John Maddox Roberts - Spacer: Window of Mind

Kiril risked a glance over her left shoulder. The killers were still behind her. She scrambled on bare feet over the rubble of a half-col lapsed building. There was a narrow alley to her right and she ducked into it. Maybe they wouldn't see the move and would pass up the alley. She had not been quick enough. "There she is!" a voice yelled. Without breaking stride, she stooped and snatched up a fist-sized chunk of plasticrete. On her next stride, she pivoted on the ball of one foot, spun and threw it, continuing the spin and continuing to run down the alley with almost no time lost. She heard a man yell with pain, and she grinned. It would make no difference. They were going to kill her pretty soon, but there was still some satisfaction in drawing blood.

As she ran, her mind unrolled a map of the area ahead of her. Nobody knew the slums of Civis Astra as well as Kiril. A life of constant danger spent amid the planless tangle of alleys and streets of the sprawling slum had honed her sense of direction and location to preternatural sharpness. She had grown up amid

the festering tenements and ruinous structures of long-forgotten purpose, and she knew every cellar and every dank doorway. But, she reflected ruefully, her pursuers, collectively, knew the place just as well. And there were hundreds of them, or would be soon. By now, word of the reward was all over the city.

She chanced another look back and her blood chilled. Khan was among them. No doubt about it, she was doomed. Pao Lin only sent Khan out on the most serious missions, when there was a mark who absolutely had to be killed, with no chance of failure. Khan used a thump gun, so called from its muffled report, its explosive charge propelled twenty or so soft-metal pellets in a spreading cloud. It was a primitive weapon, but devastating at short range in the narrow alleys of Civis Astra when used in the hands of an expert. And Khan was an expert. He wasn't just good at killing, he loved it.

She decided on the Gambler's Warren. She knew she was going to die anyway, but it was her nature to try to live as long as possible. It was this quality that had caused her to cling so tenaciously to a life many would not have considered to be worth living on any terms. As long as she had one breath, she was going to fight for the next.

The Gambler's Warren was an area of tiny booths and stalls, low dives and dope houses, smuggler's shops and receiving houses for stolen goods. It was the oldest part of the city, its streets and alleys an unplanned jumble dating from the planet's frontier days. It was a maze, its passages so twisted and bewildering that she just might lose them and earn another miserable, sleepless night. Such nights were the kind she was used to, and worth pursuing.

She still had a way to go before she reached the Warren. The city of Civis Astra, "City of the Stars," had been named, somewhat optimistically, by the first pioneers to settle on Thoth. That had been during the early days of humanity's expansion from Earth. It had been a heady, optimistic time. From a backwoods colony, Thoth had progressed to become a prosperous, self-supporting world. Then had come the long years of agonizing upheaval caused by the great series of interplanetary conflicts known, simply, as the War. With the War came an endless stream of refugees, pouring into Thoth as their planets were invaded, turning the cities into overpopulated slums. Civis Astra had become the most bloated slum of all. Eventually the War had ended, but many worlds were left incapable of supporting their former populations. It would be many years before economies recovered enough to open new worlds. In the meantime, the refugees stayed where they were, and a generation had grown up knowing nothing but squalor, hunger, and want.

She ducked down a side alley, jumped over a couple of fences, crossed a vacant lot, and was in the Warren. It was early evening and the place was not yet heavily populated. People who frequented the Warren were not, for the most part, the type (o welcome the light of day. It couldn't have been better. Her judgment had been good, her instincts hadn't failed her. Unfortunately, her timing was all wrong. She had always known that you could avoid just about any kind of trouble or danger by using your wits, but there wasn't much you could do about plain bad luck.

She didn't see the big man until it was too late to stop. He stepped out of a fence's shack and straight into her path. She ran into him with such force that she bounced back and landed in the gutter. The man bent to help her up. but she was too stunned to rise. She could feel blood trickling from her nose as she looked up at him. Automatically, she sized him up as if he were a potential mark.

He was a tall man, dressed in a gray Earth spacer's coverall and Spacer Marine boots. He wore a vest of some kind of reptile hide that was iridescent blue-green. His hair was grizzled and his face deeply tanned. He didn't look like the kind she would try to brace, and for a dazed moment she wondered whether he might be another of Pao Lin's hatchetmen.

"You all right, kid?" he asked with some concern.

"Not hardly," she said. "Just let me go, spacer, I've got to get out of here." She tried to yell the words but they came out in a wheezing gasp. Her lungs still felf half paralyzed. She looked about desperately. It was too late. Khan was there. Khan was huge, as tall as the spacer and much wider. The thump gun looked like a toy in his immense hands. His flat face held no more expression than a wooden idol's.

"Stand aside, Earthie," Khan said. "She's mine."

"You mean she belongs to you? She's your property?" The spacer's thumbs were now hitched in his belt. Kiril was still huddled at his feet. She felt almost able to stand, but there seemed to be little point. The thump gun had two barrels, and it would be one for the spacer, the other for her. She was still looking for a way out, though.

"I have orders to kill her," Khan said. "Orders from Pao Lin."

"I don't know Pao Lin," the spacer said. "And I don't like to see kids killed."

Khan shrugged and raised the thump gun. Kiril braced herself for the blast that would kill both of them. She wouldn't close her eyes in her last moment, but stared directly at Khan. Above her the spacer moved so quickly that his hand was a blur as it darted beneath his vest and emerged with a laser. He burned a hole neatly through Khan's shoulder before the killer could line up his thump gun. There was a spurt of smoke and flame from Khan's tunic and he dropped, his eyes already glazing with deep shock.

"Real nice, spacer," Kiril said. "But we're not out of it yet." She was still sure she was going to die. There were too many on her trail. If a hundred were not enough, there would be more. No K'ang leader like Pao Lin could let one marked for death escape, whatever the cost. Even if the original offense had been trivial, his face was at stake. Pao Lin was not about to lose face over one skinny girl. Four men appeared at the head of the alley. One spoke into a communicator as they spotted Khan's inert form. The spacer stepped past Kiril and picked up Khan's thump gun. He held it casually as the four approached.

"I don't know who you are, mister," said the one with the communicator, "but that cully's marked for the big one. You got Khan, but there's four of us." The speaker was a rangy man in a ragged green tunic. He held a slug pistol, and the others had knives and hatchets. The spacer looked with bemusement at the thump gun he held.

"I haven't seen one of these things in years," he said. "Used to be pretty good with one, though. Now, at this range, I'll bet I can chop the four of you down with one shot." He lined up the weapon with the same startling speed he had shown in drawing on Khan.

"Maybe you can," said the speaker. "But we're dead

anyway, if we don't finish that one."

"There's a difference," said the spacer. "It's maybe die later or certainly die now." They thought it over, then started hacking away. When they reached the end of the alley, they tin ned and scattered in four directions. The spacer hauled Kiril to her feet and gave her a shove.

"Run," he ordered.

"Where?"

"Toward the spaceport. My ship's there." They began running. Kiril had her breath back now, and another adrenaline surge gave her renewed energy. As he ran, the spacer took out a belt communicator. He barked into it rapidly.
"Space Angel! Space Angel!
This is Torwald. I'm headed for the ship. I've got a mob after me, real killers. Send K'Stin and B'Shant to meet me in front of the Spacer's Hall. Hurry up!"

"Tor, sometimes you're more trouble than you're worth," said a disembodied voice.

They ran until Kiril was almost ready to collapse from exhaustion. Almost, but not quite. Luckily, the Warren was adjacent to the spaceport, which hadn't changed location since the planet had first been settled. They emerged from a littered alleyway into a small square where the Spacer's Hall was located. A few spacers in search of employment were lounging on the steps, and they looked with interest at the two fugitives. Kiril saw twenty or thirty men erupting from other alleys and streets, pouring into the square. They were the reinforcements Pao Lin's men had called for. They must have intercepted the spacer's transmission.

"Sorry, spacer," Kiril said. "Looks like your friends didn't make it. Remember, I didn't ask you to interfere." She scanned the mob of men who were closing in on them. They were ragged and looked hungry. None was a killer as efficient as Khan, but she knew there wasn't one among them who wouldn't kill his best friend to earn Pao Lin's goodwill.

"Get that pistol out and zap a few, spacer," Kiril said. "We're gonna die anyway, it'd be a shame not to take a few with us." A pair of thin-bladed daggers appeared in her hands.

"Bloodthirsty little devil, aren't you?" said the spacer. "Ah. the simple enthusiasms of the young."

A barefoot man in blue shorts of coarse-woven plastic and nothing else grinned and raised a hatchet as he approached Kiril. A dirty bandanna was tied around his brow. "You don't get away this time, Kiril," he said.

"Come on," she urged, "I'll carve you just like I did your brother last year, you
schpurtzh."
The man whitened, then darted for her. He came to a sudden halt when the spacer trained the laser between his eyes. With the thump gun in his other hand, he menaced the rest. Even a crowd of thirty or more can lose its enthusiasm for blood with the realization that ten or more could die in seconds. Then the knowledge that Pao Lin might kill them all returned and they began to close in again. Movement stopped when a shadow passed over the crowd.

Kiril looked up. There was an atmosphere craft overhead. Two figures dropped from it without grav belts, even though the craft hovered at least fifteen meters up. Then they landed and stood flanking Kiril and the spacer. The mob stood paralyzed at the sight of them.

Kiril had never seen a Viver before, but she had heard of them; once human, their race had been genetically manipulated in the past to produce a creature so rugged and ferocious that it could survive under most circumstances. Covered with natural armor, provided with natural weapons, and possessing preternatural fighting savvy, a military armored vehicle was considered to be no match for a Viver. And here were two of them.

For a few seconds nobody moved. Then someone raised a slug gun and fired. There was a high-pitched crack as the pellet struck one of the Vivers on his protective chitin, followed by a hum as it ricocheted off. Then the Vivers were in the midst of the crowd. Their moves were so quick and powerful that their assailants had no time even to get out of the way, much less to fight back.

A backhanded blow from one of the Vivers felled three men, and he removed two more with a roundhouse kick of his bone-tipped foot before the first three even had time to fall. The other Viver rushed through the crowd, punching methodically with his spiked knuckles. He turned and worked his way back, striking with elbows and knees. Each blow landed effectively, and each was accompanied by a clearly audible sound of snapping bone.

It was too much for the mob. Those who could, turned and ran The brief whirlwind of action had lasted no more than ten seconds, but Kiril estimated that there were at least eighteen men sprawled moaning on the square. The atmosphere craft settled to the pavement and a small, mustachioed man at the controls signaled frantically for them to get in. As they climbed aboard, the spacers on the steps of the Spacer's Hall gave them a round of polite applause.

"Come on," said the big spacer, hauling Kiril over the side of the craft and piling after. The Vivers were already in place, and as she fell sprawling into the bottom of the AC, Kiril had only one thought: Maybe she was going to live after all!