The Ninth Circle (32 page)

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Authors: R. M. Meluch

BOOK: The Ninth Circle
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A snake darted out from underfoot, fled up a tree trunk in a slithering spiral.
Patrick and Tanner hummed nonstop as they climbed over rocks in the vale to the uplands.
Glenn finally asked, “What’s this about?”
“Belly rubs,” said Patrick. “The pack wants belly rubs.”
Sometime during the climb the rain stopped.
Desiccated growths that used to look like dried dead sponges plumped out in the rain. They were now bright fungi that would not look out of place in the company of a caterpillar with a water pipe.
Glenn, Patrick, Brat, and Tanner arrived at the upland meadow in the wet hazy dawn. Silhouettes of pointed ears in the fog lifted above the mist-bound grasses. Foxes greeted their return with delighted yips.
Conan, the pack leader, stood up, planted his paws on Patrick’s shoulders, and hummed happily.
Patrick ruffled Conan’s mane. “Well, hey there, cuz.”
Funny how
not
alien Conan looked now that they knew he came out of the same chemistry set.
Conan licked the top of Glenn’s head. Her red-brown hair was growing back in. When she’d first come to the foxes, she’d been nearly bald.
The mist burned away with the sun’s rising. New flowers had just come into bloom, and Princess wanted her fur done. She had combed out the old blossoms.
Glenn walked the fields to see what was in season now that wouldn’t wilt too fast. Princess knew what to look for. She went bounding through the tall grass and came back with a mouthful of hardy red flowers on nice supple stems.
Glenn got to work weaving a crown. Patrick sat beside her in the damp grass, watching mammoth signals on his omni. Princess sunned herself at their feet.
“Patrick,” Glenn started, a question in her voice. “Princess knows her name. I mean she knows the name I gave her.”
Princess turned her head at the sound of her name.
“Sure she does,” said Patrick.
“Do
I
have a name?” Glenn asked. “In fox talk?”
“Yes. It’s a quarter tone above middle C.” He hummed her name for her.
Princess turned her head again, repeated the hum, smiling at Glenn.
“Does it mean anything?”
“You mean like Running Bear or Laughing Wife? Not that I know. I think it’s just you.”
“Now I feel stupid,” Glenn said. “These animals can learn my language, and I can’t pick up a note of theirs.”
She had tried. Patrick had keyed in a couple of basic fox words for Glenn’s reference, but it hadn’t helped. She couldn’t hold on to the notes long enough to hum them back. Parrots and myna birds could do better.
“They’re just a different kind of smart,” said Patrick. “And they have their priorities in order.”
Glenn agreed. “What can be more important than belly rubs and daisy chains?” Glenn placed a lei around Princess’ neck.
“Should we be afraid of infecting them?” Glenn asked. “Are they safe from our germs?”
Patrick wasn’t a medical man any more than Glenn was, but he could answer that one. “We didn’t bring any disease with us.”
They had been thoroughly screened before boarding the LEN expedition ship
Spring Beauty
.
“But what about our natural microbes?”
Patrick paused, answerless. He said, “Don’t kiss anyone.”
When she’d decorated Princess, greeted everyone, and rubbed a lot of bellies, Glenn told Patrick sadly, “You know your colleagues are just going to come after us again.”
Patrick shrugged, resigned. “Eventually. When they notice we’re gone. They might be too busy burning Dr. Minyas at the stake.”
It was not Sandy Minyas’ discovery that so set off her colleagues. It was the way she did it. And the amateur hack way she announced it.
And it was jealousy. Sandy Minyas did not deserve a revelation this important. The other xenos were so busy backbiting and criticizing that they forgot to feel awe.
“There is a line that separates chaos and inevitability,” said Patrick. “And here it is.”
He spread his arms at the smiling foxes playing on the meadow.
“We have to love them. They’ve got all the cute markers DNA has to dish out.”
“Including puppy breath,” said Glenn.
“Well, yeah. There are pheromones in puppy breath. Works just like an interspecies Red Cross. That’s why you see animals on Earth adopt each other’s orphans. Even their own natural enemies. Dogs will nurse baby squirrels. Cats will nurse rats and possums. This is a fun place to be right now.”
Brat came racing through the grass with a huge toothy smile. He skidded to a halt and flopped over on his back in front of Glenn. He pawed at Glenn’s hands, careful of his own giant black claws.
“Why, yes, Brat,” Glenn spoke to the upside-down fox. “This is why God put me on this planet.” She rubbed his furry belly. Brat’s tongue spilled out the side of his wide smiling mouth.
Patrick said, “You know, babe, this really does beg the question: If you and I were created in God’s image, whose image is this?”
 
Nox and his
Damnati
had built up a ferocious reputation in the space-ways very quickly. The bounty on the Xerxes was high, so the leopard did not need to hunt its prey.
Bagheera
need only flash the image of the leopard near a planet or an outpost, then the brothers could kill and loot whoever tried to cash them in.
Space between star systems was a limitless black emptiness in which
Bagheera
could hide after a kill. The leopard need never come near a watering hole except to feed.
Except that the brothers were all aware of a lack. They had known when they started down this path.
“I want to go to a bar and talk to people I don’t have to kill,” said Faunus. “I want to shoot pool and throw darts. I want to drink with a bunch of assholes I don’t know. I want to bet on a ball game.”
“Get laid,” said Galeo.
“I was getting to that,” said Faunus.
Nox caught himself nodding. He wanted a real woman.
Hot Trixi Allnight
was getting tired. Just like Pallas had said,
you can’t go wrong with Trixi
. And that was a problem. There were no surprises, no anticipation, no wobble in the throat when you bring up the subject. Trixi was a sure thing. There was no danger in the encounter, the uncertainty of a living mind, a real beating heart. He didn’t get that prickle of fear with a virtual encounter. He wanted real flesh and a new scent. He wanted to interact with unpredictable real people, not go through the motions of pandering programs that rolled out situations some designer thought a man wanted to hear or feel. Illusions in the dream boxes were near perfect.
Near
was another word for
not
.
“Do we want to put in at a port?” Nox said.
“I do,” said Faunus.
“I think I do,” said Nicanor.
“Isn’t this why we paint leopard spots in blood? So we
can
do this?” Leo said. “Let’s
go
.”
“Find us a port, Leo,” said Nicanor. “Make it a disreputable one so we don’t run up against a swarm of police.”
Nox put on a new image. He sliced his cheeks and colored the wounds so the scars healed into raised welts of red and blue. He dotted burns underneath the slashes and colored those yellow.
The leopard’s last kill had netted them a space warehouse filled with interesting and useless junk. They hadn’t yet cut it loose. Nox rummaged through its strange collection for things he could use.
He braided feathers and small bones and sharks’ teeth into his blond hair, which had grown below his ears. He tattooed a leopard paw print just below the back of his neck.
On his upper arm, where fully fledged Roman legionaries were branded or tattooed with SPQR, Nox branded himself with a circled IX. The rest of the Circle followed suit.
Faunus’ curls had grown wild and bushy. He donned a crown of thorns entwined with metal grapevines. He draped himself with a purple toga.
Orissus wove wool into his hair to give himself dreadlocks. He had grown a beard. It was wide and bushy, nearly black. He braided a couple of pierced gold coins into the nest of it. He gilded one of his front teeth. He struck a pose with a machete. “How do I look?”
“Too sweet for me,” said Nox.
“Like hell,” said Pallas.
Nicanor shaved his head and tattooed half his body in woad-blue Druidic bars.
Leo put on a studded collar and arm cuffs and a headdress made of a wolf’s head and skin.
“Should be a leopard,” said Galeo.
“There wasn’t a leopard skin in the warehouse,” said Leo.
“Are you a
veles
?” Nicanor asked.
Once upon a time the
velites
were the poorest soldiers in the ancient Roman legions. The
velites
wore wild animal skins.
“No. I was thinking something barbaric, like a Viking berserker,” said Leo. He had also patterned his arms with scars.
“I thought you were an aboriginal American,” said Pallas. “They wore wolves, didn’t they, Nox?”
“I wasn’t there,” said Nox. “But I don’t think there was ever an ancient culture that had wolves around who
didn’t
stick one on their heads.”
Pallas remained unadulterated. He looked handsome and civilized in his short tunic and trousers. Only the brand of The Ninth Circle announced that he was not civilized.
The Xerxes ditched its spaceborne warehouse and approached a space outpost that had grown up around a triple-star system.
Bagheera
did not flash its leopard holo-image on approach.
Leo did not identify their ship when he requested dockage at the largest station in the outpost.
Bagheera
had dropped out of stealth mode. Anyone looking out a viewport would be able to see by the station lights that it was a leopard-spotted Xerxes.
The station controller advised, “You may put in at dock fifty-three.” His voice hitched, not having a name to call them. He didn’t demand identification. Didn’t want it.
“He knows who we are,” said Pallas at Leo’s shoulder.
“I believe he does,” Leo replied, then on the com, “No. I don’t like that dock. Move that scow out of dock thirty-nine. I’ll take his spot.”
Control hesitated. “The owner is not on board.”
“I don’t care. Move him. Only him, and no other ship. No other ship departs before we do if their crew is addicted to breathing.”
Station control did not actively object. He did ask, “What is your intent?”
“Drinking, whoring, shedding a lot of heavy money,” said Faunus. “Or laying siege. Your choice.”
The ship in dock thirty-nine pushed out from the station, cast adrift.
Leo maneuvered
Bagheera
in to take its place.
A new voice sounded over the com. Identified himself as the stationmaster, and asked, “Anything you require?”
“We’re on holiday,” said Leo. “If anyone tries anything, we’ll go back to work.”
“I want your stay to be as pleasant as possible. Please report any problems to me first. If you would?”
Leo muted the com. Spoke aside to his brothers, “Obsequious toadie, isn’t he?”
“Hey, I like him,” said Faunus. He reached over Leo’s shoulder to activate the com. “Where’s the best place to get a drink?”
“Ambrosia Club. Fifth level.”
The brothers belted on their personal fields. They were all aware that a PF only protects you against something coming at you fast, not a shiv slipped under the ribs. So they put on bronze cuirasses. Nicanor’s was shaped to his torso. Galeo’s was scaled. Orissus’ was segmented. Pallas wore chain mail. Nox and Leo wore synthetic mesh. Faunus went bare-chested. “It’s all just coming off anyway.” He carried brass knuckles.

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