Jinx on a Terran Inheritance (20 page)

Now Lugo toed the starting line, ready for his defending effort. "Heavy gravity type," Amarok concluded. Floyt paid attention this time.

The champ launched himself in a ponderous run that drummed the deck. But he gathered speed very quickly, catapulted himself headfirst, and bashed the locker with the din of a deepspace collision.

This time it flew like a frightened bird, as Lugo neatly caught himself on the deck. It landed nearly twice as far as it had for the challenger.

Onlookers were yeowling and sloshing drinks, cursing or exulting; fists were shaken on high and caps flung aloft. Bets were being paid even before the befuddled officials could confirm the winner.

Payoffs were in Spican Bank notes, ovals, ducats, personal markers, precious stones and metals, weapons, and other personal possessions. One very distinguished-looking woman appeared to be transferring ownership of her very handsome-looking young male companion to an even more distinguished-looking woman. The boy seemed pleased with the whole idea, embracing his new patron.

"We might as well be going," Amarok decided. "Something's wrong here, but This One can't tell what."

"That's fine with me, Rok. But before we go back to the
Pihoquiaq
or whatever, I want to double back and exchange this." Floyt held up the survival tool. "The compass is broken."

Amarok was about to shrug that off, but then became suddenly and predatorily interested. "You said what? What makes you think so?" He drew Floyt over to one side, shielding the conversation with his body.

Floyt said, "Uh, the damn thing went crazy a few moments ago, spinning around and around. It seems all right now, but since that merchant said it was guaranteed—"

Amarok was shushing him. The Innuit was looking around, eyeing in particular the foul line, where the locker had been positioned. He rubbed his jaw, muttering, "Could it be that simple?"

Then he laughed aloud, took Floyt by the elbow, and made for the hatch. The rest of the crowd was laughing and carrying on; Amarok and the trailing Floyt went unnoticed. Floyt tucked the tool in a pocket, along with the book he'd bought.

Reading frame markings, Amarok found the spot, one deck down, directly beneath the wall-locker-head-file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (103 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:29

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knocker hold and, more to the point, the foul line. From a nearby compartment a cable was routed up through the overhead, toward the deck-plates beneath the lockers.

"Well, hole Someone and blow Him away!" Amarok breathed.

Floyt was beginning to understand. He followed as Amarok stole over to the compartment from which the cable emerged. The hatch had been left a little ajar, a common practice in the dilapidated
Rantipole,
with its aged environmental systems. They both hunkered down low, to peer within.

An old man seated at a small table, was drawing ecstatically on a smoke carburetor and failed to notice them. Before him several monitors showed the wall-locker competition area from various angles.

Amarok, glancing around, spied a tool locker in the passageway. He went to it and began sorting through the things he found there, returning with a clamplike device, making adjustments to its instrumentation, setting it.

"Surge breaker," Amarok explained in a whisper, thrusting it into Floyt's hands and putting his back up against the bulkhead. Bending his knees and making a stirrup of his hands, he whispered, "Hurry!"

Floyt, still feeling the effects of the meltdowns, didn't even know where to begin demurring. So he put his foot in Amarok's big palms and stepped up onto his shoulders, a bit wobbly until the trader clamped strong hands around his calves. The cuff of the surge breaker adjusted itself to the cable, locking around it with a conspiratorial
click.

When Floyt was back down, Amarok went back to the locker. He selected a flat length of some leathery synthetic stuff and trimmed it with the ultrasharp scissors of Floyt's survival tool. He shucked his top and somehow inserted the piece into his roll-top collar.

"Every little edge helps. Now, let's get back," he said in a hushed voice, "before someone beats us to it!"

Back at the scene of the outlandish contest, Lugo was having difficulty finding a new opponent. No one felt like collecting a concussion or injuring their spinal column in a match Lugo seemed destined to win.

The champion showed surprise when Amarok swaggered up to him and casually inquired about having a bash at it.

Floyt found himself called upon to witness the setting up of the locker and the arrangement of the weights in its bottom. One of the reeling officials ran a quick detectorscan on Amarok, to be sure he didn't have an armored skull, reinforced skeleton, or other unfair advantage.

It wasn't hard at all to lay off five hundred ovals on Amarok at three-to-one odds; in fact, bettors were climbing over each other to try to get in on the action. Amarok was betting even more than Floyt. It was the first time Floyt had seen Amarok cough up any money. Soon fortune was in the offing.

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Amarok handed Floyt his gunbelt, then toed the line. He raced off down the lane, moving like a young god.

Amarok launched himself cleanly, arms well back, When he struck the locker, it flew backward as if it had been yanked by a hawser, not landing in the dust at all but beyond it, sliding until it fetched up against the bulkhead.

Lugo stood slack-jawed. There were whistles and salutes from the bystanders. Amarok rose, rubbing his head, smiling at Floyt. He hadn't been injured, due in part to the black hair padding his head, but one side of the locker was stove-in.

Lugo, faced with the alternatives of forfeiting or denouncing Amarok for having somehow sabotaged Lugo's own con, went on instead with the contest. Huffing and puffing, he took his mark, working his arms, pawing the deck like a bull. He was, Floyt admitted to himself, a human projectile. Those who'd wagered on him called encouragement.

"He appears to be getting ready to put it through the bulkhead," Floyt observed, despairing over his five hundred ovals.

Lugo lumbered off again with that same prompt gathering of momentum. But his coordination seemed a bit off, either because he'd been unnerved by Amarok's showing or due to the number of licks he'd already taken on the head.

Lugo threw everything he had into a ferocious take-off, smashing into the locker with a sound like a peal of sheet-metal thunder. It lofted in a long arc but crashed to the deck short of Amarok's feat, scraping an all-too-visible smear in the rearmost area of the white dust.

Lugo thundered to the deck and stayed there, out cold.

The crowd lost all control. Lugo's backers and shills were collared at once by those who'd taken a chance on Amarok. Bottles and jugs were passed as the winner was kissed and slapped on the back, punched on the arms and patted on the seat of the pants. Floyt hurried to collect his and Amarok's winnings. It took six people to haul Lugo from the scene.

Floyt and Amarok made a hasty departure, wished a fond farewell by those who'd bet with them, cursed and reviled by the Lugo contingent.

They agreed that the situation called for several more melt-downs, and made their way forward, following homemade arrows that exhibited a universal EXIT symbol underneath, off to meet Professor K'ek at the Oasis. Every so often Floyt, in an uncharacteristic display, kissed his winnings.

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They went down stairwells and through passageways, causing Amarok to frown. "This somehow does not feel right; it can't be the correct route to the for'd airlock, no matter what the signs say."

They were halfway through an echoing cargo hold that was empty but for some huge crates. Its few lights cast more shadows than illumination.

Floyt heard no warning sound, sensed no movement. Something flicked his neck with cold lightning and he found himself paralyzed. Dropping, he was whirled around, the revolver whisked neatly from his belt, and discarded in a heap on the deck.

As Floyt slumped, conscious but helpless, Amarok spun, hand dipping for the hammergun on his hip.

But a green, glassy stave struck his wrist as the pistol came clear; the gun whirled, clattering, across the deckplates.

Clasping his hand, Amarok backpedaled away from the expected followup, but none came. The pneuma-warrior, in a fighting stance, stave ready, waited until Amarok was well out of range.

Then he quickly picked up the hammergun and hurled it, along with Floyt's Webley, high atop a huge packing crate.

Amarok came forward a step, massaging his bicep; the stave whirled and came on the ready.

CHAPTER 9—IF WE SHOULD DIE BEFORE WE WAKE

Merrywell and Alacrity were obliged to check their sidearms and leave their bodyguard behind at Bulkhead Twenty, far forward in
Caveat Emptor
toward the bridge and the living quarters of her owner and master, Costa.

The dividing line was heavily guarded. Nearly all other visitors, wanderers, or would-be deal makers were turned away. On the other side of Bulkhead Twenty a very different ambience prevailed. There was quiet and calm, in richly appointed compartments and elegantly decorated passageways. Even the security fixtures and defensive implacements were chic.

The enforcers who'd accompanied Alacrity and Merrywell that far were left behind too. Their new escort was a comely young woman with mounds of ringleted red hair, who went barefoot on the deck shag and wore an ensemble of something resembling scarlet cobweb. Alacrity spotted a number of other females and a few males dressed the same way.

"Costa's social directors," Merrywell commented. He seemed inclined to take his time, slouching along, dragging his feet. Their escort didn't appear to mind. Neither did Alacrity, who relished a chance to look file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (106 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:29

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around the Grapple's most exclusive neighborhood.

They walked slowly past a roomy compartment draped and curtained in lush copper velvet. In it was gathered a crowd of Grapple attendees totally different from the rabble on the downhill side of Bulkhead Twenty. Costa's special servitors circulated among them with trays. Sprightly, unobtrusive music played.

In the center of the compartment was a low, plush, circular dais under a strong spotlight. On it was a naked woman, a healthy, wholesome-looking wheat-blonde, eighteen or so. Her cheeks were slick with tears she'd cried a short time before, but she looked cried out. To the sides, holographic displays gave pertinent data: medical exam results, skills and education, warranties.

Merrywell spied her too. Both men heard the bids as they passed by.

"Most likely she was abducted," Merrywell told Alacrity, puffing a red cigarette, more dour than ever.

"Damnfool kids from some civilized place—Gemütlichtkeit, maybe, or Eclat—they go off on their
wanderjahr
or Grand Tour or what the hell ever, without the first idea what can happen to them or what to watch out for. There's a little back-passageway trade in run-of-the-mill merchandise, back of Bulkhead Twenty, but the prime stuff gets the gold-gavel treatment."

Merrywell spoke softly; their escort didn't appear to take any notice. Alacrity tried to put the scene out of his mind. He could do nothing about it.

For now
, he amended. He opened the trove of his hopes for a moment and looked at an image he'd held for a long time, of a time when, if he did everything just right, human history would change for the better. And he recalled the flaring of the causality harp.

Not for the security-minded Costa to sit in a winter garden out on the hull of his ship; their escort led them to a compartment below and forward of the bridge. The captain's quarters were in one of the best-armored, best-protected parts of the attack transport. They were lavishly decorated in iron-and-gold tech-deco.

Captain Jobold Costa sat in an airfloat conformer behind a landing-field desk of jet-black wood. He wore a tissuey green lounging jacquard. He had dense gray eyebrows that looked as though he combed them backward. He also had a direct gaze, but his eyes were pouchy and bloodshot. He wasn't much overweight, but had a lot of slack flesh. He struck Alacrity as a man whose business had gotten the upper hand on him.

And here's a guy who's got a piece of who-knows-how-many rejuvenation clinics, antigeronic centers,
health spas, and whatever. Maybe he doesn't realize he looks like he's ready for planting?
Alacrity thought.

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Around the compartment were holographic projections, not of nebulae and the stars, but planetary scenes. That made a sort of sense; how often would such a man leave the only safety he trusted and walk the surface of a world? It looked like a pretty good bet that he didn't even trust his own doctors and clinicians.

Merrywell gave no hint of noticing the grandeur of Costa's personal domain. The captain of the
Magus
shuffled over tiredly to slump in a priceless Newlantean Empire chair. Alacrity took another next to it.

"We'll make this brief; I can't spare you two more than a moment," Costa told Merrywell curtly. To Alacrity he added, "What's your name, by the way? And don't waste my time with an alias."

"Cap'n Costa," Merrywell interrupted, before Alacrity could decide whether or not to challenge the question. Costa had offered nothing so far and demanded more than was polite at a Grapple.