The star was ten feet away.
Mulciber’s right leg was coming up, readying for another downstroke that would carry him two yards closer to his quarry. His head was ducking, moving to the right, but still in the path of the twirling spikes.
The star was five feet away.
Mulciber’s right leg was on its downstroke now. He gauged that his throat was out of the spinning weapon’s path.
The star was two feet away.
Mulciber fought the urge to blink.
Wet tearing. The star ripped through skin and muscle. The leading spike scored his left collar bone. The bone split and the star caromed off, flying past him and into the night. His skin began closing immediately. He would bleed for less than a minute.
He did not slow his charge. The two men were still thirty feet apart. Kars’ eyebrows rose slowly as he registered surprise. His hand dived into his jacket again to fish out another weapon.
Twenty feet.
Now Mulciber slowed, shifting his weight, gauging the distance. Kars had a knife out this time. It had a short broad blade and brass knuckles for a hand grip. The hilt glinted a dull yellow in the harsh glare of the landing lights. Kars set his legs, knees bent and balance forward to meet the charge.
Ten feet.
Mulciber’s body lifted, extended, like a hurdler at the last step before a jump. Kars saw the kick coming and dove slowly to the right. Too late. Mulciber launched himself. His heavy foot smashed into Kars’ left shoulder. The force of the blow spun the man half around. Something in the joint snapped. Nerves and cartilage tore loose. The arm spasmed then hung, twisting like a beheaded snake as the muscles contracted and locked.
The knife dropped and clattered on the concrete. Mulciber landed neatly and recovered, whirling around to face his enemy. Kars was up too, although a little off-balance. His face was a blood-flushed death mask. He threw his first punch with his good arm, landing it on Mulciber’s chin.
Mulciber’s head rocked back. His jaw dislocated then slipped back into place. His teeth sank into his lips and the familiar taste of his own blood filled his mouth. Kars snatched up his knife again, underestimating Mulciber’s speed of recovery.
Mulciber’s fist slammed into Kars’ chest. Mulciber noticed that the man took the blow well, yielding with it, but he felt ribs crackle. Kars made use of his knife in a lightning uppercut for the throat. Mulciber blocked it just in time, his arm opening in a long red gash. He countered with another body blow that came in under the extended knife-arm, aiming to rupture the organs behind Kars’ already cracked ribs. Kars dropped the knife again when the shock hit him. He was weakening, but Mulciber knew that he had to end things quickly himself, before his prior injuries started to slow him. Acting with the smooth cunning of vast combat experience, he stepped back, as if to disengage and circle.
Kars, ready for a breather, took the cue and began to pull back himself. In that moment he felt relief and was off-guard. In that moment Mulciber reversed on the balls of his feet and attacked again, moving with all his great speed unleashed. Summoning his reserves of strength, Mulciber put all his power into a kick to the neck that struck home. Kars’s windpipe was crushed. The tiny bones in his throat and voice box splintered. His neck vertebrae shattered and tore his spinal cord from his brain stem as a weed rips loose from its roots, killing him instantly.
Mulciber watched with slowed vision as the slick man fell back with lazy grace onto the bare concrete. His broken head hit with a wet slap.
“You see Mulciber, I knew you would track me! You see, there are men around worth fighting!” Suzy exclaimed happily, stepping forward now that the fight was over. “I’ve given you back your spirit!”
Mulciber ignored her. He watched as a dark stain spread around the man’s ruined head immediately. He nodded to his fallen enemy, silently acknowledging the death of a worthy opponent.
She stepped calmly away from the corpse, hips swinging, toward the distant gates. Her manner indicated that she expected Mulciber to follow. “Do you know what that fool was up to?” she asked. “He was trying to get out of the city all along. He was going to drag me with him on a ship full of prisoners to some wild planet full of proles and-” here she noticed that Mulciber was not following her.
She turned to find him standing where he had been, staring at her. Mulciber’s face, normally somber and impassive, was now twisted. He took two silent strides forward. He lifted Suzy effortlessly, bringing her down into a classic killing hold, her back stretched across his knee, her thin spine ready to snap like rotted wood. Sticky blood from his hands stained her gauzy clothing. Suzy looked up into the face of a wrathful demon. Perhaps for the first time in her life she knew true terror. She did not cry out. She could only gaze up in shock and dread at Mulciber’s hairless face and dark eyes. Helplessly, she faced death, a reality that no amount of smooth talking could erase.
Mulciber eyes searched hers. After a moment, he thought he saw what he was looking for. He found comprehension in Suzy’s eyes, a glimmer only, but still, it was there.
“So, you can feel something, can’t you?” he asked her quietly.
“Yes,” she whispered, her eyes staring wide and unblinkingly up at him. With the air of one making a difficult decision, he spared her life. He rose up, releasing her. With no further words he turned and headed up the ramp into the starship. After a moment Suzy rediscovered her voice.
“Are you crazy? How can you leave Earth?” she called after him, distractedly patting her hair back into place. She was speaking to his broad back. Suzy looked back at the city and its glare-lit streets, its arcades and civilized amusements, then down at the dead man at the foot of the ramp.
She picked up the white felt hat and straightened the plume. “But I don’t want you to go!” she cried after him.
Mulciber continued to walk up the ramp. Just before he reached the top he heard the light thumps of Suzy’s feet as she ran up the ramp after him. He allowed himself a quiet smile. They entered the ship together.
Discharged
“Oh Lord, that nursebot is coming for me again. Is that a needle?”
“Nope, she’s headed for the captain’s pod.”
“There may be a moment of discomfort,” said the nursebot in a soft, soothing, feminine voice. It approached the captain in Pod Four. Its plastic feet moved with the measured, confident stride they all had. He tried to squirm, but servos whined, cinching his straps. Our movements within the locked healing pods were tightly restricted, anyway.
“Nooo, hold on. Ow,” complained Captain Jeff Tumas. The dripping stainless steel needle plunged into his immobilized thigh. “Dammit. They don’t listen at all.”
Lounging next to him in Pod Three, I chuckled at him. I could afford to chuckle, of course, I was past the need for shots now. My arms in their regrow bags were doing quite well. Soon I would be able to flex my new fingers and a few days after that, maybe I would get rid of the bags entirely.
“Laugh it up, Ensign,” said Captain Tumas in his best officer’s rumble. He had no original limbs left except for the one leg they kept jabbing needles into, but he still sounded tough.
When the nursebot had gone, we all looked to Ruth in Pod One for another activity report. She was the only one who could see outside. All the other viewports were shuttered by heavy blast shields of molecular-bonded tritanium alloy, but not hers. Her pod’s viewport had jammed and been left partly open after the battle. Her four-inch slit was our only connection to the outside world. By twisting and straining against our straps, we could all see the sky outside through her window. The sky was blue with a twinge of lavender and usually cloud-free. But only Ruth in Pod One could crane her neck enough to see the ground.