Armor

I

The only other humans in the cell had already passed through the dispenser, which was good. I couldn’t afford to deal with their notions of justice and rights of life and the rest. Not that I disagreed with them necessarily. But now I just couldn’t afford them.

I got to the plate and stomped on it hard, holding my cone underneath the funnel. The puryn slopped obscenely out, filling my cone and spattering me with dozens of little gray flecks. The same gray as the dispenser itself, the walls, the floor. The same color as me, covered with weeks and weeks of unwashed Lynsalt dust and rotten puryn. I moved out of the line and sat down in a corner on my heels with my back to the wall.

Like I always did at “dinnertime,” I scraped my hands clean as best I could with what was left of my fingernails. This time, like the last dozen or so times before, I knew it was useless. The layers were now too deep. The Lynsalt, the puryn, the stinking filth of the place were winning. Like all the other poor dumb bastards in there, my skin was giving it up to the gray.

But this time it was different. This time it was happening to me.

I coughed. Or snorted. Maybe I snarled. Then I took a greasy lump of puryn out of the cone with thumb and fingers and wedged it through my beard into my mouth so I would at least appear normal.

The dwarf was next, shuffling along warily between two Lyndrill, almost hidden by their towering gauntness. Then-great height—almost three meters—made him seem even shorter. Their featureless gray bony faces made his face—all fat nose and bobbing whiskers—seem even more animated.

He became frightened as he neared the plate. His head twisted from side to side to cover all movements. His eyes darted pitifully about in their gray, dust-caked lids. He was a bundle of nerves as his cone was filled, so ready to bolt that the sound of the muddy stream erupting from the funnel made him jump.

He should have been scared. In that netherworld of Lyndrill giants and other madmen, he was the easy meat. And in prison, easy meat quickly goes.

The dwarf’s impossible attempts to see all sides at once increased after he had actually gotten the food. He stepped away from the plate and stood in the clear place beyond uncertainly, as if expecting an assault from everyone at once. But apparently no one wanted to go to the trouble. Today had been a full day and we were all too beat to care.

All but me. I still watched the dwarf.

I watched him gradually relax, begin to breathe again. And then I saw the greater weariness descend on him as he again remembered that he would have to go through it all once again in three more hours. With his customary shuffle, he moved around the corner to his usual niche to eat.

With a last glance at the others for any signs of pursuit, I stood up, went around the same corner, and killed him by driving my gray boot through his gray face and into the softer gray beyond. Red blood.

I gathered up his cone before much could spill out. I had saved most of my portion—only pretending to eat before—and I took them both together for the maximum effect.

Almost immediately, I felt stronger. Puryn will last three hours and three hours only. But if you take more, say twice as much, you’ll have six hours of strength for that time. Six hours of prison strength, that is. Which was still only half as strong as I should normally feel.

I shook my head. I had no time to enjoy. There was more to it.

From its hook on the underway I took the slabpike. Before I could never have lifted it. Even now it was heavy. Carrying it across my shoulders, I stalked away through the dust. Gii had caught his footpad in the belt that morning and would still be weak.

Weak, he was, but still no fool. He spotted the red glow to my eyes from the near-double portion of puryn the instant I appeared. He stuck a pawpad against the wall and reared up to his full Lyndrill height. Even in that dim chamber, his stature was awesome. Two steps closer and he recognized me. “You!!” he had time to shout before I swung the full weight of the slabpike down atop his archplate.

Gii’s eyecubes lost the glint of amused disgust they had held when first seeing an assault from a puny human. They became instantly opaque from the Lyndrill pain response. He screamed that terrible scream. He clawed frantically at his footpad, lost his balance, and fell against the wall.

I was already on him, scrambling along his length, lunging forward. His throat was open wide, gasping for air. I wedged the barbed end of the slabpike deep into the passage, felt it lodge tightly. I bounced to my feet and threw my entire weight against the free end of the pike.

The cartilage warped, split, then ripped. The screams peaked, ceased.

Even with what Gii had already eaten, there was still twice as much remaining as I was accustomed to. My eyes blazed crimson through the settling dust cloud.

Those who had come to watch faded quickly out of sight as the glow—and my strength—increased. Another puryn-rage is on, they thought, and nobody wanted to be next.

They were wrong. I was in no puryn fugue, to kill blindly and gorge myself until dead or ruptured inside. I was going out.

The saltbore clamps gave easily to my newfound strength.

But then I had trouble with the treads. Those few moments of futile fumbling drove me into such a rage that I finally grabbed up the saltbore itself, by drillbit and casing respectively, and threw it across the cell against the belt mechanism. I shoved the drillbit deep into the machinery, braced myself with feet and back, and keyed the power. Sparks flew, metal shrieked, grinding against itself. The belt drivers began to buckle as the saltbore tore into its center. The wall shuddered, then the floor. My back felt like it was breaking from the force of the saltbore torqueing against it. Something, probably my back, had to give. But I couldn’t let go. I might never have another chance, another day… another life.

“My skin is turning gray!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, just as the belt drive—and the supporting wall—erupted.

The saltbore casing saved me, shielding me from the flying debris. I shoved my way through the wreckage, hot metal and fused Lynsalt, and I was out. The brightness of the sun, of any sun, was a searing blow. It blinded me, staggered me. I almost didn’t see the lumbering guard.

Almost.

Guards were twice human size with shell-hides like rhinos’ and looked just like what they were designed to be—invincible.

But they had stalks for their eyes. And I leaped up between those trunk-sized arms, planted my knees on his chest, and, grabbing a stalk in each grimy fist, yanked backward with all my might. They popped neatly out. The guard swayed, tripped, righted itself. Those arms clamped around my back like falling girders as the third stalk, undismayed by the streaming stumps on either side, swung toward me.

I bit it.

I plunged my teeth into it. I shook my head from side to side. I think I screamed. The eye ripped loose. The guard fell, fortunately, backward. I disengaged myself from underneath his heavy paws and ran.

And ran and ran, tears streaming with relief. I was not only out, I was free.

Ahead, at the port, the ship was there. It was, after all. The sounds I had heard from deep within the mine were not, as I had feared, only the product of desperate fantasies.

I had to stop once. The taste of that bile the guards used for blood made me heave and heave again. But I was up and running again before my stomach had emptied completely out. I was out! I was free! It was a ship! It was Borglyn’s ship.

II

At first I thought it was a standard Coyote. Bad for me. Though there weren’t any Fleet warrants out on me, any Captain who was only half bright would know enough to order me held for questioning. Then the whole mess of extradition would begin. Different guards. Different cages.

But that looked pretty good at the time. Behind me the Lyndrill prison had come alive. Alarms, coded sound beacons, shouting… all could clearly be heard. They kicked up huge clouds of dirt as they ran. With a last quick glance over my shoulder, I stepped up onto the ramp of the Coyote and prepared to be arrested.

There were two crewmen on ramp duty. A big one with white-blond hair and walrus mustache—and a short one with dark shiny hair and dark shiny eyes. The little one was going to be the problem, as the little ones usually are. Apparently lost in conversation, they hadn’t notice me. As soon as I was on their ramp, though, they perked up. The big one seemed appalled by my putrid coloring. The small one, on the other hand, displayed a grin of amused disgust.

“Good God, who the hell is that?” said the blond.

“You mean ‘what the hell is that?’” replied the shrimp.

I figured groveling would do it.

“Kind sirs,” I began plaintively, managing to both bow and scurry a few steps closer at the same time. “Help me, I beg you!”

The shrimp didn’t buy it.

“Hold it there,” he said.

“Who are you?” asked the blond.

I thought I caught a touch of sympathy in the blond’s voice. I turned all my attention to him.

“I’m a man of Earth, same as you. I’ve been… kept here by these….”

“He’s a damned escapee, Thor,” snapped the short one. “Look at him. He’s covered with their salt. He’s been in the prison mine.”

Thor frowned. “They use a mine for a prison?”

“Of course, Idiot. This is Lyndrill! How’d you break out, ‘earthman’?”

The sneer he gave to “earthman” was his first major mistake.

“There was an explosion in the mine. I found the way open. I simply ran without thinking. Then I saw your ship. Please sir,” I wailed, managing a few more steps toward them, “you must take me aboard. You cannot leave me in this place.”

“Like hell we can’t. Move it, convict. You’re stinking up our ship,” snarled the shrimp, and took a menacing step down toward me. That was his second major mistake. Or the third, if you count his coming that step closer. For that last step gave me a much better view.

This was no Fleet Coyote. Not with a crewman as sloppy as this. His robe was dirty, unwashed. His hair needed a good shower. His tunic was frayed about the collar. No officer, any officer, would let such slovenliness get by. Which left only one answer: There weren’t any officers around to object. Mutiny, most likely. That, or outright theft. Whichever, this was no ship of Fleet. This was a pirate ship!

That changed everything.

Thor eyed me for several moments in silence. Then: “I’m gonna call Borglyn, see if we can take him in.”

The shrimp was furious. “Are you out of your mind? Why do you want to get involved in this…? Uh-oh. Look here. I knew we should have kicked him off.”

Both men looked past me at something. I knew what it had to be, but I turned around anyway.

Reinforcements had arrived. An even dozen guards stood in a ragged semicircle at the base of the ramp. I shuddered. I had never seen that many of them altogether at one time. One was enough. Damn, they were big. Monsters.

They made no move for me up the ramp. They knew better. Awesome as they were to an unarmed prisoner, they were nothing against a starship. Almost anything aboard could be a monster eater. They simply stood there, waiting.

Thor took one look at them and stepped toward the interior of the hatch.

“I’m calling,” he said.

“Don’t be stupid,” snapped the shrimp. “Borglyn doesn’t want to be bothered with Lyndrill affairs.”

Thor stopped, gestured at the line of guards. “They can’t do anything to us,” he said calmly.

“Yeah, what about the rest of the planet? Besides, this guy’s not worth the effort.”

“Well,” said Thor slowly, turning back toward the hatch, “I’m not giving him to them.”

“You’re crazy, Thor. What are we gonna do with this gray scum, anyway?”

“Scum,” in my present condition, was too true to be funny and his last major mistake. I took a couple of steps toward him and whispered so that Thor, just inside the hatch, couldn’t hear.

“Listen to me, you slimy little pig,” I croaked. “I know why you don’t want me on board. You’re sick of being the ship shrimp. You’re sick of knowing there isn’t a man on board who couldn’t rip your balls off and shove ’em up your nose.”

Thor may not have heard, but the shrimp sure did. His eyes all but bugged out, his face got red, his chest expanded. I thought he was going to explode right there.

But he didn’t. He waited ’til he got his stinger out of its strap. Then he flew at me down the ramp.

The bastard was quick, very quick. Worse than that, he knew how to use a stinger. It may look like a club, but it’s a whole lot more. Instant paralysis at best.

I had to jump sideways to avoid his first lunge. I teetered at the edge of the ramp a moment before regaining balance, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed the line of guards surge forward an eager step. I reminded myself that I’d be theirs on the ground. Not only did I have to win unarmed, but I had to do it only on the ramp.

His second lunge was wild but still too close. I felt the burning tingle as the stinger brushed past my cheek. I had to move. I feinted left, ducked another lunge, and slapped him twice on his left cheek. Slapping is better than fists and usually enrages enemies. The shrimp got so mad that his next swing of the stinger threw him off balance. I stepped in again as he fell to one knee. I blocked a hook at the wrist and slammed the butt of my palm under his chin. He squealed as his teeth cracked together. Then I backhanded him across the throat.

He was tough. Even as he fell he managed to graze my knee with a swipe from the stinger.

The pain seared up and down my thigh. I bellowed like some animal and lost it.

Maybe him personally, maybe the prison nightmare, maybe myself. Whatever it was, it was strong. I saw nothing, heard nothing, cared even less. Hate rode.

I broke his arm, the arm that held the stinger, twice. Once across my knee, once by just stomping on it. He may have screamed, then. He may have screamed all along, but I couldn’t hear, I was too busy pulverizing his face and neck and chest and….

And then it was over and he lay there, half on and half off the ramp, covered with blood and gray Lynsalt. I stood over him, breathing heavily, until WHAM, and I was face-down on the sun-scorched metal of the ramp.

Thor had driven his foot halfway through my spine.

I looked up at him, stunned, my head spinning, my back beginning to throb.

He was looking at what was left of the shrimp. His eyes were wide, aghast; his chest heaved.

“You filthy…” he blurted and kicked me again.

He caught me just right, just under my left ear. I spun backward—in midair—into a full somersault, and crashed onto the other edge.

Dimly, distantly, I saw the guards, now directly beneath me and reaching, up for me….

I clawed, scrambled my way onto the ramp. I got a knee up onto the edge. I heaved.

Thor was waiting. I saw the black boot rear back, saw his weight shift, thought it finished.

“Hold it,” shouted an incredibly deep and commanding voice.

Everyone froze. And I mean everyone. Thor, the guards, and me, still clinging to the ramp with two bleeding hands and a knee.

It took me a second to realize that there was no electronic speaker involved. It was simply the unamplified voice of Sar Borglyn, chief mutineer and pirate, commanding.

A few breaths later and all relaxed somewhat. And I, scared of everyone in sight but especially the guards, scrambled all the way onto the (safety) ramp. The guards paused a moment, then resumed their ragged formation at the foot of the ramp.

Borglyn found out what was what in a hurry, a way he had. I told him some smoke about being Benn Lawl, a missionary from the Church of Episcoblue to the heathen Lyndrill. Lawl had been a cellmate of mine, jailed, caged rather, for blasphemy, so I figured it was a pretty good story.

Borglyn didn’t come near buying it. I thought he was going to toss me off right then. He would have, too, I think, but Thor saved me.

Thor didn’t mean to. He meant just the opposite. Started sputtering furiously about poor little busted up Praun, the shrimp, lying there on the ramp. How I must have jumped him, how Praun was only trying to help and this “dirty scum jumped him.”

Seeing the stinger already unstrapped and out as well as knowing Praun as he probably did, made it easy for Borglyn to see the lie in the ambush theory. Also, Borglyn was irritated at Thor for butting in unasked. He didn’t listen long.

Then with a sharp “Shut up,” that made everybody’s mouth close, he walked down and looked at me.

Looking up from the position of a crumpled wretched heap was no way to meet Borglyn. To begin with, he was a real-life titan. Well over two meters tall, with long dark-brown hair and a dark-brown beard and a dark-brown star-tanned face, he had a bulk to him that was… well, ridiculous. He was damn near as big as a Lyndrill guard. In fact, everything about Borglyn was big. His body, his voice, his appetites, his plans.

There was something eerie about him too, his eyes. In the midst of that great flat face of that huge forehead and forest of beard were the two most exquisitely beautiful blue eyes I had ever seen on a human creature.

He was a handful.

He peered at me, bent over with massive hands on muscular thighs, and made a decision.

“Bring him,” he said crisply.

Thor started to speak, thought about it, thought he would shut up and live instead—all in the one brief half-second glance he got from the boss.

But someone did object. A dry-hoarse croak erupted from below. It was the warden from the prison cage, on the scene at last.

It seemed that everyone else was there as well. All the various penal assistants to the warden, most of the major civic officials and quite a few spectators. The clearing at the foot of the ramp was a small field of long green robes fluttering in the breeze.

The warden was Lyndrill-eloquent. He began by welcoming Borglyn’s “seeds” and promising prayers of virility.

Borglyn was silent.

Only momentarily nonplused, the warden continued. He spoke of the great gulf between stars, the greater gulf between beings. He talked about the further greatness of communication and said he knew that Borglyn would agree.

Borglyn was silent.

Now a little nervous, the warden went on about sovereignty, about different cultures and customs being included therein. The warden implied possible disfavor—Lyndrillwise—concerning breaches of that authority.

He meant me, of course. When Borglyn was silent about that, the warden stepped back.

The—call him Major—of the city then stepped forward in his regal best. Gold trimmed his green robes. He carried a solid platinum hoop over a “shoulder.”

The Major was Lyndrill-tough. He threatened Borglyn’s ship. He threatened his men. He threatened his “seeds.” Lastly, he threatened himself.

Borglyn stood there awhile in the ensuing tense silence, watching the Lyndrill. Then he took one step toward the throng and pointed a thick finger at the end of a thicker arm directly at the Major and said: “Go away.”

And they went away. Every one of them. They didn’t even have to think about it.

An hour later, in orbit, I stepped into the ’fresher. Two hours later, now out of orbit, I stepped out. Except for a couple of spots, I was no longer gray. I was pink, actually, like a pinched baby, but still better than gray.

Borglyn called me into the captain’s stateroom after I had eaten. He was surprisingly courteous, asking me all about myself and commiserating about my prison time. I spent well over an hour inventing a past. It became a lot of fun and, toward the end, terribly convincing as I got into the role. Throughout, Borglyn said little, merely nodding and agreeing or even chuckling at some instant escapade from my youth.

And then, after all my lies and all my talk and all the work involved, he leaned back in his chair at last and said, with a sickening smile: “Well, Jack, I’m glad you got that off your chest. Now, do you want a job?”

So he had known—all along he had known—that I was Jack Crow.

III

When Borglyn first gave me the deal, I thought he had lost it. The fear, the constant pressure, has gotten to him, I thought. His thinking is out.

I was about half right.

There was a lot of pressure involved. And a hell of a lot of fear too, for a man with his imagination. Never mind the mass murder of the officers, actually stealing the Coyote afterwards meant mutiny, the all-time favorite crime of the military mind. They do special things to mutineers.

“Not that I won’t actually be ordered in for a trial, of course. The lucky arresting officer—meaning the captain of whichever ship might nab me—is given quite specific instructions to bring me in to Militar.”

He paused and lit a cigarette, looking like a photographic smear on a 3-D plate, little white dart.

“I’ll never see Militar, though. On the way I’ll have an accident. You want to hear about it? I know of one that took four days.”

I told him I didn’t want to hear about it.

“Just as well,” he said, puffing. “Just as well.”

He drifted off for a bit, staring and puffing. No doubt remembering details of the four-day goof. But he handled it well, I thought. Damn well. Not an inch of trembling. Long smooth deep breaths. In fact, he showed no sign at all of being aware of his position in about the deepest hole there was. It was impressive, the way he sat there smoking.

“So,” he continued after a while, “to the problem.” He swiveled around in his seat, leaned across the captain’s desk and stared into my eyes. “The problem is fuel. We are just about out.”

“Uh-oh,” I said.

He stared harder at me, his eyebrows raised.

“Uh-oh? The man says ‘Uh-oh’? I describe what is quite possibly the most tenuous situation in the galaxy and that is all he has to say? Well, I suppose the prospect of a particularly nasty death at the hands of some lucky crew is nothing to the great and famous Jack Crow. The fact that I am being actively sought by every ship in Fleet, most of which have forgotten the damned Antwar in their eagerness to slice me apart, should be of at least passing interest, even to a man who moves stars… how did you so cleverly put it?… ‘Move stars the hell outta the way.’ Even to such a superman, my situation should rate just a little goddamn more than uh-oh. Care to try again?”

I said nothing, wincing, in fact, at that quotation. I had said something like it at the time. But I was pretty well frayed at the edges and it infuriated me that that was the only thing I said that the Presswave people thought to broadcast. Show business.

“Nothing to add, eh?” continued Borglyn. “Very well. I suppose it was too much to ask to have you actually impressed with the gravity of the situation as it stands. So allow me, if you will, to try to bring it on home to you.

“I’m being hunted. I don’t like it. I’m also running out of fuel and therefore running room. I don’t like that. I will have fuel, Mr. Crow. I will obtain it. And, unless you wish me to rip you limb from limb and then stuff you bodily through an access tube, you will help me obtain it. Is that pretty clear so far?”

I nodded. It was clear all right.

“How nice. We’re communicating. Now, as to the ‘how’ of it; The only Cangren Power Cell available to one in my position is at some Fleet Scientific Colony which are, as you may know, completely self-sufficient fuelwise. My intention is to travel to one of these places, the remotest location available, for obvious reasons, and make Connection.

“Normally, of course, I could neither beg nor borrow such fuel for a mutinous craft. And the possibility that I could simply take what I want from a fully self-contained Project Complex is essentially nonexistent. As soon as I appeared overhead, they would simply button up the complex and that would be that. I doubt that even a fully loaded Coyote could pierce their defenses without totally annihilating the Can inside.

“So what to do? I will trick them, of course. Or, rather, you will trick them. You, Jack Crow, will make yourself known to the members of the Project. You will use your rather romantic notoriety to ingratiate yourself into the complex itself. And at the proper moment, you will render it defenseless from the inside. Is that clear, Mr. Crow? Are we still communicating?”

“Yeah.”

“Wonderful. Now what, you might ask, is in it for you? What indeed, besides a grateful lack of excruciating pain, is your prize? Simple. I have an eight-man Sledcraft waiting for me in a safe place. If you do as I say, exactly as I say, you may have it. It will be yours, Mr. Crow, to wander about with as you will. There will also be an appropriate amount of credits logged into its banks directly from the treasury of this ship. I’ve checked the banks aboard, and it’s quite a hefty sum. And if I can’t make use of it, there’s no reason why you should not.

“So, there is the proposition, famous and great Jack Crow. What shall it be?”

He was kidding, of course. Who really needs to choose between being rich and being dead? Between being anything and being dead?

“I’ve given your proposal considerable thought,” I began.

“Good, good,” he replied, nodding.

“And I’ve decided to join your little team.”

“I’m so glad.”

“Here’s to the partnership,” I said, lifting my brandy glass high.

“Oh, we can do better than that,” he said with an uneasy smile.

More quickly than I would have thought possible, he was up out of his seat and around to my side of the desk. He held the flask in one hand. With an elaborate flourish he filled my glass to the brim. Then beckoning me to rise, he touched his glass to mine and gestured for me to toss it off in one gulp.

I took a deep breath, placed it to my lips and drank. It burned in my throat and in my mouth and after a few seconds, in my stomach as well. But I was determined to give as good as I got. I closed my eyes to cap the streaming tears and continued to swallow.

And then I couldn’t anymore. I couldn’t drink, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe. My throat was clamped tight by a monstrous rock-hewn vise that deflated my windpipe in an instant. In the next instant I was rising slowly into the air where I simply hung. I opened bulging eyes and stared at the dead eyes of Borglyn.

He held me there at eye level to him with the grip of a single hand about my throat. A single hand. And there was no trembling, no effort involved that I could see. No hurry to put me down again: He simply stood there peering darkly into my eyes and hanging me with the force from a single limb.

Years later, he let me slowly down. But he kept his paw about my windpipe.

“This is how easy it is for me to kill. It is this simple. Even for you. Remember this. Fear this.”

He stared for a little while longer. Then he let go. A crewman appeared from somewhere and led me to my cabin. I didn’t see him for three days. I was glad.

I stayed in my cabin as much as possible during the trip to Sanction. The crew made me nervous.

It’s not that I really feared them. There was no obvious reason for that. They simply made me nervous.

They were scared, for one thing. Mutineers, after all, every one of them. No way to ever go home again. No future to speak of in the conventional sense. And totally dependent on Borglyn. And I got the definite impression that he hadn’t let most of them in on his plans. As the days became weeks and on and on, the eagerness to know began to get to them.

What they did, of course, was to compete in their efforts to appear unconcerned. Gruff voices, too loud laughter, elaborate guises of disinterest, all eventually gave way to collective jeering at anyone showing the slightest trace Of uneasiness. And then the jeering became rougher and the frustration now had an outlet: aggressive peer judgment.

They were getting ugly.

So I stayed in my cabin all the time except at meals. When I ate, I sat at the far end of the mess and appeared deaf to the too-boisterous horseplay and the accompanying sounds of battered bodies smacking face down onto the bulkheads. No matter what, I never took sides, never hinted awareness, even when the Amazon Drive tech bounced the little third-class sparks across the table and into the chair beside me.

It had to happen though, eventually. I had known it would. I guess I had hoped Borglyn had put me off-limits. At last, somebody just had to know who the stranger was.

“Who are you, anyway?”

It was the Amazon. She was sitting at the far side of the mess quaffing down the daily liquor supply with her cronies and generally showing how untouched she was by the grimness of a bad situation which could only get worse.

I ignored her.

“Hey, you, at the end there. I’m talking to you.”

What I wanted to do, was slide the plate into the chute right then and just walk out. But there was too much left to make it seem natural. And to appear to be running…. That would have been asking for it.

So I was stuck. Nothing to do but play it out slow, stalling all the way.

I ignored her again.

She stood up then, after a little mumbled urging from her mates, and came over to take it up personal. She sat down on the table less than an arm’s length from my food.

“I’m talking to you.”

I looked up at her. Drivetechs have to be big. During combat fire control procedures, they have to be able to lift whole modular assemblies out of the grid and replace them the same way—-ail within seconds. This one was about a head taller than me, weighing probably a third again more. I counted that and I counted her mood and I counted the strong possibility that she would feel like she had to show off a little with the others watching. I even counted her looks. It came up: all bad.

I continued to meet her gaze with a blank look.

“Who are you?” she wanted to know.

I appeared to think about it, said, “Nobody,” and went back to eating.

I had hoped to sound innocuous enough that it would stick. But the audience at the far end wasn’t having any.

They laughed. Not at me, but, dammitall, with me. At her.

I felt her tense uncomfortably beside me.

“Well, I can see that,” she continued. “But what’s your name. What are you doing here?”

I looked at her again, blankly, as before. I shrugged. “Just along for the ride.”

A loud guffaw from the far end. “I don’t think he wants to tell you, Twala,” somebody called. There was more laughter.

That did it. I stood up, faced her.

“Maybe you ought to talk to Borglyn,” I suggested as calmly and reasonably as I could.

But she was having none of that. Bullies worry about their public posture too much.

“I’m asking you, not him,” she replied harshly.

I looked deep into her eyes and saw nothing there but anticipation and I remembered something somebody had once told me a long time ago. “Bullies don’t want to fight you. They don’t want to fight at all. They simply want to beat you up.”

“I can’t hear you,” she said when I hesitated. Then she took a long stout finger and prodded me in the right lung with it. “Speak up.”

“All right. I’m Jack Crow. Now move your finger while you still can. Now.”

She moved it, eyes wide at the sound of my name. There was a long, heavy pause while they took that in. I dropped my plate into the chute and walked out. Whew.

I went to Borglyn.

“Yes,” he said distantly, regarding the ash of his cigarette. “I did hear something about it.”

“And?”

“And it seems there is considerable interest. Seems Twala and her crowd have some doubt as to your having leveled with them. They’re afraid you didn’t.”

“And?”

“They wanted my confirmation.”

“Well, I hope you gave it to them.”

“Why, no. As a matter of fact, I said nothing at all.”

Dammit.

“Look, Borglyn, I’m not part of your crew. I’m not one of them and I want no part of them. Play your morale games with somebody else. Leave me out of it. Give me my meals in my room.”

“Sorry,” was all that he would say.

I slammed out there in a fury.

I don’t like being used. I don’t like having my name, no matter how ridiculous it may become, being used. I didn’t like Borglyn, or his ship or his crew or his problems. And I had no desire to make it easier for him.

But that’s just what I was going to have to do. Not enough, for his purposes, to just confirm that it really was me. No. Much better to have to make me prove it, to make me do the Jack Crow Pirate bit, really drive the message home that Borglyn isn’t just wandering aimlessly. That he has big plans using big people. Give the crew a little faith.

And give me a lot of shit.

There was no reason not to get it over with right way. I went straight to the mess and, on cue, Twala & Co. were there and waiting.

I went straight to the mess hamper and grabbed a plate.

“Well, there you are, aren’t you ‘Mr. Crow.’ If that’s who you really are.”

I turned and faced her and wondered why this always sounds the same, always ends the same. Always is the same.

“What is it,” I asked impatiently, belligerently.

She glanced briefly at her audience, then approached me in three quick steps.

“Why did you say you were Jack Crow before?”

“Why not?”

“Well, are you Jack Crow?”

“Am I?”

“Listen to me, you little skunk,” she began, • taking that last step into my airspace and towering over me, “I think you’re a liar.”

“So?”

“So I don’t like liars.”

And then, with infinite weariness, I delivered perhaps the dumbest, most worthless, line in all of human interaction: “So what are you going to do about it?”

When she kicked at me I smashed her instep. When she swung that massive arm, I broke it at the wrist and, for absolutely no good reason, at the bicep as well. And then because I was sick to death of it all, I picked out the biggest loudmouth in the crowd and beat the living hell out Of him.

They all scattered then. It was left to me to take her to medical for the casts and Gropac connections. Then somehow she was all arms and legs and hair and thighs more than anything else. I tried because I felt I should try something. She moaned and strained to make it better than it was, feeling, at last, that it was something missing in her which it might very well have been. But, on the other hand, that’s another part of the legend which is wrong.

So I held her for a while, or the other way around, nestled in those mammaries of surprising silkiness and warmth. Feeling bad. Feeling cheap. Feeling that I would get Borglyn back somehow.

The gong sounded for Sanction some hours later. We didn’t move. She wasn’t on and I knew we wouldn’t land for hours. Then the claxon hit, general quarters and red lights pulsing in the passageways. Everybody moved at once. I ran for the bridge, buttoning up.

IV

The Fleet ship wouldn’t move.

For three days standard, she simply hovered there in orbit. I was getting itchy. The crew was getting scared. So was Borglyn, though I doubted anyone but me could see it.

To save scanning power, we hid on the near moon, the one that, like Luna, has a perennially dark side. Borglyn thought he might as well take the opportunity to show me my prize. He was going to have to before I started moving anyway. So we glided down easily beside. I pulled on a suit and walked over to give it the eye.

It was a mystery, really. No evidence of a crash. In such a small ship, such a long, long, way from home, you would expect to see something dramatic. But the landing had been exceedingly clean. Everything was intact.

It was an Arcstar Model Four, the kind used to ferry the brass between starships for face-to-face meetings of top security, as if the ants could give a damn what we transmitted anyway. And for its designated task it was wildly overqualified in the best spend-military-spend tradition. I believe it sold, completely outfitted, for about C18,000,000 in the civilian world.

Throw in another four or five million for tactical blaze capacity. A sweet deal for me.

Inside I saw the reason for the clean landing. The pilot and or crew had abandoned it some time ago, leaving it on scanner recovery mode. There was no telling how long it had drifted before the scanners picked this moon to land on. I thought about it a second. They had started selling these to the military at the beginning of the war… It could have been drifting for over four years then. Probably had.

In the drop bay I found the suit. I had never seen one up close before, but anyone would know what it was. It was the black sheen worn by the guy in the Vidshow, the scout who never reported back. But unlike the show-business type, the scars and imperfections on this one were real. The poor bastard who wore this thing had been through it for a fact. The left shoulder was particularly discolored, suggesting a many-second exposure to an ant blast.

I felt myself shuddering. It might have been for the lot of the almost certainly dead owner. It might have been for the whole war.

Damn. Interstellar war…. Who’d have thought that we could be so stupid?

The speakers crackled next to my ears.

“Well, what do you think, Jack?” asked Borglyn from the Coyote.

“It’s dead.”

“Well, of course it is, dammit.” He sounded exasperated. “What would you expect. Do you have any idea how far away we are from anything at all?”

“Activate the board.”

“Like hell… I haven’t got power to spare for that. I’ll give you fuel when I get mine and not before.”

“Activate it,” I insisted. “This could be a null bank as far as I know. You could spare enough juice to let me see if it’s capable.”

He was silent, thinking. I could hear his heavy breathing from those huge lungs. “All right, just a minute,” he said after a while.

There was a brief pause and then the panel flickered. It flickered again, flashed on strong and glowed. I went through the check.

She was, as I had expected, fine. Except for power, she was ready to go. And for a brief instant, my frustration at not being able to lift then and there was so great as to be physically painful. What a ship… To be aloft and on my own and… well, aloft. There was so much left to do.

“While I’m at this business of showing good faith, I may as well go all the way. I heard him giving orders for a simultaneous relay transmission. Lo and behold, the treasury light beacon responded. I keyed the display and sat down on the pilot seat with a thud. C24,000,000 and change had just been transferred over.

Wow.

If I had been at least willing to go along with Borglyn before, now I was damn near eager. Hell, I was eager. To hell with mutinies and Fleet regs and the rest of it. With this ship and all those credits… Hell, I might become the great and famous Jack Crow I had read so much about.

I hadn’t realized I was laughing out loud until I heard Borglyn sourly order me to cut it out and return. Without hesitation, I obeyed. On some impulse, I grabbed up the suit and carried it with me.

It was an offhand, thoughtless gesture. An icing deed to go along with my mood. And, incredibly, the single most important action I had ever undertaken.

But no one knew that then. Certainly not me. I was too busy planning and grinning, grinning and planning.

When I cycled back in, I heard the Fleet ship had driven away. We moved in immediately.

In the hours before landfall, Borglyn gave me what little he had on the project director. He read to me from the display.

“Hollis Ware, 31 standard, a list of the schools he went to. A long list. Hmmm. Seems the man is a genius.”

“That would explain his youth.”

Borglyn’s eyebrows lifted. “What do you mean?”

“He’s pretty young to be in charge of a Fleet Project.”

“Hmm. Is that a big deal?”

“Pretty big. Essentially lord of all he surveys.”

“Very interesting. Still, he’s not the Fleet.”

I lit a cigarette from the box on his desk. “Close enough. That Fleet ship could have been the last for a long time. That’s why they have colonies like this. It saves money. You have to sign on for a three-year stretch. And during that time….”

“The Director is all-powerful. Yes. I see. And he’s a young man.”

“A young genius,” I corrected.

Borglyn nodded vaguely, lost in the possibilities. I changed the subject.

“What’s the specialty?”

“The what?”

“The purpose of the project. What are they studying?”

“Oh. Says here he’s a statistical historian. Never heard of it. Uh, let’s see … ‘projections of optimum conditions for specific permutations as regards to…’ What the hell is all that supposed to mean?”

“Here,” I offered, “let me.”

I stood up and went around to the other side of the desk to check the screen for myself. Borglyn grumbled his irritation. He was already angered at the thought of losing any of the trappings of “Captain.”

But I worked myself in there anyway, reading the display over his shoulder while he went through an elaborate ritual of lighting his cigarette, pretending not to be interested, and trying to keep up with the speed of the scan. All at the same time.

I read for several minutes, nodding to myself and occasionally muttering “I see” under my breath. Not because I really saw. Most of the stuff was as much beyond me as it was the mutineer. I only did it because I knew it would make him feel a little less invulnerable. I had not, would not, forget the incident with Twala.

At last I went back around to my seat and sat. I lit another cigarette and stared at the smoke as if immersed in the contemplation of all that wonderfully intricate data. The fact was that I had understood maybe one word in ten once it had gotten down to specifics. But I had learned a couple of things. One: it was a relatively new and fascinating field of study; and Two: Hollis Ware would have to be a genius to understand it, much less found it as the banks had said.

“Well,” asked Borglyn irritably after he could no longer stand the suspense, a time span of perhaps twenty seconds. Before I answered, I filed the memory of his impatience in a safe place.

“Ware’s working for Fleet.”

“I know that much, goddammit,” he snapped angrily.

“No. I mean the real Fleet. The fighting arms. He’s involved with the Antwar.”

“Really? How so?”

“From what I could understand, it seems he’s trying to determine why our casualties have been so high.”

Borglyn stared at me for a second, then burst into wild, deep uncontrollable laughter.

He laughed and laughed until his face got red and tears formed at the corners of his eyelids. At last he settled down into the occasional chuckle stage where he could talk. But even then he didn’t speak, lost in his own thoughts and staring into space. Every few seconds his eyes would shine and the corners of his cavernous mouth would twist up, remembering.

I had time to take in the tone of all that. There was more than a little sadness in his hilarity. And an unsettling amount of bitterness. I wondered then, for the first time, what had happened to make him lead a mutiny. And why, despite the expected problems, the crew seemed more righteous about their previously violent actions than I would have thought possible. I thought about all of that and then I thought for the fiftieth or two hundredth time how glad I was that I had no part in the Antwar or the ants.

“All that money,” he said at last. “All that money and time and all those people to boot. All to answer that question. To find out something any Grade Ten Under-Tech could have told him.”

“What’s that? Why are we having such terrible casualties?”

He looked at me with a sudden, heart-stopping sobriety. He looked right into my eyes, but he was seeing something I knew I would never see, never hear him tell.

“I’ll tell you why, Jack. Because no one, I mean NO ONE, at Fleet has the slightest idea of what they’re doing. And every poor son-of-a-bitching one of us knew it.”

I sat silently, taking in not just what he had said, but the… painful… way he said it.

“There’s a little more to it than that, of course,” he added after a moment.

“There always is,” I replied, almost to myself.

He looked quickly at me, nodded slowly, almost suspiciously. “Yeah. There always is at that. But that’s the meat of it, what I told you. That’s…” And then he was gone again. “That’s the meat.”

We spoke little more after that. He went over my cover story a couple of times. We talked about communications and timetables. He gave me the name of my contact in the refugee village called “Sanction City.”

I mentioned that I wanted to take the suit along.

“What suit?” he asked.

“The scout suit. Y’know, the black one I brought back from the sled.”

“Oh,” he said unhappily, “I ordered it spaced.”

“What?” I cried, aghast. “You mean it’s gone?”

“Gone or going. What difference does it make?”

“Call ’em. See if you can stop it. I want to take it with me.”

Borglyn, clearly uneasy, nevertheless obeyed. He got on the horn and located the suit, a scant two minutes or so before it was to be ejected. On my insistence, he ordered it placed in the lifeship.

“What the hell do you want with that thing?” he growled after he had finished.

“It’s an offering for Ware. Just the kind of thing an historian type would find interesting.”

Borglyn frowned. “I doubt that.”

“It’s better than nothing,” I countered. But I was puzzled. Why was he so cavalier with such an expensive—hell, irreplaceable—piece of equipment? I asked him.

The answer came in that dead-sober, grinding way he had when he talked about the war. “This ship is out of the war business. At least out of the Antwar business.”

Then he made a gesture which clearly told me to change the subject. I did. We parted.

He had given me the only answer that interested him. If he could have gotten his bulk into that suit himself, he wouldn’t have. It was the war, to him. It was the ants. This bloodthirsty criminal, so eager to kill when it suited him, so enamored of pseudo-sadism, was terrified of the ants.

I filed that away too.

Twala, bless her endless thighs, was there at the lock to wish me off. Looking like an overgrown schoolgirl and acting worse. I had to stand on tiptoe to kiss her good-bye.

V

The lifeship dropped me onto the little delta just across the river from the Project. Semi-frantically I began to unload my gear before it lifted again. I had plenty of time, over two minutes, but the possibility of that ship darting for the stratosphere while I still had one leg in the door was particularly vivid to me. It had happened once. I straightened up from my small pile of goods and fished for a cigarette. That says a lot about you, I thought to myself. Too damn many stupid things like that have been significant. I sighed, began to light up, and stopped.

On the bridge, less than three hundred meters away, there was a riot going on.

Over four hundred people, I estimated, refugees obviously, were storming the bridge from the city side. I left my stuff where it was and hurried over.

Nearing the mob, I saw that they weren’t actually trying to shove their way across. They were just screaming and cursing and waving their arms. Then I saw the reason why they had stopped where they were. A group of people wearing Project tunics and carrying side arms stood on the far side blocking their way. And in the midst of them stood a rather thin, rather short young man with spindly arms and long brown hair that he kept nervously pushing out of his eyes. The Director, obviously Hollis Ware.

About the time I reached the edge of the crowd, the good young Doctor tried to blow it.

“All right,” he yelled suddenly, stridently, into the afternoon air. “If that’s what you want. I don’t need them to speak,” he added, gesturing over his shoulder to the poised guards.

The mob crackled boisterously, and expectantly, at this. The group of guards sagged visibly. So did I. It was an incredibly stupid thing to do.

I moved into the edge of the crowd without being noticed and shuffled about halfway through while Ware was making the foolish mistake of stepping across the bridge alone. The members of the crowd closest to him moved backwards off the bridge to give him room. But not far enough. The way they were set up, they could snatch him if they decided to, before he could get back.

Everyone settled down to hear what was being said. I listened carefully as well, to find out what it was all about.

It was all about food. The City, it seemed, didn’t have any. The Project had a lot, more than they needed. And so on.

“…your lack of food is your doing. It is your responsibility, not ours.” Ware was saying.

The crowd booed angrily at this. A barrel-chested fat man stepped forward. “Sure, sure, we talk about our kids starvin’ and you give us this shit.”

Loud angry agreement of this from the crowd. Fists waved, curses flew. But no surge forward. Not yet. The fat man, I noticed, had a bright red face from all the shouting and arm waving. He also had very little actual fat.

“How are a bunch of stupid words gonna help our kids,” he added, as the angry cries peaked and dropped. The noise peaked again in responses. I noticed that he had actually turned to the people around him when he had said this. Under his red face, I saw, were two very calm, knowing eyes…. There was a lot more going on here.

Ware didn’t see it. He swayed backwards on his heels with every roar from the mob at his feet. He was blatantly nervous, close to fear, and had no apparent ability to hide it. But he hung in there. He wouldn’t take that step back that his feet were itching for.

Another man stepped up to speak. Tall and thin, black hair shiny from lack of washing. He spoke in a nasal snarl.

“All I know is that I come a long damn way to get here and now all I see is the same damn Fleet tryin’ to screw me again.”

The crowd thundered their approval and, under their cheers, the thin man exchanged a glance with the fat man, who nodded imperceptibly.

That tore it. Ware was being set up by a couple of pros. He had no idea and no chance. I moved closer to the bridge through a forest of shifting feet and waving fists.

Ware tried to respond as best he could. But he was hopelessly hamstrung. First, he plainly feared the crowd in general and the fat man in particular. And he was disgusted by the crowd. The latter was probably doing more damage. When you’re way, way, down and know it, you sure don’t like to have it broadcasted by the sneers from somebody who is up. And Holly did broadcast his disgust, try as he might to hide it. He found them filthy, worthless and just generally beneath him and they could tell.

They really hated the little guy.

And so, abruptly, he made it worse.

He had had enough of that line about starving children. When the fat man used it again. Ware snapped back with: “Maybe you shouldn’t be spending all that time distilling liquor then. If you’re really so concerned about starving children, try staying sober for a while.”

Oh, they didn’t like that. The surge began. Ware was forced to step back a few feet so as not to be trampled. But the crowd stopped there, not yet incensed enough to do damage. Which meant that they weren’t yet sure that everybody would do it at the same time seeing as how he had obviously hit some kind of target with the last bit.

But the fat man knew. He knew that mobs, like unions, have an answer to that eternal question of who deserves what. They just ignore it and grab.

The fat man got them mad enough to ignore it.

Talked about how easy it was for Ware to talk like that and how he would sing a different tune and how (surprise) he couldn’t possibly understand because he had never known what it was like to live in Sanction City so (ta dah) he had no right to judge what he didn’t understand.

It was the standard line, but even so, the fat man was a master of it. He went on and on about how tough it was for them and how it was easy for Ware a couple of more times proving, by repetition, that he was actually saying something significant. Then he made the move.

He took a step up until he was actually standing on the bridge about a half step from Ware, intimidating the Director with his size, and asked the big question: “Just how long do you expect us to take this?”

And that was it, the big moment. The complete surge was coming. Mobwise, he had Ware in a hole. There was nothing he could say. And the next words from the fat man’s mouth would start it all.

So I cut him off.

“You sure talk a lot,” I began loudly, shouting over his next remark. I said it as belligerently as possible, moving the last step up to the pair as I did. The crowd turned to look.

“You sure talk a lot,” I repeated, “about starving, for a man that’s so fat.” There were a couple of giggles from the fringes, quickly hushed. The fat man turned hard eyes at me.

“Maybe,” I continued with deliberate leisure, “you’re the reason the kids are hungry.” I noticed then, that the unlit cigarette was still in my mouth. I lit it slowly and blew the smoke gently toward him. I felt the tall thin one move in over my shoulder. I had to do this now.

“Who the hell are you?” asked the fat man with red face and clenched teeth. He turned toward me raising his arms. He was furious. He had lost the peak of the mob. He had to do something about me in a hurry.

I smiled. “I’m Jack Crow.”

Murmurs, eyes agape, shifting whispers drifted about. I loved it.

The fat man hated it. He had lost the initiative. But he was quick to reach for it again, starting with: “I don’t care who you are, I…”

I cut him off. “Make your move, tubby.”

He blanched, stared, made it.

I ducked under it. and drove a foot deep into the place where the sun never shines. He bent over with a whoosh of breath. He grabbed for me, still tough, and I decked him. Then I turned slowly around to look at the thin one.

“I believe you’re next?” I asked pleasantly, expectantly.

The thin one stared at me, at the fat man. Back at me. He couldn’t believe this was happening to him.

The guards saved him and, most likely me, by moving across the bridge at the first hint of violence.

“Clear the bridge,” barked the leader. She turned to Ware, put a gloved hand on his shoulder. “Step back, Dr. Please.” It was not a request. Ware stepped back, looking at me with the beginnings of a grin. I smiled back.

The rest of the guards formed a wedge on the bridge with blazers high and in view. “Back,” shouted the leader. “Break it up and go home. Now.”

The crowd, deflated, obeyed meekly. I felt a rough grasp and then a shove as I was encouraged to do likewise. I spun around to get into it with the guard who had shoved me, thought better of it, and turned to Ware.

“Wait,” he said on cue. “This is Jac… This man is all right.”

I smiled as warmly as I could. “So is this one,” I said and offered my hand. As he took it I gave him the smooth lie: “That was pretty impressive, Dr. Ware.”

His eyes widened. “You know my name?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

I was lucky. Lightning didn’t strike me dead and Ware ate it up.

“Well, where did you…. How long have you been here? I mean….”

I sighed. He was like a goddamned eager puppy. I pointed down the riverbank to my stack of stuff. “I kinda hitchhiked in a couple of minutes ago.”

“I didn’t notice that,” he said with wonder in his voice.

I shrugged, smiled. There was an uneasy silence. I coughed into it.

“Came to see you, in fact. Brought something you might like.”

“Oh really?”

Now he really was like a puppy. He all but ran with me across the bridge to the other side. He had to keep restraining his legs from running as we neared my belongings. When we got to the pile I pointed but he had already seen.

“My God, an L-1625 Scout… I don’t believe it.”

He was all over it in a second, poking and prodding. He uttered another gasp.

“And it’s still got the recording pod,” he said breathlessly.

“Oh, you noticed that, did you?” I asked with a smile, looking over his shoulder to see what the hell he was talking about. Recording what?

He straightened up and looked at me. “And you brought this all this way for me?” he asked with genuine amazement.

“All for you.”

His ecstasy was overflowing. He didn’t know what to say. Embarrassed, he looked back and forth between me and the suit. “You’re… you’re really Jack Crow?”

I nodded.

He stuck out his hand to shake again. I shook. Now I was embarrassed.

“And you’re Hollis Ware,” I added lamely.

He hardly heard me. He was watching the distantly retreating crowd.

“Damn,” he said with a boyish grin, “you sure do make things happen, don’t you?”

He was already looking at the suit again. But I was watching the crowd now. Watching and wondering how badly what was coming would hurt this man. This nice man.

“Yes,” I replied at last. “I do.”

VI

He marched me across the bridge with his hand on my shoulder and into the complex. The guards followed with my belongings. He gave me a whirlwind tour of the place, pointing me out to people like a long lost relative. There was an incredibly fast tour of his private workshop complete with running dialogue on the problems of statistical history that was, quite frankly, beyond my grasp. I saw corridor after corridor of laboratories and computer banks. I saw recreation areas and living quarters and the room I was going to have. I saw secretaries and assistants and crew. I saw his fellow scholars and their growth charts and their equipment. I saw Lya, saw Karen, saw that they hated each other.

We ate. Twelve of us sat around a beautiful mahogany table and feasted on fresh vegetables and wine that I was told was home, Sanction, grown.

I enjoyed most of it, faked my way through the rest. I also learned a lot about Holly.

First: he was as smart as the Coyote readout had said he was. A for-real genius. The other members of the academic staff were all much older than he was, all rather stodgy, in fact. They faked it better than I did. For clearly, they could not follow the intricate workings of his brain. They spent a lot of time at the dinner table nodding sagely and sometimes in awe, sometimes in bewilderment.

But always hating the too-smart little bastard.

I also learned how to get along with Holly, as he insisted now that I call him.

He wanted to be in on things. Specifically, he wanted to be in on my things. I found that rolling my eyes at the stupidity of his fellows worked beautifully if I did it in such a way as to include Holly. When they asked the usual questions about me (anxious as hell to get away from Holly’s theories) I would fake it in such a way as to say to Holly across the table: “You and I can talk about these things later, in private.”

Holly sucked it in like it was his last breath.

After eating we went out on the terrace. I separated myself from the rest. I stood at the balcony, sipping and smoking. Sanction City glowed dully across the river. Waves of anger and hatred rose strongly into the sky.

Karen appeared at my elbow. She leaned against the railing, sort of uncoiling against it like a cat looking for a tummy rub. We stared at each other that way for a few seconds, my gaze blank.

“Did you really come here just to see Holly?” she asked at last in a husky tone.

“Really and truly.”

“You’ve really heard of him?”

“Uh, huh.”

“You know much about his work?”

“Not as much as I’d like.”

She nodded vaguely at this, allowing her hair to slide lusciously across her cheek.

“How long will you be here?”

“That depends.”

“On what, Jack?” She asked and rolled a smile across her shoulder.

There is a stench when somebody wants to fuck your name. It rolled across with the smile, on the way she had said “Jack.”

I hated it, of course.

I wanted it, of course.

The way she had of sort of trembling with bursting sensuality…

“Are we fucking?” I asked bluntly. “Or just dancing? Or are we gonna dance now and fuck later? Nothing else will do, I’m a busy man.”

She stood up straight and got red. Then white, reminding me, suddenly, of the fat man from the bridge.

“Make your move, Pudding,” I added.

Her trembling was no longer the good trembling, but from fury against things women hate, like pointing out the obvious and laughing. She turned after a long hateful look, and stalked stiffly away. Her drink trailed liquid, unnoticed, on her white knuckles.

Across the terrace Holly stood red-faced himself, all but shouting at a crowd of younger scholar-types. Whatever it was that he was for, he was really for it.

The younger folk looked hesitant, but were smart enough not to buck the boss. The older folk had extended the nodding outside, mumbling echoes of his more vociferous remarks.

As I reached the edge of the crowd faces turned in my direction. Holly noticed this and followed suit. He looked embarrassed, suddenly, at his own intensity. He slipped out an arm to me as if for corroboration.

“Jack,” he began, “Jack Crow. What do you think about fighting the Antwar?”

Uh-oh.

I froze. Holly did too along with everyone else.

“Not tonight,” I blurted into the silence and added a punctuating burp.

Everyone laughed, hooting and hollering. I relaxed my suddenly taut shoulders and smiled. I had gotten away with it.

I dragged through the rest of the evening by drinking too much and, when absolutely necessary, relying on my store of meaningless but expected Jack Crowisms. Fortunately enough, the mood of this gathering was more inclined toward performance than most. No long silences while fat drunks awaited an exhibition of the “real, private” me.

Instead they took turns flashing their lore.

I learned from a biochemist the reason he and many others continued to prefer the old fashioned and acidic spirits over the physiologically harmless syntho. “Scotch and thuch…. such, is—chemically, mind you—a better drunk,” he assured me.

I learned from an ecological paleontologist the name—easily a meter long—of the local disease responsible for Sanction having fish, insects, and rodents but not reptiles, birds, or amphibians.

I learned from an apparent score of local ranchers the difficulties of breeding herds from embryos. The “immigrants”—meaning, of course, the newly arrived low rent Cityfolk as opposed to the newly arrived high class Countryfolk—had so far managed to both steal and eat almost everything old enough to graze.

I learned from an assistant statistical historian, one of Holly’s aides apparently, that not one person associated with the Project—from the scientists currently staffing it to the scientists who had initially authorized it—had managed to grasp the Director’s theories. No one else was smart enough to really follow it.

But they were, all of them, smart enough to know that Hollis Ware was smart enough. Or something.

Then it was over and I was shown to my suite. I peeled out of everything, took aim at the bed, and somebody tap-tapped on my door.

Karen stood swaying, so blonde and precious I could taste her skin. She took a deep breath.

“All right,” she whispered. “No dancing.”

“You mean fucking?” I asked cruelly.

She bit her lip. Her eyes were shining. She nodded.

I pulled her in and slammed the door.

VII

I woke up hearing Karen bitching away at some servant type in the anteroom. Something about trying to show a little decorum around the place for a change and how she would not accept having to apologize to the great Jack Crow himself about the slovenly attitude on this dreary planet and so on and so on….

The great Jack Crow, me, missed the rest of her tirade trying to find the edge of the bed. I had the great hangover.

A few minutes later, sitting up at last and drinking the morning-after goodie some gentle soul had left there for me, I heard the outer door close behind her. Immediately after came the sound of gentle laughter followed by the muttered grumblings of somebody who knew better than to take such incredible rudeness seriously. I smiled to myself, found something to wear, and stumbled into the next room to confront the victim.

It was a man. A rather nice looking guy, about forty or so. He was a couple of inches shorter than me with short blond hair and a beautifully cropped van dyke a couple of shades darker. He was wearing Crew garb. The name Cortez was stenciled over his left breast pocket. He was sitting on the arm of a chair, looking desultorily at his watch and tapping his foot with gentle impatience. I liked him right away.

I made some sort of noise and he all but leaped to his feet and stood staring at me apprehensively. I let him worry while I fished out a cigarette and lit it. Then I gestured through the smoke toward the door.

“She always such a bitch?” I asked.

Cortez got stiffer, looking surprised. Then, abruptly, he relaxed. He smiled brightly and warm, a much better sight, and answered. “Always, Mr. Crow.”

I nodded with understanding and took another drag. He gestured toward a chair. “Wouldn’t you like to sit down?” he offered.

I waved him away. “I think I better just sort of stand here a bit,” I said, gesturing toward my hungover head meaningfully. I leaned against the door jamb as if for support, though in fact the morning-after goodie had already done most of its job.

Cortez laughed pleasantly.

“Why do you take it?” I asked.

He looked at me, shrugged. “Well, you are Jack Crow, after all.”

I sneered. “The great and famous Jack Crow, huh?”

He smiled. “The very one.”

“Hmm. We’ll get into that later on. But you still haven’t answered my question. You said she was always a bitch.”

“Well,” he offered sheepishly, “she was always the Chief Administrator too.”

“Oh.”

“Yessir: ‘oh.’”

I sniffed the air. “Is that coffee?”

He stepped quickly over to the side table set against the far wall. “Yes. I just made it. Would you like some?”

“Please.” I found that I was almost completely recovered. I sat down in one of the three armchairs surrounding a low coffee table. It was an awfully pretty room, I noticed, for a Fleet Project.

Cortez noticed my gaze as he sat the mug before me. “This is the VIP room,” he offered helpfully. “Only the brass rate this. The rest of us live in dormitories.”

I nodded and sipped. It was good. “So what’s this about her being the boss? I thought Hoi… Dr. Ware was top dog?”

“He is. He’s Director of Project. But she handles everything that doesn’t immediately concern the research. There’s quite a lot to do, you know, what with over five hundred Crew and families and the like.”

“Hmm. Do all of you work on the research?”

He laughed. “God no. Most of Us don’t ever even come in here. This is my first time inside the ship since we grounded practically. Most of us are the support team. We keep the scientists fat and thoughtful.”

“A noble cause, no doubt.”

“No doubt,” he replied, then added with a smile: “And it pays damn well, too.”

I smiled in return. “What’s your real job?”

“I’m hydroponics. I spend most of my time in the greenhouse at the far end of the valley.”

“Don’t they farm this area in the usual way? Soil looks good enough.”

“Oh, it is, I suppose. But we, that is, the greenhouse crew, don’t trust it. Those agro folk are, by tradition, foul-ups. We keep the greenhouse going on earth soil for when something comes along and wipes out all their careful work. Then we’ll save everybody’s ass, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

I laughed. Interdepartmental rivalries were the same everywhere.

“Well, have you had to come to the rescue yet? Have they fouled-up?”

“Not yet,” he replied, then added with a twinkle, “But the day is young.”

I laughed again and waved him toward an armchair. “Have some coffee or something and sit down and tell me the rest of it.”

He was quick to take advantage of my offer, seating himself gratefully across from me. He sipped from his mug.

“You mean you really want to know about why we are so wonderful? Or just why the agros are genetically inferior?”

I laughed and waved him off. “I do not. For the sake of argument, I will immediately concede the vast superiority, genetic and intellectual….”

“Don’t forget sexual,” he offered with another twinkle.

“All right, dammit. For your sake alone, I hereby declare that you guys are bloody supermen compared to the farmers. Okay?”

He nodded. “The least you could do.”

“No doubt,” I growled. “Now tell me about the rest of it. You say that Holly, Dr. Ware, is the Director of Project. That means he runs the thinking. And Karen…. What’s her last name, anyway?”

“Wagner.”

“Okay. Karen runs everything else.”

“Right.”

“But who has the final say? Surely, Dr. Ware….”

“Oh, he’s the final boss. That is to say, he’s over her as far as Fleet is concerned. Course then there’s Lewis.”

“Who’s Lewis?”

Cortez smiled. “Damned if I know, exactly.”

I groaned. “You aren’t being very helpful.”

Cortez continued to smile. “I know I’m not. I don’t mean to be vague. It’s just that… Well, Lewis is an interesting story.”

“Why not start it by telling me what he does around here.”

“Lewis? Nothing.”

“Nothing? I don’t get it? Then what’s he doing here on this planet?”

Cortez grinned delightedly. “He owns it.”

I stared. “I beg your pardon?”

Cortez shrugged. “Just that. Lewis owns the place. The whole planet.”

“But I thought this was Fleet territory.”

“It’s Fleet Space,” he corrected. “And the planet, Sanction, was Fleet charted. But by the time anybody actually set foot on it from Fleet, Lewis was already here. He’s the one who named it Sanction. First Citizen and all that.”

“I see.”

Cortez grinned again. “Maybe you don’t yet. You see, the Project only leases this valley. It doesn’t own a thing here. So, technically, Lewis is the real authority.”

“You seem awfully happy about it.”

He laughed. “Oh, I am. Everybody is. That is, everybody who’s Crew is. The brass don’t like it much.”

“Fleet likes control.”

“They do. But what they got here is… well, what they got is the Cityfolk. You know, the refugee settlement across the river.”

“Hmm,” I mumbled. “I had wondered about that.”

“Yeah, so have the brass. You see, Lewis won’t let anybody touch them. He won’t even restrict their immigration except medically. And they keep coming.”

“You like that?”

Cortez looked surprised. “Of course. Hell, how many Fleet Projects get to have a frontier town next door? Hell, I’ve done three years on places with no place to have fun but mercury lakes. Having that wide-open place is like a dream.”

“I thought they didn’t like you guys, you Project people.”

Cortez waved that aside. “Oh, it’s just the brass that they don’t like. They love having us come by.”

I nodded to myself, wondering if Cortez really believed what he had said. “Or maybe he just didn’t know how deep the hatred was. What he probably saw as just being a regular guy was, and was certainly recognized by the refugees as, slumming.”

“Just the same,” I offered gently, “you’d best be careful when you go over there.”

Cortez grinned mischievously. “Oh, we know they’re all just a bunch of deserters and low-rents. But they’re a lot of fun, just the same. And I don’t think there’s really a place for being a snob out here. I mean, we’re all stuck out here just the same. We oughta try to get along. Besides, we aren’t real Wild-West. No private blazers is Lewis’s policy, so how much damage could two drunks do barehanded? Fall over is ’bout all.”

I didn’t say, just thought, about a lady I’d met once who, barehanded, blind drunk, pregnant and squatting to piss, could move so fast she could kill any two drunks, or four, “a half-second before they can die, by God!”

I lit another cigarette to hide a sudden desire to scream at him. But I knew it wouldn’t have done any good. It would only frighten him, clam him up, and then I wouldn’t be able to get any other information from him later on.

But, dammit! How could he be so blind? How could he miss the danger? How could he not feel it when he walked across the river? Maybe he had and just ignored it. Or maybe he was just too far apart from them. Too far apart from the idea of them and from the idea that being “stuck out here together” was a notion that didn’t apply to the frightened desperate mass across the river who now and forever would think of this’ place, not as a backwater saloon to be used and forgotten, but as… Home.

I started to say something then, to somehow try to get a bit of it across. But there was a soft gong from somewhere and a light appeared glowing on the ceiling.

Cortez set down his mug and keyed something on the underside of the table. There was a loud click, followed by the forming of a holo above the table surface. A man’s head and shoulders appeared in the air.

“Who is… Oh, Cortez! Is he up yet?”

Cortez looked questioningly at me. Evidently I was out of range. I nodded. Cortez looked at the display. “He’s up.”

“Good,” replied the figure in the air. “Could you tell him that Holly wants to see him. You know, Dr. Ware sends his compliments and all that sort of crap. And would he please come at his convenience?”

Cortez nodded, hiding his smile with a hand on his chin. “I know what to do. Where’s he supposed to go?”

“The lab.”

“Okay, I’ll tell him.”

“Thanks, Cortez. Out.”

“Out,” Cortez replied and keyed off. He looked at me. “When is it convenient?” he asked with a smile.

“Now,” I said firmly.

“Oh,” he said quickly, abashed. “I’ll get your clothes together.”

“Thanks,” I said at his rapidly retreating back. I put out the cigarette and leaned against the back of the chair with a sigh.

May as well get to it. Sooner I started, the sooner I could finish. And then, of course, the sooner I could start to forget what I had done.

VIII

The ship would never lift again. The Crew had made it a permanent fixture on Sanction by scattering windows here and there and brightening up the upper passageways with skylights. In order to maintain structural integrity in space, it would require the kind of tooling found only in Fleet Shipyards. I supposed it was no great loss. The ship had never had much control or power, requiring tractor steering the entire trip. Still it never failed to astonish me the way Fleet tossed about the taxpayers’ money. And, of course, the changes were a definite improvement for its residents. It now seemed more like an office complex than a starship. More like part of the land than a tunnel that must be entered in order to get paid.

Cortez insisted on escorting me to Holly’s workshop. It was lucky that I gave in. The place was huge. And despite the alterations, it still bore that twisting-turning efficiency of starships which is so confusing to newcomers. It took only a few minutes to make me confused. And not long after that I was practically light-headed trying to keep up with our gyrations. I stopped abruptly. I cannot stand to be lost.

“Show me where we are,” I demanded.

“Sir?” he asked nervously.

I relaxed, smiled, explained the problem. He nodded and squatted down. He began to carve a rude map in the furrows of the carpeting with his finger. “See,” he began, “we’ve come down four levels and over this way, past two of the bulkheads. We’ve been traveling east the whole way.”

I shook my head. “Then why all the spiraling around?”

He grinned. “That’s only the structural compression assembly. It’s built into the lifts and into all the dropshafts and stairwells.” He stood up. “It’s a lot of bother, I know. And if you ask me, it’s also a waste of good credits as long as we have the shield. But I will say one thing, when Fleet strands you in some God-knows-where for three years, they strand you safe.”

I was still hearing the part about the shield. I asked what shield.

He looked surprised. “The defensive shield, of course. That’s what I mean by compression assembly being a waste of credits. Nothing can get past that screen once it’s in place. So we hardly need to be a fort to boot. And besides, I don’t buy that structural compression idea anyhow. Conform doesn’t bend. It cracks. I don’t care how many knots you tie it into.”

Cortez continued to complain as we resumed our previous pace. Trying to follow what he was saying was all the more difficult as he seemed to think I already knew what he was talking about. And after a while I decided that that was a very good way to leave it. For what I was getting seemed to be crucial to Borglyn’s little scheme.

The main thing was the overall make-up of the Project Complex itself. It was a goddamned fortress. Heavy defensive screens were only the beginning of it (though I had never, in fact, counted on their being so powerful). After the screens came the shape of the dome itself, the structural compression assembly part. What SCA was, it turned out, was sort of a spring that ran connected throughout the outer bulkhead sealing in such a way as to allow the entire structure to compress when one side of it was attacked—like by heavy-bore artillery.

There was more. Eight blazer cannon where installed within the outer rim of the Complex, each controlled by the Master Ground Control in the depths of the inner dome where the Auxiliary Control Network had been when the ship was aloft. There were other things as well, blaze-bomb catapults and a couple of dozen remote-controlled blazers as well. Evidently some were useless, since the dome had been wedged into the foot of a small hill on its eastern edge. But that still left quite a nut to crack.

I had to get busy in a hurry. I could think of at least four major perimeter systems alone that would have to be disengaged. Of course the dome would still be a fort. But I doubted that would be enough to comfort any stragglers.

At last we arrived in the passageway outside of Holly’s chambers. “He sleeps and works here both,” Cortez told me. “Sometimes he eats here too, they say.” Then he keyed the outer door and we were inside.

The waiting area was crowded with scientist types mumbling argumentatively around a conference table over which was strewn a bewildering array of computer printout viewers and chart screens. They looked up and eyed me rather drearily as we entered. It wasn’t especially rude. Only the kind of look any non-scientist (read: mere mortal) would have received. Cortez smiled in their direction and crossed the room to another door. He punched a key out and then muttered something into the grille I couldn’t hear. I lit a cigarette and tried to look like a partisan. Or at least a fan. Cortez rejoined me and spoke too softly for anyone else to hear:

“They don’t look very happy, do they?” he said, nodding toward the others.

“What are they doing here?”

“Waiting to see the doctor. Looks like they’ve been here a while.”

So we stood there. I smoked and stared at the ceiling. Cortez sat down. The scientists continued to eye me uncomfortably. It was more, I knew, than just the fact that I was a stranger. It was my pirate’s reputation that offended their scholarly dignity. How odd, I thought, that men and women whose very careers revolved around being open-minded were so often stodgy late-century moralists. Unless, of course, it came to their latest theory.

After a few minutes one of them came over to me and began to speak rapidly in heavily accented standard about partial-waves and inertial development. It wasn’t until several seconds after he had stopped that I realized he’d asked me a question and was waiting for my answer. I looked away, trying to be creatively vague and saw that Lya had just entered the room from the far side.

“Excuse me,” I muttered to the man and stepped forward to meet her. She offered me her hand.

“Good morning, Mr. Crow,” she said pleasantly.

I took her hand. It was firm and cool. “Call me Jack,” I suggested.

She smiled. “How nice to have a choice. I’m afraid Lya is all I have to offer you. Trankien have only one name.”

“How do you tell each other apart if you have the same name?”

“Oh, well, we each have a number as well.”

“A number?” I frowned. “Not very romantic.”

She dimpled. Delightful. “We make up for that in other ways,” she replied.

Cortez grinned a knowing grin. “Well, I guess I can go now. See you later, Jac… Mr. Crow.”

“Cortez,” I acknowledged stiffly, annoyed at his leering.

Lya seemed not to notice. She turned to the scientist type still standing there and waiting for the answer to his question. “Dr. Angovitch, please allow me to take Mr. Crow from you.”

Angovitch nodded the way people nod when they don’t care what you are saying—they’re just glad you stopped—and went right ahead with the amplification of his already too-technical questioning.

“Dr., please,” she insisted with an arched eyebrow, “The Director is waiting.”

At the mention of Holly’s title, the man shut up as if he had been switched off. He nodded formally, if a trifle stiffly, to each of us and joined the crowd back at the conference table. Lya smiled at his retreating form the way an indulgent mother smiles at a trying, yet not unloved, child. Then she turned back to me, all brightness and hospitality again, and motioned us toward the inner door.

“Thanks,” I said to her gratefully. “I really wasn’t up to his conversational style.”

She laughed. “It is a little early in the morning for shop-talk, I imagine.” She glanced at me sideways. “Particularly after the night you just put in.”

I searched her glance. Was she talking about the booze? Or the booze and Karen? Probably the latter. I didn’t figure this one would miss something like that under her own roof.

“Well,” I continued honestly, “it’s never late enough for me as far as that stuff is concerned. He wanted to know a bunch of technical stuff about blaze-drive retrograde. Over my head.”

She looked surprised. “But you developed the Blaze-Drive.”

“I stole it,” I corrected her. “Quan Tri developed it.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Do you?”

She smiled. It was a lovely smile. “No,” she admitted and we both laughed again. “We have time for a quick tour before seeing Holly. That is, if you’re interested in seeing our little shop. Are you?”

“Very,” I answered which was true but dishonest.

A few minutes later she asked: “How technical would you like me to be?” and I answered: “As technical as you like,” which was both untrue and dishonest.

So, of course, from that moment on I didn’t understand a damn thing she was saying. Oh, I got the overall picture well enough, thanks to the briefing I had had back in the mutineer Borglyn’s stateroom. And I suppose there was a thing or two about statistical history that I gathered up during those few moments among the computer banks. But essentially, the trip was only good for one thing—I discovered the seal into Master Ground Control. Trying to be subtle, I couldn’t ask many questions about it, particularly since I had asked hardly any questions about anything else. I did find out, however, that there was another entrance and that it was direct to the outer dome. I logged that with stars beside it. I would have to learn how to get down there without going through all of the other seals. And, come to think of it, that would be a better way to bring Borglyn’s people in as well. Maybe the whole thing could be over and done with before anyone had a chance to argue.

It was nice being with Lya, too. Well, not completely. For it made me wonder why it was that this sort of woman never wants a man like me. The great women, it seemed to me, wanted the gentle Hollys of the universe. And Holly’s being a better outlet for maternal instincts didn’t explain it either, I admitted grudgingly, when I noted the way she kissed him when we found him at last at a workbench. She kissed him in the unmistakable style of a woman who wanted him as a man. And maybe also in a way to make me aware of that fact, I thought, recalling Cortez’s foolish behavior a few minutes earlier.

I noticed all of this while my stomach was dropping. Before him, on the workbench, Holly had the black suit laid out all disassembled and… disemboweled. Interface circuit sheets and piping and micronic lacing, each carefully tagged and colorcoded, seemed to have been blown, spewing, from the chest cavity. It looked like a corpse.

It wasn’t a corpse and I knew that it wasn’t, had known so since the first glance, however shaken I had felt, but still it looked… dead. Not inanimate. Not machinelike. Dead.

I shuddered.

Lya noticed my movement. She nodded without taking her eyes off of it. “I hate that thing,” she offered firmly.

I nodded. So did I.

Holly, wearing a headset, had evidently not heard my approach. But when I nodded he must have caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. He turned to me and smiled and said, “Morning, Jack!” in that too-loud tone one has when feeling that irrational need to speak up over the level of earphones.

He waved a prodder key toward the suit. “Whadya think? Huh?” he asked cheerfully and, of course, loudly. I smiled dumbly. Lya moved toward him with an indulgent grimace, motioning at him to remove the headset. Holly hadn’t yet noticed her approach. With a smile toward me, he playfully extended the prodder key until it contacted the edge of the unfolded micronic lacing. As it touched, the right hand jerked into an armored fist.

Lya gasped. We both jumped.

Holly, still smiling, looked back and forth between our two pale faces a couple of times before getting the message. “Oh, shit,” he barked suddenly, as it dawned on him. He leaned back on his stool and un-keyed the power.

“Sorry if I startled you,” he said, slipping off the earphones and extending his palm. We shook hands. He waved at the suit. “Damned impressive, huh?”

I nodded. “A little spooky, too.”

Lya rubbed her arms briskly. “More than a little.”

“So how’s it going?” I asked. “Learn anything?”

He looked sheepish. “Having too much fun so far.”

I laughed. “What about the recorder pod? Have you played the coil?”

He shook his head. “Something’s wrong there. I’m having a lot of trouble with the display mode. I finally quit until I had a chance to fashion something with a more delicate touch than our standard gear. I’m afraid I might lose what little might be left otherwise.”

“You think some of it’s been lost?”

He shrugged. “It’s years old, after all. Easy to lose your foundation charge in all that time. Passing through all those different fields.”

I frowned. “Well, I’m sorry, Holly. I had no idea.”

“Oh, no-no-no,” he said hurriedly, appalled at the notion of my unease. “It’s wonderful, Jack. Really. Even without the coil it would be. And I’m sure I can tease out something of value. It’s just a matter of tuning the output patterns.” He glanced guiltily at the cluttered workbench. “I should have been at it hours ago instead of… well.”

“Instead of playing soldier,” offered Lya dryly. But gently.

He grinned a shy grin, hid his hands in his pockets. Then, with a determined shrug, out they came once more. He faced the workbench with studied will.

“I’ll get started right away. Soon as I do a little rearranging.” He began to sort through the tangle.

“Holly,” called Lya with quiet emphasis. “We didn’t come here to make sure you were working, Dear.”

He missed the signal. He nodded without turning. “Just take a second…”

Lya smiled her exasperation at me rather than hide it. “Holly,” she tried again.

“Oh, there’s no problem,” he assured her in the same absent tone. “It’s just a matter of constructing a baffled relay….”

She sighed and gave up. She put a hand on his shoulder and turned him around. Her voice held the unmistakable shade of a cue; one damn well not to be ignored.

“Well, you don’t have to do it right this instant. Besides, it’s lunchtime and you’ve been wanting to talk to Jack since yesterday—you know you have, Holly—and I think it’s a good time for the two of you to get acquainted.”

Holly had turned red at her words. He looked sheepishly at me again. Like a little boy meeting the star of the vid instead of an all-universe brain. I smiled encouragingly in return while admonishing myself never to get the two personalities confused. He may be a kid. But he was the smartest one I had ever seen.

Lunch was awkward. Holly away from his lab was pure adolescent where I was concerned. He stumbled and started and in all ways looked the part of somebody with a million questions burning inside but afraid to ask them for fear of looking as awkward as he felt. It made me nervous.

I knew what he wanted, of course: Jack Crow Stories. But I wasn’t really up to that, for some reason. I made do with the tails of tales and a little name dropping. Some of it was true.

As soon as I could, I tried to get the subject back onto Holly’s work and my alleged fascination with it. Not to mention my eagerness to help.

“What made you so interested?” asked Lya in an innocent tone I couldn’t quite be sure of.

I mumbled something in return, moving quickly to: “The thing is, Holly, I’m not sure if I can be of any help at all. This is all pretty technical to me.” Which was a good way to avoid substance (and complicated lies) while sliding in a complimentary and admiring tone toward Holly.

Holly loved it, launching into a long and unconvincing diatribe about how he could always use what he referred to as “conceptual help” which meant, essentially, thinking up areas of research instead of concentrating on specific data as only a trained tech could do.

He was full of shit. But he meant well, I knew. And, clearly, he did seem to believe that having me around was going to be worth his while, if only so he could gawk at me.

His lack of specific conviction on the subject of my usefulness made everyone a little nervous. So we broke up the meal soon after that. He gave me a tape explaining the general areas in which he was currently involved. “Not too technical, really,” he hoped more than meant. But I accepted the tape anyway and promised to get right at it.

“Fine,” he said. “You think maybe we could talk at dinner? Not about shop,” he added quickly. “Just in general. Sort of social.”

“I’d love to,” I said with sincerity and so we got through lunch without any of us having to break down and actually face the questions that counted. Such as: Just what the hell was I doing there? How did I get there? How long was I going to stay? What was going on? in other words.

I went through the motions because they suited my plans. Holly did because he loved having me around. Lya… well, she didn’t buy it, I could tell. But she didn’t seem particularly suspicious, either. Not yet.

But she’d want to know soon. Sooner than Holly. And probably a lot sooner than I wanted to tell her.

I dropped the tape off in my rooms without a glance. Then I headed outside, wandering lost only briefly, until I found the main seal. Security on the outer dome pointed me in the right direction. So I headed back across the bridge, toward the city and the refugees and, among them, my contact with Borglyn. Toward, in fact, exactly what in the hell I was doing there.

IX

I stopped on the near side of the bridge and lit a cigarette. Before me, due west, a storm was spilling over the top of the shale bluffs that formed the far perimeter of the valley. Thick blue mists trailing faint tendrils were beginning to darken the shade of the rock. A gentle glimmering moisture was gliding down the slope toward the City. I figured the storm would be on the bridge in less than an hour.

I blew out smoke and glanced around. It was the first opportunity I had had to get my bearings. Here it was still a pretty day. Here it was damn near Earth. Sloping flatlands. Blue sky. A clear blue river that sparkled cheerfully past the milk-white Complex dome. I shook my head in wonder. It wasn’t Earth at all. But it could have been.

I had been to maybe two dozen planets like this. None of them had been Earth either. But they were man places just the same. It gave me the creeps.

Some thinker types claimed it was because Homo Sap was the perfect model for the universe. They cited things like bi-symmetry and opposing limbs and (ever since finding Ants) something called Adaptation By Individual to explain it. These weren’t just made for man, they said. Man was made for them. Man was the model. I didn’t buy it. I had drunk water and swatted flies on alien soil again and again and they had been man places. I had felt that with a subtle certainty. I still did.

Another idea used the model for the universe bit as well but extended it to mean that there were Homo Saps out there who had nothing to do with Earth at all. These other guys were supposed to have sprung full-blown from another place but be just like us. The thinkers who thought this thought something else. They thought we would run into them and soon. A statistical certainty, they claimed, that these other Saps would be along. I remember once seeing a vid on it with one guy claiming they would show up any minute and another guy boshing it with the question of how would we know if we ran into a new bunch or not, as spread out and weird as we already were. Maybe they were already here and we didn’t know it, the guy had added and laughed.

The first guy hadn’t laughed at all. He had just smiled politely. But the smile and the courtesy didn’t stop the twinkle in his eyes from coming across. That had given me the creeps too. Man places.

I glanced back across the river toward the squalor of the City. Whoever these new folks were, I sure hoped they were neater. We’re quite a bunch, I believe, but it’s obscene what we do to our worlds.

It took me half an hour to reach the edge of the mess. The City’s eastern boundary was marked by a second bridge that crossed what had once been a gently babbling brook. It was mostly sewer now. I stopped at the far end of the bridge, hesitant to go any farther. The rain was really coming down now. Clouds of it whipped up and down the narrow passages between the junkpile homes rusting everything that wasn’t treated, driving everyone indoors and, of course, making more mud. I noted a couple of bootprints that looked knee deep and shuddered. I didn’t want to go in there.

It wasn’t just the mud. It wasn’t just that this was another refugee camp, for I had seen those plenty of times. It was…. Even without the driving rain the City was dark. Dark and dreary and hopeless and clogged with despair. It was the Antwar, maybe and the Fleet Project sneering downward at them. There was a texture of paranoia. A tragic uneasiness. Guilt.

It wasn’t a happy place.

I took a deep breath and stepped calf-deep into the mud. It got a little better as I worked my way up from the creek bank toward the central “square,” head bowed against the rain and my boots splashing against the minor torrents of runoff rain. Borglyn had said I would know which passage to take by a huge steeple constructed at the entrance to one of the paths. There was no sign of anything even faintly religious from where I stood, but that could simply have been the weather. It was now dark enough for sundown. I shrugged and picked the widest lane.

It shrunk so fast it made your heart ache, ending abruptly against a sheer wall of curved and warped plassteel three stories high. I backed out and turned around eagerly.

The next lane was worse. It narrowed at the first bend and then narrowed again at the second. There were two more sharp twists within the next few meters, making the passage tunnel-like beneath jutting scags of warped bulkhead plates. I paused in the darkness to wipe the rain from my eyes. From the shadows to my right came a long wheezing moan. I blinked, took a soggy, slippery step toward the sound. I heard the moan again and saw, tucked uneasily into what had once been an emergency recess panel, an old man. He was wrapped up poorly against the rain and growing cold with the sort of rags that this place would have created.

There was a faint click and a further movement of shadow that formed a little boy or a little girl wearing the same sort of rags and a determined look. A knife gleamed dully in a tiny but steady hand.

“You want something, Mr.?” asked a voice belonging to a trapped animal, which was just what he/she was.

“No,” I replied, stepping back with my hands held out where they could be seen. I backed away a few more steps, then stopped. “I’m looking for the steeple,” I called into the shadows. “You know where that is?”

There was no reply. I repeated my question and waited. Then I moved back up the path, again holding my hands

where they could be seen. The recess was empty. No ragged old man, no desperate child. Both had disappeared into the maze of the place.

I knew better than to pursue that determined kid. I backed out around the corners and started up the next path. A few steps up there was piercing flash of lightning out of the east followed by a truly awful peal of thunder. Between shaking from one and jumping at the other I caught sight of what had once been the steeple. It lay over on one side blocking the passageway. It was black with soot from a recent fire. I stepped through the charred latticework of its universal elongated pyramid design. The spot where I braced myself was already worn smooth from the passage of many other muddy fingertips. The going got a little easier after that. Easier to see, anyway, for people were starting to turn their lights on inside their little cubicles or apartments or monk’s cells or whatever you should call the junk around a refugee village. Apartments seems best, if you can imagine a giant like say, Thor, ripping spacecraft apart, just tearing cabins loose one by one like a child separating the petals on a flower, and then stacking what was left to make three-story nightmares. I couldn’t imagine what made them huddle on top of one another like that. Sure, some of the “buildings” were made up of whole bulkhead seals on end and they usually came in threes. But most of the junk had just been wedged up there on purpose, as if they were shoved together by the timid members of some herd ready to accept anything, even smothering, to avoid the outer edges of the campfire where wolves could prowl and chase. It wouldn’t matter to those folk that the wolves were inside with them. A new planet carries a primordial chill.

Anyway, mid-afternoon or not, the lights were beginning to come on. The rain had shrunk to little more than a sprinkling trickle. The thunder continued, but it was a distant rumble now accompanied by distant swellings of orange light rising unevenly from the edges of the craggy twisted skyline.

Borglyn had told me that once I had found the steeple I would be home free. He had said to stay on the main path with the steeple all the way to the end and I would be there. It was a lot easier trip the way he had told it. I was beginning to get an idea as to the size of this place. Within the next hundred meters or so I must have passed a dozen side paths—many of which were just as impressive as the one I was following. I trusted to direction for the most part, though even with this policy I ran the risk of getting lost. Everything twisted here. Every path, every alley, every bulkhead. I didn’t even bother to try to ignore what that could’ve meant omen-wise; the way things were looking so far, I was already screwed anyway.

“It beats prison,” I caught myself saying once out loud and wondered how often that had happened without my having noticed it before.

Just about then, it all got a little tighter.

I saw the bouncing, bobbing glow of their lamps first, coming around a corner of one of the side paths. Instinctively, I crouched back into a recess as they appeared.

There were five of them, all men it seemed in that light, stumbling hurriedly into the passage just ahead of me. Three of them carried lamps. Two of them carried—dragged someone between them. All had a knife or a club or some sort of weapon. They increased their pace when they got onto the passageway I had been following, looking back over their collective shoulders for pursuit. I held still where I was to give them a chance to put a little distance between us. I was now no longer sure whether or not I wanted to continue. Well, let’s say I knew I didn’t want to go up behind them. I had never wanted to go. But now I wasn’t sure whether I should. I didn’t want to get brained as one of the pursuers they obviously expected. But on the other hand….

The pursuit showed up then, answering it for me. They came up from behind me, stomping rapidly past, about six, I guessed, without even seeing me in their determined chase. More knives and more clubs. I shuddered to think what would have happened if I had been standing in the middle of the path like the hapless fool I was when they had rounded the corner. Would they have stopped to see who I was? Or would they have simply splattered me first as a matter of course?

At any rate they were past and I was safe and the best thing to do was leave the way I came. But I followed with only slight hesitation.

It was tough keeping up with this bunch. They moved very quickly through the muck, without need for lights or whispered instructions. They seemed to know a lot more about their surroundings than the first group.

They lost me. Try as I might, I couldn’t keep up with their stealthy, lethal gait. But I did get there in time for the fight.

I heard it before I saw it. Grunts and groans, boots stomping into mud and faces, the air-whirring of metal bludgeons swung wide and hard. I skidded to a halt in the mud at the first sound of anguish and crept around the last bend. It was impossible to tell which side was which. But I counted on the faster movers being the better fighters. From that reckoning, the chasers were beating the living hell out of the chased. The lamps were scattered about, sinking into the mud. From their dim ghostly glows I could just see a lone man through the moving forest of arms and legs up ahead of the struggle. He was crawling along somewhat frantically, dragging the limp form of another. The prisoner from before, obviously. He was trying to reach the entrance of a building which loomed like a cave-mouth before him. Belatedly I realized that this building was my destination as well, for it marked the end of this passageway.

Just then a Figure burst loose from the struggle and leaped toward the one doing the dragging. He held a pipe in one muddy fist. The man on the ground released his burden and jumped to his feet to meet the charge. He showed a long ugly knife. The two sparred for a few moments, dodging and feinting with their respective weapons. Then they closed. There was a spark as they grappled, a sudden twisting urgency, then the man with the knife slid to the mud between the other’s feet. The victor dropped his pipe in favor of the knife and moved over to the figure on the ground.

The rest of the fighting was over, the pursuers having finished the job on the pursued. The remaining five rushed over to join the man with the knife huddling over the now-liberated prisoner. Great effort was put into trying to inject a little life into the limp form. Someone lifted the head and gave the face a gentle slap. That was when I saw that it was a girl.

But the fighting wasn’t over. The cave mouth was suddenly filled with more men carrying more clubs and pipes and knives. The girl was dropped gently back into the mud and the killing began again. More sparks and more groans. Someone died sinking to his knees and clutching the knife sunk into his chest to the hilt. Someone else died quicker, when a pipe connected with an awful crunching noise. It was very fast. And it was the same as before. Whoever she was, she was important to them. The rescuers fought so well for her that I thought the whole thing was over in a moment. And it would’ve been. But just as they went to pick her up and carry her away for once and for all a huge fat man loomed into view from the dead-end shadows carrying a blazer in his right fist. The blue arcing beam blinded me as it burst from the shadows. I heard screams and several men trying to run but by then it was too late, had been when he had appeared. In seconds each of the five lay dead, seared through by the latest of man’s new clubs.

“Thank God, Wice!” gushed one of the fallen, surveying what was left of the rescue party about him. Wice, the fat man with the blazer and, I saw then, the fat man from the trouble on the bridge my first day, ignored the show of gratitude. Others appeared beside him from inside the building. One of them had been the dark skinny one on the bridge. Wice motioned him toward the girl, motioned the rest toward the casualties.

“Clean this up. Now!” he barked in that distinctive snarl. The others hurried to obey. I sighed. Wice was the name of my contact. Deeper and deeper.

In a few moments the area was almost clear. The dead had been dragged away. The wounded had been helped inside. Only Wice remained in the doorway, watching the skinny with the girl.

“Gettle!” whispered Wice impatiently to the skinny. “Is she awake?”

Gettle spoke without taking his eyes from her. “Well, I thought she was!”

Wice surveyed the area warily. “Well, never mind now. Just bring her in. Come on!” he ordered bluntly. With one last glance around, he slipped back into the shadows of the doorway. Gettle pushed a lock of black hair away from his face and bent to lift the girl. She lolled lifelessly in his arms. Then they too were gone.

I gave them maybe two seconds before I started my splashing sloshing way across the clearing toward the doorway. I stopped just outside the opening, listening. I knew what was coming, but that didn’t mean I wanted to become a part of it.

I heard footsteps just inside the door on a rickety stairway that creaked and rustled rhythmically. I slipped inside and followed the sound. In the dim lamp shining down the stairwell I saw her make her move. He had had her in a fireman’s carry to negotiate the narrow passage. She began by driving an elbow into the back of his neck… collapsed stunned to his knees, arms up to protect his face… her feet dribbled against his chest… a flat-handed smack against his forehead….

Then she leaped easily over him and trotted down the stairs and froze stock-still before me. Her eyes shown wide and… and spectacular in the lamp. So deep! So green! Emeralds floating, glistening….

I blocked her first forearm, sidestepped the kick and brought her shoulder out of position for the killing blow by pulling her roughly and unexpectedly to me. She gasped as her eyes, her incredible eyes, met mine. Was it recognition, astonishment at her effect on me? Was it a reciprocal delight? Maybe? Possibly? I blocked another forearm, slipped a flat-hand uppercut, twisted beside her kick and…. And did nothing. Nothing at all. I didn’t fight back, had no thoughts of doing so. I just didn’t want her to hurt me.

Or maybe, I thought suddenly, I just don’t want her to leave.

And as I hesitated with that thought, she left, slipping past me and out into the black afternoon and mud. She was gone.

I closed my eyes. Hers floated clearly still before me. Such eyes!

Gettle was coming to. I wrestled him out of his impossible position on the stairs.

“C’mon, Gettle. We’ve got to get to Wice!” I urged him.

“Huh? Wha…. Wice?” he mumbled, dazedly.

“Yeah, Wice! C’mon,” I added conspiratorially. “We’ve got to tell him what really happened.”

He sat up, holding his head. “What do you… Hey! The girl! Where’s the girl?”

“That’s it, Gettle! The girl’s gone off! We’ve got to tell Wice. Hurry up, damn you!” I dragged him to his feet and shoved him a couple of steps up the stairs. He stopped, still hesitant. I shoved him again, “Dammit, Gettle! You want him to find out from somebody else?”

That did it. Mumbling, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he staggered ahead, semi-waving for me to follow.

I did. And so we passed through much of the labyrinth that made up Wice’s lair. Gettle, weaving and stumbling and not quite running into things up ahead of me, led us down several faintly illuminated corridors and through several manned doorways. For the most part I ignored the scum standing guard. Occasionally, when one looked too alarmed at my presence, I would wink or shrug or smile and gesture obscenely at Gettle’s lack of coordination. That got me up several flights of stairs and through many ugly possibilities.

Suddenly, Gettle stopped. He slumped down to the floor before a handful of steps jury-rigged to make easier the transition from one level to another that was, on second glance, a joint between plassteel bulkheads from two different ships. He held his head with both hands. He rocked forward on his buttocks, grimacing in pain. She, Eyes, had really belted him. I stifled a smile and leaned forward to help him up. He glanced up at me in bewilderment. “Who are you?” he asked before recognition descended.

“You!” he screeched in an uneven, harsh whisper before I clamped my right hand around his throat.

I didn’t waste time with threats. I simply lifted him to his feet from there, gripping down on his throat as much as I figured he could take. Once on his feet I pressed the back of his head against the wall just beneath a lamp. His face looked green and scared. It had every reason to be.

“Wice!” I hissed meaningfully, flexing my fingers. “Wice!”

He didn’t even have to think about it. He gestured with one limp hand and off we went again. I removed my fingers from his throat but retained a firm grip on his left shoulder as we moved along—he knew what was what.

The only hazard was a guard standing before the most impressive door we had passed so far. It was made out of something that was either wood or could pass for it. It was wide and squat and had a huge door latch. It was obviously the boss’s place. The guard eased forward from just off the side and raised a huge right arm in a gesture meant to slow us down for proper admittance procedure. I kicked him in the balls. We both stepped over him. Gettle worked the latch. I slammed him through the opening door and faced Wice, standing up angrily on the far side of his messy office.

“You! Crow,” he shouted angrily and reached down for what I figured for the blazer.

I ignored him. I found what passed for an easy chair in that dump and plopped down in it across from the desk. Gettle was doubled over on the floor whimpering. I ignored him, too. Wice came around from behind the desk carrying the blazer. He stopped beside Gettle and glowered at the pair of us. He was mad.

“What’s the idea, Crow? You still trying to show everybody how tough you are?” He looked down at Gettle again and shook his head. “I’m getting pretty sick of you,” he added menacingly, tightening his grip on the blazer.

I lit a cigarette. “Does Borglyn know you’re using his blazer to carve up locals?” I asked calmly.

“The blazer’s mine,” he retorted furiously. “What I do with it is my business—get that straight.” He slammed the pistol from one hand to the other for emphasis and then pointed the butt at me. “And get this, too. You keep stomping around here playing big man with my men and I’m gonna show you just how lucky you were that first time!”

There was a loud banging on the stairs outside followed by five lackeys jamming themselves into the room. Gettle looked up at their approach and smiled sourly at me through bleeding lips. He stood up straight and joined them while they took turns staring back and forth between Wice and me and waiting for the order to “Sic ’im!”

Wice gestured meaningfully in their direction before continuing. “You got it, Crow? We can get done what needs getting done or it can get tough. What’s it gonna be?”

I had been watching this whole deal from a distance, without feeling or rhythm. It was a long-hated feeling, like being a step behind. It blundered me ahead badly.

“I’ll tell you, Wice,” I began, all thumbs. “I don’t much care. We can work if you want.” I tapped an ash to the floor. “But we don’t have to and I’m not sure I like the idea anyway.” And then I stood up, abruptly, anger roaring through me from out of nowhere. I slammed the cigarette to the floor, scattering sparks. “I’m tired of dealing with scum like this, with cowards and deserters and bullies. Your threats don’t mean anything to me. I can still go either way.” I pointed a shaking finger. “I pounded you once. I can pound you again. And I can crater this bunch at the same time!” I wheeled toward them “Who wants to be first?”

Gettle answered in a low, sinister tone: “Maybe everyone.”

“That’s fine, too,” I retorted, now shaking all over.

Wice stared at me like I was crazy. Which, of course, I was. I don’t know. That cloudy picture! Wice, Borglyn, me—we were all so bizarre!

Especially me.

Wice kept staring for several moments, then relaxed. He sighed, shook his head. Was that compassion I saw in his eyes? Or flat pity?

“Say the word,” prompted Gettle, tensing.

“Shut up, Gettle!” barked Wice, suddenly angry again. “Shut up and get the hell out.”

Gettle and company stared at him, unbelieving. But they left. Slowly for Gettle, hoping for a change of heart. It didn’t happen. We were alone.

Wice nodded toward the closing door. “Him I oughta let you stomp again,” he suggested, going back around to his desk.

“Didn’t the first time,” I offered, resuming my seat. “Some girl was doing that on my way in.”

That froze him halfway into his chair. “What? Is she gone?”

I nodded. “We passed over his whimpers.”

“Why didn’t you stop her?”

“What for?” I asked, lighting another cigarette. “Far as I know, that’s her job around here—to teach your punks what tough is.”

He mumbled something angrily at me under his breath and left. I sat and smoked and listened to him growling orders to his people in the hallway. He came back in after a full minute of that and resumed his seat. He looked disgusted.

“If you saw the blazer, you saw the fight. You knew we wanted her.”

“That’s true, Wice,” I agreed.

His fat face got very red. Was that it? Was it my always just hating fat men?

“You rotten son of a bitch!” he growled, accusing.

“What the hell do your little local feuds have to do with me? I’ve got nothing to do with that!”

He blinked. His anger disappeared. He looked genuinely surprised. “You mean you really don’t know?”

“Huh?” I blurted, as stupidly as I felt. “Know what?”

But he just shook his head again. “Never mind,” he said. He sat forward in his chair and reached for a cigar. His voice was businesslike. “What about the Project’s defense screens? Can you get to them?”

“I can do it. When do you need it?”

“Don’t know yet,” he said, lighting his cigar. “We may want to wait awhile.”

“How long?”

“Don’t know yet,” he repeated, eyeing me. “Maybe as long as a standard month. Can you handle that? What’s your setup over there with those people?”

“Just let me know.”

Wice puffed a couple of irritated puffs. “All right, Crow. Go ahead and play independent. But you may need me later on.”

“Not likely,” I replied coldly.

“Okay, dammit!” he retorted, stung. “Just tell me this much—what do they know about me?”

“You?” I echoed, surprised. “Nothing.”

“Well, then, what do you plan to tell ’em when they find out you’ve been coming here? Or did you really think there were secrets in a place this small?”

I felt my cheeks heating up with embarrassment. I hadn’t even considered the problem. Even worse, Wice could see that I hadn’t.

But he let it slide.

“Tell ’em we met on Illyre,” he pushed on. “During your piracy trial.”

I sat up. “What do you know about that?”

“I know about it. Saw most of it. Cost me a half term’s worth of credits for court tickets.” He smiled then. “But I was there at the end.”

Now what the hell was this? Admiration? Damn the bastard!

“Well sorry to disappoint you by getting off,” I said sourly, which was damned idiotic for me to say. But why the hell not? I was being an idiot, wasn’t I?

I stood up to leave before I got any worse. Between Wice’s insulting me and admiring me and my own dazed, thumb-fingered lack of touch, I knew it couldn’t get anything else but.

I stopped at the door and looked back. Wice was eyeing me without emotion through the cigar smoke. I had a sudden adolescent desire to shatter that.

“Tell me, Wice, how did you and Borglyn get together? Is there a regular meeting place for deserters?”

Wice frowned. He looked disappointed, as if… I had let him down.

“We met on Banshee,” he answered evenly. “A year ago.”

“A year ago? Wice, you’re full of bull! Banshee was destroyed two years ago!”

He stared. And then instead of looking insulted, he looked amused. A smile began to form at the corners of his mouth. “Destroyed? Is that what they’re saying?” The smile became a chuckle and then a laugh. “Destroyed, eh?”

“Well, all the Ants, anyway,” I added lamely.

That only made him laugh all the harder. A bitter, knowing laugh.

“What’s so goddamned funny, Wice?” I demanded desperately.

He looked at me and stopped laughing. But the smile, now bitter throughout, remained. “Never mind, Jack,” he said in a patronizing tone. “You wouldn’t understand.”

I jerked the door open angrily, stopped, barked acidly back: “Or care.”

He only nodded. “Or care,” he agreed reasonably.

I went hurriedly out, slamming the door behind me. I made too much noise stomping away to be able to hear it if he was laughing behind me.

So bizarre….

X

Grumbling, I retraced my steps back through the maze. The rain was over for now. The last bit of sunlight slanted out over the western bluffs and sparkled, steaming, on the grimy rooftops. There were several people out, milling around and surveying storm damage. Some were already busy with repairs. Much of their work appeared to my untrained eye as little more than gluing seams back together. I saw no more dying old men, no more fierce children. I figured I still had a couple of hours before my dinnertime/showdown with Holly and Lya. I decided to get a drink.

The way back was harder. Clouds soon obscured the last of the sun making it even darker than before. Yellow pools of light spilled out at me from doorways and windows and hatches opened wide to combat the heavy humidity. I was left alternately blind and blinded.

I found the “square” with difficulty. It had become, with the rain, a broad reflecting pool. And without any lighting of its own, it was visible only by the gliding contrasts between long shadows cast, spreading and bobbing, across its surface by the ghostly forms tiptoeing around its outer perimeter. I stood at its edge for a few minutes staring idly at the glimmering patterns on the water. I was hoping some general direction would emerge from the eerie traffic. But none did. People sloshed in and out from all directions with no hint of common purpose. Heads down and peering determinedly before them into the gloom, they showed not the slightest interest in anything beyond their individual missions. There was no curiosity about me, no recognition with one another. No one spoke.

The only thing these people did together was huddle wall-to-wall. At least at night.

But surely they gathered to drink. Every settlement builds a saloon of sorts. Usually it’s the first thing they build. I could have asked someone but I didn’t want to question those shadows. And they didn’t want me to, either.

Instead I picked a direction away from the pool and found it right away.

It was a long dull rectangular structure with a pair of cheap plastic facade windows hanging along one wall at a uniform slant from a single brad. The windows were significant in that they were the only attempt at decor that I could recall having seen in the city. Maybe because of that, or maybe because they were just so cheap, they made it worse instead of better. They had been designed to look like they belonged in any modern Terran city. But they didn’t. They belonged here.

There was one good sign. A half dozen horses stood outside, “tethered” to a small boy sleeping on the stoop. If the local ranchers came here, it probably meant that this was the best place. Or maybe the only place, which was the same thing.

I stepped up out of the mud onto the stoop, which squeaked and shook with my weight just enough to rouse the boy from one dream to another without disturbing his tight, two-fisted grip on the reins. The door dragged open inwardly just as I reached for the catch and I had to step back into the mud to make way for a rancher who staggered out clutching a jug of syntho and giggling. He took a short sip from the jug. He took a deep breath and stretched, looking around. Then he hopped, flat-footed, into the mud, sprinkling a halo of flecks from each boot heel. This made him giggle harder.

He noticed me at last and nodded in my direction. He offered me a swig from the jug. His eyes were dancing as though I was in on the joke. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t. His bubbling giggle was plenty by itself, full of wicked mischief and infectious as hell. I was already grinning by the time I got the proffered jug to my lips, making for a sloppy swallow that increased his laughter all the more.

I had another drop and handed it back, grinning like a fool and thinking that this was exactly why I had come. The doorway filled suddenly with the other five horsemen who were laughing just as hard as the first, if not nearly so well. The first man could have been my age or half that or something in between. But the others were young men, younger even than Holly. And they treated the giggler as their leader, stomping loudly off of the stoop into the mud and arranging their young grins in a tight semicircle before him.

The middle kid started to speak but stuttered on his own laughter, causing a wave of conspiratorial guffaws from all present—including me. The kid tried again:

“Who is that guy?” he asked the leader, gesturing back over his shoulder toward the bar.

“No idea,” replied the older man.

“What the hell did he want with you, anyway?” asked another of the five.

“He just wanted you to watch him propose?” asked another before there was a chance to answer.

“Looks like,” suggested the leader with another swig.

“What for?” asked the first kid.

The leader smiled. “Dunno. Maybe he was just tired of getting turned down alone.”

“Didn’t look tired to me,” offered still another kid. “Hell, he musta asked a dozen women in just the time we’ve been here.”

“Must be in some hurry to get married,” said the first one. “Did you see that last one? Ugh!”

“Serve him right if she’d said yes,” said somebody. “Can you imagine being married to that?”

The older man smiled again and reached for the jug. “I dunno,” he said, holding the jug to his lips, “let me try.”

With that he took a long swallow and then stood in a mock-parody of fierce concentration. His face relaxed suddenly. He shook his head. “Nope. Can’t imagine it.”

The kids, and I laughed, a willing audience.

“Take more drinkin’ than that!” suggested the first kid.

“I’ve got time,” replied the older man, swigging some more. He broke off his chugging with another laugh and seemed to remember me. He offered the jug again, saying: “What about you, Stranger? How’s your imagination?”

I laughed, took the jug. “It needs a boost,” I said, and tilted the jug back.

“Sounds like a bachelor,” suggested the first kid as I drank.

“Drinks like a goddamned couple,” growled the leader in mock irritation at my determined swallows.

That remark, for some reason, did me in. I exploded with laughter, spraying myself and everyone else with syntho. He made it even worse by adding, completely deadpan, that he “usually just swallowed it right on down” himself. But, he added while I convulsed with laughter, “I don’t get out much and different people enjoy booze different ways.”

I could not stop laughing. Maybe it was the liquor or maybe it was just my needing to laugh so bad. Or maybe it was just the man’s infectious grin. Whatever it was, it was fun.

“Here, friends,” he said, holding the jug high. “Here’s to the Syntho Spraying Stranger!”

With that everybody drank to my toast and then applauded sloppily. I managed a small bow and was reaching for the jug to try again when the door to the saloon slammed open with a ragged crash. Everyone, even the suddenly awakened stableboy, turned toward the sound. In the doorway stood a huge beast of a man, drunk and swaying in the half-light. He peered down at us dazedly for a moment before focusing on the older horseman.

“Hey, you!” yelled the beast, pointing a finger. “Goddammit! Goddamn killed the whole damn deal for me!”

“Uh-oh, Lewis,” said one of the kids, naming their leader.

The name seemed to ring a bell, but before I had a chance to react, the beast was performing again. He launched himself down the steps toward us. Only he missed the first step and catapulted out into the darkness, landing face down and full-length in the mud.

Lewis took a step forward and, raising the jug again, offered another toast. “Gentlemen,” he said formally, “I give you the groom.”

The kids giggled, but their amusement had a somewhat dutiful tone to it. For whether Lewis seemed to have noticed it or not, the beast was clearly enraged. He picked himself up quickly out of the mud. Resting on his heels, he pointed a finger again. “Goddamn ranchin’ crud,” he said.

Lewis laughed delightedly, completely unoffended. The kids laughed too. They seemed more relaxed, as if it couldn’t be serious as long as Lewis was not. I figured they were wrong, all of them. The beast was mad. Wildly drunk, perhaps. Barely focused, maybe. But still very….

Without warning, the man lunged to his feet toward Lewis and swung a truly gigantic fist in his direction. Lewis stepped back smoothly out of range, still laughing and relaxed. Not anxious, not even taunting. Just… good-humored.

The light from the open doorway dimmed as a young and, well, not pretty so much as… solid woman appeared. She took in the situation in a glance and shouted at the beast in a hard strident voice.

“Foss! My God! Are you psycho?”

Foss, the beast, froze halfway through another backswing and turned toward her voice. “Leave me alone, Del,” he muttered sourly. “Goddammit, you told me no once already.” And he made ready another punch in Lewis’s direction.

Del refused to be ignored. “Foss!!” she barked again, stomping her hefty foot on the stoop. “What are you doing?”

“…kill me this rancher pig here…” mumbled Foss uncertainly.

“Who? Me?” asked Lewis with friendly innocence.

“Goddamn right, you,” snarled Foss.

“Why?” asked Lewis, sounding genuinely hurt. “Hell, I didn’t turn you down!”

Foss lunged at him again. Lewis stepped easily aside, still calm and happy, holding the jug by the neck high over his head to keep it out of range of the fat droplets of mud the Foss’s scrambling threw into the air. Foss lunged twice more, once trying to punch him again, once trying to grab the smaller man in a bear hug. He failed miserably both times.

It was a charade. Foss stomped and missed and Lewis dodged and smiled and Del looked worried and the kids giggled. But it was a lot worse than it appeared. It was still serious as hell. Foss was not harmless. In fact, he wasn’t even that bad. Lewis just moved so smoothly that it looked that way. That and the way Lewis kept smiling made the whole thing appear to be a joke. It was great.

I was grinning myself, unabashedly delighted with Lewis. He just would not get angry, no matter how close Foss came. He simply refused. It was a talent I could use a little of myself. More than a little.

“Stop this, Foss!” shouted Del after it seemed to be going on forever. She came running down the steps toward us, scattering the kids who were still watching eagerly, their mouths now sagging open at half mast between laughter and concern—and ready to go either way. “Stop this!” Del repeated.

“I’m for that,” offered Lewis, taking a swig.

Del pushed between the two, her hands resting firmly against Foss’s muddy chest. Foss ignored her, shouting past her to Lewis.

“Shaddup, you sumbitch! If it wadn’t for you, I’d….” He hesitated, glanced at Del, seemed to lose his resolve. “Well…”he trailed off.

“Well, what?” demanded Del. “What’s this man done to you? I thought you just met him, for God’s sake!”

“I knew him before this,” he mumbled. Then louder, pointing his finger again: “I know about you, ranchershit! I know you!”

“What do you know, Foss?” asked Lewis pleasantly.

“I know…” Foss hesitated again, looked embarrassed. But that only made him, on reflection, more angry. “I know that you’re queering it for me and for… hell, for everybody. Riding around on some big horse all the time like some big deal and looking down and makin’ us look like nothin’ to… to her!”

Then he stood there, red-faced, looking stupid and huge. And sad.

Del took a deep breath. She let it out. Her voice was gentle. “That’s insane,” she said.

“Maybe,” agreed Lewis as Foss lunged at him yet again, “but it’s sincere as hell!” Lewis sidestepped Foss’s charge neatly and smoothly, as he had all the others. Foss tried to correct his momentum in mid-slide, lost his footing, and collapsed once more into the mud.

He lay there, snarling and cussing under his breath. He was panting with the effort. Idly, pitifully, he tried to snag Lewis with the toe of his boot without standing up.

“You ever gonna stand still?” moaned the beast.

“Of course,” replied Lewis easily. “But not here. G’night!”

Gathering up his crew of kids with a wave, tossing a coin to the boy holding the reins, Lewis vaulted onto one of the horses and tried to make a clean exit.

But Foss was up as Lewis came past him. “I ain’t finished with you yet!” he called, stumbling awkwardly onto the horses’ path.

Lewis dodged a wild swing that had been aimed too low to do much damage anyway and pulled his reins out of range of Foss’s groping. “I can always come back tomorrow, if you like,” he offered over his shoulder as he slipped past toward the edges of the saloon door light. He reined up briefly and said cheerily, tilting the jug.

Foss looked suspicious. “You with him?” he toasted me briefly: “Here’s to you Stranger. Take care,” he said cheerily, tilting the jug.

Foss looked suspicious. “You with him?” he demanded sourly to me and, before I could think of a good answer, swung a fist at my chin.

I dodged that swing and another and then another while Del screamed, “Foss, you idiot!” But she did no good with my troubles either. Foss kept at me, lumbering with his arms open wide and better speed than I would have guessed he still had in him. I turned his arms away, slipped another punch, and… allowed him to trip over my ankle. But as he went down, his huge right arm lashed out, nearly snagging me. I felt fingers like plassteel tongs slip along my shinbone. Damn, but he was a strong one!

Instinctively, I positioned myself to finish it as he struggled to regain his footing. Instinct? Or was it just habit? Maybe it was preference….

“You know what you need, Stranger?” I heard Lewis ask from just over my shoulder.

“What’s that?” I asked without taking my eyes off of my muddy target.

“You need a nice little horseyback ride in the fresh air.”

“Think so?” I replied in a dull voice just as the beast and I matched stares. I tensed slightly, shifting my weight…

“Come on,” urged Lewis gently, sounding more than a little… What? Disappointed?

And that shook me out of it. He had messed with the man for half an hour without a blow being struck and here I was… Here I was going to hurt somebody again. Wanting to? So I turned away and took a couple of steps and vaulted onto the back of his horse behind him and the six of us rode away out of range of Foss and Del and the ugly inevitable.

Not because Lewis had cared. Because Lewis hadn’t given a damn about Foss. And not because it was the “right thing.” Not because it was right. Because it was… new?

I thought about that as we rode easily out of the City. I thought about it as I drank, bouncing and jiggling and unsanitarily from the jug. But not much. I had never liked thinking about that part of me much. Never.

We passed through the lake of the square, scattering a couple of kids playing with something at the edge of the water. The horses made a lot of noise on the wooden slats that crossed the sewer/stream. Lewis spurred us into a canter across the next hundred meters and then pulled up sharply as we approached the main bridge across the river. He slid off in front of me. He tossed me the reins.

“Here you go, Stra… Hey, what is your name, anyway?” he asked.

One of the kids, pulling up beside us in a spray of muddy water, broke in:

“I know you. Aren’t you… Yeah! You’re Jack Crow!” he exclaimed. The other kids loudly echoed this. “Don’t you recognize him, Lewis?”

Lewis peered up at me. “Nope.”

The kid looked embarrassed. “Well, he’s heard of you though,” he said quickly to me. “You’ve heard of him, haven’t you?”

Lewis thought a minute. He shrugged. “Maybe,” he allowed with a slow nod.

I’d have bet a hundred credits on the spot, a hundred credits I didn’t have, that he hadn’t.

“Why are we stopping here, anyway?” someone wanted to know.

Lewis brightened. “I thought I’d give you boys a chance to count sailboats while I take a small piss on the nice fish.” He trotted around the buttresses as he spoke, opening up his fly. His voice faded as he descended to the river’s edge. “Here, fish! Here, nice-little-fishies-that-won’t take-my-hook! Here, you contrary little bastards! Come and gettt ittt!” From over the railings came the sound of him pissing merrily, the way he laughed, into the water. The kids and I sat there on the backs of the horses sipping from the jug and watching the swiftly passing current. The one who recognized me began a halting and involved question about some exploit or another he had heard that I’d done. He seemed embarrassed to be asking it. I let him be, thus avoiding the need to give a civil reply.

Lewis returned shortly. He hopped up onto the railing and motioned for the jug. I tossed it to him. He drank, frowned at the amount that was left, drank again.

“C’mon, Lewis,” complained someone, “let’s go.”

Lewis shook his head sadly. “Ah, youth! What’s the hurry? Didn’t I promise you that puberty would come? Trust me.”

Several of them laughed. So did I. But the impatient one was insistent. “How long are we gonna be here?”

Lewis shrugged. “Dunno. You in a hurry, Jack?”

“I’ve got an hour or so.”

“Splendid. I’ll see you young bucks later on.”

In a few seconds they were all gone, even the ones in no hurry. It had been a dismissal.

“Take a load off, Jack,” he said to me when we were alone, “and let me explain to you the real reason why I never catch any of these little fishies.”

I slid off the horse and joined him on the railing. He handed me the jug. “Tell me everything about it,” I urged.

He feigned shock. “Everything? You mean everything? Where oh where shall I begin?”

“How about the beginning,” I suggested, burping softly. The syntho was getting to me.

“Nope. Not the beginning. I’ve been there already. It was worse then than it is now and I want to tell you, Jack, right now is a dark, dark time.”

“What seems to be the problem?” I asked, all sympathy.

“The real problem, Jack? Or,” he struck a tragic pose, “the REAL problem?”

I pretended to give it some thought. “The REAL problem,” I said at last in a hushed whisper.

He eyed me narrowly, as if judging my trustworthiness. Then he glanced around us to be sure he wasn’t overheard, just as if we weren’t really half a kilometer from anyone. “The real problem with these fishies and me is: personality conflict.”

I laughed.

“That’s it,” he said, “laugh. But I will bet you that I can prove to you right here and now, using logic, insight, and… syntho, that what I’m saying is true.”

And damned if he didn’t do just that. His way, anyhow. The man was an absolute marvel. Talked for over an hour the most convoluted, contrived and contradictory horseshit I had ever heard. I could follow maybe half of it and I can’t remember any of it. But I do remember having a hell of a good time listening to it all. He never hesitated once during the entire lunatic harangue, never lost his place, never stopped grinning.

Or drinking. He pulled a fresh jug out of his saddle case and went to work on it like it was his first in a standard month.

He closed with what he referred to as “critical advice” on how to catch the local fish, which he never, or rarely, seemed to do himself. The finale consisted of a rousing demonstration of what songs to sing (and, vastly more important to him) or not to sing, while fishing. Had a rotten singing voice. Knew it. Didn’t care. But I cared. It hurt to listen to him.

He said I wasn’t a true fisherman. True fishermen, it seemed, didn’t care about such frivolous details as musical notes. Not a bit. True fishermen care about volume. True fishermen “sang loud.” Then he threw his head back to show me, cocking that awful noise muscle of his… and fell backwards into the river.

I was afraid he would drown, drunk as he was. And drunk as I was, I raced down around to the bank to help. He was okay by the time I got there. He was kneeling on the bank with his back to the water looking over his shoulder at the rushing current. On his face was a comic-opera expression of suspicion.

“Did you see who it was?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the water.

“What?”

“Did you see which one did it?” he insisted.

“Did what?”

“Pulled me into the water,” he said gravely, looking at me at last. “Which fish.”

A marvel. By the time he dropped me off at the dome I was semi-sober and thoroughly cheered. We had already said our good-byes and I was halfway up the ramp when his name finally sank in. Lewis! He was….

I turned around and searched the landscape for him. I heard him before I saw him, galloping lazily out of sight over the gentle grassy slope that rose away from the river and the city, and loudly practicing what he had referred to as “scream-singing.” This was supposed to be the guy that owned Sanction?

Nooo… Couldn’t be. There had to be another Lewis. Surely….

But, of course, there wasn’t. He was it, that lightweight drunk. He was the owner, ruler, master, of everything in sight.

I laughed on my way up the rest of the ramp. And then I stopped laughing. Because it wasn’t really funny. I suddenly appreciated Borglyn more than ever. For this place had been a perfect choice. It was just what he needed. Distant, alone, and utterly helpless.

No. It really wasn’t funny at all.

XI

It was, I knew, incredibly stupid of me to feel as I did after that dinner with Holly and Lya. After all, it had gone very well for me. Perfectly well, in fact. Not only had their suspicions been relieved, they had ended up practically encouraging my little machinations. Hell, they had encouraged me! Without having any idea what I was up to! By the time that dinner was over they had opened up completely to me, given me free rein, unchecked and unhindered.

And why? Why did they welcome the wolf into their midst? Why did they succumb to such insanity?

Simple. They trusted me.

Madness.

But that wasn’t what made me feel as rotten as I did. What really bothered me was not simply their trust. It was their faith. The two of them looked at me with it shining from their eyes. They looked at me like, well….

Like I knew what I was doing. Madness!

On a distant planet all but lost on the outskirts of the spread of Man, a man who is both highly disreputable and a total stranger suddenly appears and crowds you for company. He provides no explanations for his actions and no clue to his motives. He is at best a rogue, at worst a psychotic, and in any case a known powderkeg. Yet you not only accept his good intentions, you trust his aim\ From this gypsy you expect… control.

Why? Why, from such as he, do you assume accuracy? From where do you sense this precision, anyway, the fable?

Can no one imagine an incompetent Legend?

It started off predictably enough. The three of us sat eating and chatting alone in the main dining room. We smiled fiercely at one another while nervously pursuing a hundred avenues of small talk and in all ways avoiding until the last minute the point.

We talked about the food and how good it was and we talked about the food we missed, our favorite foods and our favorite places to eat our favorite foods. We talked about the rotten weather that had been about recently and about the good weather they had had before that and about the good weather we hoped we would get in the future. We talked about Sanction, me mentioning that I thought I had met Lewis, the owner, if it was the same guy. And they said oh yes it was in fact the owner I had met and oh yes he did drink a great deal, always had. Lya mentioned some gossip she had heard about Lewis’s having been sent here by a wealthy and influential earth family who had been embarrassed by the scandal of having what was, face it, an alcoholic son. And we all agreed as to how that made some sense or it was a good story anyhow, ha ha and then Holly told me about the strange thing that happened when they got an uncontrolled mutation once and had to shut down the syntho vats completely. Seemed that Lewis had simply stopped drinking until the syntho was ready again, refusing to accept their offer of real liquor from the Project stores and thereby forcing himself to go over two standard months without a drink. And we all agreed that that was certainly unusual behavior for an alcoholic, yes it certainly was, by golly and then we sat there staring at one another and still smiling like crazy.

Then Holly spoke up at last. Speaking of Sanction, he began, and then talked about what a nice place it was, how Earthlike and so on. Lots of planets like that, Lya added and then we played the game of naming all the other places like that we could think of. How convenient for us, somebody said and we all laughed. I mentioned something about it bothering me, all those man places, how I thought it was a little spooky and we all laughed again, ha ha, stringing it out as long as we could to avoid that damned silence but still ending up staring and smiling for several seconds until Holly cleared his throat and talked about an interesting item he had read off the Fleet Beam on that very subject and I said, oh what was that? And he said it was very interesting, really, that it seemed there was some sort of religious cult that believed that all these planets had been designed just for us. Oh really? That is interesting—Yes, isn’t it, these people think there is a trail of these planets and if we follow it to the galactic core we will find and meet the builders, meet God himself, I guess they meant ha ha ha! How about that?

Yes, how about that? Uh, huh….

I could see how nervous they were. More, I could see how embarrassed they were. And I could see that they wanted me to start it all off, had seen that in their eyes from the beginning. And I wanted to. I wanted to lead into it myself so that I would seem more upfront while at the same time controlling the discussion somewhat.

Only I couldn’t think of anything to say. Not a thing. It was inexcusable. What I needed, and quickly, was an extremely plausible and not too elaborate lie or set of lies and why, for God’s sake, didn’t I have it ready? Why hadn’t I taken the time to think of something instead of wasting my day with two different kinds of idiots, fighting idiots and drinking idiots, the way I had? Damn!

I had thought, initially, of trying to get Holly off alone to pull it off. I knew I would have a much easier time with him alone. He would have been even more nervous by himself. He would have been eager to glide past those anxious moments, perfectly willing to buy my non-answers. Anything to avoid turmoil. And damn near anything to keep palling about with the Great & Exciting & Romantic (and just a wee bit Notorious—for spice) Jack Crow.

But Lya would have squashed it all if we had left her out. Not that he couldn’t have ignored his own doubts without help. It’s just that he could never stand up to her actual opposition. If she wasn’t satisfied, he couldn’t be. Sooner or later—make that simply soon—we would be sitting there again with Holly reluctant to demand more and me reluctant to give it but both of us having to. By the strength of her will alone, she could force us to both do the one thing we dreaded most: get to the Point. Just what was I up to?

It wasn’t that she didn’t like me. She did. I liked her, too. But it was a bigger decision than that. I was an unknown, potentially destructive element in a situation already far too sloppy. And something else: the decision was her decision. For, if Holly was their focus, Lya was the Couple.

I sat there watching the two of them together, thinking about that and thinking about how, well, sweet they looked together. He was young and warm and brilliant. She was young and strong and wise. And, of course, lovely. They fit.

And all I could think of was the truth that would get me hung. Truth, a real burden against people who fit, especially for someone like me who hardly fit myself…

I had it then. If the truth was all I had, then that was all I could share. So share it I would. Generously, equitably….

I’d give ’em half of it.

I cleared my throat. Firmly. They saw the cue, sat up a little straighter, just managed to avoid the impulse to trade a brief glance. “Holly, you’ve been most kind and very patient. Both of you have,” I added with a quick smile for Lya. She responded in mechanical kind without blinking a lash or easing back one bit. “But I know you want to know: just what does someone like me—interstellar pirate—want here?”

They smiled a little at the pirate part. Not enough.

“Well, the fact is, Holly,” I continued and then stopped, took an obvious breath, shined what I hoped was a conspiratorial smile, and said, “…I can’t tell you.”

I saw them, felt them freeze, counted a single beat, then jumped in to thaw them out.

Of course, I wanted to tell them and of course there was something in the works, but then I was sure they had suspected that, knowing me as they did (sigh). I followed that crap with more crap just like it on the principle that lots and lots of nothing can sound like something. And then on to the obligatory truth part about how I wouldn’t want to do anything to damage their situation and how I didn’t expect that I would but that (also obligatory) I would certainly understand if that was unacceptable to them, I certainly would, and if they wanted me to stay out of their way and move to the City all they had to do was say the word and out I’d go, yes sir!

I had to go through it all again before they had a chance to really consider it, more lots and lots of nothing, while never missing an opportunity to look shy and a little embarrassed by the need for secrecy and, most importantly, intimate. Intimate in the sense of acting like they understood what it was like to be me since they were so exciting and knowing themselves.

Stringing that out, layer upon layer, until the rhythm was right for my secret, personal confession that I really hated to burden them with—it wasn’t their problem, after all.

Holly jumped to assure me that I could speak freely, snatching at his cue. Lya echoed his assurance, snatching at hers. Only the bolt of lightning, which should have torn through the ceiling of the dome and splattered my lying teeth on the dining-room table, but didn’t, missed its cue.

“…the other reason I want to stay with… with you… is that, well, I hate the City, Holly. I hate those people. I’ve spent too much of my life with people like that and with you it’s…. It’s nice. And I’m just so tired of pounding the fools who are always out trying to test themselves against Jack Crow.”

I gave them a minute to enjoy the compliment and have fun pretending to feel an understanding sorrow before:

“And I am interested in your work, Holly. And I do want to hear whatever you will take the time to explain to me, though I know there’s nothing more boring than trying to explain things to a layman….”

“On the contrary, Jack,” he said quickly. “I….”

“C’mon, Holly,” I said with a wave, “you don’t have to pretend with me. I know the last thing you want is an audience,” knowing damn well he wanted nothing more in the whole wide universe.

“On the contrary, Jack,” he repeated, “I’m terribly flattered by your interest. I just hope I won’t bore you.”

“Not a chance, Holly. I’m the sponge type.”

“I do think we have a few projects of interest in the works. And, without getting too technical…” he began, before becoming too technical almost at once.

It didn’t matter. I was only half-listening. The other half was waiting. For Lya.

Because it wasn’t over until she said it was. So I sweated. Holly had already bought it all, luxuriating in the brotherhood of anything even faintly man-to-man.

I had thrown in the part about wanting to stay with them for her, mostly, figuring she would demand, in lieu of facts, something personal at least, before being satisfied. But was she? I could damn near feel her probing gaze, which had strayed not one inch from my eyes the whole time. She’s not buying, I thought at last, mustering more sugarcloud to float toward her, when suddenly she relaxed.

And I knew I was in.

I could turn and look at her then, and smile. She smiled back. It was a sweet smile, a warm smile, and, incredibly, an “I’m-sure-you’ll-do-the-right-thing” smile.

Madness!

But I don’t know what I’m doing! I shouted from my mind to hers. How can you? you stupid bitch! Your faith in me is insane!

But her gaze didn’t even darken. She had decided. And that was that.

I shuddered, passing a hand over my eyes. It was so stupid to feel this way! What was I upset about, anyway? Winning, for crissakes? What the hell? Guilt for deceiving her? For being able to? Dammit! Forget it! Go on, go on! It’s a done thing. A completed task. Go on!

“As regards the armor?” I blurted blindly, interrupting Holly in mid-esoterica.

“Why, yes,” he said, surprised. “I was just coming to that. You do follow this, don’t you?”

I didn’t hit him. I just clamped down and tried to slide into his voice, into the sense of what he was saying. Long slow deep breaths.

I bolted suddenly upright as, out of the blue, I realized what it was he was suggesting.

“But Holly, the one thing that anybody, that everybody knows about battle armor is that no one but the owner can wear it. You’d be crushed!”

Holly smiled, completely unconcerned. “Oh, of course I would, Jack,” he replied happily. “I know that. I’m not planning to wear the suit. Not even the helmet. But, Jack,” he added, looking excitedly at me and leaning forward across the table eagerly, “what if I could use routing feeds to another helmet!”

I stared at him. “Why?” I asked.

He looked surprised. “The record, Jack! The record is there!”

“Then why not just play the coil?”

“Because it’s not on the coil, like I’ve been saying…”

Oh. l

“…electro-magnetic scattering of some time caused it to bleed off.”

“Holly, I still don’t understand you,” interrupted Lya thankfully. “You say it’s there and then you say it’s been, what? bled off? Bled off where?”

“Bled off into the pod itself, Dear. It’s on the inner surface of the pod shielding plate. But it’s still intact. It’s still there.”

She frowned. “Then how can you get it off?”

He smiled indulgently at our inability to keep up with his racing brain. I imagined he had had much practice in his short but brilliant life. “But don’t you see? That’s what makes it such a fascinating problem! To draw it out of such an irregular surface while still maintaining its cohesive interval requires an ability to adjust to millions of split-second alterations of power level. We’re talking about a tiny, tiny bit of charge here. And the smallest change in resistance factor—an imperfect allow on the shield plates, a drop of paint, even the fact that the surface is curved can make a difference. You see, if you draw it too quickly, the chain breaks and the electrons lose their cohesion. If you draw it too slowly, then the field halts for the microsecond required for it to produce its own field and… bingo! It’s gone!”

“You mean you’d lose the record?” I prompted. “It would go blank?”

“Well, not blank. It would become a regularly interspersed pattern of dots and dashes which, for our purposes, is the same thing.”

“Just like that?” asked Lya.

He nodded. “Just like that. Listen, I’ve seen six hours—that’s six computer hours, mind you—turn static, coalesce, and pop across to a lab assistant’s belt buckle. All before the computer—much less us—knew there was a problem. No matter how good your hardware, or how large your storage capacity given current limits, there are still too many bits with too many problems to allow for.”

“I don’t get it,” I said and I didn’t. “Then you’re saying it can’t be done?”

“No, no, no, no, Jack! I’m saying no computer can do . it?”

“Then what can?” asked Lya, sounding as confused as I was.

Holly’s face broke into a wide grin. His right index finger stabbed the air. “The brain!” he said triumphantly.

Lya looked at him. I looked at him. She and I looked at each other.

“That’s absurd,” she said at last. “No man can think as fast as your smallest relays; you told me that yourself.”

“I said process,” he replied with a tolerant but firm smile, “not think. Computers don’t think. They simply sort.”

“What’s the difference?” Lya wanted to know.

“Four or five billion bits of data, for one thing.”

“For the computer…”I interjected.

“No. For the brain!” he retorted. “We don’t focus as well, true enough. And our data priority system is horridly uncontrolled. But whether you call it panicking or ‘going blank’ or just stuttering, those are generally breakdowns in the delivery system, not the storage. The answer, and about two million others per second, is there.”

“So the computers are more effective, Holly, which is the same thing!” demanded Lya.

“Yes, yes. But it is we who do the programming for the effect we want. Computers are, in limited areas, much better devices. But we are vastly superior machines.”

I took a deep breath. “Let me get this straight. You’re saying that in order to suck this record out of that pod, it takes a zillion decisions every second which then require an equivalent zillion alterations in the… strength of the pull, right?”

“Right.”

“And you say that no computer is fast enough and big enough at the same time …”

“Right now none are. Maybe later, they do marvelous things with fluidics these days…”

I waved that off. “Don’t confuse me. And the only thing that can make those instantaneous decisions and the like is a human brain?”

“Right again. You see…”

“Just hold it a minute, Holly,” I blurted, more bluntly than I meant. “I still don’t get it. You’re talking about all this… computing being done on an unconscious level?”

“Yes.”

Lya looked unhappy. “But nobody could… How could you direct the focus of your unconscious mind to do this for you?”

Holly smiled again. It was infuriating. “Ah, there’s the part where the computer can help. It’s not so much a matter of concentration in the conventional sense. It’s more a matter of frequency. It’s just a problem of getting the two brainwave patterns close enough so that they begin to work in harmony and…”

He stopped when he saw the shocked look on our faces. But he continued anyway, like a schoolboy trying to get in the rest of his excuse before being punished too severely.

“You see, if your drawing field, your brain wave in this case, is on a compatible interval pattern, then all those adjustments would be made automatically. I admit there can’t be a complete match-up,” he added sheepishly, “since no two people have exactly the same frequency. Both sides would have to give a little….”

“Give a little,” Lya shouted with outrage. “You’re talking about allowing a machine to alter your brain-wave pattern to fit someone else’s??”

“Only briefly,” he insisted lamely. “And not very much. And it wouldn’t really fit. I mean, you wouldn’t be able to read his thoughts or….”

“My God, Holly…” I began.

“You’re insane!” Lya finished. “It would drive you crazy.”

There was a pause before we all laughed at the absurdity of her remark. It lowered the tension level somewhat. But the issue, with all of its implied horrors, still hung before us.

“It might very well, you know,” I said seriously. “It could cause all sorts of psychological damage. It might simply burn your ego away.”

Holly sat up straighter in his chair. He looked offended. “I believe I have made allowances for such a problem. Special entry and exit procedures, for example.”

“It’s madness,” muttered Lya bitterly. “It’s… wrong.”

“You’re being emotional, Lya. And only because you can’t think of any rational objections.”

“All right, Holly,” I said, rising to the challenge, “here’s one: What if you’re him in there?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What if you became him? At least thought you were, anyway, as long as you were in there. You would be reliving—for the first time—and then forgetting afterwards.”

He regarded me quizzically. “Complete submersion? Hardly likely, Jack. The brain is self, after all. You would conflict first.”

“There’s still some ‘ouch’ in that,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but if you consider the….”

“That’s just what you’re not doing, Holly Ware!” blurted Lya angrily. She had become quite upset. I saw tears in the corners of her eyes. She was terrified by this. I didn’t blame her. “When did you come up with this insane notion, anyway?”

He met her gaze without blinking. “Just now,” he said in the absolutely unmistakable fashion of one who knows what he is and what he is doing and who also knows that he and he alone is qualified for it. %

An interesting thing happened then: Lya backed down.

It caught me by surprise, left me wondering if, in my own stereotypical haste, I had misjudged the young mad scientist. But then I had it. She was not giving in to his machismo. She was retreating before his expertise.

Holly was, after all, the genius.

“Well,” she said after she had calmed a bit, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore today. I need a little time to get my feet back on the ground. And I shall certainly dream about this tonight.” The last came with a tiny self-deprecating smile, a gesture which made the sculptured lines of her mouth seem even more delicate and frail than before. It was especially endearing, even for her.

Holly and I agreed with matching smiles of relief. We all went through the straightening and adjusting needed after too long at the table. We stretched, yawned, grinned. At the door I turned to shake hands with Holly and found that I was doing it with a man I had not yet met. It was a man who seemed to me to be, at that time, the very best of Holly Ware. His grip was firm, his eyes bright, he looked more confident than I had ever before seen him. And more, he looked excited, hopeful, eagerly intrigued. Lya, despite her own buoyancy having apparently returned, seemed a faded shadow before the warmth of his creative glow. The image of those two at that moment struck something in me. It stayed with me, hanging before me, as I went through the seal and down the passage to my own suite. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way her face had looked, set with gentle firmness, eyes lifted to him, half-turned to him, half-eclipsed as his moon.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about something else, that there was little wonder that such women preferred the Hollys to me. The only time I ever looked that alive, I was probably killing.

Damn.

The lounge was dark. There was no sign of Cortez anywhere. I thought for a moment that I had stumbled into the wrong suite. Then I saw the light filtering through underneath the door to my bedroom and I froze, stock still, in my tracks.

I could feel her.

I wanted a cigarette, but reaching for it seemed a noisy affair. Not loud enough for anyone to hear me from the bedroom—I wasn’t worried about that. I didn’t want to make, well, any sound. Absolutely still. Dead still, rock still. Bolted to the floor and long empty tubes for my arms… Long enough like that and it would all go away or better, much, much, better they, They? THEY? would come for me and take me out, lift me up and away and say everything is all right, of course you failed but you were only….

I shrugged mightily, violently, forcing my boots to make that horrible, rasping, barely audible shuffle across the carpet as I stepped up to the door and eased it open with my wet hand.

Upper lamp on lowest gain glowing down to white sheets and yellow hair and golden skin—so much gold for so little skin—and all of it, the gently rising flat tummy, the wide eyes closed or shielded or hidden, the positively dreamlike sweep of lines from throat to forehead and back again to the partial view of more yellow hair, but tufted, promising more hair and more gold… all of it glowing back up into the lamp, shaming it. Shaming me.

I could feel her. From the doorway, I could feel her.

And she was real! Karen was real, had been all along. This other thing, this vague dream, this fantasy, only now half-remembered of a ship of my own without cares or destination or, face it, purpose, this sloppy goal, was never as real as the vision of her exquisite promise in my bed.

I stumbled out the door, easing my wet hand trembling from the plastic door. I sat, then lay on the couch my tubes and trembling neck. Why didn’t I?

Why didn’t I? A worthless sacrifice, a horrible choice. Even if it was real. Even if it did hurt. Or especially. Or not.

I slept, my face feeling sunburned somehow. Blasted.

XII

I had horrible dreams that night that lasted years. Not true nightmares, really, not at first. But very odd, in a macabre, intriguing sort of way. There were many distorted figures lodged and packed into a room that was at the same time a-geographic. They and I stumbled around with staccato gaits, first windsome, then fierce, getting faster and faster until the whole thing resembled some sort of spastic frenzy. By then I knew it was a dream, but that didn’t help. It was a commentary on me, the daytime me, the message seemed to be. It was about the recent me. The lately irrational, emotion-taut me. Other me’s too, I supposed, but in any case, too damn many me’s.

It would only get worse. I would stretch to the frenzy. I would warp. So I woke up, fast as I could.

Cortez was sitting beside my bed. He smiled when I opened my eyes, the lids of which felt puffy, ponderous. It seemed I had been out two days with a raging fever. The muscular spasms had stopped hours before, now even.

The local bug, in other words, had struck.

“Welcome to Sanction,” said Cortez with a wide grin, adding, “Didn’t you feel it coming on?”

I ignored him. I hadn’t, of course. But, God knows, I should have. Idiot.

It took me eight days, a full local week, to get over it. Mostly, I slept. Peacefully, for the most part. I did meet a couple of doctors. Or maybe just one as the only things I remember about either of them were youth, athletic postures, and greatly affected, pretend-deep, bedside voices.

Lya came often, cheerfully unconcerned for my welfare. “Everybody gets it,” she reported gleefully. Holly came twice, ever-friendly but vague about progress with the armor. Cortez left only once, when Karen came.

She hated being there, hated looking at me as I was. She was gone in minutes, again replaced by Cortez who entered looking like the gossip I supposed he was. I ignored him, rolling over into my pillow for my hourly nap. I drifted off wondering if I had not, in fact, learned more about her in those few anxious moments than in all of our previous hours. I thought I knew at last what she wanted from me.

It was nice to be able to just sleep instead.

I was sitting up smoking a cigarette on the morning of the eighth day when Lya came in and told me about the picnic. I didn’t answer at first. I was still trying to get used to her appearance. I hadn’t seen her in the past couple of days. She looked rotten. There were dark circles under her usually china-pure eyes. She was somewhat pale as well. And her movements seemed a bit shaky, hesitant, and uncoordinated.

Worry. And only one thing could make that one worry. I was anxious to ask her about him but I couldn’t seem to get through her let’s-be-cheerful-if-it-kills-us-me-him. It was all for her sake, of course, though I doubted she was aware of it and, to be sure, I got all the fussing over. Lya had a great time directing the expedition to the out of doors, insisting I be carried on a springsheet by two attendants—one quite short, one quite tall—and laughing delightedly at the bouncing their mismatched gait gave me.

It was, thankfully, a short trek, just three hundred or so meters along the riverbank to a grove of very Earthlike trees. If it had been much farther, I’d have gotten out of the springer and walked. I was still pretty weak, but I figured anything to be better than that bouncing seesaw.

It was a beautiful warm day. Bright sun and blue skies, the rains now long gone. It was a nice spot, too, beside a rancher’s grazing stretching down from a low hill all the way to the edge of clear sparkling water. Damn, but it looked a lot like home.

I was still looking for a chance to ask about Holly, remembering that it had been quite a while since we had spoken. But before I got an opening there was the milling about spreading groundcloths and unpacking utensils and getting me propped. The attendants left then, only to be replaced by Cortez, face glistening with sunscreen. He was helped by Karen, of all people, with the carrying of the food and liquor. She smiled pleasantly at me, said hello and the rest. She even went to the trouble to feel my forehead, a more token gesture than could be believed. Then she picked a spot a couple of trees away, cuddling up with a glass of wine and a shaded bookscreen and looking, well, perfect.

Others from the Project wandered by, snatching bites of chicken and sips of wine, a long procession which was apparently planned, since there were ample stores for the long afternoon. At one point there were a good three dozen people gathered around us, chattering, gossiping, giggling. I was left pretty much alone, either in deference to my health or my notoriety or, most probably, both. Just the same, I missed nothing, however juicy or dull. Lya, sitting beside me, was the favorite of all. Everyone stopped to chat with her. She charmed each of them individually and thoroughly and made it look easy. She seemed to know everyone by name, for one thing, which was damned impressive. Particularly since most of those in attendance were Crew, rather than the scientist-types she was usually around.

Occasionally I would break off from admiring the performance of Lya’s social flair to check on Karen. Infinitely more beautiful than anyone else—and growing more so as the afternoon sun blazed multicolored in her hair—she was nevertheless left alone. It may have been her position that discouraged approaches. She was Boss to most of those people, after all. Or, for all I knew, she had the reputation of a loner or a bore or even a bitch. But I didn’t think so.

It was her beauty. Curled up on the grass reading, a glass of wine in her hand, she was more painting than real. Her face, in classic profile, was unusually calm and serene and framed with casual perfection by a few golden strands which had slipped free from the luscious whole flowing across her shoulders and halfway down her back. She was wearing a spotlessly white Crew jumpsuit. It provided the fundamental thread linking the necessary contrasts of blue sky/eyes, blonde hair/skin, green grass/trees.

The view was a painting. Angel descended among mortals. I was frankly grateful to be there at that instant. For all those who were not, however well or long they had known her or would, had missed it. I could not imagine she would ever, in her strident life, manage to repeat that breathtaking image.

It was her beauty that kept them away. It was intimidating! No woman could stand the comparison that side-by-side conversation would inevitably illuminate. And the men—how does one approach and disturb the angel in repose? Even should he wish to crack the crystal? Look. Touch not.

And everyone, to be sure, looked. The gathering about Lya stirred constantly with the oft-repeated turning of heads. The women snatched, or rather sneaked, glances. Brief, probing, envious. Some of the men followed suit, not wishing to be obvious, but many didn’t care. They simply arranged themselves so that she was in easy view and thereafter rattled conversationally along with people they never saw.

I leaned against my pillowed throne and did some serious staring of my own. Unmistakably Karen, but still so unlike her. It was her. It just wasn’t her life.

If you could see this from my eyes, I wondered at her, the admiring hosts, the idyllic setting… If you could see you as I see you now, would it help? Would it reinforce your faith? Would it revive sinking dreams and hope? Or do you hate the beauty that has helped make your life just so?

I never could decide. No way to tell, of course, but I’d expect some of each. It would have cheered her, even thrilled her, to have seen herself then. It would have had to. It was simply too lovely.

But afterwards, with time and doubt leaning so heavily on the memory and with that placidly desperate struggle of her vs. her… And some hate did exist, I felt certain, for the beauty. For the brand of having it.

I shook my head, shook it again. I found that I was no longer even looking at her, hadn’t been in a while. The sun was no longer framing and she had moved position a little. Christ! I thought, has it come to this now? Too much wine and bug-eating drugs and afternoon sun and… Guilt was still about too, still leading me away from the point. I shook my head a third time.

Most of the party had wandered off. Two hours or so of sunlight remained. It was still pleasantly warm. Lya was encouraging, gently, the departure of her final moth, a stoutly muscular Asian woman seeking inside influence for a transfer back to her old position in the Project Dome Galley.

“The Agritechs know nothing about food,” she complained in a shrill whine that had been installed, no doubt by mistake, in that massive chest. “They hate everything I fix.”

From the way she strove to suppress a giggle, Lya was hardly surprised at this piece of news. Clearly, she found both the issue and the woman hilarious. But somehow she maintained her composure until at last free of the cook, sending her marching robotlike down the bank, short thick arms held firmly immobile at her sides.

Lya collapsed into helpless laughter before the cook had gone twenty meters. She jammed her peals of laughter against the corner of one of my pillows to muffle the noise. It was a compassionate gesture, and more than a little comical in itself. When she had resumed some semblance of control, she turned to me. I beat her to it.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re the one who had her moved out of the Dome in the first place.”

She looked surprised, but nodded. A pixie’s grin curled up. “Worst cook in the world,” she said. And then the laughter bubbled out again. “She cooks like she looks!” she added before collapsing once more into hysterics, now unmuffled and bell-like.

Lya laughed so long and so hard she cried. I found that I was laughing as well after a few seconds, so joyous was the sound. Cortez, asleep for hours, broke off his gentle snoring abruptly. He sat up, rubbed his eyes. “What’s so funny?” he asked sleepily. Then, without waiting for an answer to that question—a wise move since it had only started Lya off again—Cortez asked another: “Anything left to eat? I’m starved.” He followed this by immediately rummaging through the stores, opening and closing food seals. Still half asleep, he was spilling everything. I lifted my leg to avoid a stream of some sort of purple fruit juice.

Lya, now relatively calmed, sighed, half-smiling at his childlike grogginess. I groaned audibly, having little of her tolerance and even less of her tact. After some four hours of garden-party gobbling, I had yet to have my private moment with Lya and I refused to cater to this sloppy sleepyhead on top of that.

“Cortez,” I said as calmly as I could, “there’s no food. No more wine either. Why don’t you run fetch some?”

He frowned, scratched his head. “Now? I’d have to go all the way down to Storage. I don’t know why…?”

I cleared my throat. “Let me rephrase that: Cortez, you will run and fetch the wine. Dig?”

“Huh?”

“Understand?” I quickly amended.

He stared at me, at Lya, who was suppressing yet another giggle, and nodded. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time,” I added quickly. “Don’t run.”

Lya smiled at his retreating form. She sat up, stretching her arms over her head and yawning. She looked around.

“Is that about everyone?” she asked.

I pointed to Karen, still absorbed with her reading. “Must be some story,” I offered. “She do that a lot?”

Lya shrugged. “I’ve no idea,” she replied coolly, thus establishing, for my future reference, her lack of any connection with the other woman.

“Hmm. I see,” I replied, no less editorially.

But Lya didn’t bite. The subject had already been dropped. Fine with me. I was plenty ready to get on with something else.

“Now,” I began, “what’s wrong with Holly?” She sobered visibly, her shoulders stiffening. “Is it the suit experiment?”

The look of concern on her face managed to both age her and compliment her at the same time. It reminded me of her depth and her value.

“Jack, he doesn’t know what he’s doing!” she blurted.

“Pretty bright chap, you know,” I countered easily. “He’s an expert at this sort of thing.”

“Nonsense,” she replied firmly. “No one’s an expert at this. This is theory, Jack. And new theory, at that. It’s never even been thought about seriously before, much less attempted.”

“You’ve tried to get him to stop, have you?”

She glanced at me briefly, then away. She nodded.

“And he wouldn’t budge, would he?” She met my eyes. I smiled. “Only on this,” I added.

She smiled reluctantly in return. “How did you know that?”

I shrugged. “Well, I knew you ran the rest of it.”

She made a face, looking embarrassed. And of course, damned proud.

I sighed and leaned back against the pillows. I fished a cigarette out and took my time about lighting it. She watched and waited.

Finally: “I’ll try it if you want, Lya. I’ll talk to him.”

“Would you?” she asked, just as if she were really surprised at the offer.

“Of course I will. Only… I wouldn’t count on much.”

“But he thinks a lot of your opinion, Jack,” she assured me.

I blew a smoke ring. “Funny. If I were as smart as him, I’d never give me a thought.”

She smiled broadly, placating. “Well, Holly if that smart and he listens to you. You know he does.”

I nodded. “I do. But I don’t know why! He doesn’t know anything about me.”

“Of course he does!”

I shook my head. “Jack Crow stories don’t count. We’re talking about me.”

She tilted her head to one side, as though she couldn’t believe her ears. But her voice remained amused. “Well, now. What happened to the smooth talker? Is this a confession or what?”

I laughed. “Well, I’ve been sick,” I replied pitifully and we both laughed. “Okay,” I said at last. “I’ll go see him before we eat. He’s been working at it all this time?”

She nodded. “Ever since the night you got sick he’s worked on nothing else. He doesn’t even go over the departmental reports.”

“You know, Lya,” I offered, “that’s really a good sign. Probably means he’s discovered something.”

“Or thinks he has,” she retorted bitterly.

I laughed. “Where’s your composure, all of a sudden?”

She was not amused. “Where is his, Jack? What’s the hurry?”

I shrugged. “He’s on the scent.”

She shook her head, stared at the grass. “Too, too fast.”

“Too fast for us, maybe, but….”

“Too fast for anyone, Jack. I don’t care who it is.”

I took her shoulders in my hands and turned her toward me. I looked into her eyes. “Who it is, Lya,” I said firmly, “is Hollis Ware. A genuine genius. An upper mind.”

“Unhand that woman, you drunk!”

We spun around together to find the real drunk, the scream-singing fisherman Lewis, standing in the grass a few steps away from the water’s edge holding a fishing pole in one hand and the inevitable jug of syntho in the other. He was soaking wet. Lya and I looked at him, then at each other, and burst into laughter. All the tension was forgotten with the sight of that idiot standing there dripping water. And the hat he wore! I couldn’t imagine where he had gotten it. I wondered idly if it was made of real straw.

He ignored our laughter, stomping up to us in a shower of droplets and peering down with mock-theatrical disapproval. “While the cat’s away, huh?” he accused.

I noticed I still had my hands on Lya’s shoulders. I dropped them quickly.

“Too late, Crow!” He snarled, pointing a finger. “I have already seen enough. You!” He yelled at Lya, making her jump. “You scarlet woman, you!”

Lya tried to look penitent but couldn’t keep a straight face. Lewis shook his head in disgust. “That’s it, laugh, you hussy. And you!” I jumped on cue. “You know what Holly Ware’s gonna do to you when I tell him what I’ve seen?”

“Uh, no sir,” I replied meekly.

“He’s gonna take you into some corner somewhere and…” He broke off, thought a moment. “And think you to a bloody pulp.” He straightened up, tilting his hat back on his head. He noticed Karen. “Wow what have you done? My God, this girl has died reading.”

I followed his gaze, saw that Karen had fallen asleep in front of her little screen. Something landed on my lap. I looked down. A wet fishing pole. Lewis plopped to the ground behind it. He eyed me narrowly. He was very drunk.

“Didn’t catch fish one,” he reported miserably. “Fell in the river to boot.”

“Maybe you’re not drinking enough,” I suggested blandly.

“Yeah. Like you.”

“Me? I protest that.” I held up my glass of wine. “What do you call this?”

Lewis snorted, unconvinced. “A smokescreen is what I call it. Or propaganda. Nope, just make that prop. That, Mr. Crow, is a stage prop. I’d take a phony beard more seriously.”

I sighed. “Okay. I give. Get to your point, O Great Fisherman without fish.”

He took a deep breath and, taking great care to pronounce each word clearly, said: “Point is, Crow, that you’re not—among the many things you’re not—a serious drinker. You are a pretender.” He broke off, relaxing, and nudged Lya with his shoulder. “Didja notice how well I ’nunciated that?”

“Lovely,” replied Lya gravely.

He seemed delighted. “You really think so?”

“Absolutely, Lewis.”

He smiled broadly. “Wanna hear it again?”

That reminded me. “Lewis! You are Lewis, aren’t you?”

“Course I am. Whadja think?”

“I mean, you’re the same Lewis that runs this place?”

He shrugged. “Nobody runs this place that I know of.” He paused, took a sip from his jug. “I do, however, own this rock. Have for a long time.” He turned again to Lya. “Raised it from a pup. Boulder, to you. Yep,” he continued, patting the turf fondly beside his leg, “boulder first, then he became, uh…”

“Bigger?” Lya offered.

“Right,” he nodded. He eyed her with scrutiny. “Hey, you know an awful lot about this sort of thing for a hussy. So where was I? Oh, yeah. Boulder. Then a bigger boulder—all easy so far. But next comes the toughie when he got to be an asteroid.” He shook his head. “Ugly, ugly, stage in life, let me tell you, is that adolescent asteroid period. No respect at all. No values.”

“But with a will of iron,” broke in Lya, “and the determination of a god. …”

Lewis looked delighted. “Golly, that’s pretty! Oh, yeah. With iron will and the determination of a god, I…” he paused, right index finger poised, “I did it.”

Lya clapped her hands. “Hooray! At last.”

“The suspense was wrecking me,” I remarked.

“Smartass!” sneered Lewis without rancor. “Smartass pretender-drinker!”

I turned to Lya. “Do I feel a challenge in the air?”

She smiled. “Could be.”

“Take your hands off my air,” growled Lewis, “and accept, dammit.”

“What do I get when I win?”

He frowned. “That’s ‘if’ you win, I b’lieve.”

“Whatever. What do I get?”

Lewis reached for my cigarettes, lit one. “Why, the fish, of course! What the hell else?”

I shook my head as if to clear it. “I think I’m having a relapse.”

“No excuse.”

“Then what have fish got to do with… We are talking about a drinking contest, aren’t we?”

“We are when you can keep up.”

“Then what have fish got to do with that?”

He exhaled a long stream of smoke. “Everything, Dummy. That’s how you tell who won.”

“How.”

“We don’t just drink, Crow,” he said impatiently. “We drink and fish.”

“At the same time?” Lya asked.

“Hell, yes. Drink till you catch one.”

“You’ve been doing that without Jack,” Lya pointed out.

“True,” Lewis admitted. “But not fish-drinking. That was celebration-drinking.”

“What were you celebrating?” she asked.

“My last fish.”

“How long ago was that?”

He sneered at her. “Hussy.”

He stood up abruptly, swaying. He seemed confused. “What’s wrong?” asked Lya, concerned.

He scratched his head. “Can’t remember…. What was I about to do a bit ago?”

“How many guesses?” I asked.

Lewis shook his head. “No, really.”

“Uh, challenge Jack?” offered Lya.

“Did that.”

“Tell about raising the planet?” I suggested.

“Did that.”

Lya winked at me. “How about stagger around dripping water?”

“Doing that,” said he and I in unison and the three of us laughed.

Lewis cut short his laughter ahead of us with: “Aha!”

“Aha, what?” prompted Lya.

He grinned, pointed in the direction of Karen. “Aha’m gonna see what read this girl to the grave.” And he stepped awkwardly over me toward her.

I turned to Lya, getting to my feet. “Bout ready to go in?” She nodded. I started to gather up the mess around us. Her hand on my arm stopped me. I looked at her and saw that the tightness had returned to her features. I was amazed at how temporary an effect all the laughter had had on her capacity to worry. I squatted down beside her.

“Jack…” she began.

I cut her off. “Lya, would you stop fretting?”

“But you will talk to him.”

“I said I would. And I will. Relax. Holly’s a big boy.”

“But Jack,” she said, her eyes pleading, “he’s taking such a terrible risk!”

I sighed, patted her arm. “Well, he hasn’t taken it yet.”

But he had. We heard Cortez’s screams a second after that. He was bounding toward us across the meadow, slipping and sliding, falling once, waving his arms. We rushed to meet him. Through his panting and hysteria he managed to get out that Holly had been discovered lying unconscious on the laboratory floor, babbling incoherently. He was clutching some sort of plastic skullcap or something with all sorts of tubes and wires running out of it. Nobody had been able to pry his fingers loose from it. A seizure, the doctors had said. Catatonic.

Lya was already running back to the Dome before hearing all that Cortez had to spout. Karen, now wide awake, sprinted athletically after her. I gave it up after about a hundred meters. Damned bug still had a piece of me. I had to slow up to wait for Sanction to stop spinning.

Lewis appeared beside me, looking benignly helpful. “Here you go, Jack,” he said and offered a shoulder. He was a good crutch, in considerably better shape than most drunks I had seen. But even with his help, it seemed to take forever to cross the field, enter the Dome, and work our way down into the lab. All the time the thought kept streaking through my mind that Holly, with his genius fried, would now be nothing more than the timid lad he had at first seemed to be.

As we stepped through the seal, I heard Holly’s voice. He was sitting up on the workbench, surrounded by nervous faces. I broke loose from Lewis and rushed ahead to see him. Hot damn! He was alive, anyway….

“…no, really, really,” he was saying to them. “I’m fine. A little weak, but….” He noticed my stumbling approach. “I’m okay, Jack,” he assured me with a smile that contained equal parts of shyness and pride.

I was still worried. “I can see that. You look great, but….” How to put the next question?

He anticipated me. “It’s still me, Jack.” He turned to Lya, putting a weary arm around her shoulders. “Really. It’s still me. I’m fine. Just a little tired.”

The doctor was reading a gauge off a medigrip attached to Holly’s other arm. “You’re considerably more tired than that, Dr. You’re near physical exhaustion.” He pulled one of Holly’s eyelids up with a thumb and scanned the pupil underneath. “And emotionally drained as well, I’d say.”

Holly nodded vaguely. “Well, maybe a….” he began before pitching forward into Lya’s arms, out cold.

The doctor was quickly reassuring. “He’s all right,” he said to Lya.

She looked about to faint herself. “Are you sure?”

The doctor nodded, gestured toward his gauges. “I’m sure. Just worn out, like I said. He’ll be all right with plenty of rest and care.”

“He’ll get that,” asserted Cortez importantly. “I’ll see to it.”

Lya smiled at him. “Thank you, Cortez. That’s very sweet of you. Why don’t you start right now.” She nodded at Holly’s still form, still crumpled between her and the tabletop. Cortez stepped to her side and the bunch of them managed him into a prone position. Lya stepped back. “Thank you, everybody,” she said to us, “for showing such….” She froze at the sight of something over my shoulder.

We all turned around. Lewis was still standing at the entrance of the seal. His face was hard as stone, his muscles drum tight. He was staring at the black scout suit which had been propped into a sitting position in a chair beside the workbench, wires and tubes streaming outward.

Lya took a step toward Lewis. “Lewis? Are you all right?”

He turned slowly at the sound of her voice. He raised a trembling arm and pointed at the suit. “What… is… that??”

“That’s a scout suit, Lewis. Holly’s been using….”

“That, that’s… WAR SHIT!” he shouted, livid with rage. “What’s it doing here?”

“But Lewis,” protested Lya meekly, clearly unnerved by the incredible transformation of personality, “you knew this was a Fleet Proj….”

“I knew you were in Fleet! I didn’t know you were Fleet, godammit!”

He turned and stared at us, fury and disgust rippling his features into a fist. Then he walked out.

Nobody moved for several seconds. Then came the collective sighs and all was activity again. Lya hovered over Holly mumbling rapid-fire questions the doctor gamely answered. Karen strode to the intercom and ordered a springer team to the lab and intensive hook-ups for Holly’s sleeping quarters. Cortez and a couple of techs began clearing a path through the electronics for the springers to better reach the bench. I sat down heavily in a chair and lit a cigarette and pondered.

I took the opportunity moments later to add my superfluous assurances to those Lya had already heard while Holly was being loaded. Then I managed to evade questions put to me by the curious and morbid stopping by out of rumor. When Holly and most of the rest had gone, I stayed and talked briefly with the doctor, learning nothing new. Then, when he was gone, I helped the techs guess what should and should not be keyed off in the lab during Holly’s absence.

When they left, I was alone. And so, with Holly safe in his bed and surrounded by professional concern and laymen’s good intentions, I found the chance to betray him. In all the confusion I was sure to have several minutes alone with the security systems. It was a rotten act, to take advantage of him that way, but perhaps no worse than the act of sabotage itself which took a surprisingly short time.

A half hour later, only I knew how helpless Holly really was….

More still. She was waiting in my suite when I got back, flushed still with the excitement and the running and… the point of being there.

“How dare you leave me in there the other night…” she began, clutching my arm furiously.

Mad, guilty, upset too much, I clamped my fist around her upper arm to jerk her away, clamped too hard, and she moaned with the sudden pain and our eyes met and her lips parted and I knew what our point really was. As I had known for some time.

This was it. Strength on her. The clamping fist, anger and muscles together. Brute, from me. And she screamed when I threw her down and was upon her, ripping at the spotlessly white Crew jumpsuit and she struggled and kicked but writhed too. She surged into it. Maybe I did too. But both of us fell toward it, scratching and clutching and it got very, very, rough. Perfectly awful/awfully perfect…

And then laid flat out, pinned and twisting. Blood seeping from her nose and a shiner coming on and screaming at me for… begging me to make her beg and please/oh/please—YES, YES, tell her over and over what she really was! She loved to hear me tell her what she really was.

And I did. But damned if I really knew. Either of us.

It was spectacular and all-encompassing and it racked through me, shocking, stunning bolts of pleasure and pain. Both of us beating on her, abusing her, degrading the angel’s exquisite form and yes, the angel herself and, of course, whatever was left of both of us and always, always, so damn rich with rippling ecstasy. So damn good, somehow. So damn rich.

So horrible.

Eventually, mercifully, we slept.

In the nick of time.

XIII

“He had no faith!”

Holly said it like he still couldn’t believe it was true. He looked at me with all the wide-eyed incredulity of a child learning for the first time that “fair” has nothing to do with the real world. Shocked, hurt, more than a little frightened. Angry, too, and morally indignant. Demanding an explanation.

I had none. None, anyway, that would do any good to him right then. So I changed the subject: “I thought you said you couldn’t read the guy’s mind?”

“I couldn’t. Not really. I mean, I couldn’t tell when he was going to move until he moved or what he was going to say until he said it. But I… felt it when it happened. It was so close. So intimate.”

“You mean emotions?” I persisted. “You could read those?”

“Not read them,” he replied carefully. “Feel them. Or rather, feel him feeling them.”

I glanced across the bed to Lya for some reaction. No luck. She sat as she had for the entire hour I had been there: hunched forward in her chair with her elbow propped on a knee, her chin propped in her palm, and her eyes staring dead blank at the floor. The only signs of animation came when she put out one cigarette in order to light another. But she was listening. Her face was drawn so tightly across her cheeks it looked like it should hurt.

I shifted back to Holly, looking skinny and out of place against the vast expanse of linen. Even his bedclothes dwarfed him, ignoring all but his broadest gestures. He was constantly having to drag his huge collar around to match the motions of his neck. And there was a lot of motion there. His eyes darted constantly about the room. From the ceiling to the walls to Lya to me and back again, pausing only when he had trouble choosing the right words. Then he would stare at the palms of both hands held plaintively before his face like twin viewscreens and his eyes would glaze and he would be back there, in the suit. In the War.

It was particularly eerie.

He wasn’t away long this time. He dropped his hands on his lap. “He had no faith!” he said again, the same way as before.

I nodded, exactly as if I had any notion whatsoever. “Well, I’ve got to run,” I lied, standing up. “See you… tomorrow, Holly. Lya.”

Something in my uneasiness must have leaked through. Holly looked up at me, at me this time for the first time.

“No, Jack. Uh…” He glanced at Lya. “Tonight. Can you come back tonight?”

I noticed Lya watching me too. I nodded. “Tonight it is,” I said and scooted too quickly out the door.

I hurried through the seals outside where the sun was shining and the sky was Earthblue and lovely, where there were horses and cattle-things on the meadows surrounding the western edge of the Dome. The guards on the bridge smiled at me and waved and said something unintelligible but nice. I took all of this in and relished it, filled my lungs with it. Got all the way across the bridge, sat down at the far end of it and got my cigarette lit before I let myself think.

On the other hand, I told myself furiously, Holly could be simply stunned. Instead of the vegetable he appeared to be.

Or, maybe he was just stark raving mad, an improvement over being a carrot anyway.

Shit.

Or maybe it was just my usual guilt funk dripping those pitiful images. I made a command decision. I decided to forget about it. Holly was just tired out and a little disillusioned, that was all, by the reality of war vs. the flag waving. OK? OK. Besides, I was busy with traitor business. I had to see Wice.

I walked across the sewer bridge into the City. It was its usual teeming desperate self. People stomped or strolled or wandered about looking for spots to hide what little bits of their past lives they had dragged through the staggering jolt of getting this far. The maze was dry now, but miserably pockmarked with hundreds of hard and dusty footprint-craters. I limped and tripped alongside everybody else on my way to Wice’s passage. I was about halfway up the gradually ascending length of it in about a tenth of the time it had taken me before in the rain and darkness and despair. It was more than just the physical conditions which made this day different, however. There seemed to be a new touch of something in the air, crisp and clean and… hopeful, maybe, the way the people clamored about. Like the rain had washed something away and what was left was good and purposeful and….

And so feeling poetic and the like, I got a little careless.

A guy came suddenly hopping out of a narrow side tunnel moaning in pain and fluttering his right hand in the air. “Damn-damn-damn-damn… damn!” he said to himself and then, apparently seeing that he wasn’t alone, to me. Then he stopped his hopping long enough to hold his left thumb up and examine it critically. It was purple and, I assumed—yes, assumed—it was swelling.

“Can you believe it?” he asked. “This is the fourth damn time?”

I smiled, partly because of the way I was feeling and partly because of the way the guy was. Nice-looking man. Big, broad-shouldered with long black hair that was maned, squared-off around his forehead. He was oriental, Earth-orient, that is. He had an easy, powerful voice.

“Seems like a lot,” I agreed pleasantly.

“My dumb-ass helper,” he added with a shrug in the direction from which he had appeared. “Idiot has no grip whatsoever.” He shook his head and sucked briefly on the purple digit. He grimaced slightly.

I shrugged consolingly, made a step past him.

“Hey!” he said, brightening. “Can you give me a hand? It’ll just take a second. Just help Idiot hold it in place long enough so that I can….”

And blah blah blah with me following him around the corner and, sure enough, there was a corner of one of the local throw-togethers exposed with this huge piece of what looked like plassteel heat shielding resting beside it that looked to have been carved out to fit the hole. Up above on the second “story” was this little guy with red hair, the Idiot, no doubt, leaning out of what had once been an escape hatch back during the time when this erector set used to be a star ship. And it looked all right. The redhead was in a good position to hold the piece of plassteel, if he leaned out the hatch, while the oriental on the ground could brad it in tight.

So I nodded and stepped forward and the oriental picked up one side and I reached for the other and the redhead stretched both arms down to get it and then I noticed that it really wasn’t plassteel at all. It was that plastoform crap that was so popular because it was cheap and looked like plassteel and I thought: Well, hell, he oughta be able to just hold this with one hand. …

And that’s when the oriental hit me.

He was a big guy and it was a damn good blow, a forearm to the side of my head. I went down flat.

Then rolling away into position for the next shot and then there was red hair flying through the air onto me out that hatch and he hit me as hard as the local gravity allowed for his fall—which was plenty—-and before I got a good grip on him or the oriental who loomed over me or anything else, the sun was blotted out by many others crowding in for a piece.

The crowd worked well together, each getting a good grip on me and lifting me up off the ground making me helpless and, worse, making me know it. They hustled me around a corner and then around a couple others, the passage getting narrower and narrower until we stopped in this tight square claustrophobic little area surrounded on three sides by three stories of maze, crooked and ugly and seeming to lean in on us.

They had me. Absolutely goddamn had me. No one broke his concentration or loosened his grip or looked like he was going to. Two on each leg, two on each arm. One held the back of my head against his chest with two huge hands, the thumb of the left one painted purple.

Shit.

Shit because they had me, really had me and I hated, loathed, was repulsed… sickened by having hands on me without my consent. And double shit because I had been so utterly fooled and, come to think of it, triple shit.

Because not only did this group know how to handle itself against an enemy, they knew how to handle themselves against me. This wasn’t a shake-down or a robbery or any other sort of thug-mugging gang. This was the execution of a plan dreamed up by someone who used well-trained, or at least well-drilled, disciplined people who knew just how good I was and who weren’t taking any chances.

“Bring him here,” said somebody I couldn’t see. And they did, all eighteen legs of them spiraled around so that I might face the man who had spoken. He stood on a jutting piece of webform a couple of meters over our heads. He looked about fifty, which meant nothing, of course. Still, I had the impression that his appearance was “natural,” non-cosmetic. Which would have made him a couple of decades younger than me.

But I only noticed those details in passing, the way I noticed his well-worn tunic and his beard and the unusually long thin fingers on the hands hanging clasped before him. For beside him, stood Eyes. Clean now and, amongst her folk, safe. Long brown hair tucked into something functional. Legging-things on the legs of her pants. Simple tunic like her father’s… was it her father who stood at her side? I never found out.

She looked strong and capable and lovely and well worth the fighting that had gone on for her sake. Still Eyes, too. Hers shone in the sun.

“You must forgive us,” began their leader, opening his hands in an expression of regret, “for having treated you in this fashion. But your somewhat lethal reputation has preceded you.”

“Is that supposed to be an apology?” I snarled.

“It is.”

“That the best you can do?”

He stiffened. So, in fact, did a couple of the ones holding me. Eyes, I noticed, showed no reaction at all. She was still waiting.

“I assume,” he began again, “that your statement implies release.” He paused, wiped his brow clear of a lock of sandy-gray hair with one of those long fingers. “Quite understandable, of course,” he resumed. “Even reasonable, under normal circumstances.” Those hands clasped together again and he peered forcefully into my eyes. “You, sir, are hardly normal circumstances, even for us. If I were to have you set free, how many of your captors would be killed or maimed or otherwise handicapped before they could get free?”

I grinned, shrugged. “Three.”

He nodded. “At least three, Mr. Crow. At least.” His hands separated again, palms upward. “So you see how my hands are tied.”

I laughed. I had to. So, apparently, did everyone else. At the absurdity of the situation. And at our own, each and everyone of us. So bizarre… So often! Eyes, sparkling, laughed herself beautiful. I forced my thoughts and my feelings and… and me, away from the idea of that.

The leader had resumed. “…do hope you won’t be too uncomfortable while I say what little I have to say. In any case, I….”

“Get on with it,” I snapped, hating buddy-buddy while being held.

That cooled ’em off instantly. We all got a lot more tense. The muscles on the hands that held me grew more taut. Good. This was not fun, dammit.

“Very well, Mr. Crow,” said the leader stiffly. “I shall indeed get on with it. First let me tell you a little bit about who we are.” He spread his hands wide to indicate, not just the immediate throng, but the City itself.

And then he gave a speech. It was a pretty good one. And he didn’t ease up much, either. He really did tell me who they were. And what.

They were crewmen and women from the starships or couples with girls and boys of draft age or merchants fleeing the growing restrictions of wartime. They were Societies Against the Loss of Something or Other. They were people who had pushed off into the unknown one step ahead of Fleet expansion or two steps ahead of prison. They fled the loss of freedom, the courts, their wives or husbands, their past.

Most simply fled the Antwar. Quite a few were deserters. Each had, or had been, deserted.

So they crashed their shuttlecraft in the gorge or entire ships along the flatlands under the shale bluffs. Sometimes they left their empty ships in orbit. Sometimes the same orbit. The rare nightflashes of colliding bulkheads were the sources of much amusement as well as a small monthly lottery.

Many, many died.

Many had lived though, and those folk hung together. Raw and bleeding and desperate, they tacked the tortured metal together and hammered at the bulkheads and welded and strained and fought and lived. Outer hulls became outer walls. Airlocks became doors. First one battered ship became two battered ships. And then three and then four. Beside it another equally ugly configuration began to grow the same way. And then another and another. The first clearing opened into another outer one and so on until there was formed the maze, the Maze! The Maze, of dirty heat-blasted metal and plassteel through which trod an ever-growing horde. The streets were almost always muddy. So, usually, were the people.

Primitive hydroponics kept them alive. Then came other things. And though they were never fully organized in any formal sense, bosses had appeared to make the attempt. The tough guys didn’t last long. They rose up and seized control for awhile until stabbed or blazed or beaten to death by one-time clerical assistants or pharmacists or third-class drive-techs who had come a long way to be rid of such men and would damn well not accept them now.

There were major setbacks and major villains, but each and all were vanquished, trod into the mud of the maze by a deeper, mightier vitality that came from desperation and the will to live. Soon it was just a naked force bigger than the sum of its parts. Bigger and stronger and, somehow, more mature. Ready, at last, to evolve into something else: a City.

“And then,” I said, interrupting, “came Wice.”

The leader broke off his rhetoric and eyed me narrowly. After a moment he nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Wice. And his band of animals. And now the whole process has begun all over again.”

I snorted. “The people seemed behind him on the bridge a few weeks back. Against the Project Director, no less.”

“The people don’t understand him. They don’t know what he is. They don’t see….”

“What you want them to see?”

There was a murmur of anger through the bunch holding me. A couple of them increased the intensity of their grips. Even the leader was affected. His poise busted at last.

“Wice and his crew are a band of cutthroats and hoodlums who would do anything to take control and hold it. Anything!” He stared angrily at me for several seconds before resuming. “We know that you know Wice, that you have dealings with him. But we had hoped that from what we had heard about you in the past and from…” he glanced briefly at Eyes. “…And from other sources, that you were not the type of man to be helping such a brigand. Not if we could make you see what he was. If you only knew…”

“If I only knew!” I shouted, appalled. “If I only cared, you mean!”

That froze him. He started to speak, stopped. He looked suddenly unsure, uprooted. He stared at me. “But if… What do you…”

“Finish this!” I barked. “One way or the other.”

He continued to stare at me a long time. No one else. The rest couldn’t look. They looked away. But the leader seemed welded to me.

Dammit, I knew what he was about. It made sense. Borglyn gave me a ship; Wice would hardly throw in for free. But who the hell was I to cut out his piece? I didn’t blame this man. I didn’t blame him or Eyes or his people. I wouldn’t have stood for it either. They were right to oppose this sort of bullying. But, goddammit, that didn’t mean they were Right!

He broke the gaze at last. He looked at his feet. The long fingers intertwined, writhing incestuously. He looked pale and pitiful and… damn him!

“Let him go,” he said.

They did. Reluctantly, then warily, then carefully. I made no moves when they set me down. I even gave them a chance to back away before standing. The leader hadn’t moved. I looked at Eyes, saw she had gone. They were just eyes now.

But when she saw me looking at her, They returned. In anger and disgust, her eyes became Eyes once more. And I knew why they had affected me so. I saw the dreams in them then. The Rightness. And, more importantly, the conviction. The willingness about the necessary risks. Her life on the line.

But I had already made all of those decisions, dammit. I wanted my ship.

Gradually I became aware of movement all around me. I turned my head to see that everyone was leaving. The leader had already gone. Soon there were only the two of us left there, staring at one another. And soon after that, only me. But not soon enough.

For before she left, she said, in a way I refuse to recall, “So you’re Jack Crow.” Then she spat. Then she left.

I wanted to kill her. I just stood there.

It took me half an hour to find out that the passage I had chosen to lead me out was a dead end. I kicked the web of Thermoflex. blocking my path with a vengeance. I could have killed her then. I sighed, suddenly exhausted by my own anger, by the burdensome weight of it. “A perfect day,” I muttered and turned back around. It took me another half an hour to reach the square once more. Only then could I think about finding Wice’s lair.

His office had been straightened up somewhat, but he was the same old charmer. “What did you tell them?” he asked without preamble as I stepped through the door.

“Fuck off,” I replied evenly.

“Is that a direct quote?” asked an unmistakably powerful voice from behind me. “Or simply more evidence of your sparkling personality.”

I spun on my heel and faced Borglyn, momentarily stunned once more by the sheer enormity of him. A for-real giant.

“Both,” I snapped, gathering together quickly, as I always seemed to do in a pinch, my worst side.

Borglyn ignored my response, as he could well afford to. He motioned me to a chair and stood over me and talked strategy. And when the question came about the Dome defense screens… I could have lied, said that it couldn’t be done. I could have simply turned the question aside, as I had before with Wice. But I didn’t.

“It’s done,” I replied. “They’re helpless.”

Borglyn didn’t stay much longer after that, just long enough to “thank” me for what I had done so far and to reiterate what Wice had said before about the uncertain timetable. He thought a couple of more weeks but he couldn’t be any more definite than that. Then he left.

And why not? There was no need to stick around. He had what he wanted. He had gotten my assurance about the screens. And I had gotten the point of his being there, which was the knowledge that he could be there any time.

On the way back to the Project, I thought about what it had been like to have been hung in the air by those fat fingers of his. And I bristled, both at the remembered feeling of frustration and at the knowledge that it was just what Borglyn would want me to think about.

XIV

Holly wasted no time getting down to it. When I rang the secured seal to his lab he opened it himself with the manual key and then personally escorted me into his little briefing cubicle. There were several screens attached along the length of the conference table, each glimmering with rhythmically esoteric data. Lya was next door in an adjoining cubicle with a couple of screens of her own. She waved at me through the connecting window and flashed what I’m sure she thought was a cheerful and carefree smile. Her appearance was a considerable improvement over that morning. But the strain could not be hidden.

Idly, I wondered why she should even try to hide it.

“First of all,” began Holly after we had sat down, “I want to apologize for being so uncommunicative this morning. I didn’t mean to be so obscure. It’s just that I didn’t know how to express what I was feeling. And I… well, I’m sorry about it.”

I grinned. “And what about scaring the shit out of me after the picnic? Not that I could care less if you burned out your brains, but the least you could do is try not to spring it on me.”

Jack Crow Crap, but just the kind of compliment that Holly adored. He flushed a little and grinned shyly and glanced down at his hands folded on the table before him.

But all the boyishness was gone in the next instant as he continued.

“Secondly,” he resumed, “I want to assure you that I’m fine. I was not harmed by the experience, however bad it may have seemed at the time. Neither physically nor mentally.” He sat forward, made a steeple out of his fingers, and peered intently into my eyes. “I want to stress this, Jack. Every medico in the Project has been over my numbers and there’s nothing wrong.”

“Nothing that they can find, anyway,” I amended.

He looked pained. He nodded reluctantly. “Yes. Technically, yes. However, I can think of no intelligent reason why one should simply assume damage without evidence, do you?”

I shook my head in response, amazed at the stern tone his voice had briefly assumed. A real Director of Project tone, that.

Holly seemed not to notice. “Thirdly, I want to report that the experiment was a success. Not only was it a success, but it worked better than I had hoped.”

I frowned. “Well, that’s one way of looking at it. There is a little matter of the catatonia.”

He looked pained again. He started to speak, stopped, re-thought. Then: “I’m getting to that, Jack. But let me take it step-by-step, please.”

“Of course,” I said pleasantly. Inside I was thinking that there is nothing spookier than having someone “stress” to you how sane they are after having had a fitlike seizure a few days before.

What Holly did next was go over ground I knew already. Talked about how it was the magnetic drainage of the Record pulses off the coil which had caused the problem in the first place. Reminded me why this prevented a screen from being used to view it. Next he re-outlined how he had hoped that, using his own little helmet and his own mind, a commonality to the two separate brain-wave patterns could be artificially and temporarily induced. He had worried that it was either an impossible scenario to attempt the commonality at all, or that too much strain would result from the two different patterns conflicting in unison. But instead, a third thing had happened: A third field had been created “between” his pattern and the other. It had been this third field which had provided the channel of reception. And this was a real boon. For not only did it allow him to “see” what was going on, but it had also allowed him to retain perspective over the process.

“That’s what you meant when you said you could feel him feeling his emotions?” I prompted.

He nodded vigorously. “Exactly. It gave me the immersion I wanted, but it also kept me a step back. Prevented the possibility of psychological conflict.”

“Something conflicted,” I pointed out.

He smiled wanly. “Well, yes. There was a-conflict of sorts. But not the kind that you—and Lya—had feared. It was not a conflict of psyche.”

“Then of what?”

“Of intensity.” He leaned back in his chair and sighed, spreading his hands on the tabletop. “It was simply too strong. Even with the sense of detachment. Not that I felt I was being… sucked in or anything,” he was quick to add. “It’s just that the emanations were simply too powerful. They caused an overload.”

I thought a minute. “Couldn’t you simply turn it down?”

He frowned, shook his head. “We’re on the lowest gain now. The trouble is, my helmet requires a certain minimum charge to function.”

I nodded. “I see the problem.”

He nodded in return, but rather unhappily. “There is one more possibility, however….”

“And that is?”

He looked reluctant. “Well, it could be that the intensity of reception is not due to the charge needed to power the suit. It could be that, well….”

“It could be,” finished Lya from the doorway, “the fact that we are dealing with a very unusual man. A very unusual, highly dynamic man.” She walked over and sat down in the seat next to me. In her hand was a coiltape. “Battlefield conditions produce inordinate stress in anyone, but in Felix….”

“You know what his name is?”

“Was, yes. It was Felix,” Holly amended.

“Was?” I asked, surprised. “You mean he died?” Well, no wonder…!

“No,” said Holly quickly. “He didn’t die on me.”

“But you think he will,” I persisted.

Holly’s smile was grim. He nodded. “I think so. In fact,” he added, looking sad and very, very far away, “I can’t conceive of any other possibility.”

It was very quiet while we thought about that. Something in how Holly had said it, something about the… hopeless finality of it. Eerie. I caught myself staring out the window overlooking the main lab to the black suit propped into a sitting position alongside the main console. A menacing sight, sitting there just so. Menacing and sinister and….

I tore my gaze away, shoving such thoughts roughly back into the shadows where they belonged. I cleared my throat.

“Well, I can see why you’re stuck, Hol…”

“Oh, we’re not stuck!” he jumped to add.

“But if you don’t have any way to turn down the gain….”

“We don’t need to turn it down. There’s another way to reduce the intensity.” He glanced quickly at Lya, who met his gaze briefly, then looked away. “A way to halve it, in fact.”

“What’s that?” I asked, stepping into it.

They exchanged glances again. Holly made a determined effort to sit up straight and look me in the eye. “By adding another helmet and another… experimenter.”

My mouth fell open. I closed it. So that was it!

I was too stunned to do much more than nod through the following offer. That and stare back and forth between their two intent faces while they fell all over one another in their efforts to assure me that there was no reason to suspect that there would be any danger involved. Hah!

There was more of the assurances. And then came the part about the great strides that could be made with such an experiment, reminding me that I had expressed interest in helping and how this would certainly be of more help than anything else I could do. Oh, yes: there was a mention of payment from the extensive Fleet funding.

So, could I think about it tonight and then let’s talk again in the morning?

I said I would think about it.

Holly couldn’t let it be. He talked about how he thought he had hit on something terribly important, something he couldn’t explain altogether but something I would certainly understand when, that is… if, I decided to take part. And how he would especially like to have me and only me in on this, how he’d like to keep this experiment just among the three of us rather than involve others from the Project. Then more assurances.

I said I would think about it.

Lya insisted on walking me to the seal. Still more assurances, to start. Then honey-bull. The tone of voice with its quiet intensity, its brave conviction, and that look of Oh-I-know-I-can-trust-you-Jack-you’re-so-strong-where-else-can-we-turn complete with the soft pressure of her hand on the crook of my arm and, incredibly, batting eyelashes. It was exactly the same crap she had used so effectively on me the day of the picnic, except….

Except then she had believed it. She had known what she was doing was right, had known her concern for Holly was justified, had known my warmth for him was genuine and appropriate to call upon. She had known she was doing the right thing. Further, she had known what she was urging me to do was equally right.

This time she knew no such thing. She was lying with each and every well-chosen word.

Why me? I kept thinking. Maybe it was the Jack Crow Bit. Maybe she thought that I could just dive through the wiring feeds running between us and snatch Holly by the scruff of the cerebellum and haul him out of a tight spot. Or maybe she just didn’t want the other Project people involved on Sanction to know what a Mad Hatter her man had become.

I said I would think about it.

And I did, in a way. Once I calmed down a little with a brisk walk through the seals to my suite. Once I had gotten over the urge to slap Lya’s sanctimonious holier-than-lesser sacrifice all-for-my-man face. How dare that bitch! Screw up my head?

I had experimented with the hallucinogens years—decades—before alongside the rest of my once contemporaries. Luckier than most on account of not really ever believing that this mental masturbation was the Way, or the Path or whatever else they were calling it at the time. Seeing it, knowing instinctively that it was a brain teaser and nothing more. A trip for people who couldn’t afford to travel. But even with that to back me up, there had been a time or two….

So I knew better. Life was tough enough. Climbing down into that hole with Holly and his tubes wasn’t the same as the rushing chemical thrill. And maybe—well, probably, if Holly felt so—there was something of great scientific value to be found. But it was that same hole, no matter how I got there, the hole where the creature lives, the monster, the fiend who comes terrifyingly quick, slipping up at you out of the muck, grinding his teeth, popping his jaws eagerly, clawing at your clean flesh with gnarled hands sporting gritty black talons and… using your face to know where it hurts the most.

Bullshit! And for somebody else to boot. A risk for another means sacrifice for another. And even if I wanted to—which I sure did not—where was I gonna fit it in? Too many risks already, wedged tight. And the jamming of it all still coming up.

Madness!

Cortez was nowhere in sight when I reached the suite. By now I knew what that meant. From the bedroom I could hear the faint hum of the ’fresher. Her clothing, Crew jumpsuit, boots and things, were piled in the corner of one of four chairs surrounding a small table. On the table itself sat her viewscreen. I wandered over to it, idly wondering what she read. A bit fretful, too, of finding something else I might have to live up to. The screen was off but the tab was on, the reference sequence glowing softly and efficiently in red.

I cringed. Fleet ID’s are fifteen-digit numbers. And I had only seen this one once before… I hesitated, then pushed restart, and found myself staring at the official Fleet dossier of one John Jacob (Jack) Crow. I blinked, stared, stood there trembling. I felt… invaded.

I hadn’t heard the humming of the ’fresher stop. Her voice from the bathroom door whirled me around.

“I had to know,” she said in a small apologetic voice. She leaned against the sealjam as if for support, idly wiping at the remaining flakes with a towel.

“Had to know what?” I growled, my voice hoarse.

“I had to be sure!” she whispered intently. Pleading.

“Sure of what!”

“That you… that you’d go through with it.”

“Through with wha…” I began and then, of course I knew what she meant as I remembered what we both remembered. I knew as I saw the tear swell and sink and slide down that horrible purple bruise beneath her eye.

I ordered food for two to be delivered to the outer room. We Waited in silence until we heard it arrive. I went out to fetch it, blazing down Cortez’s questioning look with a glance. I brought it back into the bedroom, wheeling the trolley up to the edge of the bed where she sat still wrapped in the towel. I pulled up a chair for me.

And we ate. For close to three hours, we ate. Usually there was far too much food brought to me. But not that night. I stuffed myself; Karen stuffed herself. We stopped. I smoked. She drank wine or simply toyed with the stem of the goblet. Then we ate some more. Ravenously. Almost desperately. Until we could not take another bite. Then we stopped until we could.

And always in silence. “Music?” she asked once and I nodded, stood up, and keyed something neutral. It was the only word spoken between us the entire time. The music was a good idea. It gave us something to almost do while we sat between feasts.

Sometimes we looked at each other. Not often.

Over two and one half hours later, it was gone. Choked and still hungry; drunk and still thirsty. I stood up slowly, my head reeling with the wine, and went into the bathroom. There was nothing else to do. The feast was over.

I stayed in there a long time. Too long, really, to be healthy. I felt skinned when I came out. But that wasn’t so bad either.

I didn’t know if she would still be there or not. Didn’t know what it meant either way.

She was there, under the covers. Her hair was spread like dawn across the pillows. I noticed the music was gone and the lights were dim. My cigarettes had been placed on the bedside console. I got in beside her. She slid toward me, tucking in.

After a while, perplexed by my inability to feel where my skin left off and hers began, I became a louse. Said something idiotic and provocative about seeing her dossier. Her answer was to lift her head and rest her chin on my chest and peer at me until I was forced to meet her gaze.

Then she said: “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

It was not a qualification. It was not defensive or evasive or in any way devious. I knew that. I knew it. But….

“All right, goddammit, tell me about it,” I dared, lighting a cigarette.

And so she did tell me about it. All about it. I lay looking at the ceiling and seeing the pictures formed by her words and by the way the small of her back shuddered beneath my palm. Her voice was invariably gentle. Timid sometimes. Sometimes matter of “fact. There was bitterness too, of course. And sadness and regret and wicked touches of irony. But never laughter. Not once that… a rich kid, happy little girl wearing pinks and blues and whites because those were the favorite colors of her Daddy. She wore black for the first time at twelve, at his funeral.

…the vacuum time. No brothers or sisters. Only Mother, who cried and drank in rooms with the lights out.

…hope and a stepfather at thirteen. Raped at fourteen. No trial. Divorce instead. They moved. Moved again. A short remarriage. A long second divorce…. spectacularly beautiful at sixteen. A first fiancé. Another. Two more. At seventeen and one half, a husband. “Mentally unbalanced” an exceptionally generous description. Long separation burdened by guilt but tinged throughout as well by brief flashes of genuine terror. Divorce, at last, followed on cue and as advertised, by the tragedy, sick and loathsome and out of her hands but still… His funeral left to her by his family who begged and pleaded and then used her symbolic resumption of the role as an excuse to blame and accuse.

…finishing school near the top of her class—never any

trouble there at any time for she is bright and curious and somehow inherently hopeful.

…joining Fleet a month later. A month after that, still in boot camp, raped a second time. Trial serves to both exonerate him and brand her as angel-haired slut, a blatant lie but a common fantasy in the courtroom.

…powerful military types crossing wires to get her transferred their way. When the last string is pulled, the last favor cashed, she finds herself on Capital Earth where she is promoted, pampered, and eventually raped again. There is no second trial. More promotions instead. And a transfer to Militar, itself, hub of Fleet. Corridors of power.

…picking and choosing, now. Not rape. Not love. Not enough.

…her second military rapist, the general who spouted promotions, has died in the Antwar. He dies rich. Dies guilty too, his will mentioning her a Fleet scandal. Karen laughs at hushed whispers and gestures just out of the corners of her eyes—she had planned to kill him some day but this does nicely. Tense negotiations in conference room surrounded by leather-bound precedents. The children sitting on either side of their bewildered, wooden mother, their eyes blazing hatred and envy for the lustre of her blonde hair and for what they assume to be the comparative richness of Karen’s relationship with their cold, calculating, career-minded Father. They want to kill her but they sit still (as per lawyer’s orders) for the money.

…another transfer. More promotions, often due to her considerable merits. She rises always. Higher and higher. Feeling like two people but the promotions are something after all, aren’t they.

…tries a couple of times and nothing. Never knowing which of the two cared or could care. And if she doesn’t know, the poor men… Transfers away from it twice, once too soon, once far too late. But, either way, gone from it.

…a year before trying again. Too little to matter. Another promotion, though.

…to her mother’s deathbed. Terminal prognosis she is told. “No hope for me,” says Mother, adding macabrely that she had been “born again.” She urges baby to repent.

…but this sanctimonious bastard Padre, who never misses a chance to touch her, however chastely, during her devotions makes her ill. And she tells him so. Stung, he informs Mother that Baby’s penance is as insincere as the scarlet paint of the harlot she is.

…dies Mother, slowly and badly, refusing to admit her sinful daughter to the end, on the advice of her priest.

…over a year later, pinched with the hardness of despair, she tries again and it… almost… works!

His name was Leslie and he was a lovely man who loved her dearly. In return she felt a genuine… affection. She felt a true… warmth. And safe. She felt safe. At the crucial moment, she told Leslie all.

He ached with the jolt of her life. He wept.

Also, he questioned, over and over. Then he accused. Then he raged, then denounced, then beat her. Then he went.

Soon after came another, most important, promotion. Along with it came an offer to be number two on a Fleet Project. A three-year stretch on an unknown but earthlike place. Dr. Hollis Ware. The offer is an honor at her age, but no less than she deserved, one way or another. Still, she didn’t want to go, to strand herself three years where she could not rise. She put off the decision for weeks, caught between the allure of being, for once, legit and with the tantalizing momentum of Rising Is. Without being aware of it, she dreamt of another choice.

Then Leslie returned, providing just that. He was tearful and contrite and ashamed, but filled with protestations of hope. She knew his love for her, his heartbreaking devotion to her, was genuine.

The next day, in secret, she signed with Holly. The next month, without warning, she went aloft to Sanction. It was, she felt, doing the best thing for the lovely man. He was so sensitive, so easily hurt.

He had brought his parents along with him, to meet her.

She slept at last on my soaked shoulder. I smoked. Sometime in the middle of it she had said: “I know it was all my fault. I guess I’m just no good, like Mother said.”

I smoked and heard that still, still expecting to bleed to death from the grinding rasp of those words. I felt numbed by the Vice.

And then she did an amazing thing. She stirred in her sleep and laughed. Giggled, really, like a little girl. A sweet safe beautiful little girl who knew only the blue of the sky and green grasses and party dresses of pink and blue and white. I reached over carefully and keyed off the last of the light. I doused my cigarette. I lay there. For hours, it seemed, I lay there, my eyes burning in the dark.

The next morning, bright and early, I went down and saw Holly and did the one thing I had been so certain I would never do: I volunteered me.

So bizarre….

XV

Holly and I sat facing one another on twin loungers. Lya sat at a console between our feet. The suit sat propped at the other. Feeding circuits sprouted everywhere, linking the suit to a couple of other consoles which were keyed through a massive coiltape, Lya’s board, and us. Today was the day.

“A couple of things,” began Holly, all businesslike. “Firstly, the raw data.” He reached over behind him and keyed something. A small screen lit up with light green letters against a dark green background. “Name: Felix, G. Age: 26. Current assignment and rank: Warrior Scout aboard the starship Terra in deep elliptical around A-9.”

A-9? A distant bell rang somewhere. Something I’d seen on the vid? Lya helped me out with: “Banshee.”

Oh. Yeah.

Holly cleared his throat. “More. This takes place—or rather, took place—almost exactly four standard years ago. Earthdate: July 4, 2077.”

That did ring a bell. Holly noticed my expression and nodded. “Yes. This is the Independence Day Drop, the very first invasion of Ant soil. Quite literally, mankind’s first step into the Antwar.”

Holly continued in that efficient way he had, briefly recapping the events surrounding that day. It was hardly necessary. True, I had gone to some trouble in past years to avoid having news of that insanity intruding into my life. But I knew about that day!

I remembered it clearly, remembered sitting fixated before the vid like probably every other human in the known worlds. There had been something so spectacular about the events of those first weeks. About the idea of it. Interstellar war! Ants eight feet tall! Of course it was madness. But in a race where most children grew up playing war—breathtaking fun. It was a good two to three months before I stopped beginning each day by tuning in news of the Antwar. And it wasn’t until the end of that first year, that horrible first year which saw over two million people wasted, that I turned away, refusing to even listen to Antwar conversation.

That had been four years before. The Antwar raged still.

I snapped back just in time to hear Holly’s historical windup. He ended with a short explanation about why we… about why they, Fleet, had been unable to guide missiles in the Banshee atmosphere of poison and inscrutable magnetic fields. It was stuff I knew. Along with the fact that it, Operation Knuckle, the part involving our scout, was considered a brilliant military victory. Next came a brief recap of stuff I had missed in the few minutes Holly had already played from the record. Then he gave me the same pre-drop briefing Felix had received. Word for word.

When he saw my puzzled expression over his perfect recall, he merely shrugged his shoulders and said: “You’ll understand in a minute.”

I clamped down hard on a sudden impulse to shudder.

“Now,” said Holly, “how do I know all this? The name G. Felix I got from Fleet records using his Fleet ID number. The number itself I got by reading it off the inside of his helmet. It’s inscribed right between his twin holos. You’ll see it.”

That scared me. “I’ll be able to see through his eyes?” I demanded, appalled.

“Not at first,” said Holly quickly. “Never, really.” He looked uncomfortable. His eyes stared past me at something within. He frowned, resumed. “The data is neither recorded nor delivered that way. It’s not even vaguely photographic;, Jack. But, after a few minutes… I can’t explain exactly.” He shrugged again. “You’ll see.”

I would see! Through the eyes, or whatever, of a dead man? This time I did shudder.

Lya shifted forward in her chair, moving quickly on. “There are a couple of anomalies. First, in the Fleet records. According to them, G. Felix wasn’t even there at the time of this battle. Wasn’t even moved to the forward zone until well over three months later.”

I didn’t get it. I said so.

Lya smiled. “Frankly, neither do we. Confirmation codes didn’t exactly clear it up. They did, Fleet Center on Militar, I mean, come back with something about incomplete records on G. Felix and some sort of trouble with them, but that wasn’t until months later, as near as we can determine. There was reference to a security code needed for further data. A rather high code, in fact.”

“Too high?” I asked.

Holly smiled indulgently. “No. I have it. But I decided not to use it.” He looked at the floor, smiled nervously. “Why bother, if I was about to get the truth for myself?”

Hm. Why indeed, Holly? Unless you didn’t really want to know. Or maybe he didn’t want to call attention to himself by invoking a high security clearance? Or unless he had no faith in getting the truth from Fleet at all…

“No faith,” Holly had said that morning. “He had no faith!”

I searched his uneasily averted gaze. Was he, superpatriot Fleet scientist, beginning to have doubts? Something was making him all a-flutter. I shuddered again. That something would be plain soon enough.

“What’s the other anomaly?” I wanted to know.

Lya shifted in her seat again. I really hated it when she did that. “Well, I’m not entirely certain there is one. It’s just that…” She gestured to the coilreel recorder beside her board. “I was able to get a coil of Holly’s experience. Some of it anyway. His vital signs—respiration, heart rate, acid level—were recorded along with Felix’s. Using what I knew about Holly’s history, I was able to filter the two apart. So we know how Felix’s body was reacting as well. Nothing unusual there. But,” she hesitated, “we also have both sets of Alpha Series brain tracks.” She hesitated again. “Felix’s were a little odd.”

“How?” I asked bluntly, not bothering to hide my rapidly growing suspicions.

“Well, the Alpha resembles, on first glance, classic textbook symptoms of schizophrenia….”

“Great,” I snarled angrily. “We’re going into the brain of a raving….”

Lya held up a hand. “On first glance, I said. The pattern, after careful study, misses at several key points.”

“Then he’s not mad?” I prompted. “Or getting there?”

She looked very uncomfortable. But she managed a little something definite in her tone. “I don’t think he is.” She looked at me, her face impassive. “I can’t be sure. But I don’t think so.”

“Then why tell me, goddammit?”

She looked genuinely surprised. “I thought you wanted to know everything?”

“Well, I don’t!” I snapped. Then to soften it, I tried a small grin. It seemed to help; she relaxed somewhat.

And then, abruptly, it was time. One last check to be sure Lya’s monitoring systems were properly keyed in. Another check to see that our deadman switches—to jerk us out in an instant—were functioning. The helmets were lowered over our heads, over our eyes.

My last glimpse was of the suit, sitting darkly beside us. It was an impulse I couldn’t seem to resist. And then…

I went…

to hell…