The 97th Step (17 page)

Behind him, the voice continued: "I repented. I tried to wash my soul clean with prayer and humility. But I couldn't forget. Every time I looked at you, I was reminded."

Ferret felt the emotion well in him. He had thought his feelings crushed by the deaths of Stoll and Shar.

He had thought that nothing could touch him. Now his mother was gone, and he had lost—for whatever it was worth—his father, too. Could there be a God? If so, he must surely have angered Him, to be cursed so. What had he done to deserve this?

"Even after you left, she stayed. I had destroyed both of her children, you see, and she made sure I knew it. We did not speak of it, but her every gesture, her every breath conveyed it to me. It was my cross."

Ferret turned back to face the old man. "You built it yourself."

The old man nodded slowly. "Of course. We all build our own crosses." He looked up into Ferret's steady gaze. "Didn't you know that?"

He left the flitter he had bought at the spaceport, left it parked with the ignition card sticking from the slot.

Somebody would take it, but it wouldn't be stealing, as far as Ferret was concerned. He had no need for the vehicle; he would never set foot on this world again.

On the ship—where was it going? It didn't matter—he used the room dispense to dial up various liquors.

He drank without tasting the stuff, drank until he was fogged with alcohol, wrapped in a warm haze that shut out everything but the need to maintain it. Sometime later, he began ordering other drugs: powders, poppers, even one of the high-intensity radiants. It didn't matter. His credit was thick, and the machine dutifully supplied whatever he ordered. He didn't need food, he didn't need contact with anybody, he didn't need anything.

In communion with the dispense, Ferret lost himself, while the light-years of distance sped past.

Entombed inside a high-tech miracle of a vessel he sped, faster than light, traversing the near vacuum of-it all—but it was never fast enough. He could not get away, save for the drugs.

Chem was slower, but it helped. He lost them, left Mwili behind, forgot for yawning spans of time who Ferret was as he swirled into chemical byways, spiraling away from his conscious mind into fantasy. The dispense was his only friend and he worshipped at its altar, praying for the machine's promise of oblivion.

Occasionally, he had a moment of lucidity, why or how he could not say, and he would wonder what he was going to do when the ship reached its final destination. Then, some chem would kick in, and he would smile. It didn't matter. There were other ships, other destinations. He could keep moving as long as his money lasted, and that would last long enough. Long enough for what? To forget?

To forget what?

Time passed. Exactly how much, Ferret did not know, but it felt like months, maybe even years. In a fresher somewhere, he washed his face; when he raised up to look into the mirror, he saw a stranger.

The man looking back at him was gaunt, his clothes hanging loosely on him; this man had sharp features, the flesh honed away, leaving little more than skin over bone. The eyes were bloodshot and bleary, the mouth a thin-lipped line. His hair was straggly and dirty, and the beard-suppressant was beginning to wear off, allowing a few days' growth of whiskers to pattern his face. The man's hands shook as though he had palsy.

A rare moment of clarity settled upon him. Where was he?

He wandered from the fresher out into a pub. The room was long and narrow, focused around a polished wooden bar backed by racks of liquor and chem, reflected in a floor-to-ceiling mirror behind the gleaming bar. A smallish man tended the patrons there, and maybe two dozen additional customers sat at tables nearby, drinking, eating, talking—doing the things ordinary people did. A neon sign against the mirror had been shaped into the words: Electric Eel, obviously the name of the place.

Why was he sober? He must have mixed his chem or drinks wrong. Sometimes that happened. One chem would balance another, like an acid with a base, and the net result was that neither accomplished anything. Well. He could remedy that fast enough. Although it might be mildly amusing to find out just where he was.

Ferret moved to the bar, and perched upon an empty stool. Before the tender spotted him, he turned to the man seated next to him. "Pardon, flo'man, but I've become a little disoriented. Could you tell me where I am?"

The man was big and dark-haired, wearing a freight handler's coverall. He grinned, showing stainless steel teeth. "The Electric Eel, pard. Smoketown."

"Thank you. Ah—what planet?"

The big man laughed, stainless steel flashing. "You are far orbit, pard. Thompson's Gazelle. You need the system, too?"

"Thanks, no. Let me buy you something."

Well. That was some twist of cosmic comedy. Back on Thompson's Gazelle. He felt no particular worry.

Benny was dead, and his hired mercs would be long gone. Nobody would be looking for him under any name but the fake one he had used to pull the caper. However long ago it had been. He thought about asking the freight handler what the date was, but decided against it. The man might decide he was loopy enough to take outside to shake loose his credit cube. He had lost a few that way, and then had to stay sober long enough to get them replaced. A bad scene.

"Tender, get my friend here whatever he's consuming."

The pubtender moved toward them. Ferret turned back to acknowledge the freight handler's smile when he caught a movement peripherally. He reacted without thinking, thrusting his left hand up, fingers stiffened and extended, his thumb curled tightly against the palm under the base of his forefinger.

The block was sloppy, slow, and weak, but it stopped the open-handed slap the pubtender had thrown.

The man pulled his hand back.

"Well," he said, "at least you aren't so far gone you can't remember any of your training."

Ferret stared at the little man behind the bar, the freight handler forgotten. Recognition came, breaking through the months of alcoholic and rec chem overlay, and from under the weight of years since last he'd seen him.

Elvin Dindabe. His Gura for nearly a year in the art
of Sengat
, the fasthand sting of power fighting from the Indonesian colony on Titan. Startled as he was. Ferret managed a grin of joy at seeing his old teacher.

For a time, Dindabe had walked the Musashi Flex, a loose association of professional combat artists.

The Flex moved from world to world, the fights were sometimes to the death, all in the name of some kind of modern
bushido
. A Flex player might run into another in some pub or alley somewhere and if there was a chance of an even fight, there would be one. Sometimes they were unarmed, sometimes weapons figured into it. The winner was the last player standing. Or breathing. Male, female, human, mues, there were all kinds of players, and it was not a pastime for the cowardly.

The fighters reported the matches, honor was a big part in it, and somebody somewhere kept score. For a time, Dindabe Gura had been among the top five players on the circuit, and as such, had been one of the deadliest men in the Confed. Most worlds had little tolerance for the game, and it was illegal as well as dangerous.

Dindabe had retired, spent a year on Vishnu where he had been born, enjoying monies he had won as a player. He'd taught classes to help keep his hand in. His rates were high, but he was the best available, and Ferret had felt the need to sharpen his own close combat skills. The techniques he had learned had saved his skin more than once, especially given his reluctance to use deadlier weapons.

"What has happened to you?" Dindabe said.

"It's a long story, Gura."

Dindabe waved one hand. A tall and thick woman appeared and walked toward him. "Watch the bar,"

he said. "I have something to do."

Ferret raised an eyebrow. "You the manager?"

"I own the place. And five others. Come with me."

Ferret would have preferred not to, but there was no arguing with Dindabe Gura. Nobody ever argued with him.

Dindabe circled around the bar, and Ferret followed him. The small man did not look back, nor was there need to do so. Ferret followed, afraid for what was to come.

As well he should be: in
Sengai
, if a student failed at something, his teacher might feel responsible, depending on how much time and energy he had put into the student. Dindabe had worked with Ferret for a year. Ferret wondered how that stacked up in the code of the art.

Seventeen

THERE WAS NO point in even trying to block, this time. The smaller man's hand lanced in and cracked against Ferret's face, hard enough to sting, but not to injure. It was to get his attention. Ferret knew this, and he accepted the impact and subsequent heat without rancor. If Dindabe had wanted to hurt him, he would already be in pain.

"I spent a year training you," the smaller man said. "Best you have a good excuse for your present state."

Ferret remembered a student who had studied with him on Vishnu, a woman who was better than he, but prone to two-day chem voyages. Dindabe had disapproved. He had too few years left to waste his teaching on anybody who didn't appreciate it, the Gura had said. After one binge, the woman had returned to class and had five of her ribs broken while sparring with Dindabe. He had danced to one side and flat-slapped her, a strike that looked like nothing. 'Now, he'd said,
now
you have a reason to take chem.'

Recalling that incident did not make Ferret's unease slacken. He took a deep breath, and began the story.

The months of chemical abuse sloughed away as he spoke, and the wound was as fresh as it had been.

Even as he spoke. Ferret knew his actions had been a waste of time. He had not faced his grief, but had only covered it. It lay buried under a thin layer of false forgetfulness, waiting for its chance. He cried as he spoke, not so much from self-pity, but from a sense of loss that time had not been allowed to dull.

Finally, now, he grieved.

When he finished, he heard Dindabe sigh.

"I remember the dancer. She could have been a master as a fighter, had she chosen that road. And the fat thief had skill his bulk could not hide. But you went the wrong way, Ferret. The arts could have focused you, you could have burned the sorrow away in a righteous fire; instead, you took the easy way."

"I know, Gura. I was weak."

Dindabe nodded. "A mistake need not follow you forever. How long since you worked out?"

"I don't know. A few days before the caper."

"Too long. Have you training clothes?"

"No."

"My sekolah is not far. All that you need is there. You are
kaki
, starting tomorrow. Six hundred. Tonight, you sleep here."

Ferret felt his mouth go dry, and he nodded dumbly. There was no point in arguing. Dindabe would always be in training, and it seemed he had a school—sekolah—here. The literal translation of
kaki
was "foot," but what it meant in
Sengat-
style fighting was low student. Not a pleasant place to be, since such a position involved not only intense training every day, it also meant doing whatever chores the Gura chose to assign. Cleaning the sekolah's mats and mirrors, caring for the weapons, scrubbing the sidewalks, did the Gura desire that. It was a hard place to be, and the last time he'd been there, he'd been younger and in better shape. With the months of dissipation and chem, Ferret was in poor condition for even the lightest of exercises; no one had ever accused Dindabe of pampering his students.

Ferret was afraid. At the same time, he felt a lifting of the burden he had been trying to pretend he could not feel. When Dindabe Gura was through with him, he would either be in top condition physically or dead; either way, it felt good in a way he had never hoped to feel again. A man can only stay down so long before he rises or loses everything that he is. At the very least, the choice was about to be made.

Ferret wondered which it would be.

One of the students—there were only three others—was a smuggler named Lyle Gatridge. He was a muscular man a few years younger than Ferret, and called "Red," for the usual reason. He moved well, and he had a fondness for the back-of-the-hand dart gun called spetsdod. A Flex player had to know weapons since some used them, and the spetsdod required a lot more skill than a hand wand or shot pistol. The little flechettes the thing fired could be loaded with half a dozen chems, ranging from simple to stun statics to killing poisons. It was rumored that the military had even developed a load that would cause more or less total voluntary muscular contractures for several months.

As
kaki
, Ferret was not allowed to touch weapons, save to clean them, which was just as well. Even if he had the inclination, he was too tired to indulge it. Most of what Ferret did produced sweat and exhaustion.

He was free-sparring with Red, and being kicked around the mat for his efforts. Dindabe did not believe in body armor or protective cups, and a missed block could cost bruises, broken bones or teeth. It was amazing how fast the basic self-defense moves came back to Ferret.

Red danced in and threw a smooth series of kicks and punches, snapping his feet and hands out sharply.

Ferret's blocks were less skilled than they once had been, but effective despite that. He backed away, making no attempt to counterpunch. happy to keep from being beaten senseless.

The two men circled slowly, just out of each other's range. Red said, "You shouldn't be
kaki
, you're better than that."

"I used to be," Ferret said. His breath came hard. He'd been training for six weeks, and it was only in the last few days that Dindabe had allowed him to spar with the other students. "Besides, it doesn't matter how good you are when you start with the Gura. He puts you where he wants to."

Red slid in and threw a crossover sidekick. It was a powerful strike, but what it held in force, it lost in speed. Ferret was able to jerk himself to one side, firing off a backfist. Red danced away from the counterpunch.