Women of War (2 page)

Miri lowered her arms carefully and squinted up into the workings. The damn splice was gonna hold this time.

For a while, anyhow.

“Pressure's heading for normal,” Penn shouted over the building racket. “Come on outta there, Miri.”

“Just gotta close up,” she shouted back, and wrestled the hatch up, holding it with a knee while she used both hands to seat the locking pin.

That done, she rolled out. A grubby hand intersected her line of vision. Frowning, she looked up into Penn's wary, spectacled face and relaxed. Penn was okay, she reminded herself, and took the offered assist.

Once on her feet, she dropped his hand, and Penn took a step back, glasses flashing as he looked at the lift-bike.

“Guess that's it 'til the next time,” he said.

Miri shrugged. The bike belonged to Jerim Snarth, who'd got it off a guy who worked at the spaceport, who'd got it from—don't ask, don't tell. Miri's guess was that the bike's original owner had gotten fed up with it breaking down every third use and left it on a scrap pile.

On the other hand, Jerim was good for the repair money, most of the time, which meant Penn's dad paid Miri on time, so she supposed she oughta hope for more breakdowns.

“Must've wrapped every wire in that thing two or three times by now,” she said to Penn, and walked over to the diagnostics board. Pressure and speed had come up to spec and were standing steady.

“My dad said let it run a quarter-hour and chart the pressures.”

Miri nodded, saw that Penn'd already set the timer and turned around.

“What's to do next?” she asked.

Penn shrugged his shoulders. “The bike was everything on the schedule,” he said, sounding apologetic. “Me, I'm supposed to get the place swept up.”

Miri sighed to herself. “Nothing on tomorrow, either?” “I don't think so,” Penn muttered, feeling bad about it, though it wasn't no doing of his—nor his dad's either. Though some extra pay would've been welcome.

Extra pay was always welcome.

“I'll move on down to Trey's, then,” she said, going over to the wall where the heavy wool shirt that served as her coat hung on a nail next to Penn's jacket. “See if there's anything needs done there.”

She had to stretch high on her toes to reach her shirt—damn nails were set too high. Or she was set too low, more like it.

Sighing, she pulled the shirt on and did up the buttons. If Trey didn't have anything—and it was likely he wouldn't—then she'd walk over to Dorik's bake shop. Dorik always needed small work done—trouble was, she only ever paid in goods, and it was money Miri was particularly interested in.

She turned around. Penn was already unlimbering the broom, moving stiff. Took a hiding, she guessed. Penn got some grief on the street—for the glasses, and for being so good with his figures and his reading and such—which he had to be, his dad owning a mechanical repair shop and Penn expected to help out with the work, when there was work. Hell, even
her
father could read, and figure, too, though he was more likely to be doing the hiding than taking it.

“Seen your dad lately?” Penn asked, like he'd heard her thinking. He looked over his shoulder, glasses glinting. “My dad's got the port wanting somebody for a cargo crane repair, and your dad's the best there is for that.”

If he could be found, if he was sober when found, if he could be sobered up before the customer got impatient and went with second best ...

Miri shook her head.

“Ain't seen him since last month,” she told Penn, and deliberately didn't add anything more.

“Well,” he said after a second. “If you see him ...”

“I'll let him know,” she said, and raised a hand. “See you.”

“Right.” Penn turned back to the broom, and Miri moved toward the hatch that gave out onto the alley.

Outside, the air was pleasantly cool. It had rained recently, so the breeze was grit-free. On the other hand, the alley was slick and treacherous underfoot.

Miri walked briskly, absentmindedly sure-footed, keeping a close eye on the various duck-ins and hiding spots. This close to Kalhoon's Repair, the street was usually okay; Penn's dad paid the local clean-up crew a percentage in order to make sure there wasn't no trouble. Still, sometimes the crew didn't come by, and sometimes they missed, and sometimes trouble herded outta one spot took up in another.

She sighed as she walked, wishing Penn hadn't mentioned her father. He never did come home no more except he was smoked or drunk. Or both. And last time—it'd been bad last time, the worst since the time he broke her arm and her mother—her tiny, sickly, soft-talking mother—had gone at him with a piece of the chair he'd busted to let 'em know he was in.

Beat him right across the apartment and out the door, she had, and after he was in the hall, screamed for all the neighbors to hear, “You're none of mine, Chock Robertson! I deny you!”

That'd been pretty good, that denying business, and for a while it looked like it was even gonna work.

Then Robertson, he'd come back in the middle of the night, drunk, smoked,
and
ugly, and started looking real loud for the rent money.

Miri'd come out of her bed in a hurry and run out in her shirt, legs bare, to find him ripping a cabinet off the wall. He'd dropped it when he seen her.

“Where's my money?” he roared, and took a swing.

She ducked back out of the way, and in that second her mother was there—and this time she had a knife.

“Leave us!” she said, and though she hadn't raised her voice, the way she said it'd sent a chill right through Miri's chest.

Chock Robertson, though, never'd had no sense.

He swung on her; she ducked and slashed, raising blood on his swinging arm. Roaring, he swung again, and this time he connected.

Her mother went across the room, hit the wall and slid, boneless, to the floor, the knife falling out of her hand.

Her father laughed and stepped forward.

Miri yelled, jumped, hit the floor rolling—and came up with the knife.

She crouched, the way she'd seen the street fighters do, and looked up—a fair ways up—into her father's face.

“You touch her,” she hissed, “and I'll kill you.”

The wonder of the moment being, she thought as she turned out of Mechanic Street and onto Grover, that she'd meant it.

It must've shown on her face, because her father didn't just keep on coming and beat her 'til all her bones were broke.

“Where's the money?” he asked, sounding almost sober.

“We paid the rent,” she snarled, which was a lie, but he took it, for a second wonder, and—just walked away. Out of the apartment, down the hall and into the deepest pit of hell, as Miri had wished every day after.

Her mother ...

That smack'd broke something, though Braken didn't find no busted ribs. The cough, though, that was worse—and she was spittin' up blood with it.

Her lungs, Braken'd said, and nothin' she could do, except maybe ask one of Torbin's girls for a line on some happyjuice.

The dope eased the cough, though it didn't stop the blood, and Boss Latimer's security wouldn't have her in the kitchen no more, which meant no wages, nor any leftovers from the fatcat's table.

Miri was walking past Grover's Tavern; it was a testament to how slim pickins had been that the smell of sour beer and hot grease made her mouth water.

She shook her head, tucked her hands in her pockets, and stretched her legs. 'Nother couple blocks to Trey's, and maybe there would be something gone funny in the duct work he was too big to get into, but Miri could slide through just fine.

Even if there wasn't work, there'd be coffeetoot, thick and bitter from havin' been on the stove all day, and Trey was sure to give her a mug of the stuff, it bein' his idea of what was—

A shadow stepped out from behind the tavern's garbage bin. Miri dodged, but her father had already grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back. Agony screamed through her shoulder, and she bit her tongue, hard. Damned if she'd let him hear her yell.
Damned
if she would.

“Here she is,” Robertson shouted over her head. “Gimme the cash!”

Out of the tavern's doorway came another man, tall and fat, his coat embroidered with posies and his beard trimmed and combed. He smiled when he saw her, and gold teeth gleamed.

“Mornin', Miri.”

“Torbin,” she gasped—and bit her tongue again as her father twisted her arm.

“That's
Mister
Torbin, bitch.”

Torbin shook his head. “I pay less for damaged goods,” he said.

Robertson grunted. “You want my advice, keep her tied up and hungry. She's bad as her ol' lady for sneaking after a man and doin' him harm.”

Torbin frowned. “I know how to train my girls, thanks. Let 'er go.”

Miri heard her father snort a laugh.

“Gimme my money first. After she's yours,
you
can chase her through every rat hole on Latimer's turf.”

“But she ain't gonna run away, are you, Miri?” Torbin pulled his hand out of a pocket and showed her a gun. Not a homemade one-shot, neither, but a real gun, like the Boss's security had.

“Because,” Torbin was saying, “if you try an' run away, I'll shoot you in the leg. You don't gotta walk good to work for me.”

“Don't wanna work for you,” she said, which was stupid, and Robertson yanked her arm up to let her know it.

“That's too bad,” said Torbin. “Cause your dad here's gone to a lot a trouble an' thought for you, an' found you a steady job. But, hey, soon's you make enough to pay off the loan an' the interest, you can quit. I don't hold no girl 'gainst her wants.”

He grinned. “An' you—you're some lucky girl. Got me a man who pays a big bonus for a redhead, another one likes the youngers. You're, what—'leven? Twelve, maybe?”

“Sixteen,” Miri snarled. This time the pain caught her unawares, and a squeak got out before she ground her teeth together.

“She's thirteen,” Robertson said, and Torbin nodded.

“That'll do. Let 'er go, Chock.”

“M'money,” her father said again, and her arm was gonna pop right outta the shoulder, if—

“Right.” Torbin pulled his other hand out of its pocket, a fan of greasy bills between his fingers. “Twenty cash, like we agreed on.”

Her father reached out a shaky hand and crumbled the notes in his fist.

“Good,” said Torbin. “Miri, you 'member what I told you. Be a good girl and we'll get on. Let 'er go, Chock.”

He pushed her hard and let go her arm. Expected her to fall, prolly, and truth to tell, she expected it herself, but she managed to stay up and keep moving, head down, straight at Torbin.

She rammed her head hard into his crotch, heard a high squeak. Torbin went down to his knees, got one arm around her; she twisted, dodged, was past, felt the grip on her shirt, and had time to yell before she was slammed into the side of the garbage bin. Her sight grayed, and out of the mist she saw a fist coming toward her. She dropped to the mud and rolled, sobbing, heard another shout and a hoarse cough, and above it all a third and unfamiliar voice, yelling—

“Put the gun down and stand where you are or by the gods I'll shoot your balls off, if you got any!”

Miri froze where she was, belly flat to the ground, and turned her face a little to see—

Chock Robertson standing still, hands up at belt level, fingers wide and empty.

Torbin standing kinda half-bent, hands hanging empty, his gun on the ground next to his shoe.

A rangy woman in neat gray shirt and neat gray trousers tucked tight into shiny black boots. She was holding a gun as shiny as the boots easy and businesslike in her right hand. Her hair was brown and her eyes were hard and the expression on her face was of a woman who'd just found rats in the larder.

“Kick that over here,” she said to Torbin.

He grunted, but gave the gun a kick that put next it to the woman's foot. She put her shiny boot on it and nodded slightly. “Obliged.”

“You all right, girl?” she asked then, but not like it mattered much.

Miri swallowed. Her arm hurt, and her head did, and her back where she'd caught the metal side of the container. Near's she could tell, though, everything that ought to moved. And she was breathing.

“I'm okay,” she said.

“Then let's see you stand up and walk over here,” the woman said.

She pushed herself up onto her knees, keeping a wary eye on Robertson and Torbin, got her feet under her, and walked up to the woman, making sure she kept outta the stare of her weapon.

The brown eyes flicked to her face, the hard mouth frowning.

“I know you?”

“Don't think so,” Miri answered. “Ma'am.”

One side of the mouth twisted up a little, then the eyes moved and the gun, too.

“Stay right there until I tell you otherwise,” she snapped, and her father sank back flat on his feet, hands held away from his sides.

“Get behind me, girl,” the woman said, and Miri ducked around and stood facing that straight, gray-clad back.

She oughta run, she thought; get to one of her hiding places before Torbin and her father figured out that the two of them together could take a single woman, but curiosity and some stupid idea that if it came down to it, she oughta help the person who'd helped her kept her there and watching.