Hellflower (v1.1)

Hellflower

Eluki bes Shahar

Copyright © 1991

Portions of this work have appeared in substantially different form in the following magazines:

"Hellflower" - Skywalker 6, 1982

"Casablanca" - Hydrospanner Zero,
1981

"Hellflower"
Amazing Science Fiction,
March 1985

"Light Fantastic"
Amazing Science Fiction,
March 1987

To Chris Jeffords, with honor.

I was minding my own business in beautiful downside Wanderweb, having just managed to mislay my cargo for the right price. My nighttime man had talked me into booklegging again, and damsilly stuff it was too -either maintenance manuals or philosophy texts. I never did figure out which, even with sixty hours time in
Firecat
between Coldwater and Wanderweb to stare at them and Paladin to read them to me.

So I was making my way around wondertown; free, female, and a damn sight over the age of reason, when I saw this greenie right in front of me in the street.

He was definitely a toff, and no stardancer-you never saw such clothes outside of a hollycast. He was lit up like Dream Street at night and wearing enough heat to stock a good-sized Imperial Armory be sides. And this being scenic Wanderweb, land of enchantment, there was six of K’Jarn’s werewolves and K’Jarn facing him. I was of the opinion-then-that he couldn’t do them before they opened him up, so, fancy-free, I opened my mouth and said:

"Good morning, thou nobly-born K’Jarn. Airt hiert out to do wetwork these days or just to roll glitterborn for kicks, hey?"

K’Jarn looked up from pricing Tiggy Stardust’s clothes and said, "N’portada je, S’Cyr. Purdu."

K’Jarn and me has known each other ever since I started running cargoes into Wanderweb Free Port and he started trying to boost them. For once I should of took his advice. But hell, it was seven-on-one, and I’ve
never
liked K’Jarn. . . .

"Like Imperial Mercy I will. Yon babby’s my long-lost lover and maiden aunt, and I’m taking him home to Mother any day now. Fade." He might have, except for that just then one of K’Jarn’s wingmen got restless and took a swipe at the glitterborn with a vibroblade. Tiggy Stardust moved faster than anything human and swiped back and I burned K’Jarn before K’Jarn could mix in. K’Jarn dropped his blaster, him not having a hand to hold it with anymore, and left on urgent business. So did everyone else.

Business as usual in wondertown, and not enough fuss for the CityGuard to show up. Except for the deader Tiggy made and another I didn’t have time to get fancy with, me and him was alone and he wasn’t moving.

I went to see if there was anything left to salvage. He snaked around and then it was me down and staring up at an inert-blade knife as long as my thigh while he choodled at me unfriendly-like.

I can get along in flash, cant, and Trade, but I couldn’t make head nor hind out of his parley, and I thought at first I’d hit my head too hard. But then I knew that what actually I had gone and done was the stupidest thing of my whole entire life. I’d rescued a hellflower.

Of course, hair that light and skin that dark could come from spacing on a ship with poor shields, and he wasn’t even so bloodydamn tall-just too tall to be the kinchin-bai he looked. But no other human race in space has eyes the color a hellflower’s got. Hellflower blue.

And why I couldn’t of figured this all out one street corner brawl ago was beyond me.

He stared at me, I stared at him. I figured I was dead, which’d at least spare me hearing Paladin’s opinion of my brains when I got back to
Firecat.
Then the hellflower rolled off me, put away the knife, and got to his feet.

"Jadraya kinvraitau, chaudatu.
I apologize in honor for my ill-use of you; I thought you were one of the others. I offer you the thanks of my House and—"

"Don’t wanna hear it!" I interrupted real quick. He talked Interphon real pretty, but with a heavy accent-alMayne, that kind of lilt -more proof, not that I needed it. "You kay, reet, am golden, hellflower, copacetic-but don’t you go being grateful."

His face got real cold, and I thought I’d bought it for the second time that morning. Then he said, "As you desire,
chaudatu,"
and ankled-off.

Hellflowers are crazy.

###

Strictly speaking, when you’re talking patwa, which is what most people in my neighborhood do, a "hellflower" is any mercenary from the Azarine Coalition: Ghadri, Felix, Cardati, Kensey, alMayne-a prime collection of gung-ho races with bizarre customs and short tempers. Actually, say "hellflower" in the nightworld and everyone’ll figure it’s an alMayne that’s caught your fantasy. alMayne are crazier than the rest of the Coalition put together-they’ve got their own branch of the Mercenaries’ Guild with its own Grandmaster, and when they do sign out for work (as bodyguards mostly, because there ain’t no wars anymore, praise be to Imperial Mercy and the love of the TwiceBorn) you can follow them around by the blood-trail they leave behind. They’ll win any fight they start-or just kill you in the middle of a pleasant conversation for no reason your survivors can see.

It’s all to do with hellflower "honor." They’re mad for it. They got their own precious code of dos and don’ts, and you don’t want one of them beholden to you for any money. If that happens, you can be chaffering with your buddy and the ‘flower’ll cut him down and tell you he did it to purify your honor. There was a man once that lost six business partners, his cook, his gardener, two borgs and a dozen tronics to his hellflower bodyguard before he figured out the hellflower
liked
him. . . .

Hellflowers are crazy.

###

So I stopped thinking about hellflowers and went and had breakfast. Didn’t wonder about my particular ‘flower; there wasn’t nothing about that boy going to make sense a-tall. And I had things to do.

My purpose in life for coming to Wanderweb-other than to make too little credit for too much work-was a little piece of illegal technology called a Remote Transponder Sensor. Not only does the Empire in its wisdom refuse to sell them to its citizens or even me, once you get one, you have to get it installed.

In a Free Port, nothing’s illegal and everything can be had for a price. Or an over-price. Remember that your friendly Free Port owner clears a profit after paying a tax to Grand Central about the size of his planetary mass, and you’ll get the general idea. Never shop Free Port if you don’t have to-but if something can’t be had for any credit, you can probably find it here. And every Free Port and most planets has its Azarine.

The Azarine is the mere district, named after the Coalition. It holds everything from sellsword to gallowglass with a short detour through contract assassin, and like all special interest ghettos, it’s home to the kiddies that service the players as well as the players themselves. Enter Vonjaa Beofox, high-nines cyberdoc living in the Azarine.

I heard tell of Beofox from an Indie who gave her the rep for being rough and nasty but good, which meant she was probably some legit bodysnatcher who took High Jump Leave from an Imp hellhouse to make a dishonest living in the Wanderweb Azarine. I saw her sign hung out over Mean Street. It had the Intersign glyphs for "fixer" and "bionics" on it, and the running hippocrene that was Beofox’s personal chop. Beofox was a bodywarp fixer specializing in bionics-add a leg or a laser, prehensile tail or whatever you want-and Mean Street is the beating heart of the Azarine. There was a number of characters about as big as my ship standing around the place, but sellswords don’t fight for free any more than I ship cubic out of charity. In the fullness of time I got past Beofox’s bouncer and in to see her.

Beofox was about my size-which means on the short side of average-with a saurian cast to her bones that made you wonder where her breeding population rated on the Chernovsky scale. Her hair was roached up in a fair way to conceal a decent hideout blaster and she had as much ring-money punched through her ears as I wore on my boots. The walls of her surgery was covered with charts showing her daily specials and the most popular forms of blackwork for cybers. "Want a thing done, Beofox," I said to open hostilities.

"I do no favors for stardancers, che-bai. What kind plastic you spinning?" she shot back.

The whistle in the nightworld was that Beofox had a soft-on for the rough-and-tumble kiddies, which made Gentry definitely persona-nonbreathing in her shop. But stardancers don’t run to cyberdocs so it was Beofox or I’d just spent a lot of wasted money on something I shouldn’t own in the first place.

"Am golden, bodysnatcher; just dropped kick."

"That’s ‘bonecrack’ to you, and speak Interphon. Why don’t you work your own side of the street, stardancer?"

"I want a Rotten C," I said, real articulate-like.

Beofox regarded me with new respect. "A Remote Transponder Sensor-with the Colchis-Demarara shielding, irrational time processor, fully independent sub-micro broadcast power storage, and guaranteed full-fidelity sound reproduction? Do I look like an Imperial Armory?"

"Sure, che-bai. And I look like a Gentrymort with clearances, so get out your wishbook." I already had the RTS, but it don’t do to tell everything you know.

We swapped insults for a while until Beofox came to the conclusion that while the hardboys might be fine and nice and real friendly, having friends in the transport union’ll keep you warm at night. We ended up with her agreeing to install it and me admitting I had it, and I hen we went around about price, which started out to be my left arm and all that adjoined it, and finally got down to the price of a complete legal biosculpt.

"We can fix that face of yours, too, you know," she said when we’d closed the deal.

"Doesn’t scare kinchin-bai."

"Sure. But someone’s going to top you for a dicty sometime from I he nose alone. I just wish you damn Interdicted Colonists would either stay in the quarantine your ancestors paid for or realize that twenty generations of inbreeding stands out like a flag of truce when you try to leave. Where in Tahelangone are you from, homebody?" Tahelangone Sector is where all the Interdicted Worlds are. Nobody goes in, nobody goes out, and the Tech Police are there to see it Mays that way. Emigration is, like all the fun things in life, illegal. "Fixer, you farcing me, surely. Born and raised on Grand Central, Ion-bye." Neither of us believed me.

"I’ll see what I can do if you want, for ten percent over what we’ve agreed. Just bring your play-pretty back here tonight at half-past Third. Shop guarantee is a one-third refund if you’re not combat-ready by thirty hours later."

We went around a little more and settled on that too. I left as a Ghadri wolfpack was coming in to discuss armored augmentation.

###

I spent the rest of the day hanging out in a place in wondertown called the Last Gasp Arcade. In between the hellflower and the cyberdoc in my busy social round I’d run into an old friend; a darktrader named Hani who’d just turned down a job for being too small and in the wrong direction. He remembered I ran a pocket cruiser, and if
Firecat
was hungry he’d pass word for a meet.

I did not at the time think it odd to pick up a job this way even in a Port with a perfectly legit Guild-board and Hiring Hall, and I agreed as maybe I might be around this particular dockside bar from meridies to horizonrise local time, with no promises made.

Three drinks post-meridies my maybe-employer showed up. He was a short furry exotic with a long pink nose, and except for the structural mods made by a big brain and bipedal gait he looked an awful lot like something we used to smoke out of the cornfields back home. Of course, to a Hamat or a Vey he might of looked like whatever. Your brain matches what you see to what you’ve seen, and files off the bits what don’t fit.

He sat down. "I am the Reikmark Arjilsox," he almost said. Your brain plays tricks with sounds too-what was obviously a name just sounded like gibberish to me, but I wasn’t planning to remember it. "I understand you are a pilot-of-starships?"

We established that I was a pilot-of-starships, that I owned and could fly a ground-to-ground-rated freighter-licensed ship, and that my tickets were in order-Directorate clearances, Outfar clearances, inspection certs, et cetera, and tedious so forth. Forged, of course, but the information was correct-I’d have to be a fool to claim to be able to pilot something I couldn’t.

We also established that Gibberfur here was the Chief Dispatcher for the Outlands Freight Company, a reputable and highly-respected organization that chose to do its business in sleazy arcades. I ordered another round of tea and waited.

It took Gibberfur awhiles to make the Big Plunge, but when he did it was simple enough: In three days local time we’d both come back here and Gibberfur would hand me six densepaks of never-you-mind, which
Firecat
would take unbroached to a place called Kiffit that was nominally in the Crysoprase Directorate, where Yours Truly would hand them over unto one Moke Rahone and get paid in full.