Hellflower (v1.1) (13 page)

I put my thumb on the lit glyph for "locked container" and it changed to "unlocked container." I pulled out all six densepaks, and split the first one open with the aid-kit scalpel.

"Holy Mother Night." It was the big score for Brother Rahone all right, and real too bad he didn’t live to see it.

"Butterfly, you do realize that I have no way of seeing what you are doing?" Paladin said. I rubbed my jaw.

"Oh. Sorry. Just found out what we was shipping. Lyricals." Lyricals. Also called song-ice, or glory-of-the-snows. Little hyaloid nodules, not much to look at. You find them floating free in asteroid belts, if you’re real lucky. Tap one, and it gives you pretty music. Set it up with the right exciter, and the harmonics are enough to send you off to sweet dreams and many happy returns for as long as your batteries hold out.

The one I had in my hand showed a refracted star on its surface. I turned it this way and that. Sometimes it looked transparent. I tapped it.

No sound. So I tapped it again, and I could of been tapping
Firecat
for all the ethereal music on offer. "On the other hand," I said to Paladin, "maybe they aren’t."

I opened the other densepaks. Seven stones in all-five big and two little, all identical. None of them rang worth a damn.

I held a small one down on the table with surgical tongs-tricky, with the biopak-and cut it open with my vibro. It was solid. "Paladin, tell the wicked darktrade ‘legger what you get when you slice open a Lyrical."

"First: touching a vibroblade to the surface of the Lyrical gem will cause a unique mellifluous chiming. Second: the center of the gem spheroid is composed of a distinctive hexagonal honeycomb, black or iridescent in color—"

"And what Gibberfur was shipping from Wanderweb was fakes."

There was a pause while Paladin thought about this. "Counterfeit Lyricals?" said Paladin.

"Not even. Bad fakes. Solid and don’t ring. Stopped me half-second-expert even less."

I might still have to square it with the Guild for not losing my kick to my Destination-of-Record, but on the other hand, who was going to lodge a complaint? Rahone?

"That makes absolutely no sense," said Paladin crossly. I could sympathize.

"Unless they’re something else tricked out to look like Lyricals. But I doubt it. And y’know? I don’t care." Getting off planet’d make everybody happy-why not do it? With luck I’d never know why I had a oricalchun, what Fenrir thought’d make me healthy, and if I could add another hellflower scalp to my tally and live through the experience. "I am going to go downstairs and get something to eat, and the minute you tell me the coast is clear I am going to scuttle back to
Firecat
like a good coward and be gone-along-gone so fast. . . ."

"Butterfly, I can see the person behind the crates at the docking ring now. It is Valijon Starbringer."

Tiggy? "What’s he doing?"

"I do not know. He seems to be injured." Hurt’d be nothing in it once I got my hands on him, him and his three-ring-circus vendettas. "And, Butterfly, I think he is being followed."

But if he was being followed. . . . I sat and laboriously rearranged some preconceptions.

The hellflowers in the bazaar couldn’t be connected with Tiggy, because if they was, he wouldn’t be back at the port, alone, injured, and followed.

If there was a vendetta against Tiggy (reasonable), why had I gotten the wand?

And if the wand wasn’t meant for me, why was so many people out to get me?

I dumped the false Lyricals in various pockets and dragged my jacket on again. Then I flipped open the aid-kit and took out a double dose of enhancers. They probably wouldn’t kill me. I could always buy a new liver.

"I’m going to the port." I popped the wafers into my mouth. They were too sweet, then too bitter.

"Butterfly, are you quite sure that is wise?"

The enhancer battledrugs hit, and in the rush I felt like I could just pick up the Starcastle by the ears and heave it over the next ‘flower as came my way. I felt wonderful-like a Gentrymort what’d had her healing factor and metabolism stepped up by two: waterproof, shockproof, dust-resistant, and feeling no pain wherever glycogen reserves are sold. I was poetry in motion, all right.

"No. But he came to me for backup, Pally."

I left the beautiful Elephant and Starcastle with a box of burntwine in one pocket, blaster in the other, and enough junk jewelry to buy partshares in
Firecat’s
maintenance contract tucked here and there. I ignored the chemical blandishments singing sweet savage starfire in my mid-brain; I had three more doses of enhancer with me and if I had to take all of them I’d probably have more problems than just being dead could give me.

Right now I ought to be sitting in some fancy bathhouse in wondertown, watching the gravity dancers and getting all my sins absolved by something pretty. Oh yeah-and counting my payoff from Moke Rahone. Instead, I was torn up, hopped up, racked up, and walking into what was almost certainly a trap.

What had Tiggy Stardust run into that was so bad a hellflower couldn’t handle it? I ate glucose and tried to keep an eye out for stray assassins.

###

I didn’t go in through the main gate. I swung wide around the Company end of the port. It was empty except for one big highliner all floodlit and toplofty. I also sugarfooted around where they parked the big Indie ships with their crews of anywhere from thirty up, whole families and poor relations included. After I’d cleared them too, I walked along the outside of the fence to where they let gypsies and celestials dock. Little ships, old ships. Ships like mine.

The lights wasn’t as bright and the service wasn’t as good down here, and the fence was lower.

Dominich Fenrir knew something.

More’n that, he knew I was coming to Kiffit before I got here. That thought stopped me cold, and I faded back into a doorway to give it a little room. The buildings along the fence was condemned, derelict. A good place to think while looking over what was out on the field.

I’d only been downside an hour today when Fenrir came by. He’d known I was coming and he thought he knew something else. Something profitable.

Something on
Firecat?
I chased the thought around awhiles and shook my head. It wouldn’t fit and I couldn’t make it.

But Fenrir had known where I was coming from. He’d named my last port-which was not the one in my paperwork. Only Gibberfur there knew I was coming here.

Sweet. Factor A goes halvsies with bent Teaser and chouses his partner Factor B out of mondo valuta when Teaser steals cargo from stardancer. It’s a sad old story.

The only trouble with it was that Gibberfur’d given me fakes to freight. Fakes, locked up real extra special, in a case he could be pretty damn sure any Gentry-legger’d refuse to take.

I wanted to pursue that little thought, but something distracted me. I t was a flitting gray ghost shape moving between ships on the other side of the fence. I saw another one drift by just in front of me; he hit the fence with a ping-bang-boing and went over it just like I was planning to. I caught the glitter of expensive heat as he moved.

Oh, it was ladies’ day at the Azarine Coalition, all right. I’d just seen two Ghadri-sweep men coming in from a Ghadri wolfpack.

I could think of only one reason they’d want all five of them in place before moving up.

"Ghadri wolfpack after Tiggy, che-bai," I told Paladin. Then I moved too.

I hit the fence fast and noisy, with the battledrugs singing encouragement in my veins. The sound my boots made hitting the ground on the other side echoed all through the parked ships. Didn’t see anybody. I didn’t expect to.

I ran from cover to cover down the line until I got to a likely looking Free Trader and slid behind her fire wall. Within class, they dock ships by size at Imp Ports. Not too many ships
Firecat’s
size in dock, usually. She was next, and there was a long empty space between the Free Trader and my Best Girl.

I could see hoses going from her belly back to hookups in the fire wall, and a bunch of crates stacked around her ramp all armed to go off if they was burglared, and not a whole lot else. I couldn’t see Tiggy or any of the Ghadri. With the noise I’d made showing up, I was pretty sure the Ghadri’d want to make sure of me before trying to finish him. I fumbled in my flight jacket for the oricalchun and threw it out into the open space. It bounced on the crete with a sweet ringing sound. I knew what it was trying to buy, now.

The sound seemed to hang in the air, giving me the chance to think about what I was doing. Stupid. I’d been riding my luck to get this far. Pally’d been right-the ‘flowers I’d dusted in the Grand Bazaar were amateurs.

These Ghadri were pros.

"I count three, Butterfly. One on top of
Firecat
. One on the ground between your position and here. The third one is under
Firecat’s
ramp," Paladin said through my implant.

But we was playing on my turf, with my rules, and my backups. "When I give the word, I want a distraction. Something bright and noisy."

"Can do."

I started circling around. There might or might not be a Ghadri out there using the same cover to circle back. If Pally said he counted three, that’s what there was. But Ghadri ran in fives. Was more sweeps still out? Or had Tiggy dusted some? How bad was he hurt? Could I count on him for backup?

It was too quiet. There was a city of several million lost souls not three hundred meters thataway and we could of been in the Ghost Capital of the Old Fed for all you noticed them. I wondered where Port Security was.

I scuttled on knees and fingers and could hear every noise my boots made and bet the Ghadri did too. I wondered if he was going to let me get all the way to my ship free and clear. Then there was a scuffling rush and he jumped me.

I hit the crete with my face and rolled enough to give him a boot in the belly. He wuffed and waded back in. No blasters-I should of figured the Ghadri wouldn’t want anything showy. He tried to unscrew my head and I gave him my biopak to chew on and what he did to it probably would of upset me except for those nice battledrugs. Ghadri file their teeth.

Then he was on top and settling in. I let Brother Abriche-bai bang me against the crete until he got bored, and when he did I slid my vibro into him and rummaged around. He wasn’t expecting me to be that strong. Better living through chemistry.

Everything almost but not quite hurt. I pushed the body off my chest and nicked his throat to be sure. The blood came slow, in the way that said there was no pump behind it.

I turned off the vibro and slipped it back into my boot. I was damn lucky I hadn’t torn a tendon loose. You could cripple yourself with metabolic enhancers if you got careless.

I got up and tongued another enhancer tab. The world was painted in shades of black. There was two more Ghadri killers out there, and if I got them both I’d have three bodies to explain by morning and a dim view taken by the authorities of self-defense.

"The one beneath
Firecat
is moving toward you."

"Oke, brother. Come and dance with Mama," I said under my breath.

The Free Trader behind me was still dark. Her crew must be away in the wicked city-no wonder the Ghadri and me had the world to ourselves.

I couldn’t see him but I knew he was coming. I gave him long enough to get halfway here.

"Hit it, Pally," I said, and slid my hand down over my left blaster. All
Firecat’s
docking lights went on and her proximity klaxons sounded. The Ghadri was closer than I thought. I caught him twice in the chest even so, which was pretty good left-hand shooting. Then the ship lights went out and I ran for
Firecat
and hoped to get there before his partner recovered.

I slammed into the boxes at the foot of my ramp slightly too hard and sat down harder. There was a scrabble on the hull. Dragged my blaster up to track on it, but there was a flash and sizzle of somebody else shooting from behind the crates and what was left of the last Ghadri slid down over the hull curve and dropped damn near on my hoots.

Talkingbooks always go on about "the horrible smell of cooking meat" after a gunfight. They’re wrong. You catch a plasma-packet front and center and all anybody’s going to smell is charcoal.

###

"Tiggy?" I said without moving. "It’s me. You know-
chaudatu
what topped you out of Wanderweb? I’m coming round these-here boxes now bye-m-bye. Would appreciate it if you didn’t shoot me."

Got to my feet. Nothing hurt. I felt much too fine. I wondered how much I’d be hurting without chemically-induced euphoria.

Paladin turned
Firecat’s
exterior lights back on low and opened the hatch. I went around all my catch-trapped crates of food and water and air and hollyvids and there was Tiggy. He was leaning back against the fire wall with the Estel-Shadowmaker I’d gave him in his lap. He opened his eyes when I got there.

"
Ea, chaudatu
, I knew you would come back," he said, real soft. Then his eyes rolled up in his head and he clocked out.

Yeah, and he also knew I had fusion for brains.

I got down and poked at him. He was still breathing, but the side of his head was sticky and hot. I couldn’t see much in this light, and nothing in color. He was wearing the same clothes he’d left
Firecat
in, and they was in shreds. My fingers touched crumbling ash along his thigh and I bit down hard on my stomach and thought of the hellflower back at Rahone’s. I wondered how Tiggy’d managed to get this far tagged like that.

Hurt. Bad hurt and he’d made it all this way, over the fence and all, with three Ghadri wolves waiting to pull him down. Running to the only one he knew on Kiffit that might help.

And I hadn’t been here.

I didn’t want to carry him anywhere, but I had work yet to do tonight and I couldn’t just leave him. So I took Tiggy’s handcannon and his godlost
arthame
away from him, talking the whole time in case he woke up, then I picked him up. He didn’t weigh quite as much as
Firecat
. I put him down careful as I could on the deck in the hold.