Hellflower (v1.1) (23 page)

I was feeling pretty flat when I floatered back to
Firecat,
and my chrono showed that I still had time to waste before I could go pick up my chobosh. Tiggy was starting to get wonky cooped up in something small as
Firecat,
anyway; downsiders do. So I took him over to the aforementioned dockside bar for a bath, a meal, and laundry.

It was business as usual inside and Tiggy was dazzled by everything. Me, I surprised myself. I was looking over my shoulder and trying not to trip on my feet, waiting for trouble to walk in the door.

So it did.

Trouble had rings on his fingers and hells on his hoots and wicked wicked eyes. He wandered in off the street, a real hollycast stardancer, and the way he filled out those superskin jeans should of been a navigational hazard for six star systems around.

I knew him.

"Hey, Errol," said somebody, "still herding that
Lady-ship
of yours?"

Errol Lightfoot acknowledged the homage of the crowd in a gracious fashion. He still had a instinct for drama, even after all these years.

I’d thought he was dead.

"Better remember to check ships-in-port before we go," I said to nobody in particular.

"Butterfly, why do you . . . Oh," said Paladin, and shut up again. Oh. Yeah. Errol Lightfoot of sacred memory was here on Manticore, another of those coincidences I was starting to believe wasn’t.

"Is that Errol Lightfoot the Fenshee?" Tiggy asked.

"Yeah," I said, before I realized who was asking.

"His life is mine!" Tiggy announced. He drew his blaster and everybody in the bar tried to impersonate the furniture. "He has kidnapped you and occulted your honor-stealing you from your home and making you outcast!" Tiggy told me, in case I’d forgot.

Just once I’d mentioned in passing the name of the slaver that took me off Granola. Just once.

"Now look, Tiggy ‘flower—"

"Butterfly, I do not have telemetry at your location. What is happening?"

"You swore vengeance upon him in the name of honor, and now the moment is at hand!" Tiggy looked relieved. Something he understood. Finally.

Errol had stopped and turned back, squaring oft for some classic gunplay. In about a half nanosecond, Tiggy and me was going to be dead or arrested, and I couldn’t afford either one.

"Right, bai. Moment is at hand and I am going to take care of the Errol-Peril what is standing right here so do you mind putting away your handcannon and letting me take care of my own honor?" I glared at Tiggy until he did-or at least he put away the blaster.

I kept my hands away from own blasters and walked over to Errol. "Hiya, hotshot, how’s tricks? My hellflower buddy what’s real concerned for my honor was just reminding me I wanted to buy you a drink real friendly-like, on account of We used to know each other, right?"

Errol looked at me for a moment. If there was any drama on offer, I was too tired to feel it. A long time ago I’d sworn to kill this man. "Darling," said Errol, delighted. "Of Course I remember! Do sit down! How have you been?" He slid into a seat at a corner table and waited for me to join him.

"Butterfly," said Paladin in my ear, "have you approached Errol Lightfoot?"

"Death to-" I grabbed Tiggy just before he could get his knife clear of the sheath.

"We have to discuss stuff before I kill him, bai. Sit down!"

"Kill who?" said Paladin Suspiciously. "Butterfly, are you planning to kill Errol Lightfoot?"

"Kore-alarthme,
there is no need! He must be slain at once-surely no one will object to the death of the criminal! I will do it, the honor is mine by right, and-"

"Slay?" said Errol dubiously. "Death?"

"Figure of speech. Trust me. Sit down, Tiggy, before
legitimates
frag all of us. Now. That’s a order. Remember what planet you’re on. Now about that drink? I would like you, my old friend Errol Lightfoot, to meet my new friend Tiggy Stardust, who is a hellflower very concerned with my honor-"

The one thing I’d never expected, on meeting galactic gallant Errol Lightfoot again, was to be trying to keep him alive.

"It was wonderful!" chirped the dashing Captain Lightfoot. "That wonderful night! It-"

I stared at Errol. Nobody could be that oblivious. "-week?" finished Errol hopefully.

Six weeks, but twenty years ago-and if 0rrol had any idea of who I was or why Tiggy might be mad at him, I would personally eat every chobosh in my soon-to-be-cargo uncooked.

"But,
Kore
, this is the Errol Lightfoot, the evil
chaudatu
who ravished-"

"Watch your mouth, bai!" I said.

"Butterfly, you do not need any more trouble. You have all the trouble anyone could possibly want. You said so," Paladin said plaintively.

Errol began to look worried again. "I don’t know what they told you, dear boy, but-"

"Errol, all I want for you to do is explain to the nice hellflower how you and me are best buddies and nobody’s honor is Occulted or anything!"

He looked at me and finally seemed to locus. Tiggy started up and I kicked him. Hard.

"Sure we are," I said, and compared to most of the conversations I’d had lately it didn’t hurt much. Errol brightened right up.

"Then we must have a drink to celebrate. Innkeeper! What are you drinking, darling?"

I looked at Tiggy, stuck halfway between confused and furious.

"We are?"

"Coqtail. Straight up."

We sat down. The bar noisied up behind us in a relieved fashion. "Butterfly, you cannot seriously be proposing to drink a mixture of grain alcohol and R’rhl preparatory to taking a starship into hyperspace?" said Paladin for my ears only.

"Tiggy, you’re going to love coqtail. It’s great for the honor," I said loudly, to drown Paladin out.

As previously intimated, the last time I met Errol, I was fourteen and an idiot. I’d hated him for years in my spare time, but I’d always been sure Errol’d known what he’d done to me.

Wrong. Errol wasn’t any different from everybody else I knew. He was not a criminal mastermind, neither did he seem particularly bright. He was ordinary.

Just like me.

I poured coqtail down Tiggy every time he opened his mouth while sitting through the abridged standard version of Errol’s life. Errol, said Errol, rarely came to Manticore, but just between him and us and rest of the bar, he’d had a chance to buy up a load of chobosh real cheap, and knew where somebody’d pay top credit for chobosh, so crazy, but ordinary. It was at this point I got afflicted with a severe case of Divine Revelation. I cut Errol off in mid-burble and dragged Tiggy to his feet. He was starting to slide under the table, anyway.

"Real groot I’m sure, bai, but me and my co— got to run. See you around the galaxy, huh?"

I got Tiggy back to
Firecat
real quick and because he was already full of narcotic neurotoxin I had him drugged out cold and webbed into a sleepsling in record time. The bad feeling I had about this even over rode the incredible fierce desire to go back and ice Errol that I didn’t really have any more.

It’s like this: chobosh is a one-planet crop. It’s harvested off a place called Korybant. It is not for private sale, or resale-Throne buys the entire harvest and it goes straight to the Core worlds in Throne ships with an export tax of about two billion percent. Not Indie ships, not Directorate ships, not even Company ships. The Space Angels watch over every psychotropic morsel until it reaches the Emperor’s own table. Chobosh is mentioned in the Consumptuary Laws, which means it’s not illegal to have if you’re TwiceBorn or know someone who is. And when Archangel got to the Roaq with his band of lackeys, somebody who could lay on a chobosh spread as Good Eats would make real points.

Meanwhile it’s damned unlikely there’d be two free-floating cargoes of chobosh wandering around the never-never.

"Time check, Paladin?"

"According to Rimini’s directions you are to wait another fourteenths of an hour. Butterfly, I know that you swore to kill Errol Lightfoot, but surely you can see that—"

For once Paladin was wrong.

"Errol Lightfoot’s got our chobosh. Rimini knew about him and me. I hired her before that insurance thing to find me information on him. I told her some. He’s got the cargo-and that’s why it’s got to be me that jacks it."

It all fit. I’d been so sure back on Kiffit that neither Rahone or Vannet was after me because nobody chops darktraders. Nobody chops darktraders because nobody wants
W
I,irc a Guild embargo, but if two darktraders off each other in a barroom brawl, who is there to slap an embargo on‘?

"It seems an unusually complex form of revenge."

"Unless she wanted Errol chopped for something he did to her, and wanted a Gentry-legger to do it so she’d get no comebacks from the Guild. It all fits-she bought Eloi to get me, because she knew I had a hot mad-on for Errol. But y’know, babby-bai, Rimini’s gonna have to be disappointed. We got problems of our own. And he isn’t worth it." I walked over to the pressure-seal door between my bay and the next and yanked it open.

There was my lovely, marketable, illegal chobosh, all boxed up and loaded on an aerosledge right next to its ex-ship, which was proof positive of why Rimini’d told me everything about the free-lancer except his name.

Clue number one: the ship had one of the gaudier paint jobs of this or any other system. It made the paint job on the alMayne ships look restrained.

Clue number two: the thing was a flying accident looking for a place to happen. I’d heard that about Lightfoot. The loading cranes was silted shut, and after a look at the landing gear I decided I didn’t want to stand anywhere under it.

Clue number three: it was named
Light Lady
. Errol’d told me his own self that he named all his ships
Light Lady.
And why should he lie about that?

I scooped up the ticket-of-leave from the top of the pile of boxes and stuffed it in my shirt. It took me about a half hour to stow and web the twelve-squared point-one-five meter square cartons of chobosh as never’d paid Korybant export duty. When I was done, there was about room left over in
Firecat
for Tiggy and me if we was a whole lot friendlier than we was going to be when he woke up and found out Errol was still breathing.

I checked him when I was done loading. He was starting to twitch and mutter now; I had just enough time to get to angels and start making up a good explanation for why Errol was still alive.

And just like I’d conjured him, Errol Lightfoot came charging down the entrance ramp to the bay. He might not know who I was, but he had a real strong suspicion of what I was doing.

"Hey!
That’s my
cargo!"
I just stood there.

"Butterfly!" shouted Paladin, and that got me moving. Just a little too late, if Errol’d been a better shot. But he wasn’t, and I dogged
Firecat’s
hatch from the inside as Errol got off his second shot.

I listened while Paladin started preflight clearance and called Manticore Space Central for a new and earlier lift window. Shots ricocheted off the hull. I was glad that Tiggy was strapped in secure.

Three goforths cycled on-line as I vaulted into the mercy seat and we started to move. The cockpit was dark except for the opsimpac; it told me where the bay access was and that it was clear.

The tube-canopy dropped into flight position while I was explaining to Manticore Space Central that they’d gave me clearance, so what did they care if I took early advantage of it? I figured I was safe from being chased by Errol and
Light Lady;
it takes serious time to cold-start a ship much larger than
Firecat
and
Light Lady
couldn’t make it upstairs until
Firecat
was long gone.

Manticore spread out below
Firecat,
getting rounder the higher we went. Space Central was still scolding me, promising murder and imprisonment and fines, when all of a sudden the techie said a nasty word as wasn’t in the official handbooks and I looked around real quick.

After seeing his ship, I should of known Errol wouldn’t of read his manuals.
Light Lady
was coming up off the heavy side, grabbing sky like a homesick angel. I checked my gauges. Wasn’t no way I was going to make the Jump this deep in Manticore’s gravity well, so I powered up
Firecat’s
belly gun.
Light Lady
was still gaining on
Firecat
but Errol was below me. If I could keep him there,
Firecat
could hit Transfer Point and Jump first. Then I could ride angels to the Roaq free and clear with only Tiggy to worry about.

Tiggy, and my just-this-side-of-illegal lift from an Imperial Port, and Errol back in my life, and Eloi and Silver Dagger, and assorted assassins, and Paladin’s crazy idea.

I checked the numbers again and still didn’t get any news I liked. Then Errol started shooting at me. I ranged
Firecat’s
belly-gun on the
Lady
and made some discouraging remarks.
Lady
replied in kind and louder, and I hoped Errol wanted his ex-cargo bad enough not to blow it out of the aether, but it looked like he at least didn’t mind denting it a bit.

The proximity alarms for Transfer Point finally went off, and the next time Errol fired I put
Firecat
end-over-end like he’d took out one of her stabilizers, and when he dropped back to avoid collision I Jumped.

It’s nice and quiet in angeltown.

One or two more of these episodes and I could sell my life story to Thrilling Wonder Talkingbooks. Just what I needed-to take off from an Impie-Port with guns blazing and another ship in armed pursuit. The next thing I ought to do was paint a representation of the Jeweled Goddess of Justice on my hull. And get a pair of pants like Errol’s-or maybe a whole rig-out like Eloi’s, and chrome studs all over it. Inconspicuous. To match my lifestyle.

Dammit.

Well, Rimini’d know I’d been to Manticore like she wanted. And so would the rest of the galaxy.