Jandra nodded. She hadn't known who Tarzan was when she first arrived on the moon. It felt wrong that she did now. But Jazz was right. Tarzan had been trapped between two worlds, neither civilized man nor jungle beast. Jandra sympathized.
"That Pet fellow was really coming on to you," said Jazz. "Turning him down for being a jerk is something I can respect. But you were also turning him down because you're afraid of your own sexuality. You really haven't had any girlfriends to talk about this stuff with. I can help with that."
"I didn't know you'd brought me up here to be psychoanalyzed." Psychoanalyzed? Was that really a word? A synapse fired and she suddenly knew that sometimes a cigar was just a cigar. She also knew that Bitterwood had been right when he'd pointed out that she dressed herself in dragon scales. She'd always subconsciously thought of herself as ugly for being scaleless, wingless, and tailless. She'd grown into a human woman's body without any preparation for thinking of it as a worthwhile thing to possess.
"Okay," said Jandra. "Maybe we don't have to be enemies. Maybe there are things I could learn from you. How to use my nanotech better, for one thing. You're obviously operating on a very different level than I am."
"That's the spirit," said Jazz.
"So, I'll stay and be your friend," said Jandra. "But only if you let Bitterwood, Hex, and Zeeky go."
"Hmm. A deal with the devil, huh? Well-" Jazz tilted her head, like a dog hearing some far off sound.
"Oh great," she muttered.
"What?" asked Jandra.
"The central bell at the Nest just sounded," sighed Jazz. "This time it's not just some horny sky-dragon that's the problem." She shook her head and mumbled, mostly to herself, "Wish you hadn't done this, Blasphet. I sort of liked you."
Jazz stood up. The park bench crumbled back to dust. The pad of paper she carried disintegrated, leaving the graphite lines of the drawing hovering in the air. She reached out, wound the lines up into a little ball of thread, and shoved them into the pocket of her blue jeans. She flicked away the cigarette she'd been smoking. It cut a long glowing arc before her, which opened like an eyelid into twin rainbows framing a narrow slit of perfect nothingness.
"Follow me," said Jazz. "Let's give your friends something useful to do to work off their aggression."
Ahead, the cries of dying gleaners fell silent. Frost and his men had moved on. Pet trotted toward the direction he'd last heard them, hoping he might still catch up. The bright moon cut the junkscape surrounding him into spooky, surreal shadows. Pet felt lost and alone. He stared up at the white orb, trying to get his bearings. He wished Jandra were present. She was always so quick to tell him the right thing to do, even if he was always so slow in doing it. As he stood silently, he heard men's voices, and a woman crying. He hurried toward the sound.
"Hold her," a man gruffly commanded.
"Filthy gleaner scratched me," another said, his voice trailing off into nervous laughter.
The crying woman screamed, then her voice was cut short by a loud slap.
Pet ran around a junk hill and found three men holding down the woman. Her clothes were torn to shreds. Her face was dirty with rust, and blood was flowing from her nose and lips; she looked a few years older than Jandra. One of the three men was kneeling over her head, his knees pressing down on her shoulders, pinning her with his weight. A second man was fighting to pin down her pale, thin legs, which were kicking wildly. The third man watched with a leering grin, his fingers probing a set of long parallel scratches on his left cheek.
The scratched man giggled again. "Don't hit her so hard she blacks out. She won't learn her lesson if she's unconscious."
Pet drew up to his full height and marched forward. "What are you doing?" he shouted. "This isn't the mission. Let her go!"
Scratch-cheek giggled again. "Oh, it's the dragon-slayer. Funny how you disappeared at the first sign of danger."
"I've killed more men tonight than I have in years," Pet said in his best leadership voice. "Let her go and get back to your mission."
"We're just having a little fun," said the one at her feet. He'd finally managed to pin her legs down. The woman was crying hard now, barely able to inhale.
The one at her head said, "We're doing the mission. We'll kill her once we're done."
"Come on, dragon-slayer," said Scratch-cheek. "We'll give you first turn."
Pet placed an arrow against his bowstring and raised it, taking aim at Scratch-cheek.
"I can kill all three of you before you blink," he said, hoping they'd buy the bluff.
"Don't start believing your own lies, boy," said Scratch-cheek, still dabbing gently at his wounds. He seemed not the least bit afraid of Pet. "It's three of us against one of you."
Pet let the arrow fly. He imagined the shaft burying itself in Scratch-cheek's face. To his amazement, it did so, lopping off the man's middle finger before sinking into his skull just beneath the eye. Scratch-cheek dropped to his knees and fell over the crying woman, completely still. The two men who'd held her rose and drew their swords. Pet tried to pull another arrow from his quiver, but the men were charging him faster than he expected. Pet gave up on the arrow and drew his sword, raising it in time to parry a chop from the head-man. He jumped backwards as the foot-man gave a rapid jab that terminated directly in the space his belly had occupied a half second before. Pet had no skills at actual combat, only stage combat, but instinct took over. He dodged and parried, drawing on his acrobatic training as the pair pressed their attack. Unfortunately, he could see no opening for a counterstrike.
A loud metallic zang rang out behind him, followed by a whistle as a razor sharp disk big as a dinner plate flashed past his eyes. The head-man was suddenly headless. Pet's remaining opponent turned white as a ghost as he gazed at something behind Pet. Pet almost turned around to see why, but he was opportunistic enough to know he might never get a better chance to strike. He buried his sword into the right side of the man's ribcage, driving the blade in as deep as he could. The man staggered backward, a curse on his lips. Pet tried to free his sword but it was stuck, trapped by the man's ribs, and the hilt was twisted from his fingers as the man fell backward.
Ten feet away, Pet saw the gleaner woman kick herself free from the dead man who had fallen on her. She rose, clutching her torn clothes to her body. A black-haired woman no older than the gleaner leapt from the shadows with a sword and buried it in the woman's back. The gleaner fell lifeless to the dirt. Her assailant stared at Pet. She was dressed in black buckskin, nearly invisible in the shadows. A Sister of the Serpent? No. She didn't have any tattoos, and she still had hair, even eyebrows.
"Good job," said a voice behind Pet. Pet whirled around. The tall dark-skinned man stood behind him. He'd caught glimpses of this man earlier and knew his name was Burke. Burke was wearing a huge gauntlet that covered his left arm from shoulder to wrist. The gauntlet forced his arm to be held perfectly straight, and on his shoulder and back there was a tall cartridge full of the razor disks that had decapitated the first swordsman.
"Good job?" Pet asked. "Are you talking to me or her?"
"Both of you," said Burke. "Anza for fulfilling the mission. You for having the moral fiber to stand up to these thugs. What's your name, boy?"
"Pe-Bitterwood," Pet said. He cringed internally, wondering why he'd fallen back to the lie. There was something about this man's eyes, however, that made Pet feel especially ashamed of his true identity.
"Bitterwood? Oh! You're that fellow from the Free City. Are you Bant's son or something?"