Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 13 - Jonuta Rising

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On the coin, in letters as crisp as the day they were struck centuries ago,

were the words: FIRST LAUNCH NATIVE AMERICAN SPACE AUTHORITY AUGUST,

MMCCCLIV Marekallian Eks recognized the ancient alphabet. He began to tremble.

Verley watched in astonished silence as the Mindrunner clutched the coin, a

distant fire in his eyes. "Urth," he whispered. "Homeworld!" he cried, staring

at Verley with wild eyes. "The Areps! They came from Urth! They must have

crashed here, lost their technology! Reverted to savagery!" 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! BERKLEY BOOKS,

NEW YORK With megathanks to Victor Roman, plier of the spaceways The

author. SPACEWAYS #13: JONUTA RISING! A Berkley Book / published by

arrangement with the author PRINTING HISTORY Berkley edition / September

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: 0-425-06405-0 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 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 "The closer to the truth, the better the lie, and the truth itself,

when it can be used, is the best lie." -Preem Palver 'You just can't keep a

bad man down." -Kislar Jonuta prolog She was a shocking woman. It wasn't just

that she was young and shockingly attractive. She was unique: une type. Thus

her very appearance was shocking, in an altogether positive way. The sort of

woman who collected stares-and ignored them. Among the sprawling star-worlds

settled by people calling themselves Galactics, eyes were uniformly shades of

brown. Hers were the color of pearls seen through shimmering water. Among

Galactics whose natural skin color ranged from that of toasted corn chips or

darkish beige to jet-not too much of that, since centuries of intermingling

had paled it as it had completely swallowed up pale skin- her color was that

of carnations at sunset. Furthermore her cheekbones were not especially high

or prominent and her nose showed no hint of downward turn. She was short and

she just had to be shapely. Unfortunately she was entirely enveloped in a full

robe held out from her in a sort of cone by the tiny "hoop"' repellor units

built into its hem and her anklets. (The units had to be there, although not

even her feet were visible, much less her ankles.) The hoop-robe's rich

ultramarine color was quietly and tastefully patterned all over in an

arabesque of silvery gray. An off-white shawl, opaque but broidered in white

lace, covered her from neck to waist, with fringes extending it to a hand's

length longer. An exotic young beauty clad expensively and well-too well; clad

in the manner of one of those uptight Seks from Sekhar or as if she was

pregnant. As if she had no confidence in her figure. Or was so supremely

confident that she needn't bother to display it. 1 2 Those who saw her that

day on Lanatia could not help staring, for she was striking. Shocking. Too,

they could hardly help wondering about the color of her hair. That was

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concealed too, under an indigo wig into which were laced glowstones of azure

and pale turquoise. Carved gold "sideburns" hugged her head just forward of

the ears. They would have been harsh but for the delicate filigree of their

workmanship. From her lobes depended ever-swinging strings of cerulean

glowstones like falling tears. Her lips were neither the pale blue of cerulean

or azure nor the deep blue of indigo nor again a (natural?) pink. They

combined pink and azure, in a frosted lavender. She was obviously accompanied

by three extraordinarily watchful, almost alarmingly lithe "escorts" (only

professional bodyguards ready to kill had eyes like those three), and not at

all obviously by a fourth. That one was girlish, dressed differently, and kept

her distance. The over-clad beauty carried herself with casual grace, chin

high and eyes carefully distant. Her gaze moved over or through people without

making eye contact. And she spent stells as if she had inside information that

they were going to be deckred valueless in about ten minutes. This was the

fourth store she and her wary-eyed, sleekly lithe entourage had visited in

Lanatia's capital, and she had spent kilostells. All on herself. Nearly all on

clothing or jewelry. Frippery. Strange, for a woman whose figure was

determinedly hidden within the hoop-robe, to buy so much that was of an

indisputably exotic-erotic nature! Decorative clothing and un-clothing

designed for the delectation of men. Or a man. Some rich rajah's well-kept

pet, more than one clerk thought, but felt more inclined to call her

"Countess" than to sneer. They did neither. She gave no name, ordered

everything sent up to spaceship Hindilark docked at Dallastation. All was paid

for by the huge silent "escort" in whiskey-colored tights and doublet through

whose multiple slashes spilled silken folds of gold-hued shirt. He was

conspicuously armed. He used currency-local currency-not cred, and paid

whatever fee was named for transport up to Dallastation. 3 He never spoke. The

other escorts, a man and a woman, called her "Lady" and so clerks and

hastily-importantly onscene managers did, too. She tried nothing on. She did

have this and that tried on and modeled for her when that was possible, and

once she laughed aloud at a cybermodel. Her laughter was throaty but

surprisingly unreserved. Her entourage betrayed little interest in what she

purchased, no matter how frivolous or bold or positively, licentiously sexy.

They paid no attention when such titillating "garments," markedly brief, were

modeled for this nameless lady of means. Even the bioengineered model whose

lean legs were over 100 sems long* attracted little of their notice; they were

Watching, on watch. All ostentatiously armed with stoppers whose grips were

gilded. Scanning, ever looking this way and that as if at any moment a

dressing room or rack of clothing might erupt with an assassin or horde of

kidnappers. Judging from the sizes she chose, she was quite small as well as

short, though with a figure definitely female. Her bodyguards did take some

notice when she showed her enchantment with fitted, crested turbans of an

ancient design-the Thousand and One Nights, they were called. She bought one

for each of her three escorts. And a fourth, though she did not wear it. When

she departed each store it was to leave behind large awed eyes and delighted

smiles and hands clamped damply around generously bestowed largesse. The

leanest, lithest, and shortest bodyguard went first and reconnoi-tered

expertly. She also summoned transportation to the door. Then out swept the

lady, gliding, seeming to float within that floor-reaching robe that never

touched her body below her ribcage. On the instant clerks and managers and

shoppers fell to talking, to wondering, to opining. And pining. Who could she

be? Where might she-where could she be from! Oh, surely the haughty daughter

of one of those mighty * About forty inches, Old Style. 4 (and mighty wealthy)

clan-lords of... where was it?-oh, Jorinne. Yes. Jorinne. Surely! Ah, but

perhaps more than that! Perhaps a princess of the Blood (a Viscountess at the

very least) of Ghanj, whose nobility ruled in an enlightened neo-feudalism

(Ghanjism, for it was unique in all the galaxy and in all history), and the

daughters of Ghanji lords could afford anything. Some hyper-rich rajah's

pampered pet, a starry-eyed clerk said, almost in a whisper. "Oh, just a

high-priced whore then," her customer said, and flounced out-wishing,

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wishing. But-with that skin? No Ghanji had such skin! Ah, but with

bioengineering or subcutaneous total-dye or both one could accomplish

anything, another pointed out. And a certain male clerk at Eltamaraino's swore

to have seen an Aglayan, once, and swore that he looked just that way, in eyes

and skin-and had nearly-white hair, too! Ah, but all Aglayans off Aglaya were

slaves; everyone knew that. No no, the skin must be the product of celldye and

the eyes designer contacts or even corneally dyed by simple injection. No one

had such skin and eyes-it was almost scandalous! "Well, whoever she is and

wherever she's from, she and her spending have certainly made our day!" "Oh,

pos" (and the reply was breathless, wistful) "And would I ever love to be

her!" "Ha! Wouldn't you just! Me now . . . I'd like to be the man she's going

to wear all that sexy stuff for!" "Hmp. A lot of chance you got for that,

Palik! And what if you was him and I was her, hmm? What about that, big-eyed

Palik?" "Stop by the stockroom in about an hour when I'm checking the new

shipment of mattresses, and I'll show you!" The three obvious bodyguards moved

out around her, forming a barrier, checking, looking in every direction with

eyes never still, checking high and low, alleyways and doors, high windows and

even rooftops; vehicles mov- 5 ing and stopped. Meanwhile the unobtrusive

bodyguard kept her distance while keeping her watch. They sped to the

spaceport area, three of them in snowy crested turbans now, and resumed their

watch the instant they stepped from the car. Watching, moving alertly with

gold stopper-butts glinting. Scanning like hungry eagles while their regal

charge flowed along within her robe with all the serenity of a personage far

too regal to consider the possibility of danger to her untouchable self. She

moved among them through all the noise and bustle of the busy depot as if she

were alone and invisible. A scheduled shuttle was just about to depart, but

they did not try to gain passage on it. They did not deign to. Instead they

had actually gone so far as to lease a private shuttle and keep it on standby.

A pretentious luxury at staggering cost. Presumably no one noticed that the

unobtrusive fourth bodyguard had brushed past them and boarded the standard

shuttle. Presumably no one connected that girlish, untur-banned woman-wearing

a loose yet clingy pyjama-like garment in the drab almost-black of winterpine

green, and spacefarer's boots-with the stare worthy group. The quartet took

the private launch up to the geosynchro-nously orbiting docking station.

Where, presumably, a richly-appointed spaceship Hindilark awaited while

steadily receiving packages from the best onplanet shops. Up went the shuttle;

up went the private launch. A pleasant day's shopping on Lanatia had come to a

presumably pleasant end. Even then the bodyguards remained alert, even though

they were alone on a private craft with its pilot-whom they had

re-checked. Their charge, doubtless weary from the shopspree on which she had

spent so many, many stellar monetary units, plugged her ears with the sounds

of the instrumental group Kaleidolon, and napped. The regular shuttle reached

the great wheel in space first, by several minutes. The girlish,

distance-maintaining bodyguard checked schedules, checked the chron on her

left glove, and hurried into the restroom. She entered a 6 stall, swiftly and

efficiently readying herself for a quick answering of nature's call. She

locked the door. She was still seated when someone entered the adjacent

cubicle on her left. The cubicles were private only to a height of about two

meters, and to within fifteen centimeters of the floor. From beneath the

partition of the leftwardly adjacent stall came a hand bearing a very small

cylinder. The powerfully charged minisyringe was loaded with the tiniest of

needles. It released its charge on impact with warmth or on being triggered.

The hand merely extended the short tube, blindly, until it touched the boot of

the un-obvious bodyguard. Snik, and the needle ejected and injected, through

boot and liner into foot. The little sting brought a muffled grunt of response

and a downward glance. That discovered the hastily withdrawing hand. The

gloved hand of the unobtrusive bodyguard closed on the butt of her stopper,

began clamping, relaxed. The woman in the adjacent stall flushed and left. She

heard only faintly the thump of the girlish-looking bodyguard's seated body

collapsing against the wall of her stall. Already she was paralyzed and aware

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only of numbness and a deep red that claimed her vision; in a few seconds she

would be dead. The killer hurried in the direction of the Customs Office. She

was a dowdy looking woman of no particular age and unfortunate coloration,

with hair so dead and drab it should have been buried. She wore a floppy black

hat with a sad bow and an indigo coat over loose pants, dark green. The

bustling spacefarers and officials, laborers and clerks, inspectors and

money-changers in busy Dallastation paid her no attention whatever. She was

obviously unarmed and totally unimportant. The private launch meanwhile

docked, the lady having been awakened one minute before. She dispatched one of

her trio of bodyguards, the one in the red doublet, to fetch the Customs

chief. Not someone from Customs; the official in charge. Her two remaining

bodyguards kept watch, alertly and 7 with ever-moving eyes. The pilot used a

hand-scanner to read a cartridged book. After a few minutes a man approached.

He was nice-looking, medium young, and wore station blues with prass buttons,

and an official cap with a badge. The female bodyguard challenged him anyhow.

He produced ID without even attempting to look within at the important

personage. "Your, ah, courier asked me to advise that he has gone on to the

ship-using Spoke T," the Customs man said. Both bodyguards gave him sharp

looks, then exchanged a glance. The huge man shrugged and said nothing. His

companion nodded over the ID she had been handed, which clearly identified the

uniformed man before her as the Senior Inspector, Dallastation/Lanatia

Customs. She nodded again and handed it back. "Our packages came up from

planetside?" "Pos. All were scanned without being opened, the first as a

matter of course and the second as an accommodation to your employer. They

should be on Hindilark by now, awaiting you. Would you like to walk out to

your berth, or might I offer the totally unobtrusive privacy of an empty

baggage-mover? A closed cart, you understand." "We-" "I shall walk," a voice

said from inside the shuttle. Although the huge bodyguard frowned, he and the

other got out of the way. She hurried to scramble forth and make a quick

look-about before her mistress emerged. The Customs man stepped back as the

robe-swathed lady appeared. He was discreet and gentlemanly enough not to

glance down when a foot, shod in a pointed-toe softboot, stepped down the few

centimeters. He offered his arm only half-heartedly. It was ignored. "Would

you care for a station security escort, Seety?" "No." She glanced back in time

to see her very big escort emerge. The other was several paces away, being

alert. "It will be necessary that I accompany you to your ship," the man in

blue said, again adding the respectful "seety." "I suppose it will," she said,

and slipped a white- 8 gloved hand between his upper arm and his uniformed

torso. "Well, I shall take your arm thus, and walk serenely on the arm of an

attractive man." "Thank you, Seety, and it is my pleasure." She smiled back

and turned to her huge retainer, who was frowning in obvious disapproval. She

said, "Achmet," without vocal expression, and began walking. The attractive

man in blue matched his pace to hers. Ahead moved the lithe woman with the

crested white turban and the watchful eyes. Behind came Achmet in

whiskey-colored doublet, watchful of deep-set eyes under his crested white

turban. He stared briefly at everyone they met. They attracted a great deal of

attention in the busy station while they paced the length of the

tunnel-forming spoke marked T. Two Jarps passed and one pretended to be

staggered by sight of the young beauty on the blue-uniformed man's arm. She

ignored all but him, chattering. He answered her queries concerning his job,

his family, the traffic at Dallastation both incoming and redshifting, and

whether his job was dull or ever had its exciting moments. (A short distance

away, Dallastation's security chief and an aide were talking with a

floppy-hatted woman in indigo and green. Their weapons were not drawn,

although she stood over the sprawled body of a man in red doublet and small,

fitted white turban, with a crest imitating an osprey's feather.) First the

female bodyguard emerged from the spoke leading back to the station's hub;

then onto the perimeter-walk of that wheel of a space station came the young

woman in the ultramarine hoop-robe, her hand linking her with the arm of the

man in Customs uniform. Behind them, looking this way and that (as his cohort

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had turned to face her mistress, and was looking this way and that), came the

wrestler-sized man named Achmet. Stevedores and spacefarers of three

races-yes, excitingly, that was a HRal!-moved about along the broad areaway,

and one security person in uniform. 9 "Just a moment, Ehri," the young woman

said to the uniformed man beside her, and he paused. They waited until no one

was passing between them and the entrance to the umbilical tunnel connecting

the station's airconned interior with the airlock leading only to airless

space-except that just now it was linked with the airlock of spacer Hindilark.

They watched the long-legged, lean native of HRalix with high interest; it

paid them no mind. Then they crossed that area of a circle so vast that no

intimation of arc was visible. Achmet followed. His cohort remained at the

mouth of the umbilical. Alertly watching, watching. Ready. (Someone in Spoke P

hurled a curse after the drab woman who had jostled her, racing toward the

docking area. No one was chasing the woman in indigo and green, though. Who

would? Must have misjudged and barely had time to make it to her ship before

it was cleared to redshift.) "Well, Ehri, I do thank you, and almost regret

that we must take leave of each other now. You back to dull old Customs, I

onto a dull old spacer and out into dull old space. Too bad it's not really as

exciting as the cliches 'airless void' and 'eternal ether'! Thank you,

Ehri." "May I see you to your door, Daura," he said, for she had bade him call

her that. Again that jarringly loud, too-common laugh throated from her. "Oh,

how very gallantl Persi-my dear friend Inspector Ehri Taswar is going to

accompany me right up to the airlock! Do go ahead." And to Ehri: "Damn! I'll

bet you're going to say that you can't come onboard and have a drink with me

before we redshift your station." He chuckled. "I'll bet I am too," he said,

watching the ever-alert vision of litheness called Persi go-rather

reluctantly-up the ramped umbilical tunnel until its low mouth and upward

inclination caused her to disappear. He seemed in no hurry to follow, and his

companion's lips twitched in a small smile. Well, that house-sized cargo

loader was oncoming; she'd just let it pass before gallant Ehri "walked her to

her door." 10 Persi possessed the code to open the sealed airlock, and

remained alert even though two of her employer's people were onboard. (He had

sent no fewer than six of them along while he indulgently indulged this whim

of his sister's.) The 'lock would open for no one without the code, which was

a vocal one: seven digits. Persi spoke them. The hatch clicked and eased open

with a sigh and little other sound. Beyond lay an unusually padded smallish

chamber and another hatch-closed-that led into the ship. Persi glanced back,

practiced a dazzlingly fast draw of her stopper, and holstered it as she

stepped just into the chamber. She set her back against a sideward wall. Her

restless brown-agate eyes stared down the umbilical ramp in anticipation of

her employer's capricious sister (and lover, some dared whisper) whom he

denied nothing. Ever watchful, ever alert, right up to the point at which

Daura was in the ship. Ramesh Jageshwar paid well and punished more than

sternly and Persi was happy with her job. It certainly beat watching an

azaafrunn sorter on Franji! (The running woman spurted out of Spoke P, dodged

a violently red cargo loader brand-named Leviathan, and swerved left toward

the T-berths. She saw no white turbans.) Persi turned without concern when the

inner hatch opened to her left. That understandable lapse of alertness cost

her everything. She had an instant to know that she did not know the man

impossibly there, squatting, inside the ship. Then with a quiet sort of cough

the needier in his hand sped its tiny missile into her breast. He twitched the

weapon upward to sink the second needle into her face. A professional's

caution sent him pouncing out of sight, just in case Persi managed to draw and

get off a shot even with two barahut-coated needles in her. He counted slowly

to three, swung back into the mouth of the hatch, and rushed to her. Persi was

limp but for her shivering. Eyes glazed. She had fallen back against the 'lock

wall and was sliding down it. He caught her and swung her up in his arms. At

the same time he was wheeling to hurry back into the ship. 11 "One left. The

big boy. Cute bonnets she bought 'em, hmmm?" Daura, because she was so

preoccupied with Ehri, failed to register the absence of Persi. So she had

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gone on into the ship. It had to be secure. No one could enter a locked spacer

without invitation-or a cutter and some time--and of course Persi would not

have secured hatch against Daura! "Thank you, Ehri," Daura said, squeezing his

arm, and then she turned to offer him her hand. He took it, bowed over it, and

turned away to descend the ramp. Achmet was ascending the gentle incline. Both

men were willing to avoid eye contact. Ehri reached inside his prass-buttoned

blue jacket just after they passed. Daura entered Hindilark. Achmet speeded

his pace, now a meter beyond the Customs man. From within the ship came the

sound of Daura's voice. Achmet interpreted wordless alarm and lunged into a

charge. His meaty hand was a blur as it whipped out the slender black cylinder

of his stopper. The small outcry had also had a catalytic effect on Ehri. He

spun back, going into a crouch with both hands swinging up before him.

Together; they held a stopper. Leveled at Achmet's singularly broad back, it

hummed faintly. The shimmery hint of light was just as faint. Achmet made no

sound. He twitched, seemed to shimmer. Since they were in restricted space,

Ehri squinted. Just in time. A flash of light announced Achmet's passing. Then

he simply was not there; he became microscopic motes of dust; random

atoms. From within the ship screeched the raucous sound of a barmaid's voice

in a low dive: "You goddam sisterslicin' whoremonger! What the blue-balled

bitch-bastard vug d'you think you're Doing, you rot-slicer?'' "Kidnapping you,

Lady." She whirled to yell even more loudly. "ACHMET! PERSI!" "Deceased," Ehri

announced as he entered the ship, and she spun again. "So are the other two

bodyguards. And-the ship is ours, Daura." 12 Her face went even more pale and

she looked as if she'd been shot a stiff finger in the stomach. "Oh ... oh my

... my ..." She was trembling, white, only just able to form the words, badly.

"But. . . dead! But . . . how . . . how ... no one could get into this ship

without . . . without ..." "Oh come on, Daura," Ehri said, with a tight and

satirical smile. "Someone could, and did. The ship's ours. So are you." He did

not glance at Persi's killer, who was moving silently in behind Daura. "Want

to be quiet and resigned, my dear foul-mouthed screechy lady, or would you

rather go sleepy-bye?" "T . . . Tee . . . Gee . . . Ohhh," she gasped,

trembling and low-voiced. Ehri bowed acknowledgment. "Indeed. Very good. TGO.

Ve haff vays to get into docked spacers. The two you left onboard may be

presumed dead, too. We don't have that swine Ramesh Jageshwar, but we have his

whorish sister now, haven't we?!" With an unpleasant smile the man-who was not

a Customs official and whose name was not Ehri Taswar- turned his back on her.

He started along ship's tunnel toward the con-cabin. Ramesh Jageshwar's sister

was too enraged and outraged to form words. Face working, eyes glaring and

ugly, hands curving up into claws, she pounced after him. "Left," the man

behind her snapped loudly, and increased her momentum by kicking her in the

backside. Instantly "Ehri" lurched leftward to flatten himself against the

spacer's wall-incredibly covered with padded, flocked satin-on-velour in cream

and pale gold. He watched the woman sprawl headlong, almost at his feet, saw

the unglittering needleknife go flying from her hand on impact (on the

incredibly deep-piled carpeting covering the ship's deck in imitation of

thick, pale turquoise grass). Her robe's electronic "hoop" made both her

garment and her legs bob ludicrously. "She prefers sleepy-bye," he said, as

the other man came pouncing after her. "Uh-huh." The fellow plopped down

astride her back at the waist and each hand came down just behind

him, 13 hard. Each on a cheek of her kicked rump. The ring on the third finger

of his left hand had already extruded a needle as long as that finger's first

joint, though hair-thin. The skirt proved no deterrent. The needle went all

the way in. Daura squealed in new outrage and attempted to kick. The repellors

under her skirt turned that into ridiculous horizontal calisthenics until the

skirt broke contact by sliding along violet-hosed, calfy legs. (To one was

strapped a knife; to the other a ministopper.) She quivered all over in a sort

of rictus, twitched while making loose gestures with one hand, made

approximately half a moaning sound, and went limp. "Fun?" the false Customs

man said. Still astride her, hands still on her haunches, the other man looked

up at him. "Absolutely," he said, and whipped both hands up, then down in a

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loud double slap. He also pushed off her relaxed backside, and rose. The two

men stood gazing down at her. "The so-impressive and high-nosed 'lady'! Did

you hear the way her voice changed into a street-bust's screech? -the language

she used?" "I heard. I see lots of armament, too. And I'm not sad about our

hands-off orders until we get her into Sinchung Sin-ful hands. Rat probably

has big plans for her." "If he gags her! Too bad Randy isn't in on this

one." The man called Ehri glanced toward the airlock. "Well he isn't, but

dammit, Narzha is; she took out the first two and signaled me to start my act.

She should be here by now." "I am!" she called, hurrying from umbilical and

'lock into ship, a dowdy woman in indigo and dark green, under a floppy hat.

"Holy Booda save-what a plush shipl" Then she caught sight of the sprawled

mass of silver-gray arabesqued ultramarine robe. "Ah. Our little girl get

tired?" "Pos. And she's your charge until we get her back to Yao. Tick: pull

the big one onboard and zip 'er up while I go get us clearance. Narzha: drag

her to the servants' cabin, not hers-and if you think this is plush . . .!

Open comm as soon as you get there and stand by for redshift. By the time she

starts to wake, you're to have her totally 14 stripped and totally searched,

inside and out. Then give her another shot. Keep her naked and drugged, all

the way. Rat wants her intact-she's part of the first mission of the new one

he's so up on-Janja." Despite his military clipping of orders, the woman

called Narzha said "Uh-huh," and bent to catch hold of Daura's ankles while

Tick headed for the airlock. Narzha turned the limp woman around, cursed,

squatted to deactivate the repellor field, and began dragging her in one

direction while Ehri hurried in the other. "Good job, Hasheer," he said as he

entered the con-cabin. "All guards placidated and subject in our hands. A few

corpses to eject, later. Get us clearance and get off. The local security

chief is so damned impressed he doesn't know his ass from his left nostril.

But he should have given Control instructions about us, by now. Good lord,

even this floor's carpeted!" "Yowzah," Hasheer said in a distinctly unmilitary

manner, and opened the outship comm. "Ahhh, D-station Control, this is

Hindilark in berth T-2. All onboard and unzipped and requesting clearance to

redshift." "Ho, Hindilark, this is Control. I read you and you are

pre-cleared. You are ungrappled in five seconds mark. Do have a lovely time

and try not to hit a powersat on your way out, all right?" "Firm, Control. My

board shows grapple-field clear. Ship clear and docking terminated. Easing

off. Had a lovely time, Lanatia!" "Got an incoming ship, Hindilark. Have a

care now, and do let us know when you're ready to cut in engines.'" "I'll try

to remember." A few minutes later Hindilark had drifted and nudged herself

away from the station, with the aid of station repellors. Hasheer, oncon while

"Ehri" got out of the uniform they'd brought all the way from stores back at

base, alerted his fellows before advising Control that he was ready to cut in

engines and depart. Control imposed a sixteen-sec wait, then bade them sweet

spacing. "Sweet spacing," Hasheer muttered, activating Hindi-lark's, drive.

"Good lord!" Then the captured spacer was moving away from the big 15 wheel,

away from Lanatia, faster and faster, away from Lanatia's sun, faster still,

to streak out along the spaceways. Hasheer instructed ship's computer-a

lovely, fully vocal SIPACUM-to seek a safe point for tachyon conversion and

give all notice possible. Then he leaned back and idly watched the play of

lights on the big crescent shape of the console. (Narzha removed Daura's fifth

weapon and felt around in there for more.) Ramesh Jageshwar had sent six

people to convey, pamper, and guard his beloved sister in her caprice. Four

agents of TransGalactic Order had eliminated four bodyguards and two licensed

ship's masters, kidnapped the king slaver's sibling and her ship, and were on

their way to rendezvous and her incarceration. They did not know where she

would be held, did not care, and did not want to know. This had been a good

operation. Four against seven, and in public and with a mandate of secrecy at

that. No contest; no sweat. Somewhere out near the little collapstar called

Babydoll, Hindilark ejected four corpses. Each was equipped with a

booster-pack to push it toward the black hole. After that Babydoll would take

over their disposal. 1 The fingers of a Jarp suit it well to the craft of

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picking pockets. Long and slender, with two opposable thumbs, a Jarp's hand

can easily slide in and out of a jacket, cloak, or tunic and come up with all

manner of useful items. In the crowded, poorer section of Sekhar's port city

of Refuge, a Jarp plied the ancient art of the nimble but desperate. This Jarp

stood tall, as most of its race did. Wearing a shabby Sektent that covered its

entire body except for its richly orange face, the Jarp tried to remain

inconspicuous in following its target. Yet the dirty white garment served to

draw more attention to the face. From the smooth rise of its left temple to

the rounded point of its delicate chin ran a jagged slash of badly healed

flesh. The fences to whom it sold its stolen goods, and what few cronies it

had, called this Jarp Scarcheek. Head down, gait slow and flowing, Scarcheek

moved through the crowd in the heat of a Sekhar afternoon. It received little

notice from members of the throng around it. Sekhar's blue-white, too-close

sun did nothing to inspire sharp eyesight in its inhabitants. And those

unfortunate enough to be passing through only sought escape from the heat and

migraine-inducing light. Sekhar remained innocent of tourists. No travel agent

booked flights to Hell. Through the heat and dust of the rundown plaza,

Scarcheek stalked. Its quarry, a middle-aged Galactic in the unstylish garb of

a no-nonsense spacefarer, walked quickly a few steps ahead of it. Scarcheek's

left hand, inside the Sektent, stroked at its own breast while it decided what

its right hand would do. The right hand reached up and pulled the bill

attached to its kaffey a sem lower. 16 17 The Jarp's dark glasses-darkeyes-hid

some of its disfigurement behind their oversized lenses. Scarcheek watched the

man ahead of it. Speeding up its gait, it passed the Galactic just as someone

else chanced to bump into him on his right. The man slowed a bit from the

jostling, only to have the Jarp collide lightly with him at the same instant.

An orange hand flashed under the beige cloak and escaped just as swiftly with

a bulky gray perspak in its six fingers. Scarcheek slowed imperceptibly,

shoulder to shoulder with its victim, then turned a few degrees to the left

and dropped back. In the shade of a doorway near a stinking pile of garbage,

the Jarp paused to let its flow of adrenaline-or what passed for that hormone

in a non-human native of Jarpi- slow its rush through its body. The intensity

of its excitement made itself known between its legs. Scarcheek's slicer

throbbed warm and semiturgid against its thigh, while its stash warmed and

moistened. Looking about, it checked for suspicious stares and saw none. The

crowd moved as all crowds did-chaotically, yet guided by the individual

purpose of each member. Pulling the perspak out of its cloak, Scarcheek

examined its take. The pak, cheap equhyde from offplanet, had three

compartments. The first contained personal papers of one Denverdarian Eks,

citizen of the planet Resh. Mentally thanking Myrzha Eks for his contribution

to Jarp welfare, it opened the second flap. Inside the wide compartment rested

three black, unmarked cassettes. SIPACUM cassettes, used for spaceship

navigation and control in a Ship Inboard Processing and Computing (Modular)

unit. With an exasperated curse, Scarcheek opened the last flap. And stared at

more stells than it had seen in its life. Enough wealth to keep Scarcheek in

the local brothels for weeks. It hoped. Most Jarps found sexual partners easy

to locate. Physiologically hermaphroditic and psychologically bisexual, a Jarp

could serve any sexual function to one of its own kind 18 or to either sex of

other species. The sheer exotic nature of a being with breasts, penis, and

vagina allowed most Jarps to pick their sexual partners with relative

ease. Scarcheek, however, was different. Years ago, in a bar only a few alleys

away, a drunken Galactic toting an ancient cutting weapon called a kozuka had

so marked the Jarp's face as to render it very nearly repulsive. Ashamed of

its disfigurement and even more ashamed at lacking the courage to avenge

itself, Tleewhee'Leeu of Jarpi-now Scarcheek-became a drifter, a drinker, a

patronizer of the whores (of both sexes) of Refuge. It headed to one now, all

these new stells drawing it to her apt as if by magnetism. . The spacefarer,

recently deprived of his perspak, continued on his way, without noticing the

slight decrease in his personal cargo. Denverdarian Eks's stocky body stood

little more than 170 sems tall, with short, muscular arms. His dark skin and

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close-cropped, black hair currently lay hidden beneath his beige cloak and

dark brown hat-a Wayne. The optic filters perched on his nose concealed his

deep-set eyes. He moved through the crowd as anonymously as the pickpocket

Scarcheek had. Almost. What Denverdarian Eks most wanted was to be off Sekhar,

back in his brother's spaceship. He hated the necessary excursions to planets

for the purchase of ship's goods. Shopping, he thought with anger.

Denverdarian hated planets, hated their gravity, foul air, and crowds.

Everywhere people pushed, shoved, bumped, and bounced. He was sick of it. All

he wanted was to make the connection, get the TDP these damned Seks designed

so well, and hit the Tachyon Trail. Stopping for a moment, Denverdarian cursed

the heat, the sand, and the local god Musla while checking his bearings. Above

the buildings rose the fat column of the port's control tower. That was east.

Slightly southeast of that lay the berths for private landers. Denverdarian

always used one of the ship's landers to come planetside. His distrust of

public shuttles ran a close second to his dislike of 19 planets in general.

Reoriented now, he turned toward a side street and took a step. Two pairs of

hands grabbed his shoulders. Two powerful pairs. "Where are they?" The voice

was harsh as a sandstorm. Strong fingers dug into the flesh of his shoulders,

pressing into the bones and nerves beneath. They pushed. Taking a sharp,

pained breath, Eks moved in the direction indicated. The gravelly voice

repeated the question. "Don't waste your breath, Hashy," a higher-pitched

whispering voice said. "Let's just search him." The other set of hands added

emphasis with a shove in the direction of an alleyway. Alleys were seldom

clean or well lit; if they were, they'd have been called something else. The

four hands threw Denverdarian Eks to the filth-strewn paving of the alley and

turned him over. He stared up at two very displeased men. They wore the loose

robes and Sekcaps of native Sekhari. The taller, older man pinning down Eks's

right arm wore a light yellow robe with a vague hint of tan pinstriping. The

other's robe, Eks saw, was the same color as all the damned sand around

Refuge. Almost completely covered from head to foot, the men were nearly

faceless but for their jaws and mouths. Eks struggled against their hold and

made one attempt to fight them. Aiming a kick at the one on his left, he

shoved his boot toward the younger man's groin. Swiftly, accurately, the man's

right arm released its hold on his shoulder, swung up over the leg, and

crashed against his tibia with agonizing force. The sound of cracking bone was

lost in the torrent of pain that pulsed through his body. Dully, in the cloudy

world of his terror, Eks realized that the man must have had an impact

truncheon up his sleeve. Soft and pliant when bent slowly, it became harder

and stronger than a steel pipe when struck against something. Pressure suits

worked on the same principle, but as protection from impact, not as

weapons. "Got 'im, Hashy," the younger man said, holding his 20 arm with the

impact truncheon still firm against Eks's throat. The older man ran his hands

through the pockets of the offworlder's cloak. Up close, the face of the older

man- Hashy-revealed the lines etched by a lifetime of worry. Through his

choking pain, Eks could see only the man's jaw and mouth. His chin had a cleft

in it so deep it could only have been put there before birth by cytological

engineering. Hashy's mother must have expected him to be an actor rather than

the thug he was. "Not here," Hashy muttered, turning Eks over and running his

thick hands over every part of the captive's body. The younger man's

truncheon, detumescent, pressed against the back of Denverdarian's neck,

driving the thyroid cartilage into his throat. He pressed mostly with his arm

now, scraping Eks's chin against the flat sandstone cobbles. "Where are they?"

the younger assailant demanded in a whisper, holding his lips close to Eks's

ear. Through the dust clogging his nostrils and coating his lips, he breathed

slowly, realizing in his shock what they wanted. And painfully aware that he

no longer had them. Four arms lifted him up and threw him against a wall.

"Well?" one of the voices whispered. "Stolen," Denverdarian replied through

bloody lips. His breath came in shallow, rapid gasps. Somewhere, the klaxon of

a policer wailed, but not for him. "Had them in my perspak," he murmured.

"Must've gotten dipped. I'm sorry, sorry." His knees gave way with weak

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trembles and he slipped forward against their arms. "Not as sorry as you're

going to be," the gravel voice of Hashy told him. The younger man twisted

Eks's body about until he supported him from behind, arms around his arms and

up behind his back. Though a lance of fiery pain shot through his broken leg,

Denverdarian Eks tried his best not to scream. It might bring help, but it

might also bring sudden death, Through his pained mental fog, Eks detected

something strange about the body of the one holding him. His thoughts 21 would

not focus for long enough. He knew only that he faced his death. "Or maybe,"

he blurted, "I left them at my apt." He nodded wildly, staring at the

blacked-out darkeyes of the man with the cleft chin. "That's where they are.

Let me-" Hashy silenced him with a fist in the solar plexus. "I don't like the

idea of having to look for a stolen perspak in a crowded spaceport, flainer."

His voice had taken on a sharp cutting edge, less like gravel and more like

flint. "Give 'im the speakeasy." "I've only got one left," came the whispered

response. Eks heard a pouch unseal, felt a slivery stab in his neck. He tried

to push back at his captor, using his good leg. His ears rang suddenly, as if

he had been struck. Heart pounding and breath accelerating, he watched the

alleyway around him begin lurching and squirming. "Now, little man, where are

they?" Denverdarian Eks broke into tears. Shaking his head as if trying to

throw it from his shoulders, he babbled out, "Don't have 'em. Had 'em. Gone,

now, gone." Leaning against the captor in the sand colored robe, he became

aware of what it was the man wore beneath the garment. "Coolsuits," he

murmured, in a weak sort of wonder. Few other than the rich or otherwise

influential could afford the portable cooling garments, and they usually

advertised the fact by wearing dark, richly-hued robes. Hashy nodded. Clearly,

the interview was at an end. "Right. Fix him." The man holding Eks smiled a

grim smile and held the broken, drugged spacefarer with one arm. Pulling a

scarf of red Panishi reelsilk from inside his Sektent, he whipped it swiftly

around Denverdarian Eks's trembling throat. Knotted in the scarf lay a coin of

some rarity. Now it rested against the cartilage over Eks's trachea. Its owner

jerked the red fabric taut around the Reshan's neck and continued pulling in

one smooth, graceful motion. Denverdarian Eks's death made no more noise than

the cracking of a knuckle. "Where now, Mizar?" 22 "Nose about the locals, I

guess. Put him over there, Tag." Heels dragged to the trash heap nearby. A

heavy load fell to the top of the pile. Footsteps receded into the hot

afternoon. He had seen dozens of worlds in his life, some beautiful- though he

could not appreciate them-and some ugly. But as he silently choked on the

blood pulsing into his crushed windpipe, the last vision of Denverdarian Eks

was that of sandstone paving in a dim Sekhari alley and of a lone Sekhari dung

scarab pushing its burden before it. Verley 2197223SK heard the timid knock at

her door. Rising from her amorphous bed, she crossed her one-room apt in less

than five paces. Checking her caller's identity on the second-hand Looker, she

recognized instantly the face of Tleewhee'Leeu. Opening the door, she let him

enter and whistled as best she could a Jarp greeting. "Good evening, Verley,"

Scarcheek said in Erts. Verley jumped back slightly at the sound. "You've got

a translator!" she cried, smiling in delight. The Jarp smiled back, removing

its darkeyes, kaffey, and Sektent. On top of its crimson hair rested a thin

harness supporting the small collection of electronic components. The

translator converted Scarcheek's native language of whistles and chirps into

the language of the Galactics-Erts. (Even those Jarps who could understand

Erts were physiologically unable to reproduce the sounds. Galactics, on the

other hand, could not duplicate the Jarp tongue and few could understand more

than a few words. This seeming imbalance of abilities provided a meal ticket

for exobiologists, theologians, and other opinionated sorts until the

development of the translahelm.) Verley smiled and embraced Scarcheek, letting

her body slide against its. "I can throw out the notepads and all the silly

sign language and guessing!" She pulled back and looked into its eyes. "Did

you get a job?" "No," Scarcheek said, smiling back and running a hand over her

nightgown, feeling the swell of her breasts. "I just came into some money and

I could finally afford one. I thought of you when I bought it." 23 Twin

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Onthecoin,inlettersascrispasthedaytheywerestruckcenturiesago,werethewords:FIRSTLAUNCHNATIVEAMERICANSPACEAUTHORITYAUGUST,MMCCCLIVMarekallianEksrecognizedtheancientalphabet.Hebegantotremble.VerleywatchedinastonishedsilenceastheMindrunnerclutchedthecoin,adistantfireinhiseyes."Urth,"hewhispered."Homewor...

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Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 13 - Jonuta Rising

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