Nineteen- Glass Gangsters
John Silverleant against the transparency, eyes surveying the drab planet, thenow mated engines. The warship had mounted like some ponderousbeetle, next to flood its consort with laser light and personnel, ahunting party Silver registered hypothetically, as there had been noword from the Terrans. He recalled his conversation with Sally, herdream-spawned ramblings. The mystery went deeper it seemed...
There was nothing he or Upfrontcould do. Earth was too strong; Topica, perhaps, her ally.
‘You know the first time I heardof Byron Friendly,’ Silver told Mort, ‘I was fronting aninvestigation into the apparent theft, and re-selling...of machineparts; specialist material, you'll appreciate. And this one engineer,Friendly, came up to me brandishing a pair of stolen gyros - cool asyou like. I thought he was pushing the stuff; still had the film onthem.’
Mortimer laughed.
‘Anyway,’ Silver continued,‘it turned out he'd found a cache under his bunk, which he sharedon rote with three other guys, and decided to turn it in.’
‘I've heard this story,’ saidMort. ‘Didn't he lock someone in a foot-locker?’
‘A drugs-cabinet. Yeah, hiscaptain. Man got high on curejuice and confessed everything; had aruse whereby he took delivery of duplicate parts. Clever.’
‘But the legendary Byronscuppered him.’
Silver pushedoff the glass. ‘The captain, four service vehicles and a brand-newreconnaissance craft to date...’
‘And that controller. What washis name? Pearson, or Price, a cousin of Admiral Gregorian.’
‘Parker,’ John corrected.‘Right.’ And that was the end of the road for Byron; or maybejust the end of an episode.
Mortimer flattened his moustache.‘According to the computer,’ he said, ‘we've lost them.’
‘It must have crashed.’
‘No, I've checked: frame'ssound.’
‘So why isn't it registering ourguests?’ He could see the warship, the engine. ‘Mort?’
‘Hm? Oh. They dropped out...’
‘But they're here.’
‘Yes.’
‘What are yousaying? That I'm hallucinating? That the computer is correct?’
Mortimer came and stood next tohim. ‘The software could've warped,’ he suggested.
‘Try again.’
‘Okay. Theimage is caught in the glass, like a photographic plate.’
‘It's moving.’
‘A screen then.’
‘Be serious.You're telling me there're a host of photons trapped in these fewmillimetres dutifully re-enacting past events?’
‘More or less.’ Mort lookedembarrassed.
‘In that case,’ announcedSilver, ‘I'm going out...’
Mortimer grimaced. They both knewwhat he'd seen, was seeing. As the door closed behind Silver hestalked over to the computer and gave it a kick, cracking a toe.
*
Mordy glided through the earlymorning mist, skin damp and clothes adhering. Like wallpaper, hethought. The gloom lifted by degrees, so he tripped less often, theweight of a carcass across his shoulders.
He wondered how real meat tasted,raw or cooked.
Droover was waiting when he gotback. Her hair shone, a lustre comparable to that of the broadfern-leaves. Like them she had a red flower behind her ear.
‘You didn't light a fire,’Mordy said.
‘I was thirsty. I went to thestream. There's a waterfall not far from here.’
‘Really - what flavour?’
‘Strawberry...’
‘No chocolate?’
‘A choice of seventeentantalizingly tempting tangs!’
I'll bet...
Something hit him from behind.Mordy fell on his face, the carcass to roll over his head, its ownsmashed by the crudely improvised shillelagh pushed behind his belt.A split-second glance told him of a stealth projectile, its silenttrajectory meant to pass through his neck.
Then he was up and running,Droover close, the two dodging low branches and vaulting obstaclesthey might previously have given a wide berth.
But not now. They were targeted,and as such deeper instincts held sway...
They moved as blurs, wraiths midstthe darkened jungle, its trees providing shade and cover, its mostlyhidden life glimpsed at speed from their flashing skulls. Legsworking, arms pumping, lungs desperate to breathe on and on, not toslow or cease, never to collapse. Mordy broke from a thicket,bleeding, Droover on his right, to his left a blank wall of steel. Itthrew him; matt planes of metal, gaudy light and the scuffing of manyfeet. A fear was born in his chest.
Both crouched, listened, exchangedglances. Droover grabbed his arm and hauled him off, lithe anddetermined. A projectile cracked above. Leaves and twigs descended.He didn't understand, concentrated on the terrain, its non-stopvegetation, and reached for Droover's thimbled hand...
It cut him.
And she, some slick black notion,had vanished.
Sal peered at Friendly who peeredat Sal.
‘Did you hear that?’ one askedthe other. ‘Like a scream?’
‘Yes...Ernie?’
‘Who else? Unless, maybe.’ Anose was scratched. The light poured from fewer angles and the scentsgrew in number along with the spoor of animals.
The timbered scene strobed. Out ofthe nascent cloud, which gained definition as they stared, dived achattering, shining bird.
Sally got theimpression its copper wings were planished and its talons edged inbone. It reached the nadir of its arc, spun aside, end over end as ifstruck, glittering coloured spirals off its long tail, taunting herwith the associations sight of it conjured in her mind...
‘Move,’ said Byron, and ran.
The man was dead. The protectiveclothing he wore had let him down, fatally. Mordy was convinced, hedidn't need to turn him over. A mask was a mask, he said to himself,dead or living, its shield remained. Anyway, he recognized the liveryas that of the research section. Seemingly out to kill him. But why?
Shaking, heloped away. He rubbed his wrist, wondering at Droover, his radio thatshe wore, a further, useless ornament. The key he'd given her was thekey to his father's strongroom, that squared cavern below a mountainto which he had always been denied access. Amy Jones had duplicatedit, passing it to him via a third party, a man whose shiftless eyesspoke of subtler plots than any Mordy could imagine. He'd treated itas a joke, initially, then the Tomcat'scaptain had arranged a meeting and together they'd hatched a plan tomurder Stylo. Only Mordy's courage proved the weakest; he'd leapt atthe chance to go after Droover, thus removing himself from hermachinations. The woman was crazy. And the man, the third party,haunted his vision like a phantom out of some old movie.
From him there was no escape. Hewas Mordy's guilt. He was Mordy's secret rendezvous. He was the manwithout a name; the man who adopted the names of others...
He should have checked to see ifthe section agent had a usable weapon. That was the kind of luckMordy needed now.
He continued on foot, losinghimself in the increasing hostile, both objective and subjectivejungle.
*
Silvercommandeered a chassis from a bewildered attendant and steered it forthe engine. He had no idea how he was going to get in. Whether it waspossible or not though, he would try. It was unlikely, he figured,that every access point was covered by the invading Terrans. At leastnot on the outside. Once the interior lay open to him he'd startworrying about diplomatic relations, but until then... ‘F*ck 'em.’
He breezed against the giant hulland clung. The engine's mass seized the magnetism and the chassis wastight, immovable. He was on his own, literally.
‘It'sdefinitely solid,’ he reassured himself. ‘So what are you waitingfor, an invite?’ Curious, he tried to thread through a call toMort. Nothing. He turned his head toward where the orbital stationshould be. Nothing.
Already suited, he clambered fromthe tiny chassis and went walkabout on the lumpy metal, ignoring thetimer in his helmet as the void, the homeless void, slipped by.
*
She wasn't anywhere; he'd losther.
In the canopy'sblue-greenethereal shade he stooped, picked a stout branch from amid theleaf-litter, and cautiously retraced his too hasty steps. Had shefallen? Byron wondered, passing the wood from hand to hand,familiarizing himself with its weight. Was she able to move at all?Insects buzzed in his ear.
A twig snapped.In front of him a distorted figure looked left and right. The manlacked solidity, as if he were liquid ice, constantly remodelled,smoothed under a gentle flame, edges smudged into the complexframework of trees, their elaborate, varihued subordinates clusteredlike - machines, he thought, tools and work-benches painted in luridtones of red, yellow and green, blue, orange and violet, an overdoseof verdant, sylvain colour; the impinging sound vaguely crystalline,that of fractured bone and torn cartilage, ruptured blood vessels anddamaged skin, the hefty branch he'd wielded sending a tremor up hisarms as it, like the figure, had broken...
Byron regarded the corpse, closedhis eyes a moment then walked around it to where the sun indicatedfirmer ground, a steadier landscape.
The air in his lungs tastedsweeter. The wind in his face felt sharper, less ordered. It was likeexiting a tunnel...
Sudden.