McCade's Bounty (9 page)

McCade shook his head in disgust, removed the cigar from his mouth, and flicked it into the river.

"All right, everybody . . . so much for plan A. It looks like we're gonna get our feet wet."

"But I can't swim!" Bulo wailed. "I'll drown!"

"That would be nice," McCade said agreeably. "But if you shut up, and do exactly what Sergeant Ven says, maybe you won't."

"Company's coming!" Rico yelled, and sent a stutter of blue energy toward town. Two of the troopers took cover nearby and added their fire to his.

McCade shrugged his way out from under the black duffel. "Give me a hand, Phil . . . this thing's awkward as hell." Together they laid the bag out with the seal upward.

Rico yelled something incoherent and bullets screamed overhead.

Fingers fumbling, heart pounding, McCade broke the seal, found the T-shaped yellow handle, gave it a single turn to the right, and pulled.

The results were quite dramatic. There was a loud
whooshing
sound, followed by a series of pops as various air chambers filled, and a final hiss as the now-inflated raft vented a bit of excess air.

"All right," McCade yelled, "massed fire to keep their heads down, then grab the raft and jump together!"

Rico and the two troopers backed toward the river firing as they came.

Phil hit a quick release, dumped the flamethrower, and set it to explode sixty seconds later.

McCade unloaded his slug gun in the general direction of town and got a grip on the boat.

Ven handcuffed himself to Bulo and flinched as a stray bullet whapped through the raft right next to his leg.

"Grab on!" McCade ordered, and the moment they had, he yelled, "Run!"

With bullets zinging around them, and energy beams slicing the night into geometric shapes, they galloped to the end of the pier and jumped.

Then they learned a painful lesson. A well-inflated raft won't sink after a twenty-foot fall, but those hanging on to it will. The force of the fall, plus their own weight, ripped hands loose and pushed them toward the bottom.

The water was cold. McCade kicked toward the surface, unable to see through the blackness, groping for the raft.

Ven got a pleasant surprise meanwhile as Bulo demonstrated a sudden mastery of underwater swimming and towed him toward the surface.

Rico felt a trooper struggling nearby, grabbed his harness, and dragged him upward.

Phil struggled against the weight of his remaining equipment and water-logged fur, considered going into full augmentation, and decided not to. He would be completely exhausted afterward and that might be just as fatal as drowning. Slowly but surely, forcing himself to stay calm, he kicked his way upward until his head broke the surface.

Most of Phil's attention was centered on the vital process of sucking air into his oxygen-starved lungs, but a distant part of his mind was still able to register a ball of red-orange flame and the thump of a sizable explosion.

The flamethrower had exploded right on schedule taking twelve of Bulo's retainers and most of the pier with it.

McCade was the first one into the raft. As a side current pulled them out and away from shore, he helped others into the raft and urged them to hurry up.

Given the raft's low profile, and its dark color, the boat was almost impossible to see. That didn't bother Bulo's surviving retainers however, they were still firing, hoping for a lucky hit. The fact that they might hit Bulo hadn't occurred to them or just didn't matter.

"Welcome aboard, your wetness," McCade said as he helped Ven, then Bulo, over the side.

The Lakorian noble ignored him as he collapsed in the bottom of the boat.

McCade looked for the hovercraft. It had drifted downriver and out of sight.

Phil was the last one aboard, and as he fell gasping into the bottom of the boat, McCade realized there was a problem. The raft was sinking.

The raft had a number of self-contained air chambers so it wouldn't sink completely, but it looked as if they were in for a long wet ride.

McCade didn't say anything. He didn't have to. The boat told its own story as it sank deeper in the water and began to flood.

One by one they were dumped into the river and forced to find a spot around the raft's sides. Although they couldn't ride in it, the boat did provide flotation and something to cling to.

They talked at first, still high on adrenaline, or the Lakorian equivalent. But as time passed the obvious things were soon said and gave way to periods of silence. These grew longer and longer until conversation stopped entirely and was replaced by swishing, gurgling rhythms of the river. It had a lulling, soothing effect, and McCade drifted in and out of sleep.

Eventually he dreamed that he was far, far away, on a planet where it never snowed and never rained, where Sara and Molly were sunny and full of happiness.

Then a terrible night fell over the land. Molly disappeared into darkness. McCade searched for her, flailing around in the blackness, grabbing squirmy things and throwing them away.

Then a wavelet came and slapped him in the face.

The others were yelling, pointing downriver where the hovercraft was grounded on a sandbar, celebrating their good fortune.

But not McCade. His thoughts were farther downriver, in the slave markets that dotted the coast, with the little girl who might be waiting there.

It took the better part of a day for the hovercraft's crew to complete temporary repairs, and two more to reach the town of Riversplit. It was there that they said good-bye to Ven and his surviving troopers, gave Bulo into the custody of Lif's troops, and met up with Murd.

As before the king's advisor, or gofer, whichever he was, wore a long orange robe and looked somewhat fragile. But appearances can be deceiving as Murd demonstrated over the next few days.

It took a full day to reach the coast and the first slave market. Already tired from his activities in Durn, the trip sapped even more of McCade's energy and left him drained.

Not Murd though, when they arrived at the slave market he was as spry as ever, busy throwing his weight around and generally pissing everyone off.

McCade didn't mind though since Murd's efforts were in his behalf and did a great deal to get things moving.

Though a different slave market from the one McCade had experienced some years earlier, it was still quite similar.

Their all-terrain vehicle had no top. As a result McCade was able to smell the slave market long before they actually arrived.

It was horrible. The unbelievable stench that goes with open sewers and insufficient drainage, but something more as well, something part smell and part emotion.

A feeling of misery, of fear, of hopelessness. It made McCade sick to his stomach.

Then they rounded a bend and saw the stockade made of vertical logs. There were enormous gates that, with the Lakorian tendency to combine old with new, whirred open to let their vehicle pass.

Once inside the vehicle was swamped by a small army of functionaries all vying for the privilege of kissing Murd's ancient rear end.

Ignoring the mob McCade, Rico, and Phil got out of the vehicle and looked around. There was a large expanse of mud at the center of the market, an awning-covered platform where slaves were bought and sold, and rows of enclosed pens where they were housed.

Having spent some time in similar accommodations McCade knew they had dirt floors, a single water tap, and an open sewer that ran along one wall.

The thought that Molly might be locked inside one of those pens made his heart ache.

He turned toward the knot of gesticulating Lakorians. "Murd . . . tell them to bring out the children . . . and to do it now."

Murd, who was enjoying all the attention, considered telling the arrogant human to sit on something pointy but changed his mind. Yes, there was Lif to consider, but more than that the human himself. He had an obvious propensity for violence this human did, and seemed quite agitated.

Murd forced himself to perform a polite bow and issued a long string of orders.

Thirty minutes later the three humans sat and watched one of the most horrible sights they'd ever seen.

The slave market's entire population of human children, some thirty-three in all, were paraded by for their inspection. Little boys and girls, with bony, underfed bodies and hopeless expressions.

Under normal circumstances an auctioneer would be haranguing the audience about the children's virtues, extolling their sexual attractiveness, and reminding them that human fingers are extremely nimble as compared to the appendages found on many other sentient beings.

But this was different. The children trudged across the platform in weary silence, looking neither right nor left, numb to what happened around them.

All three of the men searched for familiar features, hoping, praying to see one or more familiar faces, but none of the children was from Alice.

When the last child had passed the men sat staring at the emptiness in front of them. McCade wanted desperately to buy the children, or simply take them, destroying anyone or anything who got in the way, but knew that was impossible. The three of them had neither the money nor the brute strength to get the job done. No, they must steel themselves against what they saw, and continue the search.

McCade looked at Rico and Phil. Rico had tears glistening on his beard, and Phil's lips were pulled back in a rictus of hate, durasteel teeth almost completely bared.

Murd cleared his throat. "Well, sire? Were any of the cubs yours?"

McCade stood. "No. Take us to the next market."

It was three days and two slave markets later before they found the children.

This time there was an actual auction taking place on the main platform, so they were seated inside a striped tent, watching a line of pathetic children straggle past.

Later it was hard to say who saw who first, but McCade heard Phil yell "Mary!" and head a child say "Citizen McCade!" almost simultaneously.

Then there was total pandemonium as twenty-six of the twenty-eight children crowded around the three men, crying and talking all at the same time.

His heart in his throat McCade hugged little girl after little girl, calling those he knew by name, using "sweetheart" on all the rest.

Some of the girls were orphans and didn't know it yet, others would be reunited with anxious parents, but all would end up safe and sound on Alice.

After the first few frantic seconds McCade knew the truth. Molly wasn't there. A wave of grief rolled over him submerging the joy he'd known moments before. Molly was still out there somewhere, waiting for him, or . . .

McCade grabbed the nearest girl, a child named Cindy, and stared into her eyes so intensely that she started to cry. "Molly? Where's Molly McCade? What happened to my daughter?"

The words jerked their way out along with the tears. "Sshee's sstill on the sship."

McCade felt a wave of relief. Alive then. There was hope. McCade pulled Cindy to his chest, and as he apologized for scaring her, he saw something awful over her shoulder.

Two little boys had been brought in along with the girls, the little boys he'd never seen before, but were being led away by a Lakorian guard.

McCade stood up. "Wait! Bring those boys back! Look, Rico! It's John, and his brother Paul!"

Rico looked up from the little girl who was asking about her mother. "Huh? John and Paul?"

Then Rico saw McCade's expression. "Oh, yeah! John and Paul! Hey, boys, don'tcha recognize Uncle Rico? Come over here?"

The younger boy looked momentarily confused, but the older boy put on a happy expression and dragged the little boy with him. "Uncle Rico, sure, I didn't recognize you with the beard!"

McCade smiled in spite of himself. The boy was smart. He'd do well on Alice. They all would.

Molly waited patiently for the other girls to fall asleep. The dim glow provided by two light switches was enough to see by.

Shortly after the other children had been loaded aboard the shuttle and taken dirtside, the twenty or so remaining girls were removed from the hold and assigned to adjoining compartments. It was a tight fit, but at least they had real bunks and adequate toilet facilities.

Molly still felt certain that she would've been better off on the surface of Lakor, but Raz had kept her aboard, so that was that.

Determined to escape, or at least pave the way, Molly had conceived a plan. A plan that relied on her increased freedom of movement.

Although significant portions of the ship were still off-limits, the girls were now permitted to roam through the rest.

Many of the girls saw their new quarters, and lack of confinement, as a change of heart by the pirates and said so during whispered conversations.

Molly disagreed, pointing out that shortly after they vacated the hold, it had been filled with some sort of cargo brought up from the surface of Lakor. In addition, Molly suggested, the pirates could have hidden motives for allowing them more freedom as well. What if it was part of a plan? A plan in which the girls would wind up colluding in their own slavery? At what point do prisoners cease to be prisoners, and join ranks with those who imprisoned them?

Some of the girls agreed, and were suspicious of pirate motives, but Lia, one of the older girls, was especially critical of Molly's ideas.

"Come on, Molly," she'd whispered, "you griped when we were in the hold . . . and you're griping now. Give us a break. Things are better, that's all. Quit worrying so much."

But Molly
did
worry, and planned to keep right on worrying, no matter what. The pirates had attacked Alice, killed innocent people, and sold children into slavery. Maybe the others could forgive and forget but not Molly. No, she planned to get free, and get even. No matter how long that took.

Because of her attitude Molly had fallen from a position of leadership into that of semi-outcast. She hoped Mommy wouldn't be disappointed, but Lia was wrong, and wasn't there a difference between popularity and leadership? Daddy said so . . . and Molly hoped he was right.