The sniveling Kitnock spread his thin, bony arms in protest. "He asked to buy some! We've never been the subject of any stings on this station. How was I to know?"
"If you had listened to me, you would have," Grekkor seethed. "Now I'll have to go see that cursed commander again and explain that you are a stupid fool and thought that the man was joking with you."
"But--"
"And then you will leave this station and never return. Do you understand?"
Tilat was taller than Grekkor by about ten centimeters, but Grekkor was
powerfully built and probably outweighed him by half, and his thug was even bigger.
Dolurp was a big, hairy, ape-like humanoid from Herpatron who, rumor had it, enjoyed breaking fingers--especially those of Kitnocks; he liked the sound they made when they snapped.
Whirling away as though he could no longer stand the sight of the Kitnock,
Grekkor stormed off down the narrow corridor, his cape billowing out behind him and Dolurp at his heels.
He hadn't gone far when he saw two females approaching, both in the uniform of
station staff. He automatically began to smile, but it was wiped from his face as he recognized one of them. Not her, specifically, but her kind.
As they passed, his icy blue eyes met the darkly glowing feline orbs of the woman in question. Hatred for her and all her kind blazed up in him. However, he managed to hold his comment until they passed.
"As if this day hadn't gone badly enough," he growled. "I thought we'd killed all those cats."
"Want me to go get her?" Dolurp inquired, plainly itching for some action.
"Don't bother," he said, tossing a glance over his shoulder. "Without one of their males, the females can't repro--" He broke off as he saw that the woman had turned and was staring after him. "--duce."
***
"We're in trouble now!"
Micayla had been on the alert from the moment that venomous gaze had locked
onto hers and, pivoting on one foot, she snatched Windura's hand and sped off down the passageway, dragging Windura behind her.
"'Stay away from sections twenty-eight and twenty-nine,'" Micayla quoted as she ran. "Why the hell don't you pay attention to your own advice?"
"Trust me, he doesn't belong here either," Windura gasped. "I know who he is."
"Tell me later," Micayla said, picking up speed. Rounding a corner, she almost ran into a load lifter carrying three huge barrels.
"No shooting!" the Norludian driver exclaimed, waving his sucker-tipped fingers in alarm.
"We don't have weapons!" Micayla shouted as she passed. A pulse beam struck the barrels and they burst open, flooding the corridor. "But I guess they do," she added.
"I'll bet they have friends around to head us off," Windura said darkly. "He's a very powerful man. We've got to get to another level. Someplace where there are more people."
They heard the sounds of a crash and a scuffle behind them. Apparently the bad
guys had slipped on whatever the Norludian had in the barrel. Micayla could hear
shouted curses and insults. "Too bad they didn't break their necks," she muttered.
"There's a lift up ahead."
"How the hell do you know?" Windura demanded.
"Remember what I told you before about knowing where everything is?"
"Yeah, right. I remember now. Oh, joy."
"You don't sound very happy about it."
"Hey, I thought you were crazy at the time," Windura explained. "Any premonitions that we get out of this alive?"
"Uh, no. Not really."
"Make one up then."
They reached the lift, Windura pounding on the control buttons and cursing it for being so slow. When the lift finally jolted to a halt, the doors slid open with a hiss to reveal two huge Darconians. "I told you we exceeded the weight limit," one of them said.
"You never listen to me."
"Aw, shut up," the other said as the dinosaur-like creatures lumbered out of the lift with their tails swinging behind them.
Micayla and Windura dove into the lift and they both shouted out, "Level Ten!"
The doors remained open for what seemed like an eternity before finally closing just as their pursuers came into view.
"Shit!" Windura exclaimed. "This was a bad idea. They'll know what level we've gone to. All they have to do is look at the console!"
Fortunately, the lift stopped on Level Five to allow three Drells to get on before continuing on to Level Ten uninterrupted. Being Drells, they insisted on getting off first when the ladies tried to push past them. Shuffling slowly with their all-concealing locks dragging along the floor, Micayla was about to rip their hair out in frustration before they finally got out of the way. "Rude little rats, aren't they?" she observed.
"Can't stand them," Windura agreed. Glancing around, she read: "Level Ten, section thirty. Great. This is one of the docking rings. The station dead-ends here.
Sections twenty-eight and twenty-nine are that way," she said, pointing to the right.
"Come on," she said, motioning for Micayla to follow. "We've got to keep moving. This is where we were headed to start with, so maybe we'll be safe. Lots of people here."
"What about trying to find a guard?"
"Against those two? You don't know who we're up against, do you?"
Micayla shook her head.
"That was Rutger Grekkor," Windura said. "He's the head of the Commerce Consortium--has an interest in all sorts of things: jewelry, building materials,
pharmaceuticals, food processing, you name it. His official record is clean, but rumor has it that he heads up the biggest ring of drug smugglers in the galaxy."
"Oh, great," Micayla groaned. "He's probably got henchmen all over this station.
And did you hear what he said?"
"Yeah, I heard. You are in deep shit, my friend."
"Well, what about you? You heard what he said too. You're a witness. He said he had 'killed all those cats.' You realize what that means, don't you? He killed off everyone on my planet!"
"Looks like I'm in deep, deep shit right along with you."
Micayla took a hasty breath. "I know next to no one on this station and certainly nobody who works down here. Is there anyone you can trust?"
Windura looked uncomfortable. "Well, there's you... and the, um, hookers."
"Well, that's just great," Micayla said with disgust. "You know practically everyone and the hookers are the only ones you trust?"
"And you," Windura reminded her. "I trust you. You're too new here to be corrupted."
"And you, who knows everyone, aren't corrupt?"
Windura shrugged. "What can I say? I'm a computer geek. I can't be corrupted because I don't have any vices."
"No addiction to drugs, sex, or gambling?"
Windura shook her head.
"Not even food or alcohol?"
"Well, I do have to eat, but--"
"Never been bribed to fix a computer with expensive jewelry or sexual favors?"
"Sexual favors? Come on, Micayla! Who on this entire station would anyone want to have sex with? The Norludians? I'm the only Vessonian that I know of, and even if there were others... well, maybe I'm just too choosy--I mean, the Terrans aren't bad looking as a species, but most of the single ones on the station seem kinda skuzzy, except maybe that one guy you work with, but--"
"Oh, crap!"
"What?"
"Look," Micayla said, pointing.
Shouldering his way through the crowd ahead of them was Rutger Grekkor, his
shining blond hair in sharp contrast with the unkempt locks of those surrounding him.
"How the hell did he do that?" Micayla demanded as the two women turned tail and started running again, which was difficult because the place was crowded with some of the most disreputable-looking creatures Micayla had ever seen in her life. Windura hadn't been kidding about it being a good place to avoid.
"God only knows," Windura replied as she pushed past a smelly Cylopean.
"Did you see that gorilla with him?"
"You mean the Herpatronian?"
"Yeah, I guess." Micayla had never heard of the planet or the species and was beginning to wish she didn't know about them now.
"Didn't see him."
Micayla stopped short. "I do. There he is. Ahead of us."
"No, wait, there's a guard," Windura said. "Maybe--"
"Yes, I see him," Micayla said with a sinking feeling, "but something tells me he's not on our side." The tall, muscular Terran looked, if anything, even more forbidding than the gorilla. "Commander Beontal really has his work cut out for him, doesn't he?"
"You could say that," Grekkor said in Micayla's ear as she felt his arm grip her around the waist. The guard and the gorilla began to close in on them from the only other way out. "Don't make a sound or your friend dies."
Chapter 4
"What are you doing?" Micayla demanded as the two women were wrestled back toward the docking ring. "Where are you taking us?"
"I should have thought that was perfectly obvious," Grekkor said smoothly. "The slavers will soon be banned from this station--at least temporarily--but one of their ships is still docked here. You, my dears, are about to become their passengers."
"You'll never get away with this," Windura growled, struggling in the hold of Grekkor's gorilla.
"I'd rather die than be anyone's slave," Micayla said with an angry glare.
"That is easily arranged," Grekkor said. "No trouble at all, really. In fact, I believe I would enjoy watching you die. You are an abomination to this galaxy and should not be allowed to exist."
"And just what makes me such an abomination?" Micayla demanded.
Hatred flashed in his eyes, but he managed to control it enough to continue. "Your males," he spat out. "They are the most disgusting displays of carnal lust ever conceived."
"What's the matter?" Micayla taunted. "Have they got bigger balls than you?"
"They do not," Grekkor said, his voice cutting through her like a shard of ice. "For your information, I killed the one my wife consorted with. Slit his throat while she watched--and do you know what she did then?"
"Cut your balls off?" Micayla suggested sweetly. "It's what I would have done."
"Boy, you sure know how to placate the enemy, don't you?" Windura muttered.
"No!" Grekkor snarled. "She escaped from me and took the first ship she could find to go back to that cursed planet for another one!"
"Not very particular, was she?" Micayla said, adding, "But then, she did marry you."
Grekkor seemed to ignore this jibe, continuing on as though Micayla hadn't
spoken, his eyes taking on a maniacal gleam. "I knew then that they all had to die. Other males couldn't compete. Theirs was a newly discovered world--no more than a few years on the star charts and relatively unknown--backward, too. Not possessing the capability for interstellar travel if it hadn't been handed to them. I had to act quickly, and I did. It was not difficult to recruit an army against them. They were a threat to men of every mammalian species."
"And to the drug trade," Windura said getting into the spirit. "I know some women in the brothels. You're talking about Zetithians, aren't you? Their penile
secretions and semen act like drugs, triggering orgasms and euphoria in females. Let them spread across the galaxy and they could easily eliminate half of your drug sales--
maybe even some of the legal ones--and even more if it affected males."
Sneering at the Vessonian woman, Grekkor got right in her face and spoke very
deliberately, enunciating each emphatic word. "I do not sell illegal drugs."
"No, you probably just take your cut of the profits from all of those who do,"
Windura countered.
"You know nothing!"
"Hey, if I'm going to die or become a slave, it doesn't matter what I know, does it?"
Micayla felt the man holding her shift slightly and waited for the opportunity. If one of them could escape and sound the alarm...
"You there!" the Norludian shouted as he rounded the corner. "No shooting in the station! You spilled an entire shipment of Essence Preservative! You will have to pay for that!"
"Now!" Micayla shouted, stomping down hard on the Terran guard's foot as she elbowed him in the throat. Spinning on one foot, she slammed the other foot upside the Herpatronian's head and then kicked Grekkor in the groin.
"Come on!" Micayla yelled as she took off running.
"Not that way!" Windura protested. "It just circles around. All they have to do is wait for us."
They both began to stagger as a strong vibration hummed through the ring.
"What's that?"
"A ship firing up."
"Where?"
"There," Windura pointed as they raced toward the hatch.
Micayla hammered on the control panel, pushing every button there was.
Suddenly, the hatch rolled back with a screech and they both jumped into the airlock.
"This could be a very bad place in a minute when that ship leaves," she said as the hatch closed behind them.
"There's a force field on the airlock," Windura said, shaking her head. "We won't get sucked into space. If we're lucky, they'll think we've kept on running and might not find us for a while. That Norludian was pretty pissed too," she added before beginning to laugh uncontrollably.
"What's so damn funny?" Micayla demanded.
"That's what Essence Preservative is," she gasped as she wiped away tears of mirth. "It's their piss. They've probably been collecting that for months!"
Micayla couldn't help but laugh at the thought of their captors having slipped in a lake of urine. "I thought those guys smelled weird."
"They sure did," Windura agreed. "By the way, where the hell did you learn to do all of that self-defense stuff?"
"Martial arts training, courtesy of my stepmom," Micayla replied. "She thought it would help keep me safe--something she promised my real mother."
"Well, you're damn good at it," Windura said with unconcealed admiration. "Ever have to use it before?"
"Just on a few amorous boys from time to time. After a while, they decided it might be best to leave me alone."