Matadora (6 page)

Mayli Wu? Where had she heard that name before? Dirisha scanned her memory. She knew the name, but where was it from... ? She had it. She knew Mayli Wu, but under a different name. "Sister Clamp?"

"Our head medic," Geneva said. "And she teaches sexual techniques and the psychology of love. She's the other one who can walk the pattern."

Dirisha shook her head. "Why did he take the chance?"

"He wanted to impress you. And, besides, Pen doesn't really take very many chances. You picked me, didn't you?"

Dirisha nodded, not speaking.

"Okay, let's stretch, we'll do PNF for awhile. Pair up."

Geneva touched Dirisha softly on the shoulder. "I'll work with you, if that's all right?"

Dirisha nodded, and smiled at the blonde. "Fine."

As Geneva helped her do the PNF—proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation—stretching, Dirisha felt that surge of wonder again. These people seemed to know exactly what they were doing; the ease with which she had been manipulated scared her. She resolved to do a little extra research on her own.

CHAPTER SIX

RED TOSSED A cube the size of a thumbtip at Dirisha. She caught the heavy chunk of translucent plastic easily and regarded it. "Looks like a stad cube," she said.

Red nodded. "Some of the locals aren't tied into the planetcom net, so they won't be able to get your credit file. You need something from one of the bandit-merchants, use that."

They were standing in the holoproj booth at the end of the spetsdod range.

Red triggered the control: a pair of short, dark mues ran down an alley toward Dirisha. One of them jerked a hand wand from his tunic, while the second one pulled a throwing steel. Dirisha snapped her right hand up and fired, twice. The pair of computer-animated attackers stumbled very realistically and fell, knotted as if by Spasm poisoning.

"So, we get an allowance for this training?"

Red shook his head, smiling. "Nope. You get paid, love. You're a student and a teacher. Local taxes and bribes are deducted from your stipend, just like you were a fisher or a tech." Red looked at the computer simulacrum, then at his control board. "Why'd you shoot the one with the hand wand first? At ten meters, the steel is a deadlier weapon. The wand's pulse is for close work, he was three meters away from his range."

Dirisha shrugged. "The steel is slow, I could have ducked or danced it. The wand's pulse is like a shotgun—if he'd got a shot off, I'd have no place to go. And the wand could have been boosted."

Red smiled, and nodded. "So, I'm wasting my time, trying to teach you combat principles? All you need to do is practice shooting? Could you have hit the steel in the air?"

Dirisha considered it. "No. Not yet. Outside of a lucky shot." She rolled the plastic cube with her thumb and forefinger. "I have enough standards to live here forever," she said, "what with the school supplying food and rooms. But just out of curiosity, what are we dragging in here?"

"Not much," Red said, his face bland. 'Two thousand stads... a week."

"What?" Dirisha was sure she'd heard him wrong.

"Hundred thousand a year, give or take."

"Sweet Buddha's left nut!"

"You'll make more when you go to work on your own. Pen plans to charge a quarter million a year for a fully-trained matador. Refundable if the client is assassinated under our protection. The school will keep ten percent, the rest belongs to the matador. Or, in your case, the ."

"He really thinks he can get that kind of money for a bodyguard?"

Red laughed. "We've got a waiting list a parsec long, Dirisha. The first graduates won't be ready for maybe three more years, and there's been a semi-sub rosa ad campaign going for the last year—people with enough stads and power are pounding at our doors, figuratively speaking."

One of the simulacrum mues suddenly leaped to his feet and lurched at Dirisha. The one with the throwing steel. He drew back and whipped the triple-pointed weapon at Dirisha. She dropped, one leg extending to the side, in a Dweller-at-Sea's-Floor pose. She fired both spetsdods at the mue; the spinning steel whirled over her head, missing by maybe five centimeters. The mue did a back handspring, without using his hands. The sound of the twirling steel was joined by that of the mue's neck snapping.

Dirisha rose from her pose, and shook her head at Red. "You cheat. I got him fair the first time."

"You know what kind of mue that was?"

Dirisha looked at the downed figures.

"Looks like one of the enhanced-darkers. Bruna System, maybe, from Farbis?"

"Right system, wrong world. Muta Kato."

"Okay, so I missed the planet. Why is it important?"

"Think about what they export from Muta Kato."

Dirisha thought about it. Somewhere in her real-time training during the last two weeks, she must have heard something about the mutant humans developed for Muta Kato; otherwise, Red wouldn't be making a big deal of it.

What came from there? Wines, some kind of exotic art with living plants, drugs. Yes, now she recalled: there was some kind of potent shellfish virus, used in surgery...

"Oh, damn!" She pointed her spetsdod at the other mue, the one with the hand wand, and fired three times. The Chunk! of the pellets hitting him seemed loud in the narrow room.

Red's grin widened.

"They're partially immune to Spasm," she said. "Something to do with being stung by the poison shellfish they harvest for drugs."

"Good for you. You see a Muta Katoan coming at you, you always shoot him three times—otherwise, he'll get up and kill you, you're only using Spasm."

"Damn, damn!"

"And don't pay too much attention to me when I tell you I can't teach you anything," Red said. "Hubris won't serve you very well."

"I stand taken down a few meters," Dirisha said. "And thanks."

In the hall outside the shooting range, Geneva Echt ran past. She paused, and waved to Dirisha. "Come on," Geneva said. "Bork is going to try for the record today."

Dirisha looked at Red.

"Go," he said. "You don't want to miss this."

Saval Bork had shed his orthoskins, and stood naked except for a scrotal support, lifting belt, and half-fingered gloves and spetsdods. Legs spread wide, Bork looked as if he could be the model for the Farnese Hercules, only bigger. Nearly two meters tall and weighing a hundred and twenty five kilos, Bork had muscles of a size and density unlike any Dirisha had ever seen. He was a heavy-gee child, and he had kept his tone using "organic" steel, instead of magnetic fields or electrostim.

As Bork stood meditating among the racks of barbells, Dirisha again marvelled at his physique. She had seen him work out when they'd been bouncers in Khadaji's pub, and that had only been his normal maintainence routine; today, he was going to try for something more.

Geneva edged over a few centimeters, to stand closer to Dirisha. "He looks as if he could pick himself up with one hand," the blonde said in a whisper.

"I wouldn't bet against it, if he said he could do it."

Dirisha's voice was also quiet. "Did he ever tell you how we got to be bouncers at the Jade Flower?"

Dirisha could feel the other woman's interest perk.

"No. He doesn't talk much about himself. What happened?"

"Emile didn't want the troopers causing a fuss in the pub, so he nailed the furniture down—bolted the stools and tables to the floor. That way, nobody'd be bashing heads and getting the place shifted off-limits. To get the job, you had to move one of the bolted-down stools."

Geneva stood as though in a trance. Stories of the hero, Dirisha thought, guaranteed to hold the faithful spellbound.

"So, Emile had the applicants come in, one at a time. First guy never even got started, Khadaji waved him off when he saw the guy's form. Then Sleel arrived." Dirisha watched Bork take a deep breath, then cross his arms. The ripples under the man's skin made him look so muscularly alive that the hairs on her neck stirred. "By the way, where is Sleel? He's supposed to be here."

"Off planet, doing something for Pen. He'll be back in a week or two. Finish the story, Bork is almost ready."

Dirisha grinned. Hell of a narrative hook she had. "Yeah, well, Sleel struts in like he does, cock of the galaxy, and Emile gives him the rif: the stool is bolted, he wants the bolts tested, see if you can move it."

Bork took another breath, let it out, and spread his arms wide.

"And?"

"And Sleel squatted and set himself and had at it. You must know how Sleel operates."

"Yes, he's... ah... single-minded."

Dirisha laughed quietly. "You sleep with him yet?"

Geneva nodded, smiling. "I hadn't intended to, but, well ...ah..."

"Yeah, I know, he's single-minded."

"He's very energetic," Geneva said. "And... ah, rather... potent."

"What I hear," Dirisha said, "Anyway, Sleel about busted a gut, but he wrenched the stool loose." "He told you about it?"

"No, I was watching. Hidden. I like to know the territory I plan to walk, so I found a way in and a place to blend into."

Bork took another deep breath and exhaled slowly. "Okay, so then what?"

"Then, I took off. Found a place that sold tables and stools like the one in the Jade Flower. Did some examining of the construction. Some figuring. Then I went back and slipped into the pub. About that time, Bork was up."

As though the whisper of his name was a signal, Saval Bork shook himself and walked to the massive padded bench two meters away. A polychrome bar with plates packed onto both ends lay across a pair of Y-supports. Bork sat on the bench, took a few breaths, then lay backward, under the bar. He nodded once, and somebody clicked the repel pres-sors on; the hum and low drone of the safety field was the only sound in the quiet exercise room. Bork closed his eyes, and reached up to lightly touch the bar with his fingertips.

He stroked the polychrome flexsteel gently.

Geneva's voice was so faint Dirisha could barely hear it. "So, what happened at the Jade Flower?"

Dirisha held her grin, watching Bork. "Oh, Emile told Bork he had a stool he needed moved. Bork reached out and grabbed the thing with one hand and moved it for him." "With one hand?"

"As if the thing weren't screwed to the floor; as if it took no more effort than straightening his tunic. Took him two seconds; it was like he didn't understand why it wouldn't move, at first, then he shrugged and just moved it."

"Damn."

"Yep. And Bork says, 'Where do you want it?', and Khadaji says,

'Anywhere. Can you start work in a week?'"

Geneva grinned. "I'm impressed. But—what about you? How did you manage to—?"

"Shhh." Dirisha pointed at Bork. He had wrapped his hands around the bar, and was beginning the bench press. The safety field would allow him to lower the weight slowly, Dirisha knew, but were he to drop it, it would hang for a few seconds before it began to settle, allowing Bork to scoot out from beneath it safely.

Bork straightened his arms, and the barbell rose from its supports, until the big mue's arms were locked; then, he began to slowly lower the bar toward his chest. Dirisha had been trying to figure out how much weight he was using. Each of the large steel plates was fifty kilos; there were four of them, two hundred kilos, plus a little more for the hair above one gee that Renault had. Then there were two more plates on each side, Dirisha thought they went twenty kilos each, that made it two-eighty—

Bork grunted as the bar touched his thick pectorals. He kept his back flat on the bench, no arch, and he did not bounce the weight. His face turned a darker shade of red as the bar began to slowly rise.

—Two-eighty, plus the bar itself, which weighed— what?—twenty?

twenty-five kilos? Call it three hundred kilos, minimum, probably closer to three-twenty. Incredible, that a man or mue could move that amount of weight, using only the muscles of the upper body, the chest, shoulders, and arms...

The weight reached its apex, and stopped. The ten students and instructors watching cheered. Bork had done it; he'd broken not only his own record but the planet-wide record, too.

Then, as Dirisha and the others watched, astounded, Bork lowered the weight—not to the supports—but to his chest again.

It was only after he'd pressed the thing three times that he allowed it to fall into its cradle. When he sat up, he was grinning. "So much for that," he said.

"What say we work out now?"

Dirisha felt Geneva's touch on her arm, a quick clamp of fingers which transferred all manner of information to her: admiration, awe, envy and... lust. Dirisha had no problem relating to any of those. She was, by choice, nearly celibate; Bork's effort made her feel desire, and she wondered at its primal nature, that it could touch her so deeply. More importantly, the feel of Geneva's hand on her arm seemed altogether too comfortable.

CHAPTER SEVEN

HER DOOR CHIME sounded as Dirisha stepped from the warm air of her fresher's dryer. She checked to see that both spetsdods were seated properly as she padded naked across the floor to the entrance. Holding her right hand so her weapon pointed at groin level, she slid the door open.

Geneva stood there, palms toward Dirisha, fingers pointed at the ceiling.

Both women grinned.

Dirisha stepped back and allowed the blonde to enter her cube. The dryer had not quite evaporated all the moisture of her shower, and the coolness felt good on her bare skin.

Geneva glanced at Dirisha appraisingly. "You look good," she said. Her voice carried admiration, along with a faint undertone of something else Dirisha couldn't place.

"Thanks. Nice to have something to show after all the years of work. What's up?"

Geneva walked to the bed and flopped onto it. She took a deep breath and blew it out. "Sleel is back. Turns out Pen sent him for some kind of bandit economic package he wants us to study—it's in the computer, and we're supposed to have read it by 0700 tomorrow."

Dirisha walked to her closet and pulled a set of orthoskins from the rack.

She began to tug the clothing on, noticing as she did so Geneva's interested glance.