Their Master's War (15 page)

The drunk staggered backward. Renchett was maneuvering him in the direction of the exit. When he had the armorer where he wanted him, he propelled him through the doorway with a practiced kick. This was more than enough for the e-vac crew. They practically fell out of their seats.

"We ain't no heroes. You can have the place."

The fourteen had secured their territory.

Just as Vana had promised, the women quickly began to arrive. To everyone's delight they seemed to have no reservations about getting acquainted with the troopers. A young, very rounded olive-skinned woman who said her name was Zydell had wriggled into Hark's lap after only the most minimal of invitations. The specials had started to make Hark a little dizzy. He'd started to sweat and was seeing the faintest of blurred hallucinations. On the advice of Vana, he'd switched to a pale amber concoction that was called a juliet. The dizzy feeling had abated and he'd stopped sweating, but if anything, the hallucinations had become more intense. After three Juliets, and with Zydell smiling, stroking his ear, and running her hands over his close-cropped hair, he felt uncommonly good. Better, in fact, than he could ever remember feeling before. This had to be the real reward of the warrier. Zydell held up her sensor box, and he happily pressed his thumb into it and eased down in his seat, luxuriating in the sense of well-being. Then an unfortunate thought struck him. Maybe this was exactly the way the Therem wanted him to feel. More of their bloody psychology. He was surprised at the strength of his own cynicism. A trio of dancers in huge painted masks with exaggeratedly full, red lips and heavy sultry eyes swayed into the booth. After they'd completed a complex and highly erotic dance, they went around collecting thumbprints. The other women were vocal in their encouragement to give generously. At this point, Renchett, who had been kissing the woman in the silver tunic, looked around at the other men.

"Think we may be giving a bit freely with the thumbs, my brothers." There was a chorus of disagreement from the women, but Renchett shook his head and held up a hand for silence.

"The way you have to look at it, my brothers, is that if all of us went sticking our thumbs in every receptacle that presented itself, we'd end up devaluing the currency." There were shouts of approval from the men and catcalls from the women. Zydell squirmed in Hark's lap. "That's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard." Hark grinned. It had to be another liberty ritual, convincing the women that they wouldn't settle for anything less than value for print.

"I heard that if a man makes too free with his thumbprint, the sensors start refusing to accept it." Vana raised a quizzical eyebrow. "I never heard that."

Zydell nuzzled Hark's ear. "You're not going to stop pressing my box, are you?" Hark was about to thumb the sensor when a voice in his head warned him to back off for a moment. He held up his thumb.

"You heard what the topman said. Maybe I shouldn't be making too free with this." Zydell didn't fit quite as comfortably into his lap anymore. "You want me to go?" Hark didn't even have to summon his courage. The Juliets led him smoothly into it. "I thought you and me might go someplace together."

"I'd want double to go to my place. If you're so concerned about your precious thumb, we could do it right here. Some of your messmates don't seem too concerned about privacy." Hark looked around and saw that a handful of the men had already retired to the shadows and were writhing on the floor with their female companions. He recognized Helot, nearest to the light, but he couldn't make out the features of the others. Hark didn't think that he could handle anything so public.

"I think I'd rather go for double."

At that moment, Vana put another juliet in front of him. He tetdn't actually asked for it, but he thumbed her sensor just the same. He didn't want to be too cheap. He put an arm round Zydell.

"We'll go to your place as soon as I've finished this."

"Sure." She didn't sound particularly enthusiastic.

The first fight started before the drink was gone. As liberty fights went, it was a comparatively mild affair. A gang of crawler jockeys, some ten in number and in worse condition than any of the the men from the
Anah
5, stumbled through the entrance. Clearly they were unaware that the booth with the phallic snake banner had already been taken. Inside the door, they stopped dead, those in the rear stumbling blindly into the leaders.

"What?"

"The goddamn place is full of ground monkeys."

The troopers looked up, but nobody moved.

"Ah, let's get out of here. We don't need no trouble."

For a moment, it seemed as if this voice of reason might prevail and, despite the insult, the intrusion would come to nothing. Then a much more slurred voice piped up.

"Hell, we can take 'em."

Two more equally slurred voices joined in.

"Sure, screw 'em."

"Any crawler hump can take ground monkeys." This one seemed to fancy himself an orator. He glanced at his companions. "Am I right?"

The response was the kind of bravado of which only the very drunk are capable.

"Yeah, right!"

"Screw 'em."

The point of no return had been passed.

Renchett and Dyrkin were on their feet, the woman in silver protesting as she slid from Renchett's lap to the floor. The other troopers were also rising. The women were scrambling for cover. Dyrkin faced the drop pilots.

"You've got ten seconds to get out of here."

"Screw you!"

The crawler jockeys surged forward in a disorganized knot, but they really didn't stand a chance. Their reactions were slowed, and they hadn't had the same basic combat training as the troopers had. They weren't able to operate as a cohesive group. The troopers, on the other hand, drunk as they were, went to work together like a machine. Boots, fists, and the odd blackjack rained down a hail of blows. Renchett was swinging a chair in a wide circle. In less than a minute, it was all over. Four jocks were unconscious on the floor, and the rest had fled. Vana was inspecting the booth, totaling the damage in her head. The troopers were congratulating each other and calling for more booze. They had come through the incident virtually unscathed. Kendo had lost a tooth to a wild punch, and Dacker had been kicked in the groin, but that was all. Hark was one of the ones delegated to drag the unconscious jockeys outside and dump them in the corridor. He came back grinning and rubbing his hands with the air of a man who feels he's completed a

well-done job. He had managed to get in a few licks of his own before the strangers had cut and run. His grin faded as he discovered that Zydell was nowhere to be seen. Damn. He'd been about to leave with her. All he could do was inwardly shrug and call for another drink. There were plenty more where she came from. At least, he hoped there were.

The second fight came after about twenty minutes. The crawler crews returned in force, twenty-five of them or more, carrying clubs and pieces of broken furniture; it was obvious that their sole intention was to stomp the troopers from the
Anah 5.
The fourteen might have been taken by surprise had Kemlo not been outside the booth collecting his wits and nursing his bruised jaw. He spotted the gang marching determinedly down the corridor and darted into the booth to give the alarm.

"Big team of jockeys coming at us!"

Weapons were hastily pulled from their hiding places. Vana yelled at Dyrkin. "Take it outside, goddamm it! I don't want the whole place wrecked. There's stuff in here that I can't replace." The fourteen troopers boiled out of the booth. The pilots were almost on them. Renchett's knife flashed in the dim light. There were shouts and screams as the noninvolved struggled to get out of the way before the two gangs ran headfirst into each other. Dyrkin's voice rose above the general din.

"Flying wedge! Hit it!"

Dyrkin had no intention of running headfirst into anything. They were in combat again and back on their programmed reflexes. They formed a solid arrowhead and, with Renchett and Dyrkin himself at its point, charged the disorganized mob of jocks. The crawler crews split apart, and the troopers waded into them. Hark found himself in the second rank. When he'd followed the others out of the booth, he'd had no weapon, but almost

immediately a jock had swung at him with a short length of ceram pipe. Conditioning took over, and Hark chopped down hard with the edge of his hand. He thought he heard the wrist snap. The pipe dropped, and he caught it before it hit the ground. Now he started to swing it. The moment took hold of him. He being was dedicated to knocking over crawler men. Bastards.

At first, it was a surprisingly quiet fight. Nobody yelled or screamed; all that could be heard were grunts, curses, and the sounds of falling blows. The troopers started to fan out, pushing the jocks before them. The nature of the fight began to change. The crawler jockeys wanted to break and run, but the troopers were pressing them too hard, and they were being forced into the surrounding booths. This, in turn, caused a new phase of confusion. The occupants of the booths took exception to a crowd of bruised and bleeding men falling into their parties. Further fights started, with the crawler crews taking the brunt of it. Dyrkin's single sharp burst of organization had been more than enough. He relaxed. The troopers who still wanted to brawl followed them into the booths and added to the mayhem. Others stood and caught their breath and watched as the chain reaction got started.

The fighting was threatening to spread all the way down the corridor. Men were thrown through the flimsy partitions that separated the booths. Crystal screens splintered and fragmented. Curtains billowed into strange shapes, were ripped down, and drunks staggered blindly, wrapped up in their folds. The walls around a jum-yum show collapsed, and the participants scrambled from the mudpit, reaching for their clothes. A sluicer on a private orgy of property damage ran headfirst into a stone column and stunned himself. A number of men were crawling on all fours clutching their heads. Other casualties simply leaned, and still more were stretched

out cold. A small fire had started in a darkened booth. Somewhere else, a woman was yelling hysterical abuse. There was the first pop of an electrogun. It was quickly followed by the shrill of whistles and the crash of steel feet on the corridors. "Shore patrol!"

Only the very, very drunk needed a second warning. Nobody wanted to be grabbed by the shore patrol. Such an unlucky offender automatically went back to his ship and maybe a field punishment. The fighting stopped instantly, and, to a man, the brawlers scattered. The sirens were coming down the corridor. There was no way that anyone could stand up to the shore patrol. The white-uniformed women in their heavy-duty servo rigs were stronger than any man. There were rumors that even without the rigs, the women of the shore patrol could incapacitate a man. Once those steel pincers locked onto one's arm, there was no escape. If the victim struggled, they'd crush the bone.

Hark took off with the rest. He was running blindly, straight down the corridor. The sirens trilled, and the servo feet crashed behind him. He glanced back. The shore patrol servos were like huge parodies of humans with hulking counterbalanced shoulders and a flashing light where the head should logically be. They lurched relentlessly forward, exactly reproducing the movements of the small figures inside them. Someone near him was shouting with laughter. Hark could feel it, too. There was an exhilaration in the running. People stood in the entrances to booths and watched them pounding past. Some applauded and shouted encouragement.

The sirens seemed to be falling back, but still he kept going. He stopped only when he was far ahead of them. By this time, he was completely winded. He had to bend double, hands on his knees, to force air into his straining

lungs. Opposite him, in a similar position, was one of the jocks who had been involved in the fracas. They looked at each other. The earlier fury seemed a little absurd. Slowly they straightened up and went off in different directions.

Hark suddenly realized that he was lost. He turned around twice. Everyone who had run from the shore patrol had zigzagged and turned corners. He had simply followed suit. Now he didn't have a clue how to get back to the booth or to the rest of his messmates. There were people strolling by, but there was nothing that he could ask them. He didn't even know the name of the place. All he could remember was the phallic serpent banner.

A nearby drinking booth looked inviting. It was a low, faceted dome, and a warm red glow shone through the translucent hexagonal panels. He ducked through the low entrance, thumbing the sensor as he moved inside. A couple of people glanced up at him, but there was no overt hostility—in fact, the place was strangely subdued. The patrons there came from all the functions on a cluster and seemed to share two things in common: Almost all of men were veteran longtimers, and a high proportion were fitted with prosthetic limbs. They lounged on cushions that covered practically the entire floor. There was very little conversation, a noise generator filled the booth with quiet ambient sound. There was a drifting dreaminess to the interior of the dome that was like nothing Hark had previously encountered. Drinks were being served from a low half-moon bar, but they were largely ignored. Instead, attentions were focused on the small, pink ceramic cylinders, each about the size, of a man's forearm, that were being passed from hand to hand. Each man in turn opened the valve on the neck of the cylinder and drew deeply on the molded plastic nozzle. One lungful seemed to be enough. The valve was

closed, the cylinder passed on, and then the man who had just used it flopped back on the cushions. Escaping gas filled the place with a sweet, almost sickly smell that made Hark feel a little queasy. There were surprisingly few women in the dome, and the ones who were lying on the cushions looked much the same age as the men. They were certainly much older than Zydell and the other women who'd been at the "phallic serpent." The only exception was a very young woman who was sitting on a stool in the center of the floor. Naked to the waist, wearing only a pair of very tight cut-off shorts, she leaned back, one knee raised, arms braced against the back of the stool. She was staring dreamily at the ceiling. Blond curls cascaded down her shoulders. Although the pose was deliberately sexy, the girl seemed totally oblivious to the rest of the room. She looked like a living statue. Hark squatted down on a cushion next to the half-moon bar. He wasn't sure how one was supposed to behave in this place. He glanced at the bartender.