War Games (3 page)

I heard something that made me sweat even more—the soft hum of an open sonic knife. No, an ultrasonic harmony. More than one knife. That really made me think.

I slowly advanced, listening carefully, until I came to the opening from which the sound came. I peered in, ready to jump back. My heart beat like a trip-hammer. Blood roared in my ears. A short corridor lay before me, empty. Beyond, dim light flickered. Sound came from there also.

I crept along the corridor. It opened into a small park, complete with benches and foliage. Luminescent sea swirled against persplex overhead, flooding the chamber with flickering green light. The sailor stood in the center of the park, surrounded by three pepheads. Each held a sonic knife. Ultrasonic fire sang from crystalline blades,

Pepheads normally resorted to less violent types of crime to support their addiction. Mugging usually required too much energy. But it was known to happen. The three pepheads surrounding the sailor looked typical enough. They were thin and cachectic with bodies wasted from too many forgotten meals. Their faces were hollow and gaunt, with sunken eyes. Hair hung in scraggly patches from their heads. They appeared too frail to even protect themselves, much less attack someone else. Yet they seemed agile enough and were surprisingly quick. Must be hopped up on endocaine or endophetamine. Those peptides gave synthetic strength and courage.

The sailor was good. He seemed to anticipate his assailants’ thrusts, and easily parried them. But he was outnumbered. And surrounded. There was no escape. Just as there was no doubt what the outcome of the fight would be. But I had to admire his skill. It was like watching ballet. He leaped and twisted and turned, slashing with his knife, parrying the others’ blades with his wrist and ankle bands. I flashed to the halos of my childhood, of sailors fighting pirates hand to hand in the riggings of gravships. This was better. This was in person,

One of the pepheads slumped to the ground. His throat was slashed. The other pepheads and the sailor continued fighting. Their leaps and lunges slowly moved them away from me. Now was my chance to get the L.A. out.

I was about to leave, when I noticed something peculiar about the fallen pephead. I moved closer until I stood over him. My legs weakened; I sank to my knees. My stomach felt queasy.

He was changing! As I watched, the pephead was changing appearance. His face and body were fleshing out. He was dead. I was sure of that. But he was changing anyway. His skin
lost its sallowness. Nose and ears became a little different. Dead eyes changed color. Soon I saw a face no one had seen for many years. I knew then he was dead. Only in death would that face be seen. You know as well as I what creatures fought the sailor. Not real pepheads. That was just a disguise to keep any witnesses from realizing who the attackers actually were. Quite simple, really. Chameleons could wear much more elaborate masks. They were quite sensitive about their anonymity.

But now I knew who they were, I knew what that meant. If I ran, they’d follow, as soon as they were finished with the sailor. The chameleons of the Intelligence Corps wouldn’t stop following me until they found me. I knew what would happen then. I didn’t need that kind of heat.

I had no choice. I mean, what else could I do?

The chameleon was still grasping his knife in his dead hand. I pried it from his fingers, then looked up. The sailor looked horrible, bleeding from numerous slashes. There was a stab wound in his belly—already his abdomen was becoming distended with bloated viscera. He still fought furiously, though. He was backed up against the persplex wall of the park. Phosphorescent bubbles streamed by on the other side, as bright as space dust. The two remaining pephead/chameleons closed for the kill. I would be next.

My heart beat out of control. Cold sweat ran under my arms. My vision blurred around the edges. But I knew what had to be done. And I’d seen enough holos to know how to do it.

I quickly ran across the park. Before the pepheads had a chance to turn, I slashed the closest one across his right side, below the ribs. My knife sliced deep, cutting both liver and kidney. Bright red blood splashed on the ground. He fell forward.

The other pephead glanced back to see what had happened. As he did, the sailor lunged with his blade, catching him under his chin. He fell backward, dead. It was not a peaceful death for either pephead. With death, the neural and hormonal energies maintaining their disguises relaxed. Their appearances reverted to true form—an unpleasant metamorphosis. Skin fibrillated as if worms were wiggling underneath. Muscles snapped against tendons. Bone grated and crunched as it was remodeled.

I looked away, having seen enough. The sailor had slumped against the wall. His knife lay beside him. He motioned me over. I kneeled beside him, leaning over to place my ear close to his lips.

He whispered: “Who are you?”

“I saw you in the casino.”

“But
who
are you?”

“No one. Nobody important.”

“Yes you are,” he said. He tried to laugh, but the sound bubbled in his throat. He coughed up a clot of blood. “Your face has haunted my dreams for a long time. I thought you would be my killer, not my rescuer. When I saw you following me, I knew my time had come. Just as the deathstone foretold. I knew when I saw your face that all my plots had been in vain.” He twisted his neck to look through the persplex wall. He tapped against it with his finger. “I thought this would be the wall of a dome in space. Somewhere on one of the outer moons. How was I to guess it was water swirling beyond and not liquid ammonia and methane? I came to Earth fleeing the vision of my death, not seeking it.” He took a deep breath. Bubbles gurgled in his chest. “Nels was right. I, too, should have become a mindrider and lost myself in the mind casinos of Chronus. Should have gotten rid of this body. It’ll never catch up to Nels. Nels is safe.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

“But I’ve never seen you before. How could you know me?”

“The stone showed me your face. No matter how hard you try you always succumb to the temptation to see your own death. I knew you’d also witness mine.”

I pointed to the dead chameleons, “Why were they after you? What did the spooks want?”

“The stone, of course. Kramr wants the stone.”

“The stone?”

He held out his hand. Light sparked from the gem in his ring. “Just a flawed chip of the real one,” he said. “A timestone.” Then he managed to laugh. “And a deathstone for sure.” He looked at me in a funny way, almost apologeticaIIy. “Here, you take it. The cycle must remain unbroken.” He slipped off the ring and pushed it into my hand. Then his body shook with paroxysms of cough. Red foam ran from his nostrils. He whispered again. I leaned closer, so I could hear. He was delirious, of course. His ravings made no sense, then. He told the whole story, though. Later I would put it all together. I’m corning to that part.

After he died, I slipped the sailor’s ring onto my finger. A strange warmth emanated from its gemstone. Then I took the casino chit from his cape and pocketed it. Money could do him no good now. It could do me a lot of good. I had plans. I also strapped on his knife sheath and slipped his blade into it. No cleaning was necessary. Blood didn’t stick to sonic blades. I was careful to wipe my fingerprints from the other knife handle.

As I was leaving, I looked at the chameleon I’d killed. He’d reverted to his true morphology. Quite ordinary, actually. Then it hit me. This was my first killing. I admired the wound I had made in the chameleon’s side. It had been easy. And the feeling wasn’t at all bad.

Then I got the Frisco out. Spooks didn’t like their kind being killed. I wanted to be far away when the bodies were discovered. A vendetta against me was not my idea of fun.

A week later I got pinched again. I’d made it back to Nyssa. I was picked up by a routine patrol. Fortunately, I’d cached my loot, all but the sailor’s ring. I was wearing it.

But I had the foresight to swallow it when they picked me up. I didn’t want to be traced back to him. No way! They didn’t connect me to either him or the dead chameleons. The dimwitted varks thought I was just a runaway. All they were looking for was the bribe they’d get for returning me to my parents. If they’d guessed the truth, they could have saved themselves a whole lot of trouble later on.

But they didn’t.

Guess the truth, I mean.

I OPENED
my
eyes. Instead of the underwater blur to which I’d grown accustomed, my vision was clear. Nictitating membranes had finally become complete. But the difference was negligible. There still wasn’t much to see: cratered moonscape, bathed in Earth-light; a kaleidoscope of other hybridization pods, each containing its own human larva, metamorphosing just as I was. I brought my left hand in front of my face. Five stubby fingers grew from the stump. They wriggled at me, of their own volition. But soon both feeling and motor control would return. It would be good to have my hand back.

With my right hand, I scratched my head. The wires in my scalp no longer itched, but there was still the deeper one. That itch was as bad as ever. Yet I marveled at the grim efficiency of hypnotraining. Already I knew the twenty-three ways to kill a man using only bare hands and feet. I also knew how to dispatch a score of other creatures not quite men anymore. I was proficient with both light and heavy photonuclear weapons. I could make a bomb out of common minerals on any of the inhabited moons and planets. On those that supported carbon-based plants, I knew which plants you could eat and which ones would kill you. In a pinch, I could pilot anything from a hoverbus to a gunship to a Nova-class gravship. I could do things I’d never done, and do them well.

I laughed out loud.

I should have figured out how to get all this training years ago. I could have saved myself some trouble. Killing wasn’t nearly as hard as I’d always found it to be. If only I’d had the skills then that I had now. Oh, well. Live and learn. I smiled at my play on words.

I saw movement at the edge of my vision. My peripheral vision had been considerably enhanced, I looked up. A gravtug passed overhead in orbit, towing a long train of silver pods. I searched my new memories. Strange. I had no knowledge of what the tug was towing. It passed out of sight over the horizon. The pods followed, one by one.

Something bothered me.

Unbidden, an image formed in my mind: frost covered the face like close-cropped fur. Red filaments fanned out from the ears. Teeth were broken into shards of ivory ice.

I pushed the face away,

I had more pleasant memories. I was telling you about myself, wasn’t I? You’ve seen the face I was fleeing. Maybe you’ve figured out why I was afraid of it. I probably told you sometime. But you don’t know the complete plan. I left out part of what the sailor told me. You don’t really know what the timestone was. Remember Nels, the mindrider. He can tell you all about timestones. If you can find him. If you can get him to talk. But I’ll tell you what I know about timestones. I paid the piper once. I’m ready to pay again.

Listen.

* * *

I was home for the last time. You figure out what that means.

I’ll spare you the gruesome details of my homecoming—my father worked me over with an alphawhip; my mother got in a few licks herself. What happened after I passed out, I couldn’t say. I’ve got educated guesses, from the various places that hurt, but you’re not interested in guesses. Before I lost consciousness, for some reason I thought of the sailor. I made some sense out of what he had said.

I came to late the next morning. My vision was still a little blurred, but it cleared rapidly. A sonic shackle clasped my ankle, attached to a long chain. I was in my room.

I stumbled into the bathroom, unsteady on my feet. I examined myself in the mirror. Except for a few scrapes and bruises, I looked all right. No scars, this time. I stepped into the shower stall. Ultrasonic fingers massaged my skin. After a few minutes, the soreness left my muscles. I stepped out, walked to the toilet, and sat down. Sonification beams warmed my bottom. Reflex took over. Smooth muscle contracted; sphincter tone relaxed. Then I remembered. I jumped off the toilet and squatted over the floor. I barely made it in time. Stool plopped against smooth marble. I’d often wondered how smugglers did it. Now I knew. They shit on the floor and poked through it with a pencil. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Kind of fun, really. Infantile fixations, and all that.

Anyway, I found what I was after. I fished out the ring and washed it in the sink. Then I cleaned up the other mess, I didn’t want the maidmech to blow a fuse. Or be hanging around any longer than necessary.

I lay in bed and examined the ring. The setting was plain platinum; quite cheap-looking, in fact. The stone was nothing to rave about, either. It was deep blue, almost black, like an amalgam of tourmaline and obsidian. The exposed face was crudely cut on an oblique angle to the other facets, which were much finer. But then it was a chip from a larger gem, wasn’t it? That’s what the sailor had said. And he’d told me more.

I looked deep into the stone, letting my mind relax. A shiver ran up my back. I smiled.

I got up and rummaged through my closet. I found a children’s game board with a set of dice. The next hour I spent rolling naturals. Or any other number I wanted. It was easy. You just thought about it real hard, until you could see an image of the dice inside the stone. Then you made them show the number you wanted. When you threw the real dice, they came up that way. Simple. Took the gamble out of gambling. No wonder the sailor had wiped out all those casinos. But his brashness had gotten him killed. I’d be more careful.

Someone coughed behind me.

I turned around, already knowing who stood there. I mean, I knew! I’d known several minutes before she had come into my room.

“Practicing for the sporting life?” Grychn asked.

“Just fooling around. Killing time.” I smiled. Dogs, I was clever. “What number do you want to see? A seven?” I threw the dice. A natural rolled up in the air. “How about eight the hard way?’ I roIled again. Two fours. Before the dice stopped flashing, I picked them up and flipped them again. A six and a two. Naturally. “How about snake eyes?” I rolled. Two single red spots glowed in midair.

“Trick dice?” She laughed. “You can buy them in any novelty store.” She picked them out of the air and examined them closely. Her eyes widened. She’d seen the National Quasiconductor seal on each. You couldn’t fake that. Not in a novelty store. “How?” she asked.

“Child’s play.”

I pulled Grychn close and let her stare into the ring. I told her about the sailor. I shouldn’t have. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble later if I hadn’t. But I was young and foolish then.

* * *

“I don’t like it,” she said later.

“What?”

“The ring. The timestone. It feels wrong. Get rid of it. Toss it down a dispoz.”

I laughed. My hand lay on her chest, between her breasts. The timestone glittered on my finger. My timestone. She touched my lips. I took her finger between my teeth.

“I mean it,” she said. “Something bad is going to happen.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ve got plans, big plans.”

“You’re leaving again?” She knew I was.

I said nothing. I kissed her, pressing my body against hers. We spent the rest of the day making long, slow love. Grychn was nice. I would almost miss her when I left again. Almost. But there would be others. Just as nice.

Later, in the dark, she snuggled comfortably against me.

I heard someone moving up the stairs. I didn’t need a timestone to know who. “You better leave now,” I whispered to Grychn.

“He’s coming?”

I nodded. “Time for you to go.” Ions buzzed in the air. The nocturnal ritual was about to resume.

“I want to stay.”

“No you don’t. Not if you value your hide. I’ll be OK. I’m used to it. Get going.”

“I’m staying with vou.”

“Suit yourself. It won’t be pleasant.”

The door opened. My father stood in the doorway, surrounded by blue smoke. He was naked. Thermite embers glowed in red tattoos on his skin. His eyes burned brighter with endocaine. “Your mother wants
you
now,” he said. He held an alphalash in his hand. Sparks dripped from the whip and bounced from the floor. Again, I didn’t need the timestone to know it was going to be bad.

He unlocked the, far end of my chain and dragged me down the stairs to where Mother waited. Grychn came by herself. It must have been a treat for my parents, to have someone as nice as her. If they even noticed.

* * *

Grychn kissed me in the night. Her lips sought the places that hurt; her tongue’s wetness extinguished glowing dermatographies. Lines of flame burned in her skin also, like cruel corposant, swirling over her breasts, across her belly, between her legs. Beneath each line of fire, ions beat on pain receptors. Nerve endings sang a harmony of hurt. White sparks danced in ocher eyes. Ermine hair with retained static stood out as straight as dandelion fuzz. Darker streaks marked where tears had washed away the alpha tattooing. I licked the others out, one by one, tasting the salt-sweet taste of burned epidermis. Alpha particles could burn no deeper. They didn’t leave scars in skin, just temporary pain. Her tongue worked the same magic on my skin.

Finally the fires were out. We lay together, lips touching, breath mingling. A rush went from head to toe. There was no euphoria greater than agony that was past. I touched my hand to her face, resting it gently on her cheek. She opened her eyes and stared into the timestone on my finger. She stopped breathing for a moment. Her pupils narrowed,

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

She covered my hand with hers. “Don’t look,” she said in a strange voice.

Of course I had to look then. I pulled my hand away from hers and stared into the timestone. A compressed image darted into my mind, there to expand: Grychn and I were shackled to a beam in the ceiling, hanging by our hands. We were both naked. My parents each held whips, but not harmless alphalashes. This time they wielded sonic flagella. Their eyes gleamed with peptide madness; their lips smiled wickedly. They began working the whips over our bodies. Carefully. Slowly. So that their pleasure would last a long time. Each place the whip touched, flesh exploded into red slime as tissues were sonificated. I saw Grychn and myself scream with pain as our bodies became pocked with bleeding craters. Slowly, flesh melted. Weakened belly walls burst—entrails dangled out. Eventually we were reduced to limp skeletons—bones with only tatters of muscle left. And still sonic whips sang.

I looked away from the timestone. But the images stayed in my mind. They were there yet. And I knew the vision was true. The timestone had shown me what was to be, what would happen sometime, I was convinced of that.

“You saw?” I asked Grychn.

Her face told me she had.

“Then you know what we’ve got to do.” I looked at my parents. They lay in a peptide stupor across the room.

“Maybe it’s a trick,” Grychn said. “Maybe it’s only a possibility, not an inevitability. Maybe it’s only illusion.”

“We can’t take that chance.” My shackle was off. They’d made that mistake once before. I crawled across the floor. Grychn followed.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“We have no choice.” I was right. We had no other choice. I shouldn’t have needed the timestone to realize what would happen eventually. They’d get carried away with their game. They were hardly in control of it, anyway. It was just a matter of time before they killed me. I’d known it unconsciously. Why do you think I was running? The timestone just confirmed what I should have suspected earlier. The sailor had told me it would show me my own death. He said there was nothing you could do about it. Well, we’d see about that. I still had one choice, one chance. But no others.

Grychn helped me drag their limp bodies across the room to the pool. We floated them on top of the steaming water. My father wore a jeweled dagger strapped around his thigh. I pulled it from its sheath. Ultrasonic fire flared from the blade, sharper than any metal edge. It took only a few seconds to nick their wrists and send red blood squirting out. I dropped the knife into the pool. A double suicide. Lords and Ladies did it all the time. Very fashionable. I stood beside the pool and watched blood pump into the water. Finally it stopped. They still floated, but now were white as polystyrene statues.

What did I feel? I don’t know. Feelings didn’t matter, I had no other choice.

Grychn was trembling. I took her hand and led her away. In my room I let her hold me for a while. She cried on my shoulder.

Then we made love again.

* * *

As we were dressing, I asked: “Are you coming with me?” Giving her another chance.

“OK.” She looked up with shimmering eyes. “I guess so.” Then she saw the ring. “Marc, get rid of the ring.”

I laughed. “You’ve got to be joking. I’ve got plans. Big plans.”

“Please get rid of it. For me.”

I shook my head.

“I can’t go with you if you won’t destroy that ring. It’s poison. Look at the trouble it’s already caused.” She was trembling,

“Then stay.” I was dressed and ready to leave. I looked back once. Grychn’s eyes were hidden. Cheeky little tart, anyway, She’d had her chance. Two. Frog her. There’d be others just as nice.

And there were.