Jinx on a Terran Inheritance (19 page)

Floyt grinned.

"Personally, Someone doesn't have much time for that sort of tripe," Amarok declared, having come up behind.

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"
Tripe
?" the creature piped, leaping to its feet and scattering the books, the tip of his tail vibrating over his head.

"As an affiliate of the Pantalogical Institute of
Ch'k,
I can assure you, sir, that they are neither tripe nor trivial! Look to the history of your own species for telling precedents!"

The fur of his tail began to lay flat again as the creature calmed. "It's incumbent upon me to introduce myself: Professor
K'ek-k'ek-k'ek."
There was a trill to it.

They introduced themselves in return, Alacrity and Floyt using their Forager
noms de voyage.
Professor K'ek, as he invited them to call him, not only clasped their hands in human fashion, but sniffed at them, memorizing their odors, while his antennae bobbed in their direction.

"I'm on sabbatical," he explained. "I was on a tramp freighter that docked at the Grapple to do some sort of business the captain didn't want to explain. It's all very colorful, isn't it?"

"In some ways," Floyt confessed. "But you'd better watch yourself, Professor K'ek. It can be dangerous here."

"Have no fear," K'ek answered, flashing some shiny thing in the palm of his long hand. "I've no intention of ending up in a menagerie."

Floyt was about to say something else when he realized that two of Merrywell's bodyguards had caught up with them and were talking to his companions.

"I have to go meet Merrywell," Alacrity told Floyt quietly. "He's gotten Costa to agree to a meet."

"You? Not us?"

"That's what Merrywell says. Costa's the suspicious type."

That being the case, Floyt had to admit that Alacrity was the logical one to go; he knew what questions to ask.

But Professor K'ek had picked up some of the conversation with those big, swiveling, tufted ears.

"Captain Costa? What a mine of information he would be! May I come? Please,
please
?"

"Sorry." Alacrity tried to pat him on the head, which K'ek shied away from. "Impossible, Prof."

"How too bad!" K'ek surrendered glumly. Then he brightened. "Do you know the café called the Oasis?

Over near where the
Rantipole
is grappled? I'll be there a little later. I'd be delighted to buy you and your friends a drink, and perhaps you could fill me in on certain local customs."

"
Rantipole
enjoys a certain … infamy," Amarok said. "She'll be easy to find."

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"Sounds good," Alacrity decided, "if we can spare the time; we may be moving fast. Ho, I'll meet you two there or back at the
Magus,
depending on how things go."

Once Alacrity had left with Merrywell's people, K'ek gathered up his selections and went to make his purchase. Floyt browsed for some light reading to occupy him on the next leg of the journey, feeling a guarded elation and hoping there'd be no more major obstacles to laying claim to
Astraea Imprimatur.

He picked out a few items while Amarok chose a tape about creative accounting.

The two decided to proceed with the tour, wending past hip-pocket tool-and-die shops, sex arcades and dealers in life-support systems and environmental suits.

Amarok paused at one of the latter, in a mind to fill out the
Pihoquiaq's
inventory. Floyt was amazed at the variety in suits, every sort from armored monsters that were virtually one-person spaceships to a minimal thing disturbingly like a body bag, in which people could be transported or evacuated like luggage, or corpses.

The place was also stocked with mounds of supplies, gear, and gadgets. Floyt looked over collapsible shelters that folded to a wad the size of a playing card, dermal misters for staving off itches while suited up, and portable hygiene chambers of dubious design.

He picked up a purportedly all-purpose survival tool that combined the functions of knife, brass knuckles, file, saw, firestarter, transit, microfiche viewer, radiation detector, water purifier, and a number of other things. It also had a compass mounted in its hilt.

Amarok, deciding not to make any purchases, came over to see what it was.

Floyt showed him the whatsit proudly. "It's even got a corkscrew here, see? Also, you can scale fish!"

Amarok looked it over condescendingly. "A
compass!
Not even an inertial tracker or telelink locater?

Hobart, that object ought to be in a museum!"

Maybe it was Floyt's reflexive Terran reverence for the archaic, maybe the giveaway price, or perhaps just that he liked the weight of the thing. He pulled two single-oval pieces and handed them over.

The owner of the establishment inspected the money carefully, passing a small detectorwand over it; there was no Bank of Spica or other verifying agency within light-years, and Grapples were bread and butter for some of the more daring forgers.

Satisfied, the man passed back Floyt's change in Centauran deciducats.

"Just a sec," Amarok said. He brought out a veryifying unit of his own, even though the amount was very small change indeed. The shopkeeper scowled but made no objection. Amarok let Floyt accept the file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (99 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:29

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specie. "The least you could've done was haggle," he grumbled, as Floyt admired his prize.

Again they wandered, until they came to another concession, a shop like a section of transparent Doric column. It held trays and cases of odd jewelry and pharmacopeia. They'd chanced on a booth selling poisons, love potions, knockout drops, truth serums, and kindred substances, along with sinister devices for administering them to the unsuspecting. They saw rings and bracelets, brooches, belt buckles and anklets, hairpins and walking sticks, all fitted with various secret compartments and hidden injectors.

Floyt stared at those a long time, thinking how different things would've gone if the woman who'd been sent to waylay him on Earth had used something like one of these instead of an autostyrette. Lost in thought, he focused on a beautiful Ouroboros ring.

"Absolutely guaranteed to pass any inspection," the shopkeeper, a garrulous little Eried tub of lard, said slyly. Over his head floated the traditional halo of an Eried trader, its projector hidden somewhere on his rotund person. From his voice, he'd been neutered; all really good Eried merchants were.

"That ring holds four separate doses of whatever you care to choose, would you believe it?"

"Hobart, what would you want with that?" Amarok challenged. "That's no honest person's implement."

The Eried was loathe to lose the sale, but not about to argue directly with Amarok. "Tell you what, I'll throw in a starter kit, free of charge: twenty assorted doses, one hundred ovals for everything. I don't know why, but I feel generous today, so catch me while you can. Toxins, sleeping draughts, love potions

—"

Floyt looked up. "Love potions?"

"Any and every sort! Well, aphrodisiacs, really. Erotimax, hedonol, cantharidone, stimulex—and for you, sir, I reduce my price. To ninety ovals."

Floyt was thinking of Yumi. "What about candies? Chocolate ones with liqueur centers?"

The shopkeeper canted his head so that his halo was tilted, giving Floyt a dismayed look. "I suppose I could throw some in; Angel's Kiss, a box of four, free, and you can have the whole pot for seventy-five ovals!"

Amarok was puzzled. "Why would you need such things, Hobart?"

Floyt's first reaction was shock, then anger; the chocolates the Eried showed him were the same sort he'd eaten with Yumi, before they'd made love.
So it was an assignment from her Daimyo and she couldn't
bear being with me without it? But … a box of four; there were four on the bento tray. She may have
been unsure of me, but Yumi didn't feel the need of one.

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But then he remembered her parting kiss, her grace note. The preliminary motives didn't matter then.

Floyt brightened as Amarok's words sank in.

"You're right; why should I need 'em, Rok?"

The Eried was nearly weeping. "Sixty ovals, my final offer!"

He was down to forty by the time they passed out of earshot. At Amarok's suggestion, he and Floyt exited through one of
Caveat Emptor's
aft locks into another concession ship, a smaller one,
the
Rantipole,
which was setup for contests, competitions, and other betting events.

Rantipole
was joined to the attack transport by an elbow of temporary passageway with a contoured gravity field. Floyt found great novelty in watching the far bulkhead become the deck as he walked.

Rantipole's
main lock was marked with symbols indicating, Amarok clarified, a slightly higher gravity and a somewhat thinner atmosphere than Standard, which was, more or less, Terra's. Admission was ten ovals each.

Inboard, they found polyspecies crowds wagering and screaming over various bloodsports. Pit-fights were being staged between animals from assorted worlds; target and fastdraw contests were fought with stunguns and more permanent firearms; duels saw carnage wrought with razorwhip, knife, combustorbags, and biosynergic weapons.

In one arena, a small, transparent dome, two heavily drugged men were having it out with blistermist projectors. Floyt averted his eyes.

"Why did we come here?"

"Mostly so that I could remind myself why I don't like Grapples, Hobart."

"If you've had enough, let's go."

They made their way past a compartment with contests in geeking—swallowing XT creepy-crawlies whole—and heavy-gee arm wrestling and more, headed for the
Rantipole's
bow lock for a shortcut back to the
Caveat.

On the way they passed a small hold where unarmed combats were being fought. The place reeked of sweat, blood, and hatred. Amazing amounts of money were changing hands. Floyt thought he detected a feral enthusiasm under Amarok's reserve.

"If you want to enter, Rok, I'll hold your shirt."

Amarok spit on the deck. "With those bunglers? It would be a betrayal of Someone's training and teacher."

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They came across another commotion in the next hold along. A crowd of raucous, besotted, and overmedicated onlookers was gathered along a marked-off area like a tenpin lane or a fencing
piste,
howling bets and putting up cash. Off to one side, some standing upright, some scattered about, all dented and crumpled from impact, were what looked like ordinary lockers of sheet metal.

At one end of the lane were men and one or two women, a few of them bleeding from scalp wounds, most drinking or taking deep breaths from inhalers, puffing on pipes, or popping pills.

As Floyt and Amarok watched, two intoxicated officials set one of the lockers up at the far end of the lane, a meter past the foul line, squaring it carefully. One yelled, "We've got another challenger for you here, Lugo!"

From among the contestants stepped a squat, powerful-looking man who resembled a champion shot-putter gone to fat. His shaved skull, like a pink bullet, bore livid marks but was unbloodied. Thick swirls of black hair grew like fur on his chest, back, belly, and shoulders.

Intrigued, Amarok slipped quietly into the hold, headed for the sideline. Floyt tagged along watchfully.

The squat man—Lugo—waved to acknowledge news of the challenge, drinking slugs of pale-blue rum from a glass cylinder like a long, wide stylus.

"This looks like something This One has heard about. Let's see how Lugo does, Hobart."

Floyt wasn't really in the mood, but could hardly refuse, given how Amarok had accompanied him around the Grapple. Officials of the strange contest loaded metal plates into the locker under the inspection of seconds. Another contestant, a powerful young man put together like a heroic statue, wearing only soleskins and a loinstrap, toed the starting line. Lugo didn't seem in the least worried.

Floyt, since he didn't know what was coming, wasn't looking, and missed the new opponent's take-off.

He was playing with his survival tool, getting the hang of the blade releases and various features.

As Amarok watched, the challenger started down the lane at a fast walk that quickly became a trot, then a full run, his head lowered like that of a charging bull, arms pumping. He left the deck in a tremendous dive just at the foul line, arms held stiffly behind him, to ram dead center into the locker with a fearful crash.

The locker went flying back from the collision, but not as far as Amarok had expected, given the circumstances. It hit the deck with a resonant crash, disturbing an area of white powder that had been dusted there. The human battering ram caught himself in a semisprawl on the deck. There were whines and moans from those who'd bet on him.

Floyt, who'd looked up from his survival tool too late, gaped. Two officials, each stratoed on a different file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (102 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:29

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substance, brought out a measuring scanner and tried to meld their separate realities to establish how far the locker had been knocked.

"One and one-half meters," it was determined. Among those who'd backed the challenger there was more bellyaching, and hands were waved in the air.