Starfist: Hangfire (13 page)

Panic flashed through the hunter; he was unarmed except for his skinning knife. But the panic was only a flash. The spear was encumbered by the fish that still dangled from it, he should be able to avoid the point. He was bigger than the monster and had just taken a breath at the surface. He didn't know how long the monster had been submerged, but surely it couldn't hold its breath much longer. If he dodged inside the jab of the spear and grappled with the monster, he could use his midlimbs and hindlimbs to pinion its limbs, hold its spear away with a forelimb, and use his knife with his other forelimb. He plunged down to meet the monster and managed to swat the spear away before it could cut him.

The monster was strong, much stronger than a young centauroid of the same size. The hunter had to wrap his aft limbs about the monster's body to keep from being pushed away to where the spear could be brought into play. Fortunately, the monster's aft limbs couldn't grasp and their range of movement was far less than the hunter's. He gripped the monster's forelimbs with his midlimbs, but it was a struggle to keep a grip, much less pinion the monster's limbs. Frantically, he groped for his skinning knife, a chert sliver with animal hide wrapped around one end The monster wrenched one forelimb free and clawed at the hunter's pectoral eyestalks. The hunter gave up his plan to stab the monster. Instead he wrapped all six limbs around it and squeezed. He had breath left; squeezing would force out any breath the monster still had. A current of water pulsed against the hunter's midlimbs. The monster's mouth changed its shape.

The hunter couldn't know what that meant, but the monster was smiling. It stopped struggling and wrapped its forelimbs around him. It squeezed and a bubble of air was expelled from the hunter's mouth.

All of the hunter's eyestalks extended. He needed to break free and swim to the surface, he desperately needed to breathe, to get to the air. He let go with all of his limbs and tried to break away, to swim upward, but the monster maintained its forelimb grip and wrapped its aft limbs around the hunter's hindquarters.

Too late, the hunter realized the flow of water he had felt on his midlimbs came from the monster's sides; too late, he recognized the way the monster's mouth opened and closed was the same as some fish did. Too late, he realized the monster was breathing water.

The monster held the hunter down as the hunter's world turned red, then gray, then black. The hunter's struggles slowed, then ceased He went limp. The monster rolled him onto his dorsal side and prodded his abdomen. A string of tiny bubbles dribbled out of the hunter's mouth and his body sank, to rest rocking on the riverbed.

CHAPTER NINE

"Hit me," Claypoole muttered as he studied his dawn card carefully. Pasquin dealt him the Thor of hearts face up. "Damn!" Claypoole shouted. "Busted!" He flipped over a ten to go along with a seven and the Thor showing.

"I'd a stayed on seventeen," Pasquin said. He took Claypoole's bet and then looked expectantly at Dean.

"I'm good," Dean said.

Pasquin flipped over the Odin of diamonds to go with the eight of spades showing. "Dealer pays nineteen," he announced.

"Pay me," Dean said, flipping a Frigga of spades to match the ten of hearts on the table. Pasquin paid Dean from a thick stack of bills sitting to one side. The game had been in progress since early morning and it was suppertime. The room was littered with empty beer bottles, mute evidence of a long day indeed.

"Lessee, Rock, you owe me, um, six hundred?" Pasquin said, shuffling the deck. "Payday stakes, I guess, since you don't have any cash left?" Pasquin laughed and drew mightily on his Fidel. He exhaled a huge blue-white cloud of tobacco smoke, adding to the haze already hanging over the small table in their tiny hotel room. The one thing they had been sure to bring with them on the mission was a good supply of cigars. They'd have brought more cash but neither Dean nor Claypoole had counted on Pasquin's luck—or skill, they weren't sure which—at cards.

"Loan me fifty until my luck comes back, won't you, Deano? Hey, ain't it against regulations for an NCO to gamble with enlisted men?" Claypoole asked Dean, nudging Corporal Pasquin as he spoke.

"It is, it certainly is," Dean answered, "we being only lowly lance corporals and him a corporal and enlisted leader. And if I lose, I'm complaining to the captain of the
Wanganui
, assuming there is such a vessel and assuming it ever makes port again."

For more than a month the trio had been sitting in a flop-house in Soma Chundaman, Novo Khongor's only city of note, waiting for the
Wanganui
to make port. Considering that it had taken the
Yi Sun Pok
two months to get them there, they'd been on the mission three months and still didn't know what it was all about.

Novo Khongor was one of the most inhospitable worlds in Human Space. Its seas were brackish, almost lifeless, uncharted reaches continually agitated by violent storms, and its continents were mountain fastnesses, swept by dry, freezing winds. Soma Chundaman was situated on a high plateau above the sea, and on a calm day the wind howled down its streets with enough force to make walking into it a chore. Windblown salt spray from the ocean coated everything left outdoors for more than a few minutes, so most of the town's facilities were underground. To resist the winds, the few buildings on the surface were built like reinforced bunkers, no more than one story high. And there was always dust in the air.

The chief industry on Novo Khongor was mining. The men who worked the mines were mostly descendants of Mongolians who'd immigrated generations before, when the planet's rich mineral resources were first discovered. A hardy, hospitable people, they were the only feature of the place that made the Marines' stay there endurable, but even their hearty drinking habits and natural affability were beginning to wear on the trio after a month in the place with virtually nothing to do.

The Confederation Navy had selected Novo Khongor as the
Wanganui's
home port because it was on the far reaches of Human Space, a convenient jumping-off place for a survey vessel. It had been the
Wanganui
, seconded to the Bureau of Human Habitability Exploration and Investigation, that had first surveyed Society 437, that ill-fated world where the skinks had first revealed themselves to humanity. In fact, most of the voyages undertaken by the
Wanganui
were in support of the Bureau, so its crew was more used to working under civilian control than military.

"I don't see why the Navy didn't send the
Wanganui
to Thorsfinni's World to pick us up instead of making us cool our heels in this place for months on end," Claypoole groused as he looked at the new cards Pasquin had just dealt.

"What? To pick up three Marine enlisted men?" Pasquin snorted. "They're off exploring and charting somewhere, and when they're done, we'll join 'em and find out why in the living hell the Corps has sent us out here." Pasquin shivered. "Damned place reminds me of Adak Tanaga, when I was with the 25th FIST there." His two companions said nothing; Adak Tanaga was where Pasquin, in charge of a force recon team, had gotten men killed because of negligence. In the eyes of the men of Lima Company, 34th FIST, the corporal had more than redeemed himself on Society 437 and Avionia, where he had demonstrated he was a good combat leader with guts.

"Well, we've only been here thirty-seven days," Dean said.

"Yeah, and six hours, thirty-two minutes, and fifteen seconds," Claypoole answered. "I've been keeping count."

"Maybe the skinks got them," Dean said, and immediately clapped his hand to his mouth.

The other two started violently. "Goddamnit, Marine, keep your mouth shut!" Pasquin shouted.

"Jesus, Deano," Claypoole gasped.

"Sorry! Sorry! I wasn't thinking..."

"Talk like that can get us all into trouble, Joe," Pasquin said. "Ah, what the hell," he relented, "is the Ministry of Justice or whoever gonna bug a shithole like this, just to see what three Marine grunts are talking about? Just watch it from now on, okay?"

Pasquin glanced at his watch. "Hey, it's suppertime. Suppose we mosey down to the Gobi and eat, maybe lift a few?" The Gobi was a one-star—Claypoole's rating—restaurant that catered mostly to single miners. A one-star rating was as high as Claypoole would rate anywhere on Novo Khongor, and from what the three had seen the past month, that was generous. Pasquin stretched. "Maybe Miss Shandra will be accommodating tonight."

At the mention of Shandra, Claypoole felt a sharp pang. The way the waitress and Pasquin had hit it off reminded him poignantly of the bar girl on Wanderjahr who died in his arms. Jezu, Claypoole thought, I went through a war on Diamunde, fought aliens on 437 and Avionia, and I still can't get over Maggie.

"Something wrong?" Pasquin asked, seeing the sorrowful expression that had come over Claypoole's face.

"No, no," Claypoole answered quickly, shaking off his thoughts.

Dean, who had been with Claypoole when Maggie was shot, said, "He's just sorry he lost so much money."

"Don't blame him, a real Marine likes to win at everything!" Pasquin answered, hefting his winnings. He divided the bills into three even stacks, shoved one at Claypoole and the other at Dean. He did that with his winnings at the end of every card game.

Lieutenant Aldo Perizzites, captain of the
Wanganui
, gave the Marines' orders only a perfunctory glance. "I knew you were coming but I don't know why and I don't care," he said. Perizzites was the most unmilitary officer any of the Marines had ever met. His uniform was dirty and wrinkled and his hair was long even for a navy man. He could not have shaved in several days.

Survey ships had a bad reputation in the navy, anyway, and the
Wanganui
was living up to it. The first sailor Pasquin had observed when they came aboard had a ring in his ear. The Marines were scandalized when a seaman addressed the chief of the boat by his first name and the petty officer never batted an eyelash. Rumor had it that once a man was assigned duty on a survey ship he stayed there for as long as he was in the navy, because he'd never fit in anywhere else after a cruise on such a vessel.

The civilian scientists and technicians who'd endured the
Wanganui
for an entire year took their leave of the crew with hugs and high fives.

"Another science team's coming aboard in a few days," Perizzites told the three Marines, "and we're headed for Society 461. It's all the way beyond the other side of Human Space, so it'll take us three months to get there. You'll be on this mission for a total of eighteen months. Stay out of our way and you'll be all right, Your duties, I'm guessing, will be defined by the chief scientist when he gets aboard."

He turned to the chief of the boat. "Ron, get these guys squared away in the crew's quarters, will you?"

He turned his attention to a rating who had presented him with a loading manifest. The rating was actually wearing a bandanna on his head.

The chief of the boat, an unkempt, burly man named Riggs, gestured for the Marines to follow him. "I don't much like jarheads," he told them as he turned and headed for the companionway. The three glanced at one another but said nothing.

"Oh..." Perizzites turned back to the three Marines. "Where are your weapons?"

"We didn't bring any, sir," Pasquin answered. Perizzites stared at Pasquin as if he hadn't understood the answer, then shook his head and went back to his manifest.

Sailors always live better on shipboard than troops. But when on shipboard, Marines do not like to be berthed with sailors. That is not because Marines do not appreciate the relative comfort of navy billets. It is because, to coin a metaphor, hunters don't have much in common with farmers. But on the trip out to Novo Khongor, the three Marines had been consigned to crew's quarters for two months, so they were not too disappointed to be berthed with the crew of the
Wanganui
. The racks were soft and the chow was said to be good.

And the crewmen, despite Chief Riggs's prejudices, did not seem to mind three Marine infantrymen in their quarters. Despite their disregard for military dress and protocol, the crew knew the ship and their duties. The first night, a second class had come over to where the Marines were bunked and asked them to join a poker game just starting up. That time Pasquin did not give any of the money back.

"Marine contingent, report to the bridge! On the double!" the watch officer blared over the ship's PA system. Calling the three Marines his "contingent" was Lieutenant Perizzites's idea of a joke, and his crew played along gleefully. The three Marines just took the ribbing and simmered quietly.

Pasquin put his cards away. "Let's spruce up a bit," he told the others as he put on his dress reds tunic and slid into his shoes. "Can't let the captain think we've turned into sailors."

"Or worse, members of his crew." Dean laughed.

"Well, maybe we'll get the word at last," Claypoole ventured hopefully. It had been two full days Standard since the new survey team had arrived and loaded its equipment onboard the
Wanganui
.

Despite the fact that the vessel was almost at its jump point into Beamspace, the Marines had not yet met the chief scientist or any of his party. The trio had watched them coming aboard from a remote corner of the ship's loading bay—they'd been ordered not to get in the way of ship's operations. The scientists hadn't brought much baggage with them, and there was something vaguely unsettling about the men. They didn't talk to anyone and they just didn't look the way the Marines thought scientists should.

Lieutenant Perizzites, together with the dour, uncommunicative junior-grade lieutenant who was the ship's executive officer, and the chief of the boat, were waiting impatiently on the bridge.

"We got here as quickly as we could," Pasquin apologized, thinking the lieutenant was miffed because the Marines had taken so long to respond.

"The
Wanganui's
a big ship, Corporal," Chief Riggs commented sarcastically, "so we figured it'd take you jarheads a while to find your way around her." Riggs was a huge slob of a man who never missed an opportunity to poke fun at the Marines, but the trio did not resent his sallies very much because he poked fun at everyone. His leadership style, if it could be called that, was to motivate by ridicule rather than by shouting.