Vip nudged Lance, the rangy Brit sitting in an isle seat. Lance counted his pathetic supply of plastic tokens—credits.
“Hey, Kang,” Vip said. “How come you didn’t hit the wall like Marten did?”
Kang stopped his doodling and ponderously raised his head.
“You ever hope to take maniple leadership from Marten you’re gonna have to do stuff like that,” Vip said.
Out of the corner of his eye, Marten watched the silent Mongol. Kang had probably killed more men in combat than the rest of them put together. They were all FEC Army heroes, having all fought in the Japan Campaign six months ago.
“You want to know why?” Kang asked.
“I asked you didn’t I?” Vip said.
Kang scratched at his crossword puzzle. Then he held it out for Vip. “I wrote out the reason.”
Vip winked at Lance before stepping near to grab the journal.
For all his bulk, Kang could strike quicker than a mongoose. He dropped the crossword puzzle and latched onto Vip’s wrist. Then he stood, yanked Vip against his chest and with one hand grabbed the little man by his jacket collar. He lifted Vip off his toes.
“Dance, boy,” Kang said. He jerked Vip up and down until Vip slapped the vast forearm with something that sizzled.
Kang hissed as his hand opened reflexively.
Vip jumped back into the main isle. Metal glittered in his palm. It was a stolen agonizer, a PHC tool, probably dropped somewhere when the Highborn had killed the Social Unitarians at the start of the rebellion. The stubborn PHC people had refused to surrender.
Kang tested his hand by flexing it several times. Then he glared at Vip.
Lance took that moment to stand, pocket his plastic credits and block Kang’s way out. Although as tall and broad-shouldered as Kang, the Brit with his sweeping dark hair probably weighed only half as much. But then he was mostly gristle and whalebone, as he liked to say.
Kang’s upper lip twitched.
“Vip!” Marten said. He desperately wanted to avoid a forbidden shuttle fight that would cancel the trip.
Kang, Lance and Vip glanced at him, as did Omi, who sat beside Marten.
“Give me the agonizer,” Marten said.
“It’s mine,” Vip said.
“Yeah,” Marten said. “But I don’t want you carrying it during leave and getting yourself in trouble.”
“If I don’t have it,” Vip said. “Then you’ll have it, and then you’ll get in trouble. Bet you hadn’t thought of that.”
“Gimme,” Marten said, holding out his hand.
Vip weighed the tiny torture device.
Lance turned from Kang, giving his friend Vip a significant glance before he jerked his head at Marten.
Vip whined, “But I want to fix the dealer who thought he could—”
Lance cleared his throat and shook his head. “Give it up,” he said.
Vip pouted a moment longer, then shrugged and tossed it to Marten. He put the agonizer in his jacket pocket.
Marten now regarded Kang, who still flexed his hand. “You ought to relax. In a few more minutes we’re at the Pleasure Palace and we can all get drinks.”
“Are you buying me a round?” Kang asked.
Marten calculated his slender supply of credits—a few less than Lance because he’d played poker with him last night. “Sure,” he said, knowing he needed every plastic token he had. “One round.”
Kang grunted. Then he picked the crossword journal off the floor and sat down. He used his pencil to trace heavy lines one tiny box at a time.
“Docking in one minute,” a female pilot said over the intercom. “Please take your seats and buckle in.”
Omi and Marten exchanged glances. Because the HB mania for rank had infected most of the shock troopers, they hadn’t told the others about the gelding tape. As elite shock troopers, they outranked all Earthbound FEC fighters. In the carefully layered strata for premen, fighting forces in space or planet-side trumped everyone else. Next, were police and monitors. Below them were the captains of industry and the personal techs of various Highborn. Thus among the shock troops the most coveted position was maniple leader. As soon as the Highborn created higher command slots, such as mission first commander and second and third, then no doubt the struggle among the maniple leaders for those slots would become intense.
So… who to trust, that had been Marten’s question. Not Kang, who had always been first even if only in street gangs. Vip was too twitchy to know which way he’d jump. Lance… he was sneaky. It was hard to know what he really thought about anything so Marten didn’t know if he could trust him.
Marten stared gloomily out the shuttle window. He had his few credits, and Omi’s, he supposed, and a listening device. Otherwise, all he had was his wits to try to find a vacc suit. He had only this trip to do it in, too, because who knew if he could win another reward trip before the snip-snip moment made it all academic. He rubbed his jacket over the spot on his forearm where the barcode was tattooed. Tagged like a beast.
The shuttle began to brake.
Marten’s chest tightened. Whatever it took. Do or die. He blew out his cheeks and wished this shuttle would hurry and dock.
5.
They exited the shuttle and followed the route card that Marten had been given at the barracks. He limped because of his ankle. It was tightly wrapped and he’d been given a shot to reduce swelling, but it was tender. Soon they stood in a sterile hall and before a row of steel-colored lift doors.
“Seventeen C,” Marten said, checking his card.
“This way then,” said Lance.
They found the lift, Marten slid the route card through the slot and door binged, opening. They entered. He slid the card in the destination slot, and up they went toward Level 49, the Pleasure Palace.
Most of the Sun Factory was automated and empty of people. It was a giant construct and it would have taken billions of people to fill. There was a funny psychological fact concerning it. Most people wanted to be around other people. So there were a few areas in the Sun Works Factory were the vast majority congregated. The Pleasure Palace was one of those places. The shock-trooper training area was another and the third was the Highborn facilities.
Each was an oasis of humanity amid an empty sea of thousands of miles of corridors and holding bays.
“You owe me a drink,” Kang said as they rode the lift.
“I haven’t forgotten,” Marten said.
“Where do we go first?” Vip asked Lance. “The game pit or the card room?”
“You got to study the crowds first,” explained Lance. “Get a feel for the luck of a place.”
Vip nodded sagely.
Kang said, “Only losers talk about luck.”
Vip laughed in a know-it-all way, while Lance looked at the ceiling and pursed his lips.
“I don’t how many times I’ve heard losers whine to me to give them a second chance,” Kang said. “‘The shipment got fouled up due to bad luck,’ they’d say. ‘Yeah?’ I’d ask. ‘Real bad luck, Kang. You watch, and my luck will turn around. No,’ I’d say. ‘I don’t think your luck will ever change. Why not, Kang? Sure it will.’ I’d shake my head, get up and stick a vibroblade in their belly. ‘That’s why not,’ I’d tell them. I was never wrong.”
“Where was that?” asked Lance, perhaps a bit too eagerly.
Kang shrugged.
Marten knew where. Back in the slums of Sydney, Australian Sector where Kang had been the gang leader of the Red Blades. Just like in the old French Foreign Legion, many in the shock troops kept their past to themselves. Neither Lance nor Vip had been with them in the Japan Campaign, back when Omi, Kang and Marten had been soldiers in the 93rd Slumlord Battalion of the 10th FEC Division.
Before anyone could say more, the lift opened and they were assaulted by noise and a waft of mingled human odors. They hurried onto the broad passageway with its glittering festival-lights. Slender imitation-trees swayed in the perfumed breeze, while crowds seethed across the floorspace. The people wore bright party clothes and happy drunken grins. Paygirls or men in even gaudier costumes draped on a partygoer’s arm. Dotted among this mass were the obvious uniformed police and undercover monitors. Along the sides of the passageway stood souvenir shops, restaurants, pleasure-parlors and game and card rooms. Snack-shacks provided a shot of pick-me-up that aroused the sluggish or pills and sandwiches to provide energy.