Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 14 - Assignment Hellhole

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The Shadow Was Gone. Allcinni changed her mind fast enough. It was her own

special peripheral vision that saved her, when movement caught her

eye-movement in a doorway ten meters away. She had turned halfway around when

she knew what she was seeing: a man leveling a weapon. Reflexes took over.

Without finishing the turn, she threw her go-bag. And an eye-searing light

flooded the corridor as a plasmer beam reduced the flying satchel to

rapidly-diffusing molecules and a few charred bits large enough to fall. Lord

of Light-he's using a pulsar beamer! Already she was snatching up and throwing

her boots. She drove herself after them while they were still in the air. One

boot smacked heel-first into Shadow's forehead. His next shot, incredibly, was

a stopper beam, aimed for Aianni's head . . . SPACEWAYS #1 OF ALIEN

BONDAGE #2 CORUNDUM'S WOMAN #3 ESCAPE FROM MACHO #4 SATANA ENSLAVED #5

MASTER OF MISFIT #6 PURRFECT PLUNDER #7 THE MANHUNTRESS #8 UNDER TWIN

SUNS #9 IN QUEST OF QALARA #10 THE YOKE OF SHEN #11 THE ICEWORLD

CONNECTION #12 STAR SLAVER #13 JONUTA RISING! #14 ASSIGNMENT:

by Ann Morris; used by permission of the author. SPACEWAYS #14: ASSIGNMENT:

HELLHOLE A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author PRINTING

1983 by John Cleve. Cover illustration by Ken Barr. This book may not be

reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without

permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison

Avenue, New York, New York, 10016. ISBN: 0-425-06407-7 A BERKLEY BOOK (r) TM

757,375 The name "BERKLEY" and the stylized "B" with design are trademarks

belonging to Berkley Publishing Corporation. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF

AMERICA for the Atlanta Connection, Jeff & Kathy A: All planets are not

shown. B: Map is not to scale, because of the vast distances between

stars. SCARLET HILLS Alas, fair ones, my time has come. I must depart your

lovely home- Seek the bounds of this galaxy To find what lies

beyond. (chorus) Scarlet hills and amber skies, Gentlebeings with loving

eyes; All these I leave to search for a dream That will cure the wand'rer in

me. You say it must be glamorous For those who travel out through space. You

know not the dark, endless night Nor the solitude we face. (reprise

chorus) I know not of my journey's end Nor the time nor toll it will have me

spend. But I must see what I've never seen And know what I've never

known. Scarlet hills and amber skies, Gentlebeings with loving eyes; All

these I leave to search for a dream That will cure the wand'rer in me. -Ann

Morris Cults come and go. They've been coming and going for too many

thousands of years. They're better when they are going, and humanity is a lot

better off then, too. -Carnadyne of Iceworld TGO or not TGO, that is the

answer. -Trafalgar Cuw 1 Alanni Keor drove the tractor onto the dike at the

south end of the greaseroot paddy. She kept going until the seeder fell into

place at the end of its hitch behind the tractor. By the time she could stop

the rig with everything on solid ground, she was nearly out of dike. The day

was warm, though not quite hot. The work certainly wasn't as bad as it would

be when the greaseroot started sprouting-adding stink to heat. Damp, Alanni

slid down off the tractor's seat, pulled off her broad-brimmed skulkerhide

hat, and fanned herself with it. Then she ran a finger down the front of her

shirt, opening it halfway to the waist. That action revealed nothing much that

hadn't showed before. The shirt was cut low to begin with and Alanni was so

constructed that she couldn't hide her contours in less than fur or a

spacesuit-and not always in those. There came no sudden sag, either. Alanni

didn't, except in gravity much heavier than this; Eagle's .96-standard. Anyone

who tried picking her up quickly understood why. He'd be lifting a compact

package wrapped neatly in cinnamon-colored skin and weighing a surprising

sixty-five kilos.* Her shoulders were wide and her ribcage deep for her 170

sems, and everything else was in proportion. And in fighting shape, too.

Alanni weighed maybe five kilos more now than she had as a TSA policer, and

she liked herself this way. (A little extra jiggle had its points-two in *65

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kilograms; about 143 pounds, Old Style. 1 2 front, notably-as well as its

curves.) Beneath was muscle, as a few people had discovered when they tried to

pick her up with unfriendly intent. It was a discovery that those who survived

didn't need to make twice. Now she pulled the chillpack from under the tractor

seat and unhooked the transmitter for the farm's remotes from the control

panel. The transmitter went on her belt while she popped the seal on the

pak. She nearly choked on the first swig, but giggled on the second. Dear

ingenious Bouncy! He'd filled the pak with ice-cold Starflare beer imported

from Thebanis, then sealed it so tightly that the brew hadn't been able to go

flat. Starflare outpointed water about six to one any time! Even more, out in

the field. Alanni didn't hang up the pak until it was empty. Wiping her mouth

with the back of one hand, she pressed a button on the transmitter with the

other. The antenna shot out half a meter. Quick touches of four buttons set

the frequency. Another touch-at Transmit this time-and the receiver on the

automatic sluicegates at the north end of the paddy would "hear" her signal.

The gates would open and water from the irrigation canal would commence

flooding the paddy, submerging the newly planted greaseroot seeds and

triggering the enzymes that made them fertile. The delicate operation divided

the good greaseroot farmers from the bad. Also, usually, those who made a

living frora those who wound up selling out and moving to Starlight-the

planetary capital-or Braca's Landing. Let the paddy dry out too soon, and the

seeds would turn to stone-hard little husks. Taint the water with some

chemical that wasn't supposed to be there, and the roots would produce

low-grade or contaminated oil. Farming had grown a lot more technological, but

little easier over the centuries. Greaseroot oil was about the best vegetable

lubricant around. Otherwise the Eaglers would probably have left the plant as

what it was when the first expedition hit the planet-a weed that choked swamps

and crowded out food crops. They hadn't. They had made it pay. Now greaseroot

farmers gave Eagle half its offplanet trade income. (They also saved it the

need of 3 any sort of petrochemical industry; low-grade greaseroot oil proved

readily usable in making plastic.) Now greaseroot farmers were the aristocrats

of the countryside of planet Eagle of the Tri-System Accord, and no one

seriously argued that it should be any other way. Right now Alanni Keor didn't

feel like an aristocrat. She felt hot and still thirsty, not to mention unsure

as to how long to leave the sluicegates open. The weather people reading the

satellites said the gahmsin wind was ten days away. Alanni was a greaseroot

farmer's daughter who had no link to weathersats but who read the sky and the

feel of the breeze on her skin. They told her the gahmsin was overdue, and a

couple of sems too little water might bake the paddy dry. She looked up at the

bronze-tinted blue sky, shading her eyes against Posidonios's glare. That's

when the tractor radio said wheee-eep! The signal sounded so much like

Bouncy's vocal call that Alanni half expected to see it rising out of the

ground or floating down from the sky. The Jarp had been a domestic servant

when it was a slave, and learned to move so silently that its mistress usually

forgot it was there. (That was how Bouncy had gained its freedom, too. Bouncy

heard something to connect its lady-mistress with bribes to greaseroot

inspectors. That something got to Lieutenant Alanni Keor, Tri-System Police.

She agreed to leave the lady's name out of the indictment-in return for her

freeing Bouncy.) (Alanni didn't like slavery or slavers very much.) The sound

was only the radio this time. Her other junior partner was

calling. (Jaykennador Eks of Outreach was a retired computer-software thief.

Captain Alanni Keor, T-SP, had left his name out of another indictment. Her

thinking was that with one more chance he might get up the courage to go

straight. So far she'd been proven right.) " 'Lanni. Jay here. Tilno just

called. Says he has a message for you." "Message? Who from?" "He didn't

say." "Tell him to get on the tractor's frequency. It's-" "I already did. He

says the message is confidential." 4 "Sweet of him. Did he say anything

useful, Jay?" "Pos. He's on his way over here." "Is he! Well, give him a

parking space and a drink, and tell him he's going to have to wait. If he

takes that Hummingbird onto the dikes again, I swear I'll run the tractor over

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it!" Jaykennador laughed. He must remember as well as Alanni the damage

Tilno's elegant little car had done to the dike's top the last time he'd

wanted ,to see her. "Pos, 'Lanni. Anything else?" "Sit on any more calls," she

said sourly. "I don't care if it's a proposition from the First Councillor of

the TSA. I'm not home and you don't know when I will be." "Will do. End

transmission." "Uh." Alanni flexed tight shoulder muscles. If Tilno had

something so confidential he wouldn't transmit it, it was either another

proposal of marriage or something she didn't want to try imagining right now.

Not with a greaseroot paddy holding a third of the year's income in need of

water. She looked at the sky again. Squinting, she made out a peach-colored

haze on the southern horizon. Too light for what her father's generation

called the Gahmsin's Scouts, but still ... Thirty sems of water should do it,

she decided. A person could sometimes add more if she had to. With too much,

the greaseroot was done and so was she. She sighted on the marker pole, made a

couple of gestures of aversion (which was as close to praying as she came),

and punched the Transmit key. Twenty minutes later Alanni's father would have

been proud of her. She was even pretty proud of herself. She was just backing

the seeder into the garage when Jay stuck his head out the window of the farm

office. "Gahmsin's on the way. They just broadcast the word. Sounded a little

ashamed of themselves, too." "Kali take me if they shouldn't!" Alanni turned

off the tractor's engine. "Tilno in sight yet?" "Neg." "Good. I'm going to

shower and change. If he comes before I'm through, plant him by the

pool." 5 "Will do." Alanni headed for the house. Originally the place was a

rich merchant's country retreat. It possessed a few features one hardly

expected on a working farm-the pool, for instance. Also a master suite with

opaquable windoors opening onto a balcony, and a spiral staircase from the

balcony down to the pool. Balcony, staircase, and the suite's paneling were

all exotic woods from at least a dozen different planets. Alanni discovered a

new one about once a month. Most of the other luxuries were the kind that

showed money rather than good taste. All had come with the house- once the

merchant went bankrupt and had to sell out-and most of them left immediately.

Alanni cleared half a year's income on the sale, although she'd been tempted

to use some of the intriguingly distasteful furniture and rugs for landfill.

She still couldn't forget the bow-curved divan, with what must have been

intended as erotic carvings all over it. She and Tilno had tried to soar on it

only once. He'd got the droops and hadn't recovered until they had pulled the

cushions off onto the floor and tried again. Thinking of Tilno brought back

the question of why he was coming over. She scanned it from several angles

while she climbed the stairs and from several more as she broke clothing

melds, dumped the sweaty clothes and climbed into the shower. She really hoped

he wasn't coming to propose again. That would make five times. She wanted to

think better of Tilno than she could of a man who couldn't take five no's as

an answer. Or maybe he thought he could change her mind if he kept nibbling

away at her like a root-grubber? That would be even worse. And there's another

question too, O woman of pride. What is it, O ill-natured not-still-enough

inner voice of so-called wisdom? Why won't you marry him? Because he's

grateful to me, damn it. Oh? What's wrong with that? When you broke up the

Gryphon's House gang, you let his son go. The boy was just 6 along for the

fun, you thought-and it seems you were right. The man should be grateful! He

is. He's also interesting to look at, intelligent, witty, charming, rich, no

more than half again your age, and incredibly sexy. Good at it, too. The

showering Alanni rolled her eyes and this time answered that mental "voice"

aloud: "Don't remind me about that!" Her plea was much too late. The water

trickling down her belly and between her thighs suddenly took on the feel of

Tilno's mouth. Those lips had often followed the same path. She growled low

and far back in her throat, knowing that her nipples were hardening, and swore

at her inner voice. He's all of those things, true, but he's not in love with

me. At least not enough really to want me around all the time, day and

night. That's important? Yes, you idiot! Lord of Light, I asked for a

conscience and what did you send me? No, don't answer that! If I don't know by

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now I never will. And you might not want him around all day and night

either? Suddenly her Voice was saying something useful. Alanni realized she

really didn't like the idea of the way she used most of her time depending on

another person. Tilno wouldn't be whimsical or cruel or selfish, but he would

have his own notions on the subject. Alanni wasn't sure she could live with

anyone's notions, now. Of course with the T-SP she had hardly been sole ruler

of her time. Far from it. She had also been doing fascinating work, though,

that gave her a sense of purpose. She wasn't ruler of her own time on the

farm, either. Still, weather and grubs and jammed sluicegates (not often,

since Jay was a first-class maintenance tech) weren't the same as another

person. She hadn't realized until now just how great the difference would

be. Maybe the not-so-still small voice had a point. She should have realized

it. Why hadn't she? 7 Because Tilno is a change, and you're getting bored with

retirement to the farm. Bored? Bored-and don't play daughter of the soil with

me, little falcon! By degrees the voice in her mind took on a personality;

until it was the voice of Prefect Kilwar, dismissing her from T-SP for

practicing her own notions of justice too often. "You gave us a third of your

life, 'Lanni, and you gave yourself a fine name. You might have ended up in my

chair. I'd have been glad to let you sit down in it, too. That's not the way

it's going to be, though. You said you are actually going to take your pension

and bonus and buy a farm?" "Pos." "Well, if you can regrow your old roots in

Eagle's soil, that might be the best thing for you and for us. The Lord of

Light knows none of us wishes you harm. Yet if you've been away from the farm

too long, and find you can't go home again ..." The prefect seemed to lose

either the thread of his words or the nerve to finish them. "Pos. If I find

that I can't go home again-?" "The moment you know that, 'Lanni, get moving.

Don't stay married to the land until they plow you under it." He'd bent across

the desk then, and for the first time kissed her with more than professional

respect. Now it was three years-Eagle later and the moment was here. She

wasn't just bored. She felt stale, except when she and Tilno trysted, sliced,

soared. That would be ah even worse reason for marrying him than any of his

reasons for wanting to marry her. The Voice was silent now, and Alanni was

grateful. It had -brought her this far, then left her to make her own way. She

would have to, although she'd be cursed if she knew where it would

end! Meanwhile there's a crop to raise and a farm to run and Tilno to

entertain and generally no excuse for sittin' and feelin' sorry for myself.

She overrode the shower's program and turned it to full COLD. That should get

her mind off memories of soaring with Tilno! 2 Myths about cold showers die

hard. So does a good case of garden variety lust. By the time Alanni stepped

out of the shower, she wasn't sure whether her nipples were hard with the cold

or firm from thinking about Tilno. That was all the progress she'd made, aside

from the gooseflesh. The vibroset on the bed gave her an all-over massage and

rubbed oil into her skin at the same time. When it shut off, she sprayed the

soles of her feet deep violet, then lay back on the bed and waved her legs in

the air to dry the coloring. It occurred to her and she grinned: this pose and

action would be incredibly obscene from the right angle. A few twinges in her

thighs made her swear for the fiftieth time to go back to her combat

exercises. Farmwork kept the muscles in fair shape, but she liked the way she

had felt in the T-SP. She'd been able to take on some of the combat

instructors and roll them up in their own mats. Back then, she reflected, and

made a face. She rose to dress. A reelsilk wraparound from waist to ankles,

green with a decor of golden chinthes. Nothing under the wraparound and

nothing above it except a pair of wildman blooms-one on each breast just above

the nipple. The long trailing crimson petals pretended just enough modesty to

make a man wish for less of it. Her midnight hair went up on top of her head

to be held in place by a silver comb set with freshwater pearls from planet

Hellhole. It wasn't her best comb or her best decoration, but it was the first

gift Tilno had given her. 8 9 Just because I'm not going to marry the man

doesn't mean I have to pretend I don't like him at all! She glanced over at

the mirror she had decided to keep along with a few other of the house's

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original furnishings. Round, it was set in the center of a Mandelbrot-Meiku

mandala; fractal art in six colors and eleven hues. It always looked just on

the point of starting to spin. Alanni added the final touch to her own

decoration: bracelets of raw filigreed copper on both wrists. They came from

the top drawer of her jewelry box. (The contents of its lower drawer were

rather less ornamental. One bracelet there could hide a short knife, another

shurikens- the throwing stars almost deified on Terasaki. A twist of the

weighted blue stone on the third and it sprouted a length of monofilament

wire, with the stone as weight. Alanni could wrap it around someone's neck

with a practiced whip of her arm and wrist-and had. The delicate-looking

silver slave-style bracelet stiffened her wrist should she use old-fashioned

chemical-explosive weaponry with their heavy recoil.) (Sometimes she wondered

why she kept her combat jewelry. It seemed incredible that she would ever want

or need to use it again as other than decoration. Magic, maybe-so long as she

kept it, somehow the good hard policer she had been wouldn't disappear

completely into the rich soil of the farm.) By the time Alanni got down to the

pool, Tilno had not only arrived, he looked as if he'd grown roots in the

inflatable lounger. His boots and high-collared tunic were off and his shirt

was open halfway down his chest. One long-fingered hand curled around a

half-empty drinking plass of frosty blue. Now it bore real frost, too. Only

two things about Tilno weren't long and thin, and only one showed when he was

more or less fully dressed-the beard. He finger-combed a few drops of juice

out of that thick dark nest on his chin, set the plass down, and thrust

himself leggily to his feet to kiss Alanni. Then he stepped back and held her

admiringly at arm's length. "What's this? Queen of the Lost Colony?" Alanni

wrinkled her nose. "Tigere Sanyana I'm not." "Thank the Light! I don't care

how much gene-juggling 10 they do on those holomeller stashes. There's got to

be a line drawn somewhere as to just how much chest a woman can flaunt and

still stand up! You're on the right side of the line." A finger gently ran up

each proof of that fact to her bare shoulders. Alanni waited for the fingers

to glide back down again and continue their travels. Most of the time Tilno

was as sensitive to pheromones as a human could be. She had to be registering

on him, she thought. Instead he squeezed her shoulders and dropped his hands.

He picked up the pitcher and poured her glass full. "Sit down, 'Lanni. We have

problems." "What do you mean, we?" If that's his idea of an opening to a

proposal- "Fm in it because I volunteered to play messenger. We." "I won't

know whether that's a problem until I've heard the message." She took a

massive swig from her plass, knowing without caring that she looked as if she

was bracing herself for bad news. "Have you ever heard of the Invisible

Wisdom, 'Lanni?" Although that wasn't the question she had expected, it was

one she could answer. "Uh. An archeological find from the Empire period, isn't

it. A crystalline cube about thirty sems on a side and weighing-oh, fourteen

kilos. Completely invisible except under certain lighting conditions. They

mounted it in a prass frame with a handle so it wouldn't get lost easily.

Definitely non-Galactic in origin. One theory is that it's a giant memory chip

from a long-lost race's super computer, so they didn't try anything

destructive on it. For about the past century it's been treated more or less

as an expensive curiosity. The last I heard, it was on Ghanj." "You're up to

date, 'Lanni, except for the last. Now it's out on Hellhole, in the Master

House of the Brotherhood of Servants of Tarf al-Barahut." "The cult?" she

asked, prodding a hazy memory. "Firm. They think the Invisible Wisdom holds a

message that will prove they know the One True Way." "Very good. As long as

the Brotherhood stays on Hellhole and I stay on Eagle, I don't care what they

have or don't have." "There you're out of luck," Tilno said, and she

watched 11 him sigh. "Someone on Eagle wants the Invisible Wisdom for his art

collection. Someone who can make the TSA cooperate. Someone who can make both

the Tri-System planets and T-SP finger you for the job, 'Lanni ... the job of

going out to Hellhole and bringing the Invisible Wisdom back here to

Eagle." Alanni managed not to say "Oh shit" and this time she had enough pride

not to gulp her drink. She took a small sip and found that her throat was

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closing against any more. She wasn't sure what her stomach would do,

either. She set the drink down with a clonk of the colored plass. "Fourth

Councillor Nortay." Tilno's eyebrows tipped up at an angle until they formed a

shallow V. She knew what that meant: You're right but I can't admit it. "So. I

guess I'm not all that surprised, but why me? Why not one of the professional

criminals the Council certainly has a line on, or an offplanet

pirate-for-hire? Sounds like just the right kind of job for Shieda, for

instance." The V grew deeper, which meant something really bad coming.

"Alanni," he said formally, "because Nortay doesn't have any kind of hold on

any of them, including fat Shieda, the way he has on you." Alanni couldn't

have lived with a long silence, and so pushed the words any which way. "If I

don't go it's my pension and bonus, maybe everything in my account ..." She

hushed herself, knowing she could stand silence better than seeming

hysterical. Tilno was nodding. "You'd be stripped bare, including the farm.

They might not stop there, either." Prosecution for her "abuse of discretion"

back when she was a T-SP officer? No doubt, but- "They wouldn't need to go

further," she said, terribly quietly. If she lost the farm, what would happen

to Jay and Bouncy? Bouncy was free, but Bouncy was also a Jarp. Jarps weren't

all that popular-except as slaves-because their sexuality and differentness

made too many people feel uncomfortable. Jarps with no money had been known to

be found guilty of 12 something or other that carried a sentence of slavery.

Some had had to sell themselves, to avoid starving. Jaykennador of course was

human. He was also an ex-criminal. That could be as big a weak spot as being a

Jarp, if one had a powerful enemy. If I told Councillor Nortay to go bugger

himself, Jay would have just that: a mighty powerful enemy. Jaykennador Eks of

Outreach hadn't been away from the dubious pleasures of the criminal's life

quite long enough for Alanni's peace of mind. He just might decide that being

straight wasn't worth the trouble, with adversity piled on. Alanni sighed. She

had taken on obligations she could not walk away from. Now she'd just have to

go where those obligations forced her, and right now that looked remarkably

like the planet named Hellhole-for good reason. She also remembered another

reason why Nortay might have picked her, apart from her skill and her

vulnerability to his squeezing. One of her early successes was in a

computer-fraud case she had built against Councillor Nortay's biggest business

rival. It was never proven that Nortay had anything to do with it ... and it

was never really disproved, either. Nortay had a reputation for staying angry

a long time and turning minor grievances into running feuds. Did he consider

that he was at feud with her?-consider her dangerous to him? The concept made

a certain sort of sense, or might to him. In that case, did it make sense to

leave Jay and Bouncy? They might be damned if I do . . . and damned if I

don't! Tilno flipped five, making her realize she'd muttered the last few

thoughts more or less aloud. He said, "If I had the answer to that, I'd tell

you. I can say that I brought the message because somebody-whose name you'd

recognize- asked me to bring it. He said you might say things somebody else

could/would testify to in court. I'd hold my tongue, even if you

didn't." "Hmm!" That sounded a lot like Prefect Kilwar. If he's taking an

interest in this and if he's at all on my side, Bouncy and Jay might be safe

as long as I went to Hellhole. Certainly will be, if Tilno keeps watch

too. She stood, no longer at all aware of her more than fetching

appearance. "I smell all sorts of vermin in this one, Tilno. Big

ones. 13 Firm, then: I want five thousand birds in my credaccount tomorrow,

and the scrute on the Brotherhood by the end of the week. I want hard copy,

not computer transfer. I get that and I'll assume it isn't just a set-up,

firm? I'll go to Hellhole, and Blackarse Nortay can have either my blood or

the Invisible Wisdom. D'you happen to know which he'd rather think about when

he's jerking off?" She yanked the comb with its Hellhole pearls out of her

hair so fiercely that strands went with it. The pain only fed her anger. She

hurled the comb at the statue in the middle of the pool, wishing the comb was

a shuriken and the statue Councillor Nortay. Dislodged pearls

plop-plop-plopped into the green water like a handful of .gravel. Tilno came

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up behind her and slid an arm around her waist. The distracted Alanni went on

full automatic and slammed both elbows back into his ribs. Tilno sat down on

empty air, and went right on back into the pool with a mighty splash. Alanni

stared down. The ripples cleared to show Tilno floating just below the

surface. He seemed oddly motionless and suddenly she was more scared than

she'd been angry. She must have insulted him by ruining his gift, and now what

if I've really hurt him-! Tilno jackknifed and shot upward. Both long legs

shot out of the water and clamped around Alanni's left calf. With a scream of

mingled surprise and relief, she followed him into the pool. She didn't stay

long. Normally he couldn't lift her, but with the water making her buoyant he

hoisted her up onto the rim of the pool. By that time she was wearing only the

bracelets and the flower on her left breast, although her straggling hair now

covered her as well as the flowers had done. Tilno industriously burrowed his

face between her thighs. They opened. So did Tilno's mouth. His tongue slipped

forth and darted into the bottom of her invitingly-placed cleft. Neither

flower nor hair covered her there! His lips and tongue worked their way up to

the top, then down one side and up the other and then back to the middle. By

then she sprawled with her back arched and only her head and buttocks touching

the patio. One hand clutched his hair while the other stuffed a handful of her

own hair into her 14 mouth to keep the screams inside. Light, but he knew how

to get to her! She had just finished, dizzily, when he settled down to

work-which didn't take long. When he too had soared, she shuddered and heaved

herself right off the patio, to flow down over his head and torso. Her breasts

weren't quite large enough to reach his ears on either side, but they made a

nice comfortable cap he showed no signs of wanting to take off. At last he got

his mouth out of her stash enough to mutter, "Up on the lounger, woman. If

you're going into training, we'd better say goodbye now." "Mmmmm ..." "Up, I

said!" "Urmmmphhh!" The conversation failed to reach a higher level and soon

they were both completely bare, Tilno in the inflatable lounger with Alanni on

his lap. He raised his knees so that she slid neatly down into place.

Grinning, he began rocking gently back and forth while she nibbled at his neck

and locked her legs tightly behind his back. "Uh-uh," she said, which was

about the best he could do, as well. Inflatables have their uses, she mused.

We could never get in all these extra movements on something rigid! On the

other hand, rigidity has its advantages and uses, too . . . Rigidity was now

the most distinctive quality of the second part of Tilno that wasn't thin.

That part burrowed comfortably up inside her while they rocked back and forth.

Very comfortably, and getting more so by the second. And not just for

her. "Woman, this is-going to-kill-me!" "So-o d-d-die ha-happeee!

Turn-uh!-about is f-f-fairrr. . ." "Gggrrhhh," he commented, and that bit of

intelligence gave way to a slurping as he got his lips down to her

warheads. She moaned, locking her hands as well as her feet behind him, and

pulled her un-petite self more tightly against him. 15 He heaved, partly to

increase the contact and partly to keep from suffocating between her fleshy

breasts. "Eeee-yrrrphh!" she declaimed, as his movements became completely yet

agreeably unendurable. "Uh-uh-uh-" "Arrr!" was all he could get out, on the

same occasion. ''Psssssshhhhh!'' The final comment emanated from the lounger,

as a seam burst-on the side toward the pool. That which inflates, deflates,

and the air rushed out. In seconds the lounger tilted and its two entwined

occupants went with it. They were too limp and their minds too much elsewhere

to stop what they were doing before they rolled into the pool. Jaykennador Eks

came up to the window behind Bouncy just as the happily coupling couple below

ended in the pool with a great splash. He waited beside the Jarp until Alanni

and Tilno surfaced, trying to splutter and laugh at the same time. Then he

touched the window's opaguing button and glared at his companion. "I didn't

mean to be spying on them," Bouncy said apologetically. "But if they don't

seem to care whether anyone sees or not ..." Jay sighed. Having some idea of

the news Tilno had brought and what came next, he was quite sure that 'Lanni

and Tilno hadn't cared. That, however, was not the point at issue. The point

at issue was Bouncy's. It was clearly visible, since the Jarp had taken off

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its shorts and now just as clearly risen. No doubt Bouncy would like for Jay

to give it an occasion to have risen to. Tanned Outreacher gave orange Jarp a

look. "So now you're horny?" "Uh-" Jay sighed again. Jarps were odd in more

ways than that shockingly orange skin and luridly red hair crowning

sentimentally sweet faces and mouths unable to pronounce any language save

their own. They were hermaphroditic, each with male and female organs and the

ability to beget and bear-more Jarps, not Galactics or humans. The natives of

Jarpi were also the most sexually active race known. 16 Jay supposed that made

sense, really. With twice the sex organs, a Jarp had four times the

opportunities. (Was that mathematically sound?) So-maybe four times human

horni-ness made some sense. Jarps did not, however, stop there. In fact they

damned near didn't stop at all, which was why their sunny, pretty world wasn't

on the list of those Protected from interference-and more importantly, from

slavers. With no idea of wrongdoing, they had hospitably "raped" the crew of

the first ship to land on their planet, which was definitely getting off on

the wrong foot as to Jarp-Galactic relations. Jarps had been screwed ever

since, one way or another. (There were exceptions to Jarp horniness, or so it

was said. There was the Jarp known as the Frozen One, who was said to have had

not a single sexual thought for an entire day-Jarpi. Opinion varied as to

whether that strange individual was sick, mentally disturbed, or purely

legendary.) Jay sat down on the windowsill and kicked off his sandals. "We're

not saying goodbye, you know. We're staying right here." With its scarlet

halter in one hand, Bouncy was executing the little jiggling step that had

given it its nickname. Like most Jarps, its breasts were too taut and hardly

large enough to jiggle along with the rest of it. That didn't stop them from

feeling mighty good under a man's hands, and Jaykennador Eks well knew

it. Bouncy stopped jiggling at Jay's words and the little mouth pursed into

the Jarp equivalent of a frown. "We aren't saying goodbye now. But if Alanni

goes and doesn't come back ..." "I really sort of wish you hadn't brought that

up," Jay said. Bouncy gazed at its Outie friend, brows up above positively

huge and absolutely round eyes. "Would it have been less a possibility if I

hadn't mentioned it?" Jay sighed. "Neg."" He stood and opened the frontmeld of

the shorts that were his only garment. Bouncy made a happy noise that its

translator didn't turn into words, and ran one six-fingered hand up the man's

muscular arm. This could be the beginning of the end for us. I'll miss the

Bouncer if it is. Jaykennador Eks would probably have punched anyone 17 who

called him a "Sunflower," the usual epithet for a Galactic who treated Jarps

as people. He might well have killed anyone of any species who or which tried

to rape Bouncy. The Jarp had done its share to make 'Lanni's farm the first

real home Jay could remember. He'd flashed with a lot of women who hadn't done

that that much, and most of them weren't as sexually good as Bouncy,

either. "Think we ought to consider popping down and joining them?" Bouncy

asked quietly, pinching its own nipple. "Neg," Jay said. "And here, let me do

that." 3 The second-class passenger lounge of Hellhole's orbital depot Skyraft

definitely was. Chipped, hard mud-brown chairs, flatscreen view of the planet

below, and what were called "refreshments." Alanni sipped a vile substitute

for coffee, smelled an even viler substitute for tea in time not to order any,

and sampled (once, briefly) fossilized life forms masquerading as

biscuits. Had the fossilized life forms been edible when they were alive,

before their remains spent a million years turning to stone in Hellhole's

tidal mudflats? Her fellow passengers waiting for the shuttle to Bassar

offered even fewer prospects of ecstatic pleasure or intellectual stimulation.

People who came to Hellhole without having their passage paid for them fell

into overlapping categories of the desperate, the adventurous, and the

certifiably masochistic. Alanni could have come more comfortably-the tachyon

ship Darda's Gift had cabins for twelve as well as a dormitory for fifty.

Anyone on the passenger list in one of those cabins would have been

conspicuous enough to require more explanation than Alanni's cover story could

provide. A second-class passenger dressed like a worker down enough on her

luck to try Hellhole would be just another part of the scenery, no more

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conspicuous than another fixture on one of Skyraft's patched plasteel

walls. (The other safe option for Alanni would have been a comfortable cabin

on a cheap ship, without tachyon drive. That wasn't open to anyone in a hurry,

which she was. The man she would call Councillor Nortay until she knew

otherwise 18 19 not only wanted the Invisible Wisdom, he wanted it fast. That

meant either hitting the Tachyon Trail or rearranging the Galaxy to reduce

significantly the distance between Eagle and Hellhole. The first course was

definitely the more practical.) With nothing better to occupy her attention,

Alanni began noticing that the man sitting next to her hadn't bathed for a

good while too long. Since the lounge was less than half full, she changed

seats. The new one gave her a better view of the screen. It was also in the

front row. She put her bag out in front of her, propped her feet in their

well-scarred equhyde boots up on the bag, leaned back as far as the seat would

let her, and contemplated the screen. It showed nothing but a stagnant pool of

clouds the color of well-used dishwater, with a few umber blotches that might

have been high mountains. Alanni understood that the clouds looked better from

beneath, once one got used to them. That happened fairly quickly or one was in

trouble, since the cloud-cover was solid eight days out of ten. Alanni opened

the sadly mistitled WELCOME TO HELLHOLE pamphlet and unfolded the four-color

map in the middle. She'd not only seen but memorized under hypnosis far better

maps. This one at least showed the gross outline of land and sea. Hellhole was

larger than Eagle but had only .91-Standard gravity-few heavy metals,

obviously. It followed as regular an orbit as any planet could in a

triple-star system-two live yellow stars, Menzel A and B, plus the dead star

Tarf al-Barahut. Between them, the two live suns gave Hellhole a permanent

steam bath for a climate. Al-Barahut provided no head but it had enough mass

to scramble Hellhole's tides and crust at regular intervals, as it waltzed

around with its two live companions. (One could call the arrangement a

threeway, Alanni supposed, except that would imply that Menzel A and B were

necro-philiacs.) Most of Hellhole was tepid ocean, swarming with life forms

she wouldn't care to meet in a dark alley, and still less in their native

waters. It had two continents, Treasure Trove and Fog Coast. Alanni's business

lay in Bassar, capital of the Fog Coast, which was why she waited in the

lounge. 20 Bassar provided one shuttle a day, instead of the four to each of

the three cities on Treasure Trove-Golden (the planetary capital),

Shaitansford, and Sodium Peak. Treasure Trove produced gold, aluminum,

chemicals, and assorted exotic plantation crops. It accommodated four Hellers

out of five, not to mention the planetary government-if one wanted to rape

both language and logic by referring to it as a "government." A contact was

waiting for Alanni in Shaitansford, with everything she'd need to get off

planet after she had the Invisible Wisdom and showed it to him. (Nortay was

apparently determined to win the maximum return from a minimum amount of

speculative investment. No doubt he'd become rich that way and saw no reason

to change his methods.) The Fog Coast exported pearls, coral (raw and worked),

rare woods, and marine creatures to eat, admire, wear, or sleep with

(depending on tastes). These exports supported three of the corporations whose

obscenely-interwoven Boards of Directors made up the "government." They didn't

support nearly as well the men and women who always shortened and often lost

their lives on land and sea to find or catch them. Bassar "governed" these

people, entertained them (for a price), bought their catch, repaired their

gear, burned them if their bodies were recovered, and sometimes sheltered them

in sickness and old age. It also sheltered the people who'd broken hearts,

fortunes, or health trying to settle inland beyond the Coast Range. The land

there would make the fortune of anyone with the courage to tame it-or so the

government said. That enthusiasm didn't extend to providing a few other things

needed besides courage: medical care, transportation for cash crops, and

essential prefab buildings. The land itself might grow hair on a stopper, but

if it didn't grow any of these minor necessities, what the Shaitan's good was

it? Or so people said, when they staggered back through the passes and down

into the cheap lodging houses or charity hospitals of Bassar. Hellhole has an

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arsehole, and I'm about to climb up it. Prefect Kilwar didn't disagree when

Alanni said that. He 21 continued to reserve comment when Alanni wondered

aloud whether there were any worse inhabited planets, other than

Bleak. Crumping aside, she knew there were. If Nortay had sent her to one of

them, she'd have considered selling up the farm and giving Bouncy and Jay

their shares so all three of them could run. She would have considered that,

then picked up the same bag now sitting under her boots, packed it with the

same gear, and taken the same train to the nearest spaceport. The bag had a

false bottom and hidden side pockets. In the bottom and the pockets was a

basic outfit of gear for high-powered burglary, all of it non-metallic and

when folded up not even looking particularly suspicious. (Except to an

extraordinarily well-trained and alert policer-or burglar.) An open patch in

the clouds on the screen showed a huge mountain peak, with a diamond choker of

snow around its summit and steam trailing from a fissure farther down one

flank. As the mountain vanished under new clouds, Alanni noticed that the

smelly man who'd been sitting beside her old seat was no longer where he'd

been. Moving her head as little as possible, she scanned the lounge. One of

her natural assets was exceptional peripheral vision. At angles where most

people ceald see only a blur, Alanni Keor could recognize faces. At angles

where most people could see hardly anything at all, she could detect man-sized

objects and sometimes the beginning of attacks. It didn't take her long to

find the man. He was sitting alone in the middle of a half-row of six seats.

Apparently her nose wasn't the only sensitive one! The man was also sitting

where, without moving his head enough to be noticed, he could watch Alanni and

both doors to the lounge. Now just what legitimate reason could he have for

doing that? He could be looking for a quick slice. Maybe, but from a cake

dressed the way I am? Alanni looked down at herself, to be absolutely sure her

clothes hadn't done anything to spoil her cover story. Ex- 22 security guard

and spacefarer for a one-ship line, on leave when the one ship went Forty

Percent City to evade pirates, after that out of a job. Paid her fare here to

Hellhole out of what the insurance left for paying off the few surviving

employees, with not much left over for fancy clothes. She looked as raddled

and travel-weary as ever. Of course someone who smelled the way he did might

have so much trouble finding women that he was desperate, but- No buts. Start

looking for an illegitimate reason. He's watching out for Nortay's

investment. Your two hostages back on Eagle do a better job of that. Also

cheaper. Try again. The competition. If there is any. Why shouldn't there be,

for the Invisible Wisdom? No reason at all, but let's be sure. The silent

dialogue faded away. Alanni's training took over. Picking up her bag, she

walked to the women's room- and stopped just inside the door. She couldn't

pick out details of the man even with her peripheral vision, but she'd

memorized his location. She'd see when he left- There he goes, moving toward

one of the exits. Gone to find help? He sat down in the last seat of the back

row. Now he could see both doors and almost every seat in the lounge. He might

not be able to follow her quickly if she left, but he could see when she did,

and if he did have help he could call- No way to find that out but the hard

one. Or at least no way that wouldn't leave her either without the scrute she

needed or with at least one live enemy on the loose close to her back. Alanni

looked at the clock over the screen. Two hours before the shuttle to Bassar

would even be boarding. Plenty of time to be placidated-even Poofed. She spent

a convincing amount of time in the women's room, then strode briskly out the

door toward the exit at the far end of the lounge. She covered floor fast,

trying to look as if she wanted to walk kinks out of her legs. Her destination

was vague. Some place where she could ask her shadow a few pointed questions.

(She was carrying 23 the points hidden in her boots.) Odds were good on

finding it, if Shadow would just cooperate by following her. Skyraft had been

built on the cheap over Hellhole's centuries of settlement. It consisted of a

few special-purpose modules, more worn-out spaceships, and lots of old cargo

pods, all connected by a tangle of shafts and tubes. A king-sized version of a

child's first toy-construction. Unless Alanni's Shadow had made a full

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TheShadowWasGone.Allcinnichangedhermindfastenough.Itwasherownspecialperipheralvisionthatsavedher,whenmovementcaughthereye-movementinadoorwaytenmetersaway.Shehadturnedhalfwayaroundwhensheknewwhatshewasseeing:amanlevelingaweapon.Reflexestookover.Withoutfinishingtheturn,shethrewhergo-bag.Andaneye-seari...

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Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 14 - Assignment Hellhole

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