Chains of Freedom (14 page)

RJ had been about to suggest that they leave when the stranger walked in. "You ever see him before?" she asked her companions.

They both said no.

"He doesn't look like trouble to me," Whitey didn't understand her curiosity. He wondered whether he should be jealous or not.

"He also doesn't look like your typical Alsterase riffraff."

He was a tall, thin, good-looking man. No growth of beard, his clothes were well cared for, and he was clean. Militarily clean.

"You think he's a spy?" Mickey asked.

"If he is, he's being awfully blatant about it," RJ said.

"Whitey and I will create a diversion. You pick his pocket."

Mickey nodded eagerly.

"Why, you two-timing slug!" RJ screamed, standing up and slinging the rest of her beer in Whitey's face. Whitey didn't have to act shocked. He jumped up, slinging the beer off himself. As every eye in the place turned on them, Mickey slipped away.

"You platinum blonde bitch," Whitey screamed back. "I ought to knock the crap out of you."

"Do it and die, fuckface," RJ said, poking him in the chest.

"Oh, I love it when you talk dirty to me," Whitey said with a broad leer.

RJ fought her smile. "Fuck you, Whitey Baldor!" she screamed.

"I wish you would," he grabbed her and kissed her full on the mouth.

When he let her go, she whispered, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Creating a diversion," he grinned. He bent and kissed her throat.

She gave up and laughed. She kissed Whitey on the cheek, and they both sat down. Mickey crawled out from under the table, as if he had been hiding there till the fight was over.

"Get it?" RJ asked him.

He looked hurt.

"Would I not?" He took the billfold from a pocket, and handed it to her under the table. She opened it and began to examine the contents.

"Well?" Mickey asked eagerly. Whitey, on the other hand, was totally occupied with chewing on RJ's earlobe.

"Three hundred units, a picture of a naked woman . . ."

"Let me see," Mickey moved so that he could look over her shoulder. Apparently he wasn't impressed, because he sat down again.

"Ahha!" RJ said in a pleased-with-herself tone.

"Ahha, what?" Whitey came up for air long enough to ask. Without waiting for an answer, he moved to her neck.

"Discharge papers,
dishonorable
discharge papers. Our stranger used to be an Elite Captain. It gets better. He was a pilot—starship class," RJ said. She looked thoughtfully back at the man. "He could be useful to us." She was trying to decide whether she should approach him or not when three of the local bully-boys decided to hassle him. "Shit!" RJ said.

Whitey gave up on her temporarily.

"What?" he sighed.

"Oh nothing. It's just that I've had such a pleasant evening, and now I'm going to have to kill those men," RJ said coolly.

"What ya want here, stranger?" the lead bully-boy asked.

"To live a quiet life," the stranger was obviously scared, but trying not to show it.

They laughed at him.

"Live a quiet life," the lead bully laughed. "In Alsterase?" He kicked at the man's stool.

"Leave him be," RJ ordered.

"Keep your woman out of this, Baldor. We got no beef with you," he said, turning toward Whitey. He wasn't afraid. The three of them could take Baldor, and he saw nothing to fear in either the woman or the midget.

Whitey laughed. "Zero, no one owns this woman. You'll see why if you persist in starting trouble."

"The name is Zant." Losing interest in the stranger, Zant motioned to his buddies, and they moved toward the table where the three were sitting. "I don't mind kicking your ass, Baldor, or screwing your woman while you're unconscious. So why don't you just stay out of this?"

"It's a shame that a man who is such a prick doesn't have any balls," RJ said coolly. She didn't move. Not even so much as to take her boots off the table.

One of Zant's boys got antsy waiting for the fight to start and pulled his knife.

Mickey swung his arm out from inside his jacket, and fired the laser he clutched in a white knuckled fist.

The man fell dead.

RJ moved quickly. She jumped up, taking the midget with her.

Whitey overturned the table, throwing it with a growl.

The other customers either fled, ducked into safe spots, or donned protective headgear.

RJ dumped Mickey on the floor, and he ran to hide behind the bar. As far as he was concerned, he had done his part.

Zant and his pals were joined by two more who had stayed in the background until then.

RJ looked at Whitey, and smiled. "Well, at least it's a fair fight now."

"Shall we?" Whitey asked, bowing slightly and motioning RJ forward.

"You first, dear," she offered with equal politeness.

"I'll use you, you smug bitch," Zant promised.

"You'll have to get it up first," RJ chided.

The fight was on. Zant drew a knife and ran towards RJ. She simply grabbed the wrist that held the knife as it came at her. She pulled the arm out of its socket, then slung Zant into the floor, face-first before he had time to scream. Then she stomped on the back of his neck, successfully putting him—and everyone else—out of his misery. One of the other men grabbed her around the throat with his forearm. She slung him over her shoulder and looked up in time to see another thug getting ready to hit Whitey in the head with a table.

Whitey was occupied at that moment with throttling a man against the far wall.

"Whitey!" She screamed the warning as the man she'd just thrown down got shakily to his feet.

Whitey let go of his man and turned, drawing his sword. He plunged it through the tabletop into the man's chest, and pulled it out in less time than it takes to tell it. The man with the table staggered and paused, but didn't fall. Whitey immediately returned to his interrupted labors.

As RJ's slightly dazed opponent pounced on her again, she hit him in the chest hard enough to stop his heart. He gasped once and hit the floor at her feet.

The man with the table was still staggering. Whitey took a finger and pushed on the tabletop. Man and table both went down.

"Whitey, grab them and let's go," she pointed to the pilot who was hiding with Mickey behind the bar.

Whitey grabbed the man by the collar and unceremoniously pulled him to his feet.

"Come on, Mickey," Whitey ordered.

Mickey ran to RJ, and she put him on her shoulder. They left the bar, Whitey pulling the discharged captain along by his collar.

"Ah, thanks a lot," he stammered. "Sorry I didn't help, but I'm not really much of a fighter."

"Pilots usually aren't, Captain Levits," RJ said simply.

"How . . ."

RJ held up his wallet.

He slapped his pocket. "Why, you . . . !" He reached for it, and she jerked it out of his reach. "Why did you stop them from beating me up? So that you could take my wallet?"

"I don't want your money." RJ tossed the wallet in his general direction.

"What then?" Levits asked while deftly plucking the wallet from the air. Nothing wrong with his coordination, at least.

"You're a pilot. You're a coward, but you were an Elite. So, in spite of what you say, you know how to fight. My friends and I are going to overthrow the Reliance, " RJ explained.

"Good luck," Levits laughed in disbelief.

"Did I say something funny, Whitey?" she asked him in an ominous tone.

"Not at all, dear," Whitey said, tightening his grip on Levits' collar just a bit.

"I don't like to be laughed at, Mr. Levits. Call it a weakness, a flaw. I have absolutely no sense of humor where that is concerned." She stopped and folded her hands behind her back.

Mickey quickly repositioned himself.

"Now, either you want to help us, or you don't. It's that simple."

Suddenly, the sight of the woman standing there calmly with a midget climbing all over her like she was a tree didn't look funny. Not funny at all.

"And if I say no, you kill me," Levits said.

"That is the Reliance's way, not ours. We don't want anyone with us who doesn't want to be here. We are fighting tyranny, Mr. Levits. I won't fight it with more of the same."

She motioned for Whitey to release him.

"Take some time, Mr. Levits. Think about it. If you have come to Alsterase, it's because you have nowhere else to go. Alsterase is a hard place, especially if one is 'not much of a fighter.' It's not the sort of place to be friendless, and it's not easy to make friends here." She tapped his cheek sharply.

"Come on, boys, let's go."

Levits watched them leave. He shook his head and laughed—quietly. "Fight the Reliance! She must be mad." He laughed louder. "Crazy bitch."

He looked down the long dark street. A cool breeze blew, and he pulled his jacket tighter around him. He set his mouth in a firm line. He didn't need anyone, and he certainly wasn't going to join her in her suicide rebellion.

David looked for some instructions in the leather pouch. It would be nice to know something about dosage, but several minutes of search turned up nothing. He put one into his hand. If one would do it, another would be better. He popped another into his hand. He was about to take the pills when he heard the door open.

"RJ?" he asked.

"Ax murderer," she answered. Mickey jumped down and retired to his mattress.

"That was only funny the first fifty times you did it, RJ," David replied testily. He was in no mood to deal with her questionable sense of humor right then. He walked out of the bathroom and held out his hand.

"How many of these do I take?"

RJ looked at them in panic. "Where did you get those?" she demanded.

For answer, he held up the leather pouch. Whitey saw the pouch. He'd seen them before; he knew what they were. Moreover, he knew what it meant.

RJ was across the room in a heartbeat. She grabbed the pills from David's hand and flung them down the toilet.

"Wash your hands, wash your hands!" she ordered.

When he didn't move, she pulled him into the bathroom and forced him to the sink. She turned on the faucet.

"Wash your hands." There was no denying her tone.

"What the hell is going on?" David asked, as he began washing.

"Those are poison, David. Lethal poison," she said.

"But I saw you take them," David said as he scrubbed even harder.

That confirmed it. Whitey had no doubts left. He didn't know how she came to be, but she was, and he knew what she was. Surprisingly, it didn't change the way he felt about her. One thing was for sure. She hadn't lied. She wasn't David's lover. Somehow knowing what she was made him feel better. Now at least he knew the reason she wouldn't sleep with him.

"I saw you take them," David said again as he scrubbed at his hands.

Whitey laughed. "Now, she would have to have an amazing constitution to do that. That's Pronuses."

"What the hell is Pronuses?" David demanded.

"It's a lethal drug." He looked at RJ in admiration and shook his head. "Only you could get hold of a freak kit."

She looked at him expressionlessly. He couldn't tell what she was thinking. He prayed he could block her as easily as she seemed to block him.

"My God, my hand's blistering!" David exclaimed.

"It's all right," RJ said, handing him a towel.

"Don't tell me it's fucking all right! I damn near get myself killed over a goddamned headache, and you say it's all right?" David wasn't feeling overly understanding at the moment. "Why are you carrying around lethal poison anyway?"

"It's a weapon." She shrugged. "You never know when you might want to poison someone. It's a lot more subtle than shooting, clubbing or stabbing. If you work it right, you don't even have to be there when they die."

David was more persistent than Whitey deemed to be safe at this moment. But then, he had two things up on David. First, he was relatively sure he knew why she had them, and second, he hadn't nearly eaten the damned things. For once, Whitey sympathized with David's reaction.

"I saw you take them," David persisted.

Whitey just laughed, as if he thought David were the world's biggest fool and flopped down on the bed.

RJ sighed in exasperation. "I had some pain pills; they're gone now. Want me to run out and get you some?"