04. The Return of Nathan Brazil (2 page)

But this was only the beginning; it was moving so fast that the sunlight reflected from tens of thousands of scales giving it the appearance of sparkling with as many rhinestones; the effect was brilliant and added to the hypnotic power of the alien music. And now the crowd stood back, awed in spite of itself, appreciating the strange scene.

The lizard now formed an oval with his mouth, an incredible sight on such a serpentine face, and there was the sound of a great amount of air rumbling about somewhere inside. Now it came out in a steady
whoosh,
and the watchers gasped. Fire! He was exhaling fire and forming patterns with it! Circles, whirls, shapes odd and familiar appeared and vanished in split seconds while the lizard yet danced, a sparkling blur.

The Gypsy continued to play, but as he did his steel-gray eyes rested not on his lizard companion but on the crowd, looking at them one by one. Studying them, analyzing them.

Even the Dreel who were camouflaged inside the body and mind of Har Bateen were captivated. This was beyond their experience and they shared its alien grace and beauty with the others.

And now it was over suddenly, without fanfare, the last note and the last blazing sparkles faded into the hot, dry air so that only memory remained of the haunting, strange performance.

The crowd stood there, transfixed, still stunned by this performance, not saying a word, or acting in any way until, suddenly, one, then more snapped out of his trance and applauded. The applause quickly rose to a crescendo of cheers and whistles as well as clapping.

The Gypsy bowed slightly, acknowledging the tribute, and even the lizard-creature seemed to nod toward each one in the audience in turn. The strange man put his flute away and waited for the appreciation to subside. Finally he said, in a clear but oddly accented low tenor, "Citizens, we thank you, both my friend and I."

"Do it again!" somebody shouted, and there were nods and murmurs. "Yeah, more! More!" others called out, adding to the din.

The Gypsy smiled. "Thank you, my friends, we would be delighted to do so—but we must eat, and my friend here has a bigger appetite than do I. Some token of appreciation—Marquoz!—would be most gratifying."

At the name "Marquoz" the little dragon snorted, looked up at the man, and seemed to smile—a grotesque smile that revealed the nastiest set of teeth anybody there ever remembered—and then picked up a bag and advanced slowly on the crowd. They started moving nervously back.

The Gypsy laughed. "My friends, do not fear Marquoz! He will not eat you. He wishes only what I wish, money to purchase some more civilized food. Just a coin in his little bag, one coin, gentle citizens, and perhaps we shall have our eats and you another dance, hey?"

The braver ones in the crowd stopped retreating and when the lizard reached them and held out the bag, tossed one or two coins in. It became a torrent after a moment, quickly filling the bag.

"Enough! You are too kind!" the Gypsy called out. "Marquoz?"

The lizard snorted, startling the people closest to him because two puffs of white smoke exploded from his nostrils when he did. Then he turned and brought the bag back to the Gypsy. It was heavy now, and the man was thin, yet the bag somehow seemed to vanish, coins and all, into some hidden nether-space on his person. He smiled, bowed again, and produced the flute once more.

The second performance resembled the first yet was a totally different dance with totally different moves and strange fiery shapes to a different yet no less alien, and exotic, tune.

Har Bateen stood through the second performance, admiring it with the rest. Finally when the applause had died down and the Gypsy protested that Marquoz needed a rest, they started to break up and resume their milling around.

The Gypsy bent down, apparently to inspect the stoic Marquoz, and a large human hand slipped into that of the lizard. Small, spidery clawed fingers tapped idly at the man's palm. He nodded, then got back up and looked around.

Several people approached to talk to him, admire Marquoz, or ask questions about the strange lizard, but he laughed them away with the excuse that Marquoz had to get out of the hot sun and get a water rubdown. The reasoning seemed a little suspect—the lizard appeared not only comfortable but also more at home in Parkatin's heat than the humans but they accepted his explanation.

They started walking toward the strip of honkey-tonks and bars, away from the freight docks, two pair of eyes on Har Bateen.

The collective experience of the Dreel made few mistakes; getting tailed was not one of them. Bateen realized the odd pair was behind him—they were hardly inconspicuous in any event. That worried him —first, he'd obviously done something to arouse suspicion and hadn't the slightest idea what; second, a pair following so obviously meant that others were almost certainly about.

Well, so be it, the Dreel agent decided. Best to see what we're dealing with, anyway. He led them a merry path up and down streets and alleyways, always trying to spot the ones he
knew
must be following less obtrusively but never catching sight of them. The Gypsy was obviously Com Police. The Dreel admired the technique even as he was still confused to its method. A Gypsy went anywhere, out into the open, but into the worst places and the worst neighborhoods without attracting suspicion—and even if the man couldn't take care of himself, his big pet with its thousands of sharp teeth would certainly work against any surprise attacks.

And with that Har Bateen thought he guessed it. So obvious—yet no shadows. Why? Because they knew he wouldn't lead them anywhere, would only go up and down the dockfront streets. And one of those streets was a trap. They would wait. Wait for Har Bateen to panic and walk or run into the setup. He could try to lose them, of course—but that would be a betrayal of guilt. They could shoot him. He had important things to do; Har Bateen did not want to die at all, but particularly not right now.

He had about a fifteen-meter lead on them, although they were slowly closing on him. That was a lot of space. He chose his alley well, then turned into it quickly, as if making his break.

The Gypsy and the lizard speeded up; it was obvious that the little dragon could far outrun the man, but he stuck with him. They turned the corner into the alleyway on the run—and found themselves in a dead end, with tall buildings on all three sides.

The Gypsy whipped out a pistol with the same dexterity with which he'd pocketed the bag of coins and from the same apparent place. He looked up and around.

"Drop it
now!
" commanded the voice of Har Bateen not only from above but from
behind
them. The Gypsy did not drop it immediately, but turned slowly, looking in the direction of the voice. Spotting the man, he sighed and dropped the pistol to the alley. He didn't know how Bateen had managed it but the Dreel now sat on a small ledge a good six meters up. He must climb like a monkey, the Gypsy thought. The walls were ribbed block, but
he
couldn't have made it up there in that length of time.

The Dreel stared uneasily at the dragon, who stared back at him with blazing eyes, catlike black ovals against a dark scarlet backdrop.

"Don't try siccing your big pet on me," Bateen warned. "Just keep him there."

The man nodded back and said out of the corner of his mouth, "Marquoz! Stay!"

The dragon snorted and seemed to grumble a little but sat back on his tail and relaxed slightly.

"All right, now, who are you and why are you following me?" the Dreel challenged.

The Gypsy grinned apologetically and spread his hands. "When we take the collection, you see, we often get to see who has the biggest bankroll. Marquoz, here, can be, ah,
very
persuasive for such a one to, ah, substantially increase his donation to us. We have been stuck in this god-forsaken hole of a planet for much too long. Business is not good—we were, ah, asked to leave the ship here, not our scheduled stop, and we have not yet been able to make our expenses and our fares out. And, to make it short, the local cops are wise to us."

The Dreel considered the explanation. It made sense—and the bankroll he had was more than apparent and was meant to be so. Still, there was something here that didn't ring true. For ones who'd been on this planet long enough to acquire a bad reputation why were they so obviously a novelty to the crowd? Bateen decided to take no chances.

"All right—that thing, there. What is it?" he demanded.

The Gypsy looked toward Marquoz, impassively sitting on his big tail. "I met him on a backwater frontier planet. He wasn't native to it; he belonged to a number of my fellow tribesmen who had been asked, shall we say, to stay a while by the local police. About three years, actually. I, of course, agreed to take him in a flash, and he took to me as well. I have no idea where they picked him up."

That didn't tell the Dreel much, but, then again, there were a lot odder lifeforms than Marquoz around not excluding the Dreel themselves. The story had the ring of truth—and the final clincher was the Gypsy's pistol. Not the supermodern type the Com Police would use, all gleaming and near-transparent with its ruby power source. Just a common tramp's pistol, a small laser driller, just like somebody of the Gypsy's type might carry.

"I'm coming down now," Bateen warned, "but as you can tell I am very good at athletics. My pistol won't stray from you even as I break my fall, and it's on wide kill."

"Look, all I want now is out of this. A mistake, that's all," the Gypsy alibied sincerely.

The Dreel nodded and jumped down. The Gypsy was amazed at the man's body and muscle control. He hadn't been kidding—the pistol stayed pointed directly at him. No human being he'd ever seen short of a professional gymnast could do that, and this character hardly looked the gymnastic type.

The Dreel approached the man slowly, one eye on Marquoz. "No funny business," he warned.

"What—what are you going to do?" the Gypsy asked uneasily, eyes only on the pistol.

Har Bateen allowed himself the very human gesture of a smile, a smile of one who knows what you do not. "Don't worry," he told the Gypsy. "I'm not going to kill you. If your pet stays calm and you don't try anything funny, then nothing will happen to you. But your life depends on your doing exactly what I say—
exactly!
Understand?"

The Gypsy nodded slowly, the fear in his eyes not lessened one bit by the assurances.

The Dreel walked cautiously in back of the man. "Take off your vest," he ordered.

The Gypsy looked confused. "This some kind of a sex thing?"

"In a way," his captor responded. "Don't worry— it won't hurt you in the least. Better than getting smeared all over the place, isn't it?"

Marquoz simply sat and watched. Bateen took a small blade from his pocket. "Just take it easy. A very small cut, nothing more." He saw the man flinch for the quick pricking, then watched with satisfaction as a small drop of blood formed at the puncture. He sliced a small hole in his thumb.

Instantly Dreel rushed to the opening, the capillaries of the hand and the edge of the thumb, then halted, waiting for contact. There had been plenty of time; a full team of ten thousand memory units had been assembled and waiting.

Har Bateen eagerly held the thumb toward the cut on the man's back. So confident was he now that he took his glance off the dragon sitting only a few meters away.

"Hold it! Freeze!" came a voice to his left, a voice incredibly deep and gravelly as if coming from a giant speaking through a hollow tube. "Drop the gun and stand away from him!"

Bateen was so startled he
did
freeze and his eyes looked over at the source of the sound.

The giant lizard was standing there, eyeing him coldly with those blazing scarlet eyes and in its hand was a Fuka machine pistol, made of an almost transparent material, with its red power center blazing; it would almost control the wielder, shoot the level and type of force its holder thought of. A pistol keyed to its individual owner; the kind of pistol only one authority possessed.

"Marquoz, of the Com Police," the dragon said unnecessarily. "I said drop it and stand away."

"But . . . but you
can't
—you're not
human,
"
the Dreel protested. Intelligence said nothing about this!

"Neither are you, bub," the dragon responded. "I consider that your only redeeming social feature."

Hodukai, a Planet on the Frontier

THEY FILLED THE TEMPLE; IT WAS A GOOD SIGN, Mother Sukra thought to herself as she looked out from behind the stage curtain. The Acolytes had done a wonderful job of carrying the Word. Most were first-timers, she saw. Hesitating, nervous, unsure, but curious. That, too, was to be expected. The Fellowship of the Holy Well was still new here, and attractive mostly to the young, the most impressionable always, and the poor, the starving, the losers. The Holy Priestess, too, would know this and be pleased by the newcomers and the demonstrated effectiveness of Mother Sukra's organization after only a few months.

The High Priestess
was
pleased—and excited, although she betrayed none of this in her classically stoic manner. She had been in this position before, although not with so much of responsibility.

The lights were going down; stirring music, subtle, soothing subsonics, set the mood and soft lights caressed both audience and stage. She looked at Mother Sukra, now checking herself one last time in the mirror, smoothing her long saffron robes and touching up her long brown hair. Her timing was impeccable, though; she stopped at precisely the right moment and turned to walk on stage to the center spot. There was no dais, no podium tonight, no pulpit from on high; that would spoil the effect they wanted from the Holy Priestess.

Mother Sukra looked terribly alone on the barren stage.

Along the sides the robed men and women, the Acolytes, heads shaved and wearing only loose-fitting cloth robes, rose and bowed to her. A number of the audience took the cue and stood, and within a short period most of the hall was standing. Normal crowd reaction; the ones remaining seated were not those to whom they would be speaking. Later, she thought. Later all would come willingly.