Planet America (12 page)

This comment finally brought a change in Zarex. He raised himself from the couch and got to his feet. He was an even more massive individual than Hunter had first thought.

"Forgive me, Father," Zarex said with a slight bow. "I've been here so long, I've obviously forgotten my manners."

Tomm made a very quick crossing motion with his right hand, ending it with a hard slap upside Zarex's head. The man winced.

"Klaaz suspected you might be losing the battle to temptation," Pater Tomm said. "He was right, as always."

"I prefer to think of it as fighting the good fight, Padre," Zarex replied, rubbing his afflicted cheek.

Tomm just sniffed. "It's self-abuse," he said, not entirely priestly now. 'To the highest degree ..."

Hunter was barely paying attention to this odd conversation; his eyes were still saturated with all the gleaming, tanned, jiggling breasts. Tomm looked back at him, saw the state he was in, and threatened to slap his head, too.

He turned back to Zarex and said, "I pray you to reveal your little secret... before my friend here explodes."

Zarex frowned and reluctantly snapped his fingers.

Suddenly, all the girls disappeared.

Hunter was stunned—for about two seconds.

Then it hit him.

"Holo-girls?" he mumbled.

Zarex nodded sadly. "The best..."

Of course
, Hunter thought.
Now it all makes sense
.

He had met only one holo-girl in the flesh, so to speak. Or at least he didn't think he'd encountered any more; there was no way to really tell. That was the problem. Holo-girls were holographic projections of the most superior kind. They looked, felt, and acted as if they were human. And they were always perfect—
always
. Or at least the more expensive models were. They came packaged inside a small container not unlike a Twenty 'n Six box, just slightly more egg-shaped. Push the button, your holo-girl was there. Face, shape, hair, voice.
Perfect
... and ready to do anything.

Don't like blue eyes? Push the button, they turn to brown. Don't like blondes, another push, she's a redhead or a brunette or a raven-haired beauty. Another push, her breasts begin to grow. And grow. And grow. When it seems her top is about to burst, push again, and her breasts begin to shrink, almost until they become nonexistent. Push again, a tight top becomes a simple white blouse. Push. Skintight pants became a skintight skirt. Push. The boots disappear, revealing a beautiful set of bare legs and feet.

Push
...
Push... Push
...

But that was not all. The top-of-the-line holo-girls had the ability to take their suitors into the thirty-fourth dimension, a place programmed to provide endless scenarios usually involving paradise settings—all projected, of course. The top holo-girls had large memory banks, meaning the suitor could go into the Big Three-Four for days, weeks, even months, however long one could stand it. Then, with another push of the button, he would return to his starting point before his friends had taken another sip of their drinks. No time had passed at all. Invariably, the traveler would ask, "What I miss?"

But now, as the last of Zarex's holo-girls began blinking out all over the resort, a sense of gloom descended upon the penthouse. Suddenly, things weren't as bright, the colors not as vivid. The diamonds and crystal had lost their gleam.

It was apparent what was really going on.

The girls in the tower. The girls in the lobby. The girls lounging around the pool. They were all fakes. Zarex
was
alone here.

A long moment passed as the tidal wave of despair washed through the room. Now it really did seem like they were on a barren planet in a no-good star system with a guy who was simply hiding out. Hunter took a deep breath. It did no good. The gloom remained.

Zarex sighed and collected the few dozen holo-eggs and stored them away in a small carrying case, his only discernible luggage.

Then he turned to his visitors.

"Well, you've succeeded in banishing my one and only real vice," he said dryly. "Can I at least offer you a drink before you go?"

Without waiting for an answer, he led them over to an enormous bar, which was floating above what looked like a miniature self-contained sea, complete with rows of tiny waves and whitecaps. There were more than a hundred varieties of slow-ship wine on display above this really wet bar. Zarex reached across the tiny sea and selected a bright red bottle from the hovering rack. He poured out three healthy shots.

They held their glasses aloft.

"For fallen friends," all three intoned.

They downed their drinks in one noisy, simultaneous shot. Hunter let the sweetly pungent liquid flow down his throat. Instantly, he felt his feet lift a bit off the ground again.

Good stuff.

Zarex poured out three more shots. He seemed to relax a little.

"So you are friends of the Great Klaaz?" he asked with a booming voice. "Few names could break my spell."

"A friend of his is hopefully a friend of ours," Pater Tomm said with a polite bow.

They toasted again, this time silently. If possible, the second shot of slow-ship tasted better than the first. Hunter studied their host for a moment. For someone so huge and wild-looking, Zarex did have a dashing air about him. There was more than a hint of intelligence in his face, a bit of larceny in his steely eyes. The bubbles claimed Zarex had single-handedly charted thousands of isolated star systems and probably hundreds of thousands of planets as well. Though he didn't look the part, when he wasn't doing his weapons-selling gig, Zarex was one hell of an explorer.

He also knew his star juice.

"So, Father," he said, pouring out three more shots. "Are you also here to tell me the Great Klaaz is well?"

"Klaaz is well, and therefore so are our lives," Tomm replied properly. Then the priest nodded toward Hunter. "But actually, my friend and I have been shooting the Five-Arm for many weeks now, looking for a certain passage...."

Zarex's eyebrows rose with amusement. "And you took a wrong turn at the last nebula?" he asked.

Tomm shook his head. "No, we simply need directions. To a place, that... How shall I say it? Is off the beaten track."

Zarex laughed. "My specialty, once ..."

The priest lowered his voice. "We want to find the Home Planets."

Zarex's smile disappeared.

"The Home Planets?" he asked with mock ignorance. "Well, then you've been on a fool's mission, Padre. They don't exist."

Tomm sampled his third drink. "I should remind you that it is very bad luck to lie to a priest."

Zarex took this admonition to heart somewhat, but he did not change his tack.

"The Home Planets are things of myth and legend, Father," he said. "Stories to be told to children at bedtime."

Zarex took a sip of his drink; they all did.

"Besides," he continued, "why do you think / know how to get to them?"

"Because of your reputation," Pater Tomm replied simply. "That, and the fact that Klaaz told me you would."

Zarex looked down at the holy man and then shot back the rest of his drink. His defenses were crumbling.

He turned toward Hunter. "Your uniform, my friend, where does it come from? I'm not familiar with it."

"It belongs to my former employers," Hunter replied.

Zarex studied it a bit more closely. "A deserter, eh?"

Tomm began to say something, but Hunter raised his hand and cut him off. There was no need to avoid the truth here.

"That's exactly what I am," Hunter said. "And in my own defense, I believe I left for honorable reasons."

"That's what they all say," Zarex replied with a smirk.

He poured out three more drinks.

"And what would your business be in the Home Planets?" Zarex asked him pointedly. "If they exist, that is—"

Tomm slammed his glass on the bar hard enough to cut Zarex off in midsentence.

"We don't need that line again, brother," the priest said sternly. "We
know
they still exist."

Zarex looked down at the priest. "Really? And how, may I ask?"

"Because we saw their fighters in action," Hunter revealed. "On a world in the Dead Gulch System called Zazu-Zazu."

Zarex stopped pouring another drink in midflow. He was clearly shocked by this news.

"You
saw
them? When?"

"Six weeks past now," Pater Tomm said.

"
Six weeks
?" Zarex exclaimed. "My God, if you had said six years—or even sixty—I would have been surprised. But so recently? I mean, I really thought they'd all be gone by now. When I last heard of them, their ranks were nearly depleted, even then ..."

Zarex resumed filling their glasses. He shook his head.

"The Dead Gulch System, you say? Way out there? What the hell were they doing so far from home?"

"They were there because it was a holy place for them," Tomm said. "A place that was very important to their history, their mythology. Their whole everything. They were protecting the people who had acted as caretakers for the place. I know this because I traveled there with them. I hooked up with them at a staging planet two systems over. They needed a chaplain, I was available. They were just very tight-lipped about their planet of origin at the time."

"But what happened to them then?" Zarex asked. "Surely these fighters could have told you the way home."

"They're all gone," Hunter told him quietly. "Killed in battle."

Silence in the room.

"Every last one of them?" Zarex asked in a whisper. "Are you sure?"

Hunter nodded. "We were there. We saw it."

Zarex just shook his head again. He had to take a moment to collect himself. It was obvious the news had hit an emotional chord within him.

"Poor bastards," he said finally with a tip of his glass. "Sorry for the language. Father... but if that really was the last of them, well, I'm afraid that's not a good thing for any of us. Our existence needs more people like them, not less."

Pater Tomm took this as his cue. "So the Home Planets
do
exist," he said. "You know it, we know it. Now, their soldiers are gone, but those they left behind might still remain. It is these people we want to find."

Zarex contemplated them both. "Again, may I ask why?"

"I think I might have family among them," Hunter replied. "That's the simple answer, anyway."

Tomm drained his drink. "So, is it time to get down to brass tacks?" he asked Zarex.

"I'm listening, Padre," the explorer replied.

Tomm retrieved a bag of aluminum coins from his pocket. It was their payment for a mercenary job they'd done shortly after leaving Zazu-Zazu. He held it out at arm's length, barely up to Zarex's chest.

"We like our privacy, too," the priest told him. "So just tell us how to get there, and we leave this bag behind as insurance that the secret dies with us."

Zarex eyed the bag, was tempted mightily, but then shook his head. "This goes beyond gratuities, father."

The priest patted him on the arm. "We mean these people no harm, brother. They want to stay hidden; we understand that. It's only dialogue that we seek."

"It's not as simple as that," Zarex said. "It's a very long journey just to get to the first step. And after that, it gets worse. Nearly impossible, in fact."

He poured them all another shot of wine.

"Believe me, I've had more than my share of such treacherous journeys, and frankly, my friends, they are not good for either heart or soul."

He drained his drink and capped the bottle. "So, I am sorry," he said. "But there's nothing I can do for you. Please give my regards to Klaaz when you see him again."

Suddenly, Hunter grabbed him by the wrist. "Don't move," he warned the explorer.

Even Tomm was shocked by this sudden departure of good form.

"Please, brother," he cautioned Hunter. "There are other ways to—"

But Hunter wasn't listening to him. His eyes were looking all the way to the left, and his ears were perked up. It was as if he was trying to hear something from very far away.

Zarex tried to untangle his arm, but Hunter was too strong for him.

"Listen," Hunter told them urgently. "We have to get out of here ...
immediately
."

Zarex and Pater Tomm just stared back at him.

"What did you just say?" the priest asked him.

"I said we have to get out of this tower
right now
!"

But Zarex wouldn't budge. "What's got into you, man?" he roared at Hunter.

'Trust me," Hunter said, head still cocked skyward. "Something very bad is coming this way."

Pater Tomm needed no prodding; he was already convinced.

"Mr. Hunter has a way about these things," the priest said to Zarex. "We must go right now!"

Zarex did not argue any further. He gathered most of his holo-eggs and...

Flash!

They popped out a moment later, standing behind a huge boulder about a half mile from the resort's main gate. Zarex and Tomm were looking highly distressed and staring at Hunter, as if to ask him:
Why
?

They would know the answer in just a few seconds.

The missile had entered the BDG star system just three minutes before, and only an instant before Hunter's elevated senses detected it. As soon as he felt it, though, there was never any doubt where the missile was headed. How could he detect a missile from so far away with just his instincts? He didn't know. As Pater Tomm said, he just had a way with these things.

It came out of the blue sky with an ungodly roar, heading right at the resort's highest tower. The missile was a LR/ SDBM—a long-range space-deployed bombardment missile. It was an almost antique weapon closer in to the Ball, but still a formidable piece of hardware out here on the Fringe.

Two hundred feet long, with a squat fuselage and a triangular, almost arrowlike warhead on its tip, it was a weapon used centuries before to conduct massive bombardment of entire planets; indeed, a barrage of these missiles, hitting key strategic areas in unrelenting attack, could deplete a planet's global defenses in a matter of hours, softening it up for invasion from space.