole in the storage unit. The bullets pocked the casks. Not much other effect. He looked over the skimmer’s armaments—there was just one more, marked “Flame Charge.”
He switched to flame charge and fired—and the entire shed rose into the air on a co
lumn of fire, spinning, so that Roland had to back quickly away, to avoid flying metal debris. The storage unit had broken open, spilling more than a ton of drug fluid across the ground.
“That works,” he murmured, turning the vehicle around just in time to see a rocket spinning toward him.
He veered sharp left, and the rocket flew through the spot he’d occupied a split second before. He aimed the flame charge at the Psycho with the launcher. The Psycho turned and ran, but he ran right into the missile. Roland would have missed him if he’d stayed in place.
“Cooperation,” Roland said. “I like it.”
More bullets clanged into the skimmer; he turned a hard right, and the skimmer veered—right into a rocket that would’ve missed him completely otherwise.
The irony wasn’t lost on Roland, as the skimmer bucked under him with the rocket’s impact, whipping him in his seat, the vessel wobbling, smoking, but not losing elevation. Not yet. He turned it around, fired three flame-charge projectiles over the top of the headquarters building, at the Psychos rushing onto the parade ground, Gynella’s soldiers reacting to the general emergency with generalized chaos.
Three fire-charge rounds struck in their midst—men flew spinning through three balls of fire.
There were a lot more of them over there. But more bullets were hitting his skimmer—he didn’t dare go low enough to try to affect them all with the pendant. There were too many of them, too much firepower down there. He punched for horizontal motion and skimmed out of the range of fire, beyond the edge of the butte, the wind roaring in his ears. He shook his head, checking out the view. It was a long way down from up there. And the skimmer was still smoking, starting to wobble . . . and slowing down.
“Hellfire,” Roland growled. He banked and put the skimmer into a slow downward spiral, fighting for stability. Out of the corner of his eye he saw flames licking up from under the wings. And the repulsor engines whined, beginning to lose power.
“Roland used me—and betrayed me!”