Imagination Fully Dilated: Science Fiction Part 8

I took the lift to streetside, and looked up my mom. For once, I found her at home. She has a nice apartment on the backside of Procyon, near the Window, with a full view of the sun. Two low walls of native rock lined the entranceway-constructing things with carefully balanced rock is a respected local art form. The walls and Window view don't come cheap; my mom deals poker on interplanetary cruise ships these days and she makes a good living.

"You haven't changed a bit since the last time I saw you," she said. And it was probably true. Neither had she. In fact, my mother's done more hole jumping than I have, and truth be told, we look more like sisters than parent and child. In fact, her hair was as short as mine, though I'd bet money in visible light it would show up as some outrageous color, instead of my dull brown. Mom is a great deal flashier than Iam. "How's your business?"

"Can't complain," I said. "What are you up to?"

"I'm catching the Executive Tour Cruise in a week."

I knew about that trip. It makes use of reverse wormholes so you get home right about the same time you left. Very expensive, but worth it for rich business people who are exhausted and can't really afford the time for a vacation.

I did those things you do in your home port: Checked into The Swamp, where I keep my stuff in storage and rent a room when I'm home. Did some banking. Ordered up a maintenance check on the Rockety c.o.o.n Child. Looked up my friends and business acquaintances, put out some feelers for work. The usual.

A week later I was wandering down one of the less reputable streets in Procyon-I'd been meeting with someone about a potential job-when I literally ran into Vlad. Or rather, he ran into me. Full tilt. He was panting for breath and his goggles were askew.

He adjusted the goggles and squinted at me through them. "Pogo? Thank G.o.d. They're after me. I have to get off the street." He looked wildly in all directions.

I wasn't sure who "they" was, but I could hear the drone of engines in the next block. And, h.e.l.l, I'm a soft touch. I pushed a b.u.t.ton on the nearest door, exchanged a few words in the local dialect over the com, and pushed it open on the buzz. "In here."

He followed. I flashed my credit chip-the anonymous one I keep for emergencies-at the front desk and said, "Room. Now."

The attendant eyed us. "You want a girl? Boy?"

"Both," I said. "One human, one not quite."

"That'll cost extra."

"Whatever."

He pa.s.sed us a card, and we took the lift down.

"What is this place?" Vlad asked.

"Wh.o.r.ehouse."

"Oh."

He didn't sound happy. I've never met a man who was pickier about how he got rescued.

The wh.o.r.es were waiting for us in the room. The woman was human and looked to be about the same size as Vlad. She wore a jumpsuit interlaced with heat; it glittered gold. "Change clothes with her," I told him. Both he and the hooker stared at me.

"We're hiding from his wife. She put a trace in his clothes. If you put on his clothes and take off for awhile, she'll follow you. Take your friend with you. Go up a few levels and dump the clothes."

Vlad started to say something. I figured it would be dumb, so I cut him off. "He'll pay you cash," Iadded.

Off-the-books money. No prost.i.tute can resist that. Vlad was still hesitating, but I gave him my raised eyebrow and even if he didn't know what it meant exactly, he knew I was serious.

"Now what?" he said as the door shut behind the wh.o.r.es.

I was stripping my own-dull in all lights-jumpsuit off. "Now we pretend I'm your client," I said, pulling back the sheets on the bed.

He was staring at my crotch. "Come on," I said. "Get in here and bury your head between my legs. I figure we got about two minutes before that patrol gets up here."

"But," he started to say. Then we both heard some noise, and he jumped in with me, pulled the covers over his head, and put his mouth on my c.o.c.k.

I have to admit it was more fun than I usually have when I'm hiding from authorities.

The door burst open a few minutes later, and I gave the two cops who came through the look of an outraged customer.

The cop in charge wasn't even slightly embarra.s.sed.

"No reading here, sergeant."

"Sorry to bother you," the sergeant said, not sounding the least bit sorry. "We'll leave you to it." The other cop leered as they walked out.

"All clear," I told Vlad.

He looked up at me from between my legs. "You said you were female," he said in an accusing tone.

"I am."

He grabbed hold of my c.o.c.k. "Then what's this?"

I sighed. "Mostly female. If you look closer down there you'll see that's not all I've got."

"Oh. But if you've got both, why do you say you're female?"

"I procreate female. The c.o.c.k's just for playing around. It fires blanks. Come on, we should get out of here."

"Do you think they're coming back?"

"Not immediately. Though if they catch up with that hooker before she dumps your clothes, she'll probably point them in our direction."

"Gives us a little while," he said with a grin. He went down on my c.o.c.k again.

I started to insist, but h.e.l.l, it felt nice. It felt very nice. And besides it was the first time I'd seen him smile.

So I just went with the flow.

But when he wanted to start playing more games, I reminded him that someone was on his tail. That brought back his nervous tic."How'd you know there was a trace in my clothes?" he said, suddenly suspicious.

"Lucky guess. If it had been on your person, we'd be on our way to jail. Come on."

We headed down a couple of levels. I make a point of knowing where the back door is in most places.

Never can tell when it will come in handy.

"Who's after you?" I said as we hurried through the halls.

He didn't look at me when he said, "I'm not sure."

We were at the back door by then. It opens onto a more respectable street than the one we'd been on earlier. I put both hands on his shoulders, looked straight at him, and said, "Let's try that again. Who's after you?"

He sighed. "I think there's more than one group."

"Wonderful. Who?"

"Local cops for one, I guess."

"Yeah, but local cops wouldn't give a s.h.i.t about you unless someone else wanted you. They're probably out looking on request from the Yacare Emba.s.sy. So Yacare knows you're here. How'd they find that out?"

He looked away. "Maybe somebody in the refugee community?"

Of course. Made sense.

"Anyway, there's another guy-not a cop. Scary guy. I don't think he's human." He blushed then, like it was embarra.s.sing to say that to me.

"Either Yacare spy or hot-s.h.i.t bounty hunter," I said.

"And another group, but they aren't as scary."

"Ah," I said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm. "That's probably the bounty hunters. Man, what did you do, hang out a sign saying 'I'm here?' "

"I just tried to get a message out to Chamaleo."

I felt a ma.s.sive headache coming on. I led him through the door. The street was quiet, not deserted, but n.o.body hanging about looking for us. "Let's try for my place," I said.

As we moved through the streets, I asked him, "Did you get hired on a freighter?"

"Yes. It leaves tomorrow."

"Well, I'll try to keep you alive until we can get you on that ship." So much for not being a babysitter.

My neighborhood is neither posh nor disreputable. The Swamp caters to people who spend most of their time on a ship somewhere, so it's only a few levels down from the port. But it doesn't abut the seedy bars and sleepovers aimed at the transient crowd. Nor is it close to either the part of town where I'd met Vlad or the nicer block where we'd exited the house of ill repute.

We took the first empty lift we came to back up to the right level. Here more people jammed thethoroughfares. I prefer crowds when I'm trying to avoid somebody.

All the people-and not people, and not quite people-made Vlad nervous. His eye was twitching and he kept looking around. That made me nervous; he was drawing attention to himself. And the wh.o.r.e's flashy jumpsuit just added to it. I figured I'd give him one of mine when we got to my digs; it wouldn't fit as well, but it wouldn't glow in the f.u.c.king dark, either.

"Almost there," I said as we turned into my block. And then I stopped. Something felt wrong, something seemed out of place.

"Thank G.o.d," Vlad said. He started to walk past me.

I put a hand on his arm. "Did you happen to mention my name to anybody?"

His face began to glow red. "Uh, I think I might have said something to one of the refugees."

At that moment I got a good look at someone standing in the shadows across the street from The Swamp. He, or she, or it, was facing in our direction, and I could see a telltale blotch of purple at the left shoulder. Something cold there-the area around the heart usually shows up red gold. That made it an armed someone. Okay, not my place then.

"What are we waiting for?" Vlad said.

"Me to think of someplace else for us to go. Somebody's waiting for us down there." Something that must know about me. Now nursemaiding Vlad wasn't just an act of kindness; it was the only way I was going to come through this in one piece.

If my name had come up, the Rockety c.o.o.n Child didn't seem like a good idea. I certainly couldn't get Vlad on it. Though maybe I could bribe someone to get out on it, if I got Vlad safely on the freighter early. If . . . "You didn't tell anybody about the freighter job did you?"

"Only a couple of people," he said. His face was beginning to show some yellow and green, as if it had gone from hot to cold.

I briefly considered handing Vlad over to whoever was standing down there. It would have solved all my problems. And I didn't really owe him all this, anyway; h.e.l.l, I'd already done way more than I'd been paid for.

But they hadn't caught us yet. And, h.e.l.l, it'd be more fun to see if I could save him-not to mention me-from everybody who was after him. So I dragged Vlad back to a set of stairs, and we hotfooted it up a couple of flights. Lifts are too easy to watch. We ended up near a marketplace, and wandered through while I tried to come up with something like a plan.

Vlad didn't help much. His nervous tic was back in force, and he kept looking over his shoulder and muttering things under his breath. The freighter was out; ten to one somebody was staking it out. How could a man who had the brains to build the Yacare opposition-the news sites called him the "Savior of Yacare"-get into so much trouble in such a short period of time? I needed to get him off-planet ASAP, preferably with competent supervision. But how?

Then it hit me: the Executive Tour Cruise. When had Mom said it was leaving? I did a quick calculation, and came up with tomorrow. She could get him on the ship, maybe as a stowaway. It would cost, but anything would cost at this point. And Mom could keep an eye on him.

The best part: even though Vlad's enemies knew my name, they wouldn't tie me to Mom. That's one ofthe advantages of not using your real name. Not that some people on Procyon didn't know all about me, but Vlad didn't, which made it likely that the people chasing him didn't know it either. So long as we weren't followed, we might get him off-planet.

So I dragged Vlad up three more flights of stairs, to the fancy level where Mom lived. Fewer people up there, so I looked around carefully. That's when I realized that we had been followed.

I knew immediately why Vlad had found him scary. One look scared the bejesus out of me. For one thing he came in shades of blue. Blue in infrared is cold; no human-or almost-human-registers as blue except in small spots. Humans generate heat, and that comes in yellows, reds, golds.

But he was shaped like a human. Either he was something cold-blooded-animal or mechanical-or he had some kind of very fancy armor that blocked body heat. There wasn't enough variation in color to show any vulnerable spots.

The other thing that scared me was that he clearly intended for us to see him. Likely he'd been behind us for quite awhile-blue can blend in easily in the background. I felt Vlad freeze beside me.

The blue guy said, "I was going to follow and see where you ended up, but it appears that you're going for the complete planetary tour, and I've already done it." He spoke in a soft tenor, a pleasing sound that chilled me to the bone.

"You could just wait for us here. We'll come back for you," I said. No point in acting scared.

He laughed. By rights it should have been a nasty villainous laugh, but in fact it was a rather charming melodious sound. "I don't think that will work. Better that you come with me."

"Oh, no," I said, trying for tough. I moved closer to the blue guy. "I didn't do all this work for nothing.

The price on his head is huge, and I'm going to deliver him."

Vlad said, "But, but I trusted you."

The blue guy laughed again. This laugh was a little closer to what I expected to hear, though it still had a pleasant ring to it. "That's a good scam: getting them to trust you and then selling them out."

I smiled. "It can be lucrative. You get paid twice that way. But I can't run it all the time, or no one would ever hire me to smuggle them out." I took another step in his direction.

"Even a bit of strategy. I like you, Pogo. I tell you what. I'll give you a cut of the reward."

"Uh, uh. I want all of it. I'm the one who's got him, after all."

"But I'm going to take him now. And you don't want to try to stop me." His hands were moving. I knew he was armed, but I couldn't distinguish weapon from him.

He was right that I didn't want to try to stop him. I moved just a little closer, tried to act tougher than I felt, and then gave a sheepish shrug. "Okay, you win. How much of a cut?" My hand closed on the knife I keep at thigh level.

He laughed again, and his hands moved back. I had to hope he was taking them off his weapons. I had to hope he registered blue because he was some kind of cold-blooded humanoid, and not an android or a human wearing armor.