Trouble Magnet (4 page)

Turning right, he entered the serviceway.

The encounter was almost a cliché, except that the two men and one woman were assaulting an alien and forced sex was not involved. One protruding from the top of its head and the other from the lower portion of its face, the Deyzara’s breathing and speaking trunks were writhing helplessly. Centered on the hairless ovoid of a skull, the large dark eyes bulged even more than usual. The woman easily held its limber arms behind its back. Terror was writ almost as large on its face and in its mind as the garish epidermal makeup favored by its kind. Its clothing was an explosion of bright color. Despite its extreme distress, the alien’s emotions lay light and feathery on Flinx’s mind, a kind of pastel panic.

Rummaging through the waist pack they had removed from the victim, the two male upwardly mobile thugs were arguing over a small, exquisitely made communications device of Deyzaran manufacture. They paused in their skirmishing only when they noticed a tall, slim figure quietly watching. Flinx sensed confusion, rapidly replaced by confidence.

“Vent, visitor,” one of the men growled.

His companion’s free hand drew a weapon from his chest belt. “Choose or lose, angulate.”

Easily maintaining her grip on the Deyzara’s arms, the woman nodded sharply in the newcomer’s direction. “He’s just a big kid, Vynax. Ignore him.” As the alien struggled, she twisted both boneless wrists. The Deyzara whimpered, an awkward gurgling sound.

“Let him go,” Flinx said quietly. Save an innocent individual, save the galaxy. Small steps always first, Mother Mastiff had frequently told him. Why was he getting involved? A hundred, a thousand similar little conflicts were doubtless playing themselves out all over this fermenting pustulence of a planet. Why insert himself into this one?

Because he could, he knew, sighing to himself. Because even if illegally and immorally genetically modified, he represented civilization, and the trio eyeing him warily represented—something else.

The man holding the weapon was preparing to shoot. Flinx knew this even though the gun holder had not said a word. His intent was plain in the surge of violent emotion that was rising like magma in his mind. So Flinx countered as he had learned to do over the past several years. Having grown up with the ability read the emotions of others he had gradually acquired, if not mastered, the concomitant ability to project them.

Fear replaced fury in his would-be murderer’s mind. Fear, and utter panic. Eyes widening suddenly, the hardened fighter let the gun slip from his fingers as he staggered backward, his gaze fixed on the indifferent figure looming before him. Initially slim and harmless, in the killer’s mind the tall young man had abruptly acquired horrific dimensions. Here was something to be feared, to be avoided, to run away from as fast as his feet could propel him. What exactly that was, he could not say. The omission puzzled, but did not dissuade him from backpedaling rapidly. His companions eyed him as if he had suddenly gone mad.

“Vynax, what the…?” Viewing the olive-skinned, red-haired youth standing in the entrance to the serviceway in an entirely new light, the other man started to reach for his own weapon. Dark green eyes shifted to meet his own.

Any careful, cool, collected consideration of the confrontation vanished as an overwhelming terror swept through the man. All he could think of was to get away, to flee, to take himself anywhere away from where he was. Whirling, he scrambled and stumbled in blind horror down the serviceway in the wake of his compatriot. Both men were moaning and chattering as if possessed by ghosts.

That left their female companion by herself. Maintaining her grip on the bewildered Deyzara, she stared at Flinx as if one of the graven monoliths of the Sauun had suddenly entered the serviceway and come thundering toward her. Stare as she might, she could not see anything that should have prompted the panicked flight of her normally assertive colleagues. Which made Flinx’s nonchalant approach all the more alarming. Though he towered over her, it was not his height that was intimidating. It was the intimation that he controlled something forceful and unseen; something potent enough to send not one but two murderous individuals like Howlow and Vynax running like scared little children.

Still, she stood her ground until something small, reptilian, and angry looking poked its head out of the pack riding on the redhead’s back. One hiss in her direction brought her to the swift conclusion that no matter how potentially valuable his possessions, the disposable property of one ugly alien was not worth wrestling with mysteries that took the form of tall, soul-piercing strangers and small, gimlet-eyed serpents. Letting go of the alien’s rubbery wrists, she took off in pursuit of her companions. It was not necessary for Flinx to project any emotions onto her: she was sufficiently frightened already.

The Deyzara stood unsteadily for a moment, then bent to recover his property that lay scattered on the pavement. Moon-like eyes regarded the tall human.

“I am very much extremely grateful to you, stranger sir.” As did many of its kind, the Deyzara spoke excellent terranglo. “As one engaged in business on several worlds, I am not one to generalize as to the nature of a species.” Two-fingered hands adjusted and repositioned belongings recovered from the ground. “But I must say that until your arrival and intervention, my opinion of your kind was undergoing a most precipitous droppage indeed.”

“Glad I was able to balance things out. If it’s any consolation, your opinion of my species probably still rates higher than my own.” Flinx turned to depart.

Like a pale rope, one alien arm hastily transcribed anxious circles in the air in front of its owner. “Wait, good person! I believe it is customary among your people, as it is among mine, for such a selfless deed to be rewarded.” The other two-fingered hand began to fumble with a sealed length of some metallic fabric.

“Some would say so,” Flinx murmured by way of reply, “but it’s not customary among me.”

After seeing the visiting Deyzara safely back out onto the main avenue, his rescuer turned and strode off in the opposite direction, leaving the bemused alien to follow him with its oversized eyes. Flinx would have declined the offer of a reward anyway, but he had another reason for wanting to ditch the other visitor’s company.

Surrounded, submerged, and enveloped by so many fuming emotions, the medication he had taken was already beginning to wear off and his head was starting to pound as if the masters of some minor race were attempting to drill their way into the back of his brain. He had to find a way to moderate them, or he was going to have to abandon this world without reaching the conclusions he sought to the questions he had posed to himself. This was not recently visited Arrawd, where he could effortlessly shut out the feelings of the locals. Here, as on nearly every other world, he had little control over the emotional storm that raged all around him.

He finally decided that unless the pain became incapacitating, he would not flee Malandere. Instead, he would try to find a less emotionally turbulent space within it.

One hope he held was that the nights might prove to be less invasive and disturbing than the days. This wish was quickly quashed as he lay in bed in his hotel room after sunset only to be emotively assaulted as forcefully as he had been at noon. Unable to sleep he rose, slipped on belt and pack, made sure Pip was comfortable in the depths of the latter, and wandered outside. He could not compress or shove aside the flood of feelings that surged around him, but physical activity helped minimize the discomfort somewhat. Lying motionless was the worst. At least when he was moving, observing, studying constantly changing surroundings, it forced his thoughts to focus on something other than the throbbing in his head.

Malandere at night was as dynamic as it was during the day, though the thrust of activity was different. Commerce was still the principal order of business, but it tended to take place on a more personal level. Companies might be closed for the day, municipal facilities muted, but everywhere one looked, something was being sold, traded, bartered, offered, or exchanged. And sometimes, someone.

Even more so than during the hours of daylight, the darkened streets of the city lay smothered beneath a blanket of emotion. Feelings boiled and bubbled all around him. Foremost amid the sea of sentiment were desperation and desire, the latter often leading to the former. Like many thriving, wide-open colony worlds, Visaria was a first choice of the hopeful and a last refuge of the hopeless, thousands of its denizens driven by the twin dynamos of triumph and despondency. The need to succeed led individuals who might have worked at legitimate professions on other worlds to resort to doing things they would otherwise never have contemplated. Mugging inoffensive visiting Deyzara, for example.

Letting chance and indifference guide him, he turned a corner only to stumble onto a face-off between a pair of local youth gangs. A commonality to civilizations throughout the course of human history, this particular incipient confrontation differed from its ancient predecessors only in choice of attire, weaponry, and the inclusion of the occasional nonhuman in the ranks. While the words being vigorously tossed around were different, the sentiments they conveyed were no different from identical taunts that had once resounded on the streets of ancient Rome or Thebes, Cuzco or Angkor or Mohenjo Daro. Or earlier still, in caves. As ever, they included remarks concerning the legitimacy of specific individuals’ ancestry, demeaning appraisals of the sexual prowess of those opposite, and respective suggestions as to how those on the other side might best go about performing certain physical impossibilities.

Flinx had sensed the rising group animosity before he had turned the corner, of course. Curious, he joined several other passersby in standing and watching. Several among the crowd of onlookers egged the opposing groups on. As long as it didn’t spread to include spectators, such nocturnal combat promised free entertainment, with the added benefit of allowing those not participating to depart feeling morally superior.

He turned away before the confrontation escalated to more than verbal sparring. The emotions flooding through the bystanders depressed him far more than the adolescent bloodlust being pumped out by the two groups of young ruffians. The outlook of mature lawbreakers he could understand, if not empathize with. They were professionals who had deliberately settled on an antisocial way of life. And judging from what he had already detected in the course of his first day in Malandere, such individuals were in ample supply on Visaria. Their existence did not disappoint him, because he expected it. The same could be said for the rival gangs of misdirected, unguided youth.

It was only when the citizenry at large of a place reeked of unwholesomeness that he found himself losing hope.

Though he wished for it, the days that followed gave him no reason for optimism. He found himself sinking farther and farther into gloom. Pip tried her best to help, not realizing that those very efforts only contributed to her master’s intensifying melancholy. What hope was there for a society when its only emotionally selfless denizen was a nonsentient flying creature who hailed from a world whose native civilization was already long past its prime?

If a majority of sentients no longer cared about one another, why should he forgo his life and happiness to do what they could not? Even the martial AAnn, for whom self-advancement was the greatest good, recognized and respected the need to help one another, if only to advance themselves as individuals. Why should he have to be the one to give up everything? Clarity was waiting for him; he was as certain of that as he was of anything in the universe. Returning to her and living out his natural life span, perhaps on an accommodating world like New Riviera, would disappoint his mentors Tse-Mallory and Truzenzuzex. Their displeasure would hurt, but no more so than the assorted pain and suffering he had already, often futilely, endured. He was not a child anymore. Did he deserve happiness any less than the selfish, egocentric swarms busy exploiting worlds like Visaria?

Everybody wanted him to save them. Who was there, except perhaps Clarity, who was willing to sacrifice even a little to save him? With his recurrent headaches and unpredictable Talent and ineluctable burden of knowledge of what was coming this way out of the Great Emptiness, would he even be doing
her
a favor by returning?

It struck him suddenly that he could lose himself here. If he stayed on Visaria, in Malandere or another of its teeming, festering cities, he might go mad, overwhelmed by the flood of raw emotion surrounding him. Would that be such a bad thing? he found himself wondering. He could simply let things go and succumb to himself. Maybe even the pain in his brain would go away, or he would become so anesthetized to its constancy that he would lose the ability to feel it. It was an alternative to suicide he had never before considered. Life as a condition of perpetual numbness.

He wandered on into the night, oblivious to the strobing lights, howling touts human and alien and mechanical, curious stares, intimate come-ons, garbled offers of assorted contraband, and conflicts both observed and sensed. Most folk got out of his way. Those who persisted found themselves unaccountably starting to sweat, or to see small unpleasantnesses that weren’t there, or to otherwise find sudden reason to move on.

The night, the noise, and the inescapable emotional storm that was civilization in its most frenzied form closed in around a troubled, lonely Philip Lynx and swallowed him up.

CHAPTER

3

Subar was not an ethical thief in that he stole not just from the crooked but from anybody, everybody, and whomever he could. Being a true citizen of the Commonwealth, neither did he distinguish among species. If a temptingly gullible intelligence was in possession of something valuable he could safely appropriate for himself, he did not discriminate as to its color, sex, size, shape, number of limbs, language, origin, religion or lack thereof, class, clan, or preferred breathable atmosphere. Robbery-wise, the sixteen-year-old was as egalitarian as they came. Given the opportunity, he would hit an easy target over the head no matter what shape or form that protuberance took. Or if a head was lacking, he was quite happy to bludgeon the appropriate substitute.

Alewev was not the worst district of the huge sprawl that was Malandere City. It was too poor to hold that distinction. Whereas other sections like Gijjmelor and Pandrome had cemented their status as sections of the metropolis that churned out evil as fast as they did credit, Alewev merely sustained a reputation for steady decay. Only occasionally did some exceptional outrage occur there that proved media-worthy.

That was fine with Subar. He was not one of those middle-aged villains whose future was inevitably cut short by a desperate need for publicity. Much more logical, he reasoned, to operate under the scanner, as far away as possible from the attention of sensation-seeking tridee types and the perpetually harried authorities. He had no interest whatsoever in delivering Olympian pronouncements to the municipal media from the confines of one of the city’s overpopulated criminal holding facilities. Getting one’s image on the tridee was a poor trade-off for selective mindwipe.

Besides, having to live in close quarters with his generally worthless, misbegotten relatives was punishment enough.

He jumped the last level from the roof to the street and strutted the final couple of blocks to the baroon. Chaloni, Dirran, Zezula, Missi, and Sallow Behdul were already there, lounging on chairs or vilators on the second-floor deck out front. As always, his gaze was immediately drawn to Zezula. How she got her slender yet ripe self into the garment known as a twyne, much less kept all the strips of dark glistening fabric in place, constituted a demonstration of practical physics that far exceeded in interest anything he had encountered in the course of his occasional limited sojourns into academics. Sparkling like specular hematite, the lengths of black shimmer only emphasized the whiteness of her flesh. She looked, he thought deliciously, like a stick of some particularly exotic candy confection.

Grinning, Chaloni welcomed him with a gentle chiding. “Better roll your tongue back into your mouth, Subar, before somebody steps on it.” The gang leader and Dirran laughed while Sallow Behdul, who rarely showed anything in the way of emotion, dredged a vapid smile from the depths of his gaunt, progeria-afflicted visage.

Subar’s tongue was not protruding in the slightest, much less hanging out, but both young men understood the meaning behind the gang leader’s words. For her part Zezula ignored them both, in the way of those females who are young, beautiful, and aware of it.

Taking care to position himself as gracefully as possible (in case Zezula happened to be paying attention), Subar flopped down onto a mist-lounge and as best he was able affected an air of sophisticated indifference. The pose was a complete sham, of course. Despite his best efforts, the teen possessed as much actual sophistication as the stuff one found washing down street drains. Only Chaloni, two years older and the more wizened for it, had spent enough time outside Alewev to claim such knowledge. That he rarely flaunted his experience was what made his nominal leadership of the group tolerable.

“Have something,” the older boy offered magnanimously.

Subar didn’t hesitate. Having nothing at home, he was not ashamed to succumb to Chaloni’s charity. There was a plate of small, locally made pastries; something purplish red, sweet, and offworld; mung drops; and geltubes filled with dizzle. As the latter sang in his mouth, he helped himself to a glassful of pale blue frolic. Twenty percent alcohol by volume from the bottle, it dissipated to less than 2 percent by the time it reached the stomach. One could get high on it, but never drunk.

On the street below, pedestrians worked their way around slow-moving groundbound vehicles. The throughway was off limits to skimmers, which needed more space in any case in order to maneuver at speeds fast enough to render ascension cost-effective. One-way transparencies lined the sides of office and commercial buildings opposite the baroon, while seemingly weightless porches protruded from the apartments situated higher up. Occasionally a semi-legal flad would drift by, flashing its images and blaring its commercial message. These fled whenever an automated plad showed up in pursuit. Stay outside and observe the street scene long enough, and one was sure to see a municipal plad catch up to and destroy one or more of the illegal aerial advertisements. Those who programmed and sent out the flads counted such destruction against the cost of doing business.

Stimulated by the food and drink, Subar soaked up the familiar clamor of the street and the chatter of his friends in equal measure. There was much nattering of inconsequentialities. Though shorter and stockier than Zezula, Missi conceded nothing to the other girl. Dirran talked as much as any of them, while Sallow Behdul simply sat quietly and listened. Subar chipped in when he had something to add. While he was as argumentative as any of them, he was careful never to directly contradict Chaloni. Subar knew he was smarter than the gang’s leader, and almost as big, but there were mysteries to which the other boy had been exposed that remained closed to him.

Meanwhile, he bided his time and sucked up Chaloni’s largesse. He felt no shame in this. When one has nothing, one takes whatever is offered from whoever offers it. Insurrection is difficult to mount on an empty stomach.

“Who’s got cred this week?” The gang leader sat up, his mist-chair hissing softly beneath him. Dirran immediately handed over his card. While both boys held on to the identification square of their respective chits, Chaloni touched the other boy’s to his own. A transfer was accomplished. The gang leader repeated the process with Zezula, Missi, and Sallow Behdul. He did not even bother to query the youngest member of the group. If not for Chaloni’s munificence, and a rare moment of pity, Subar would not even have a card. In any case, the balance on it rarely read more than zero.

Touching a corner of the card to a receptor on his stimshades, Chaloni scanned his account’s new, uplifted balance. Satisfied, he ordered another bottle of dizzle, a different song this time.

As liquid found its way to waiting, self-chilling glasses, Missi dared to voice a mild protest. “That’s three weeks straight, Chal. I’m tapped. My mother’s gonna have a Morion if she finds out.”

Chaloni shrugged, grinned. “Don’t you secure your account?”

The heftier girl looked away. “Sure, but sometimes she asks to viz the transfer, just to make sure everything’s opto. I can’t keep putting her off forever.” She looked worried. “One of these days she’s gonna ask where the cred fled.”

Chaloni nodded, as if he had expected something like this from Missi all along. “I know I’ve been tapping youls hard lately. And that’s going to be fixed. Come morn after morrow, you’re all going to see your accounts floating higher than zeal on a holiday shrake.”

Dirran was immediately interested. “What you got in mind, Chal? We gonna zlip another quicore?” He was remembering the last time they had boosted a couple of expensive players from a display.

In ancient times, Subar knew, it had been easier. Payment was made with discs of gold and silver metal, or pieces of paper that stood in for cred. Except on the most isolated, backward worlds such mediums of exchange had not existed for hundreds of years. It was hard to be a thief when everything was paid for via a shifting of electrons. Hard, but not impossible. Physical objects still had value. A gun, for example, was always exchangeable for cred.

“I’m ready.” Zezula’s response was a breathy blend of honey and disdain. Her reply could be taken different ways. Sopping it up, Subar’s respiration came a little faster.

“Same here,” grunted Sallow Behdul almost inaudibly.

“No quicore napping. Not this time.” Chaloni’s smile widened, the way it always did when he was preparing to spring some new surprise on them. He was letting the moment linger, savoring the incipient revelation. “Bigger strike. Bigger, and easier.” As he leaned toward them, his smile tightened. “We’re going to scrim a couple of visitors.”

Subar’s gaze shifted immediately to the street below. They had scrimmed pedestrians before, sometimes profitably, sometimes incurring the risk for nothing. You had to be fast and careful, and burrow to cover immediately afterward. Swamped with casework, the municipal authorities tended to relegate crimes of property to the bottom of their overworked agendas. Those crimes that involved assaults on persons drew swifter attention. That was because, Subar knew, a boosted and cleaned vehicle could not complain as easily as an injured citizen.

“Who?” Dirran was asking. “Where?”

“Something special this time. I’ve been scoping it for days. Got it locked down. We’re in, we’re on them, and we’re out. If I’ve evaled it right, everybody’s cred is going to wax max like you haven’t coned it in months.”

Subar was no less intrigued than the others. They edged closer, their concentration now fully fixed on their leader. Well, almost fully. Always hungry, Subar continued to pick at the food while devoting the rest of his attention to Chaloni.

“The location’s perfect,” the gang leader was whispering. “Bellora Park, east quad.”

Missi frowned. “That’s not in Alewev.”

Chaloni shook his head impatiently. “Huh-uh—Shangside. Easy transport, lots of connections at the nearest station. Afterward, we can each of us get home six different ways. Safe and sane.”

Subar chose that moment to show both his smarts, and that he’d been paying attention. “You said you’d scoped ‘them.’”

The gang leader eyed him approvingly. “Uh-huh. There’s just two. A senior female and one male attendant who’s always with her.”

Zezula sounded uncertain. “‘Senior female’? What is she, some kind of government administrator?”

The fact that Chaloni was probably zoffing her did not keep him from utilizing the opportunity to display his superior knowledge, tinged with just a hint of disdain. “That’s how you refer to a female thranx past egg-laying prime.”

The two girls looked at one another. Dirran was startled into the kind of dumbfounded silence usually reserved for Sallow Behdul. It was left to Subar to voice what his companions were feeling.

“We’re going to scrim a pair of
thranx
?”

Chaloni’s tone had turned chill. He was all business now. “Why not? You got anything against cracking chitin instead of bone?”

Reflexively, Subar shook his head vigorously from side to side. He had seen thranx before. Not just on the tridee but also in person, though only rarely. They had little reason to visit Alewev District. There was nothing for them there. But on a bustling, perfervid world like Visaria, where business was ongoing around the clock and cred was being accumulated by the nanosecond, every sentient species whose culture allowed for the accrual of wealth by an individual, clan, family, or group had an interest in establishing a presence in the capital city. Humankind’s closest and most important allies within the Commonwealth, the insectoid thranx had a similar appreciation for affluence.

But to scrim one—or in this case, two—that was something Subar had never even imagined. As he sat pondering, his thoughts whirling, it was Zezula’s turn to press Chaloni further.

“Why thranx?” she inquired huskily. “I mean, I don’t have anything against it: a boost is a boost. But why bugs instead of bipeds?”

Chaloni nodded patiently, his body language showing that he had clearly anticipated the question. “Well for one thing, nobody’ll be expecting it.” His grin returned, twisted this time. “Show the media that we here in Alewev don’t discriminate. Bugs won’t be expecting it, either.” He fixed her with a mixture of sloe-eyed lust and testosterone-fueled dominance. “I told you, I
scoped
it. We’ll be in and out before anybody can raise an alarm.” Leaning back on the mist-chair, he folded his slender, muscular arms across his chest in a posture of youthful bravado.