Jinx on a Terran Inheritance (16 page)

They were all watching
Lamia,
a heavily armed carbon dagger of a vessel. Amarok's hand hovered near the firing grip of the monitor's single cannon. Knowing how outgunned they were, Alacrity and Floyt had begun to perspire, even though starting trouble at a Grapple could earn Sile stern retribution.

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After time had stood still for a while, Sile replied, "Oh, dear; how disappointing! Well; do enjoy your stay, my boy!
Lamia,
out!"

The deadly lean shape drifted away. Amarok let his breath out. "This One bets that Sile has to take that last open lock on
Caveat Emptor.
Few people trust him."

"But does he hold grudges?" Floyt wanted to know.

Amarok's expression was uncertain. "If it doesn't place him in danger, he'll attempt to get even for a perceived wrong, but he won't risk being turned out of the Grapple and being barred from others.
I think.

Are you both ready?"

They passed through into the warmer air of the
Magus
and were there greeted by her skipper, Captain Juxtar Merrywell.

Merrywell might've been nearly Alacrity's height when standing upright, but he was in a perpetual slouch. That and a sad, bassethound face combined to make him seem one step away from terminal melancholy. He wore a formal blouse, cravat in need of adjustment, and voluminous green pantaloons with metallic brocade. In his cummerbund were tucked two long, slender, gold-plated Monzini stunguns, heavily chased. They were short-range, but powerful;
Just the thing,
Alacrity thought,
for a visit to a
Grapple.
Merrywell's crew, mixed males and females with a sprinkling of nonhumans, seemed to dress pretty much as suited them.

Merrywell greeted Amarok with a flattening of his downcast look that wasn't quite a smile and a pat on the shoulder that seemed to take all his strength.

"Good to see you again, sonny. How's business?" He favored Alacrity and Floyt with a long-suffering look. "Amarok's a hotshot trader and captain now, but when he was cabinboy-apprentice with me, we had to teach him what went where in the head."

Amarok colored a bit and hastened to make introductions.

"Glad you had the sense to turn away that treacherous little degenerate Sile," Merrywell said when that was over. "You saved me the trouble. I never could stomach him or that wacko chippy he married."

"Married?" Amarok registered with surprise.

"You didn't hear? Yep, he and Constance are now joined in connubial bliss. Who else'd have either one of 'em?"

"What I'd like to know is where he got himself a ship like that," Amarok said.

Merrywell waved his hand and blew a curt raspberry. "Our little Sile is all jumped up in this life. He's file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (82 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:29

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got himself a rich patron is the word. Whoever it is must be either crazy or desperate; he's liable to wake up dead one of these watches. You and your friends be careful of Sile.
And
Constance."

Amarok said they would; Floyt and Alacrity both nodded.

"Well, come on; we'll go have a drink," Merrywell proposed. "You fellas got here late, you know. The Grapple's almost over."

He took Amarok's elbow. Floyt and Alacrity fell in behind as Merrywell led the way through the
Magus.

She was a fairly well-run ship, Alacrity saw, and while the atmosphere was somewhat casual, the crew was trained and disciplined. And just then they were all carrying weapons, and most of the interior hatches were secured.

"Got most of my business done already, actually." Merrywell wheezed. "Unloaded a lot of gemstones, small arms, and assorted, uh, medicines. Picked up some manufacturing equipment, AI matrixes, and detector gear." He coughed rather distressingly into a scandalously expensive kerchief of burrownymph silk from Masada; Amarok took no notice.

They cycled through the
Magus's
well-guarded main airlock. A trio of Merrywell's crew fell in with them as escort as the outer hatch swung open. Two were tough-looking men with flaring mustachios, their long brown hair woven and intertwined in triangular wooden frames they wore atop their heads; the other a short, slender, auburn-haired woman who looked to be about Floyt's age or so and had a rather elfin air to her. All three carried short-barrelled shockguns with folding stocks, supported by shoulder slings.

The
Magus
was grappled directly to the central portion of the
Caveat Emptor.
Merrywell led the party into a much larger lock, which wasn't in nearly as good shape as his own ship's. As they entered, brothel steerers, pushers, vendors, all manner of commission men and women and several beggars began yelling and importuning. Apparently they knew enough about Merrywell and his crew to keep their distance, though.

A wizened little man with multicolored braids that reached past his knees offered Floyt a transparent sphere containing a tiny gossamer-winged spider with eyes like red coals. According to the hawker's spiel, the spider spun golden webs and laid clusters of golden eggs. Then two big huskies squatting by a sedan chair wanted to bear him around the Grapple in style.

Alacrity pointed out the commission men and women. "Percentage reps. They'll bring just about anything you want to you in your ship—food, drugs, dealers from the casinos, sex servants, whatever—

at a ridiculous markup, of course."

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They made their way through the
Caveat's
lock, out into pandemonium.

They were in one of the attack transport's gargantuan holds, which had been converted into a thieves'

market of booths and stalls, marquees and kiosks. A thick pall clogged the air, compounded of every sort of smoke, aroma, and stench. Humans and other beings were puffing without restriction on a wide variety of materials, unusual inboard a sealed spacecraft.

Light came from harsh overhead spots and beautiful biolume lamps, strings of elaborate lanterns and glowing deckplates. Condensation from pipes and. conduits high above fell in erratic droplets. A variety of midges and other flying things circled and buzzed; Floyt was unnerved to think how easily these indifferent underworlders could infect new worlds with vermin, pests, and diseases.

"Oh; meant to ask." Merrywell frowned, fumbling in his cummerbund. "Do any of you boys want nose filters?"

All three declined. Merrywell shifted his search to his blouse and drew out a long gold cigarette holder, fitting a thin crimson cigarette into it and lighting up with a tiny heat-node. Puffing contentedly, he said,

"Well; shall we go?"

Floyt was trying to look everywhere at once as they sallied out into the bedlam of the Grapple. He nearly collided with a flirtatious androgyne in a very revealing costume who gave him a brazen wink before continuing along.

The next thing he noticed was two men in intense, very animated conversation. One, in robes of iridescent fabric, put him in mind of an ancient Berber. The man was chewing rapidly on something or other, pausing occasionally to spit into a small chalice of what looked like black iron. From the chalice came brief flashes and puffs of smoke, as the spittal was incinerated. The man kept his eyes to the deck, speaking angrily, with broad gesticulations.

The one he was talking to was unclothed but not naked. His pale skin was nubbled with fantastic ritual markings and scars, in swirling patterns resembling a Maori's. The end of his prepuce was pierced by an elaborate sexual fetish of feathers, excrescenses, wattles, and stimulators.

"The one on the left's from Desolation," Alacrity told Floyt. "He destroys his spit, nail parings, hair trimmings, feces—all that kind of stuff, so nobody can use it against him in clone voodoo. He's not allowed to look unbelievers in the eye."

"What about the other?"

"From Rock of Ages. The body markings tell everything he's done—right and wrong, brave or cowardly.

Men who don't have a sexual fetish like that—well, they're just not considered very desirable husbands."

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Floyt caught a snippet of their conversation.

"—nuance of
carn
in the hundredth part,
feoke
lacking;
ilm
recondite-suggestive … "

"They're dealing in perfumes and essences," Amarok told them. "That's scent-talk; notational-olfactory language. It takes forever to master."

Floyt's head was swimming already and he'd barely stepped out of the airlock. "There's a tolerable little cafe down this way," Merrywell announced, slouching off through the tumultuous bazaar with the rest trailing.

Floyt found himself in a world of unctuous flesh peddlers and slab-muscled enforcers, carousing mercenaries, swaggering go-bloods and a disconcerting array of strangely conceived nonhumans; he saw screaming hawkers and sauntering prostitutes of every sex and description.

A furious blur of blue-scaled lightning came broken-field-running through the crowded hold at knee level, weaving between bystanders and stalls, overturning bins and cannisters, squealing and honking. It ran on two short, thick legs, a bulbous tail raised high to balance it.

Hot on its pronged heels came a drugged and drunken mob of laughing, shrieking, swearing men and women. Onlookers jeered and catcalled. A small human—at least, Floyt
thought
it was a human; he looked like something out of a
hummel-werk
—made a dive for the prey and ended up bowling over a stilt-legged humanoid who resembled an ostrich.

The little quarry darted through the center of Merrywell's party. Alacrity and Floyt and the others sprang aside as howling, blaspheming, cleaver-waving pursuers stumbled and careened after it. The chase disappeared into the far reaches of the giant hold, but shouts of outrage and screams of frustration, complaints from concessionaires and profuse squealing and honking from the prey continued in the distance.

"They'll use up more calories catching it than they'll get eating it," Merrywell predicted morosely, drawing on his cigarette holder.

In his haste to get out of the way, Floyt had fetched up against a sign affixed to the bulkhead. A man standing close by leaned toward him, shooting back his floppy sleeves. His arms had instruments strapped to them, all the way up to the shoulders.

"First-rate proteuses, sir! Newest and most versatile models! Lifetime guarantee!"

Floyt grunted, shoving himself back on balance. "I don't think—"

The man got in front of him. "Telelinks! Accessors! Com-aides!"

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"No, really, I—"

"Very beautiful lady's multi here, sir! Necklace model!" The man was shaking it under Floyt's nose, an instrumented bauble mounted with too many fake gems. "Double your money back if not delighted!

Works anywhere
."

"Oh, yeah?" Alacrity broke in. "What about some of the less popular bodily orifices, you scrote?"

The hawker's mouth snapped shut; he scuttled away.

"You all right, Ho?" Floyt nodded. Dusting off his hands, he turned to look at the sign against which he'd leaned, THE ARES HOUSE OF BIOSYNERGIC DEFENSE—EXPERT SKELETAL

AUGMENTATION—DIGITAL IMPLANTS OUR SPECIALTY—ONE-TIME OFFER: FULL TWO-HAND BLADE ARRAY FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!!!

The two rejoined the others. The hold was fruited with a bewildering assortment of signs, placards, and advertisements, everything from crude hand-lettered shingles to floating holographic murals in full-spectrum colors with high-fidelity sound. Floyt scanned what he could of the ones in Terranglish and Tradeslang.

THE PHOENIX NEST REJUVENATION CLINIC. RELIGIOUS ITEMS AND OCCULT SUPPLIES—

FULL TIME SEER ON DUTY. NEW AND LIKE-NEW HAWKING EFFECT EQUIPMENT. FINE

WEAPONS AND AMMUNITION—EXPERT INSTRUCTION AVAILABLE. RELIABLE DEALER

IN IDENTITY CHANGE. HYDROPONICS & AEROPONICS UNLTD. OLDE EARTHE NATURAL

TELLURIAN SPRING WATER.

"That can't be true, can it?" Floyt asked, as he and Alacrity were obliged to go around a crowd that was gathering to hear a laser-eyed prophet spout armageddon. "Terran water, I mean?"

Alacrity was exchanging appreciative glances with a sultry young odalisque who gleamed in scarlet dermal stain, sun vortices glittering from her fingers, earlobes, nose ring, and navel.

"Huh? Oh, not a chance. But there's a huge market for that kind of stuff—people who feel the way your buddy the Daimyo does."

He kissed his fingertips to the woman as they moved on; she reciprocated.

"Ho, if they ever opened Terra to general tourists, the trade in health neurotics and people hoping for miracle cures
alone
would make you folks rich. The whole place would be one big what'd-they-callit—

Lourdes."

They were both distracted, looking back at the odalisque, and so nearly bumped into two men coming file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (86 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:29

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the other way in the narrow, cluttered aisle. The two were huge, Amarok's height but much burlier, more like Corporeals. Their skins were a deep brown; they had great curling masses of brown hair and beard.

Corsairs or mercenaries,
Alacrity figured.
Maybe slavers. Or assassins.
Whoever they were, they were a lot more than run-of-the-Grapple hired muscle or enforcers. Floyt had never seen such cold empty eyes.