Starhammer (25 page)

"As a result there were only three survivors: Anatol Bolgol, the expedition's biologist; Levia Razevkoy, the astronav; and Lotte Fernica, the medic. Theirs was the only lifeboat that escaped the wreck. They also survived the subsequent seven-year voyage to reach this habitable little planet.

"Their radio broadcasts were identified a century later and a rescue mission was sent by laowon jumper, but there were already thousands of their descendants here and they had discovered amazing artifacts of their lost world."

They all looked at Rhapsodical Stardimple, where it was floating, optics glued to the planet in the skyplate.

"The vast machines, the boneyard cities where the ancient Barafi populations died en masse, and the odd remnants of their culture, the motes, the templates, the pops and snaps. Of course once these things became known, there was a constant stream of people from all over the known Galaxy. Even a few laowon adventurers come here, overcoming their pathological fear of radiation."

"But you say 'thousands' of their descendants were here?" Jon voiced his puzzlement. "How could there have been thousands of them in such a short time?"

"It was remarkably simple. Old Bolgol was a biologist and a medical doctor, Lotte Fernica was a geneticist and although Lotte was far beyond childbearing years they did have Levia Razevkoy. They decided to produce a large family with her eggs and Bolgol's sperm. It was a natural response to their situation. They were alone on a strange and hostile world. They knew that Pleione's radiation was dangerous and so they colonized the extensive caves at Quism on the North Pole. In a remarkably brief time they overcame the difficulties and produced a crop of one hundred and twelve viable fetuses, mostly female. They also produced the mutated beans and rice that grow on the north polar patch, which, like the South Pole, is the only part of the planet that has anything like reasonable climate."

Jon stared in wonder at the planet below.

"The next generation was much easier, of course, and after that it got out of hand. At the last count there were four distinctly different mutant species running wild in the northern deserts, robbing archeologists and prospectors. They've become quite a menace. Most are cannibals. They maintain herds of meat people. The tales that are told of them are quite horrible."

"How can they survive Pleione's radiation?"

"The mutants live underground in the day, they infest the surface at night. Especially in the northern machine belts and the ancient city sites. It is said they have made genetics their religion and Anatol Bolgol their god. There are rumors that clones of Bolgol and Razevkoy continue to live out there, among the wildest tribes like the Bluegrain Hardscabbies."

"It sounds like a savage place," Officer Bergen commented.

"It is. And the city of Quism is just as savage as the desolate wastes. It is a city ruled by force, not law, and that is something you must all remember while we are here. At any moment violence may strike. You must all be on your guard for the duration of your stay."

After course corrections for the chemfuel boosters were fed into the
Churchill's
computer to ensure the great ship maintained a stable, distant, orbit about Pleione, they crowded into the spaceboat, but the journey to the planetary surface was uneventful and, with the main parachutes deployed, they floated down onto the spaceport at Quism.

Dimly visible around the port were long rectangular fields, dark with vegetation.

Hundreds of kilometers away, a wall of mountains was made visible by a line of white snow that dappled its peaks.

Eblis Bey had briefed them but still the reality of Quism was rather intimidating.

The boat was met by a convoy of small armored vehicles. Tense-looking young men appeared from within. They made the sign of Elchis, a cross in the air with the left hand.

Eblis Bey went out to meet them in a thin, warm wind, with the mote floating at his shoulders. The leaders kissed his hand, the rest waved weapons and saluted the Bey with a roar.

Watching at the edge of the spaceboat's airlock, Jon noticed an odd expression on Finn M'Nee's face; eyes narrowed, lips pinched in disapproval. M'Nee caught him looking at him and flashed him a glance of unrelieved hatred, then turned back into the cabin.

They quickly disembarked while an armed group from the spaceport docking authority rode out an electric trolley to tow the spaceboat into the cliffcut hangars.

With the four armored cars as escort, they would ride a bus into the city itself and take lodgings in a centrally located hotel. Meg and the injured Riley would be taken from there to the Elchite shelter where a small hospital was maintained.

Quism was an old, underground city. In its warren of limestone caves seethed a population that survived principally by supplying, protecting, and robbing treasure hunters and archeologists.

At the side of the concrete spaceport apron was a line of barkers for the rival bus owners. They set up a raging din at the sight of six travelers with luggage.

"My bus is the most comfortable in this system!" screamed one garlic-scented driver with a belly that protruded well over his trouser tops.

"His bus stinks of the Scurmachers he just carried in. All that boilweed fume!"

"My bus is best bus!"

"You will boil in hell alongside your ancestor's liver!"

"Your ancestor was my ancestor so who the hell cares!"

"You will be defiled by my dog!"

While they argued, swift-fingered accomplices attempted to pick the travelers' pockets and steal anything remotely valuable that might present itself.

Jon Iehard noticed the technique at once. He positioned himself close to Captain Hawkstone as two young, olive-skinned men lurched into him. Hands went for the small pack on Hawkstone's back and the loose pockets of his overall rain slicker.

Jon rapped the hand in the pack with the butt of his Taw Taw and caught the hand lifting Hawkstone's Ornholme ID card from his pocket.

The owners of the hands cursed furiously, but at the sight of the gun they moved away sharply.

Officer Dahn shook her head gloomily, then gave a small scream. Jon looked up to see two boys were pushing Meg Vance away in her wheelchair. Jon sprinted after them and recovered her.

"Cannibalism is a constant threat here. Women sell their own newborns to the butcher, the dead seldom need be buried or cremated. Be alert at all times," Eblis Bey chided.

They chose a yellow-and-black bus that belched black smoke and rode on oversize tires down a corrugated roadbed into the city and, finally, to the forecourt of a hotel. The Travel Aires was dug into the solid rock. A wall of reinforced concrete blocks rose in front, and armed guards patrolled the blue-and-white forecourt. The guards wore stiff maroon-and-blue tunics and carried two-handed automatic pistols that looked to Jon like imitation Taw Taw .45s. He noticed the signs of body armor under the tunics.

The guards on the forecourt and the young Elchites in the armored vehicles eyed each other with a mixture of disdain and contempt, but neither side spoke. One surly guard spat eloquently after sharing a comment with a colleague. The Elchites looked up along the barrels of their machine guns. The surly guards fell silent.

After paying the bus drivers, Eblis Bey was forced to tip all the forecourt guards, who would accept only intersystem value vouchers or notes of Lao Mercantility.

Hawkstone was quick to complain. "So again we must pay out credit! There is no end to it!"

"It's essential if we don't want to lose people—have them stolen right off this forecourt. As I said, cannibalism, slavery, robbery, all are highly common here."

The Orners groaned.

Eblis Bey smiled. "I will personally explain the necessity behind it all to the Ornholme Financial Council."

"You think that will be easy, don't you?" Hawkstone said derisively. "You'll be telling them after they've learned of the loss of the
Orn
."

After considerable, ill-tempered haggling, Dahn finally agreed to book them all into the hotel under the special rate for ongoing expeditions, a hundred credit units per person per day, plus a percentage of eventual profits. Dahn paid over more intersystem value vouchers with ill grace.

The interior of the Travel Aires was a startling blend of fortress and hotel. Whorled concrete ceilings, blast shields about all the main doors, a large, quiet interior courtyard with a fountain, and small trees populated by exotic songbirds.

Outside the windows of Jon's room, the blue-and-white striped concrete forecourt opened onto the Grand Levee, a babbling thoroughfare jammed with traffic from the Meridian Gate to the Spaceport Gate right through the heart of the city.

The rooms were of all sizes and shapes, cut from the native rock at intervals over four hundred years. The interiors offered comfortable enough beds, baths, and light that was filtered from overhead shafts.

Jon dropped his small tote bag on the bed after extracting his gun and the small silver cube. Then he rejoined the Elchites and accompanied them to their shelter with Meg and Riley.

The shelter was hidden beneath a tenement block in a densely crowded slum section of Razevkoy Precinct. To get in they entered a small basement doorway, crossed the cellar, and went down another narrow hole into a warren of underground rooms.

Young men and women in blue robes came and took Meg and Riley into a small hospital ward.

Jon explained what had happened to Meg and to Riley. The chief medic stared at him, emotions mixed, but sedated Meg. "She has served Elchis well. We shall care for her and when she wakes we will explain where she is and how she came to be here."

Jon shook hands with Riley, promised to come back and see him as soon as the mission was completed.

"All right, young sunboy, you do that. I'll not bear a grudge, but I warn you, be on your lookout for Finn M'Nee. Sharp as a sandsnake, worse than a spiny pfister is that one."

Jon rode an armored vehicle to the hotel. The streets were thronged, and he saw innumerable mutations from the human norm. One of the most common forms was often seven feet tall, the skin thick and coarse and mottled with blue patches.

Once back in the hotel he had barely time to grab a meal and use the bathroom facilities in his room before being called to a meeting in Eblis Bey's suite.

When he got there, Owlcurl Dahn was arguing vehemently with several thin-faced young men with sun-bleached hair and heavily tanned skins. The young men shared that intensity, that "fire of Elchis" he'd observed before.

"I tell you, I am coming, all the way to the south. I was appointed to this mission by the Ornholme Executive Council without whom none of this could have happened. Furthermore, I resent your attitudes. Since I'm paying for all this, I don't think it's unfair for me to be included in the planning!"

The Elchites muttered among themselves, while the Bey conferred briefly with Jon. Then he drew him across the room to the Elchites.

"Jon Iehard, meet some of my young brethren here. This is Aul, Karak, Yondon, and Gesme."

"Well, Master Iehard, were you satisfied with our hospital in the shelter?" Aul was a hatchet-faced youth with a shaved head and unhealthy complexion. "The medics will take good care of her. It seems that she has given much to Elchis."

"The facilities seem extremely well equipped, especially considering their surroundings."

"The dedicated sons of Elchis on this cursed world have sought to hide themselves rather than construct a showy temple. We have secrets that the laowon must never find out."

Jon nodded understandingly. "Of course, and what kind of presence do they keep here? The Superior Buro has a station, I take it."

"A small one, three operatives only. They are easily kept befuddled. Our greatest problem is keeping human treachery in check. There are always those who would sell us all out to the blues given the chance. Anything for money, that is their creed."

"How do you achieve security then?"

"By the strength of our reputation. Betray Elchis and the retribution will be long, hot, and bloody. Everyone in Quism knows this."

"I see." And indeed the young Elchites seemed a tough breed, tight, sinewy. Undoubtedly good with their weapons.

"Gesme is to go with you and Officer Dahn, to the street of armorers," Eblis Bey said. "We will need weapons in the southlands, and you are probably the most knowledgeable among us concerning guns. Officer Dahn will accompany you to prevent overspending. She is concerned to keep down our costs, which are largely being borne by the Ornholme Council."

They then discussed the schedule ahead. They would spend a single sleep shift in the hotel before gathering at the Meridian Gate where the expedition vehicles were being readied.

After discussing with the local Sons of Elchis the kinds of predatory activities expected from the locals, Jon concluded that everyone should carry a handweapon and that half a dozen rifles and one or two heavier items might do for above-average attempts. This to provide security in what he imagined would be the conditions out on the barren southland wastes. The Elchites agreed with his estimates but also advised him to include some grenade launchers.

"Very useful against cannibal tribesmen, who fear mutilation greatly; it normally dooms a warrior to the stewpot."

The weapons-purchasing party left the hotel with one of the maroon-and-blue-clad guards walking behind them, his automatic openly displayed. Around them, the levee throbbed with chart sellers, merchandizers of survival equipment, and mutant guides to the interior.

Through the crowded tunnels endless conspiracy swirled. Bandit troops kept thousands of spies in business, seeking expedition routes and times. Equipment merchants were often double dealers, reporting on their sales to the chiefs of mutant tribes beyond the Meridian. Then dealers would reclaim their equipment, patch up the bullet holes and sell it again. A dozen independent "police" authorities existed, any of which could swoop on an expedition in search of "illegal" equipment, which in practice could mean anything. Normally such searches were prevented by the payment of a security fee beforehand.