Jinx on a Terran Inheritance (39 page)

The streets, built to last with Second Breath technology, were still in good condition. There were some wide, well-kept boulevards, but side streets were often nearly impassable with junk and rusting vehicles and wreckage. In many places organic garbage was heaped along the middle of the streets, where scavenger animals and a few desperate-looking people rooted through it.

The two offworlders immediately noticed places where the underground sewer system had succumbed, and sewage was stagnating in open channels. Traffic was a roughly equal mix: crude, artificially driven vehicles of local manufacture, animal-drawn and human-powered. A pall lay over the town; a lot of heating was done with coal, peat, and wood.

Sky traffic was limited: a few lighter-than-air cargo lifters and some grav barges, and what looked like a private hoverlimo bound for Parish Above, along with several tribal scout ultralights. At the top of the tallest remaining building, one transmitting tower was left. People looked reasonably well fed and clothed, but good medical care didn't seem widely available.

Alacrity and Floyt ambled along together, not standing out much except, to some extent, for Alacrity's height. The head-scarves were a circumstance very much in their favor, and quite a few natives mixed offworld clothing styles with the very varied tribal costumes.

They kept to the well-marked common zones, avoiding the tribal borders with their guards and checkpoints. Every intersection of the winding hill-and-dale streets had its tribal militia observation post file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (205 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:30

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or sentry. Every traffic circle had its fortified bunker or watchtower. In the precincts, they saw, there were sandbagged sniper pozzes on the roofs and basement pillboxes. Even children playing in the street and old women hanging out of windows—which usually had barred or armored shutters—were on watch, often with vision enhancers or binoculars. Weapons ranged from reasonably modern to obsolescent.

There were shops and stores, bistros and cabarets whose clientele were strictly restricted along tribal lines; mingling went on only in the common zones. The original squabble that had so divided the tribes had to do, Alacrity was given to understand, not with religion or politics or economics, but with the traditions of tribal arts. Irreconcilable esthetics.

Late in the afternoon they finally came to the spacefield. It was typically Second Breath, covering a huge amount of ground, but the tribes had permitted most of it to fall into disuse and ruin. The locals jealously guarded their territories here too, though; the fences had been kept in repair and there was vigilant surveillance, including patrols with attack animals of some kind.

Alacrity and Floyt approached a stretch of shimmery metal-gauze fence that hummed softly and carried skull-and-cross-bones warning signs. They gazed across the field to the crumbling main terminal area, the broken-down hangars, warehouses, and customs complex.

"Would they know about
Astraea Imprimatur,
d'you think, Alacrity?"

"I haven't a clue. If we just walk in and ask, we might give ourselves away. The first thing we should do is find a place to hole up for the night; it's getting dark fast and it looks like it's going to come down heavy again soon. Maybe we can find out something tonight. In any case, we can take a stroll around the field perimeter tomorrow."

"Where do we stay? The tribes are awfully particular who they let into their precincts, especially after curfew."

"Right over there." Alacrity pointed to a district that began at the perimeter, off to their left. It was jammed with irregular structures and slapdash forms with an improvised look to them.

"What is it?"

"Only one thing looks like that, Ho. At least, near a spaceport. That's the local boxtown."

The light was going fast by the time they got there, and silver diagonals of rain were falling. They walked together under Alacrity's big brolly.

Boxtowns accumulated on most spacefaring planets at some point or other. The one at Parish spacefield was long past its prime, sixty hectares of corroded hulls, acid-eaten scrap, cracked plastipaneling file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (206 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:30

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remnants, and wormeaten wood. It had a desolate, underinhabited, haunted feel to it, different from any boxtown Alacrity had ever been in. The natives called it Tombville.

Tombville lay across a moat of rotting garbage and stinking sewage spanned by a rickety footbridge. As they crossed, Floyt gazed down and noticed a little six-footed animal, a scavenger of some sort, about the size of a small dog or a big rat. It was at the edge of the scummy drainage, extending its long neck to feed delicately on a discarded fetus that had floated to rest against a mound of decaying filth.

"Keep your eyes open, Ho. Boxtown's dangerous the way a place can be only when there's not enough of anything to go around."

There was no streetlighting in the dusky maze of Tombville, of course. Intermittent holo signs, flash panels, and neon lights were starting to come on. Floyt read signs advertising "KARMIC REPAIR,"

"MEDICAL CONSULTATION," "LUCK COUNSELING," and "REHAB SERVICES." Small insect things were burrowing and scuttling everywhere, and larger vermin that barely took the trouble to get out of their way.

They passed people hurrying to find shelter for the night. There were goitered ragmen and dissipated bar dogs moribund with drugs and drink; leprous beggars; palsied and scabrous fortune-tellers and children with stick legs and bellies swollen by intestinal parasites. All gave the two a wide berth.

Most Tombville dwellings showed no light at all, either abandoned or thoroughly barred and curtained by occupants who rightly feared the night. Alacrity reflected sourly on the fact that Sile's hoard of toys and tidbits hadn't included a simple handlight.

"Alacrity, I'm not so sure about this place," Hobart said as they turned into an alley. "Do any of these shacks look trustworthy to you?" It was getting late; they couldn't even make out one another's face in the gloom. Alacrity flipped up his visor.

"I've got one idea." Alacrity slipped off his proteus and moved off to one side, leaving Floyt in the rain.

The Earther stepped back into the shelter of a boarded-up doorway, keeping his hand on the gun under the shawl.

Alacrity went to a nearby wall, the sort of wall he'd been looking for. He could barely make it out, but it was big and smooth and seemed to have peeling handbills on it.

He adjusted his proteus quickly. Unlike Floyt's it had a miniature projection feature for data display. By turning the contrast up to max, he used it as a weak but serviceable light. Holding it, he bent close to the wall.

It was a mural of faded stencils, layered deposits of grafitti, spit and sputum, pockmarks that might have file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (207 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:30

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been bullet holes, ominous stains suggesting old blood, childish attempts at art and pornography, primitive scrawls and messages, occult symbols and arcana, unreadable political slogans, and what looked like lovers' initials.

Holding his proteus close to the wall, he examined the markings and indentations, particularly around the edges. He passed a spot, stopped, and went back to it, bending close. Floyt, getting uneasier by the second, swiveled his head, searching the shadows. He could see no one, but from what Alacrity had said about boxtowns, he was sure they were being watched.

Alacrity doused the light and came back, replacing his proteus. "There's a reasonably safe place to stay on the next street over. I saw some Forager cues." '

"How's that again?"

"Cryptoglyphs. The Foragers use 'em to leave each other word about the local setup. Whether it's dangerous or how the pickings are, and so forth. But these ones weren't new; I'm surprised there've been Foragers through here at all. Let's go see how we do."

Alacrity closed his umbrella and tucked it through his game bag straps, leaving his hands free. They were well into the alley before they heard the footsteps. Floyt spun. Alacrity stole a quick glance behind

—three men were blocking that end of the alley—then immediately swung to cover the way ahead. Sure enough, two more footpads were just edging their heads around the corner for a peek.

"Get your back up against that wall," Alacrity said, doing the same on his side. That way, a net dropped from above would have less chance of getting them both, and each had a field of fire over the other's head.

Floyt took out the Webley, the lanyard ring jingling, and cocked it. The sound seemed very loud. He plastered himself flat against the wall.

The three men who'd come into the alley after them had stopped. Now the two at the other end edged into silhouette, sliding along the walls on either side.

"No warning shots!" Alacrity declared in
lingua franca.
"We've got two alley-hoses here; get out or we'll throw a barbecue!"

"Get ready, but don't fire unless I tell you," he whispered. Then, dimly, Floyt saw him turn, move to the middle of the alley, and bring the heavy sidearm up with both hands. The footpads kept coming.

Floyt, knowing what to expect, looked away toward the trio, bringing up his free arm to shield the ear closest to the pistol. The Captain's Sidearm went off with an explosion that seemed too much for the file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (208 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:30

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alley to contain. The flash gave Floyt a brief glimpse of three very surprised, disheveled men with beards and tangled hair. Each held something; one had what Floyt was pretty sure was only a knife, but there wasn't enough time to see what the others carried. He cringed, waiting for them to fire back, but no shots came.

Someone was screaming from the direction in which Alacrity had fired. In the other, the trio had frozen.

Alacrity was already flattened against the wall again, gun in one hand, the other cupped to his mouth.

"Last chance!" Floyt saw that Alacrity's hand was shaking. There was a silent instant as the universe seemed to sit still and listen.

Then there was shuffling. The three made darker shapes against the mouth of the alley. Alacrity moved away from the wall, gun up and pointing, its muzzle twitching and trembling. Floyt caught a look at his friend's face in a stray beam of light. It was a face of unspeakable hatred.

It's not fear that's making him shake,
it came to Floyt then.
It's the effort
not
to fire.
It was an old, cold wrath from Alacrity's past.

In a moment the trio was gone. "What about the other two?" Floyt whispered.

"I sparked one of them," Alacrity murmured. "The other might've gotten away by now, or he might be there—"

He broke off, staring up wildly, at the sound of loud clapping. It came from above them, one person's applause. They pointed their barrels here and there overhead, but saw no one.

"Not bad, outies," a disembodied voice called, a young male. It spoke Terranglish, not
lingua franca.

"
Boosk!
Nice gun! Real strong! But why didn't you finish the gag?"

"On your way, before we finish
you,
juviezits," Alacrity warned.

A smiling face leaned into view above them, just barely, lit by a handlight held out of sight. "Whatever you say, skipper." It was a round, sullen face, a kid somewhere past adolescence but short of manhood.

He wore a dark beret; his hair, escaping from it, bobbed in loose curls that glittered strangely; so did his smile.

Three other faces crowded into view, two boys and a girl in early- to mid-teens. "It was a pleasure watching," the applauder said. Drawing his companions with him, he pulled back out of sight.

"Stay ready," Alacrity warned. He and Floyt sweated out another full minute, guns trained at the rooftop.

Nothing else happened. They resumed their way, sliding along the walls, checking refuse piles carefully before going near them, trying to look in every direction at once.

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They found the corpse of the man Alacrity had shot, its cratered flesh still smoking. No one else was around. They splashed through a foul pool and out onto a narrow street covered with decaying garbage, castoffs, and odd hunks of refuse, as softly yielding and treacherous as the floor of a rain forest.

"That must be the place."

Alacrity meant a thirty-meter-long, rusting hulk that had once been a reusable booster rocket. It lay on its side, fitted in workmanlike fashion with a heavy metal door and windows, on its second story, that were covered with stout gratings. It had been sandblasted, soniscoured, and wire-brushed to something like presentability; the street in front of it was clear and clean. It was a rambunctious island of light and noise in the middle of Tombville.

A ciphercrawl panel over the heavy-gauge door radiated the name of the place, THE DIS HILL

CARAVANSARY.

The two kept hands on their guns as they came to it. A prowling pack of dog-things hissed at them, then fled as Alacrity stamped his foot.

In an alley off to their left, an old man or woman in layered rags lay slumped against a wall, passed out or dead. Several emaciated, tubercular-looking children were rifling for what pathetic pickings there might be. They gave Alacrity and Floyt feral looks not so different from the dog-things', and went on with what they were doing.

Alacrity flipped down his visor again and rapped on the door of the Dis Hill Caravansary with the improvised door knocker, a detonator cap off an old fusion missile. An enormous fat man with an antique pepperbox laser in his waistband opened up, looked them over, then stepped aside for them.