The Sheriff of Yrnameer (5 page)

“Space marines, ten
hut
!”

“I don’t know why they call it—”

Cole was gone by the second week of basic.

What had happened since he’d left the oxymoronic space marines? Everything. And what had he achieved? Nothing. And very soon he’d
be
nothing.

The crowd had thinned out since he’d been there the first time, the dance floor mostly empty. The nearby booths were vacant, except for a table of humans sitting somewhere to the left of Cole.

They were speaking in hushed tones, barely audible above the murmuring lounge music. One woman seemed to be doing most of the talking. Cole ignored them, until a piece of the conversation got through the mushy haze of alcohol and caught his attention.

“The cargo is none of your business.” It was the woman talking. “We just need to get out of this system now.”

Cole shifted in his seat so that he could turn and look at them. There were three of them: the woman and two men. The woman was young and attractive: short dark hair, petite, but even from where he
was sitting Cole could sense the hardness of her personality. Next to her was a young man with longish curly hair and a beard, hanging on her every word. He had an earnestness about him, but not like that of the kid in the alley—what was his name? Jesus? Josepoop? This one’s earnestness was of the self-serving and immediately annoying variety.

The second man was strongly built, very handsome, sandy hair, sort of familiar … holy farg. Teg. It was farging Teg.

“Farging Teg,” muttered Cole. He could hear him talking:

“It’ll cost you. A lot.”

Look at that lucky, lucky bastard. Farging Teg.

“We don’t have a lot of money,” the woman was saying now. “But there could be … other rewards.”

The weak-faced earnest guy seemed horrified. Teg was grinning in a predatory manner.

“Meet me at the S’Port in two hours,” said Teg. “Space J-24 in the Zebra lot.”

It wasn’t hard for Cole to find him. When Cole was riding the lift up from Magma a couple materialized next to him, conversing excitedly.

“It’s amazing,” said the beautiful woman.

“I know,” said the handsome man.

“Teg, staying right there at our hotel, the Interstar Galax,” gushed the woman.

“Yes, the famous space adventurer Teg, staying in one of the luxurious suites at the Interstar Galax!” responded the man.

“Maybe he’ll be enjoying the spectacular dining facilities, including the …”

Cole ground his teeth and tried to tune out as the promo holograms continued their patter. The elevator arrived on his floor.

“It’s fabulous!” the woman was saying. “Teg! He’s so handsome!”

“He’s not that handsome,” said Cole as the door closed.

“I’m feeling like you might have some alignment issues, especially here toward the lower vertebrae. How have you got your cockpit set up? Is it possible you’ve got your control yoke positioned too low?”

The massagebot was busily kneading and rubbing Teg, who was sprawled out on the table, naked, a cigar still in his mouth. Cole could see him clearly from the hall through the suite’s doorless doorway, one of the more extreme manifestations of the Interstar’s starkly minimalist design scheme.

Cole slipped inside the suite noiselessly, unobserved, one more silent shadow in the dimly lit room. It was a corner suite, and the two outer walls were windows, the Bourse glowing in a grid far below.

“Happy ending, sir?” inquired the massagebot to Teg.

“Skip it. Unless you’re into watching that sort of thing, Cole.”

Cole jumped, knocking over the small side table with the ice bucket and champagne on it. Champagne glugged out onto the thick carpeting and Cole’s foot.

“Oh, hey Teg! Good to see you. All of you.” He bent to retrieve the champagne bottle.

“Don’t bother,” said Teg. He still appeared to have his eyes closed. “There’s some better stuff over there on the bar, if you want.”

Cole hesitated, then went to the bar, his boot squishing slightly with each step. He picked up the bottle of scotch.

“This is two hundred and twelve years old, Teg.”

“Yeah, I got about ten cases of the stuff left over from the West-Corp run. Go ahead, have some.”

Cole paused, then poured some into a shot glass. He sipped. Exquisite. Farging Teg.

He sipped again, trying to formulate his request. The massagebot ignored Cole, its four hands working away silently. Cole couldn’t help staring at Teg—the tan, the perfect body, the prototypical jaw. Literally—it was patented. It was one of the most popular implants for men, and surprisingly for women, too. Farging Teg.

“Spotted you in the bar,” said Teg.

“You did?”

“Hard not to. You were singing.”

“I was?”

“Yep. What’s that song? ‘You tore my heart a new one’?”

“Teg—”

“You’re not coming along, Cole. I don’t need that kind of heat.”

“Teg, please, I’m in trouble something awful. Please. Please please please please please. Don’t make me beg.”

“You are begging.”

“Then don’t make me cry!”

“You are crying.”

“It’s the smoke!”

Cole tossed back the rest of the drink, went to refill the shot glass, then took a hit directly from the bottle instead.

“Sorry, Cole. I can’t help you. But go ahead—you can keep the bottle.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

Cole recorked the whiskey and turned to leave.

“See you, Teg.”

“Good luck, Cole.” Teg still had his eyes closed. “A little to the left, by the shoulder blade,” said Teg.

“Yes sir,” said the massagebot.

“Perrrfect.”

Cole swung the bottle in a short, tight arc, aiming for the vulnerable spot directly behind Teg’s left ear.

Thud
.

The bottle rebounded harmlessly off the massage table, Teg jerking his head away just in time. He was instantly on his feet.

Cole stepped back, guiltily clutching the bottle.

Teg shook his head, his expression one of sorrowful incomprehension.

“Cole …”

“I’m sorry,” said Cole. “I don’t know what came over me.”

Teg chuckled. “Sheesh, Cole, you’re really—”

Cole swung at him again.

Teg ducked, the bottle whistling over his head.

The two faced each other.

“Oops?” said Cole hopefully.

Teg rocketed straight at Cole.

“Teg! Wait! I’m sor—!”

Teg slugged him. It was not a particularly new experience for Cole to be on the receiving end of a punch. He had to admit that Teg knew what he was doing.

Teg was coming at him again. “Teg, you’re naked!” said Cole. Teg punched him a second time, Cole hearing it more than feeling it. He staggered back into the embrace of the massagebot, which began to vigorously realign his muscles.

“Ow! Ow!” protested Cole.

“You seem very tense, sir,” said the massagebot.

“Teg, you got this thing set too high—” Teg hit him a third time, in the stomach.

“Oof,”
oofed Cole. He wanted to double over in pain, but couldn’t extricate himself from the robot’s grip.

“Teg … I’m sorry,” he managed.

“Me too, Cole. Me, too.”

He grabbed Cole in some sort of complicated hold, preparing to dislocate his everything.

There was a horrible cracking, popping noise. Cole closed his eye, waiting for the pain to come.

It didn’t. He opened his eye. Teg was standing in front of him, his face frozen in a mask of surprise and agony.

“Arrggh
!” said Teg. “My
back
!”

Then Teg toppled over like a statue.

Cole drove as quickly as he dared, staying precisely at the speed limit as he roared down the streets of the Bourse on Teg’s motorcycle. It had a standard Fezner drive, completely clean and silent, but Teg had it outfitted with a device that pumped out noxious, choking fumes, as well as a noise generator to simulate the sound of an ancient internal combustion engine.

He checked his, or rather Teg’s, watch. Kenneth would start looking for him in less than twenty minutes.

Pedestrians waved and shouted mistaken greetings to him, recognizing the bike with its distinctive sponsorship decals. Cole was wearing Teg’s roomy jacket, also plastered with ad patches, his face hidden by the mirrored visor of Teg’s helmet. He waved back a few times.

Cole spotted Teg’s sleek spaceship immediately. If anything, it had even more sponsorship decals than the motorcycle, the actual surface of the gigantic Benedict 80 almost entirely obscured.

The Earnest Man and the Hard Woman from the bar were waiting underneath the craft, standing next to several large shipping crates. Cole hurtled up to them and leaped off the still-moving motorcycle.

“Teg?” said the woman.

Cole ignored her and the minor explosion caused when the motorcycle slammed into a nearby safety barrier. He jabbed a button on a remote—
bleep!
—and the passenger ramp instantly descended from the ship to the ground.

He raced up the ramp, still wearing the helmet, the man and the woman right behind him.

“Hey!” said the woman. “Teg! Hey! Wait!” “I told you!” Cole heard Earnest Man say.

Kenneth was quite pleased with his suite at the S’Port Hotel: the saline levels and PH balance of the water were perfect; the coral was live, not simulated. He was completely submerged, finishing up his fourth Savlu clam, crunching effortlessly through the twelve-inch, rock-hard shell, when the indicator light on the tiny tracking device lit up. The device was beeping.

“Oh, goody,” said Kenneth. “He’s running!”

Cole was already firing up the engines when Hard Woman and Earnest Man caught up to him in the cockpit.

“Teg. Teg! What’s going on? What about the cargo?” she said as Cole fast-forwarded through the preflight checklist.

“Forget the cargo,” said Cole, his voice muffled by the helmet. “We’re leaving.”

“See?” said Earnest Man, “I told you we couldn’t trust him!”

Cole was mentally renaming him Whiny Man when he heard a distinctive
clickclack
.

He turned. Hard Woman was targeting him with a Hard Expression. She was also targeting him with a Firestick 9 (“Small Holes—But Deep Holes”).

“Argh
!” said Cole.

She kept the gun trained on him as he and Whiny Man loaded the crates onto the lowered cargo platform.

“We really don’t have time for this,” he said to her. She ignored him.

“We really don’t have time for this,” he repeated. “We
really—
“

“If you say that again, I will
really
shoot you.”

“—don’t have time for this,” Cole finished under his breath after he turned his back.

Whiny Man seemed determined to justify Cole’s internal nickname
for him, struggling with his end of the crates and complaining about splinters and why didn’t they have a bot to help them. Cole looked at his watch again. His time was up. Kenneth was no doubt looking for him right now.

They shoved the last crate on the cargo platform. Cole cinched the straps to hold it in place, then jabbed the button to raise the platform into the belly of the Benedict.

“All right, let’s go!” he said, sprinting past the Hard Woman back up the ramp.

Cole hopped into the seat in the cockpit, hit the button to reseal the air locks, and fired up the engines.

“Oh
yeah,”
he breathed, feeling the comforting hum as they came on line. “You better strap in,” he said to the other two, who had followed him back into the cockpit. It was a handsome room—smooth, curvilinear walls with a nice white finish, blond wood highlights, recessed illumination. Cole wasn’t a huge fan of carpeting in cockpits, but the muted neutral tones did subtly play off the lighting and the small framed lithographs, creating a sense of quiet luxury, just like the profile in
SpaceCruiser Monthly
said.

The Benedict 80 control panel was appropriately tasteful. It was also more complicated than he’d expected. Where was the RQ compensator? There? He twisted a knob. An alarm bell sounded somewhere. No.

“He was going to leave the cargo! I told you!” said Whiny Man.

“He’s not Teg,” said Hard Woman. “You’re not Teg. Take off your helmet.”

“I’m a bit preoccupied right now.”

The lights and dials swam before him. He shook his head, trying to clear it, then realized that Teg’s ship had an ergonomics autosensor and was trying to calibrate his morphology and movements and adjust the control positions accordingly.

“Stop moving around!” he said. The controls froze in a random position.

Another button. Nothing.

“Who are you?!” said Whiny Man.

“I’m busy, that’s who I am!”

“Take off your helmet!” said Hard Woman.

There
was the RQ compensator. He flicked the switch. There was a distant
whooshing
noise.

“Septic tank evacuation complete,” said the computer. That wasn’t the RQ compensator.

“Take off your—”

“All right
!”

Cole pulled at the helmet, nearly taking his head off with it before he determined that the chin strap was still fastened. When he removed the helmet both the man and the woman staggered back a step in shock.