They idled on, learning the warehouse district's tight, twisty out-of-the-ways first hand. Street maps and eidetic holo-memories had been given them, but only exploration made a place real. Every city had its feel, its color, its smell, its style. Psych's familiarization tapes could not capture the intangibles of reality.
Knowledge and preparation were the corner- and keystones of their trade.
"I need a bath," Niven complained. "I can smell swamp muck on me."
"Let's head back to the Marcos. My stomach's okay now. I'm hungry. And a game or two would get me back in the groove. Tomorrow's soon enough to take the case."
The Marcos was The Broken Wings' best hotel, and one of the best in The Arm. And that despite the limits imposed by the space and conservation regulations of a dome city.
Dome cities are planet-bound space vessels. Which translates as uncomfortable.
The lobby of the Marcos had been decorator-engineered to provide an illusion of openness. The wall facing the entrance was masked by a curving hologramic panorama from another world.
Mouse froze.
"What's the matter?"
The smaller man stared straight ahead. He did not reply.
"The Thunder Mountains seen from Edgeward City on Blackworld," Niven murmured, recognizing the scene.
It was a stark view, of black mountains limned by the raging star winds of a pre-nova sun. Blackworld was one of the least hospitable and most dramatically beautiful of the outworlds.
"Just surprised me, Doc." Mouse glanced around the lobby. "It was the Cathedral Forest on Tregorgarth when we checked in."
People stared. The two gave the impression of being invaders instead of guests. Their appearance labeled them hardcases barely able to get by on their wits. Men of that breed belonged in the warehouse district, not at the watering hole of the genteel.
The watery-eyed bellhop, who watched them stroll through the hologram to the elevators, did not belong either. He limped when he walked, but he was too solid, too macho, to be staff. His uniform was a size too small. His stance was a centimeter too assertive.
"Something's gone broomstick," Mouse said. The elevator doors closed with startling severity, as though issuing a declaration of war.
Meticulous preliminary research characterized a Beckhart operation. They had seen holos of, and reports on, all regular hotel staff.
"I saw him. What do we do?"
"Cut out a floor short."
Why not just get the hell out? Niven wondered.
"Well take the stairs. We'll catch them from behind."
"You're taking a lot for granted."
"Anything to save a kick in the teeth."
Their floor was the fifth. The penthouse level. It contained four suites. Only theirs was occupied.
"The empty car will tip them," Niven remarked after Mouse had punched Four.
"Yeah. You're right."
"So?"
"Tell you what. Let's slide down and see if we can snatch the gimp. Shoot him with Nobullshit and see what he's got to say."
That was pure Mouse thinking, Niven reflected. Running was an alien concept.
They were both in Old Earther role. Holonet stereotype Old Earther role. But they had not received a full Psych-brief. Their speech patterns tended to meander between that appropriate to the role and that of Academy graduates. Their mission-prep had included only a limited Psych-brief. They remembered who they were. They had to think to maintain consistent images.
"We're getting sloppy," Niven observed. "Let's tighten up."
The elevator stopped on Three. They exchanged glances.
"Better stand back, Doc."
Mouse's eyes and face blanked. A subtle air of crouch, of tenseness enveloped him. He seemed to have gone to another world.
He had entered "assassin's mind." Which meant that he had become a biochemical killing robot.
Mouse was a physical combat specialist.
A dowdy, blubbery woman with two poodles and a make-believe fortune in cultured firestones waddled aboard. "Five, please." And, before Niven caught the wrong note, "You're new. Offworlders?"
Niven responded with an affirmative grunt. He had to think of some way to distract the woman while Mouse relaxed.
"How marvelous. Let me guess. One of the Inner Worlds?"
Niven grunted again. He stared at the door, hoping rudeness would be distraction enough. He took Mouse's arm gently as the door opened on Four.
"Stay where you are!"
A tiny needlegun peeped from a fat hand. The woman sloughed the dowager character. Suddenly she was as hard-edged as they.
"Move together." The doors closed. "Thank you."
Niven looked beyond costume and props and saw the enemy.
She was the Sangaree Resident for The Broken Wings, Sexon S'Plez.
Christ, you're slow, he told himself. The fat alone should've warned you.
Plez was suspected of being a proctor of the Sexon, which was one of the First Families of the Sangaree. That would make her the equal of a Planetary Senator...
The assignment of a heavy-duty Resident to a backwater world was what had stimulated Luna Command into sending in its shock troops.
How had she gotten onto them so fast? Niven wondered.
Two nervous heavies in ill-fitting hotel livery awaited the car on floor Five. They were a tall, pale, ginger-haired pair who had to be brothers.
"Which one's Niven?" the older asked.
"Out." The woman gestured with her weapon.
Wavering guns peered from all the brothers' four hands.
Careful, Niven thought. He raised his hands slowly. These men were amateurs. They might start panic-shooting.
"Chunky's Niven. The gook must be Piao."
The Starduster's associates were as shadowy as he, but one of the few names known was John Li Piao, reputed number-two man and chief bone-breaker. The face of the man who wore that name, though, was as much an enigma as the Starduster's.
"I don't want you should get upset," Niven said, trying to project terrified and outraged innocence, and having no trouble with the fear, "but I think you've got the wrong... "
"Stuff it, animal!" the woman snarled.
The Old Earth cant is catching, Niven thought.
The brothers' eyes narrowed. Their lips tightened. The insult included them. Animal was the Sangaree's ultimate racial slur.
Niven put on a bewildered face. "What's going on, anyway? I'm just a social researcher. Studying the effects of dome constriction... "
The brothers laughed tightly. One said, "Crap."
Mouse had gotten caught in the limbo between normalcy and assassin's mind. The state was one of semi-consciousness. It would take him time to push himself one way or the other. Niven knew which way Mouse would go. His stomach knotted.
"... to study the effects of dome constriction on immigrant workers." Mouse needed a distraction. "For Ubichi Corporation. This man is my secretary. We're not carrying any cash." That was the course, he thought. Protesting innocence of a connection with the trade would cause laughter. Protesting being robbed might make them hesitate the instant Mouse needed.
He did not feel that Mouse was doing the right thing. But Mouse did not know how to back down. He was a hitter. It would get him killed someday.
It might get them both killed, but he could not change Mouse's ways.
The older gunman wavered. "The yacht was a Ubichi charter."
"Cover... " the woman began. Too late.
Mouse exploded.
Flying, with a scream that froze them an additional second.
A fist disarmed the woman. Her weapon dribbled into the elevator. One foot, then the other, pistoned into the older brother's face. He triggered. Needles stitched the wall over Niven's head.
The younger brother managed only a half turn. Mouse bounced into him. He chopped weapons away with his left hand. His right went for the man's throat.
A gurgling scream ripped through a shattered windpipe.