The Universe — or Nothing by Meyer Moldeven (summer reads .txt) 📖

just discharged suited figures at a nearby mooring tower, the Sentinels lined up along the taxi's portal. Zolan consulted a placard on the instrument panel and punched in the coordinates for Air Lock 22. As the flitter rose and headed toward the dome Brad thought back as he weighed their chances.

The processes of intense physical training and weapons drills, the concentrated telepathic loading of Plutonian political history and its government's despotic apparatus had been cleared from their consciousness; the substance remained. Nor were they aware of any new or altered neuro-muscular capabilities or functions. They knew they had a job to do, and what the job was. They were on their own: no mercy from one side, no help from the other.

More than three-score sleeps had passed since their choreographed escape; only the events flashed through his mind; why they happened did not.

The Raven, on a lengthy umbilical-catwalk, had been tethered to the Guardian Station, ostensibly for maintenance after a servicing round of nearby communications boosters. The ship was skeleton-staffed. Brad and his companions had been secretly transferred beforehand to a cubicle adjacent access to the catwalk.

At Brad's signal, the Sentinels moved quickly. Hodak, acting as clumsily as he could, slammed and locked the passageway safety doors with the loudest noises he could generate, broadcasting the unusual activity to all within hearing range and for electronic sensor pickup.

They had lurched and stumbled noisily along the catwalk, Adari suppressing giggles. As the last of the six cleared in through the Raven's air lock, Hodak had hit "Emergency," on appropriate switches and the ship-to-station servicing lines went through quick-disconnect. Portals closed and locked.

Within seconds, Brad was on the bridge and his crew at rehearsed departure stations. The caretaker officer and his two aides stepped aside, silent, businesslike. They were Ram's men.

Adari hit the tether-disconnect. Disengaged, the catwalk coiled in toward the station as the ship edged away. Signaling Hodak for minimal repulse and acceleration to increase the drift, Brad ordered all hands immediately into accelo-nets. He increased thrusters to 'low' and, following a moment's pause into 'intermediate'. As soon as he sensed they could handle the acceleration he stepped the thrust up to successive levels.

The old tub creaked, pitched, rolled and yawed; lights flickered and dimmed; systems slipped into yellow or borderline red on half a dozen indicators, all recorded on the ship's log. The Raven all but flapped wings, and true to her name, took off. To the hundreds who watched from the station's portholes, the escape was real. The cover might hold.

The alarms went out from the Guardian Station to Sector Space Guard, and from there to a patroller conveniently distant.

Messages spunneled throughout the sector and to Earth and Luna: "Escape of dangerous felons,", "Sabotage of station surveillance system,", "Station 15 unable to respond in time," or "Immediate pursuit and capture essential" with abundant 'Expedites' and 'ASAPs' scattered throughout the text.

The scenario was exquisite. The word was out, and within hours, had spread system-wide.

##

A couple of million kay out, Ram's men boarded a well-stocked lifeboat and headed back to a prearranged pick-up. The Raven settled into outbound, Brad aware of an opportunity to merge with traffic at a not too distant spunnel gate.

##

Brad brought his mind back to the present as the flitter settled on the landing pad near air lock 22. Entering the pressure compartment and attaining atmospheric balance the Sentinels removed their suits and sealed them in wall lockers. The switch of weapons and holsters to clips on their inner coveralls completed, they strolled out of the storage room and mingled with a throng of citizen commuters. Moments later they were on a moving transit strip on their way to beautiful downtown Coldfield.

The strip cut across and through narrow streets and alleys lined with huts fused from the gray detritus of the planet.

Occasionally, a mall or square appeared along the transit route, lined with workshops, playgrounds, and colorful private houses or apartment complexes. Occasionally, they passed a dwarf tree or a flowering shrub in an earth-filled container.

Running and leaping alongside the moving strip as it passed slowly through stations, hawkers waved and shouted at the commuters and passers-by, inviting them to examine and purchase the novelties and artefacts they waved about or in nearby open air stalls. From above, lighted globes, strung close beneath the dome, cast a harsh, grotesque glare across the city.

People swarmed, and a raucous clamor shrilled along the tightly packed streets and alleys. Men, women and children in all shapes and sizes: tall, short, stocky, slender, organic, bionic, robotic, and combinations thereof. Hairstyles ranged from totally shaved skulls to elaborate hair-puffs, and garments from dreary, simple shifts to flamboyant, complex robes that twisted, circled, and knotted around their wearers.

This was Planet Pluto post-secession: a mixture of migrants from across the system. The tank town took them all, for itself or for Slingshot, or both. Those who stayed procreated, natural or clone, according to their customs or inclinations. The effect was a mixture of breeds whose interactions had brought out a bewildering patchwork of hybrid cults, philosophies and arts. Behavior ran the gamut; newcomers accepted or were overwhelmed.

Kumiko pointed ahead. The Condor loomed, a sprawling, multi-storied, down-at-the heels apartment-hotel, its surface colors akin to the low, drab rise on which it stood.

Disembarking the strip, the companions assembled, slipped into an alley and entered a portal into the crowded lobby. Joining the laughing, chattering throng, they squeezed their way to the desk robot, and registered as a group. Individual identicards ejected from an aperture, assigning them to a small apartment with sleeping cubicles off a common room. The communal lavatory and electronic bio-shower were down the hall.

Entering the apartment and tossing their gear into a corner, they kept up a running chatter. Hodak's main concern was where their next meal was coming from.

"Gotta find jobs or we don't eat," he barked as he hoisted his pack on to a sleep pad and tore at its flaps.

Kumiko and Adari opened and slammed cabinets, checked housekeeping supplies and "ooh-ed" and "ah-ed" each discovery. Myra and Brad stomped into a sleeping cubicle and heaved the sleeping pads first one way, then the other.

"Look in the corners," Hodak bawled across the narrow hall, "that's where the little buggers build their nests."

Myra shrieked and drew her sidearm as Brad stepped back. She set the ray-spread to conic and ran the beam from one end of the pad to the other, into the corners and along the walls. They inspected the results, laughed loudly, and went on to the next cubicle to repeat their exuberant performance.

Zolan strolled from one room to the next, sharing the action with his noisy friends, meanwhile scanning the walls, ceiling, floor, lighting fixtures, visi-screens and cabinets.

He rounded toward Brad and brushed against him. His fingers pressed their message. The others, watching, drew the correct conclusion.

The rooms were bugged, sight and sound.

Chapter NINE

Brad and Hodak pushed into the Charnel Pit,
Coldfield's popular tavern.

The bar-room was noisy, grimy and crowded. Incense streamers slid and coiled along the soil-fused floor, their dissipating pungency unable to disguise the acrid stench of sweaty bodies and unwashed garments.

The long bar was hidden by leaners. Narrow aisles snaked among benches and clustered tables around which boisterous, elbowing humanity teemed.

A coarsely seamed face along the bar turned, observed Brad and Hodak as they glanced around from inside the doorway. Whispers went down the line, jumped to the tables and around the room.

The tumult ground down as necks craned. A hum rose and fell as Brad and Hodak were inspected, commented upon, and judged. It didn't take long for the noise to return to its former level: the amenities of bar-rooms everywhere.

From where he stood, Hodak failed to see a table with a couple of empty chairs. They waited. Shortly, nudging Brad's arm, he nodded toward a table newly vacated against a wall.

They shoved and twisted through the narrow spaces to the table in time for Hodak to slam his hand, palm down, flat on the tabletop, glaring off a trio of competitors.

They sat, and Hodak pressed the glow-disk in the center of the table to summon the robo-dispenser. Meanwhile, they surveyed the throng.

Some types were recognizable; others would need to be guessed at. Mostly, they were familiar: spacefarers and space tug cowboys in tight-fitting foundation suits, construction stiffs in fitted helmets and spacer harnesses, clerks and tradesmen in business tunics, and street people in coarsely woven, grimy open-necked shirts and shorts. Slingshot technicians' jumpsuits were marked by distinctive shoulder patches.

Scattered in knots, or leaning against walls and supports, men and women, bare to the waist and sporting sheer breechcloths or none at all, flaunted their wares.

Brad recognized spoilsmen plying their trades. They were the dandies attired in colorful, skin-tight sports suits: thieves, pickpockets, high-tech gear rustlers, black marketeers, professional gamblers, and experts in all the scams that are or ever were.

Hand and shoulder weapons were everywhere: lashed to thighs or slung across backs, flat on tables or stacked along the bar. Churning and jostling, the swarm shifted constantly: singly, in couples and groups; from fledglings newly on the wing to old timers diminished by adversity. Most were in their prime: hard of face and body, wary, unbridled and self-seeking. They mixed freely.

At a table further along the wall near to where Brad and Hodak sat, Drummer gently swirled the contents of his drinking goblet. He was gaunt, well past middle years, with a high-boned countenance. His head was capped by snow-white hair trimmed straight across at his shoulders. Dressed simply, Drummer wore a dark cloak over a white, open-necked blouse tucked into loose breeches that ended a bit below his knees. He did not bear a weapon.

Drummer stared about and searched for strangers that might serve his purpose. When he heard that the Raven was at planet-fall, he had called for and reread all available newscasts and reports to refresh his recollections of their crimes, personal backgrounds, and escape.

Were they really escaped prisoners? Or were they agents of the UIPS? If they were fugitives they might be suckered into President Narval's mercenaries where their spacer skills would help fill the gaps. If they were revealed to be UIPS agents, they would be quickly disposed of, or manipulated and exploited through false leads to Narval's benefit. When no longer useful they would be terminated.

The newscasts and intelligence summaries on the escape were insufficient. Drummer's position as one of Narval's closest advisors, and his own private and secret ambitions, compelled him to learn more about the newcomers. How could they fit into his schemes?

Drummer ordered a fresh drink from a passing robo-dispenser. It arrived in a large snifter. Cradling the rounded bottom in his palm, he swished the gold-hued liquid with a gentle motion, eyes moving from the drink to the crowd to Brad and Hodak, and randomly round again.

A hard-muscled sledgehammer of a man barged into the Charnel Pit, sullen anger knotting his beefy face. His military uniform was skin-tight: a black tunic belted over blood-red breeches. The military helmet he wore was also halved black and red as were his holster and the handgrip of the protruding weapon. His black cavalier boots were made for swaggering. Formidable.

Deep, red-rimmed eyes glared from under the helmet's visor, searching for an open space along the bar. The line was solid.

"Open ranks," he snarled, and leaned heavily into the instant gap.

The barman rushed forward and raised his hand in respectful greeting.

"Honored to see you, Major Scarf," he said, "what'll it be?"

"Firehouse Red, and I don't mean the runny slops you peddle to the bar flies."

The barman dashed off and returned with a long-necked flagon and a large tumbler. He poured a slow-flowing, crimson liquor that bubbled as it settled. The barman set the brimming tumbler close to the Major's massive, thick-fingered hand.

The Firehouse Red disappeared in a single, spasmodic swallow, for all its slow-flowing nature. The barman stood by. The instant the tumbler slammed down, he refilled it, the ritual repeated in silence.

##

Finally, the sledgehammer hesitated, belched, and, with a satisfied sneer, scratched his crotch. The barman filled the tumbler a third time and turned away. Instantly, the flagon was yanked from his hand. The barman glanced back at the flagon, Major Scarf's face, grinned sheepishly, and kept going.

Placing the flagon alongside on the bar, Scarf raised the half-filled tumbler, fondled it, and tossed a scornful glance up and down the line. Few met his eyes, and those who did looked elsewhere as soon as he fixed on them. With a snort of contempt he wheeled to face the room. Removing his heavy helmet and lowering it to the ground alongside his leg, he leaned back to rest his elbows on the bar's edge.

His eyes scanned the room, sectoring the crowd and scrutinizing each person. Taking in the tables along the wall, he paused at Brad and Hodak, and scowled at them steadily through half-closed eyes.

Brad and Hodak returned Scarf's gaze with expressions cold and closed. The Major's eyes moved on and fixed on Drummer. His face twisted into a malevolent grin.

Chapter TEN