Star Quest

Then he heard it too. The faint slip-slap of boot heels on pavement, snapping out a rhythm. They hunched themselves down in the shadows, peeping through the crevice between wall and garbage bin. In moments, a cadre of Royal Romaghin Guards moved past, their colorful, plumed uniforms somehow out of place in the dark night streets. There were twenty of them, moving to positions along the city wall and at the city gate to change duties with guards already there. The officer would march these men from position to position, losing some and gaining the tired sentries coming off duty, eventually to return to the garrison at a slightly slower pace and a slightly more slipshod rhythm. It seemed to Tohm that the Romaghins were paranoid in the fear of the Muties. And ironic in that they were trying to keep Muties out of the capital by guarding the gate while said Muties were actually living in it — rather, under it.

“We'll wait a few minutes before crossing the street,” Mayna said.

He put his mouth close to the delicate shell of her ear. “Listen, I want to thank you for saving my life. This was a lot of trouble and danger to go through.”

She turned, smiling a smile that did not exactly indicate pleasure. The corners of her mouth were strained in their upturned mimicry of joy, her sharp teeth glittering brightly. “Hero Tohm, I would just as soon have left you rot there. But they would have tortured you before the hanging, trying to get information about us.”

“Torture?”

“And they are good at it. We couldn't risk your spilling everything to them. We had to come and get you.”

He eased away from her glumly, and sat silently waiting.

“Okay,” she said at length. “One at a time across the street and into the alley over there. Run on tiptoes and don't make a lot of noise.”

She moved first, like a piece of airy fluff hardly touching the ground at all, totally silent. She gained the darkness at the mouth of the opposite alley, waved an arm for the next.

The street was a broad, open plain with lights that seemed almost, at this moment of exposure, to be brighter than the sun at noon. But he ran anyway, trying not to bring his feet down too heavily, meeting with less success than he had hoped. He made the shadows in relative quiet, although not so easily as she had. Babe followed. He waddled rather than walked.

“Ho! Stop there!” a voice called from up the street.

Babe doubled his efforts.

Two Romaghin guards had turned the corner and were pursuing him.

“Stop or be killed!”

Mayna leaped into the open, crouching, a hand laser aimed down the avenue. Before the guards could even finish drawing their own, they were seething masses of bubbling flesh on the street. She, indeed, was a champion marksman.

“Thanks,” Babe wheezed, pounding into the alley, his belly shaking, his double chin bathed in sweat.

There was scattered shouting on the street and the clip-clip of boots on cement. Evidently, the soldiers had been off duty, reveling at some private orgy and had turned the corner just after Mayna had gunned down their two friends. Now they would be hunting. No one gunned down a Romaghin soldier on his own world — no one but a Mutie.

“Hurry,” Mayna said, disappearing into the darkness.

They followed, trying to be as quiet as she, not succeeding. The faint echo of their steps was sure to attract the guards. And did.

The walls along the alley glistened wetly as hand torches of low-beam lasers lit up the entranceway they had left, searched slowly, closer, closer, much closer. Tohm felt, as well as saw, the light wash over him for an instant, then flick back and hold.

“Halt!”

There was a louder pounding of feet behind them. Tohm no longer tried to be quiet; he concentrated only on watching the catgirl's feet and matching her speed. She turned abruptly into a side alley. They were moving now into the slum areas of the city where not as many lights burned and the ways between buildings were twisted and crisscrossed into a maze they might be able to put to their advantage. The cobblestones beneath their feet were slimy with garbage tossed out through windows. The laser torch was no longer on them, but the voices were still close behind, several turns away. They turned again. Again.

Mayna pulled to a stop and stood panting. Tohm was surprised and pleased to see that this seemingly indefatigable creature was registering exhaustion. Almost as much as he was.

“Look,” she said, “these alleys to the right all connect with the Avenue of Beggars. The wall between the Avenue of Beggars and the next street isn't high. If we climb it, it is only a block to the alley and the entrance to the hutch.”

“No,” Tohm said flatly.

“What do you mean?” she almost snarled.

“No. All of those alleys do not connect with the Avenue of Beggars. If you want to get there, we go straight ahead, not right. You've lost your sense of direction.”

“You're insane. Follow me.”

He grabbed her shoulder. “Okay, so you hate to be proven wrong — especially by me. But, remember, I have a memorized street map in my head.”

Footsteps and voices were growing louder.

Somewhere an owl moaned as the search disturbed his home…

“Babe, who do you stick with?” she asked, facing the boy-man.

He looked at Tohm, back to her. He was thinking of her fast action and good shot that had saved his life back there. “You, I guess.”

“Hell,” Tohm moaned.

“Either go with us or go on your own.”

“Lead on, lady,” he said.

She turned into a corridor between two buildings that had been roofed over for weather protection. It was pitch-black. They moved carefully but steadily, now and then aware of the soft bodies of rats bumping against their legs in an attempt to get out of their way. There was an odor of sewage and of rotting food scraps. Vapors of animal wastes and the unpleasant perfumes of garbage-suckling plants lay over all, smothering.

When they left that and ran into the next street, they were directly in front of the garrison on Royal Guard Avenue.

“I—” she started to say.

A laser blast smashed into the bricks just above their heads, sent orange powder cascading over their shoulders.

A second blast slightly lower…

“Now will you follow me?” Tohm roared.

That had been a hard way to prove a point, but he was gloating.

Her face showed confusion, the first time he had seen it there, twisting those beautiful features into something approaching agony.

Sssang! A third shot.

Babe screamed.

They turned, saw the black scar across the arm and the blood beginning to bubble out. Babe twisted his face in pain, clutched at the wound.

“This way,” Tohm said, grabbing both of them and turning back into the covered lane. He ran first, Babe between, Mayna bringing up the end. They broke into the alley they had just left seconds before, confronting the guards who had first chased them.

Tohm launched himself at the largest, a muscular man in the red plumes, gold cape, and gray pantaloons of an officer. They crashed into the stone street, the officer's head striking the wall of the building. Mayna turned a second guard's head to mush, whirled and burned the legs from a third, who didn't even have time to scream. Tohm smashed a fist into the officer's face, saw blood, was nauseated and excited at the same moment. His stomach flopped, and for an instant he hesitated as the conservative side of him momentarily dominated the sadistic. The other man took advantage of the lull, heaved, twisted loose, kicked out with a foot that caught Tohm in the chest,