Starrigger

2

Sonny's motel and Restaurant is just off the road-to the Groombridge 34 portal. It's rather luxurious, in an upholstered-sewerish kind of way, but the rates are relatively cheap, and the food is good. I pulled into the lot and scrammed the engine. It looked like it was early rooming, local time. I woke Darla up and told Sam to mind the store while we tried to get something to eat. The lot was crammed and I anticipated a long wait for a table. Along with the usual assortment of rigs, there were private ground vehicles in the lot, all makes and models, mostly alien-built. On Skyway, the transportation market had been cornered long ago by a handful of races, at least in this part of the galaxy, and competition was stiff for human outfits trying to wedge in.

I paused to look Sam over. We had pulled in next to a rig of Ryxxian make, a spanking new one with an aerodynamic cowling garishly decaled in gilt filigree. A custom job, a little too showy for my taste, but it made Sam look sick, bedecked as he was in road grime, impact microcraters, a botched original

emulsicoat that was coming off in flakes around his stabilizer foils, and a few dents here and there. His left-front roller sported crystallization patches all over, its variable-traction capacity just about shot. I'd been collecting spot-inspection tags on it for a good while, had a charming nosegay of them by now, courtesy of the Colonial Militia, with the promise of more lovelies yet to come. They do brighten up a glovebox.

We went into the restaurant, and sure enough, there was a god-awful long wait. Darla and I didn't have much to say while we waited; too many people about. I was almost ready to leave when the robo-hostess came for us and showed us to a booth by the window, my favorite spot in any beanery.

Things were looking up until I spotted Wilkes with a few of his "assistants" in a far comer. They had an alien with them, a Reticulan ― a Snatchganger, if I knew my Reticulans. Rikkitikkis like humans especially. We have such sensitive nerve endings, you know, and scream most satisfactorily. If he had been alone (I knew it was a male, because his pheromones reached across the room, hitting my nose as a faint whiff of turpentine and almonds), he wouldn't have lasted two minutes here or anywhere on any human world. They are free to travel the Skyway, as is any race. But they are not welcome off-road in the Terran Maze, nor are they loved in many other regions of the galaxy.

But he was with Corey Wilkes, undoubtedly on business, which afforded him some immunity. Nobody was looking at them but me and Darla. Wilkes caught sight of me, smiled, and waved as if we were at a church picnic. I gave him my best toothflash and stuck my nose in the menu.

"What are you having, Darla? It's on me."

"Let me buy you dinner once. I've been working lately."

"This is breakfast." After a moment, I took the opportunity to ask, "What have you been doing?"

"For the last month, waitressing to keep body and soul together. Before that, singing, as usual. Saloons, nightclubs. I had a really good group behind me, lots of gigs, but they threw me over for a new chanteuse. Kept my arrangements and left me with the motel tab on Xi Boo III."

"Nice." The waiter came and we ordered.

There were a few other aliens in the place. A Beta Hydran was slurping something viscous in the next booth with a human companion. Most restaurants on Skyway cater to alien trade, and that includes alien road facilities with regard to human customers. But the air of resentment against the Reticulan was palpable.

I looked around for familiar faces. Besides Wilkes, I spied Red Shaunnessey over in the corner with his partner, Pavel Korolenko. Shaunnessey winked at me. Red was vice-president of TATOO once, but came over to us when he had had enough of Wilkes. Some Guild members still distrusted him, but he had been a big help in the early days of the Guild's struggle. The fight wasn't over yet. We were still trying to wean drivers away from Wilkes when it was easier ― and safer ― for them to keep their mouths glued to TATOO'S bloated tit. I also saw Gil Tomasso and Su-Gin Chang, but they weren't looking in my direction. They were well off their usual route. A special run. Looking around again, I thought I saw a familiar face at a table near Wilkes and company, a tall, thin, patrician gentleman with a mane of white hair, but I couldn't place him. I had the feeling I knew his face from the news feeds. Probably a middle-to-upper-level Authority bureaucrat on an inspection junket.

By the time the food came, the edge had come off my appetite. If I had had any sense, I would have walked out at the first sight of Wilkes, and no one would have blamed me. But there's a primal territoriality in us all. Why should I leave? Why not him?

Red got up and came over. I introduced him to Darla, and I thought I caught a speck of recognition in his eyes. He declined a cup of sourbean, a native brew that tastes nothing like coffee and faintly like a mixture of cinnamon and iodine. He lit one of his nasty-looking cigars.

'Trouble, Jake," he said. 'Trouble all over the starslab."

I picked at my eggs Eridani. "This I know. Anything new?"

"Marty DiFlippo."

"What about her?"

"Just came over the skyband. She hit the tollbooths on Bamard's II."

That hurt. I had known Marty well ― a good woman, good driver. She could pilot a rig better than most, always on schedule, always with a smile. She had been one of the handful of charter members the Starriggers Guild could claim. I looked out the window for a moment. I had a flashing fantasy of getting lost in the riotous vegetation out there, rooting somewhere in the moist jungle earth. No more joy or sorrow, just light and water and peace. I looked back at Red. "What are the cops saying? Any witnesses?" There is no other evidence available when the cylinders swallow a person. In fact, the question was stupid, as there is no other way to prove mat it happened at all. Every year, travelers set off on Skyway and are never seen again, hundreds of them.

"There was a rig behind her when it happened," Red told me. "Said her left rear roller went out of sync on her just as she hit the commit marker. She couldn't straighten up in time, and… that was that."

"Who reported it?"

"Didn't get his name. A TATOO driver, for sure, but not one of Wilkes' torpedoes. Just an average guy. Probably had nothing to do with it." Red took a long pull of his cigar. "It could have been an accident."

"Hell of an inconvenient time for a sync loss," I said, putting down my fork. There was no chance of my eating. Darla, however, was digging in, seemingly oblivious to our conversation. "Or very convenient, depending on your point of view." I considered a possibility, then said, "We've never had witnesses before. Disappearances, no clues. How's this? A small, smokeless charge set on the traction-sync delegate ― the box is easily accessible, if you've ever looked ― detonated by remote control or by a gravitational-stress-sensitive fuse."

"Sounds plausible," Red said. "I'd go for the fuse idea, though I've never heard of one like that. The driver was treated for flash bums and gammashine exposure."

"So? Verisimilitude."

"Yeah. I see what you mean about the delegate switcher. I'd never have thought of doing it that way. Seems to me, if you wanted to send a rig out of control on cue, you'd booby-trap the pulse transformer, or something even more basic."

"Sure, but the hardware's harder to get to. Besides, all you'd be doing would be to send the rollers to their frictional base states, and they become like superslippery bald tires. Pretty hairy when you're taking a sharp curve, but on a straightaway it's really no problem. But knocking out the delegate switcher on a portal approach could be fatal. The rollers would go independent for a fraction of a second as they each go through their friction curves from base state to maximum traction until the backups cut in. I've heard of it happening. The rig goes into a dangerous fishtail, which in normal circumstances can be corrected by a good driver. But on a portal approach…"

Red nodded. "I see."

"That's why the driver thought it was the left rear. The rig probably swung its ass-end to the right. But in fact, it was all the front drive rollers coming to the peak of their grab-factor curves before the back ones did. The wind probably determined the direction of the spin, or some other factor."

Red shrugged deferentially. "You make a good case, Jake. But we'll never know."

"I know. I've been with Marty, seen her navigate a portal approach with three bad rollers in an eighty-klick-per-hour crosswind. There wasn't much that she couldn't handle, except what I suggested." Red nodded.

Now that I had won my case> I wished someone would argue me out of it. But both Red and I knew I was right. Accidents among Guild drivers were increasing, as was vandalism. Nobody was getting beaten up; that wasn't Wilkes' style.

"You got to remember, Jake," Red said to break the depressed mood, "we're still behind you. I don't know of anybody who wants to pack it in and go back to Wilkes. But if anything were to happen to you… well, merle." He spat out a flake of precious earth-grown tobacco. (Those stogies of his must have cost fifty UTCs apiece.) "The Guild would be finished, that's all there is to it. At least it would be as a workable alternative for the average independent starrigger." He leaned back and shot out an acrid plume of smoke. "Tell me, Jake. Why are you still on the road? With your salary as president, why, you could―"

"Salary? I've heard of the notion. I think I've cashed two paychecks so far. The third's still in the glovebox, where it goes bouncy, bouncy, bouncy."

Red was surprised. "Really? I didn't know." "Besides, there's Sam. I couldn't very well sell my own father, could I?"

Red didn't comment, just looked at his cigar. Something thin with watery blue eyes was tapping me on the shoulder. One of Wilkes' gunsels.

"Mr. Wilkes would like to see you, if you please, sir." Red coughed once and looked at his watch. "Jake, I'd stay, but we gotta roll. I don't think he'll give you any trouble here."

"Sure, Red. Sure. See you around."

Wilkes' table was over against the far wall. Besides him, and the Rikkitikki, there were three gunsels, including the one who'd fetched me. I didn't like the odds, but it was unlikely that Wilkes would start anything in a crowded restaurant- or so I thought. I tend to think too much.

He was playing with the last few crumbs of an omelette, smiling at me, those curious gray teeth sliding around behind thin lips ― he had a way of working his mouth constantly, a tic, I believed. He wasn't an unattractive man. Long blond hair, broad features, eyes of cold green fire, all mounted on a powerful frame. A natty dresser, as well. His kelly-green velvet jerkin was tailored and was in fact very tasteful, going especially well with the white puffed-sleeve blouse.

"Jacob, Jacob, Jacob," he sang wistfully, still smiling. "Good to see you, Jake. Have a seat. Get him a seat, Brucie."

"No, thanks, Corey," I told him. Brucie had made no move. "I'll stand. What's on your mind?"

"Why, nothing." Surprised innocence. He was good at it, but he overplayed it a bit. Was he nervous? "Nothing at all. Just enjoying a good meal in a good restaurant ― a little disappointed when you and your lady friend didn't join us, that's all. You really should observe more of the social amenities, Jake. Oh, I realize your diamond-in-the-rough sort of charm goes a long way, especially with women, but when you see a friend across the room when you're dining out ― well…" He was gracious in dismissing the matter. "But I don't take offense easily. You're probably in a hurry, right? Behind schedule?"

"I don't like looking at vomit when I eat, that's all."

It didn't ruffle him. He grinned through the rather indelicate hiatus in the conversation, then said, implacably, "You have a certain directness of expression that I admire, Jake, but that remark was a bit too blunt. Don't you think? But… then, I should know better than to try and stroke you."

"Was that what you were doing?"

"Oh, twitting you a little, I'll be honest. But I really do want to talk, Jake. I think we should, finally."

"Why, whatever about?" It was my turn to be catty.

"Shoes and ships, Jacob." He waved to the far reaches of the universe. "Things. Things in general."

"Uh huh. But out of the totality of existence, there must be something specific."

"Absolutely right." The constant smile turned extraordinarily benevolent. "Sure you won't sit, Jake?"

"Forget it."

"Fine." He lit a small, thin cigarette wrapped in paper of bright pink, blew smoke toward me. The aroma was sweet, perfumelike. "What say we merge our respective outfits? That's right. Don't drop your jaw too low, Jake, the busboys will use it as a dustpan. Starriggers Guild and Transcolonial Association of Truck Owner-Operators. Together. Hyphenate 'em, or come up with a new name, I don't care. Why continue the war any longer? It's unprofitable, destructively competitive… and frankly, I'm rather tired of it." The smile was gone, replaced by Honest Concern. "A marriage is what I'm proposing." "Why, Corey. This is so sudden." His face split again. "You know, you're not as rough around the edges as you let on, Jacob. Whenever we get together, I kind of enjoy the repartee. The parry, the riposte, the barbs lovingly honed―" He blinked. "But I'm serious."

I stood there, debating whether I should just spit and walk away, or go through the motions with him. I couldn't figure out why he was doing this.

"Excuse me, Misterrr Jake," the Reticulan trilled through his mandibles. "I wonderrr if I could inquirrre as to the identity of the female perrrson with whom you are associating?" "What's it to you, Ant Face?"

I find it difficult, if not impossible, to read an alien visage for emotions. Apparently the insult had had no effect, but I couldn't be sure. I had never before dealt with Rikkis. The mandibles kept clicking in and out in that unnerving sewing-machine motion. Reticulans don't really look like ants, don't even have bug-eyes ― you would swear that they wore glasses shaped like a set of zoom camera lenses, and you'd be right, except that they can't take them off ― but Rikkis do appear insectoid at first glance, being exoskeletal.

Who knows? Maybe all Reticulans aren't bad. To be fair, it doesn't help that their appearance happens to resonate with images of chitinous horror that scrabble around in the basement of our racial unconscious. The question, however, was: Why was Wilkes presenting me, if indeed he was, with this… being? To threaten me? Did he actually think I'd be scared? Give in? Why now, after all this time?

"Now, now," Wilkes said gently. "We don't want an interplanetary incident. I'm sure Twrrrll's question was all in innocence. Did you recognize her, Twrrril?"

"Prrrecisely. I did not mean to imply an interest in the female perrrson. If I have brrroken some… taboo, is this correct? If I have violated some taboo by inquirrring, I am verrry sorrry."

Did everyone know the waif but me?

The alien knew exactly what he was doing.

"Okay, okay," I said testily. "About this merger―"

"There, you see? Paranoia. Jake. Paranoia. It kills us all in the end. We think ourselves into an early grave. Worry, tear ― the etiological root of all disease." Two beats, then again. "About this merger." "What would it hurt to consider it? Think it over. Stubborn as you are, you've finally got to admit to yourself that the Guild is on borrowed time. More and more drivers are coming back over to us."

A lie. Everyone with a notion to break and run had done so long before. But he was right in the sense that there were damn few of us left.

"They've added up the pros and cons, come to final tally," Wilkes went on. "TATOO'S better for them all around. A dozen new signatories to the Revised Basic Contract this month, with more to come. Oh, sure, the terms of the Guild's Basic are a little better, in some areas. I'll grant you that. But it doesn't mean very much when you can count the Guild's signatories on six fingers."

"Five," I corrected him. "Combined Hydran Industries reneged and went over to you last week."

Wilkes rested his case with a casual motion of the hand. "Need I say more?"

I certainly had no need to say more. I was watching the faces of the three stooges, looking for clues. The one who had come for me looked antsy, darting eyes around the room. From that I got the hint that something could be up. It still seemed unlikely.

Wilkes had been waiting for me to respond, gave it up and said, "Oh, come on, Jake. The Guild is nothing more than a shell, if it was ever anything more. Can't you see? It's served its purpose. You've shown me the reservoir of discontent among the membership, and we're responding, believe me. Have you read the Revised Basic? I mean, have you really sat down and gone over it, clause by clause?"

"I don't have much time for light reading, I'm afraid."

A point scored, an acknowledgment via an upward curl of one end of his mouth. "You really should," he said quietly.

"What's in it for me?" I asked, sailing with the wind just for the hell of it.

It genuinely surprised him. "Well," he said with an expansive shrug, "uh… Interlocal Business Agent? For life? Name the salary." It was a hasty improvisation, and he waited for my reaction. "Hell, Jake, I don't know What do you want?"

"For you to bloody well leave us alone. It's that simple."

I erased that with a swipe of my hand. "Pardon me, it's not that simple anymore. You're going to answer for Marty DiFlippo, Wilkes. If I have to scrape myself off the side of a cylinder and come back to do it, I will. But I will make you answer for her. And for the others." Conversations lulled at nearby tables.

"Okay, Jake. Okay." His voice was colorless, small. I backstepped twice, but stopped. "One more thing. If the

Guild is doomed anyway, why are you so hot to mate with us?" I wanted an answer. "Why, Corey?"

"Because it annoys me." I suspect it was his first ingenuous remark of the whole exchange. Amused by the novelty, he continued, "Your recent attempts at retaliation annoy me, too."

"What?" This was news.

"You're denying it? Don't insult my intelligence, Jake. I've had loads lifted, rigs sabotaged, deals queered. Nothing major, you understand. But it irks me."

I had heard about the recent increase in hijackings and the like. I attributed it to free-lance skywaymen, as did the media. We had no muscle to bring to bear on him. The injustice of the charge seared the back of my throat.

"Jake, you're a strange man," Wilkes went on, resuming his usual inflected, lyrical style. "There's a kind of… a certain Heisenbergian uncertainty about you. An elusiveness. Hard to pin you down. We've been having trouble keeping track of your movements recently. I get a report that you're somewhere, then get another that says you were somewhere else entirely at the very same time. A slippery electron, Jake. Difficult to determine both its position and momentum at once. One or the other, but not both. And the stories."

"Stories?" "The strange tales I've been nearing about you. Fascinating, if they're true. Especially the one about the―"

"Look, Corey," I said, cutting him off, "it's been nice. Really nice. But I'd like to go salvage a meal. Thanks for the offer."

And at my back I heard, "You'll never get out of Mach City, Jake."

I stopped, turned, and delivered an obscenity.

He laughed. "In fact, what makes you think I couldn't take you out right now?"

The three gunsels were eye-riveting me.

"Don't think you're safe in a public place," Wilkes warned, eyes narrowed to slits. "By the way, I own this dump. Silent partner. The help would back me up. Witnesses."

"And the customers?"

"Are you kidding? They'll stampede as soon as you go down."

The restaurant was awfully quiet. Wilkes could have been blustering, but I was worried. They had me, if they wanted me.

"Corey, I wouldn't put it past you, but it'd be just a bit too messy for your taste. Hearings, depositions. Not your style."

I decided to call his bluff, which was the only thing I could do. I turned, but let my peripheral vision sweep behind me, and in doing so caught movement. The pale-eyed slug was reaching under the table.

I spun, but the boy was fast. He had probably had the gun in his lap the whole time. It was leveled at me, and he was grinning, but he didn't fire. My squib was halfway out from under the cuff of my jacket. I dropped, but there was no cover near.

Perhaps three quarters of a second had elapsed when the boy's hand and the gun in it went up in a blue-white ball of flame. The shot had come from across the room.

The alien and the other two had delayed reacting, for the sake of form, I supposed. It would have looked better in the report if only two combatants had been involved ― besides, their buddy had had me beaten. Now they pushed the table over and ducked down behind. Everyone in the place thought it an excellent idea. The restaurant exploded as chairs, food, dishes, tables went everywhere.

My squib was finally out, having gotten snagged in a fold of my shirt, and I drew a bead on Wilkes' forehead.

"Hold it!" "Drop 'em!" Two voices off to the right.

I couldn't see who it was. Wilkes suddenly- threw up his hands. He still sat there, as if a spectator. "All right! All right!" he yelled.

The pale-eyed one was sitting there too, eyes popped with horror as he watched a gob of melting flesh slither from the charred claw that had been his hand. He started to scream, the whimpering, surprised scream that comes from a sadist unused to the business-end of pain.

I got up. The place was silent, save for the gunsel's warblings. The alien and the other two rose, the humans with their hands in the air, the Reticulan with his forelimbs crossed in front of him, sign of submission.

I chanced a look to the right. Tomasso and Chang were down behind chairs, guns drawn and aimed at Wilkes. I backed away toward them.

"Nice shooting," I said to Chang.

"It wasn't me." He inclined his head to our rear. I looked back and was astonished to see Darla crouched down, holding a monster of a Walther 20kw on the proceedings.

"All right, people."

I looked around the loom. About four other people had guns drawn. The man who had spoken was immediately to my left. I knew none of them.

"You," the man said to me. "You leave. We'll entertain this group while you're doing it. We'll give you five minutes. Then we'll let 'em go. The humans, that is. The bug we might fry for lunch."

"Thanks."

We all backpedaled our way out after Tomasso had poked his head out me front door and yelled that it was clear. In the interim, I got out my key and buzzed Sam, told him to pick us up on the road about a block away.

Out in the lot, I thanked Tomasso and Chang, told them their dues were taken care of for the rest of the year.

"Hell, we're paid up!" Tomasso complained.

"Next year!"

Darla and I ducked into the brush bordering the lot. The undergrowth was tangled, but we made it with a little help from Darla's blunderbuss. When we reached the road, Sam was there, and we piled in.