Mudface shrugged disinterestedly.
Bili said nothing. He gazed out the window into the forests and seemed absorbed.
“You can’t, Mudface,” hissed Sarah urgently. “I’ll make it worth your while if you just let him go. What can he do?”
“Little ‘uns grow up, missy. Maybe one day he’ll come lookin’ for poor Mudface when he’s just a toothless old man.”
Sarah reached out and touched his grimy skin. She forced herself to caress him. “Please.”
Mudface tracked her carefully with the barrel of his hand-cannon. Never did she have a moment to make a move on him. With his other hand he picked at a bit of filth on his face. “I’m gonna get what I want, anyways.”
Sarah felt sick. “Have you ever had a willing woman?”
Mudface frowned, an expression of concentration formed on his face. “I can’t say. Maybe one or two of the swampy harlots, I guess you could say they was willing enough.”
“Believe me, I can do special things for a man to please him.” First glancing at Bili to see if he was still staring out the window-he was-she gave him another caress and pressed soft lips against his fingers. She tried to avoid the one he used most commonly for picking his face.
He fidgeted indecisively. “Oh, all right,” he said finally, opening the car door and giving Bili a shove. “Off with you.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” said Bili seriously. He tried to catch his mother’s eyes. “Not yet.”
“Go on now. Go,” his mother insisted, pushing him away.
Bili turned and ran into the night, hot tears burning his cheeks. Mudface fired a few wild shots into the woods after him to convince Daddy, then turned back to Sarah. “You know I’ve got a soft spot, don’t you missy? You’re gonna have to pay for this favor, don’t you know.”
Sarah said nothing.
Daddy came back to the limo, fumbling with his fly and cussing at Mudface.
She searched the fringe of dark trees for some sign of her son, she thought she saw a dark shape flittering through the trees, but she couldn’t be sure.
The drive through the forest to the secluded vacation house Mudface and Daddy kept there seemed to take forever, although it only lasted a few minutes. The entire time, Mudface busied himself with Sarah, fondling and groping beneath her blouse. He grinned silently while he did this, and seemed to enjoy sneaking a feel in the backseat while Daddy drove the car. Sarah wondered briefly whether he had ever had a girlfriend to do such things with. She doubted it.
At times, as the limo wound its way up into the mountains, they came upon open vistas beneath which all of Grunstein was visible. As they passed one of them, they could see the flashes and hear the distant rattling of gunfire coming from the spaceport. Daddy slowed the limo and rolled down the windows to watch.
“That’s a squadron of Stormbringers up there,” he said, rubbing his stubbly chin. “I don’t like this at all.”
“So what if the dirt-huggers are getting a new Governor? Let them fight it out,” said Mudface.
Sarah could tell he was anxious to get the car moving again so he could continue his fantasies and his gropings. His hand worked on the inside of her thigh like a man kneading bread.
“Nope, don’t like it at all,” repeated Daddy. He cleaned a long triangular fingernail with his teeth. “Big changes in who’s who won’t help our business. I’ve paid a lot of money for Zimmerman’s rubberstamp. What if this new Droad guy out from the Nexus is uncontrollable?”
Mudface rolled his eyes and bared his teeth in impatience. Sarah braced herself as Daddy rolled the window up on the distant battleground and drove onward. Mudface’s ministrations began again immediately and in earnest. He leaned close to kiss her and she forced herself to respond. It was still possible for them to go back and try to find Bili. She had to give him as much time as possible to get away.
The smell of the man, up close and personal, was enough to gag her. His skin had a rancid, cheesy odor to it that was overlaid with the sharp pungency of unwashed armpits. His breath was indescribably powerful.
Breathing through her mouth, Sarah endured this silently, as he seemed to like it that way. She wondered if Daddy would have cared even if she had been screaming her head off.
Mudface started on her knees next, and worked his way up slowly, squeezing hard enough to bruise her. Sarah steeled herself and stared out the windows into the forest.
“What’s that?” she gasped. A dark shape glided across the road ahead. For a moment the headlights caught an image of a stingray-like creature with mottled brown skin. The creature vanished into the forest.
“Shut up!” barked Daddy. “Just some kinda bird.”
Sarah fell silent again, but inside her a numbing block of icy fear began to form. She knew the creatures of Garm well, and she had seen too many odd monsters lately to count this one as normal. What was happening? It seemed as if she were caught up in several nightmares at once.
Shortly after that they pulled into a driveway that curved downward at a sharp angle. After several switchbacks they reached the house, and the floodlights came on, sensing their approach. A subsection of the house slid away and the limo glided inside.
An elevator took them from the garage up to the main floor. Daddy sent Mudface to the security center to check all the systems out. The moment he was gone, Daddy advanced on her, grabbing up a handful of her hair and placing the barrel of his hand-cannon to her temple.
“Come on, girly,” he rumbled in her ear. “Quiet now.”
He dragged her out to the indoor pool area and shut the door behind them. The walls and the domed roof reflected wavery lines of light from the pool. Sarah’s breathing became short and desperate. Her heart pounded in her chest.
“Sorry, but I just don’t think we have time to do this little bit of business properly,” said Daddy. With that, he unceremoniously gripped her throat in both hands and began squeezing. She struggled, kicking his blubbery body and scratching at his face. He cursed a bit, but was otherwise unaffected. He forced her down on her back and slid her head toward the edge of the pool.
The frenzied sounds of splashing echoed around the indoor pool. Daddy held Sarah’s head under the water, trying not to let her scratch his face and hands. The barrel of his hand-cannon, shoved into his waistband, gleamed in the wavering pool lights. After a time the splashing stopped.
“What are you doing?” demanded Mudface, he returned from the security center and rushed up to his side. “You wasted her.”
“Yeah, so?”
“You said we were going to have fun with her first,” complained Mudface. “You promised.”
“We haven’t got time for that tonight, boy. Strange things are happening around the colony. Lots of reported riots and disappearances. I think that new Nexus Governor is making a play to start a civil war down here and I don’t want to hang around for it.”
“I had big plans,” said Mudface, looking at Sarah’s blue cheeks longingly.
Daddy snorted. “Just do it anyway.”
“It’s not the same with a dead woman. It isn’t any fun unless she knows you’re doing it,” said Mudface.
Daddy sighed and rolled his eyes. He looked at the ceiling of his luxurious summer home. He rarely came down from Gopus these days to visit-except to do a little business like tonight. Publicly he held that he couldn’t stand the crowds of Garm. In truth he didn’t like the gravity, which made his vast bulk twice as hard to move around.
“Okay, boy, I know I promised and I don’t like to go back on promises. Look, we both know CPR. Let’s give it a try,” suggested Daddy, moved to a rare attempt at pleasing his son. He grabbed Sarah’s arms and jerked her out of the pool. Chlorine-smelling water dribbled from her broken fingernails.
“What are you talking about? She’s dead.”
“We’ve got one of those reviver kits in the poolhouse. Go get it.”
Smiling hopefully like a kid at Christmas, Mudface left at a trot and soon returned with a shrink-wrapped package. He pulled off the wrapper and popped the safety-seal cap. Beneath the cap were two copper prongs and a long steel needle. Daddy grabbed them from him saying, “Get back.”