Bodyguard

15

“…So, given the workers’ already ambivalent feelings about the company, it’s our opinion that the existence of a toxic waste dump deep in the heart of asteroid DXA-1411 should be kept secret until such time as morale improves or the planetoid can be abandoned.”

An excerpt from a “Board Eyes Only” memo on file at Trans-Solar HQ

The next couple of weeks passed with agonizing slowness. Although Sasha seemed to rally at first, an infection set in, and her condition worsened. What had been a clean wound produced a gray-green pus that looked horrible and smelled even worse. And as her health nose-dived, so did her spirits, leaving her in a passive, almost vegetablelike state.

Doc gave it everything he had, but the medical bag was little more than a glorified first aid kit and offered few drugs to choose from. He did manage to slow the rate of deterioration, however, for which I was extremely thankful.

The artificial days dragged by. Each brought with it an endless round of sponge baths, wound cleanings, and when the kid was conscious, hand feedings.

In the meantime Sasha came and went, said weird things, and held my hand in a grip of steel. There were times when her mother seemed to be present and times when she wasn’t. Whenever she was, the two of them had long, rambling conversations that almost always left Sasha in tears. Of course, what I heard was rather one-sided, and might have been totally inaccurate, but I got the impression of a mother who wasn’t around much and had high expectations. So high that her daughter would rather give up an eye than fail to please.

But there were other times too, like when Sasha opened her remaining eye, smiled and said, “I love you,” before slipping off to the dreamy-strange world she spent so much time in. I didn’t know who she saw at that particular moment, whether it was me or someone else, but I hoped it was me, and felt warmed by the possibility that it was.

The partnership with Riler went well and prevented the others from slitting our throats while we were asleep. Our supplies ran low after a while, and he watched Sasha while Joy and I journeyed to the other end of the barge for supplies. Supplies we shared with him.

And so it went until Riler’s calculations put us only a day or two out from the asteroids: a time when the tug crew might be expected to board. I was worried about the possibility of discovery, but Riler shook his head. “Come on, Max…think it through. The tug crew knows the score and are paid to ignore our presence. They have every reason to want us off the barge before they board.”

“Maybe,” I said doubtfully, “but the guy who put us aboard was worried.”

Riler shrugged. “Maybe he cut them out, put on an act, or who knows? Main thing is they aren’t gonna bother us.”

Riler’s words made sense, but so does brotherly love, and god knows there’s damned little of that floating around the solar system. Still, Riler was proved correct when a pair of space-armored heavies appeared and offered us the only deal we were likely to get. I noticed that while their pressure suits were relatively new, they looked old and worn. Both rigs were highly personalized and bore the painted-on equivalent of tattoos, bumper stickers, and graffiti.

The bigger of the two, a guy armed with twin blasters, and with the words “Miners do it deeper” emblazoned across his chest, spoke via his external suit speaker. His partner stood back a ways, her scatter gun covering the crowd, her jaw working a wad of gum. “My name’s Quint. Welcome to the ‘roids. Anyone that wants off this bucket should gather round. Anyone that wants to stay and enroll in a two-year, all-tuition paid course in ‘roid mining can take a nap.”

With the exception of Sasha, and some of the kids, we gathered round.

Quint had brown eyes, a fist-flattened nose, and a three-day beard. The unlit cigar roamed from one side of his mouth to the other, as if searching for the perfect spot to land. He nodded, as if to say that we’d made the right decision. “Good. Okay, here’s the deal…For two thousand dollars, or the equivalent in drugs, metals, or gems, we will haul you, plus twenty-five pounds of personal gear, to a Zebra-free landing in Deep Port. Kids under twelve travel half-price. Pets, robots, or personal gear over twenty-five pounds are subject to negotiation. We’ll take ’em if weight allows. If you don’t have the money, don’t waste my time. I’ve heard every hard-luck, I-got-screwed-life-sucks sob story in the solar system and simply don’t give a shit.”

As Quint spoke, his hands drifted towards the blasters at his sides. “Now, last but not least, don’t even think about trying to grease us. You may be armed with some nasty-assed hardware, and you may be the meanest sonofabitches that ever lifted off Mother Earth, but we’ve got a ship and you ain’t going nowhere without us. Got it?”

We had it, or I did anyway, and I assumed the others did too. A line formed as people hurried to pay. Most, if not all, of our fellow stowaways had anticipated the moment and set aside money or other valuables to pay for it. Neither Sasha nor I had been quite so provident, but our work aboard the Red Trader, plus the four thousand appropriated from the poppers, had given us a modest stash. I checked to make sure there was enough and got in line. There were pauses when the people in front of me offered trade goods rather than money, but the line jerked forward with reasonable regularity, and I found myself eyeball to eyeball with Quint. He squinted. “What the hell happened to your head?”

I shrugged. “What the hell happened to your nose?”

He grinned. “I stuck it into somebody else’s business. I do that from time to time. How many bods you planning to move?”

I gave thanks that Joy was hidden in my pocket, and said, “Two, but the second one is ill, and needs some help.”

Quint nodded agreeably. “No problem, long as you can pay the five-hundred-dollar surcharge.”

Five hundred seemed like a lot of extra money. I looked for signs of weakness. There weren’t any. I could pay the freight or work in the mines. The choice was mine. I peeled the bills off my quickly dwindling roll and handed them over. Quint nodded, and his cigar bobbed up and down when he spoke. “Where’s your friend?”

I pointed towards the spot where Sasha lay. “Over there.”

Quint murmured into his throat mike, and a pair of space-suited figures came on the double. They’d been out of sight until now, and wore riot guns slung across their chests. A ready reserve in case of trouble. They were identical twins, or had been until one of them ran face first into a piece of mining equipment and forever settled the question of which one was which.

Scarface was very gentle, as if she knew what pain was all about and treated Sasha like fragile china. The kid’s dressings were due for a change, and smelled horrible, but the twins gave no sign of it. They loaded Sasha into her stretcher and did their best to make her comfortable. That’s the funny thing about goodness: it can bubble up when you least expect it, and disappear just as quickly.

The kid was only half conscious and regarded me through bleary eyes. I patted her hand, promised everything would be all right, and hoped it was true.

Everything went fairly smoothly after that. The twins carried Sasha aboard the shuttle, and I followed. The gravity created by the barge extended to Quint’s ship. Like most of the craft used out among the ‘roids, it was heavily armored, highly maneuverable, and equipped for everything under the sun. The stretcher slid into one of four recesses provided for that purpose and was clamped in place. I took a nearby seat. My duffel went underneath. Others plopped down all around me. It was then that I remembered our pressure suits and realized that I’d left them behind. I spent five seconds wondering if I should go back and decided to let it slide. It would take forever to get Sasha into a suit, so to hell with it.

The lock closed, the children were strapped in place, and the shuttle broke contact with the barge. The transition to weightlessness was almost instantaneous. I checked to make sure that Sasha was secure, saw that she was, and tightened my harness. The pilot increased power and we were on our way.

The ensuing trip lasted about eight hours, which was at least seven more than I was psychologically prepared for, and eight more than was good for the kid. Doc fought to keep her temperature down, but she continued to run a fever and her wound smelled worse than ever. Every minute was like torture, knowing her condition was deteriorating, and unable to do anything about it.

Joy escaped from my pocket and, much to the children’s delight, put on a demonstration of zero-gee gymnastics. But when Quint threatened to charge me five hundred bucks for bringing an “unauthorized passenger” aboard, I ordered the little robot into my pocket. She complained but did as she was told.

After what seemed like an eternity, Quint announced that we were closing with asteroid DXA-1411, better known as “Deep Port.” There were no windows, but I imagined a rocky planetoid, covered with impact craters, tumbling along the path it had followed for millions of years.

Most of the living quarters would be deep underground, as on Earth’s moon, so there wouldn’t be much to see except for docking facilities, zero-gee cargo storage, antenna farms, and the half-salvaged skeleton of the linear accelerator that Riler had told me about. He said it looked like a ramp and had once been used to shoot ore at waiting ships.

Minutes passed, the shuttle bumped something solid, and gravity reasserted itself. Not Earth gravity, or Mars gravity, but something in between.

I figured everyone would take off and leave me to move the kid by myself, but such was not the case. Doc stayed, as did the twins, and I had plenty of help taking Sasha in through the habitat’s lock: a lock that was labeled “For Emergency Use Only,” and clearly off the beaten track. And that was a good thing, considering the reception we got on Mars. A motorized cart and driver were waiting. I watched as the twins strapped the stretcher into place.

“Climb aboard. The driver will take you to the hospital.”

I turned to find Quint standing next to my shoulder. The ever-present cigar rolled from one side of his mouth to the other. “Thanks for the transportation.”

He shrugged. “It’s all part of the service. She looks like a nice kid. I hope she makes it.”

I looked around, hoping to enlist Doc’s help, or at least thank him, but he had disappeared. I threw my duffel in the back, took the seat next to the driver, gave Quint an optimistic thumbs-up, and held on as the cart jerked into motion. Beacons had been mounted front and back. They flashed on and off as we whirred down the corridor. The walls were made of machine-cut rock and were plugged where core samples had been taken.

We came to an intersection, paused, and took a right-hand turn. This corridor was five lanes wide. The centermost space was reserved for a monorail. The train approached from the opposite direction, roared by, and blasted us with displaced air. I had the impression of windows and hundreds of helmeted heads.

Our driver waited for a break in traffic, pulled into the fast lane, and activated his siren. It made a bleating sound, and he grinned as vehicles pulled out of the way. The driver didn’t get many opportunities to drive full out and put his boot to the floor. Rubber screeched, and I felt G forces push me against the back of my seat. Convinced that we were in at least semicompetent hands, I studied my surroundings in the hopes of learning more about our temporary home.

The first thing I noticed was the orderliness of our surroundings. There were signs of it in the lighting, the well-maintained pavement, and the graffiti-free walls. And it wasn’t that people didn’t have spray paint, because you could see where they’d used it-only to have their efforts masked by neatly applied squares of rock-gray paint.

No, the unrelenting neatness gave the impression of centralized control, of rules that couldn’t be broken, of punishments waiting to be imposed. Which, though not especially surprising in what amounted to a company town, gave the place a repressive feel, and went against my somewhat rebellious grain.

But if I missed the free-for-all atmosphere of home, I didn’t miss the trash-filled corridors, neon-lit dives, and the two-legged scum that frequented them. And speaking of scum, what about our poppers? Had they killed us, rather than the other way around, they’d be reporting in about now, and clamoring for their pay. So what would happen when the call didn’t come? When the corpies discovered that their goons had disappeared? People would come looking for us, that’s what. People with guns.

A person with a full set of brain cells might have come up with a plan, might have hatched some sort of scheme, but not me. All I could do was feel frustrated, get medical help, and hope for the best.

The cart negotiated a corner, wove between a scattering of parked vehicles, and screeched to a halt. A pair of almost identical androids hurried over. Both wore red crosses painted across their otherwise bare chests and had names stenciled on their foreheads. Fric had blood splattered on one shoulder and Frac had a faulty wrist seal. A steady stream of green fluid dribbled down his plastiflesh fingers and dripped to the pavement. He smiled reassuringly. “May we help?”

I gestured towards the stretcher. “Yes, you can. The lady is ill. Would you take her inside?”

The robots could and would. I thanked the kid, grabbed my duffel, and gave him a tip. He nodded and got some rubber as he left. Joy tried to escape from my pocket and I shoved her back in. The last thing I needed right then was a naked robot running around.

The emergency room looked like they all do. Bright lights, stainless steel, and lots of signs. The place was packed with miners. All wore loose-fitting pressure suits under filthy orange overalls. Most had bandages wrapped around their heads, splints on their legs, or other signs of injury. A few had other less obvious problems. They had a tendency to stare through the walls, their eyes slightly out of focus, as if their minds had gone someplace else. I knew how they felt.

A nurse with bushy eyebrows and hairy arms ran a scanner over Sasha’s body, peeked at her wound, and wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Hey, Doc! We’ve got a ripe one over here!”

The doc broke away from a miner and came our way. She was middle-aged, slightly plump, and more than a little crotchety. She fired questions like grenades from a launcher.

“Who are you? Who is she? What happened?” The questions came one after another, and I answered them as honestly as I could without confessing to larceny, assault, or various degrees of homicide. But the doctor didn’t care about anything unconnected with her job and downloaded me to a desk droid. He was one of those stationary models that are hard-wired to the desks they sit on. It took about twenty minutes to pump him full of phony information, hand over most of our remaining money, and work my way free of his bureaucratic grasp.

It didn’t take long for the doctor to remove the dressing, draw blood, and snap orders at the nurse. He started an I.V., injected something into the tubing, and ordered Frac to take her away. The doctor was following along behind when I tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and looked annoyed. “Yes?”

“Where are they taking her? When can I see her?”

The doctor looked me up and down. Her opinion could be seen in her watery blue eyes. “Your friend is one sick puppy. We need to open her wound, drain it, and close it again. Then, assuming things go well, she’ll be released in five or six days. You can see her during visitor’s hours tomorrow. Have you got a place for her to stay after that?”

I shook my head.

“Well, get one. And not some piece-of-shit dive, either. She’ll need time to recuperate.”

I tried to thank her but found myself talking to her back instead. Ah, well, as long as she took good care of Sasha, it hardly mattered. I watched until the gurney had disappeared from sight, hoisted my duffel, and headed for the sliding glass doors. As has been established by now, planning is not my strong suit, but the doctor had pointed me in what I hoped was the right direction. I would find a place to stay, get a job to pay for it, and wait for Sasha to get better. But, as with most things that seem simple, it wasn’t.

I passed through the sliding glass doors, followed some pedestrians towards an automated sidewalk, and climbed aboard. There were two lanes to choose from: the “arterial” lane, favored by retired mine workers, androids in need of repair, and newbies like myself; and the “express” lane, which catered to the likes of hyperactive children, robo-couriers, and amphetamine addicts, all of whom whizzed by at lightning speed. Thick, almost junglelike foliage passed to the right or left, interspersed with slower than normal waterfalls, and piped in bird sounds. It had the feel of a third-rate amusement park. Joy had made her way up to my shoulder and talked in my ear.

“Hey, boss…where we headed?”

I felt the usual sense of shame, considered a cover story, and decided to level with her instead. “I don’t have the foggiest idea.”

Joy grabbed my ear and swung out next to my face. She was naked as hell and still needed some clothes. Her voice was matter-of-fact. “Maybe I can help.”

“Yeah? How’s that?”

“Take me to a public terminal and I’ll show you.”

An elderly woman was staring at us so I stashed Joy in a pocket, waited for the next exit, and hopped off. There were some unisex rest rooms, fast-food stands, and yes, a public terminal. The only problem was the fact that a Zebra was using it. I turned my back, bought a soydog, and smothered it with chili. It tasted surprisingly good and filled the time while the Zeeb did whatever it was he was doing.

People came and went, a small maintenance bot ran over my foot, and the Zeeb stayed where he was. I bought an Americano, and was halfway through it when the Zeeb sauntered away. I hurried to replace him.

Like most kiosks, this one had a grubby, overused feel. Doodles, limericks and com numbers covered all three walls. The word “Greetings” was white against the inevitable blue background. It blinked off and on.

Joy scrambled out of my pocket and made her way to the stainless-steel shelf. The terminal was voice or keypad activated. Joy chose neither one. She winked in my direction, wet her right index finger, and shoved it into a small recess located under the screen. Most high-function androids could do the same thing, but I was impressed nonetheless. Hundreds of screens’ worth of information scrolled by during the two minutes that we stood there. I used the time to puzzle out the words printed over the terminal. “Property of Minestar, a wholly owned subsidiary of Trans-Solar Inc.”

The knowledge seeped through my body as if someone had poured ice water into my veins. I wanted to run, pull my jacket over my head, and scream all at the same time. I remained motionless instead, but cursed myself for being seven kinds of idiot, and not asking the right questions to start with.

When Joy had everything she thought she’d need, she removed her finger from the machine, blew on it, and returned the imaginary weapon to its imaginary holster. I laughed in spite of myself. Joy received the visual and auditory cues that she’d been programmed to elicit, felt whatever robots feel when they’re pleased with themselves, and cycled to the “ready” mode. It was a strange interaction, but better than none at all.

“So,” I said, moving aside to allow an impatient miner access to the terminal, “what did you learn?”

Joy sat on the palm of my hand and let her legs dangle. She smiled coyly. “What would you like to know?”

I considered what I’d learned. “I need a disguise, a job, and a place to live.”

Joy nodded as if disguises were the most natural thing in the world and squinted as if the reflection from my head might blind her. “You could wear a bandana tied around your head the way the miners do, one of those black ball caps, and let your beard grow for a couple of days.”

I nodded. “Sounds good. Where can we get that stuff?”

Joy spent part of a second canvassing her newly acquired data. “Tom’s Gear Shop is closest. Follow that autocart.”

We followed the autocart for a while, took a left down a corridor packed with side-by-side stalls, and hung a right shortly after that. I kept a sharp eye out for Zeebs, poppers, and other homicidal maniacs but didn’t see any. Tom’s was two stalls down on the right. Tom was middle-aged and decked out in some of his own finery: a dirty T-shirt, some orange overalls, and a pair of work boots. He treated us to the same suspicious stare that most people reserve for chrome-headed giants. “Welcome to Tom’s. What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for a bandana and a ball cap.”

“Big spender, huh? Well, take a look over there.”

We left five minutes later. I had to admit that between the bandana and the hat, you couldn’t see any of my telltale white hair or highly reflective scalp. Not exactly foolproof, mind you, but better than nothing. And, safely wrapped in her new saronglike bandana, Joy was a lot less noticeable as well.

We paused by a rock garden. I said, “So, how ‘bout a job?”

Joy twirled and admired her reflection in the water. “There’s an opening for a metallurgist on sub-level six.”

“Funny. Very funny. I need a real job. One I’m qualified for.”

The ensuing thirty seconds of silence signaled how many jobs I was qualified for. Finally, when I was about to give up, she spoke. “There’s one job that you’re qualified for…and the pay’s pretty good.”

I picked her up. “Really? What is it?”

She looked me in the eye. “They need a bouncer at a nightclub called Betty’s.”

It took the better part of half an hour to find Betty’s. Like most establishments of its kind, the nightclub was located in a seemingly run-down section of the asteroid known as “Old Port.” I say “seemingly,” because the seediness was somewhat calculated and about as genuine as the bird calls emanating from the surrounding jungle. And, since drinking, gambling and fornicating are often associated with night, even the street lights were kept artificially low.

There were lots of joints, lots of miners, and lots of Zeebs to keep an eye on them. I checked to make sure my bandana was in place, stepped over a drunk, and made my way down the main drag. Dealers offered me dope out of the sides of their mouths, whores signaled me with sign language as old as their profession, and everybody else got out of my way. It pays to be big sometimes.

Like its neighbors, Betty’s was housed in what had been a processing plant of some kind. Noise, light, and the smell of booze leaked out through a variety of holes and beckoned us in. We accepted. I sidestepped a pair of whacked-out miners, stepped through the swinging doors, and took a moment to check the place out.

Betty, or an interior designer from hell, had taken full advantage of what was already there. The floor consisted of not-so-smooth native rock. Huge, rusty-looking I-beams held the ceiling up. A stage consisting of odd-sized cargo modules occupied the far end of the room. A fifty-foot bar took up most of the right-hand wall. It was made of hull metal and rested on a string of clapped-out mining carts. The floor was packed with miners, spacers, dealers, pimps, whores and scam artists of every description. I noticed that the furniture was made out of metal and looked damned near indestructible. I strolled over to the bar. A human was in charge and had two robotic assistants. I waved him over. He wore a brightly flowered shirt, black suspenders, and red pants. He plucked an empty off the bar and tossed it towards a recycle bin. “Yeah? What’ll it be?”

“I’m looking for the owner or manager.”

The bartender was in his early thirties, had slightly dissipated features and a somewhat arrogant manner. “What for?”

“You need a bouncer, and I’m interested in the job.”

The bartender looked me up and down like a butcher appraising a side of beef. “You’re big…but size ain’t everything.”

“No, it isn’t,” I agreed patiently. “Can I see the owner?”

“That would be me,” a soft, rather melodious voice said. I turned to find an absolutely beautiful woman standing before me. She had black hair, black skin, and a bod that wouldn’t quit. Kind of like a full-sized, flesh-and-blood Joy, clad in a long black evening gown rather than a bandana. Her dress was covered with black sequins. They shimmered with reflected light.

I took the ball cap off and held it in my hands. “My name’s Max. I’m looking for a job.”

The woman smiled. “Good. My name’s Betty and I’m looking for a bouncer.” She held out her hand. I took it, got lost in her eyes, and barely remembered to let go. Joy climbed up on my shoulder, and Betty smiled as if seeing herself in the miniature robot.

A ruckus started on the other side of the room. A pair of men stood, exchanged words, and started to square off. Betty gestured with her head. “Fights are expensive, Max. Break it up.”

I nodded soberly, placed Joy in a pair of well-manicured hands, and made my way across the room. My goal was to get there in a short period of time but do it in a low-key, almost casual way. The usual pre-fight war of words was well under way by the time I arrived. I interrupted. “Good evening, gentlemen. Having a good time?”

The bigger of the two, a mean-looking dude with the words “Eat shit and die!” tattooed across his forehead and fists the size of miniature hams, looked me up and down. The sweet-sour stench of alcohol rolled over me as he spoke. “I’m going to rip this asshole’s head off and shove it up his ass. You got a problem with that?”

It’s always been my opinion that actions truly speak louder than words. That’s why I turned towards number two, smiled, and side-kicked number one’s left knee. Something crunched, and he went down gushing swear words.

Number two’s eyes got wide, like he couldn’t quite believe what he’d just seen, and his right fist went back in preparation for a roundhouse swing. I jerked my head to the side, let it pass, and sunk my fist into his gut. He bent over, barfed on his boots, and fell to his knees.

Pain lanced up through my right leg. I turned to find that bozo number one had sunk his teeth into my right calf. I shifted my weight to that foot, back-kicked with my left, and felt his teeth tear loose. The rest was relatively easy. I bounced number one’s head off a nearby pillar, towed him over to number two, got a grip on both their collars, and dragged them towards the door. An obliging patron helped me roll them out into the street, where the Zeebs would eventually cart them away. I thanked him and followed the path of blood and vomit back into the night club. Betty was waiting for me. Joy had taken up residence on her shoulder. The nightclub owner smiled. “Your methods are rather messy, Max. I prefer bouncers who use as little violence as possible.”

I felt my heart sink. The brain-cell shortage had surfaced again. A normal person would have used psychology, would have bullshitted the drunks out onto the street, then sent them packing. But not me, oh no, I had to kick the shit out of them, and blow off the only job I was likely to get. I looked down toward her elegantly clad feet. “Sorry.”

“On the other hand,” Betty said levelly, “talk’s cheap and doesn’t work all that often.”

I felt my spirits rise and dared to look up. She smiled encouragingly. “Tell me something, Max, is your little friend for sale? She looks like a miniature version of me.”

Joy seemed oblivious to Betty’s words and toyed with one of her diamond earrings. The thoughts plodded through my mind. I needed money, that was true, and Joy would bring a pretty price. But you don’t sell friends, even if they don’t qualify as human. I shook my head. “Sorry, but Joy was given to me by a friend, and she’s not for sale.”

Betty nodded understandingly. “Good. I like people with principles. You’re hired.”