This was less than fair, and I was planning to say so, when I saw three bodies where there should have been four. I struggled to my feet.
“I see three of them…where did the last one go?”
Sasha shrugged and gestured towards the bushes. “I hit him once, maybe twice, but he got away.”
I looked where she was pointing and saw a trail of blood. “Damn.”
She frowned and looked defensive. “It’s too bad he got away…but we narrowed the odds.”
I looked to see if she was serious. “Yeah? By how much?” I watched her think it through. If four poppers had made it aboard the barge, then why not five? Or six? Or ten? Assumptions could kill you. The voice confirmed my fears. It came from the bushes somewhere.
“Not bad for an over-the-hill head-case and a teenaged bimbo, but it ain’t over yet. Not by a long shot. I’ll be back! Wait for it. I’ll come when you least expect me.”
I jumped to the top of a storage module, saw a cloud of robo-insects take to the air fifty yards out, and considered going after him. It didn’t seem wise, though, not with the cover the bushes provided, and no certainty that he was alone.
I made one helluva target standing on the storage module, and jumped down. Joy grabbed my pants and scampered up to my shoulder. She put her feet at the base of my neck, grabbed an ear, and leaned way out. She looked happy. “Hiya, boss. How’s it hanging?”
I looked into her face, saw the merriment that danced in her eyes, and understood something that would have been obvious to anyone but me. Wamba had equipped Joy with the single emotion he wanted her to have, the one he hardly ever felt himself, and hoped to experience by having her around. Had the plan failed? Was that why he had given her to me?
I forced a smile of my own. “Pretty well, all things considered. Thanks for the help. You saved my life.”
Joy beamed with pleasure and rubbed herself against the side of my face. The feel of her miniature breasts brushing back and forth against my ear stimulated strange thoughts. I plucked her off my shoulder, smiled reassuringly, and placed her on the deck. She giggled happily. Long, slender legs flashed and she cartwheeled away. There was no doubt about it. Joy needed some clothes.
But first there were other more pressing problems to deal with. Like collecting the arsenal of weapons our attackers had unintentionally delivered and going through their pockets. Not a pleasant task, but a productive one. We found money, about four thousand in all, lots of spare ammo, some gas grenades, enough knives to open a cutlery store, two varieties of illicit drugs, and, last but certainly not least, temporary I.D. cards of the sort that corpies provide to freelancers. They can be set for anything from a day to a year and erase themselves after that. But these were good and came with 3-D photos, thumbprints, and a scanner strip. None of which would have meant diddly except for the fact that all the cards had been issued by Trans-Solar. Shasha knelt beside me. I showed her the card. “So much for getting rid of them on Mars.”
She was silent for a moment. “Damn.”
“Yeah. I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what’s going on?”
The stubborn look reappeared. She shook her head. “I already have.”
I shook my head sadly and got to my feet. “Right. And corpies give to charity. Well, let’s dispose of the bodies before they start to smell. I think I saw an ejection port near the storage compartment.”
What would have been easy in zero gee was hard work in ship-normal gravity. People weigh more after they die, or seem to, and it doesn’t make sense. Life should have weight, and leave a body feeling lighter, like a canteen emptied of water. But that’s not the way it works, as the guys on the local meat wagon will be glad to tell you.
But, by rolling the bodies onto a cargo pad, and dragging them to the ejection port, we got the job done. Of course, lifting the stiffs and stuffing them down the tube was not an especially pleasant task, but better them than us. Once that was accomplished, the rest was easy. It was a simple matter to close the hatch, seal it shut, and hit the green button.
I felt a slight vibration as air was pumped out of the chamber and heard a thump as the bodies were ejected from the tube. I tried to feel something, tried to think religious thoughts, but nothing came. It’s hard to empathize with poppers, dead or alive, and my religious training, if any, had disappeared along with my other memories.
The adrenaline drained out of my bloodstream and took my energy with it. I was afraid. And who wouldn’t be? We were trapped on a spacegoing barge with one or more hired killers. Fear was normal, and anything else would be stupid. But fear is an uncomfortable emotion. It saps your strength and demands full attention until you respond. But what should we do? Our arrival at what had been our fortress served to underline the problem.
The android was where we’d left him. His sky-blue body fluids had oozed out, mingled with human blood, and formed a brownish crust. What had seemed snug and secure prior to the attack felt open and vulnerable now. I had just started to think about that when Sasha assumed command again. She stood hands on hips, her gun in easy reach, with a newly acquired backup stuck in her waistband. “Collect the gear, Max. We’re pulling out.”
I would look back later, remember how she’d taken control, and wonder how I could have been so stupid. But I was stupid, and still am for that matter, and it felt good at the time. I nodded slowly. “Yeah, you’re probably right. No sense in staying here. We’ll build a fort somewhere else.”
Sasha looked grim. “No, we won’t. You were right, Max. I should’ve listened, should’ve taken your advice, but didn’t and paid the price.” Her face softened momentarily, and I saw something that might have been affection in her eyes. “You’re good at what you do, and don’t ever let people say you aren’t. I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”
Something rose to fill my throat, tears brimmed in my eyes, and a feeling of warmth suffused my body. I fought for control and got it. “Thanks…a letter of recommendation would be vastly appreciated. But why not? Build a fort, I mean.”
“’Cause we’re going to hunt the bastard down,” Sasha said coldly. “And his friends too…if he has any left.”
The idea hit my brain like the dawning of a new day. Bodyguards are reactive by nature, always looking to defend rather than attack, so the concept seemed radical at first. But the more I thought about the idea, the more I liked it. Why wait for the bastard to attack when you could find the creep, put him away, and spend the rest of the trip relaxing? The plan made excellent sense.
So we lifted the android to a standing position, checked to make sure he’d stay that way, and made an adjustment to his right hand. I thought the upraised finger said it all, and hoped the popper would see it.
It didn’t take long to gather our gear, stuff it into the duffel bags, and clear out. However, things that weighed nothing in zero gee were suddenly heavy and slowed us down. Sasha carried a bag plus the pressure suits, and I toted the rest. Joy wasn’t large enough to carry anything and scouted ahead. We were headed to starboard and on high alert. A second attack seemed unlikely but not impossible.
“We can’t carry this stuff all the time,” Sasha said thoughtfully. “We’ll be dead meat if a popper comes along. No, what we need is a stash, or a number of stashes in case some are discovered.”
I may be mentally challenged, but I know a good idea when I hear one, and the stash thing sounded good. My head swiveled back and forth looking for a good location. And, much to my own amazement, I found one.
The air vent was obvious really, especially to someone who lived on Sub-Level 38 of the Sea-Tac Residential-Industrial Urboplex, where good hiding places are few and far between. Four stainless-steel screws held the screen in place, but one of the recently deceased poppers had been the proud owner of a stainless-steel all-purpose pocket knife, the kind that comes with enough tools to perform brain surgery, and weighs a pound and a half. I pulled the monster out of my pocket, selected the Phillips head screwdriver, and went to work. Sasha supervised. “Don’t leave any scratches. They could give us away.”