Ride the Star Winds (32 page)

She said, “We have some living to do ourselves after all this time.”

She led the way into his bedroom.

Chapter 6

It had been a long time,
as she had said, but after the initial fumbling there was the old, sweet familiarity, the fitting of part to part, the teasing caress of hands on skin, of lips on lips and then, from her, the sharp yet melodious cries as he drove deeper and deeper and his own groans as her arms and legs imprisoned his body, her heels pummeling his buttocks.

They did not—they were out of practice with each other—reach climax together but her orgasm preceded his by only a few seconds.

They would rather have remained in the rumpled bed, to talk lazily for a while and then, after not too long an interval, to resume their love-making but, after all, they were guests and, furthermore, guests in the palace of a planetary ruler. Such people, no matter how humble their origins (or, perhaps, especially if their origins were humble) do not care to be kept waiting. So they showered together—but did not make an erotic game of it—and resumed their clothing. Maggie, who, by this time, was well-acquainted with the layout of the palace, led Grimes to the small, private dining room where they were to eat with the Archon. They arrived there just before Brasidus.

The meal was a simple one, served by two very homely maidservants. There was a sort of casserole of some meat that might have been lamb, very heavily spiced. There was a rough red wine that went surprisingly well with the main course. For a sweet there was not too bad baklava, accompanied by thick, syrupy coffee. “We do not grow our own yet,” said Brasidus, “but we hope to be doing so by next year. Soon, John, there will be no need for your
Sister Sue
to bring us cargoes of such luxuries from Earth.” He laughed. “And what will you do then to make an honest living? Return to a career of piracy or find another governor’s job?” There was brandy, in warmed inhalers, a quite good Metaxa.

The serving wenches cleared away the debris of the meal.

Having asked the permission of their host Grimes lit his pipe and Maggie a cigarillo. They were expecting, both of them, to settle down to an evening of reminiscent conversation over the brandy bottle but Brasidus surprised them.

“Help yourselves to more drinks, if you wish,” he told them. “I am going to change. I shall not keep you long.”

“To change, Brasidus?” asked Grimes.

“Yes. I have heard much of that new show at the Arena—you, Maggie, told me of it. I have not seen it yet. Ellena does not approve of such entertainment. I thought that this evening would be an ideal opportunity for me to witness the . . . the goings on.”

“You’re the boss,” said Grimes.

When he was gone Maggie said, “He likes doing the Haroun al-Raschid thing now and again. Strolling among his citizens incognito, keeping his finger on the pulse and all the rest of it. Ellena doesn’t altogether approve, but when the cat’s away . . . .”

“And we’re among the mice this evening, I suppose.”

“I’m afraid so. But
you
should enjoy the show at the Arena. As I recall you, you have a thing about the weirder variations of the female face and form divine. That cat woman on Morrowvia with whom you had a roll in the hay. That
peculiar
clone or whatever she was from whom the Survey Service had to rescue you when you were trying to get
Bronson Star
back to where she had been skyjacked from. There have been others, no doubt.”

“Mphm,” grunted Grimes through a cloud of acrid tobacco smoke. He refilled the brandy inhalers. “Mphm.”

“I will have one too,” said Brasidus.

Grimes stared at him. Had it not been for the man’s voice he would never have recognized the Archon. Yet the disguise was simple enough, just a spray-on dye applied to hair and beard, converting what had been light brown hair with the occasional silver thread to a not unnatural looking black.

The Archon drained his glass, then led the way out of the small dining room.

They made their way to what Grimes thought of as the tradesmen’s entrance.

Two men were waiting for them there, dressed, as was Grimes, in one-piece gray suits in a somewhat outmoded Terran style. Unlike Grimes, who liked a touch of garish color in his neckwear, they had on cravats that almost exactly matched the color and texture of the rest of their clothing. Their side pockets bulged, as did Grimes’s. Were they, he wondered, also pipe smokers? The Archon himself was dressed in the clothing appropriate to a lower middle-class citizen on a night out—knee-length blue tunic with touches of golden embroidery, rather elaborate sandals with, it seemed, more brass (not very well-polished) than leather. Maggie had on the modified Greek female dress that had been introduced from Earth—a short, white, rather flimsy tunic, sleeveless and with one of her shoulders left completely bare.

Brasidus introduced his two bodyguards—or so Grimes thought they must be; they looked the part—as Jason and Paulus. They could have been twins—although, he found later, they were not even related. They were tallish rather than tall, stoutish rather than stout and wore identical sullen expressions on their utterly undistinguished faces.

Jason brought a rather battered four-passenger hovercar round to the portico. It looked like something bought, cheaply, from Army Surplus. But there was nothing at all wrong with its engine and Grimes noticed various bulges in its exterior paneling mat that probably concealed weapons of some kind.

Jason was a good driver.

Soon the vehicle was whining through the narrow streets of the city which, mainly, were illumined by deliberately archaic gas flares, avoiding near collisions with contemptuous ease, finally gliding into the garish neon glare of the Street of the Haetaeri. Parking was found very close to the entrance of Aristotle’s Arena. The three men and the woman got out and walked the short distance to the ticket booth. Brasidus pulled a clinking coin purse from the pouch at his belt and paid admission for the party.

“It’s a good show, citizen,” said the ticket vendor, a woman who was disguised as a Japanese geisha but whose face, despite the thickly applied cosmetics, was more Caucasian than Asian. “You’re just in time to see the cat girls doing their thing.”

Maggie, who had been to this place before, led the way down a flight of stone stairs. At the bottom of these they emerged from dim lighting into what was almost complete darkness. An usherette dressed in what looked like an imitation of an Amazon guard’s uniform—but the tip of her short spear functioned as a torch—led them to their seats, which were four rows back from the circular, sand-covered arena. She sold them doughnut-shaped pneumatic cushions—the seating was on stone benches—which they had to inflate themselves. As they settled down in an approximation to comfort the show started.

There was music of some kind over the public address system. Grimes didn’t recognize the tune. Maggie whispered, “But you should, John. Apparently it’s a song that was popular on Earth—oh, centuries ago. Somebody must have done his homework. It’s called, ‘What’s new, Pussycat?’”

Brasidus muttered sourly, “Some Earth imports we could do without.”

A spotlight came on, illuminating the thing that emerged from the tunnel that gave entrance to the arena. It was . . .
Surely not!
thought Grimes. But it was. It was a giant mouse. A robot mouse, its movements almost lifelike. There were no real mice on New Sparta, of course, although immigrants from Earth knew about them and there were now plenty of illustrated books on Terran zoology. And cats, real cats, had been introduced by the Terran immigrants.

The mouse made an unsteady circuit of the arena.

Two more spotlights came on, shining directly onto the naked bodies of the two Morrowvian dancers. Their makeup accentuated their feline appearance, striped body paint making them look like humanoid tigresses. Spiky, artificial whiskers decorated their cheeks and vicious fangs protruded from their mouths.

They did not make the mistake of dropping to all fours but they moved with catlike grace, in time to the wailing music. They stalked the mouse from opposite directions and whoever was at the remote controls of the robot managed to convey a quite convincing impression of animal panic, even to a thin, high, terrified squeaking. Every now and again one of the girls would catch it, but do no more than stoop gracefully to bat the robot off its feet with a swipe of a pawlike hand. Each time it recovered and made another dash, and then the other girl would deal with it as her companion had done.

Finally the audience was tiring of the cat and mouse game. There were shouts of, “Finish it! Finish it!”

The taller of the two girls pounced. She dropped to her knees and brought her mouth, with those vicious fangs, down to the neck of the giant mouse. There was a final, ear-piercing squeak. There must have been bladders full of some red fluid under the robot’s synthetic skin; a jet of what looked like blood spurted out over the cat woman’s face, dripped on to the sand. She made her exit then, still on all fours, the carcass hanging from her mouth. Either the robot was very light or those false teeth were very securely anchored.

Her companion trailed after her, also on her hands and knees, caterwauling jealously.

The applause could have been more enthusiastic but, even so, the audience wasn’t sitting on its collective hands.

“Quite good,” admitted Brasidus. Then, “You have been to Morrowvia, John and Maggie. Do the people there really hunt like that?”

“They are fond of hunting,” Maggie told him. “But they hunt much larger animals than mice, and they use spears and bows and arrows. And their teeth, after all the engineered genetic alterations, are like yours and mine. And they don’t have whiskers. And their skins aren’t striped, although their hair, on the head and elsewhere, often is . . . .”

“Please leave me some illusions,” laughed Brasidus.

But Grimes was not listening to them.

He was looking across the arena to where a tangle of audio and video recording equipment had been set up. In the middle of this, like a malignant female spider in her web, was a woman.

Even over a distance Grimes recognized her, and thereafter, while the lights were still on, tried to keep his face turned away from her. Eating one of the hot, spiced sausages that Brasidus had bought from a passing attendant helped.

Chapter 7

“Citizens!”
The voice of the master of ceremonies blared from the public address system. “Citizens! Now it is my great pleasure to announce the two boxing kangaroos from New Alice . . .” There was an outburst of applause; obviously this was a very popular act. Grimes could not catch the names of the performers. It would be too much of a coincidence, he thought, if they should turn out to be Shirl and Darleen. Those ladies had been in show business on New Venusberg but as quarry in the so-called kangaroo hunt. He knew that they could fight—first as gladiators in the Colosseum and then helping to beat off a Shaara attack—but their weapons had been boomerangs, not their fists. “And now may I call for volunteers? You know the rules. No weapons, bare fists only. Should any one of you succeed in knocking down one of the ladies she will be yours for the night. Stand up, those who wish to take part in the prize fight of the century! The usherettes will escort you to the changing room.”

All around the arena men were getting to their feet. There was no shortage of volunteers.

“What about you, John?” asked Maggie. “Wouldn’t you like to add a New Alician to your list of conquests?”

“No,” Grimes said. “No.” (He had no need to tell her that he and those two New Alicians, Shirl and Darleen, had been rather more than just good friends.)

“
I
am tempted,” said Brasidus.

“It would not be wise,” said Jason.

The last of the volunteers—there had been two dozen of them—had been led to the changing room. The house lights dimmed. There was taped music, an old Australian folk song that Grimes recognized.
Tie me kangaroo down, sport, tie me kangaroo down . . .
Some, more than a few, of the audience, knew the words and started to sing. Grimes joined them.

“Please don’t,” said Maggie, wincing exaggeratedly.

Then the song was over and the music that replaced it was old, old. There was the eerie whispering of the didgerydoo, the xylophonic clicking of singing sticks. Out of the tunnel and onto the sand bounded the two New Alicians, their hands held like paws in front of their small breasts. Save for the absence of long, muscular tails they could well have been large, albino kangaroos. As they hopped around the ring the lights over the arena itself brightened and some, but not all, of the illusion evaporated. But it was still obvious that the remote ancestry of these girls had not been human. There were the heavy rumps, the very well-developed thighs, the lower legs inclined to be skinny, something odd about the jointure of the knees. They were horse-faced, but pleasantly so, handsome rather than pretty, not quite beautiful. They were . . . .

Surely not!
thought Grimes. This would be altogether too much of a coincidence. First Maggie (but his and her presence on this world together was perhaps not so coincidental), then Fenella Pruin, and now Shirl and Darleen. But he knew, all too well, that real life abounds in coincidences that a fiction writer would never dare to introduce.

The music fell silent. There was a roll of drums, a blaring trumpet. There was the voice of the announcer as the first pair of volunteers, in bright scarlet boxer shorts, came trotting out through the tunnel.

“Citizens! Killer Kronos and Battling Bellepheron, to uphold the honor of New Sparta!”

The men, both of them heavily muscled louts, raised their fists above their heads and turned slowly to favor each and every member of the audience with simian grins.

A bell sounded:

The men advanced upon their female adversaries, clenched fists ready to deliver incapacitating blows. Shirl and Darleen stood their ground. Kronos launched what should have been a devastating swipe, that would have been one such had it connected. But Shirl little more than shrugged and the fist missed her left ear by considerably more than the thickness of a coat of paint. And then she was on him, her own fists pummeling his chest and belly. He roared with rage and tried to throw his thick arms about her, to crush her into submission. She danced back and he embraced nothingness. What happened next was almost too fast for the eye to follow. She jumped straight up and drove both feet into his midsection. It was almost as though she were balanced on a stout, muscular but invisible tail. She and Kronos hit the sand simultaneously, she in a crouching posture, he flat on his back. He stirred feebly, made an attempt to get up and then slumped.