“I’ve read your minds and I know their continued existence is not necessary for your mission to succeed. You can always grow them in a vat later. Is that not what you said?”
Healer could no longer speak, so Dan shouted for him, “This is murder! We had them sold! A simple push would’ve been enough!”
“No, monkey, this is vengeance!” The psychotic telepath turned his awful power on Dan’s meager defenses. “I can mow you all down and pilot this ship to your planet if I have to. Take the females for myself!”
Dan’s verbal ability was torn from him along with shreds of his higher brain functions. His frontal lobes pulsated with slashes of pain. With what little control he still possessed, Daneel Guthlac bared his teeth, raised his gun and squeezed out a neat blue shaft of light that scorched its way between the telepath’s eyes. The preternatural din died at once. Dan’s quivering husk buckled.
Hours passed and Righteous Manslaughter continued on its tumble toward the hungry orange sun. Healer-of-Hunters woke with a pounding headache and excruciating pain in his stomach. The wrecked bodies of kzintosh and Dan were tossed helter-skelter across the bridge, an occasional twitch the only sign of possible life. The faint scent of cooked brains still lingered in the recycled air.
Chief Programmer loomed ominously over him. “Can you really deliver on all your promises?”
“Yes,” Healer said, trying to get up, readying himself for another fight.
“Take it easy, Imposter. While you were unconscious we agreed to abide by Tdakar-Commander’s last order. We cleaned and bandaged your wound from the supplies in your medical pack. Your brave monkey is still out cold. Also, we checked on the kzinretti. Once we got life support working down there, the stasis field winked off.”
Healer sat on his haunches at the center of the bridge for a long while, like a hunter waiting for prey to amble by. He ignored the pain shooting through his abdomen. All this chaos had been his fault. He had a responsibility to salvage it somehow.
“Thank you, Chief Programmer. I will take my friend and go back to our ship. I can tow us to Sheathclaws with it.” Healer took careful tissue samples from the two fallen kits, then from Tdakar-Commander and Manslaughter’s Telepath. Perhaps the two bitter enemies would be reborn on Sheathclaws as allies. When Healer-of-Hunters was done, he threw Dan’s body over his shoulder like a fresh kill.
He noticed the innocuous little tray with its collection of needles. He was, in theory, a powerful telepath, the product of uncontrolled breeding (inbreeding) with the genes of two telepaths in his pride. He had no training in the Telepathic Arts, but maybe he could make up for that in raw talent. Without a moment’s hesitation, he walked to the tray, selected the largest dose of the sthondat drug and left the bridge.
Healer marched back down long twisting corridors toward his ship. The insubstantial weight of his friend was heavy on his mind. He entered the cramped bridge of Shadow’s Chariot and carefully laid Dan’s unconscious body on the command couch. Although the damage was not physical, he hooked Dan up to the barge’s autodoc.
He piloted his ship out of the hanger bay of the colossal derelict. Healer took hold of it with magnetic grapplers and began steering the wreck toward his planet. Healer-of Hunters had won. He had taken an advanced warship for Sheathclaws and mates for himself. He saved four young kzintosh from certain death. His triumph felt utterly empty. When he was sure they were on course, he administered the sthondat drug into the crook of his arm and sat next to Dan.
The Eleventh Sense burst within his skull and his awareness of the universe blossomed into pure satori. It was a near impossible task to focus on the pale, dismembered mind lying before him. He took a deep breath and set to work on the tattered mind of his only friend. He mended memories and reattached loose bits of personality. After the initial high, Healer’s body began to shiver and his fur became matted with sweat, but he continued to toil with the resolve of a dedicated physician. He diligently stitched intellect, instinct and soul as close as possible to how it had been before the attack. As the massive dose of the unfamiliar drug bled from his system, he hung on long enough to seal Dan’s mind, then fainted.
When Healer came to for the second time, his mouth was parched and his long pink tongue hung from his jaw like dried leather. He pushed himself up and waves of nausea swirled in his belly, the taste of sour, half-digested meal bricks in the back of his throat. Dan still lay unresponsive on the couch. He looked more at peace, but the doc registered no change. Had he dreamed his telepathic surgery? Healer dialed Manslaughter’s bridge, and two of the warriors, First Tech and Navigator, came on the commscreen. “What’s going on?” His booming roar came out a hoarse whisper.
“We’ve established a parking orbit around the planet,” First Tech said formally. “We’re receiving many messages from the surface, but we decided you should be the one to answer them.”
Healer-of-Hunters stood and paused a minute, letting the queasiness subside. “In a minute,” he said, and the silent juvenile waited. He switched the view to the barge’s external cameras and looked at the magnificent bruise-colored world, still new and untamed. Despite an overwhelming sense of loss, Healer’s ears weakly flitted. A young Hero could be happy down there.
ZENO’S ROULETTE
Phase one of the mission had gone without a glitch. Phase two began in the cramped armory of the Catscratch Fever, a dark, sleek pitchfork of a ship, serial number long since removed, now in mercenary hands. Adjacent to the yawning launch tubes, Flex Bothme helped Annie Venzi wriggle into her battle armor. He knew well how to bear hug Annie’s square frame into it; not only had they worked together on a swindler’s dozen missions, but as a fellow Jinxian, Flex was built the same way, and knew the pains and pleasures of a custom suit. It was a shame to fold the wavy brown billows of her hair into a helmet, but he had to admit, she looked sexy in armor, too.
Together they ran her suit’s readiness checklist until the green light came on, then repeated the procedure on his. Flex thumped a fist on his chest, expecting Annie to return the gesture. Instead, she made a wan smile, and then punched his cubical fist in half-hearted solidarity.
“You in this?” he said, studying her hazel eyes as if they were another item on the checklist.
“I’m tired of this so-called war,” she said.
“Then you’re lucky, because the stars we earn from this job will set us up for life.” Flex, freshly thawed from near-death at Brain Freeze, was anxious to get this over with, too. It sounded like a routine affair-infiltrate a kzinti resort compound, obtain some specific intelligence, and get out. If some cats were killed in the process, well, it’s a cold universe, isn’t it? “I don’t know why the Pierson’s Puppeteers are paying so handsomely for a little intel on some exotic wormhole,” he said, “but what a break! This one’s for us.”
After he kissed her, she drew in her lips. “Just remember my terms,” she said. “Don’t kill any kittens.”
He smiled deviously. “Accidents happen.” He tore a slab of protein from a synergy bar dispenser and offered it to her. Its musky odor whispered of their past adventures, hunting for sugar shrooms on Gummidgy, making love in a floating fountain over Paris…He drew the odor in heartily, and smiled.