The 97th Step (12 page)

Gworn took a breath and let it out. "Sure."

He managed to shoot four more of the live rounds, flinching against the sound and recoil. None of the containers, however, had been in any danger. They were unmarked. There was a crater on the ground about five meters behind the targets, though, where one of the explosive slugs had impacted.

"It isn't very accurate," Gworn said. "I can do a lot better with a hand wand or a spring gun. And without all that ear-fucking racket."

His own ears ringing, Ferret said, "Let me try it." He removed the empty shells from the revolver, using a spring-loaded rod built in for that purpose, then recharged the weapon. He faced the row of targets, the gun held loosely, barrel pointing at the ground next to his leg. Then in a motion that seemed as natural as breathing, he whipped the gun up and started firing it—

Once, when he was about twelve, his mother had taken him to a prayer meeting in Toilet Town. His father disapproved of the traveling Reverend who took his tent from village to village, and his mother had done it without telling her husband. The sermon had been somewhat more lively than at the local church, but seemed to deviate little from standard doctrine. But afterward, there were the five collection baskets, and the Man Who Threw Money.

Out and out entertaining was not allowed in church, even one that was no more than a synlin tent, but the Reverend had included some things intended to pull in the crowd. Mwili didn't remember the Reverend's name, nor that of the Man Who Threw Money, but he always remembered that part of the service.

Five people with collection baskets stood in a row near the front of the tent, while the Reverend exhorted the congregation to dig deep and help keep the Lord's Work going. Mwili sometimes wondered what the Lord did with all that money—wasn't God supposed to be able to make anything? Why didn't he just mint his own stads?

In the back of the tent, a good twenty meters from the basket holders, a man stood up. He was ordinary looking, dressed in slightly better than average fashion, but he hardly had the look of a rich man. He yelled, "I got twenty-five standards for the Lord, Reverend!" He held up five five-stad coins. They glittered in the hard glare of the tent's lighting rig.

That brought a gasp from the crowd. Twenty-five stads was nothing to spit at. That was a lot of money to be throwing around. As they were about to find out.

"I'll send a basket, brother!" the Reverend said.

"No need, Reverend! The Lord can collect his own money! He knows what's His!" And with that, the man started flinging the coins. He sailed them backhand, like Mwili had once seen a friend sail playing cards. Twenty meters if it was a centimeter, and the baskets no bigger than a loaf of bread each. Five throws, so fast Mwili couldn't follow all the coins, and five coins each plunked into a different basket, as if they'd been pulled there by invisible strings.

Oh, man!

Now, Mwili, like a lot of children his age, was a fair rock thrower. There wasn't a lot to do and there were a lot of rocks on Cibule. At twenty meters, he might hit a target the size of those baskets one out of five. Two, were he particularly lucky.

But five for five? And backhand? No way! It was more than just impressive. At that moment, Mwili was certain there must be a God and that He had his gaze fastened to this particular congregation. How else could those coins hit those baskets unless God Himself called them in? Nobody was that good, not without some kind of magical aid.

The effect on the gathering started the baskets moving and money flowing. Mwili was sure that for as long as he lived, he would remember the Man Who Threw Money as his first experience that miracles were possible. Years later, when he was older, he realized that it was more skill than magic, that the man was demonstrating a trick at which he was adept, probably through much practice, or at the very least, through some fluke of natural talent.

It had been more than seven years, and he hadn't thought about it in a long time, but he thought about it now. For as Ferret fired the antique sidearm, the Colt .22 Frontier Scout Revolver, it was as if he were watching and not doing it.

Five times he fired, as fast as he could cock and squeeze, the gun held low, just past his hip. He did not aim, as the data ball instructed. He just watched the targets and shot, pointing as a man would point a finger.

Five times he fired, and five containers exploded into plastic sleet, showering the woods with shards and the remains of juice or food. Two of the containers were the larger ones, but three of them were the smallest. And with that sense of knowledge that sometimes came to him like it was inborn, Ferret knew he could have hit five targets half the size of the smallest drink can; more, he could have done it all day long without missing. No doubt in his mind.

With the sound of the reports echoing in his ears, Ferret realized he was standing totally relaxed, the gun once again pointing to the ground by his right leg.

Like the Man Who Threw Money, Ferret had found his trick.

Gworn moved closer to Ferret, staring at his friend. "Mother Hairy Asshole, Ferret! How did you do that?"

Ferret shook his head. "I don't know. It's like it was no big deal."

"Yeah, well, don't let me make you mad, you got that thing around."

Ferret looked at the gun. It felt as natural as his fingers. It felt so right.

"You want to try it again, Benny?"

"No way, flo'man. It's yours. It likes you."

Ferret raised the gun and looked at it. "Yeah. I guess it does." He grinned, remembering the Man Who Threw Money. Well, well. Maybe God had come up with
two
miracles. Not bad for less than twenty years.

Eleven

"WHAT'S THE MATTER, Ferret? Am I boring you to sleep?"

Ferret blinked at Stoll. "What? Oh, sorry. I was just remembering something. Real old input."

"How nice for you. Do you suppose we might land your memory ship and put its wings on
this
caper and get it into the air?"

"Sure. I'm ready."

"I'm
so
glad. Let's try and stay awake, shall we?"

For the first three rooms, it moved as slick as a lubed finger across polished denscris. Winkler's rascalling of the room's security comps was perfect; the admit override code opened the hotel locks without a hitch; the can opener and suppressor built and supplied by Jersey Reason, the best machineman in the biz, popped the personal locks and squashed the electronic squeals and screamers as easy as thumbing a control. So far, they had collected about a kilo and a half of jewelry, not to mention maybe a hundred thousand stads in loose hard curry. They did like feelie money on these frontier worlds.

There were three rooms left, the target bracelet being in the fourth and next one, and then they were rich and gone. This would be the last caper, and it was going down like fine wine.

At the door to the target room, Ferret got a cold rush.

It was as hard a chill as if someone had opened a door to a freezer next to him. He stopped. The hall was empty, there was no alarm from the watchers keeping tabs on security, and absolutely no reason to worry. But the hairs on his neck were stirring and Ferret felt his belly clutch as it did in free fall.

Wrongness
.

"What?" Stoll said. He was already extending a hand to punch in the override code.

"Something's wrong."

"What?"

"I don't know. Bad vibes."

Stoll nodded. "Okay. We go in high and low, you take the right, I'll take the left."

"Shanti, we’ve got maybe a million each, why don't we just—"

"This is the target, Ferret. This is why we're here."

Ferret knew. On one level, the money was the thing; on another level, the contract was more important.

Even if they never ran another caper, there was their reputation. They had to deliver, if at all possible.

"Okay. I'm high and right."

Stoll pulled his hand wand. Reluctantly, Ferret withdrew his own weapon from his pocket and gently touched the firing stud. It wasn't a killing weapon, he told himself. The chill grew harder; his skin felt itchy and crawly.

Stoll tapped the first key on the override code. "On three." He started punching the numbers in. "One.

Two—" He hit the last number and the door clicked and slid open. "Three—!"

Ferret jumped into the room in a high stance and spun slightly to cover the right side of the suite. Stoll was a heartbeat behind him, crouched low, his arm extended, wand moving back and forth in a short arc, covering the left.

Nobody home.

The door slid shut behind them. Stoll raised slightly from his low stance, and nodded toward the bedroom.

The two men did a fast search. The closets were empty, the fresher vacant, nobody hiding under the form chairs or beds. They were alone.

Stoll put his hand wand away. "False signal," he said.

Ferret sighed, pocketing his own weapon. "Looks like." But the feeling persisted. There was some kind of atavistic rumble going on he couldn't placate with reason. Look, no one is here, he told himself. See?

We checked everywhere. Nothing to worry about.

The beast in him continued to growl.
Run
, it said.
Danger is here. Death. Run
.

They found the small lock box and powered it open. Inside was a cache of rings, pins and bracelets, including the one they'd been sent to steal. It had an interesting look to it, and Ferret impulsively slipped it over his wrist and under his jacket sleeve.

"Four down, three to go," Stoll said, grinning.

"Look, Shanti, let's barrel."

"That feeling still there?"

"Yeah."

Stoll looked around, then nodded. "I hear you. I'm getting something like that, too. We've got enough.

No point in being greedy. We're covered with four rooms. Come on."

Stoll touched his throat mike. "We still clean?"

"Like a surgery," Ferret heard the voice of the watcher say over his earpiece. Halfway home.

Stoll reached the door first, and the door slid wide. Ferret was behind him. It saved his life.

The hall turned into noise and fire. Ferret heard the sounds of carbines blasting on full auto, felt the impact of the explosive slugs as they rocked Stoll back into him. The stench of propellant reached him, along with shouts.

Shanti fell to the floor.

Moving almost instinctively, Ferret jerked the hand wand out of his pocket and thumbed the firing stud down and pointed it. The weapon thrummed in his hand as he waved it back and forth, tapping the control. The attackers in the hall were preternaturally clear and sharp, he could see their faces in minute detail, as if he had studied them for hours. There were too many of them, they were getting in each other's way, and they couldn't shoot straight enough.

The wand fired six charges before it ran dry, and four men and two women went down, as though his hand had a target computer of its own directing the weapon. There were five or six more of them still up and shooting as Ferret spun and slapped the door controls. Something spanged off the door frame, sparking and ringing, and Ferret felt a spray of hot particles sleet against one arm.

The door slid shut with painful slowness. When it clicked into lock mode, Ferret snap-kicked the mechanism, destroying it.

Stoll!

Ferret dropped the weapon and fell to his knees. The front of Stoll's tunic was ruptured with fist-sized holes rapidly filling with blood. He lay on his back, his eyes shut. He opened his eyes and blinked once at Ferret.

"Shit—!" Stoll said. And died. There could be no doubt.

Ferret stared at his friend, his brain burning and screaming in panic. Outside, men yelled, and the door began to shudder under the impact of explosive fire. The door wouldn't hold for more than a few seconds.

Ferret stood. Shanti was dead, he couldn't help him now. He ran toward the room's outside balcony, picking up a form chair as he moved. Without pausing, he slung the chair at the thincris door. The clear crystal shattered outward; the chair tumbled, then caught on the metal rail bordering the small balcony; and Ferret was right behind it.

The room was on the fourth floor, too far to jump to the ground, but the room just under it also sported a railed balcony, as did all the rooms above ground level on this wing. A good thief always thought about ways to run, should biz go sour, and this caper was shattered.

As the room door behind him began to splinter, Ferret leaped over the metal rail and hung by his hands.

He swung himself back and forth like a pendulum, then let go his hold. His feet were two meters over the next balcony, and he landed hard, falling to one shoulder. He didn't hesitate, but repeated his movements from the third to the second-floor balcony, nearly landing on a woman sunning herself. He twisted to avoid her, and hit his side on the rail, scraping a long patch of skin loose. He thought he heard a rib crack, and he could feel the blood start to seep into his clothes.

The woman screamed, but he ignored her, bounded over the railing and to the manicured lawn below.

He landed hard, tumbled forward in a shoulder roll and came up scrambling.

Behind him, he heard the men who had killed Shanti yelling as they reached the balcony. He sprinted for a row of bushes, broke his stride to make a harder target, and felt the wind of bullets passing him as he reached the cover. Despite his fear, and in amazement, he had time to notice the overpowering bananalike scent of the flowering shrubbery as he crashed through it. He moved, he felt, as if in slow motion, a bug trapped in hardening amber. It was all a dream, choreographed by some mad dancer, held together with bloody glue and icy fear—it couldn't be real.

"Hold your fire!" somebody yelled from four flights up. "There are civilians down there!"

And, as Ferret cut to his right, running crouched and burning adrenaline, bowels clenched against the expected hammer of an explosive round, he heard another voice yell something at him. Or, rather, to him:

"I'll find you, Ferret! You're dead!"

The recognition of the voice made him stumble. He nearly fell, but managed to recover. In another few seconds, he was out of line-of-sight of the burgled room. He was safe, for the moment, and there were lines of retreat laid. Ahead, on the road passing the hotel, he saw a traffic jam. At least the Wandering Leos hadn't been altogether compromised. His chances were good that all of the escape conduits weren't burned. It was possible he could still get away. That should have made him feel better, safer, but it didn't.