Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 03 - Escape From Macho

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"WOMEN! GET'EM!" A molten gaggle of men came boiling up the alleyway. They

stopped at the sight of three women and a Jqrp, then sprinted after them en

masse. The fourspacefarers bolted into the nearest building and up a flight of

stairs,. They broke into the nearest apartment and waited for the men. There

was no sound of feet, but eventually they heard a big shoulder hit the outer

door. After Janja carefully unlocked the door, the man slammed into it again.

He came flying through and lay sprawled on the floor. He looked up and smiled.

"Holy Tao's toenails! I'm in Nirvana!" Hellfire brandished her stopper and

grated, "Name's Hellfire." Her stopper was set on "fry." "We're

pirates,''Janja added. "Ever been raped by a Jarp?" Raunchy asked

conversationally. SPACEWAYS #1 OF ALIEN BONDAGE #2 CORUNDUM'S WOMAN #3

ESCAPE FROM MACHO #4 SATANA ENSLAVED PLAYBOY PAPERBACKS SPACEWAYS #3:

book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any

form by an electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording means or otherwise

without prior written permission of the publisher. Published simultaneously in

the United States and Canada by Playboy Paperbacks, New York, New York.

Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Catalog Card

Ann Morris; used by permission of the author. Books are available at quantity

discounts for promotional and industrial use. For further information,' write

to Premium Sales, Playboy Paperbacks, 1633 Broadway, New York, New York

10019. ISBN: 0-867-21066-4 First printing June 1982. For Jorinne 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 1 The

qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. They are the

reward of habit and long training. -Thomas Jefferson The insurrection began

twenty-nine minutes after they set foot on the planet called Mott-chindi. They

were off the spacer Satana, lately out of Raunch on Thebanis. They were here

on business. Their business was the selling of goods stolen in space, but

never mind that. An exotic quintet not one of whom belonged on Mott-chindi, a

rough-and-tumble mostly-male planet (partially) colonized only because of its

rich copper deposits-and sneeringly called "Macho." All five wore sidearms.

They were soon more than thankful for that. They were Hellfire: long, lean,

semiattractive (if you liked them long, rangily lean, and mean-looking),

cap-tarn of Satana; Raunchy: long, lean, bisexual both by nature and genetic

heritage-and orange, truly orange of skin as all Jarps were; Syrians:

extremely female with hair dyed the color of golden wheat, definitely

attractive to both sexes but tough luck for males; 11 12 Crystal: medium

everything except-looks and bosom, which were extraordinary; and Janja. Janja

was, short, at once wiry and rounded, unnaturally pale among these of the

Galactic and Jarp race. Her hair was so blond as to be almost white, and her

eyes were like mist against an azure sky. Definitely female. Economically

rather than luxuriously constructed-and dangerous. The others did not know

that Janja, like the scarlet-haired hermaphrodite from Jarpi, was definitely

not Galactic. That is, despite appearances she was not quite human. Or

human-plus, perhaps. (Crystal and Syrians and Hellnre were dark of skin and

[natural] hair, of course; everyone was, except Aglayans. Hellfire's hair was

the color of brass or rather prass, dyed or celldyed. Janja was from Aglaya, a

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nontechnological and preyed-upon planet called a Protected World. It was

not.) Their sidearms were called stoppers. Slender tubes with three settings.

Number One jiggled the nerves and made the victim shuffle-dance. Number Two

jangled the nerves and robbed the victim of voluntary movement and

considerable thought. Number Three killed and cleaned up after itself. A

stopper was a squeeze-grip tube inside which two slim barrels lay snugly

parallel. Thumbing the setting to Three actuated the mechanism called Fry.

Nonbio-logical targets became very very hot. Biological ones, fauna of any

kind, were roasted, toasted, fried, consumed, reduced to calc: ash. The

technological innovation that had been miniaturized to become setting Three on

stoppers had been called a disintegrator at the time of its perfecting. Far

too dramatic a term, "disintegrator"! Oldrtime stuff, Buck Rogers stuff, for

those who remembered that silly fiction of an ancient century. A disintegrator

ray indeed! So it was just Three, or Fry, not the hideously graphic and

melodramatic "disintegrator ray." That's what it was, though. All five off

Satana wore belt-holstered stoppers. Hell- 13 fire's was on her right hip,

which was both lean and angular. This ruddy late evening on Mott-chindi she

wore a flippy little skirt on those hips, over figured lavender hose that were

tighter than skin but breathed. It amused her to dress so, sometimes,

particularly on a mostly-male world called Macho. It might prove enough

distraction to improve a business transaction. The miners of Mott-chindi were

paid in TMSMCo or CupreCo Mines scrip. That Macho scrip was good just about

anywhere along the spaceways. They came swooping through space to Mott-chindi

and docked upstairs, and after shuttlevator time and standard delays for ID

and clearance and arrangements, they walked onto the nowhere little

mostly-male planet. Buildings were dull, dumb, and utilitarian. Even the sun

was macho, sullen and ruddy and surly. And a little under a half-hour later

the mini-war started. The quintet off Satana was ambling along a quiet street

ridiculously called Skyflower Boulevard because they wanted to avoid the

crowded, noisy bright-light district. Skyflower Boulevard was a little wider

than what most cities on most planets called alleys. Somewhere close by some

maniac set off a bomb. Somewhere else a little farther off someone else tried

to and blew him/her/itself up, along with a gray-and-black composite "stone"

building housing the offices of four offplanet factors for three companies and

an offplanet government. A chunk of composite building "stone" (dark yellow)

came end-over-ending down to smash into the street less than a meter from

Janja, and a sharp-edged shard shot past her at about two gravities to make a

mush and an amputation of much of Crystal's right arm and extraordinary

bosom. Blood spurted many centimeters, and anyone who thought Crystal could be

saved must also believe in the jinn-called-genies and Urth and the Easter

Bunny and Justice as a natural law. Just like that. Bloodily, muti- 14

latedly dying on nowhere Macho. One of the very best-looking women along the

spaceways. "Oh, Crystal," Hellfire said in horror, seeming all lost in

emotion, but then a man came running around a comer carrying a wide-bored

pulsar weapon and Hellfire drew and Fried him in a bit less than a second.

Like the pirate Corundum, the prass-haired pirate Hell-fire was quick to draw

and good at killing, and being horrified and in shock were not enough to get

in the way of those skills. Syrians was making sick-kitten noises and shaking

all over. Her gaze was fixed on Crystal, who was down and twitching while she

drained her life out in long squirts. Wheaten-haired Syrians looked like a

nubile male-oriented female in need of succor-except that she had her stopper

out and her knees had automatically flexed in a slight crouch. Ready for

anything, this liberated Sek who played a strictly femme role on Satana. And

who was in charge of DS for Defense Systemry, meaning she was ship's gunner. A

coveralled man came running, yelling. A (round) window in a (dark yellow)

building opened, and another man gave it to him with a loud nasty percussion

rifle, and Raunchy shot that man right out of the window. He fell back

inside. Banshees were shrieking tinnily in the hardly thick air of

Mott-chindi; alarms. Those crackly noises had to be weaponry of various kinds

along with bodies popping like com. The strange ululant noise was unmistakably

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lots of people yelling, not in chorus but cacophonous as Kenton trombones. The

whole city had erupted in noise and seemed to be going crazy. It occurred to

Janja to step over against a building wall and put her slim taut back against

it. She took up watch back the way they had come. Her stopper was in her hand.

She wished now that she hadn't let Hellfire talk her into wearing this

entirely too well fitted tunic of Saipese blue with the sexy cutouts all down

the long sleeves. 15 -All five off Satana were wild of eye, restless of

eye. Hellfire, thin-lipped mouth working in her bony face, took a step that

brought her over the mess that was Crystal, rnessily dying. No one considered

that it was anything other than mercy: Hellfire leveled her stopper and

squeezed its grip. Most of what had been Crystal was mostly poofed, vaporized,

leaving behind motes of fine ash. The trace of odor was just a tug at the

nostrils. On Skyflower Boulevard. "I think we'd better head for the ship,"

Hellfire said. Wild, wary, and very mobile of eye. "Sounded like that's where

the first explosion came from," Raunchy said. . Its huge lemurlike eyes

swiveled this way and that, dark and observant more than wary. Like Janja, it

had joined Satana on Thebanis. More than Janja, it was fascinated with and by

Hellfire, mostly as sex partner. Raunchy was Hellfire's first Jarp. Hellfire

was Raunchy's first lesbian experience. Raunchy was also the first Jarp Janja

had seen that dressed to minimize its breasts, and the leather-imitating

plasmer breeches of equhyde showed little penile bulge. Weird, for a two-sexed

creature to look sexless! "We'd better head that way anyhow," Hellfire said.

"We're in the middle of I don't know what. A real bungle. Let's assume that a

war just started and we can't trust anyone at all, and head back for the ship.

Who wants the other side of the street?" Several seconds passed silently while

eyes rolled. "I will," Janja said, because no one else spoke. They were in

peril, and one was dead. No one wanted to separate. Janja didn't either. Janja

ran lithely across the street. It was easy for her and beautiful to watch, a

short woman from a high-grav planet running in .75G. The street was not all

that wide. She reached its other side just as a bright red truck came

careering around another corner and someone in it took a shot at her. The

truck looked like 16 a gigantic ladybug. The shot looked like a streak of

the fires of-hell. The pulsar blast did a nasty thing to the (dull tan) wall

near her. A missile from a noisy percussion side-arm struck shards off that

same wall a half-meter from her. The flattened slug sang away like an angry

wasp at impossible speed. Obviously the people in the truck had seen only her,

not her companions across the street. Just as obviously they were soaring on

emotion, excitement. Else why on mostly-male Mott-chindi fire on an

attractive, even exotic woman? War makes instant enemies and outlaws, she

thought, staying amove. The truck came rushing on. TMSMCo, its sign said.

Maybe the rivalry between employees of CupreCo and TMS Mining had boiled over

into this lunacy of violence-a mini-war fought among a few miners on a

sparsely peopled world no one' gave a damn about! Except TMSMCo and

CupreCo. Four stopper beams made the onrushing vehicle too hot for continued

occupancy. It zigzagged wildly, men yelling. Then it went rushing out of

control while three men hurled themselves out of it. One rolled three or five

times and then did not move at all. Another made yelpy-whiny noises, clutching

bis leg. Enemy or not, broken leg or not and Ready or Not, Hellfire Fried

him. She'd have done better to aim at the third man. Janja had noted that

Hellfire hardly had the cool competence of Captain Jonuta-who had stolen Janja

from "Protected" Aglaya and sold her into slavery on Resh-or Captain Corundum

either. Him she had abandoned or fled on Thebanis to take ship with Hellfire

all too precipitately, after that almost-all-night interracial bi-sex session

with Hellfire and Raunchy. (Janja had wondered with some apprehension if

Corundum might try coming after her. She had hardly dreamed that trouble would

come in the form of a "war" + riot on nowhere Macho.) 17 The third man had

landed almost running and rolled once and was up again. He had not seen the

truck's driver. He had also not let go his large double-barrel pistol, the

noisy made-on-Front-for-macho-Mottchin-dese percussion variety. It wasted the

energy of a minor explosion on the expelling of a small projectile, which left

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it just faster than the speed of sound, not light, and could go right through

a person. A missile from it knocked more shards off the wall a half-meter from

Janja, who had dropped into a squat, and another kicked up slivers from the

ugly yellow "stone" sidewalk between Hellfire and Raunchy. Syri-aris lurched

and yowled "Owww!" Flecks of sidewalk had hit her silver-striped

claret-colored skintites with a lot of momentum. Both projectiles, bullets now

misshapen and slightly flattened, made falsetto buzzing noises in ricochet.

(And somewhere another explosion erupted.) Janja wondered if they'd have shot

the stupid bug if he hadn't come up spewing bullets. No one could be sure

whether Janja's or Hellfire's stopper beam Fried him-except that Janja's

weapon never had been and was not now set on Three. Hellfire was fast and more

experienced. Hellfire also seldom bothered to thumb her stopper down to One or

Two. During those eight or nine seconds, the truck crossed the intersection

obliquely and entered a corner building the hard way. The noise was awful.

Careening metal shrieking loud enough to sear eardrums. The (dirty yellow)

building was ruined but did not collapse. It seemed to swallow the ruined

truck at a gulp. Dust roiled back out of the holed structure like a cloud of

smoke. Someone dived out a window, squealed on impact with the pavement,

rolled, scrambled up, and ran as if chased by demons. Then she saw the man

lying still in the street and beyond him the offworlders with naked weapons.

With- 18 out slowing she executed a tight turn and ran the other way. Key

the sirens, wailing and ululating. Key the vocal multitudes; and the

angry-ugly crackle and pop of weapons and warm-blooded targets and buildings

accidentally hit. Mix in the roar of engines and the foomP of another

explosion, blocks and blocks away. Call it insanity. "The Booda-damned swine

have caught us in some kind of revolution!" Hellfire yelled. "Must be!" Janja

yelled, and "Oh thanks," Raunchy yelled satirically. No one laughed, though

Captain Hellfire's teeth flashed while she waved a hand as if directing a

military charge. She started running. Janja did, too, down the other side of

the street, concentrating to compensate for gravity less than half what she'd

grown up in and a bit lower than Satana's as well. Even short-legged as she

was, powerfully muscled legs drove her like a foal born just long enough ago

to be able to lope, awkwardly. Longish, coltishly lean Raunchy followed its

chosen captain. Its penis and breasts jiggled now, while its translation

helmet fought to cope with curses and prayers. They were uttered into its

receptors in the whistles that were speech and language on Jarpi. Syrians

brought up their rear, short legs pumping and everything jiggling. All four

crouched in stoppers-ready positions of readiness when another bright red

truck came barreling along three centimeters above the street. This one was

only rushing, probably fleeing. Not firing. It raced on. Along Skyflower

Boulevard two coveralled men came out one doorway and a woman another. All

three saw three running offworlders and a Jarp, also running. All three

whipped right back inside their respective buildings. Someone in the act of

exiting yelled as it was run into. From a second-floor window someone heaved

something at Raunchy. It missed and 19 shattered noisily. A shame; there

weren't that many flowers on Mott-chindi, in or out of pots. The Jarp did not

glance up. They ran. The town-Macho was not big enough to raise a city, and

hadn't-was noisier than an amusement park on holiday. The town was called See

You, which had begun as someone's clever Cu, the symbol for copper. The Satana

quartet reached an intersection where six or seven men were yelling and

shooting at each other. Three were coveralled. One wore a sort of uniform,

dirty tan. Beams and bullets streaked and keened and did property damage.

Pieces of building shattered amid eddying bluish smoke. The sharp odor had to

be that of cordite, which Janja had never smelled. Of course she had never

seen anyone using firearms that were centuries and centuries out of date,

either. Bang! Poom! Vreee! The two groups of combatants weren't about to let

three offworld women and a Thing interrupt their private war. They were too

busy shooting and yelling and ducking. One paused to stare, started to yell

"Women!" and was wounded by a bullet that knocked him back ward and down.

Janja, Raunchy, Syrians, and Hellfire crossed the intersection at the

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run. They dashed on along the twilit street called Sky-flower, having crossed

Rosebud Lane. Clothing shimmered as the wrinkles of movement leaped this way

and that. Syriaris complained about the bobbling of her breasts, calling them

"knobbles" rather than the common "warheads." Janja and Hellfire were

un-un-derstanding; Janja's were too taut, and Hellfire didn't have enough to

bob. People still screamed and yelled, and somewhere a loudspeaker was

urgently blaring words. They were unintelligible. Engines roared and

old-fashioned gunnery banged and boomed and pop-popped away. Sirens shrieked

or wailed, ululating. 20 The four offworlders ran. Pirates, fleeing, and

they weren't sure from what or to what dubious haven. Copper-rich Mott-chindi

had become far wilder and more dangerous than mere space pirates, even their

quick-on-the-trigger captain. "I th-think I'm-m goinng to-o have mi-ighty sore

legs ... by the ti-ime we ge-et ... to the shuttle . . . port!" Syrians

gasped. "Save your breath-for run-ninng," Hellfire retorted. They reached the

intersection with another charmingly named street; this one was Fatass Alley.

From the corner building came the sound of a child wailing, but never mind

that: a molten gaggle of men was boiling up Fatass toward Skyflower as if

they'd been booted by one gigantic foot. "Women!" "Hey, wait, ladieeez!" "Wow,

stash!" "Get 'em!" "Hold it, spacefarers!" That last one came from a less

excited voice and emanated from behind a gun. The spacefarers did not hold it.

They sprinted across the intersection. Some idiot fired. His plasma bolt took

a bite out of the corner building a few centimeters behind Syrians, who had

become last simply because she was the slowest. With a shocking curse she

stopped, swung, and from one knee, two-handed, squeezed her extended stopper.

Men screamed and cursed. One Fried. Hellfire had called a pause to look back.

"Oh shit," she snapped. "Now you've done it! Here-we'll never outrun them, or

their shots, anyhow. Into this building." Speak for yourself, long-legged and

slow, Janja thought, but she joined the others in bursting into the

doorway. They faced a flight of (faded red) steps and another door, faded

blue. Hellfire tried it. It opened. In seconds all four were in someone's

warm-smelling living room. Chairs, divan, threadbare rug undeserving of the

title carpet. A couple of tables, assembline stuff. An ordi- 21 nary

sodium light and a handsome twist of neon in blue and yellow, too fancy for

this apt. Hellfire advanced toward the door across the room while Raunchy

locked the one behind them and then the grat came snarling from behind the

dark divan and launched itself on Hellfire before she had a chance to swing

her stopper its way. She went down fighting a beast the size of a

twelve-year-old-boy. Someone's pet and watch-grat in black, yellow, tan,

orange-tan, and hot pink, white stockings and tail-tip, big eyes in bloodshot

sclera, tufted cocked ears, and a bright red anus. And a wide-open mouth

crowded with teeth. Prominent among them were curved fangs the size of little

fingers. Over six sems long, they were hardly little in the animal's

mouth. Hellfire went down yelling and trying to defend. The grat's chomping,

slavering snarls were awful. Nasty beast mustn't have been fed for a week and

obviously liked rangy spacefarers best. Janja and Syri circled, jittery but

afraid to shoot. It did not occur to either that her stopper set on Two would

be effective; both Hellfire and her attacker would be Frozen, but she would

recover while they did a better job on the beast. Janja did notice that

Raunchy switched off the system of straps and metal that formed a sort of

helmet; it translated Jarp whistles into the Galactic tongue, Erts. The Jarp

pursed its lips to form its little mouth into a perfect o. Janja, heard

nothing but felt gooseflesh. What the vug? The grat released its toothy grip

to .howl and swerve away from its intended victim. Cowering, eyes rolling

wildly, it ran in lunatic circles. Almost at once it was drooling foamy

spittle. Then Hellfire, on one elbow, Fried it. "What the fart happened to

that flainin' beastie?" Hellfire gasped, rubbing her arm and looking around.

Syri offered a hand in rising, while Janja noted that the captain's shirt,

polymer armor disguised as silkeen, 22 was unholed by claws or fangs. That

wouldn't prevent bruises, of course. "T'lootl'l Ideet'l'loo," Raunchy replied,

and looked instantly, ludicrously guilty. "Turn on your dam' transl-" Hellflre

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broke off, staring at the woman who lurched into the room from the door at its

rear. She was a slattern, obviously used up and boozed up. She had the look of

a bust who had kept hustling several years past the time she should have

retired or found other work. Picking through garbage, maybe. Loose

adipose-backed flesh bulged against and spilled out of her old pink robe.

Hair, dyed to match, hung in sweaty strands like overused string. Pale, veiny

fingers clutched a half-liter bottle. Its dark green color concealed its

contents, or lack of content. "Tao's foreskin, am I ever glad you cakes

dropped in long enough to finally get rid of that Saining damned furbag of a

slimeball grat! That was the worst-tempered dam' animal I ever seen or had to

duck and feed too slicing off-ten! Holy Tao, I've hated that slipsucker for

years! Do you gals know that sisterslicin' beast has bit me about six times

over the years and et my own dinner more'n once? Can you believe that grick?

Damn, hell, Gehenna, and Tao's balls! You oughtta just see the perfectly good

paira skintites that furbag et a hole out of so I always have to pretend I

just tore it when I'm out on bizniss! Watch-gtat, he calls it! Keep the place

safe, he said! Lookat that di-van, willya? That slipsuckin' furbag shed hair

all over it and practiced eatin' prowlers on it to boot! Somebody oughtta give

you buncha dolls a medal, by Tao's slicer! Lissen, I wisht I had one, or a

millyun scrippoes forya, ya know? Hey, you're pretty pale to dye yer hair such

a pale color, too, yaknow? And I'll bet you're one of them Jarps. You don't

scare me none. I've seen Jarps on the holo-haven't seen you, have I? I mean

all you Jarps tend to look just-" She paused to knock back a swig from her

bottle. "They got bigger bulges 23 on the holo, but I guess yer all built

different just like us, huh? Hey say, 're you ladies-an' Jarp," she added with

an abbreviated bow that endangered her balance, "some kind of Aww-thority sent

over here to help cool off the damfool sisterslichin menfolk of this slimeball

nowhere furbag of a metrop-olis?" For long seconds they were silent, able only

to stare after all that slurry chatter. Then Hellfire shook her orangy-red

hair. "Neg. Actually we're trying to get back to the spaceport." "You mean you

dolls wasn't sent in here to help all these horny men soar? Shit, some of

ourselves need help just keepin' up with their demands, yaknow?" "No, actually

we came in on business, and now all we want to do is get away, fast. We're

pirates." "Oh shit," the woman said, and drank. She returned in haste to the

other room. She slammed the door. From its other side her voice rose: "This is

my home, girls, not th' way 'to th' slicin' spaceport! Shit, that's way up in

the air anyhow. I mean space." "Damn," Hellfire said, getting up at last. She

rubbed her arm and winced. "Ouch." "Glad to be of help," Raunchy belatedly

told the door. But since its translation helmet remained switched off, no one

understood. "Turn yer furbaggin' helmet back on, Raunchy," Hellfire said,

carefully slurring, and Syriaris giggled. Raunchy quickly complied. They

looked around. "This place is starting to look like a trap," Syri said, and

right on cue a big shoulder hit the outer door to add an exclamation point to

her words. Janja looked at the others, raised an eyebrow Hell-fire had

persuaded her to darken, and unlocked the door. They didn't have to wait. The

same man slammed into it again. This time it flew open to precipitate him into

the room, tripping over Janja's outstretched leg on the way. He sprawled,

rumpling the rug with his 24 chin. Or nose; no one cared which. From that

spot and in that position, he looked around. "Holy Tao's toenails! I'm in

Nirvana!" Hellfire made her voice sound like something out of a Reshan tomb.

"Name's Hellfire," she told him, brandishing her stopper. "We're pirates,"

Syrians added.' "Ever been raped by a Jarp?" Raunchy asked conversationally.

People short on knowledge assumed that the orange hermaphrodites just had to

be eternally horny. "Oh shit," the man said. He scrambled around, lurched to

his feet, and ran. On his way out the door one of his shins again encountered

Janja's calfy leg. He sprawled into the entry hall of the apartment building.

Janja slammed and locked the door. The four off Satana looked at each other

long enough to share a grin. It was brief. Something whacked the door from the

other side, and they heard an explosive report. "Damned old-time percussion

guns and their lead projectiles! Get away from that door, ladies." Hellfire

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whirled to try the one through which the woman had disappeared. Her voice rose

slurrily from the other side: "You cakes V Jarp ever see a thing called a

shotgun? Leaves about a millyun little holes in ya. Messy. Git away from that

door. As a mattera fack, just git." "Can't!" Hellfire called back. "Listen, we

don't want to hurt you or anybody else on Macho. We're attacked. It's a bunch

of looters." "Homy looters," Syrians added. "They've just gone wild," Hellfire

finished, with a dark glance at Syri. "You know what they want from us." "They

seem to be revolting," Raunchy's helmet speaker said helpfully, in

Erts. "Amen!" the voice said from the other side of the 25 door, with

fervor. "But git away from 'at door. I'm grateful about that flainin' furbag

of a grat, but you gals v did break in, after all, and I swear I'll shoot, and

you know slicin' well I'm too grat's-ass drunk to miss!". There wasn't time to

laugh; two impacts shook the outer door. "Janjy," Hellfire said. "Stand beside

the door and open it so you're behind it. As soon as I get those downers, out

of here and up the steps. Now! Syri?" They were a fine and practiced team,

Janja saw. Both women squatted with one knee on the tired old rug. Both rested

one elbow on the other knee and leveled their stoppers at the door. Not

without nervousness, Janja unlocked it. She took a deep breath and a long step

backward, opening the door against her. She heard only the faintest of sounds;

stoppers were all but silent killers. She edged from behind the door in time

to see Heilfire and Syrians rushing at the doorway. Janja joined them. The

odor was there, and dust motes drifted aimlessly in the little

entry-hall/stairwell. She knew that two men had just been reduced to vagrant

molecules. They ran noisily up the steps. Raunchy came last, backing. A bullet

and a pulsar bolt messed up a couple of steps, and Raunchy backed faster. An

explosion splintered the bottom several steps into ruin. Smoke followed the

fleeing quartet up to the second floor. "You mongoloid tunnelworm!" a man's

voice bellowed. "That damned grenade just took out the steps we need to follow

'em!" Up here was a dark hall with two doors. Heilfire kicked one in, easily.

While they explored that apartment's three rooms, Syri wondered aloud what had

happened to the grat. "I did it," Raunchy said. "I

whistled." "Whistled!" "Hell you did! I didn't hear anything," Syrians said,

at the same time as Janja said, "Is that what I felt!" 26 "Probably,"

Raunchy said. "The grat felt it a lot worse." "Ultrasonic?" Hellfire called,

returning from the third room. "Empty. Out looting and shooting,

probably." Raunchy was nodding. "Most animals have limited vision, one way or

the other-mostly because of the placement of their eyes, not to mention their

height. They compensate with senses of smell and hearing beyond ours. Yours. I

cut out my translahelm an'd whistled up a lot of decibels. Beyond your hearing

level. The grat heard, though, and it hurt." "Damn," Hellfire said, looking

out a window. "I didn't know you Jarps could do that!" "You never asked,"

Raunchy said. The sound of male voices rose from below. Raunchy hurried out to

the top of the steps and over behind the railing. The others froze, listening

to men beating on a door already weakened by shoulders and the explosion. It

tore inward, and Janja knew their pursuers were in the apt they had just left.

It was directly beneath them. "I think those sisterslicers aren't political,"

Hellfire said. "I think things are down to looters already!" "Looters tend to

show up fast," Syri said. "Like roaches when the lights go out. I remember one

time back on Sekhar-" There rose more deep-throated noises of a door being

attacked right under them. Then came the deeper boom of a minor explosion-or a

very loud report. That was followed by male yells, not in chorus. Next came

the sounds of several running feet as the men vacated the main room of the

woman with the pink hair and green bottle. "The old bust let go with her

shotgun," Hellfire advised. She was wearing a tight smile with nothing pretty

about, it. Hellfire really hadn't enough lips to make half a mouth. "It's a

powder-and-spark percussion weapon that shoots lots of tiny pellets in a

cone-shape that keeps widening with distance from the muzzle. If 27 she

was far enough from the door, she probably hit as many as three of those

bastards." "Right through the door?" "Don't underestimate old-time weapons.

They killed a lot of people mighty competently over a lot of centuries.

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Particle weapons weren't even invented till about the beginning of the

twenty-first, and they were b-" She broke off at the loud voice from

below. "Get that divan to bridge these mint steps!" "Those men will be mad,"

Janja sensibly pointed out. "We'd better get out of this place before they

decide to blow up the whole building." "Cloud-top's right," Hellfire said.

"They must have more'n one grenade." "I hope we don't get that old muth

killed," Syri said. "If they poof her, it's her fault. She's the one who

fired. You don't think they'd have bothered to rape that, do you?" "I guess

not. But they'd sure as Allah's Truth rape me!" Syrians swung to a window. The

apt had three, but never mind the front one. They would not be going out that

way. The tight little alley, barely a walkway, was too far below. The adjacent

building was nice and close, but its nearest windows were too high or too far

to the left. They tried the other side. The situation was the same, except

that the nearest building was way over there across Fatass Alley. And higher

than this one besides. "Blast," Syriaris said and opened the silly triangular

window to peer out. She found it necessary to relieve herself of a cliche as

she looked down at the street: "So near and yet so far! Blast!" A man came

around the building, looked up, saw her. He yelled and winged a shot at her.

More shots bellowed, inside the building and below. "We're in trouble,"

Raunchy said. "That's the last time I get picked up in a bar by a lesbian

pirate!" No one laughed. The Jarp was right, and they knew it. Their pursuers

had started off joky and horny. Now 28 they were hurting. Short at least

two of their number, they were angry and vengeful. They would not leave now

until they had their cornered prey-or had destroyed the building with the four

in it. Janja, Syrians, and Raunchy looked at Hellfire. "Sorry, girls. Stay

away from that window. We'll cover it, and the stairwell. Why, we might hold

'em off for hours." "Until some nice nippers come along to rescue four

admitted pirates?" Syrians suggested; policers were "nippers" on Sekhar. "Or

until these scum use a grenade or three to poof us and the buildin'

too?" Hellfire stared at her in a way that made Janja nervous. She knew how

fast Hellfire's temper rose and how volatile it was. She also knew that in

Hellfire that translated into violence, fast. "I'll listen to a better

suggestion," Hellfire said. "Want to play besieged castle and make what they

used to call a sortie, meaning we go running out and try to Fry them all

before they get us?" Syri's sag lowered her shoulders appreciably. "I'm sorry.

It's just that I don't like being helpless. I'd rather be vaporized in space

than blown up on this flea-nest ball of copper-or killed by a little bitty

piece of lead right out of history!" "Pos," Hellfire said, nodding. "I know.

Not to mention raped." Syrians looked sharply at her. She shuddered. Her eyes

were wide and fearful as she snapped a glance around at the others. "Listen!

Don't let that happen to me!" Janja refrained from commenting on this further

example that Syri's concern was solely for Syri. Janja was interested in the

new noise. It was loudening, somewhere below the open window. An engine,

approaching. Men were yelling, too, and the sound of their voices had changed.

She went to the inverted triangle of a window. "Stay away from there!" Raunchy

called. 29 "No, look. We're about to be forgotten." That sounded so good

that her companions crowded to the window to look down. A bright yellow truck

was whooshing down Fatass Alley. On Mott-chindi, yellow meant policers. Coming

to rescue a quartet of pirates? No-racing to cope with a band of looters.

Maybe the woman downstairs had called. Maybe these policers were just

cruising, looking for trouble to deal with. The truck rocked to a stop just

below their aerie. It settled to the pavement, the top of its cargo portion a

meter and a half below the window. Policers swarmed out of it, helmeted and

face-shielded, clad in yellow polymer armor and all toting stuff bigger than

stoppers if no more deadly. They trotted around either side of the truck in

businesslike manner and attacked the pursuers of Satana's crew without so much

as a "Halt!" Those men resisted. The result was firefight on Sky-flower

Boulevard, noisy. Janja and Hellfire looked at each other. "You're right,

Cloud-top. We're forgotten. You thinking what I'm thinking?" Janja glanced

down and back at Hellfire. "Probably, Cap'n Prass-top, probably." In gravity

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that almost halved her weight, Janja pounced easily out the window. She landed

just atop the cargo section of the policer truck. Hellfire was in the window,

alertly covering her. Flat on her belly so as not to be seen by the battlers a

few meters away, Janja peered over into the interior of the truck's hold.

There was one way in and out: the rear. Rather more heavily, Hellfire joined

her, with Syriaris covering. "Empty," Janja muttered. "Of people, I mean.

Benches along both sides, facing each other. Propped by metal legs. There's a

box of some kind." "Ammunition, maybe." Syriaris dropped down to join them

while Raunchy 30 covered her, and they made room for the Jarp. "Aliens

last," Raunchy muttered sourly, and pounced down. Like the others, it doubled

its legs completely on impact, to soften the shock and the sound. No one

heard, they assumed-but ten meters away on Skyflower Boulevard, a man saw. One

of their pursuers. Squatting, he started rising, started pointing, and was

shot by a policer before he accomplished either. "Must be why some people call

policers good guys," Raunchy said, flopping onto its side, full-length. "So

what're we waiting for," Hellfire said quietly. "Off this thing and up the

street the way it came. It provides our cover! We can swing left toward the

shut-tleport at the next intersection." - Janja only just avoided saying what

she thought: That would be stupid. Instead she said, "Wait. We have a

truck." "Just the top "of one," Raunchy muttered, lying prone. "With the

driver and somebody on the mounted gun still in the cab," Hellfire pointed

out. "Locked in from the inside-and you can bet it's stopper-proof." "But . .

. heatproof? It's metal, and this surface isn't," Janja said. "You and Raunchy

could lie flat and use your stoppers to heat it up. When those two come

boiling out, Syri and I freeze them. Who can drive it?" "I can," Hellfire

said, narrow-eyed in consideration. "Good! Then once we've liberated the

truck, you swing into the cab. We three pop in back to shoot at any

pursuit." Syri said, "You want the captain, to pop into a truck's cab too hot

for a pair of armored policers? What, and roast?" "They'll be worried by the

rising heat and I won't. Besides, the heating effect of stoppers on metal is

shortlived." Janja nodded excitedly. "Besides, those policers will vacate

fast, thinking something far worse is about to happen. The moment they do,

stoppers off the cab." 31 "And on them," Hellfire nodded. "All

right." "What if they don't just jump right-out?" Raunchy asked. "Sensible

question," Hellfire said, frowning. Janja smiled. "You already provided the

answer. We jump off the truck and run up the street and duck left at the next

intersection." The others grinned, and Hellfire chuckled. "Good-o, Janjy! But

it's Syri in the cab with me to handle the gun. It's probably a sounder, for

crowd control. And we'd better do more than just freeze those two, Janjy.

So-you and Raunchy do the heating job. I'll let you know the moment they start

piling out, and Syri and I'll take care of them." "But-those aren't rebels or

looters, Hellfire. They're policers, just doing their job and no menace to

us." Hellfire stared at her with mahogany-colored eyes gone cold as lustrous

brown stone. "So, we never come back to this nowhere skungeball planet. Just

freezing 'em won't be enough to give us tune to get in and get this thing

moving." "But you could freeze them and then hit them, knock them

out-" "Janjy: you want to talk about who's captain?" Janja saw the mean look,

and she saw Syriaris's, too. She didn't like Hellfire's more-than-willingness

to kill, and she didn't like that part of the current plan. She also couldn't

see a choice, and this was the wrong time to lecture or start a debate over

ethics. It was not getting any earlier, as the deepening redness reminded her.

SeeYou was starting to turn mauve as the sun set. Janja turned away, glanced

at Raunchy. They elbow-crawled to the front edge of the cargo hold's roof and

looked down a few sems onto the shining yellow roof of the cab. The big white

MPP stood for Mott-chindi Public Protectors. Orange Jarp and pale Aglayan

exchanged a glance before leveling the mouths of their stoppers at points

fifteen or so sems-for-centimeters apart. 32 "Janja . . . Three," Raunchy

reminded. Janja had killed, but for good Aglayan reasons: gaining freedom and

taking revenge. Nervously and with misgivings, she reset her weapon to the

killer intensity. After another exchanged look, they squeezed. There was

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little sound and no radiant heat; the metal absorbed it. The lettering had

been added; it smoked and was swiftly ruined. Molecularly bonded yellow paint

held. Janja felt the sweat of tension. The paint began to show signs of

blistering as the not-quite-invisible beams increased its temperature. And the

temperature within the cab. The MPPs could have withstood a great deal more.

The point was, they didn't know how much more might be coming. They didn't

know what was happening at all, except that cabin temp was rising. As Janja

had surmised, nervousness worked faster than heat. It mingled with curiosity

and became unbearable a lot sooner than the temperature. Then a door swung out

on either side of the cab. Raunchy and Janja didn't need Hellfire's signal.

They saw the doors open, saw the yellow MPP helmets. Instantly Janja relaxed

her grasp on the stopper's yielding grip. At the same time Hellfire and

Syrians started squeezing theirs. Enter Heisenberg. The four plotters had not

reckoned on the uncertainty principle or that ancient law of the universe: if

something can go wrong, it will. Mott-chindi was a rough planet. SeeYou was a

rough mining town. The armor of Mott-chindi Public Protectors not only gave

with bullets and dropped them harmlessly, it was impervious to the Three

setting of a stopper beam. The two policers looked up, not because they felt

or heard anything but in their effort to discover the source of the heat in

the cab. Good for them, Janja thought, straggling up into a squat; they get to

live! Then she pounced on the . 33 driver, whose large pulsar

sidearm-yellow-was coming up. He went down under her assault, feeling more

impact than her size and agility indicated. The banging of the back of his

helmet on the bottom edge of the open door, then the pavement, dizzied him but

left him conscious. She hit his gun-arm with everything she had. It probably

broke when its elbow slammed down against the street. That was still not

enough. He had the stuff to grab Janja with his other arm, a faceless local

behind the one-way plas of his helmet's visor. Then Hellfire pounced down,

grunted, wrested Janja aside, and stomped the man's neck. He quit

moving. Hellfire snatched up his dropped weapon and threw herself into the

truck. "Into the back, Janjy!" she called while she threw-scooted herself

across the roomy seat of the roomy cab, fast. Janja obeyed. She ran around and

pounced easily into the open rear of the truck. Whirled and waited, crouching.

A few seconds later she helped Raunchy in. They couldn't close the doors, and

their companions were busy starting the truck. Raunchy lost its balance and

fell when the vehicle rose a few sems on its air cushion. Janja held her

balance-until the truck lurched forward like an unleashed grat. Then she very

nearly went right out the back. Not quite. "Hang on," Raunchy called. "We'll

be whipping around that corner, turning right!" They hung on. The truck

lurched again, then vectored in air and shot at an angle across the

intersection. It raced down Skyflower while its former passengers yelled and

tried to decide whether to shoot at then: own vehicle. Just in case they

did-and because balance demanded-Janjy and Raunchy stayed down. "What happened

to the man on your side?" "Whew! Syri and I were both wrestling with him, and

he was strong. I guess the only shot Hellfire had with the pulsar-beamer was

at his left leg. His armor didn't hold long, and after that it was easy."

While 34 Janja shuddered, the Jarp went on, "Wonder what's in that

box?" It was right beside Janja, who was holding onto a bench-leg with one

hand. The case was not fastened down. A good-size packing case that was

obviously heavy, since it hadn't slid around. She lifted the lid and reached

inside. Out came her hand nestling an oversized brown egg. "So what is

it?" "Grenade. Maybe smoke, maybe sonic, maybe explosive. Killer explosive, I

mean-it'll blow up in any case, one way or another. Don't squeeze it. You arm

those things by squeezing. That's just a shell, see. The charge goes off six

seconds later." Janja nodded. Seconds and hours, at least, were standard

throughout the spaceways. It was only days and nights and seasons that varied

from planet to planet. Hence the phrases "days-s" and "years-s" or "-ess," for

standard. For some reason a standard day was twenty-four hours

long. "Charming," Janja said, studying the dangerous egg while making sure she

wasn't exerting any pressure. "So you squeeze it and throw it pretty fast.

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"WOMEN!GET'EM!"Amoltengaggleofmencameboilingupthealleyway.TheystoppedatthesightofthreewomenandaJqrp,thensprintedafterthemenmasse.Thefourspacefarersboltedintothenearestbuildingandupaflightofstairs,.Theybrokeintothenearestapartmentandwaitedforthemen.Therewasnosoundoffeet,buteventuallytheyheardabigshou...

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Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 03 - Escape From Macho

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