Trouble Magnet (3 page)

“No, she’s not,” Flinx agreed unperturbedly. “My feeling is that with any weapon, speed and agility are more important than size.”

“A sound philosophy.” The man smiled. “But you can’t bring a lethal, toxic animal onto Visaria. Not even as part of a commercial venture, much less one that’s just a personal favorite. Unless you have the appropriate permit, of course.”

Though he thought it excessive, Flinx paid the bribe. He haggled over the amount only because it was clearly expected of him. It was all right for the bureaucrat to dismiss him as young and inexperienced. It would not do to have the man think of him as outright ignorant. So he played the game for the several minutes of his life that it wasted, and was rewarded with the requisite “permit” allowing him to maintain Pip on his person for the duration of his stay on Visaria. Under no condition was he being granted consent to sell the minidrag or give it away. That he would as soon give up his own life as that of his lifelong companion was an admission that would have been wasted on the covetous public servant.

From the time Flinx entered the alcove until he left, his interrogator never once bothered to ask him about his ship’s “cargo.” The bribe was the point of the interview, Flinx realized. If not obtained on account of Pip, he was sure that his questioner would have found another reason to bring up that minor matter. As he made his way in the direction of the port exit, following the hovering indicators that showed the way to public transportation, he felt more confident than ever in his decision to come to this world.

He had only been on its surface for a very short time, had only interacted with one of its residents, and had already encountered the kind of grubby attitude and approach to existence that was likely to convince him he would only be wasting his own short, precious life if he chose to devote it to preventing the future extinction of his fellow so-called civilized beings.

CHAPTER

2

The public transport that was available to take travelers from the shuttleport into the city proper was of similar style, design, and ill-maintained decrepitude as the spontaneous sprawl of urbanization it served. Like much of the shuttleport’s infrastructure, it had been constructed with an eye more toward utility than toward standardization. Even Flinx’s untrained eye was able to see that the system had been cobbled together from bits and pieces of systems existing elsewhere, rather than being designed and built as a unified whole. It was undoubtedly the cheaper, as well as quicker, option. Get transportation up and running fast, worry about aesthetics and economy of scale later.

Even the transfer elements themselves were antiquated throwbacks, consisting of public modules designed to convey twenty or more people at a time instead of allowing for individual transport to separate destinations. Unlike on Terra or Hivehom, he found himself forced to share space with several fellow travelers. Of course, private transport into the city was also available as an option from the port, but that would have meant providing personal identification, if only in the form of an alias, to the automated vehicle selected. Disdaining luxury in favor of obscurity, he chose anonymity over comfort. Besides, utilizing public transportation over private offered the chance to encounter the denizens of Malandere sooner rather than later.

That potential was about to be realized. His head was already starting to hurt.

There were four of them. The biggest was as tall as Flinx and much heavier. What the others lacked in stature they made up for in swagger. Their attire consisted of cobalt-blue singlepiece slip-ons festooned with symbols stained black. Highly local in origin, the meaning of these was more alien to Flinx than High Thranx. Scalloped, sleeveless uppers allowed ample arm to protrude. Flashing from where they had been surgically embedded in the exposed flesh of arms and shoulders, a multitude of tiny pins, loops, and hooks carried forward and accentuated the motifs inscribed on the dark blue suits. One squat fellow in his midtwenties sported a circlet of chromed hypoallergenic metal that crowned his skull like the rim of a metal cap.

Their emotions were as florid as their appearances. Without even glancing in their direction, Flinx could sense the approach of open hostility, anger, expectation, fury, and exactly the kind of atavistic bloodlust he had anticipated encountering on this world. A few more such encounters would solidify his budding resolution to forget about looking for the Tar-Aiym artifact, return to Clarity Held, and live out the remainder of his life in as much peace and isolation as he could manage. Civilization would have to find another savior. But he was not at that point. Not yet.

Meanwhile, there was the quartet presently confronting him to be dealt with.

“Tall and skinny.” The nearest of the four was looking the seated traveler up and down. The noninvolved occupants of the fast-moving vehicle huddled at the far end of the transport, doing their best to ignore the confrontation. They reminded Flinx of so many frightened rabbits trying to hide at the back end of their burrow. He supposed he couldn’t blame them. One more small weight to add to his sinking opinion of humankind in general.

“Offworlder.” The second speaker was missing his lower lip. Whether the half-finger length of flesh had been lost to violence or fashion Flinx could not tell. “Snap him in half, not half trying.”

“Easy, Jolo,” declared the first speaker. The man extended an arm ornamented with jiggling, decorative metal implants. “Give us your bag and we’ll leave you your eyes.”

A small, winged shape slid out from where it had been concealed inside Flinx’s shirt and hissed. The expectant fingers drew back quickly.

“Toy pet,” rumbled the biggest of the four. He reached out sharply. “Twist its little head off.”

Pleated wings unfurled as Pip took to the air. Startled, the four drew back slightly. Two of them started to reach for weapons. The one with the embedded head rim was quickest. Opening her mouth slightly, Pip spat in his direction. A slender stream of venom struck him just above the right eye.

Smoke started to rise from the shaved skull. A drop of toxin dripped downward into the eye, which also began to smoke. Screaming and clawing at his face and head, the man stumbled backward, bouncing off a seat and the inner wall of the transport. The second time, he fell to the floor, kicking and clawing at himself. In less than a minute he lay still, except for a few final twitches of both lower legs. His right eye was gone, melted away. So was part of the flesh and bone had that formed the enclosing socket and part of his forehead. A section of the ornamental metal rim that encircled his skull had been dissolved through.

Hands had paused halfway to weapons. The smell of fear-sweat now permeated the section of the transport vehicle where the offworlder sat. His three remaining antagonists began to back away. Occupying seats halfway down the transport, they formed a little knot of their own: distant from Flinx, separate from the other passengers. No one moved to check the damaged, motionless body lying on the floor.

Her agitation giving way to more moderated alertness, Pip settled herself back down on her master’s right shoulder. Her eyes never left those of the three would-be assailants—nor they hers.

Throughout the entire compelling, shockingly brief confrontation, Flinx had not moved or said a word. He did not address his assailants when he finally exited the transport. They, wisely, said nothing to him.

The heart of old Malandere was not all that old, because the city and colony themselves were not that old. It was, however, as run-down and decaying as a metropolitan area of its age could be. Every building, every street screamed neglect. Wealth had been wrung from the rocks of Visaria. Fortunes that had gone elsewhere, leaving the descendants of those who had toiled to extract it and refine it with little but the leftovers. More evidence of humanity’s disdain for itself, Flinx decided as he made his way along what passed for a main avenue. If the majority of the species did not and would not care for its brethren, why should he?

Too early to render judgment, he told himself. He’d just arrived. Only one attempt had been made on his person. The decision he needed to make should not be rendered in haste, no matter what he was feeling. Visaria was entitled to time to solidify his opinion one way or the other.

So far its prospects of convincing him that altruism should be an important component of the rest of his life were less than promising.

It started to rain. As a colony world, Visaria could not afford to maintain the infrastructure necessary to manipulate its meteorology. Engulfed by a surfeit of emotional misery ever since he had exited the transport, Flinx saw no need to suffer the added discomfort of being both cold and wet. Ads for a variety of side-street hotels clustered around him, competing for his attention. Settling on one, he followed it around a corner. The place looked quiet, isolated, and the service lobby was halfway clean. The automated concierge accepted his cred without question, not even asking for an identity check. One recommendation for AIs as administrators, he reflected as he took the lift to the floor where his room was located, was that as a general rule they did not ask for bribes.

The room was like the rest of the establishment; semi-clean, compact, utilitarian. The omnipresent tridee offered a varied selection of entertainments. He chose the news. Local content was salacious, sensationalized, and aimed at an audience devoid of higher interests. Irritated and tired, he verbally isolated the surround imagery, ordering it to restrict itself to the far corner of the room. From the street outside and the building enclosing him, emotion was pouring in. His head was beginning to throb.

Choosing from among several drugs contained in a pouch on his service belt, he medicated himself. The embryonic headache diminished but did not disappear entirely. Pip settled herself beside the single oval window, curling up away from the transparency. Rain streaked the exterior. As he lay down on the humming, solicitous bed and let it unwind him, an already discouraged Flinx tried not to dwell on what the morning might bring. He was determined to give this place a chance to prove him wrong about the current state of humaniform sentience. He would be fair.

But based on what he had seen and encountered merely in the course of getting from the shuttleport into the city, humankind and its allies were going to have an uphill struggle convincing him to sacrifice the rest of his life to preserve their distant, unimaginable future.

A plain but nourishing breakfast in an eating establishment on the main avenue served to raise his spirits somewhat.
Homo sapiens
had not evolved to the point where food failed to energize mind as well as body. Feeling a little better about himself if not his species, he set out on a walk to see more of Malandere. Trusting neither pet nor possessions to the questionable safety of his room, he let Pip ride comfortably in the pack on his back.

Opening himself to the swarm of sentients who surrounded him on the pedestrian walkway was the empathetic equivalent of going on a three-day bender. Seething emotion overwhelmed him: joy, misery, delight, sadness. His mind was wave-washed with intimations of murder, accomplishment, seduction, betrayal, hope, despair, and a thousand other sentiments. It rocked him so severely that several passersby glanced uncertainly in his direction. One even paused to inquire as to his condition. The encounter would have raised his opinion of his kind ever so slightly had not the self-proclaimed good Samaritan been busy trying to find a way into Flinx’s pant pockets while expressing his seemingly heartfelt concern. Fortunately for the nimble-fingered fellow, he did not get the opportunity to fumble in the tall young visitor’s pack, where he would have encountered not valuables, but the scales of justice.

Autonomous transports propelled by a variety of technologies carried people as well as goods through the streets. Skimmers with airspace permits soared above the more plebeian, groundbound traffic. Unregulated noise bombarded his hearing at levels long since banned on more settled, civilized worlds. This was what cities were like prior to the adoption and enforcement of laws designed to protect the health of their inhabitants, he knew. This was what they would revert to in the absence of the controlling civilization of the Commonwealth.

Malandere was a cauldron. People were thrown in, stirred, spiced with ambition, and boiled until only the most successful rose to the top. It was a stew fueled by money. Visaria was still a world where fortunes could be made by those without connections, inheritances, or special knowledge. A place where humankind could revert to the jungle, where laws were still new and their effect tenuous. The only difference between Visaria and someplace like Midworld, he felt as he forced himself down the crowded street, was that here one was more likely to be killed by another human. On Midworld, the descendants of the first settlers had survived by learning how to emfol, or empathize directly with their alien surroundings. On Visaria, survival would be a matter of learning how to socialize with one’s own kind.

And just as on Midworld, or Moth, or the deserts of Pyrassis, one learned quickly how to adapt to the immediate environment, or perish. Unfortunately, he had never quite been able to blend in no matter where he was. He was too much the outsider, too conscious of the differences that marked him. And as always, too interested in the welfare of others to look only after himself.

A perfect example of this debilitating condition manifested itself within the hour, when he heard panicky hooting coming from the serviceway off to his right. He was positive several other pedestrians heard it. He could tell by the way they picked up their pace to hurry past, and the sharp stabs of fearfulness they radiated in all directions. He knew he ought to do the same. Blend in, adapt, do as the locals did. But he simply could not. He was not local and, as was so often the case to his detriment, he could not ignore the plight of others.