“No, monkey, this is vengeance!” The psychotic telepath turned his awful power on Dan’s meager defenses. “I can mow you all down and pilot this ship to your planet if I have to. Take the females for myself!”
Dan’s verbal ability was torn from him along with shreds of his higher brain functions. His frontal lobes pulsated with slashes of pain. With what little control he still possessed, Daneel Guthlac bared his teeth, raised his gun and squeezed out a neat blue shaft of light that scorched its way between the telepath’s eyes. The preternatural din died at once. Dan’s quivering husk buckled.
Hours passed and Righteous Manslaughter continued on its tumble toward the hungry orange sun. Healer-of-Hunters woke with a pounding headache and excruciating pain in his stomach. The wrecked bodies of kzintosh and Dan were tossed helter-skelter across the bridge, an occasional twitch the only sign of possible life. The faint scent of cooked brains still lingered in the recycled air.
Chief Programmer loomed ominously over him. “Can you really deliver on all your promises?”
“Yes,” Healer said, trying to get up, readying himself for another fight.
“Take it easy, Imposter. While you were unconscious we agreed to abide by Tdakar-Commander’s last order. We cleaned and bandaged your wound from the supplies in your medical pack. Your brave monkey is still out cold. Also, we checked on the kzinretti. Once we got life support working down there, the stasis field winked off.”
Healer sat on his haunches at the center of the bridge for a long while, like a hunter waiting for prey to amble by. He ignored the pain shooting through his abdomen. All this chaos had been his fault. He had a responsibility to salvage it somehow.
“Thank you, Chief Programmer. I will take my friend and go back to our ship. I can tow us to Sheathclaws with it.” Healer took careful tissue samples from the two fallen kits, then from Tdakar-Commander and Manslaughter’s Telepath. Perhaps the two bitter enemies would be reborn on Sheathclaws as allies. When Healer-of-Hunters was done, he threw Dan’s body over his shoulder like a fresh kill.
He noticed the innocuous little tray with its collection of needles. He was, in theory, a powerful telepath, the product of uncontrolled breeding (inbreeding) with the genes of two telepaths in his pride. He had no training in the Telepathic Arts, but maybe he could make up for that in raw talent. Without a moment’s hesitation, he walked to the tray, selected the largest dose of the sthondat drug and left the bridge.
Healer marched back down long twisting corridors toward his ship. The insubstantial weight of his friend was heavy on his mind. He entered the cramped bridge of Shadow’s Chariot and carefully laid Dan’s unconscious body on the command couch. Although the damage was not physical, he hooked Dan up to the barge’s autodoc.
He piloted his ship out of the hanger bay of the colossal derelict. Healer took hold of it with magnetic grapplers and began steering the wreck toward his planet. Healer-of Hunters had won. He had taken an advanced warship for Sheathclaws and mates for himself. He saved four young kzintosh from certain death. His triumph felt utterly empty. When he was sure they were on course, he administered the sthondat drug into the crook of his arm and sat next to Dan.
The Eleventh Sense burst within his skull and his awareness of the universe blossomed into pure satori. It was a near impossible task to focus on the pale, dismembered mind lying before him. He took a deep breath and set to work on the tattered mind of his only friend. He mended memories and reattached loose bits of personality. After the initial high, Healer’s body began to shiver and his fur became matted with sweat, but he continued to toil with the resolve of a dedicated physician. He diligently stitched intellect, instinct and soul as close as possible to how it had been before the attack. As the massive dose of the unfamiliar drug bled from his system, he hung on long enough to seal Dan’s mind, then fainted.
When Healer came to for the second time, his mouth was parched and his long pink tongue hung from his jaw like dried leather. He pushed himself up and waves of nausea swirled in his belly, the taste of sour, half-digested meal bricks in the back of his throat. Dan still lay unresponsive on the couch. He looked more at peace, but the doc registered no change. Had he dreamed his telepathic surgery? Healer dialed Manslaughter’s bridge, and two of the warriors, First Tech and Navigator, came on the commscreen. “What’s going on?” His booming roar came out a hoarse whisper.
“We’ve established a parking orbit around the planet,” First Tech said formally. “We’re receiving many messages from the surface, but we decided you should be the one to answer them.”
Healer-of-Hunters stood and paused a minute, letting the queasiness subside. “In a minute,” he said, and the silent juvenile waited. He switched the view to the barge’s external cameras and looked at the magnificent bruise-colored world, still new and untamed. Despite an overwhelming sense of loss, Healer’s ears weakly flitted. A young Hero could be happy down there.
ZENO’S ROULETTE
♦ ♦ ♦
David Bartell
Phase one of the mission had gone without a glitch. Phase two began in the cramped armory of the Catscratch Fever, a dark, sleek pitchfork of a ship, serial number long since removed, now in mercenary hands. Adjacent to the yawning launch tubes, Flex Bothme helped Annie Venzi wriggle into her battle armor. He knew well how to bear hug Annie’s square frame into it; not only had they worked together on a swindler’s dozen missions, but as a fellow Jinxian, Flex was built the same way, and knew the pains and pleasures of a custom suit. It was a shame to fold the wavy brown billows of her hair into a helmet, but he had to admit, she looked sexy in armor, too.
Together they ran her suit’s readiness checklist until the green light came on, then repeated the procedure on his. Flex thumped a fist on his chest, expecting Annie to return the gesture. Instead, she made a wan smile, and then punched his cubical fist in half-hearted solidarity.
“You in this?” he said, studying her hazel eyes as if they were another item on the checklist.
“I’m tired of this so-called war,” she said.
“Then you’re lucky, because the stars we earn from this job will set us up for life.” Flex, freshly thawed from near-death at Brain Freeze, was anxious to get this over with, too. It sounded like a routine affair—infiltrate a kzinti resort compound, obtain some specific intelligence, and get out. If some cats were killed in the process, well, it’s a cold universe, isn’t it? “I don’t know why the Pierson’s Puppeteers are paying so handsomely for a little intel on some exotic wormhole,” he said, “but what a break! This one’s for us.”
After he kissed her, she drew in her lips. “Just remember my terms,” she said. “Don’t kill any kittens.”
He smiled deviously. “Accidents happen.” He tore a slab of protein from a synergy bar dispenser and offered it to her. Its musky odor whispered of their past adventures, hunting for sugar shrooms on Gummidgy, making love in a floating fountain over Paris…He drew the odor in heartily, and smiled.
She wasn’t having any of it. Her expertise was kzin psychology, not felinicide. “Promise me you won’t kill the kits.”
“Look,” said Flex. “Let me tell you about your bleeding heart. When those kits grow up, your heart will bleed all over them as they unzip you from your pretty throat down to your…” He winked.
“This kitten can take care of herself.”
“That’s the only reason Zel lets us work together,” Flex said.
“All right already, time to kiss and ride!” said Zel Kickovich, the captain of the Fever. He pushed them both on the back toward the tumbler capsules where six other specialists were already sliding into place. Flex gnashed at the synergy bar, gave the rest to Annie, and they both washed it down with water from a squeeze bulb.
“Launch in thirty seconds!” Zel turned to lower the canopies onto those who were ready. “We’re picking up some positron streams along your trajectory,” he added as a parting shot, “so watch out for thunderheads.”
Flex no
dded at Zel, but Annie kept him in a locked gaze. “Promise me you won’t kill the kits.”
“All right already, I promise. Now let’s go!”
“Swear it.”
“I swear. I won’t kill the flea-bitten kits.”
Annie thumped her chest, and any doubt in Flex’s mind of her readiness fell away. He smiled and thumped, and with the aid of a pull-up bar, they hopped into their respective tumblers. Flex could no longer see Annie, though she lay not two meters away. A hoist lowered the opaque cockpit cover over his tube, and it hissed as it was squeezed into place.
In the dark space above the gravid world Meerowsk, Catscratch Fever yawed to a new attitude, ready to propel the tumblers while at the same time adjusting her orbit, thus disguising the recoil from the tumbler launch. These six tubes carried little more than enough fusion power to make safe planetfall—a controlled crash to be generous—so the initial thrust came from the ship. The tumblers would be aimed against the current orbit, which had the effect of de-orbiting them. The ship’s job was then to distract and survive, until phase three, extraction.
Extraction was going to be dicey, Flex knew. This was supposed to look like a suicide vendetta, so that if things went wrong, the kzinti would not suspect the true mission.
A loud roar shook Flex’s tumbler, and as it kicked him out of the Fever, the G forces made it feel as though he were standing upright inside the flying coffin. To a Jinxian accustomed to increased gravity, it felt good. “Tabam!” he said, a victory cry from Jinx that derived from “to be a man.”
“Tabam!” came Annie’s voice through his helmet speaker. The phrase had become unisexual, as had many such on a world where women had long been recognized as men’s equals in all things physical.
“Do you think this planet will make lucky number eleven?” Flex asked her.
“You mean ten. I don’t count Jinx, because we’re both from there.”
“Which is beside the point that we did it there, too.”
“Not to interrupt, lovebirds,” said Zel, “but what are you talking about?”
“Were going for the record of making love on the most worlds.”
“Well, this won’t be one of them. This is just an in and out mission.”
A dozen voices broke into laughter.
“On that note,” Zel said, audibly grinning, “it’s time for data silence.”
“Love and money!” was Flex’s parting shot.
“Tabam!” Annie said, and the voice com ran silent.
Six fusion tumblers pitched in unison, end over end, until they were heads up. They were quickly dropping into the atmosphere of Meerowsk. Despite the tiny size of his viewer, the images of the other tubes slicing into the stratosphere made Flex shiver. He knew exactly which one was Annie’s by the painted red diamond on it—her mark, stylized from the A and V in Annie Venzi. No doubt she was noting the X on Flex’s tumbler, so they could watch each others’ backs.
The tubes sliced through atmosphere, howling like a pack of morlocks in heat. The breaking engines came vigorously to life, roaring against the wind. Flex had no intention of letting this become a suicide mission. As an intelligence specialist, his job was to extract certain information from a certain kzin character he knew little about, and get out with it and his precious red diamond. The first challenge in avoiding suicide was to keep the tumbler from burning up. Since they were adapted from interplanetary ballistic missiles, the tumblers could not be made of indestructible material. Instead, they were made of schwartzite, a material made from asymmetric carbon crystals that had been a staple in construction in centuries past.
Annie was going in hot. Why didn’t her computer slow her down? “Annie!” Flex shouted, knowing she could not hear. She should switch to manual.
“Annie!” No change. Her engine discharge went white hot, and her tube pulled back with the others. Flex cut to manual just long enough to steer a little closer to her tube, then back to auto. She rocked her fiery tube to signal she was all right.
“Tabam!” he said.
With fusion rockets firing there was no way to see what lay below. Based on his topographic display Flex knew that they were angling in over a continent, on target for the vacation den of one Jarko-S’larbo, a rich kzin who built a reputation as a luxury resort owner. The plotted route was low and stealthy, and with some planned distractions from the Fever, they should be able to slide right into S’larbo’s backyard. The four mercenary soldiers with them were to subdue S’larbo long enough for Annie to implant a coma collar on the cat. Then they could spirit him away. Failing that, Flex’s job was to extract whatever information he could from the compound’s data systems.
The tumblers cut across the terminator and slid into night and then into clouds. Lightning flashed and crackled around them, triggering a warning alert. Usually not a problem, but Zel had mentioned positrons from the storm system…
Through the schwartzite hull, Flex heard a loud booming. Then he felt a violent rumbling as they hauled ass through storm. Another thunderclap, and more flashes.
In the stroboscopic light, Flex went manual to check on Annie. He had to roll to one side to aim a camera in her direction. He found her, red diamond against the cobalt, just in time to see a powerful bolt of lightning forking below her craft. Breaking formation, he fought the turbulence so he could keep the sensor trained on her capsule. Annie would understand his maneuver and rock her tube to show she was all right.
Her tube did not rock. The lightning did not seem to have adversely affected its engine or navigation, but the detection of positrons from orbit meant that the lightening from the storm was probably giving off gamma rays. That could cause any number of problems. The disposable tumblers had no redundant systems, since they were built for single, rapid strikes.
A signal indicated that the power landing would commence in five minutes. The tubes would pitch 180 degrees again, tails up (which really meant tails behind in this case), and cruise over the terrain like guided missiles, until final braking. Flex prayed to the closest thing he had to a goddess, Annie, that her tube would tumble properly. Meanwhile, Annie’s tube had slipped closer, and a proximity alarm sounded.
“Tanj!” Flex instinctively switched to manual, just as his tumbler moved to a safe distance automatically. He wished for daylight, so it would be easier to see his companion.
Another alarm. Again, a proximity warning. Flex steered clear, but now the two of them were veering from the group. Why didn’t she go manual? Why didn’t she rock her tube? He didn’t want to admit it, but Annie must have been hurt in the lightning hit.
It was time for the power approach, and Flex returned to auto, making sure he had a clear visual of Annie. His tube tumbled head over heels, the thruster no longer breaking. Now it accelerated him forward, low over the ground that was still hidden by darkness. Annie’s tube also turned, right on schedule, as did the others, which were now fifty-three meters away. Still manageable, but they had a lot of ground to cover before final braking.
They glided into badlands seeped in pre-dawn mist, the guidance systems keeping them low, between the hills, and then threading them through sandstone canyons and monuments that leaped from the shadows as if they were shoots seeking light. Flex’s tumbler dodged and weaved, leaving him free to scrutinize Annie’s.
Her tube was negotiating the labyrinth, so its maps and guidance were operational. But execution was sluggish—it was slow to evade on all planes. These mountains and rocks provided perfect cover for tiny personal craft to sneak in, but there was no room for the kind of slop that Annie’s tumbler was exhibiting. He watched with horror as Annie careened toward an outcropping, only to avert it at the last minute.
“Not while I’m here,” Flex said, adding a choice swear word he overheard in an isolated vacuum plant while still a boy on Jinx. That was not far from Brain Freeze, where he later learned what the word really meant.
A large stone pillar loomed ahead, and he felt his tube adjust for a tight pass. Th
at’s how this course had been charted, as a geographilic caress of the landscape. Even though they had strayed from the plan, the guidance system adjusted. He felt his thruster ease off some, but noted that Annie’s did not.
That was the problem, then. Somehow her tube was not modifying its speed properly, so its steering was wild and uncontrolled. She was going to hit that mountain.
In desperation, Flex kicked over to manual and gunned it. His tumbler shot ahead, directly toward the rock wall. He caught up with Annie and pulled alongside. With a hearty “Tabam!” he nudged over, physically knocking her tube away from the death ahead.
It worked. He saw her tube shoot off to the left, to a relatively open area. His own tube had yawed to the right, so to avoid the mountain, he had to shoot around the other side, losing sight of Annie. He found her again, this time sliding dangerously toward a rock-ribbed plain.
“Come on, Annie, wake up!” he said. “I can’t steer for both of us!”
He zipped in her direction, taxing the poor maneuverability of the tumbler. The only evident way to keep her from crashing would be to get underneath her, and jostle her upward. He straightened out in front of her and cut power. Annie’s jet was pegged, and as she passed above him he bumped her just enough to level her off. Then he allowed her to move ahead again.
“Wake up, Annie, we need you! You’re the only one who can get S’larbo out alive!” A calculated exaggeration.
Ahead, the ground sloped slowly, sinking into a verdant morass. The kzin backyard was somewhere in that jungle, and somehow he had to get them safely grounded there.
Twice, Flex kicked Annie’s tumbler this way and then nudged it that. One last time he saw the other four tumblers kilometers away. Then the green hills separated them from sight.
Trees seemed to shoot into the sky, the tumblers rising above them, Annie’s with a little kiss from Flex’s. It was impossible to steer the speeding tubes between such dense obstacles.