by Brian Lowe
So we were both smugglers and spies, a dangerous combination that made us potential targets for Nuum enforcers and anyone else with the wherewithal and the will. Thanks to Maire's influence as a countess and member of the Council of Nobles, we had special dispensation to carry weapons, but only while on board ship or conducting business.
Neither of those considerations covered us when we walked in to that traders' bar in Catilla, an out-of-the-way corner of nowhere a thousand miles north-west of Dure, so we'd left our guns behind. There was another crew in town, but we weren't expecting trouble; who's going to bother a bunch of former galley slaves turned sailors--when one of them is a gorilla?
Not to mention we'd just finished a two-week run through a string of low-level radioactive farm communities where we'd collected more IOUs than saleable cargo and were plainly not in the mood to take any friction…
Regardless, it was all my fault.
Maybe things would have been different if Skull had been with us, but even though the inn was pretty big, he didn’t want to crowd out the locals. When you work on the edge of the law, you learn to be diplomatic to everybody, even the people who need you more than you need them. So we all drew straws, and a half-dozen lucky ones got to go. Given my lack of interest, I would’ve bowed out of the draw so somebody else could have my place, but one of the things I’d learned is that if I wanted to be accepted as part of the crew, I had to act like it. So I drew, and when I won, I went.
“Timash,” Skull said as we were waiting to board the gravsled to depart, “a word.” Skull is captain of the Lady, appointed by Maire herself. He led me a few feet from the others. “Listen, I’m glad you drew a short straw. I’d like you to take the lead down there, watch our boys.”
I stared for a moment. Every one of the others was senior to me; in fact, I was close to being the most junior hand on board.
“Really? These guys aren’t going to listen to me.”
He shook his head. “They don’t have to listen to you. All I’m saying is if anybody looks like he’s gonna pick a fight, you’ve got my permission to grab him and carry him out of there. It’s been a bad few weeks, and you’re the only member of the crew who doesn’t drink, so I’m counting on you to keep a level head even if they don’t.”
Skull is big for a Thoran, and tough, but we both knew from experience that I could tie him around the mast without effort. I could do what he asked, but the fact that he was asking made me nervous.
“You expect that kind of trouble?”
He hesitated, showing his teeth. “You never know. There’s at least one other crew in town, which means some of them are probably in the bar. These little places, they make their own product. Sometimes it’s pretty potent. Letting off steam is one thing, but I don’t want a riot on my hands.”
I shrugged and said, “Okay, captain,” and scurried back to the gravsled, where my crewmates waited impatiently, fidgeting silently because they couldn’t exactly yell at Skull to hurry up and finish his conversation.
It was uncommon, but not rare, for us to set down in a settlement or village that was already being visited by another trading company. Like ours, they were owned by Nuum and operated by Thorans. Like us, they had permission to carry arms on board, but for the most part theirs were little better than clubs and pikes. Even among the Nuum, few pulled the kind of weight to be in Maire's class. The rivalry between captains was generally friendly, and no one inquired too deeply in anyone else’s business. Still, disputes did arise between crews when their officers weren't around, although any complaints against our crew generally turned to unintelligible grumbling as soon as I walked in the room.
In this case, however, and entirely unknown to us, the trouble started when I walked in the room.
III
It had been raining earlier, meaning the dirt street was now mud-brown. If we got the gravsled dirty, we’d be cleaning it when we got back, so Grelich, our third mate and the only officer in the bunch, carefully left it hovering twelve inches above the ground. It was a short drop, but the mud was soft enough to splatter on our boots. We groaned. We’d have to clean our boots before we could remount the sled. Still, there was nothing we could do now, so we trooped inside.
The management had obviously dealt with muddy boots before, because the floor was spread with hay, which stuck to your shoes but at least helped to dry them. It fit the atmosphere, though; the entire building was actually made of wood. Most of it was one big open space with a bar at the far end. The wall behind the bar didn’t sport the usual drink dispensers with signs describing the choices. Instead there was just a large metallic contraption made of patched and hammered barrels with tubing curving around the entire apparatus until it terminated in a spigot from which I could see the bartender filling a glass.
“Well, it looks like we won’t have to worry about ordering off the menu,” Grelich said. “It’s home brew or water–and I wouldn’t trust the water.” He glanced at me. "Sorry."
I shrugged. I wasn't all that thirsty anyway.
Despite the walls being made of wood, the sound in that room bounced around and made it hard to talk in a normal voice. One of the boys spotted a table near the bar that would fit all of us, so we headed in that direction, but just as we came up to it a man from another table moved in and snatched one of the chairs.
"Excuse me," Grelich said in a tone that registered more annoyance than politeness. "That there's our chair."
The man with the chair ignored him until Grelich tapped him on the shoulder, then he set down the chair and turned, obviously intending to dare Grelich to make an issue of it--until his eyes came to rest on me. He froze for a second, blinking like he couldn't quite trust his vision. It's a reaction I see a lot.
Then he walked away without a word.
Grelich took the chair back to our table and we all sat down, me sitting next to Grelich and doing it very carefully. Not only are Thoran chairs too small for me, they have an alarming tendency to break if I sit down too hard. But I guess materials were scarce around there, because these were made to last, and it barely creaked as I settled in.
One of our group made a rude assessment of the would-be chair rustler under his breath, but Grelich shut him down.
"It's over, and we don't want any trouble." He pointed across the table at a couple of my mates. "Dubrot, Ankinnet. Five of whatever that is they're serving. And if they have anything else besides water, one for Timash."
I started to rise. "I'll see for myself--"
But Grelich clamped down on my arm. "Stay here," he said quietly. Grelich was only a Thoran, but he had the arms and shoulders of the galley slave he had been before Keryl led a revolt that replaced the Lady's old crew--mutineers all, as it turned out--with the former slaves. I could have shrugged him off, but he was strong enough to make his wishes known. I looked at him sideways.
"That other crew," he explained. "They're armed."
It was a tribute more to Grelich's authority than to our common sense that none of looked around. But now that he had said it, I became aware of a tension in the room that he had probably noticed when we walked in. I didn't know how I had missed it until now, but sometimes humans still mystify me.
There were only two possible reasons that the other crew was armed: Either they were outlaws, and willing to take on the Nuum in a fight, which meant they were also crazy--
--or someone at their table was a Nuum.
If I could sweat, I'm sure I would have felt it dripping down my back.
"You think it's safe to let our guys go to the bar?"
It was a stupid question; Grelich could have chopped me down for it, but instead he said:
"No, but it's safer than just turning around and walking out of here. They aren't carrying their guns openly, and I don't want to tip them off that I noticed them. We're going to sit, and finish our drinks, and then we're going back The Dark Lady and advise the captain that we should probably spend the night elsewhere."
Ankinnet an
d Dubrot came back with our drinks, including a glass of something brown and fizzy for me. I made the mistake of sniffing it; it wasn't alcoholic, but the bubbles got up my nose and made me sneeze.
“What’s the matter? Not used to drinking with men?”
I froze. I didn’t recognize the voice, and the question hadn't been asked in a friendly tone. This wasn’t teasing; it was mean and condescending. It was looking for a fight.
With a deep breath, I straightened, picked up my glass, and took a sip. The brown stuff was sticky sweet, but not undrinkable. I spent some time over it, but when I set the glass down I could still feel a presence at my shoulder. My mates’ wary eyes were fixed on whoever was behind me.
“I axed you a question, son,” the man continued. “It’s considered good manners to answer."
I closed my eyes. The Nuum thought of themselves as superior to everybody else, and so treated us all with the same benign contempt. We Thorans returned the favor for our over-fed and thin-skinned conquerors, but tended to withhold our resentment until we were safely alone. It united us, despising them and waiting for the far-off day when we'd turn the tables and take back what was ours.
That wasn't true for everyone, of course. Some people never saw a Nuum, never felt the direct impact of the aliens' boot on our necks. The Nuum tended to stay in the cities, and Thora is big. If you want to get lost, there are plenty of places to do it in.
But then there were those who liked what the Nuum had done, who derived pleasure from the status quo, and cultivated a sense of superiority by doing so. Working for the Nuum is one thing; most of us do, one way or another. That's where the money is. But it's another thing to think that working for them makes you better than everybody else. There's a difference between cooperation and collaboration.
In the old days, from what I've heard, feelings between Thorans with differing viewpoints sometimes got out of hand. Mostly the Nuum ignored it, but every once in a while one would get annoyed and the retributions would come down. Nowadays, the two camps growl at each other, but that's pretty much all. The Thoran nativists don't want to be noticed, and the Nuum supporters know they're outnumbered, so each tends to stay with its own kind and there's rarely real trouble.
Except when someone is armed.
Despite the risks, my inquisitor wasn't going away until he got an answer.
“Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine.” I took another sip to prove it.
My friends’ expressions relaxed a little bit, by which I inferred the man at my shoulder had moved back to his table. The relief was short-lived.
“Did you say something?”
Nobody had, but this time the man came around the table to face me. He was typically Thoran, almond-skinned and black-haired, shorter than most. He was wearing a jacket over his one-piece worksuit. One hand was buried in a jacket pocket. I had no doubt that should I so much as stand up, he would shoot me.
I knew that Grelich wanted to restrain me again, but he wisely left his hands on the table.
“We don’t want any trouble, mister," he said gently. "Just let us drink up and we’re gone.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off of the man in front of me, but I hadn’t heard any noises from the direction of his table, so I assumed his crewmates were still in their seats. That was a good sign. Without their support, he might be willing to settle for facing us all down and running us out of the bar.
Perhaps sensing the same thing, he called to his buddies a few tables away. "Let us drink up, he says! Like they're the only ones."
I took a chance and slowly turned my head to see who he was talking to. He had four companions, three Thorans in mismatched sailing outfits, and another, the biggest one, wearing some kind of a shawl that covered his head. I didn't like the look of him at all.
The short one in front of us addressed Grelich, but he pointed at me. "How are we supposed to enjoy our drinks with him sitting there insultin' us behind our backs? This is a respectable establishment!"
I raised my eyebrows at his last comment, and because I let myself be distracted I was a second too late to clamp my hand over Grelich's arm as he reared up out of his chair.
"If you've got a problem with anybody on my crew, you've got a problem with me." The others stood up, and I did, too, slowly. I heard the scraping of chairs at the other table that I'd been dreading.
"Grelich," I whispered. "It isn't worth it. Let's just get out of here." And without thinking, I reached for my drink to finish it.
"Look out!" the short man yelled, yanking his right hand from his jacket pocket.
Again, I didn't stop to think. I had been reaching for my glass; instead I grabbed the edge of the table and heaved it upward like a shield. There was a quick sizzling noise and I smelled the table beginning to burn. Without taking time to think, I lunged forward and used the table as a battering ram. The gunman staggered backward, falling over several chairs before he clattered to the ground.
Shouts from behind me made me whirl, still carrying the table. The quartet from the other table were on their feet, three of them with guns drawn. The fourth towered over his fellows, and it was with unavoidable dread but no surprise that I saw, when he pulled the shawl off of his head, that he was a Nuum.
IV
"That table must be getting heavy." The Nuum was young and had a patronizing attitude pronounced even for one of his kind. "Set it down."
An order from a Nuum to any Thoran was unquestionable and immutable. He could shoot me just for refusing. On the other hand, there wasn't much doubt as to what would happen if I obeyed.
"I should put it back where I got it," I answered, which only made things worse, because the only proper way to address a Nuum is "my lord." I edged my way backward to my starting point, so that now the table was providing partial protection for all of us. I gave the Nuum a grin. "Actually, it's not that heavy. I can hold it."
There was anger building in the Nuum's eyes, but outwardly he kept his temper, as befitted one of Thora's highest beings. He was thinking hard, calculating the possibilities, just like we all were. He was being defied by a bunch of Thorans. Normally, his response would simply be to have his men shoot us, but that wasn't a guaranteed outcome. I had no doubt the Nuum was also armed, with something more subtle than a hand blaster, but they were still four to our six, and I had a shield of a sort. If we charged them, one of us might a grab a gun. Not to mention we all came from sky barges with full crews; if they heard the fight and came running, it would be a bloodbath.
The Nuum looked around at the rest of the customers, who had scrambled for cover but were watching us with a mixture of fear and fascination. Suddenly he seemed to realize his position: Even if he managed to take out all six of us, word of our disobedience would spread like embers from a forest fire, and there was a lot of fuel out here in the badlands.
He made a motion and his men put their guns away. It might have been a bad move, but I lowered the table until its edge was resting on the floor. Truth to tell, it had been getting heavy.
"The rest of you can go," he said, making it an order. "The gorilla stays."
None of my friends budged.
"Get out of here," I hissed.
If possible, the Nuum was looking more tense. "I said, leave. I will not say it again." And at his gesture, his men reached for their weapons. Arguments were useless; there was no time left.
I threw the table at them.
They were standing in a bunch, and they barely had time to cower as the heavy wooden missile crashed into them. Grelich and the rest of us pounced a second later, disarming them, but the three Thorans punched and kicked until they drove us back, then helped the Nuum to his feet.
An instant later, the brawl was on.
We outnumbered them six to four and one of us was a gorilla, but the Thorans never hesitated. They were little but they were mad, and by this time the one I'd knocked down had recovered enough to join in. He'd either lost his gun or he didn't care, because he waded into the f
ight and landed a blow to the side of Dubrot's head that knocked him silly.
The Nuum came after me, because he was the only one near my size. He stalked me, moving sideways like a crab away from the main knot of fighters, his hands raised at different levels, fingers bent loosely. He had to have studied some kind of martial arts; he moved in fast, his hands flicked to either side of my head, and he double-chopped at my neck with deadly precision.
I say "at" my neck because he was used to fighting other humans, not gorillas. He only struck my shoulders. It hurt, but that's all. I tilted my head, regarding him curiously, then I grabbed the front of his coverall and threw him over the bar. He did not reappear.
When I turned around, the Nuum's bully-boys were out on their feet, and they collapsed on cue.
Grelich made sure we gathered up all the guns we could find, then hustled us out of there. At the doorway he turned to the locals, now emerging from their shelters.
"I'm sorry," he said, and we knew why as well as they did. When word of this humiliation reached the nearest city, the Nuum would return in force and burn Catilla to the ground, along with anyone foolish enough to stay.
We left the blasters outside to be scavenged and hopped on the gravsled, mud be damned. When we got back to the Lady, Skull took one look at us and frowned.
"What happened?"
"Captain," Grelich answered, "we need to leave, now."
On any ship, there are safety protocols designed to protect the crew. We violated pretty much all of them getting away.