Black Steel (22 page)

Jorj, directly in front of the kendo teacher, lunged in, extending for a quick stab to the heart.

The kendo man swatted Jorj's blade aside easily and snapped his heavier sword out, slicing to the bone with the tip in Jorj's right forearm just below his elbow. Blood welled. Jorj cursed and jerked his weapon back.

The kendo player spun his sword so that the point blurred in an arc to point edge up directly behind him at belly level. He stabbed backward, much as a man paddling a canoe might thrust his paddle into turbulent waters for control.

Ellenita's memory of her lessons and Cierto's warnings of overconfidence must have failed her. She was moving toward the man when she took the samurai sword under the breastbone. Her slayer twisted the sword back and forth once to free it and pulled it back, spinning in a full circle with a one-handed slash to drive his attackers back.

Those able moved quickly to widen the circle.

Burton had removed his fake exowalker and was unencumbered. He screamed and leaped at the kendoist. A fatal mistake. Burton's head was cut from the top of the right ear at an angle, the powerful slice digging all the way to the corner of his mouth.

Rita hopped in as the kendoist pried his weapon from the dying Burton. She slashed, cutting through the man's split skirt and thigh. From the way her sword stopped, she reached the bone. She danced away as the man swung wildly at her.

Jorj sought to finish the wounded man, a backhanded cut with his uninjured left hand that would likely have beheaded the kendo player had it connected.

The man blocked the slash, dropped his sword's point, and drove it into Jorj's throat.

The kendoist spent too much time watching Jorj fall, however. Gene saw his chance and took it. He drove his blade into the master of the dojo from behind, finding a space between two ribs, skewering him all the way through the left lung and probably the heart or one of the great vessels.

The kendoist knew he was going down, but he twisted, pulling the sword from Gene's grasp and raising his own weapon to cut the startled Gene. Gene froze.

Fortunately for him, Rita stepped in and slashed the kendo man across the eyes. He tried to turn toward her, uttering a loud kiai as he did, but she snapped her blade back and thrust it into his open mouth. The point of her blade snapped off when it hit the inside of his skull, but that didn't matter because the kendoist was well on his way to death by then. He fell, landing on his side, his sword still clenched in his hand, Gene's sword still piercing him through and through.

Cierto found that he was breathing harder, and he forced himself to calmness. Three students dead or nearly so. Rita, Gene and Winston stood here, flushed with fear and exaltation. Blood smeared Rita's sword, and she had pulled a wipe from her pocket and was mechanically cleaning it.

Cierto moved to the fallen kendoist. "You died well," he said. "You were much better than I had guessed." He raised his fingertips and touched the center of his forehead lightly in a final salute to the dojo's fallen master. A worthy opponent always deserved respect. He had taken three of Cierto's best with him, and while that was irritating on one level, on another, one had to give credit where it was due.

Even the matador had shown some spine. Between those two Cierto now had only five blooded students remaining for his plan. Well. They would have to do. Time was passing and he was not so patient that he would spend another six or eight months bringing another student along. Rita and Winston and Gene would be joined by Raz and Tomas.

He had worked for it long enough. It was time to claim his prize.

Chapter TWENTY-ONE

THE CATARACT OF Carnival Falls was noisy, but where Kee wanted to go was not precisely the falls themselves. There was a much-used path that hairpinned up the hillside next to the cascade, and it was along this steep switchbacked trail that Kee led Steel. They wore backpacks with sleeping sacks and enough food for several days. As the falls were several hundred klicks north of the dojo, the temperature was somewhat cooler, and the fall air had a crispness to it. Sleel's breath came out in a puffy fog.

They hiked along the narrow path. Kee said, "In the winter the falls sometimes freeze. Ice climbers go straight up it."

Sleel looked at the rushing water. "Not my idea of fun."

Kee stopped. "What is your idea of fun?"

That brought him up short. What kind of question was that? For a long moment, Sleel couldn't think of anything to say, nothing. Finally, he said, "Uh, well, the usual things. Good food, good company, good literature, uh . . .

"That's what I thought," she said. And with that she returned her attention to the climb.

Sleel stared at her back. The synlin pack with the sword carrier strapped to it offered no hint of what its owner meant by her cryptic comments. She carried the sword with her everywhere, something he had remarked upon.

Kee had said, "There is a saying about the ancient earth warriors, the samurai, from whom my art is descended: `The sword is the soul of the samurai.' One doesn't leave one's soul behind when one travels."

An hour or so later, they arrived at a picnic area next to the river. A cleared spot next to the water was shaded by tall evergreen trees. The path on the other side of the clearing was narrower and less well trod upon.

"Most people stop here," Kee said. "Where we want to go is about three hours past here."

Sleel shrugged. Walking for three hours more didn't bother him, even with the pack. He still spent an hour or two every day roaming about the village, usually at night.

The trail wound its way through dense stands of assorted woods, mostly the same tall evergreens, but occasionally smaller trees whose broad diamond-shaped leaves were yellowing and sometimes falling in the light breeze. Where 'the path broke out of the cover, there were distant, snowy mountains visible in the clear air. There did not seem to be any other hikers out this far, coming or going. A man could pretend that he was alone on the planet out here, an explorer moving through a new world.

Sleel caught sight of several small creatures in the underbrush, or sometimes he heard the rustle of the dry leaves but didn't see the cause. In a particularly thick section of the forest one of these little beasts, probably startled by the approaching walkers, darted across the trail almost directly in front of them.

It looked like some kind of squirrel, a reddish gray animal about the size of Sleel's forearm, not counting the long bushy tail that streamed behind it-nor counting the fleet flashback of memory that scampered along behind the creature.

The rows of bramble were precisely straight, laid out with computer-augmented perfection, like lines drawn on a drafting screen. As the nervous fourteen-year-old Sleel walked along, holding Melinda's hand in his own sweaty grip, the squirrel dashing across the even ground startled them both. Melinda squeezed his hand and squealed, and though his own heart had leaped as though shocked, Sleel was quick to reassure her.

"Hey, it's only a squirrel, no dib." He hoped his high voice sounded braver to her than it did to him.

Thank whoever was in charge that it didn't crack, at least.

She smiled down at him. Though they were the same age, Melinda was a full head taller, and she probably outweighed him by five kilos. Like him, she wore her school silks, skirt and shirt, high socks and slippers, all required dress for the infrequent assemblies held in the actual school building. She was not fat, Melinda, but she was a fullfigured and fully developed girl who could easily pass for nineteen or twenty. And she had her implant, though it didn't show. The squiggly line of the contraceptive tube, not much thicker than a toothpick, was just under the skin of her left inner thigh, up near her pubis. Sleel knew, because he had felt it when he had his hand under her skirt during the communal compulsory viewing of the history vid.

He was still amazed at himself for that, more for being here with her.

The old fart Winslow who ran excom ed made them all sit in a dark room watching an old recording of some war on some planet Sleel had never heard of and could give a shit about. They could have just as easily stayed at home and watched it on edcom, but no, the old fart made them assemble once a week, march into the communal viewing room and sit on hard plastic chairs to stare at the big-screen holoproj.

Socialization, he called it.

Well. It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to Sleel.

The last time, Melinda, about whom he had heard rumors, sat next to him and smiled at him.

Smiled at him!

The lights dimmed and the screen lit, but it was still pretty dark in the room. For five minutes, Sleel sweated with fear, wanting to do it, but afraid. Finally, with a daring he had never believed of himself, he reached out and tentatively put his hand on Melinda's knee. He expected her to slap him, or at least grab his hand and move it as if it were maybe a dog turd, but no, she had done neither. In the darkness, he had seen her teeth flash in another smile.

Well, shit! He had his hand on a real live girl's knee! A first. He felt a thrill that danced back and forth between stark terror and lust.

The war program droned on, a recreation of a battle in which men who dressed funny rode animals-horses?- and shot at each other with rifles. But that wasn't important now. Nothing was important except that it stay dark.

Feeling reckless, Sleel slid his hand up Melinda's leg, actually under her thin silk school skirt.

Under his own skirt, his dick strived to mimic a tent pole; his underwear didn't have a prayer of keeping it down.

Melinda shifted slightly, glancing around to see if anybody was watching. Apparently nobody was, for her change in position allowed Sleel's questing hand to move farther into territory he had never explored.

She uncrossed her legs and spread them slightly. Her skin was so soft, it didn't feel real, and yet the muscles under the skin were taut, alive, wonderful. She leaned toward him a little, and his fingertips-his hand seemed to have a mind of its own-touched the double-S curve of the implant.

Christo on a pogo board, she had an implant! That had to mean she had done it! A spike of fear shot though Sleel like a shard of hot ice. A lot of his classmates bragged about getting under this skirt or that, but Sleel had never even kissed another kid his age, boy or girl.

Sleel's questing hand slid past the implant and found a curly mound. Oh, man, she wasn't wearing underclothes! The hair felt harsh, somehow, thicker and different than his own mostly straight and still thin pubic fuzz. Wow. Another centimeter, two, and-Oh, Gods in all their kingdoms! he was touching it! A girl's cunt! Right in the middle of a room full of people, he had his hand on a pussy! Melinda's pussy!

If he had a heart attack and died right here, that would have been fine, for he was a fulfilled human being.

The angle was bad, he thought he might dislocate his shoulder, but he would have happily cut off his arm rather than pull it from under Melinda's skirt. His fingers wiggled this way and that, looking to explore this wet and hot place, the folds of flesh so strange and so inviting. Sure, he had seen the sex edcom, heard the other students talking about what it was like, but that was nothing compared to actually feeling it!

Hormone storms raged in Sleel, he felt hot, flushed, his dick throbbed and was so hard it hurt, oh, man!

Melinda reached down and caught Sleel's wrist through her skirt. Oh, shit! She wanted him to stop! He would kill himself if she pulled his hand out-But-no. She began to move Sleel's wrist up and down, pressing his fingers against her. There was a small, harder knot of flesh under his forefinger, and whatever else Sleel was, he was a fast learner. She wanted him to rub that part, must be the whatchamacallit, the clitoris the sex ed teacher had lectured about.

Sleel rubbed, softly, up and down, then back and forth.

Melinda gasped and leaned forward a little.

After a minute, the spot seemed to dry out, so Sleel dipped his fingers lower, between the folds, and moistened them, then went back to touching the part Melinda liked touched.

On the holoproj, one of the animals being ridden by a soldier made a funny noise and leaped forward.

Sleel saw the image, but it hardly registered.

Two or three minutes later, Melinda moaned softly and began to quiver in a funny way. Sleel thought he could feel her heart beat under his hand, except that the throbbing was too fast. Then she reached down and grabbed his wrist again and pulled his hand away.

Well, shit. He had done something wrong!

"That's enough," she whispered. "Thanks, it was great!"

Sleel had only the vaguest idea of what she was talking about. But she didn't seem upset or mad at him, so that was good.

Then Melinda reached under his skirt and grabbed his dick. She squeezed it a couple of times and moved her hand up and down. Sleel stopped breathing. He was afraid his heart would stop, too. Oh, Gods-!

Melinda moved her hand up and down again, and that was all it took.

On the holoproj a cannon fired and an explosion followed as the shell hit and burst.

Sleel spasmed, climaxing for the first time with help.

He thought for a second he was going to fall out of the chair. It felt so good!

Next to him, Melinda chuckled. She squeezed him one more time, hard, and pulled her hand away. After a moment, she handed him a wipe pulled from her shoulder bag. "Here," she said in a whisper. "Boy, you sure are a gusher." She giggled as she used another wipe to clean her hand . . . .

Sleel, now holding Melinda's hand as they walked in a quiet section of the bramble, smiled at that memory. That was pretty terrific, the high point of his life, but what they were going to do now might be even better.

"Here's the place," Melinda said.

"You've been here before," Sleel said.

"Sure. Lots of times."

There was a pile of leaves gathered at the base of one of the trees. Melinda pulled a film blanket from her bag and shook it open, draping it over the leaves. She sat on the thin sheet, lay back, and pulled her skirt up, revealing once again that she was not wearing anything beneath it.