Jinx On a Terran Inheritance Read online

  And, later, she was on top, tenting their faces again with the raven's-wing hair, hips pumping, rocking, orbiting. Her mouth clung to his throat as he threw his head back and cried her name …

  "So what's your name?" the barmaid asked.

  "Alacrity Fitzhugh."

  "Sounds like a sneeze."

  "Ho-ho. As a matter of fact, it's an ancient, foolproof tantric sex mantra."

  She finished polishing a snifter and set it in the dispenser, making sure it was secure. People tended to forget, but the Blue Pearl was a spacecraft.

  She was a mildly zaftig brunette with engaging green eyes, wearing her hair in the "drop-away" fashion, lower part of the strands stiffened, upper relaxed to the point of lethargy. She wore an outfit of cascading, almost microscopically fine gold chains, like waves of rippling metal down her body, plunging in deep parabolas between some of her more spectacular topological features. It provided for absolutely riveting, if brief, glimpses of various portions of her lily-white form.

  "You were the one in the airbike race, right?" she said. "Are you the Terran? You don't look Terran."

  "No. That's my pal Hobart."

  "He's the expert on genealogies, right? Y'know, Acrimony—"

  "Alacrity."

  "Alacrity. Y'know, I'd really like to talk to him. I was doing a little family tree of my own."

  I am cursed, Alacrity decided sourly, though he gave her a suave smile. "He's really in demand, I'm afraid. But I'll do my poor best to divert you."

  "Try that again?"

  "Amuse. Entertain."

  "Whoa, lucky me. Well, what're you having, mantra-man?"

  He slid his goblet away. "No more of that wine. What've you got?"

  She studied him for a moment, lower lip outthrust, then began putting crushed ice in a glass. As she worked she said, "So, your sidekick left you high and dry, hm?" She was pouring, squirting, shaking, dabbing. The light seemed to adore her, glimmering and rippling across her finery.

  "Naw, that's just business." He can't be down there layin' commo cable! Not Ho!

  That's what Alacrity had been trying to tell himself for the better part of an hour. He wanted very much to believe things were taking so long because Yumi was drawing Floyt's blood drop by drop. Each from a different spot on his body. The dirty, lucky …

  "Business, sure." The barmaid scoffed, setting a columnar glass before him. "And next I'm supposed to swap you two tens for a five, right?"

  Alacrity considered the frosted glass and its orange contents. "What's in this thing, pet? And to what alias does it answer?"

  "Orange juice from Satori—see the pulp?—ouzo we picked up on Hellas, ice I made myself, and a few odds and ends. I call it an Archimedes' Screw."

  He sipped warily, then drank. "Woo! You oughta patent this phlegm loosener!"

  "Thanks. But then, they always taste better when they're on the house, don't they?"

  "I'll drink to that." But he went easy on it; there was no telling what sort of complications he and Floyt might face at the Epiphany spaceport.

  The barmaid's name was Charivari. They got into a more or less standard bar volley about what it was like to work in the Pearl, how he'd gotten there, where she came from, and where he'd visited. Elsewhere could be heard the Severeemish, slightly the worse for alcohol and whatever else, trying to teach the very amused young women of the Daubin' Band one of their a cappella battle dirges.

  "For a breakabout, you look like you expect to be doing an awful lot of walking," Charivari observed.

  He'd changed to a frayed and faded flying suit, with its abundant pockets, pouches, loops, and tabs. It was bare of insignia, ship patches, or badges of rank. Around his neck under his collar, knotted in the style of the cowboys, was a blue bandanna. He also wore the prized pathfinder boots he'd had made on So Far. The pathfinders were versatile and tremendously durable, of fascia, vertical reinforcements and elastic joints, with knee-cupping shields like a knight's genouilleres. They showed a good deal of hard use.

  "It wouldn't be the first time." He shrugged. The Daimyo's fee was a terrific windfall, but a pittance against interstellar passage. Alacrity, member of any number of spacers' unions and guilds, might be allowed to deadhead if a starship had room, but for Floyt they must come up with lots of cash. At least deadheading's been getting easier these last few years, he thought. The increasing speed of travel and volume of traffic, as the Third Breath of Humanity swung into high gear, made the difference.

  "Here's to a new day," he proposed as the Pearls roundabout course brought her up on the dawn line over a tranquil green ocean. Charivari toasted with an Irish coffee he insisted she drink. As for you and your Jinx, Dincrist—go twirl on it!

  "Here's to luck and the Breakers," she said.

  Alacrity left off contemplating the dawn to look up at Redlock and Dorraine. The Queen of Agora was much taller than her husband, supple but erect. Her hair was as dark as Yumi's, and longer; her brown skin seemed a fiery orange with the rising of Halidome, Epiphany's sun. Dorraine, too, wore an Inheritor's belt. Draped around Dorraine was a divided, overlapped cloak with exaggerated, upcurving shoulderboards. It was silver-veined and translucently gray, like the folded wings of an enormous insect.

  Charivari had told Alacrity that the porcelain box on the pedestal held Lord Inst's ashes.

  As the couple talked, a Celestial stepped up, interrupting very respectfully but very quickly. Alacrity was looking on with full attention now; it was always worth knowing if something was happening in a ship where one was a passenger. Charivari, forgetting that she'd been polishing another snifter, watched too.

  Redlock heard the Celestial out and spoke a few quiet words. Dorraine, still remote, was nevertheless listening, drawn back from her mourning. The Celestial relayed something over his military proteus and left. As he went, Alacrity sensed a change in Blue Pearl's heading despite the fact that maneuver forces couldn't be felt within the ship.

  Epiphany's dawn quickened, as Halidome began a perceptible slide to port. Alacrity straightened from his barstool and hurried to intercept his host and hostess as warning hooters sounded.

  Dawn became high-altitude early morning, the light streaming through the Pearl. The shuttle was picking up speed as scraps of cloud tore swiftly past and around her.

  A change coming over the young women with the sounding of the alarm, the Daubin' Band had stopped their friendly sing-along with the Severeemish. Suddenly impersonal, they excused themselves and rapidly stowed their instruments. Then they headed below decks in an orderly column of twos, leaving the Severeemish alert to some danger they couldn't sense yet. The prospect put the towering creatures in a bluff, slightly skished good humor.

  Alacrity stepped into Redlock's path resolutely. "Governor, I know you've got a lot on your mind right now, but I'd just like to know—"

  Redlock didn't even slow as he barked, "Go to the main lounge area and wait with the others." Alacrity had to backstep out of his way.

  But Dorraine paused. "An alarm sensor was triggered in one of Epiphany's restricted areas. There's only one patrolcraft in the area, an Invincible aircutter, the Scimitar. We rendezvous in a few minutes."

  "Oh." His midsection tightened.

  "Scimitar will recon and land, while the Blue Pearl flies high cover and backup. No outsiders are supposed to be in this part of Epiphany, so we'll take all precautions, Alacrity."

  "Uh, good. Thanks." He glanced out over green seas; the shuttle was closing quickly on a southern continent. He made a rough estimate of the course the Pearl had taken and potshot, "It's a Precursor site, isn't it? That's what you're worried about."

  The cant of her head as she studied him told him he was right. "I think you'd better follow the governor's instructions. My husband's putting the ship on full alert; you and Hobart will have your sidearms returned to you sooner than you'd expected."

  Floyt and Yumi were lying together on the card table when the alarm sounded. Floyt had recovered his robe, draping
it across them both, after they'd made love a second time.

  They lay with her head resting on his arm, her legs held between his. They were both pretending, a little, that the flight of the Blue Pearl wouldn't end. They talked of Earth and Shurutzu. He laughed when she told him that the planet's original name had been Shultz. Then the Pearl went on alert. Yumi was on her feet while Floyt was still trying to figure out what was going on. She made certain the container with his blood was safe, then began dressing quickly as he donned his robe.

  "Maybe you'd better stay here while I see what's happening," he was suggesting as someone rapped at the hatch. He opened it on a comely young member of the Daubin' Band. She still wore her shimmerskin and whiteface, but now she carried an over-under military rifle at sling arms, looking quite accustomed to it.

  "Both of you report to the main lounge immediately. Governor's order." She pushed Floyt's bag into his hands.

  He paused long enough to dig out and pull on brown bush fatigues; the robe no longer seemed adequate. He wriggled his feet into soft shoes.

  When they reached the lounge, Floyt and Yumi found Alacrity and the Severeemish being given weapons by the bandswomen.

  "It turns out they're really Celestials." Alacrity grinned. "I'm trying to sign on." He was buckling his Sam Browne-style belt.

  He saw right away what had happened and came close to teasing Floyt and Yumi about it. After all, if the Daimyo was so hot about a little tellurian hemoglobin, he could have put her up to collecting certain other substances.

  But Floyt's expression told Alacrity it wasn't a subject for jokes so he said only, "Welcome back to real time, folks. I'm truly sorry about the rude interruption."

  The return of their combat harnesses overjoyed the Severeemish. They shrugged into the complicated tackle, checking knives, handguns, and other equipment, laughing and joking like jolly trolls. Charivari sat to one side, affecting a bored look, but her eyes were wide with fright.

  "What's going on, Alacrity?" Floyt puffed, dumping his luggage on a couch.

  Alacrity explained, adding, "King's Ransom's supposed to join up with us too, and there're more aircutters on the way, so there's really nothing to worry about. So they tell me." He handed Floyt a pistol. "But it's Standard Operating Procedure that everybody's armed, just in case we have to set down." He smirked again.

  Floyt sighed. Sometimes Alacrity didn't so much break bad news as share great new comedic material in the ongoing joke that was life.

  The pistol was a reproduction of the archaic Webley .455 Mark VI revolver; they'd picked it up at a Forager lashup on Luna. The lanyard ring fastened to the bottom of its grip swung and clinked. Floyt accepted it carefully, along with a pouch of amazingly heavy little bullets. They were fat, soft, slow Dum-Dum rounds known, for some reason lost to time, as "Chicago popcorn." They were notched all the way down to the case mounts, and cast of something different from lead or the conventional alloys.

  Floyt opened the top-breaking revolver and, tongue protruding in concentration, began fitting bullets into the chambers. He remembered to leave an empty chamber under the hammer. Closing it, he tucked it into his Inheritor's belt.

  "A good, simple arrangement," Seven Wars boomed. "Nothing fancy or complicated. May I ask where you came by that piece?"

  "From some Foragers," Alacrity supplied, checking the charge level in his father's sidearm. It was a big, matte-black pistol with a basket handshield. Its yellowed ivory grips were mounted with black crests, a cross-and-arc design. He slid it into its holster. "They got it on Raj, from a shipment of Webleys that ended up there from Halcyon." The Severeemish gathered round like a palisade of muscle and bone.

  "Oho! I have heard that tale!" Seven Wars grinned, showing teeth that looked like they could bite through a crowbar. "So; this is the gun that won Halcyon."

  "One of 'em, anyway," Alacrity answered casually. Floyt busied himself making sure the Chicago popcorn wouldn't fall out of his pocket, then glanced around to locate Yumi. He resolved to find out where Halcyon was and how a primitive revolver had won it.

  Just then the Daubin' Band-Celestials drew the attention of the Severeemish as the young women divvied up extra charges for their energy tubes and rocket magazines for their launchers. The four amiable monsters ambled over that way.

  "Where did Yumi go, Alacrity?"

  "While you were adjusting your hardware, she went below-decks with Charivari and the other noncombatants."

  "Huh? You mean we're combatants?"

  "Would you mind not shouting, Ho? You're making my conditioning queasy. Anyway, no. Under local procedure, we're just classed as part of the trained, able-bodied ship's complement, that's all. And anyway, we'll just be hanging around overhead while that Invincible aircutter does all the work. Dorraine said so."

  That made Floyt feel better, but he still wanted to be with Yumi.

  At that moment a swift, deadly shadow streaked up alongside Blue Pearl. The Scimitar was exactly like the aircutters that had shown up to rescue them and arrest them less than a day before, after the airbike crash and just as a hungry fangster had nearly breakfasted on them.

  "I want to see this. Come on, Ho." Alacrity led Floyt up short staircases and across various terraces and mingling places. Floyt, hesitant to go poking belowdecks, especially with members of the band posted as guards, was content to follow. He was also eager to see what was going on, but commented, "It's rather a helluva note, isn't it, Redlock's dragging diplomatic envoys and civilians and irreplaceable us into something like this?"

  "Local conventions," Alacrity replied as they reached a spot by a red plush loveseat, near where Dorraine had stood. "The Domain's been a war zone more than it's been at peace, so they figure everybody who's not on active duty is in the ready reserves. There goes the Scimitar."

  The two ships had descended into a broad valley where a fast-moving river widened out into silty sluggishness. The valley walls were steep, with cliffs breaking through facades of green, gray, mauve, and rust-red vegetation. The familiar, glassy glitter of ice-trees made a bright background for the few flocks of darting tarwings and jackflyers that scattered with the ships' approach.

  The aircutter began circling an area in the center of the valley several kilometers from where the Pearl took up her station. "What makes you think it's a Precursor site, Alacrity?"

  "Has to be. The alarm came from a ground sensor. Why would they have one planted out here in the epicenter of no place, and why get apoplectic about it, if it's not something pretty important, like a significant Precursor find?"

  "Mmm—maybe." Floyt watched carefully as the Scimitar banked and began low fly-bys, each a little closer to the ground, coming from different vectors.

  "Remember the hunt?" Alacrity said. "The staff had hunting parties spread out just about everywhere on Epiphany except here, on this continent. I noticed that on the staff maps the other morning when we set out from Frostpile."

  "A Precursor site … " Floyt mulled that, even as the Scimitar started spiraling down for a close look. Certainly there were no visible aboveground installations to warrant alarm sensors.

  Or, Floyt thought, Alacrity's guess might just be a product of his preoccupation with the Precursors. He always keeps his own counsel about that. Some contended that there'd never been any such thing as Precursors; Floyt, like all Terrans, gave the matter as little thought as possible. "Well, it might be," he conceded, only to make Alacrity feel better.

  "Except that Precursors almost never built anything on or under planetary surfaces." Alacrity tched.

  Scimitar made another approach, preparing to land some recon troops. Reinforcements were due within minutes.

  "For all we know, this might've been some kind of false alarm."

  "Precursor site, Ho." Alacrity shook his head slowly. "And we know it because we've already seen an artifact from it."

  "An arti—What artifact? Are you all right, Alacrity? What are you—God in the Void!"

  Alacrity yelled aloud to
o, and heard other cries, and howls from the Severeemish. Scimitar vanished in a hellish explosion, lighting the valley walls and the Blue Pearl's interior with an unbearable white glare.

  Chapter 3

  Zagging In The Ziggurat

  The Pearl's attack alarms were much more shrill and unnerving than her alerts. The hull darkened instantly against the glare, sparing those inboard it blindness. There was a confusion of half-begun shrieks, bellows, and exclamations.

  The ship pealed and skirled as the roiling globe of the explosion ballooned. There was a subtle change as the shuttle's artificial gravity stood in for the real thing, anticipating maneuver forces.

  The Pearl began to descend slowly, indecisively. She'd assumed position well out of what her Celestial captain estimated to be effective light-weapons range, but Scimitar's vaporization proved that someone had misread the situation entirely.

  The momentary debate hung almost tangibly in the air: withdraw or attack?

  Alacrity was hoping Redlock wasn't the kind to charge hellbent into battle hungry for revenge. There was the well-being of the passengers, Yumi and the others, to consider, even if the health of a rootless breakabout and a Terran functionary didn't exert any gees.

  A moment later there wasn't any point wondering about Redlock's caution. Fireballs arrowed up at them, leaving blazing trails behind.

  "Mis—" Seven Wars started to yell.

  There were giant detonations and the Blue Pearl attempted to turn turvey.

  —siles, Floyt finished to himself automatically. He fully expected to be immolated, his particles swept along by the irresistible forcewall of an explosion. He should've known that Governor Redlock wasn't the type to travel in a fragile, defenseless gaud.

  Alacrity wouldn't've been terribly flabbergasted to be demoted from rational being to elementary particles either. But he was surprised when, concussed by near misses, the shuttle's artificial gravity was knocked out. He wanted to say, I really prefer ersatz, as the actual item sent him windmilling through the air. All he got out was "Shhh—"