John Maddox Roberts - Space Angel (9 page)

Kelly looked about in alarm. The part of town they were in seemed sufficiently rough. He was no stranger to tough neighborhoods; the slums of Earthport were notoriously unruly, but the boy felt a bit out of his depth in a city where almost the whole population was engaged in one criminal undertaking or other. Kelly was reassured by the laser pistol on Torwald's hip, and he knew that the slug pistol was somewhere beneath his friend's vest.

As they walked the surroundings became shabbier and more dilapidated. The people in the streets, instead of swarming indiscriminately, congregated in small clusters on corners and, occasionally, in front of doorways. Richly dressed merchants were no longer to be seen, and the groups Torwald and Kelly passed looked them up and down in casual speculation. The sight of a well-armed spacer seemed not to tempt them, and the loungers, mostly young men, returned to whatever discussion had been interrupted.

Eventually, the two reached a bar with a sign depicting a figure in a spacesuit with a ruptured helmet, floating against a field of stars. Undoubtedly, this was the Dead Spacer. They crossed the street and entered a nondescript warehouse. Torwald signaled Kelly to imitate him, then entered, hands well away from weapons, walking slowly. Kelly followed. Inside, the light was as dim as it had been in the Gun Runner.

Amost immediately a small dark man emerged from behind a pile of boxes. His face was hideously scarred, and he had artificial eyes that gleamed blankly, giving away nothing. He looked the two newcomers over without fear. Shadowy figures were visible among the boxes behind him. Finally, he seemed satisfied.

"Been a long time, Raffen. You look prosperous."

"Not as prosperous as you, Ortega." Torwald turned lowly, surveying the loot that filled the warehouse. Seems you've picked up some new eyes since I last saw you."

"They gouge eyes for smuggling on Quetzalcoatl. What do you need? Want to get back into the profession? If so, I know a few skippers who could use a good hand like you."

"Thanks, Ortega. I just need some information this time. I'll pay the usual rate. I need the location of the clan ship
K'Tchak."

"This one safe?" Ortega nodded toward Kelly.

"He's my squire." Kelly wondered at this. He had not realized that he had a status other than ship's boy. But Ortega was answering.

"K'Tchak'
s in orbit around Donar until end-of-cycle. That leaves you plenty of time. After that, she heads for the Homeworld." Nobody except the Vivers knew where Homeworld lay. Torwald handed the man a stack of metal plates.

"Thanks, Ortega. I'd like to talk over old times, but we have to get back to the ship—urgent assignment. Maybe next trip."

"Torwald," Ortega called just as the two reached the wide wooden doors of the warehouse, "you have enemies here. Some of 'em still remember the
Jonah.
Don't drop your guard before you reach your ship."

"Thanks, Ortega." Torwald turned, reached beneath his vest, and extracted the slug pistol. "You ever use one of these, Kelly?"

"No."

"Remind me to give you lessons sometime. Don't worry about it just now. If we get hit in these streets, it'll be at short range. Just stick that in somebody's belly and pull the trigger. You've got thirty shots. One or two ought to be enough. Shift your sticker to the back of your belt, where you can get at it with either hand."

"But I'm right-handed."

"Suppose the first warning you get that the fun's about to start is a bullet through your right arm?" Kelly stuffed his knife sheath into the crease of his back. The slug pistol went into his belt.

The sky was quickly darkening when they left the warehouse. Truro was located just north of New Andorra's equator, near the sea, so the transition from day to night was brief. The streets were dim, and the lengthening shadows of the buildings formed inky pools across the thoroughfare. Torwald headed for the spaceport, Kelly following a few steps behind, ears cocked for following footsteps. They were not long in coming.

"Tor," Kelly whispered, "I hear two men behind us."

"There's three in front. I'm going to do some talking, but there's no talking our way out of this. Don't go for your gun until I go for mine. You take care of those two behind us." Suddenly the three ahead made their appearance. In the light of a doorway, they appeared to be street thugs of the standard variety— youngish men in gaudy clothes, their dissipated faces wearing arrogant smirks. They looked stupid, unpredictable, and dangerous.

"Just hold it right there." The biggest of the three, a tall man with gold studs decorating his vest, spoke.

"You boys have business with us?" Torwald asked. Behind Kelly, the sounds of the other two ceased. He gave no sign of noticing their presence.

"Just wanted to ask you about your ship," Gold Studs said, scratching his slight paunch. "Thought you could maybe use some crew, times being kind of lean around here."

"Well," Torwald said, "I'll mention it to the skipper, but—" without breaking the cadence of his speech, he drew his laser as Gold Studs' fingers darted beneath his vest. The beam slashed into the thug's side. Simultaneously, Kelly spun and drew his pistol, firing at the nearer of the two men now closing in from be-

hind He fired again as Torwald's laser
burned into the arm
of the man on Gold Studs' right. Kelly's
sei
oiul shot, panicky and a little off center, struck
his sec
ond man in the shoulder, spun him around, and sent him staggering into the dark. The man on Gold studs' left turned and ran, quickly followed by the man with the rayed arm. From Torwald's last word to the fleeing of the unwounded man, less than four seconds had elapsed.

The sound of the shots and the flash of the laser drew some curious glances through the doors of nearby bars, but they were quickly withdrawn. Torwald and Kelly walked casually away, as if nothing out of i he ordinary had happened. From behind them could be heard the sounds of men disputing possession of Ciold Studs' pistol.

"Did you know those men?" Kelly Was trying unsuccessfully to keep his voice steady.

"Never saw them before. Those were hired men. Hired cheap, too, I imagine. That kind will kill you for a good pair of boots." His voice changed slightly. "You did well, Kelly. I shouldn't have let you get into this, but I won't forget it." Kelly could say nothing.

When they returned to the ship, it was brilliantly lighted, lamps directing beams from all directions as work crews installed the new weaponry.

"Sturges wastes no time, I see," Torwald commented.

From her vantage point on the ramp, the skipper caught sight of their faces as they boarded.

"What's wrong with him?" she asked Torwald, after Kelly boarded. Torwald gave her a brief account of the confrontation, then continued on to the mess, where most of the crew was already gathered and Michelle was administering the age-old nerve tonic from a bottle. Michelle glared at Torwald as he entered. He held out his hands, palms forward, to forestall what he assumed would be her blistering comments.

"My fault," he said. "I shouldn't have taken him there. But, I never thought I'd still have enemies in this place."

"Damn right it's your fault," the skipper said. "If he'd been hurt, I'd have kicked you off this ship so hard you would've gone into hyper!"

"I'm all right!" Kelly yelled, nettled at their solicitude. "Don't make such a big deal about it. We were attacked and we fought and that's all there is to it."

"Sure," said Ham, "the kid's learning like the rest of us. No harm done, just the removal of a couple of punks that this place can probably spare, and a couple of others put out of action for a while."

"That's all there was to it," said Kelly. "Don't give Torwald a hard time just because of me."

"Then, what
is
bothering you?" Nancy asked quietly.

"Well . . . it's just that, I can't help thinking. A couple more years without finding a ship, and I could've been one of those scum back there. There were plenty like that back in Earthport. Sooner or later, I'd have had to join a gang like that if I wanted to survive. And I'd have probably ended up gunned down in an alleyway, too. So let's just be glad the right side won and leave it at that, okay?" he stared at the skipper.

"Sure, Kelly," she said, after a few moments' hesitation. "Now, go to your cabin and keep out of sight till we leave port." Kelly got up and left.

"Torwald, do you think your former friends will try to get to you or Kelly aboard ship?"

"No chance, Skipper. Nobody here makes trouble within the port. It's neutral territory. Anybody tries to make difficulties inside the port perimeter, all the others will be out to get him."

"You're lucky that's the case," she said. "All right, everybody, we up ship in three hours, as soon as I've had time to check out the newly installed equipment. Torwald, you get the coordinates for the Viver ship?"

"Parking orbit around Donar."

"That's the right direction, anyway. Old Sphere shouldn't kick up any fuss. Okay, everybody, get ready to button up. Next stop is—what's the name of the ship, Torwald?"

"Viver clan ship
K'Tchak."

Four

It was Kelly's watch on the bridge, and as usual, he was studying. It seemed he was always studying these days. At least, he was studying when he wasn't being worked to exhaustion. It had never occurred to him that spacing would be so much like going to school. But then, he had never before realized the depth of his ignorance. The State schools had been little more than an excuse to keep the younger War orphans and refugees off the streets for a while.

Lost time was being made up for now. Whenever he could be spared from work, he would study chemistry or navigation with Finn, supply and paperwork with Torwald, engineering with Achmed, and Bert seemed able to teach just about anything. Nancy was teaching him communications, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't inveigle her into any other line of conversation.

Just now, he was reading up on Vivers. Kelly could find little in the ship's library on the strange creatures.

He asked Torwald, and the older spacer gave him a microfilm monograph, written by none other than one Torw ald Raff en, that contained more accurate information than any "official" document about the secretive subspecies.

Kelly learned that in the last century, a few decades after the first interstellar drive was perfected, a group of geneticists got together and decided, after the fashion of scientists, that the human race could stand some improvement. They were going to create the future Man. It was decided that humans were good mainly for surviving and that the new human race would have to be even better at it in order to be equal to the unknown exigencies of new worlds. It
was
agreed that the upright, bipedal, digit-handed human form could scarcely be improved upon for generalized capability, but that little improvements could be added here and there, specialties without penalization, as it were. Onto this they grafted a mentality obsessively concerned with survival. The result was the Viver, though it was not quite what they had planned. The fear that Vivers generated in ordinary humans was sufficient to get genetic engineering of humans banned forever. Kelly scratched Teddy's cars and pondered that. The pseudobear had become
a
close friend, for it seemed to be the only life form on board that didn't give him orders, chew him out, or think up unpleasant jobs for him to perform.

The typical Viver, Kelly read, was between six and seven feet tall and covered with horny, articulated plates of chitin that roughly followed the lines of human musculature. The hands were human in design but much larger, the knuckles covered with a spiked band of bone. The fingertips were equipped with inch-long retractile claws that did not interfere with ordinary use of the fingers when sheathed. Elbows and knees were heavily knobbed and bore large spikes. The feet had no toes, the foot being equipped with a club of bone and chitin where the toes should be. At

the back of the leg, just below the calf, was a protrusion somewhat like a horse's fetlock that concealed a seven-inch razor-sharp spur, perhaps the deadliest of the Viver's natural weapons.

The head, set on a long flexible neck, was the least human feature of a Viver. The eyes were huge, taking up most of the skull's interior. They were covered with a transparent plate and could swivel independently of one another. There were several, smaller apertures around the skull for the eyes to peer through. The beings had no true teeth, just serrated chitin.

Internally, Vivers differed even more radically from the human parent stock. The brain was distributed throughout the body in tiny nodes, and the heart was likewise decentralized, being a series of small pumps distributed throughout the circulatory system. Practically the only way to kill a Viver was to cut him up into very small pieces. All parts, including brain tissue, were regenerative. It had been speculated that if a Viver were split in two down the middle, two complete Vivers would be the eventual result. So far no one had had the nerve to try that particular experiment.

Psychologically, all else was subordinate to the survival imperative. A Viver concerned himself with the survival of his race, his clan, his family, and himself. There were no political loyalties, only biological ones. They were smugglers because they had no respect whatever for ordinary human laws. They would have made invincible soldiers, but they saw war as a threat to their survival and studiously ignored conflicts between ordinary humans.