The New Space Opera 2 (56 page)

He started shaking again; his vision darkened. But he fought it back. Bryce and Evan depended on him. He took the time to secure the two men—dead or alive, he didn't know—with the ties he found in their pockets. They were too heavy for him to drag into the bedroom, and the sitting room had no closet, but he moved the couch so they couldn't be seen from the door.

In the bathroom, he looked at the damage to himself and his clothes. Cuts, bruises—deep ones here and there—and his clothes were a mess. He pulled them off, took a hurried shower, used the first aid kit supplied by the hotel on his face, dressed in fresh clothes. He looked in the mirror—his face looked almost normal. He was also suddenly hungry, hungry enough to eat one of those huge steaks…he rummaged in the supplies Bryce had bought. Most required cooking; he didn't have time. He peeled a snack bar and wolfed that down.

Bryce's case yielded many smaller cases, one with clips of needles labeled with a long chemical name. Karl compared them to the others. Very similar, but he didn't know what the difference meant. He didn't know what most of the cases held—wires with jewels on them, wires without, wires attached at one end to tiny disks, tiny boxes in various colors. Two things with lenses that must be some kind of video surveillance gear. A thin, lightweight pale gray garment that looked like a coverall of silk, with attached gloves and booties. A row of little black buttons ran up each sleeve from wrist to elbow.

Karl touched the lowest on the left sleeve. It disappeared. The entire garment, whatever it was, vanished…but his finger still felt it. He tapped it, and the whole thing reappeared. He tried a different button; this time the suit hardened, a rigid mass…and then relaxed when he tapped the button again.

Bryce had told them about such suits. Chameleon suits, used by spies and special security agents, as well as criminals who could afford them, suits with all sorts of special qualities, from invisibility (not complete, Bryce had warned—they worked best in dim light) to partial protection against injury. Illegal in many jurisdictions…but…irresistible.

Karl stuffed the rest of Bryce's gear back into the black case and put the suit on over his own clothes, pulled the hood over his head. He looked in the mirrored door of the entertainment center. One touch: he vanished, and the room behind him appeared where he had been. When he moved, it wavered a little, like something seen through heat waves. He tried a button on the other wrist. He was back, visible, but the suit itself had disappeared, revealing the clothes he wore under it.

He pushed the hood back and opened the front enough to fill his pockets with the men's keys, including the luggage-bin key, and considered taking the luggage back to the bins. No. Too much chance of being seen, too many possible questions. Instead, he stuffed the two players they'd bought the day before, and a selection of cubes and slices, in his shirt, where they poked at his new bruises.

He thought about what to do next. He could sell the players for money…but where? He didn't have a parle; he'd have to use a public booth to find out where Novice's open market was. Surely it had one…surely. And then he could use the money for…what? Bribing someone to find Bryce and Evan? Hiring someone to help free them?

Whatever he did, he must get out of the room before someone came and found him there. Before those men woke up. He looked again. One had turned an ugly gray-blue color in the face; Karl looked away, swallowing against nausea. He had to go. He had to go now. He picked up Bryce's case.

No one was in the lobby…he walked out the door without incident, back to the arrival/departure lounge, back to the Customs and Immigration booths.

“You don't look like you feel much better,” the Customs officer said. “Sure you shouldn't just take a long nap?”

“I'm better, really,” Karl said. He forced a smile.

“Go on through, then.”

The concourse was no more or less crowded than it had been. Karl found an information kiosk and plugged in one of the data wands from Bryce's case. Far deeper into the station than Bryce had led them, an area called “Day Market: casual goods. Traveler advisory…” He skipped the advisory, and headed for the market. As he walked, the bruises and scrapes from the fight reintroduced themselves; the things he'd stuffed down his shirt seemed to poke into many of them.

The concourse looked much as it had before, until he passed the third section seal. Karl had been following the directions given in the informa
tion kiosk—very simple, he'd thought, and he'd been in a hurry. Now he could not help noticing the increasing dirtiness, the shabbier storefronts, the scruffier clothes people wore…and the suspicious looks directed his way. Bryce and the others on their security team kept him away from places like this, places he'd longed to see.

It looked less enticing now, with the memory of the two men who'd attacked him. Karl tried to project a dangerousness equal to that of the young men lounging in a corner, but that only heightened their interest. He walked past: “keep going” was the only rule he could think of. Be inconspicuous? He'd already lost that one. He thought of turning on the camouflage suit, but realized that disappearing while in view would make him even more conspicuous.

At the next turn, he could see the Day Market opening ahead of him. He had imagined a folk market out of his texts: little booths with colorful awnings, peasants in striped shirts or full skirts, tables laden with fresh produce, others with handmade goods. Instead, he saw an open space, even dirtier than the main concourse, with clumps of people in shabby clothes talking to one another and occasionally passing things from hand to hand. The only booths were two food stands, one at either end, both with long lines. Around the margin, some had spaces against the bulkhead, with merchandise at their feet and a chalked line delineating their border.

Karl edged in, trying to figure out who sold what, and who might buy, and what the price structure was. He couldn't sell the players for what they'd paid, but maybe a third off? He was still hungry; he went to the end of the line at one food stand and tried to ignore the suspicious looks he was getting.

The line shuffled forward. He sensed people closing in behind him, but after all it was a line…he was third from the front, his stomach growling at the smell of fried food, when someone shoved him from behind. He staggered, bumped into the man in front. The man in front turned, face contorted, fist clenched.

“What d'you think you're doing! You—” His eyes narrowed as he looked at Karl. “Who are you, some up-dock security snip come slumming?”

“He's got taggies,” said someone from behind him. “Felt 'em in his clothes.” A hard hand grabbed his shoulder, dug in painfully.

Karl tried to twist away but the man in front of him, with no warning at all, kicked him hard in the shin. The pain made his eyes water. Re
flexively, he swung out with Bryce's case, knowing better, but unable to stop himself. The man grabbed his arm and squeezed; Karl felt his hand loosening on the handle, a yank on the case, and then it was gone.

“Security most like…trying to play thief…we don't like your kind down here,” the man said, pushing his face into Karl's. His breath stank. Karl tried not to flinch, tried to summon the anger and strength that had saved him before. He could break that hold; all he had to do was—he moved, twisted, evaded a second grab, but then they were all over him, more than two, more than three, and his punches and kicks were too weak, too slow. He went down, with someone on his back clubbing at his head, and trying to remember which of the invisible studs on the camouflage suit would stiffen it against blows…but he couldn't. Pain burst from various parts of his body until awareness faded and he lay waiting for the end, unable to resist.

“Stop that!” A woman's voice, angry. The blows stopped. “Who've you got there?”

“Security snip or some up-dock boz too stupid to know he gotta work with a fence. Had a bunch of stolen stuff in his clothes.”

“Let me see.”

He felt more cool air around him; they must have moved back a little. A hand touched his hair, moved his head.

“I need to talk to him. Turn him over.”

Hands pulled, tugged, until he lay on his back. Light pierced one eye…so he wasn't blind after all. He felt like giggling; it hurt to breathe that deep. Something stung his nose.

“Wake up, you.”

He tried to open that one eye more, blinked, and saw a slightly blurry version of a face he'd seen before. Where? His brow wrinkled—that hurt—but it helped memory. In a store. In a store recently. Today? Yesterday? It had been when Bryce was there…the woman in the work coverall, the woman who'd looked at Bryce and Bryce had looked at her.

“You…store?” It came out in a gasping croak.

“You stupid young fool,” the woman said. “Why are you here?”

“Here?” He had no idea what she meant.

She made a sound like a cat spitting. Then, close to his ear, her warm breath tickling, she said, “Be very quiet. Do not talk, do not move.” He heard her moving away a little; he wanted her to stay. The others would come back, would hurt him more—but she was talking to them now, a rapid slangy mix he couldn't quite follow.

“S'mine, my claim. Not what you think, not snip or boz, 'e's not.”

“You know him? You…own him?”

“Long haul, s'mine.”

“How long?” That was the reedy tenor.

“Years. In Delmar's chain.”

“Corded?”

“ 'Course it's 'corded. Doubt me?”

“No.” A grudging, resentful no, but a no. If only, Karl thought, he knew what it meant. No to what?

“Take him, then.”

“And his taggies,” the woman's voice said. Implacable, no argument possible. Karl blinked again and again, and his left eye came unstuck finally. With both eyes open, he could see that she was plain, worn, someone he'd expect to be housekeeping or in the kitchen back home. Here, she wore the same grubby work coverall he'd seen her in before, the same toolkit slung over her shoulder, a carrysack in her hand.

“You don't know how much it's worth—”

“I know what it's worth if every one of them isn't in a carrysack in my hand right quick,” she said. And one by one, the men came forward, dropping their contributions into her sack.

“This here key isn't his…” one of them said. She merely looked at him and he shrugged and dropped it in.

Then she looked down at Karl. “You're breathing better,” she said. “Can you get up on your own?”

Karl tried, but pain he'd never imagined seized muscles and wouldn't let him move. She sighed. “Lift him carefully,” she said. The big red-faced man bent down and slid one vast hand under Karl's shoulders…all things considered, they lifted him gently to his feet, but his vision blurred with the pain anyway. He stood, more or less upright.

“The way you look, Security'd stop you the moment they saw you,” she said. “Plant, I'm going skew. Cover, then meet me in two. Binto, peel the cams. Rest—you never saw him. Just a scuffle, a loopy fell down, hear?”

A mutter of agreement.

“Now, you: 'f you're standing, you can walk. Stay with me.”

Karl found that he could walk, in a shambling, uneven sort of way. Every breath hurt, every part of his body hurt, but he put one foot after the other as she led him away from the open space into a narrow passage, turning one way and then another, past rows of narrow doors almost touching. Finally she stopped; he swayed and the man behind them held
his shoulders, keeping him from bumping into the wall. She opened one of the narrow doors. The space inside was tiny: the ceiling no taller than the door, a single bunk along one side, a narrow space beside it, a small sink and toilet at the far end.

“Sleephole,” she said. “Likely you've never seen a place like it. Safe place to clean you up and stash you until I figure out the best thing to do.”

She went in, set the carrysack and her toolkit on the far end of the bunk. Karl followed, at a slight push from the man behind him. The man crowded in as well, and he and the woman helped Karl onto the bench-bed. She wet a towel in the sink while the man started to unfasten Karl's shirt, but then jerked his hand back.

“He's got somethin' on, Glia.”

“Clothes,” Glia said, without turning around.

“Somethin' else…can't see it, can feel it.”

She came over and touched him. “You are stupider than I thought,” she said. “Suit could've saved you a lot of this—and you, didn't any of you notice it when you were hitting him?”

“Too busy,” the man said, flushing. “What is it?”

“Camouflage suit. It's set to be invisible. Controls should be somewhere…” Her hands felt around his wrists, up his arms; the suit reappeared over his clothes, its supple pale gray marked only by smudges from the dirty floor he'd fallen to. “This makes things easier—”

“It does?”

“We can use it—carry him to Meeting, where it's bigger and the others can come. Won't show on scan-vids. I think he needs more care than we can give him here.” She laid the wet towel on his face, then hissed again. “Boy, this wasn't your first fight of the day. Who got after you with a stinger?”

“Stinger! We didn't have no stinger!” the man protested.

“I know you didn't. But this is a stinger mark—look at it—”

“ 'Tis, right enough. No wonder he fought so puny.”

Karl wanted to protest, but he had no strength for anything but sitting there, letting them talk over his head.

He passed out in the big man's arms, pain and exhaustion rising like a black tide. When he came to again, he was flat on his back and mostly naked, with the woman—Glia, he remembered—and two men bending over him. The pain in his head was gone; his vision was clear enough to see one of the men, the tallest, spit a wad of turquoise goo into one hand—one three-fingered hand—mash it up, and then reach out and
wipe it down Karl's left arm. He was so startled that he didn't flinch and the pain he'd barely had time to feel in that arm faded away.