Drifter's Run (16 page)

Seeing Lando's concern Cy did his best to sound unconcerned. "Don't worry, Pik, I'm good for a few hours yet, I'll see you later."

Lando nodded. He had very little choice. Maybe they'd call Cy's name next. A fight started over the rights to his corner as Lando made his way toward the front of the cell.

The guard was small as guards go, with a small man's chip on his shoulder, and a slug gun to back it up. He had a blue plastic bag in his left hand. There was some sort of official seal stamped on the front of it.

"Are you Pik Lando?"

Lando nodded.

"Stand in the red circle."

Lando stood in the red circle and waited for the door to slide open.

"Step outside."

Lando did as he was told and heard the door slide closed behind him.

"Follow the red line. One step off it and I'll blow your brains our through your smile."

Lando followed the solid red line. It led down the corridor, through a heavily secured blast-proof door, and into a brightly lit interrogation chamber.

The room was white except for some suspicious-looking stains on the walls and floor. There were a couple of sturdy-looking wooden chairs and a table with a plastic top. A woman with bright red hair, green eyes, and a nice figure perched on one corner.

Lando took her for a cop at first, then realized his mistake and felt something heavy hit his stomach. A bounty hunter! It was written all over her. The casual stance, the cross-draw holster, the amused expression as he figured it out. What the hell was going on?

The guard smiled. The bounty hunter was only slightly taller than he and nice to look at. "Is this the one?"

"That's him," Della Dee agreed, "one Pik Lando, wanted for murder and interplanetary flight to avoid prosecution. Bounty number WMH 56843-F. Here's my license."

Dee stood up to hand the guard a ragged piece of plastic.

The guard gave the license a cursory glance and handed it back. "Did you plead him guilty and pay his fine?"

"Signed, sealed, and delivered. Here's the receipt."

The guard waved it away. "You headin' off-planet? I know a place that sells a great steak… real stuff… Terran stock."

Dee produced a thousand-megawatt smile and a well-worn pair of handcuffs. "Sounds wonderful! I haven't had a good steak in a zillion rotations. Gotta take a rain check though… my ship lifts at 0200 hours."

The guard was obviously disappointed. "Darn, that's too bad. Need any help with those cuffs?"

"Don't think so," Dee replied, pulling Lando's arms behind his back and closing the cuffs with a practiced hand. "You just show us the door and we'll be on our way."

"You got it," the guard replied. He handed her the blue bag. "Don't forget this. It's his personal effects. Money, a handgun, and some sort of wrist-mounted missile launcher."

"What?" Dee asked as she accepted the bag. "No energy cannon?"

The guard laughed and Dee smiled in return. In spite of her flip comment however, Dee remembered Dista, and Lando lying on the floor with the cyborg towering over him. Maybe he had good reasons for toting an arsenal. An arsenal he could've used inside the pavilion but hadn't.

The guard opened the door and Dee nodded at Lando. He stepped through the door and into the hall. He was careful to stay relaxed, to give her the impression that he'd given up. His chance would come, but not here and not now.

The guard said good-bye, and bit by bit they made their way through a succession of security checkpoints and into the cool night air.

Each lamppost cast a pool of greenish-blue light, and the pools marched off into the distance, until they were little more than dots.

A steady stream of cops and robbers came and went around them as Dee directed Lando to a parked ground car. She opened the back door and gestured for him to get inside. He didn't move.

Dee pulled her slug gun and held it to Lando's head. "Get in the car or I'll blow your head off and send your retinas in for identification."

Lando forced himself to ignore the gun. "I believe you, but before we get in that car, I want to know
who
you are and
where
we're going."

Dee nodded, but the gun stayed where it was. "Fair enough. My name's Della Dee. You're wanted on Ithro so that's where we're going."

"I suppose the fact that I'm innocent doesn't matter."

"That's what they all say. Anything else?"

Lando raised an eyebrow. "Can you be bought?"

"Sure. Your bounty's two hundred and fifty thousand. Spot me that, plus another ten, and we'll have a drink."

Lando thought about it. Even with the gold he couldn't raise that much. He smiled. "Sorry, I'm two hundred short. Can we have the drink anyway?"

"Nope. Get in the car."

Lando obeyed and heard Dee lock the door behind him. The ground car was an upscale luxury job with a roomy interior.

Dee got in on the driver's side, dropped the blue bag onto the seat beside her, and started the engine.

"Nice car."

"Glad you like it," Dee replied cheerfully. "Only the best for you."

"Rental job, huh?"

"Yup."

"Kind of expensive isn't it?"

"I can afford it thanks to you," Dee replied as she pulled into traffic. "Besides, in my kind of business it pays to drive something heavy and fast."

"Yeah," Lando replied. "I suppose it does."

Both were silent for a while as Dee wove in and out of light traffic. They had just passed through the business district and entered Blast Town when Dee broke the silence.

"Do the people behind us belong to you?"

With some difficulty Lando managed to swivel around and look out the back window. There was a large hover truck right behind them. Dee changed lanes and the truck followed.

"I don't think so," Lando replied. "My people would follow in a taxi or something like that."

"I was afraid of that," Dee said grimly. "How 'bout that chrome-plated cyborg you waxed on Dista? Is there any chance he's after you?"

Lando thought about Jord Willer. "Yeah, he's a distinct possibility, although I can't see how he'd find me here."

"You've got to be kidding," Dee replied as she hit the gas and screeched around a corner. "The pavilion thing was all over the evening news. You were bound to make bail. They waited for you to come out."

Lando fell sideways. "Wait a minute, how come you know about Jord Willer?"

"Is that his name?" Dee asked, racing up an alley. "I was there when you shot him in the knees. Nice piece of work but stupid. Why so fancy? Why not grease him and be done with it?"

"Because I don't like killing people," Lando replied, bracing himself with his feet as white light filled the inside of the car and the truck rammed them from behind. "They're getting kind of close, aren't they?"

"Typical backseat driver," Dee replied evenly. "Uh-oh."

Lando looked up just in time to see another set of headlights coming straight at them. There was no place to go. Dee stood on the brakes and pulled her gun at the same time. "Keep your head down, Lando. It's worth a lot of money."

Dee opened her door and rolled out onto the pavement. A gun went off and the windshield shattered. There were two loud explosions as Dee returned fire followed by the stutter of an automatic weapon. Bullets stitched a line of holes along the car's roof line.

Meanwhile Lando struggled to move his handcuffed hands from back to front. The hardest part was passing them under his rear end. After that it was relatively easy, passing them along his thighs, and out from under his feet.

Dee fired three rounds from just outside the door. A man screamed. The car rocked as something made a deep booming sound and heavy projectiles hit the engine compartment. There was a popping sound and flames licked out from under the hood.

Lando dived over the seat and scrabbled for the blue bag. Finding it he swore when it refused to open. The cuffs made it even harder. Damn! Damn! Damn!

Then it was open and his fingers were closing around familiar grips. The mini-launcher would have been nice but there was no time to fool around with it. Opening the driver's side door he rolled out onto hard duracrete.

Dee was there, crouched by the rear tire, firing over the trunk. Someone opened up with a blaster. Dee ducked as the energy weapon cooked the paint off the car's roof and trunk. Seeing Lando she brought her pistol up, then let it drop.

"What the hell are you doing here? Thought I told you to keep your head down."

"I'd like to keep it period," Lando answered, offering the bounty hunter his manacled wrists. "How many and where?"

"About nine to begin with," Dee replied. She produced an electronic key and touched it to the cuffs. "I make it six now, two up front, and four behind."

The cuffs clattered as they hit the ground.

Lando nodded and rubbed his wrists. "Let's break out through the weak side."

Dee ejected a half-empty magazine and slapped a fresh one into the butt of her gun. "Sounds good to me. By the way…"

"Yeah?"

"When this is over I still plan to take you in."

Dee was up and running before Lando could reply. A gun flashed up ahead. Dee fired and heard a scream.

Something whipped by Lando's head followed by a sharp cracking sound. He turned, saw someone silhouetted against a distant streetlight, and fired. The figure jerked and fell.

There was a deep booming sound from Lando's left. He turned just in time to see Dee fall and Jord Willer step out of the shadows. Light rippled over the surface of the cyborg's chromed body. Willer held an automatic shotgun cradled in his arms. He was in the process of bringing it up when a cone of light pinned him to the ground.

The voice came from somewhere above. "You there! This is the police! Drop your weapons! I repeat, this is the…"

Someone fired and the spotlight snapped out. Lando rushed forward but the cyborg faded into the night. He turned to Dee. She lay in a crumpled heap. There was blood all over the place. Lando felt for her pulse. It was surprisingly strong. Her body armor had absorbed most of the blast.

Lando scooped her up and started to run. Behind him the spotlight came on again as a police floater drifted groundward. Lando had no plan at first, just an overwhelming need to be somewhere else, away from the police and Willer's thugs.

The fact that he got away was more luck than skill. Knowing that he should avoid the main streets, Lando stuck to the maze of passageways that connected Blast Town's back doors, and headed vaguely south.

Bit by bit the adrenaline ebbed away, and as it did, Dee got heavier. Not only that but he encountered other people, the kind that cling to the underside of society's rock, and appear only at night.

Pushers, addicts, organ runners, hookers, and more appeared and disappeared as Lando worked his way through dimly lit passageways and corridors. Most gave a wide berth when they saw Dee's blood-soaked clothing and his slug gun. Not so the street urchin who tugged at his left sleeve.

"Hey, mister, you wanta sell her? I'll get you top dollar for her lungs and kidneys."

"Get lost, kid."

"Oh," the little boy said understandingly. "You want to use her first. No problem. I'll get you a doctor. A
real
one who went to college and everything."

Lando stopped and draped Dee over his left shoulder. "Close by?"

The boy nodded eagerly. "You bet! A block, maybe two. The doc'll fix her up and whamo, it's party time!"

"Come here."

The urchin approached warily. Lando's hand shot out, grabbed the boy by his filthy shirt, and jerked him in close. He had blue eyes, a pug nose, and bad breath. "If you're lying I'll kill you."

"Who me?" the boy said innocently. "Never! I'll take you to the doc, no problem."

"You'd better," Lando said grimly, and released the boy's shirt.

Dee got even heavier as Lando followed the urchin through various twists and turns. By now her blood had soaked through his shirt.

A door opened up ahead, a rectangle of light hit the far side of the passageway, and the boy gestured Lando inside. "This is the place, mister. You take her inside, and the doc'll fix her good as new."

Lando looked through the open door, saw what looked like a reasonably clean reception area, and fumbled for some money. He didn't have any. It was in the blue bag.

Groping Dee's clothing, Lando found a sizable roll of currency in her right-hand pants pocket, and managed to pull it out. He peeled off some bills.

"Thanks, kid… you want some more of the same?"

The little boy nodded eagerly. "You bet! Whatcha want? Drugs? Booze? Some smokes?"

"None of the above. Just get me a taxi, and have it wait."

"You got it, mister," the boy said enthusiastically. "One taxi coming up!"

As the urchin disappeared into the darkness Lando stepped inside. The room was small but tidy, and smelled of disinfectants. There was a row of tubular chairs, a three-legged coffee table, and a curtained doorway.

"Can I help you?"

Lando looked around but couldn't locate the source.

"Down here," the voice said patiently, and Lando looked toward his feet. A small robot crouched there, looking more like a pile of oversize ball bearings than what it was.

"Yes," Lando replied. "We're here to see the doctor."

"Your timing is quite propitious," the robot observed. "The doctor is in, and available for consultation. I note that you are carrying a young woman. Are you holding her for reproductive purposes or is she the patient?"

"She's the patient," Lando responded dryly, "and damned heavy. Where can I put her down?"

"Right through the curtained door," the robot said. "I will lead the way." So saying, four of the robot's round appendages began to spin, and carried it toward the door and under the curtain.

Lando followed and soon found himself in a small operating room. The reception robot had disappeared. A power-assisted table occupied the center of the space, overhung by a spotlessly clean light, and surrounded by glassed-in cabinets.

A woman stood in front of a set labeled "Closures" and was rummaging around inside. Hearing Lando enter she spoke without turning around.