Sweet Starfire (24 page)

Heavy rain would have no effect on the deflector screens surrounding Cidra, and she could stay reasonably dry in the tent, but the storm was bound to be unnerving for her. And it could slow him down. He had to get back to Cidra before the deflectors went down. With common sense, a certain amount of knowledge, luck, and a pulser, a man might survive Renaissance during the day. Night was another story. The only consolation was that the storm would also slow the failing skimmer. Maybe Racer would start to panic sooner than he might otherwise.

The cloud shadows had nearly blocked out the sunlight entirely when Severance detoured around a broad-leafed tree that was as thick in the trunk as a small building. Suddenly he realized that he could hear metallic sounds. Not the hum of a skimmer—for an instant he thought he might have had the unbelievably good luck of happening across someone else camped on the riverbank.

He slowed, using the thick foliage for concealment, and edged toward the sounds. Severance saw the skimmer first. It had been pulled into shore and made fast. Racer had apparently used the crisper to carve out a small clearing on the bank. He wouldn’t want anything sneaking up on him while he was occupied with the skimmer, and from the hot, sweaty look of him, he had already been working on the machinery for quite a while. He had left the engine panel in the stern open and was bent over the controls inside.

Seeing Racer, Severance felt a wave of seething fury sweep through him. He grimly waited for it to pass. It would only cause his hand to shake and his brain to function on partial power. It wasn’t the way for a predator to confront prey. And, this time around, Racer was the prey.

Severance gave himself another moment or two to control the anger, and then, pulser raised, he stepped out into the open.

“Don’t waste your time on it, Racer. You won’t be needing transportation.”

Racer’s head came up with a hard jerk that betrayed his nervous state. For a second he simply stared at Severance from the stern of the skimmer. There was desperation in his face, something Severance had never seen in him before. He stepped closer.

Racer threw himself down onto the deck of the skimmer. Severance fired the pulser, not at the empty stem but at the diazite cabin wall. The wall crackled and exploded, sending a shower of jagged shards down onto the man hiding behind the gunwale.

There were several startled screams and a brief scurrying in the vegetation behind Severance as a few of the local inhabitants opted to vacate the area. He knew that while some fled, others would be big enough and hungry enough to indulge their curiosity. They would come closer to investigate.

But the diazite shower had had the desired effect. Only something as powerful as a pulser could break up diazite, but when it did fracture, the shards were like jagged blades. Racer didn’t wait for the next wall of the cabin to be splintered. Pulser in hand, he leapt over the side, using the craft as cover while he waded the short distance to shore. He risked a shot over the bow, driving Severance behind the house-sized tree, and then ran for shelter at the edge of the small clearing he had made with the crisper.

“It’s all over, you renegade bastard,” Severance called. “Did you really think I’d let you get away with it?”

“You don’t stand a chance without the skimmer and screens, Severance. Throw down the pulser and I’ll consider a deal.”

“You don’t have anything to bargain with. I’m claiming the skimmer.”

“You’ll never get close to it. From here I can cut you down before you get aboard.” Racer wasted a pulser shot demonstrating his line of sight. A small vine that had been missed earlier by the hurried crisping job fizzled, smoked, and died. “Won’t do you any good, anyway. You really did a job on those fuel cells. The only thing working on that damn boat is the communication equipment. I was just about to put in a call. We’re both stuck here, Severance, until I make that call.”

Severance listened as Racer moved uneasily on the other side of the clearing. “I was always better with equipment than you were, Racer. Remember?”

A pulser shot was the answer. Overhead several huge leaves crumpled. The angle of the shot was different. Racer was trying to edge around the clearing. Severance slipped away from the shelter of the tree trunk, paused to let a small creature with oversize antenna scurry out of the way, and then padded quietly to a different position.

“Be careful, Racer. You never know whose mouth you’ll step into out here. Maybe something like a killweaver. Something that takes its time sucking a man dry.”

There was a silence from the other side of the clearing. Too much silence. Severance could guess what Racer’s imagination must be doing to him. He knew damn well that his own imagination was operating in high gear. Grimly he clamped down on it, refusing to let himself see fangs in every trailing vine. That kind of thinking wasn’t going to get him far. Slowly he worked deeper into the vegetation. Racer would stay close to the clearing’s edge while he tried to find Severance.

There was a flash of movement at Severance’s right shoulder. He froze. A long, forked tongue emerged from between jaws that could grind rocks. The tongue tasted the air and then delicately extended to taste Severance’s sleeve.

There was no way he could lift the pulser and fire it before the scaled head struck. Severance didn’t move, hoping the fabric of his sleeve wouldn’t taste very good. Beyond the tongue, two small eyes that looked like bottomless pits stared at him. The tongue touched the sleeve and flicked about in confusion. Severance didn’t move.

“I’m willing to talk, Severance. We can deal. We were partners once. For old time’s sake I’m willing to make a deal.”

Racer’s voice came from somewhere behind Severance. He didn’t dare turn around. He would have to rely on the vegetation to conceal him while he waited for the tongue to finish sampling his sleeve. The death that lurked in the creature’s eyes was closer and more certain man the death in Racer’s weapon.

At the sound of the voice from another location the tongue darted about in more agitated confusion. Finally it disappeared back into the rock-crunching jaws. With another flash of movement the baleful eyes vanished too. Severance began to breathe again. Turning slowly, he listened to Racer. The other man was only a few meters away now, but he couldn’t yet be seen.

“You’ll need my help to get back to the camp. You left your little Harmonic there, didn’t you? If you don’t get back by dusk, she’ll be food. Come on, Severance. You don’t want that. The longer you play this hunt-and-stalk game, the weaker those deflectors are getting.”

Severance said nothing. He was too close. He caught a glimpse of clothing as Racer edged forward in the undergrowth. The other man slipped past within arm’s reach.

“I’m going to call for help, Severance. Another skimmer can get here by midday tomorrow. You want that distress call put in as much as I do.”

Severance waited a few more seconds and then glided forward until he was directly behind the other man. “Drop the pulser or I’ll end this now.”

Racer went still, but he didn’t drop the weapon. “You won’t kill me, Severance. You need my help. And I’m willing to give it.”

“I need you about as much as I need a visit from a dracon. Drop the pulser.”

“Bastard!” Racer broke, diving into the tangled vines and leaves to his right.

Severance raised the pulser but held his fire as he listened to the other man charging wildly through the undergrowth. Racer was in full flight, and he was in a panic.

The scream that echoed through the jungle a moment later was almost anticlimactic. Severance tensed, waiting for it to be cut off with the usual deadly abruptness. He didn’t want to think about what had gotten Racer.

But the scream didn’t die. It kept reverberating, chilling Severance’s nerves. He would have given a great deal of credit to have it cease. But there was no escape from it. Racer kept screaming.

There was no walking away from that kind of human fear and despair. No man deserved to die that slowly. Severance worked his way toward the terrified cries. He kept the pulser in front of him, dreading what he might see. The sound wasn’t shifting direction. Whatever held Racer was confident enough not to bother carrying its prey back to its lair.

Severance edged around a leaf wider than he was tall and stared at the predator that held the screaming man. It was a flower. The most spectacularly beautiful flower he had ever seen. Huge, lacy petals shimmered gold and purple and red, the colors flowing into each other. The whole thing was twice as big as Racer.

He had blundered into the very heart of the flower and was now held fast by a sticky center. The huge, lacy petals were just beginning to fold shut, enclosing their prey. Racer’s pulser lay on the soft, musty ground.

“Severance! Severance, save me! Stop it. You can’t let this happen. You know you can’t. You’d never be able to live with yourself. You were always so big on doing things by your own damned code. Let me die like this and your reeting honor won’t mean a thing. And you’ll know it. You’ll know it, even if no one else does. For the rest of your life you’ll know it. You’ll have to live with it the way I’ve lived with it. Waiting. Always waiting for someone to find out.”

Severance looked at the flower, fascinated by the lethal beauty. The edges of a couple of the lacy leaves had just begun to cradle Racer as if he were a lover. Racer screamed again as he felt their touch. He tried to pull one hand free from the sticky substance and failed. His face was a mask of growing terror.

“Severance, it’s starting to eat me. I can feel it. Stop it. You’ve got to stop it!”

“I’m trying to think of one good reason.” Severance waited. “Come on, Racer. Give me one good reason. After what you’ve done…”

“It was an accident,” Racer screamed. He was almost incoherent now. “I never meant to kill him. He wasn’t supposed to die. How did I know he’d follow that signal into the ground? Do you hear me, Severance? I didn’t intend to kill Jeude.”

Severance felt as if a giant shock wave had caught him and hurled him to the ground. He was still standing, but there was something wrong. He wanted to scream too. Not in fear but in rage. Slowly he raised the pulser and took aim at the base of the flower. He squeezed the trigger. It took three shots to eat through the tough fibers of the deceptively graceful stem.

The flower, severed from its base, fell limply to the jungle floor. Racer was still trapped inside. He was weeping uncontrollably when Severance reached him. Carefully Severance pried open the lacy leaves, using the pulser once or twice. Then, avoiding any contact with the sticky, hairy heart, he reached down and pulled Racer free.

It was hard work. The flower, even dead, did not willingly give up its prey. When Racer at last rolled free, Severance saw that his clothing had already been dissolved- in places and that there were bright red marks on the skin that showed through the holes. “Get up.”

Racer crouched at Severance’s feet, still weeping. “I said, get up.”

Racer shook his head, brushing his eyes against his sleeve. “You’ll kill me. I knew you would. I figured you’d rather do it than let that… that thing do it once I told you about Jeude. A pulser’s better than being eaten alive.”

“Why, Racer? Why couldn’t you just stay the hell out of my way? Why did you have to kill Jeude? Why did you try to take Cidra? You should have just come after me, Racer. You should never have gone after them.”

“This time I figured I had you too,” the kneeling man whimpered. His voice broke into a hoarse whisper. “I couldn’t stand it any more.”

“Couldn’t stand what?”

“The way you look through me as if I weren’t worth a single credit. I knew what you were thinking. I kept wondering when you’d decide to have a laugh and tell someone else what really happened that day in the sinkswamp. You knew what it was doing to me. Never knowing when you’d decide the game had gone on long enough. You were just biding your time, waiting for a really good moment to tell everyone how I’d left you to face that killweaver. And after you’d made your announcement I’d never have worked as a mail pilot again. No one would have trusted me. I couldn’t let you hold that weapon over me forever, Severance.”

“Why did you go after Jeude?” Severance realized that his hand was trembling. He ached to pull the trigger.

“It was supposed to be you,” Racer said bleakly, staring at the spongy ground. “It was supposed to be you in that ship. I didn’t know you’d stayed behind until afterward. All I wanted was the cargo. I wanted to make it look like you’d sold the cargo to a higher bidder. But the sandstorm came up so quickly. Jeude didn’t stop following the distress beacon. He just kept riding it.”

“Right into the storm and then into the ground. I should have left you in the flower, Racer.”

“You wouldn’t,” Racer said. “You couldn’t. That’s the thing about you, Severance. You’re soft in some ways. Too soft.” He climbed slowly to his feet, more assured now. “I don’t think you’re going to use the pulser, either. You’d have done it by now if you were capable of killing me in cold blood. You’ll take me back for a nice, neat legal trial, won’t you?”

“Sorry, Racer. I’ve got better things to do than see you get that kind of justice. Besides, a good trial costs credit.” Lowering the pulser, Severance walked around the man, heading back the way he had come.

“Severance!”

Severance ignored him. He didn’t trust himself to turn. It would be so easy to use the pulser. The memory of Jeude and the image of Cidra filled his head. The pulser grip was warm in his hand. Too easy. Racer didn’t deserve it that easy.

“Severance, you can’t leave me!”

There was a scrambling sound behind him. Severance heard it and knew instinctively that Racer wouldn’t risk tackling him, which left only one other explanation for the frantic, scuffling movements. Racer was going for the weapon he had dropped when the flower had caught him. Severance swung around and fired just as Racer, kneeling, raised the pulser he had found. He gave only one short, chopped-off cry. The familiar,horribly abrupt scream of one more Renaissance victim.

Severance lowered the pulser. Too easy. Jeude’s killer should have died more slowly. He had wanted Renaissance to execute the sentence in its own inevitable, fearsome manner. The fact that neither Jeude nor Cidra would have wanted that kind of end for Racer was immaterial. They had nothing to say about it. Severance was the judge, the jury, and the executioner.