Starfist: Hangfire (40 page)

Homs Ferris lay unprotected, groaning, blood flowing from his head wound. Claypoole descended on him like St. George on the dragon, raining a quick succession of terrible blows onto the fat man's skull.

He stopped only when he saw pieces of brain on the blade of his sword. Behind him big men in black body armor were climbing into the box, firing weapons. It was pandemonium. Claypoole leaped over the seats and fell on Draya. A woman with a gun, blood running from her nose, stood in front of him. He broke her gun arm with a blow from his sword and body-blocked her into the next row of seats, but his sword flew out of his grip on impact and skittered under the seats, where he couldn't reach it. He dived on Draya, a savage scream welling up from somewhere deep inside his soul. Lance Corporal Rachman Claypoole, Confederation Marine Corps, was not a man at that instant but an avenging devil. At least that is what Noto Draya thought he saw thundering down on him.

Draya screamed in primal fear as Claypoole grabbed his throat, threw him bodily between the seats and began smashing his head on the floor... He smashed Draya's head again and again.

The next thing Rachman Claypoole knew, several men were holding him. Someone was talking to him.

Gradually the red haze obscuring his senses cleared.

"Rock! Rock! For God's sake, are you all right?" It was Dean. Over Dean's shoulder he recognized Chief Riggs, and beside him that big cop, Brock. And there was Nast!

"They burned Katie!" Claypoole gasped. "They burned her." It was the only explanation he could give for what he'd just done. It was the only one he needed. He looked into the faces surrounding him. "Good old Juanita got the word off, didn't she? I was right to give her the password, then."

"Let him go," Nast signed to the policemen. "Clean this mess up here." He laid a hand on Claypoole's shoulder. "Rock, Juanita never sent me a message. I came today because I knew the bosses would be here."

"Then—Then—" Claypoole stuttered.

"Yes, she was my ace in the hole, Claypoole. You say you gave her the code? You were supposed to, but I couldn't tell you that. This thing had to go down a certain way or it would never have worked.

But—" He hesitated. "I knew Ferris and Draya attended these games every Wednesday, so my fall-back was to raid them here if anything went wrong."

"Where is that Sticks bastard anyway?" Dean asked.

"Dead," Nast replied. "That's what the survivors here told us anyway. We haven't had a chance yet to recover the bodies. Juanita killed him, but apparently before he died he was able to put a bullet into her."

"But—" Claypoole was not sure he understood, or that he wanted to understand "Patsies" is what they'd been called down in the dungeons. Patsies?

Nast saw the confusion on his face. "I had to have a way to get the evidence Juanita had accumulated.

She sat in on many of the mob's most secret meetings and recorded them. But she had no way to get them off-world. The mob doesn't trust anyone that much to let them get out of here without a full scan.

So I had to get the recordings from her here, on Havanagas. I couldn't take a chance on giving her a device when we met on Wanderjahr two years ago either. I knew what happened in her bar when you were deployed there. That's why I picked you two, and I told her to watch out for you. I wanted someone she could recognize easily, and someone it would be convincing for her to pretend to hate."

"But you don't have the recordings!" Brock interjected.

"Maybe we can find them. But I really don't need them. There never was to be any trial for these guys.

You, Claypoole, you too, Dean, know what I mean." He was referring to the men Nast had sent to Darkside for poaching on Avionia.

"We were bait! We were your bagmen!" Dean exclaimed.

"Yes, you could put it that way. I knew Culloden had been turned. But I couldn't take a chance on compromising Juanita. She was my last hope to get these guys. I needed the authority first to mount this operation, and by promising to get the evidence to put these guys away, I got it. Oh, Juanita hid the recordings somewhere, and we'll find them. You know how evil these men were. You know all this was worth it."

"Worth our lives?" Claypoole shouted. "Worth the lives of O'Mol and Grace and Tara? Worth Katie's life? They killed Prost too, the librarian! He never did anything to anybody. You got all those people killed! And all you had to do was just come here yourself and get Juanita! They burned Katie, you bastard!" Claypoole shouted. "They burned her at this Worstburg, Würstberg place! Burned her so you could get your worthless 'evidence'!"

"We don't need the evidence now, Claypoole! You killed the capos! You killed them with your bare hands. That evens up the score, doesn't it?"

Claypoole's mouth fell open. He was not proud of what he had just done, even though those men deserved death; he was not proud to have been turned into an animal by this officious, arrogant police bureaucrat. Trading Katie's life for those two fat slobs didn't even up the score, he thought.

Claypoole swung his arm in a 180-degree arc then, and brought his fist sharply onto the bridge of Nast's nose. The snap of the cartilage breaking echoed loudly in the emperor's box. Blood spurted from Nast's nose and he staggered backward. As Claypoole stepped forward to deliver another blow, Brock stopped him.

Nast stood with one hand over his broken nose. "Dad's okay! Dad's okay!" he muttered. "Led imb go, Brock. Led imb go. I deserbed dad. I'mb sorry, Caypoole, I'mb sorry."

Claypoole hit him again, this time over the right eye. Brock made no effort to restrain him. "I oughta smack you for everyone you got killed on this operation, you worthless, manipulating bastard!" he shouted. Claypoole was almost in tears he was so mad. He couldn't believe they'd been used like that, and worse, that innocent people's lives had been sacrificed by Nast. This man was not the Special Agent Nast he remembered from the operation on Avionia.

Nast raised his hands. "Okay, dad's id, Caypoole! You god yur shot. No more shit oudda you, Marine!"

Claypoole clenched his fists, trying to get control of himself. All around them the members of the assault team were securing prisoners. One of them was Hugo, Johnny Sticks's aide. "I need to tell you something," he hollered at the Marines.

Brock signalled that the officer securing him should bring him over.

"That's Hugo," Dean said. "He tried to help us last night. Go easy on him, will you?"

"Look," Hugo said, but before he could finish, the second Essay roared over the Coliseum and gracefully landed amid a cloud of dust and flame. "Look," he tried again, "they took your girl to Würzburg. That's about three hours from here by suborbital aircraft."

"I know that." Chief Riggs had just joined the group. "Wanna go to Würzburg, boss?" he asked Nast, then did a double take when he noticed his broken nose.

"Yeah? Why do we need to know dad?" Nast asked, speaking carefully now, to be better understood.

"Well, the burnings only take place when weather permits, because they're held outside. It's been raining heavily in Würzburg these last three days. I know 'cause Sticks was concerned about losing money on the event."

"Thank God for the rain!" Claypoole shouted at the top of his voice. "Nast?"

"Brock, take ten men and these two Marines. Chief, you drive. Take our Essay to Würzburg. You should make it before dark. I've got to stay here and tie up loose ends. We'll have Pasquin on board the
Wanganui
and in stasis in just a few minutes, so don't worry about him. Come on, get a move on!"

Claypoole seized Nast's hand and shook it. "Thank you! Thank you! And thank God for the rain! I'll never complain about rain again as long as I live!"

Olwyn O'Mol, flanked in the prisoners' dock by Grace and Katie, both of whom were still weak from the scourging that had just been administered—to the indifferent response of the tourists in the gallery—stood as straight as the burden of his chains would permit. Grace was in particularly bad condition since the bullet wounds she'd sustained in the fight at the docks had never been attended to.

Outside, the rain poured down in sheets. O'Mol was aware that if it hadn't been for the rain, they'd all be dead. But then again, now they were facing further ordeals at the hands of the torturers instead.

"Olwyn O'Mol, how do you answer to the charge of witchcraft?" the presiding judge bellowed O'Mol hesitated. If he pled guilty and repented, the sentence of strangulation would have to be carried out immediately, rain or not. In that regard, the rules of the Renaissance park would prevail. If he denied his guilt, he'd live until the rain stopped and things dried out a bit, but that would mean more torture. He had no more fingernails to lose, but there was always the boot, the witch's chair, the ladder, red-hot scourging, and castration. Was continued life worth it at that price?

"Olwyn O'Mol, we have sworn testimony that you are a warlock and these detestable whores are your accomplices. Confess, divulge the names of the others in your coven and repent your sins, and your death will be merciful."

O'Mol remained silent. The rain pounded on the roof above. He wondered idly what the weather report said about the storm. How long would it last? And what of the three Marines? He thought back to that night on the island. God, they should've stayed there! Claypoole announced he would marry Katie, beside him now, barely able to stand, her body wracked by steaming iron pincers. How victorious they'd been that night! But now look at us, he thought mournfully. And those three good men were no doubt dead by now, probably a lot quicker and cleaner than the way he was going to die. No! They would've gone down fighting!

"Fuck you!" O'Mol shouted. He turned to the spectators in the gallery, no more than a hundred bored tourists, going through the motions because they'd paid to see a show. "You fools! This is real! We're being murdered by the men who run this world because we dared to oppose them!" The judge motioned for the torturers to silence O'Mol. They were big men, masked, bare-chested. O'Mol swung his manacled hands into the face of the first man, bringing them down on his nose, which broke with a sickening crunch. He staggered back into the second man, who shoved him aside and advanced. Grace, swiftly recovering from a feigned coma, drove her knee into his crotch, and as he doubled over, O'Mol brought both hands down on the back of his head.

"Guards! Guards!" the judges screamed.

Three men in jumpsuits, carrying modern weapons, ran out of the wings. That was a big mistake.

"Hey!" one of the tourists shouted. "They aren't wearing the right costumes! What the hell's going on here?" The other spectators murmured excitedly among themselves, and a woman shouted, "They must really be hurting those people!"

The three guards kept O'Mol at bay with their weapons. Realizing they'd broken the harmless Renaissance illusion by coming out in modern dress, they looked at the judges for instructions. But Johnny Sticks himself had told them to make sure those people were burned. That's what the guards were there for.

The judges looked at each other in bewilderment. People in the gallery were beginning to shout at them. Then, from the top of the gallery, an old-fashioned glass bottle, something a tourist had picked up in a gift shop on the town square, hurtled out into the courtroom and shattered in front of the judges'

bench. That was all it took. The tourists, on edge because of the bad weather and the delay in the executions they'd come hundreds of light-years and spent a fortune to see, began ripping up the wooden benches in the gallery and tossing them down into the courtroom. A large chunk of wood struck one of the judges on the head. A look of surprise on his face, he stood frozen for an instant, then his eyes rolled back into his head and slowly, gracefully, he rotated halfway around and slid fluidly to the floor, ending with an audible thud as his head struck the cobbles. The people in the gallery laughed, and continued ripping up benches and throwing chunks of wood, all dignity, caution, and pure common sense evaporating.

A panicked guard fired his weapon into the air and a large section of the roof disintegrated. A torrent of rainwater poured down on guards, judges, torturers, and prisoners. Fragments of wooden benches, brass fittings, miscellaneous personal items, rained down on them from the gallery. Dragging the two women with him, O'Mol surged out of the dock and threw himself onto the guards. They all went down in a tangle of arms and legs. People began climbing down out of the gallery and rushing into the fray.

The remaining "judges" fled through a back door. Over the sound of the rioting tourists and the rain, there was a roaring noise.

"I don't dare set this baby down in the town," Chief Riggs said as he circled Würzburg in his Essay.

"The town square's too small with that goddamned fountain in the center, and the buildings are too close together. There's an open field on the north side. I'll set down there, but you'll have to find your friends on your own." Chief Riggs clutched a cigar butt between his teeth. He wore a dirty bandanna around his head, hadn't shaved in days, and around his neck dangled a gaudy necklace made of animal teeth he'd picked up somewhere on a cruise. To anyone else he would have looked like a pirate, but to the two Marines, no man had ever looked more professional and reliable than he did just then.

"Okay, there's twelve of us, counting the two Marines," Brock said. "Split up into six, two-man teams and spread out. Keep in touch on the squad net. Uh, Claypoole? You come with me."

As soon as they ran down the ramp they were engulfed in the rain. The town was just an indistinct blur about three hundred meters from the soggy field Riggs had used as a landing zone. Claypoole, still wearing the toga he'd been dressed in at the Coliseum, took off down the road toward the center of town, running as fast as he could. When the sandals he was wearing began to slip on his feet, he ripped them off and ran barefoot. Brock, his weapon at port arms, ran behind, trying to keep up with Claypoole, shouting for him to slow down, but nothing could stop Lance Corporal Rachman Claypoole at that point!