"Understood… " he said gruffly, with a tremor in his voice. I put the knife away and clapped him on the shoulders.
"I like you, Jak. You learn easy."
We went in silence and I hoped that he was making the right conclusions. I don't like threats and when threatened I do the opposite of what I am requested. But my experience of the petty criminal led me to believe that threats tended to work with them. Part of the time.
Our route took us past a number of other bars and Jak looked carefully into each one before going on. He struck paydirt in the fifth one and waved me in after him. This place was dark and smokefilled, with jangling music blasting from all sides. Jak led the way to the rear of the room, to an alcove where the music was not quite as loud, at least not as loud as the striped outfit the fat man was wearing. He leaned back in a heavy chair and sipped at a tiny, poisonous green drink. "Hello, Captain," my guide said.
"Get dead quickly, Jak. I don't want your kind here."
"Don't say that even funning. Captain. I got good business for you here, a mission of mercy. This grassgreen cutlet is a step ahead of the draft. Needs new ID." The tiny eyes swiveled toward me. "How much you got, cutlet?"
"Jak says one-fifty for him, ten for you. I already paid him his."
"Jak's a liar. Twelve is the price and I give him his cut."
"You're on."
It was an instant transaction. I gave him the money and he passed over the grubby plastic folder. Inside there was a blurred picture of a youth who could have been anyone my age, along with other vital facts including a birthdate quite different from my own.
"This says that I am only fifteen years old!" I protested.
"You got a baby face. You can get away with it. Drop a few years—or join the army."
"I feel younger already." I pocketed the ID and rose. ' "Thanks for the help."
"Any time. Long as you got the sugarlumps." I left the bar, crossed the road and found a dark doorway to lurk in. It was a short wait because Jak came out soon after me and strolled away. I strolled behind him at a slightly faster stroll. I was breathing down his neck before he heard my footsteps and spun about nar Murrisoi. "Just me, Jak, don't worry. I wanted to thank you for the favor."
"Yeah, sure, that's all right." He rolled his eyes around at the deserted street.
"You could do me another favor, Jak. Let me see your own ID. I just want to compare it to mine to make sure the Captain didn't give me a ringer."
"He wouldn't do that!"
"Let's make sure." My dagger blade twinkled in the streetlight and he rooted inside his jacket then handed me a folder very much like my own. I turned to look at it under the light, then handed it back. But Jak was the suspicious type. He glanced at it before putting it away—and dropped his jaw prettily. "This ain't mine—this is yours!"
"That's right. I switched them. You told me that ID was good. So use it."
His cries of protest died behind as I walked uphill away from the shore. To a better neighborhood without a criminal element. I felt very pleased with myself. The ID could have been good—in which case Jak would lose nothing.
~ But if it were faulty in any way it would be his problem, not mine. The biter bit. A very evenhanded solution. And I was going in the right direction. Once away from the waterfront things did get better, the buildings taller, the streets cleaner, the lights brighter. And I got tireder. Another bar beckoned and I responded. Velvet drapes, soft lights, leather upholstery, better-looking waitress. She was not impressed by my clothes, but she was by the tip I passed over when my beer arrived.
I had very little time to enjoy it. This was a well-policed city and the bad-pigs came in pairs. A brace of them waddled in through the door and my stomach slipped closer to the floor. But what was I worrying about? My ID was fine.
They circuited the room, looking at identification, and finally reached my table.
"Good evening, officers," I smarmed. "Knock off the cagal and let's see it."
I smiled and passed over the folder. The one who opened it widened his nostrils and snorted with pleasure.
"Why look what we got here! This is Jak the joike strolled away from his home turf. That's not nice, Jak. "
"It's a free world!"
"Not for you, Jak. We all know about the deal you made with harbor police. Stay there and rat on your friends and you get left alone. But you strayed out of your turf, Jak. "
"I'll go back now," I said rising with a sinking feeling.
"Too late," they said in unison as they slapped on the cuffs.
"Far too late," the nostril-flarer said. "You're out of business, Jak, and in the army."
This really was the biter bit. This time I had been just a little too smart for my own good. It looked like my new and exciting military career had just begun.
Chapter 7
The cell was small, the bed hard, I had no complaints. After the strenuous day I had just finished, sleep was the only thing that I wanted. I must have been snoring as I fell toward the canvas covers, with no memory of my face ever touching the stained pillow. I slept the sleep of exhaustion and awoke when a gray shaft of light filtered in through the barred window. I felt cheered and rested until I realized where I was. Dark depression fell. "Well, it could be worse," I said cheerily.
"How?" I snarled dispiritedly. There was no easy answer to that. My stomach rumbled with hunger and thirst and the depression deepened. "Cry-baby," I sneered. "You've had it much worse than this. They took the dagger but nothing else. You have your money, your identification." And the lockpick I added in silence. The presence of that little tool had a warming effect, holding out hope of eventual escape.
"I'm hungry!" a youthful voice cried out and there was a rattling of bars. Others took up the cry. "Food. We're not criminals!"
"My morn always brought me breakfast in bed…" I was not too impressed by this last wail of complaint but sympathized with the general attitude. I joined the cry.
"All right, all riglit, shut up," an older and gruffer voice called out. "Chow is on the way. Not that you deserve anything, bunch of draft dodgers."
"Cagal on that sergeant—1 don't see your fat chunk in the army."
I looked forward to meeting the last speaker; he showed a little more courage than the rest of the wallers. The wait wasn't too long, though it was scarcely worth it. Cold noodle soup with sweet red beans is not my idea of the way to start the day. I wondered how it would end.
I had plenty of time for wondering because after feeding time in the zoo we were left strictly alone. I stared up at the cracked ceiling and slowly began to realize that my ill fortune wasn't that bad when closely examined. I was alive and well in Nevenkebia. With a promising career ahead of me. I would learn the ropes, find out all I could about this society, maybe even get a lead on Garth—or General Zennor if Bibs had overheard the name correctly. He was in the army and I would very soon be in the army, which fact might work to my advantage. And I had the lockpick. When the right moment came I could do a little vanishing act. And how bad could the army be? I had been a soldier on Spiovente, which training should come in handy…
Oh, how we do fool ourselves.
Somewhere around midday, when my cowardly peer group were beginning to howl for more nourishment, the crash of opening cell doors began. The howls changed to cries of complaint as we were ordered from our cells and cuffed wrist to wrist in a long daisychain. About a dozen of us, similar of age and gloomy of mien. The unknown future lay darkly ahead. With much stumbling and curses we were led from the cell block to the prison compound where a barred vehicle waited to transport us to our destiny. It moved away silently after we had been herded aboard, battery or fuel cell powered, out into the crowded city streets. Clothes were slightly different, vehicles of unusual shapes, but it could have been any world of advanced technology. No wonder they had cut themselves off from the rest of this decadent planet. Selfish—but understandable.