The Guns of Two-Space (54 page)

Fielder let the slide slam forward on a fresh mag, and spun around looking for more attackers.
Where in hell did Ursula go? Damn that woman!
And part of him couldn't help but think,
Damn she looks good!
 

...the most she will do,
is throw shadows at you,
But she's always a woman to me...
 

He paused in surprise as he saw Lady Elphinstone pull her knife from a dead man sprawled behind him.
Damn! She dropped two with her pistols and then covered our rear with her knife! Not bad. Not bad at all...
 

Fielder pivoted to the front again—just in time to see Ulrich prying his knife from the back of his victim's skull while his monkey pulled its tiny dirk from the hapless bravo's kidney. "Well dip me in vacuum and call me an ice cube!" said the highly disconcerted first officer. "Where the
hell
did you come from?"

Ulrich just shrugged and stole another bite from the table. "Eep!" said his parrotlet.

"And, damn," added Fielder, looking at the corpse at Ulrich's feet, "two .45 slugs to the heart, a knife in the base of the skull, and one in the kidney. Don't you think that was a
little
bit of overkill?"

"Ya never know," replied Ulrich, with an evil smirk. "He mighta bin one o' them
reel
tough guysk. Sometimes overkill isk
jiiist
enough."

The
Fang
's crew were all highly competent, professional, experienced killers, but most of them had to build up a good mad first.
Most
warriors had to get worked up to take a life. But the crazed coxswain was a stone cold, dispassionate killer. Like a farmer's wife wringing a chicken's neck. And that could be useful.
Some tasks call for a hammer, or an ax,
thought Fielder.
That's Broadax. Other jobs needed a corkscrew. That's Ulrich.
 

"Well,
sir
," sneered Ulrich. "I guessk ya musk a' bin a bit flustered. Dewin' a pockin' Mozambeekee drill win ya had five targetsk! Or wusk you jusk savin' skum fer me? Heh, heh."

"More lead, more dead," muttered Fielder. "That's my motto."
I'll never hear the end of this,
he thought.
And the little bastard is right. I was just so damned scared that I let myself get rattled, and I almost died because of it. But I really don't care what kind of ribbing I take. I'm alive!
 

"An' ya know, I think yer girlfrienk may be insane," continued Ulrich as he stepped to a table and picked up a blood-spattered pork chop. "An' I shouldk know."

His monkey
eek
ed in vigorous agreement as the two of them began to gnaw on the pork chop.

I'm not sure which of those two crazies is scarier, Ulrich or his monkey,
Fielder thought.
With those damned knives in its hands it looks like a carving machine gone mad!
 

"Yes, Daniel, I must agree," said Elphinstone. "Thou shouldst definitely tread carefully with Ursula. I think she's a psychopath."

"Thank you both for the tip. I'd never have noticed," Fielder scowled. "But, again, where
did
you come from?" he asked Ulrich, semi-politely—after all there was no sense in pissing off
another
psychopath today!

"I's jusk eatin' at a corner table an' keepin' a eye on the brothel wit' our middiesk, win I seed these idjits walkin' up wit dat pretty girl o' yoursk. Ya know, tha'sk won hail of a wuman ya gotsk there!"

"She almost killed me! Twice!" Fielder exclaimed.

"Yep. Thatsk
my
kinda wuman!"

"Quick, too!" added Elphinstone. "She moved beyond my ken almost as fast as thy pistol came out, Daniel. Art thou wounded, Daniel? Thy jacket's arm hath a hole." She grabbed his left arm, and looked at it closely. "'Tis through thy jacket from front to back." She ripped the sleeve open to show a dimple in his skin. Shaking her head, the surgeon reached into her medical pouch as Fielder looked on in astonishment.

"I was hit? But I'm not bleeding, I can't be hit!" Fielder looked at his arm. As he watched the hole opened and blood started to pour down his arm.

"I
am
hit! Damn! I've heard about this. Vasoconstriction kept it shut, didn't it?" Fielder suddenly began to feel dizzy looking at the sight of his own blood. Other people's blood didn't bother him, but
his
blood was different!

"Aye, 'tis normal, Daniel," Elphinstone replied as she bound up his arm with bandages. "The human body replies to the insult of mortal danger by trapping the blood within the core of the body, such that thy outer skin canst act as armor during a fight!

"Ulrich," she continued on as she bandaged him, "thy captain hath decreed that our liberty is at an end, and that all of our gallant Ship's company shall return aboard her, forthwith. Wouldst thou carry this message to the midshipmen and all others thou dost encounter?"

"Aye, ma'am," he replied. "Grenoble'sk coverin' the back entrance o' the brothel. I'll git the middiesk an' him, an' we'll git back ta the Ship." Then he added with apparent pleasure, "Heh heh. I guessk I'll 'ave ta interrupt the middiesk fun." He looked around quickly and then departed immediately.

As Ulrich left, a waiter poked his head out from under a table. "Hey!" the man shouted indignantly. "He didn't pay his bill! The son-of-a-bitch just eats, shoots and leaves!"

"Here," snarled Fielder, flipping the waiter a small gold piece with his good hand. "This should cover it."

"All right, what's going on here?" said the authoritative voice of a policeman. This one unfortunately came with several other members of the local police department, all of whom had their guns drawn and appeared somewhat upset by the gory scene.

Probably mad because we interrupted their feeding frenzy at the local donut shop,
Fielder mused irritably.
Damn, damn! I should have known the shots would draw cops. Ulrich was smart enough to get out in time.
 

The police officer stopped and looked in dismay at the half dozen corpses strewn about in the stiff, awkward poses of death. "What in hell killed all these men?" he wondered aloud.

Lady Elphinstone looked at him. Then she shook her head mournfully as she examined the corpses. "Violent death, 'tis such a sadness. God knows, the grave doth come soon enough to us all... Multiple gunshot wounds. Stab wounds, slashes. Twas one hell of a fight."

"But who, or what, killed them!"

"Well, me thinkst we can rule out natural causes. 'Tis best we say they died mostly of lead poisoning. High velocity lead poisoning..."

"Huh." He looked around in dismay. "
I
think it's best if we take this one downtown."

"Hey, Sarge!" one of the other policemen called. "You ain't gonna believe this. Alberick's over here on the ground, sleepin' away!"

The sergeant looked at the snoring Alberick and back at Elphinstone and Fielder. "I really think you two are gonna have a few things to be explaining here. Let's go!"

Melville and Midshipman Hezikiah Jubal were at the
Fang
's upper-side quarterdeck rail as they discussed their pending departure.

Jubal was the senior midshipman, currently serving as the watch officer. "Sur," drawled the middie, "we're still missin' Lt. Fielder and Lady Elphinstone. So far we haven't had any response from the governor or the local police to our inquiries concernin' them. To be honest sur, Ah'm gettin' pretty concerned."

"Aye, Hezikiah. Me too."

"How's Midshipman Hayl, sur?" asked Jubal anxiously.

"Mrs. Vodi says that he's resting comfortably. Two-space seems to be aiding in his healing."

"How 'bout his hand, sur? Do they know yet?"

Melville sighed. "No, not for sure, but it really doesn't look good. His hand was reattached but Mrs. Vodi said that the damage was extensive, and he'll probably lose it. It might have been better if his opponent had spent more on his sword and bought one that had been tempered and sharpened in two-space, as it would have been a clean cut. Of course, then it might have cut through and killed him instead. Better to lose a hand than your life. But still..." He trailed off, shaking his head grimly and staring down into the dark blue plane of two-space, wishing that he could have done more.

"Yer lookin' at it wrong, sur, if Ah may say so." Jubal had served as an able seaman before being promoted to midshipman. If there were ever any more promotions to lieutenant to be made aboard the
Fang
, Jubal would be the first. So it was a Shipmate and a veteran of many battles who looked his captain in the eye as he continued. "You made sure Hayl got the trainin' he did, and that trainin' saved his life. Ah think it's amazin', Cap'n. He's a young boy, who started out as a midshipman—not someone like me who's been a sailor fer years. Those idiots you and Hayl killed knew absolutely nothin' about the Ever Evolvin' Church of Violence. But you made us pay our tithes in sweat and tears in trainin'. And curst hard it was too! And then you two brought them, our enemy, into the fold and initiated them into the mysteries of the True Way. Most folks don't know anythin' about violence, but we who do are a curst sight safer for it."

Melville blinked, trying to digest what Jubal had said and everything it implied. He was mildly disturbed by the religious connotations, but the young man had stumbled upon an elemental truth. No matter how it was stated. Those who forget, misuse, or ignore the way of violence are doomed to be initiated into the rites the hard way.

He shook his head and smiled ruefully. "Well said, Hezikiah. But it's hard to remember that when I think of young Hayl down in sick bay missing a hand."

"Aye, Captain, Ah understand, but the little tyke is alive—and he took down two of the scumbags that wanted to make you and him dead. Personally, Ah'm proud as hell of the boy!"

Melville grinned back at him. "Trust me, I'm proud of him too. Not to mention he kept me alive by covering my back. Here, now, what's this?"

They both looked down the Pier at a trio of figures approaching the Ship. Soon there was a sizable number of the crew at the railing, shaking their heads in wonder at what they saw.

Fielder was "pitching woo" to a brace of local ladies hanging on his arms as they saw their brave sailor to his Ship. It would have been a classic, timeless scene, identical to those played out by human sailors for untold millennia, if not for the bizarre sight of an alien monkey's head bobbing happily above Fielder's head.

"Yep," said Fielder, "there I was, facing the entire Guldur horde. And let me tell you, ladies, they were open for business..."

"Some of the people on that boat seem unhappy to see you," whispered one of his ladies, looking up at the faces on the railing. "Especially that short guy with the beard and the ax."

"Pay no attention to them. The downside of being better than everyone else is that people tend to assume you're pretentious."

"But why would they be like that?"

"Sometimes, the solution to a morale problem is just to kill all the unhappy people. It seems harsh, and the useless, expendable ones who are next on the chopping block tend to resent the fact that the only purpose of their life is to serve as a warning to others, but that is the law of the sea."

"It must be awful having to make those kind of decisions!"

"Yes, it's lonely at the top. But it's comforting to look down upon everyone at the bottom. I have to admit, I am often 'whelmed' by the responsibility. Not overwhelmed, mind you, just... whelmed."

Looking at the young midshipmen watching from the rail, one of his girls asked, "Aren't the young ones damaged by all that killing and stuff?"

"Aye, it's true," said Fielder as they stepped up the gangplank. "The hearts and minds of lesser beings are a lot more fragile than mine."

"He ain't got a mind ta damage, above 'is belt!" snarled Broadax disgustedly.

"The leapord never changes hisk shorts," muttered Ulrich.

"Heeeere kittykittykitty!" added his bird.

"We had reports that said you were dead," said Melville with a grin as Fielder came onboard. He was pleased in spite of everything to see his first officer return. Boye, tail wagging furiously, ran up to greet the latecomer.

"Bet you fifty dollars I'm not!" said Fielder with a smile, a salute, and a happy pat for the dog and the dog's monkey.

"Well, if you are, it looks like you weathered the experience well," said Melville, returning the salute.

"So ye convinced 'em ta let ye go, eh?" said Broadax disgustedly.

"The trick is to never tell the truth," said Fielder cheerfully. "Police never believe what anyone tells them anyway, so why give them extra work?"

"Ye've got the luck of the devil," scowled Broadax. "Personally I think yer related."

"Hey, 'He needed killing' is still a valid defense here," replied Fielder with a shrug. "Besides, the judge thinks I'm corrupt. We met previously in a brothel, so he trusts me. It's always nice when your vices pay off.

"Now, my ladies," said Fielder to his escorts, "I must leave you."

"But Danny, I thought you loved us?"

"I do, my sweet, I do. But not exclusively."

After Fielder saw his inamoratas off, he briefed Melville about his experiences.

"And the ladies?" Melville asked wryly.

"Simply a side effect, Captain, an aspect of my departure. The judge and I had a long discussion about our insignificant little altercation, and we merely moved it to a location more conducive to civilized conversation."

He grinned and added, "It didn't hurt that I was picking up the tab, either!"

"Well, what about Lady Elphinstone? She was arrested with you, wasn't she?"

"Well, Captain, the judge was a wee bit ticked off at our brave healer. He didn't mind her cleaning up the local gene pool a bit, but her knocking out a police officer with a sedative was deeply offensive to him. He was mumbling something about unlicensed drug dispensation, assault, and a few other minor things."

"I think I had better get the governor involved in this one, then. It sounds like it could be serious," Melville said grimly.