Jinx on a Terran Inheritance (18 page)

Then she was off again to watch the short-mixer drown in his own blood.

A bystander, a Junoesque woman carrying a bundle of some kind poised on her head, remarked, "I heard they spaced a Langstretch agent a while ago."

Alacrity was too quick to ask, "Langstretch? Were they sure?"

"Sure enough to space him, brother." She proceeded on her way, hips swaying, head erect. It struck Floyt as a very graceful way to carry a burden, not to mention leaving one's hands free.

Alacrity was still preoccupied with the news. Operatives of the Langstretch Detective Agency, both full-timers and stringers, were active throughout human space and beyond. Floyt had noticed in the past that news of them always seemed to rivet Alacrity's attention.

No point in asking, though,
Floyt decided.
He'll only sphinx up on me again.
Instead he asked, "What are the penalties for the other violations? The ones you were talking about?"

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Alacrity clapped both hands around his throat, bulged his eyes, and made fishy mouthings.

"Pushing people out an airlock is about the
only
punishment they have around here?"

"It's the only one they need," Alacrity replied.

CHAPTER 8—PAYDIRT

They stopped at a booth to buy three more meltdowns, these in plastic squeezebags with drinking tubes attached; there was a lot of jostling and elbowing on the main deck. The containers also kept out the winged insects and other flying pests that infested
Caveat Emptor.

Sauntering along with Alacrity behind Amarok, Floyt tried to look nonchalant. They passed displays of smuggled pets and wildlife alongside stolen and forged antiquities and artifacts, and what was guaranteed to be the most artfully rigged gambling equipment available anywhere. Rare wines and textiles were set close by the latest in surveillance devices and burglary tools.

Hole-in-the-bulkhead surgeries that advertised transplants, implants, regeneration, and every other manner of procedure. Due to the short duration of the Grapple, though, it was strictly cut-and-pray medicine, with little postop time and no supervised recuperation.

"You can also find some very skilled physicians with well-equipped operations here," Amarok explained, "if you happen to have a
lot
of disposable income. The principle is the same, however: cash out front, and no such thing as malpractice."

Alacrity elaborated. "The usual drill is, you get your pore and retinal patterns altered and have new prints grafted on. Then you go aft to the restricted area where the lifeswap shops are, or hit one of the cheaper identity-change booths if you can't afford that. Then you hope your fingertips don't slough off or blindness doesn't set in."

"And that the people who set you up don't sell you out," Amarok added.

Vendors were hawking cans of luxury cigarettes and phials of aphrodisiacs, pirated data and components, survival equipment and rescue gear. All around was the babble of strange languages—

though many had Terranglish cognates—plus various forms of signtalk. The high and low cuisines of hundreds of planets, along with bastardizations and cross-pollinations added their smells to the air.

The three paused while Amarok looked over a display of weird musical instruments, trying one or two, chatting tentatively with the proprietor of the stall.

Glancing around, Floyt said, "Maybe that's what I need for the next leg," and indicated a booth file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (93 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:29

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advertising LANGUAGES TAUGHT—MNEMONICS!! SUBLIMINAL TUTELARY PROGRAMS!!

HEURISTICS OUR SPECIALTY!!—AFFILIATED WITH PAN STELLAR COMMUNICATIONS

INSTITUTE!!!

"Their affiliation with Pan Stellar's probably in the form of a lawsuit," Alacrity opined. "But we could pick up some tapes. Good idea; it'd probably help for you to learn more tradeslang and maybe some crosstalk."

Amarok passed on the purchase of a miniature glass harmonica, and they took up their way again. One side compartment was very quiet and dimly lit; it's modest sign said, TRANQUILITY BASE—

HEADBOARDERS WELCOME. Floyt sneaked a peek through the inner hatch. Headboarders, old and young, male and female, were stretched out on bunks, their dural shunts hooked up, smiling blissfully.

Just beyond that the trio passed a smooth-skinned male teenage sextoy. He was dressed as an animal tamer, leading by a glittering leash a beautiful young woman wearing lizard makeup and grainy reptilian fleshpeel. Across the way a merchant advertised what were purported to be embryos cloned from a tissue sample stolen from a popular sensostar.

"Earthservice is going to lock me up and vacuum my brain," Floyt moaned. "They'll rip out all my synapses and bury my body at sea in cement."

"You've got to stop thinking that way, Ho. You'll be a big hero, after all. Supervisor Bear's gonna need you for psycho-prop. Keep your grip!"

That made Floyt feel a little better. The three wandered over to examine displays of weapons. There were edged, projectile and energy types, as well as razorwhips, molecular garrotes, and artificial claws with built-in injectors. It made an ordinary pistol seem terribly passe.

While they were looking, a bright-eyed little man approached them. "Undertow? Finest anywhere. I can even arrange a doss for you if your skipper objects. How about it?"

Floyt shook his head, thinking nothing of it; they'd already been offered dozens of drugs and other substances. But then the man yanked Alacrity's sleeve. "Hey, boss!
Mijneer!
Undertow?"

A change came over Alacrity's face. He shook off the grip, gathered up the front of the man's doublet, and lifted him off his feet with his left fist, his right fumbling at the Captain's Sidearm. All the blood had left his face.

"
No
!" cried Floyt, throwing himself into the struggle. Amarok intervened too. In a moment they'd pried the two apart.

Alacrity came back to himself, but stood glowering. The little pusher shook off momentary fear for his file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (94 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:29

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life, becoming indignant. Floyt pressed a one-oval piece into his hand and drew his two companions away before a crowd could form.

Floyt demanded, in the lee of a bookstall, "What was that all about?"

Alacrity puffed his cheeks, blowing out his breath. "Sorry, Ho; he took me by surprise. It's just an attitude I have about undertow."

"It is no worse than many of the things for sale here," Amarok reasoned.

Alacrity shrugged, glaring at the deck, not leaving room for much argument. The trader said, "Enough; let's browse in here."

Alacrity was agreeable, apparently past his sudden rage. Floyt filed away a new word:
undertow.

For a brief time in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, humanity had been all but indifferent to distance. But now, once again, human settlements were weeks or months apart by the fastest communication available, Hawking Effect travel. Then, too, some communities might not receive visits for years.

And there was the sheer size of human space, the vast number of people and of things going on. Except for isolationist backwaters like Earth, there was a universal hunger to know what was going on, what was the latest, what was
new.
At no time in history had travelers' journals and personal diaries been more popular.

Even at the Grapple it was a rare bar or brothel that didn't have at least one newsfeed. The same went for eating and gambling spots, and even some of the drug dens.

The bookstall-infocenter the three had chanced across was less given to current events than to tapes and books, but several large screens and displays competed for the attention of passersby. Paying the entrance fee, they paused to find out "what's new on the Rialto," as Amarok misquoted.

They skimmed the local "Whereabouts," a personals-locater media bulletin board, through which people tried to find loved ones, advertised for mates, posted legal notices and so on. One ad showed a bearded man with a slightly fanatic gleam in his eyes, who reminded Floyt of oldtime photos of Rasputin.

Alacrity saw, and laughed. "The contact-address must be a cover for some some police agency, or Langstretch. They've got him listed as a missing heir here, because Grapples don't post Wanted bills, but that's Janusz."

"A criminal?"

"Pirate, bank robber, con man; Janusz's done it all. The guy's been cornered but never caught. A lot of file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (95 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:29

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people think he never will be."

The three checked out current events. Aside from the usual wars and rumors of wars, Spican Amalgamated had announced that a new technique promised near-instantaneous interstellar communication.

"How many times have I heard
that
before?" Alacrity scoffed. "More likely, their stock's in trouble."

Unconfirmed word had come that contact had been made with a vastly advanced nonhuman culture whose borders were gradually approaching those of the human race. Leading philosophers, clergy, and scientists were expressing deep concern that
Homo sapiens
wouldn't measure up to the standards of a species so technically, intellectually, and spiritually superior.

That gave Floyt great pause. Amarok's reaction was "Let us see them prove it before we worry."

The Earther turned to Alacrity, who raised both eyebrows and said, "The last time this happened, it was the Kindurii. It turned out the snobby little highbinders owned four lousy star systems and looked down on anybody who couldn't reproduce by fission."

The place was surprisingly large and they fanned out among the amassed scrolls, hardbounds, capsules, magazines, lozenges, faxes, chips, paperbacks and magazines, tablets and codexes.

Amarok was studying an ancient folio of Edwardian prints. Floyt and Alacrity rounded the corner of a row of high stacks, Alacrity in search of Precursor material. The breakabout moved quickly, scanning up and down and back and forth, already familiar with most of what he saw.

Rounding the corner, they found they'd crossed over into another subject entirely. In a cul-de-sac, they discovered they were surrounded by a circus of bright cover illustrations, holoimages, and advertising flats depicting scenes of derring-do and raw passion, horrible predicaments and turgid romance.

Penny dreadfuls,
Alacrity realized, amused.

Seated on the deck in the midst of a smorgasbord of books, info caps, tapes, and so forth, was an odd little creature who put Floyt in mind of a golden-lion tamarin monkey, except that it was a little bigger and bulkier, more ground-dweller-looking. It wore a yellow garment like a tabbard, finely embroidered in red, green, and black, from beneath the rear hem of which a regal, flaxen banner of prehensile tail curved up it like a question mark.

The thing had a magnificent, curling mustache and large, startled-looking brown eyes. From its thick brows, darker filaments, like long antennae, swept out to either side. Its ears were tall and tufted; it had a book in its clever little hands, a viewer in its lap, and other items in various formats under its feet, which had opposable digits at either side.

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"Alacrity, do you see what it's reading?" Floyt said out of one corner of his mouth, elbowing his friend.

"Hoo! Bombastico Herdman!" Alacrity snorted softly.

Bombastico Herdman
was the pseudonym under which Sintilla had written penny dreadfuls about Weir.

They were scattered around:
Cazpahr Weir and the Voodoo Virgins of the Vengeance Vector, Cazpahr
Weir Faces the Zombie Cannibals of the Whistling Asteroid,
and the hardcover the little one was skimming, something filled with computerized images of unlikely sailing ships, voluptuous mermaids, and swashbuckling freebooters, entitled
Cazpahr Weir Meets the Vampire Teddybears from Hell.

The little being looked up from its deep engrossment, fixing them with big brown eyes. "Prepare to jettison the supercargo!" it squeaked suddenly, tail quiveringly erect, mustache and antennae flaring, its mane standing out in display behavior. "Hoist the Gibsons! We don't know the
meaning
of the word

'guts'!"

"I believe that's supposed to be 'fear,' " Floyt corrected gently.

The creature looked very chagrined, its tail drooping as it gave them an embarrassed showing of teeth.

"Oh? Ooo, sorry, humans. Your various idioms are betimes illusive." It held up the book. "But so vivid!

Such high adventure! Such
hormonalism
!"

"You like that, do you?" Alacrity smiled.

"Great gosh, yes! And
Kim,
the Old Testament,
The Three Musketeers
… "

Just then the manager of the place, a big bruiser who looked more like he ought to be bouncing in a starport dive, stuck his head around the corner and said, "Perfessor, yer gonna get me in trouble; this ain't a liberry. I know how you feel, but you been nosing around back here for two hours now, fella!"

"In a moment, in a moment," the being chirped. "Am I not allowed the opportunity to be selective, at these scandalous prices you charge, Cully?"

Cully made a halfhearted gesture of disgust and went away.

"You have an interest in these stories too?" The creature blinked at Floyt, Amarok, and Alacrity.

"Kind of," Alacrity answered, thinking of
Hobart Floyt and Alacrity Fitzhugh Challenge the Amazon
Slave Women of the Supernova.