“Understood.”
“Good,” the scientist replied fi?rmly. “Now, watch this . . .” So saying, Tepho removed a pistol-shaped device from the brand-new shoulder holster that hung under his left arm. It was shiny, like highly polished silver, and apparently seamless. Tepho aimed the artifact at a highfl?ying bird, pressed a red button, and brought his other hand up to shade his eyes. There was no report, as one would expect from a handgun, but the raptor fi?red one of its energy cannons, and the broadwing exploded. Shaz watched a cloud of feathers drift toward the ground, wondered how his ancestors had countered such machines, and hoped it wouldn’t be necessary to do so again.
Aboard the spaceship
Though relatively safe, the corner of the hold that the circus performers had claimed for themselves was poorly lit, which was just as well insofar as the beast master was concerned. The humiliation suffered in the arena had been bad enough, but having been faced down immediately after boarding the ship, the animal handler’s standing among his peers was at an all-time low. And, since their questionable esteem was the only thing the norm possessed, the situation was deeply disturbing.
So, while the others slept, copulated, and gambled around him, the beast master plotted his revenge. A murder that could be carried out from a distance—and without the least bit of risk to himself. But there was work to do fi? rst. The fact that the circus hopped from planet to planet every fi?ve years or so meant that new animals had to be acquired soon after landing, trained to do tricks, and sold just prior to liftoff.
But, while the beast master couldn’t bring an L-phant aboard, smaller animals were okay so long as he fed them, and none of the other performers were inconvenienced. There had been a long sequence of such pets over the years, but the sturdiest and most enduring was the Poda pod he had acquired on Baas. Being from a desert environment, the pod didn’t require much water, and so long as it received three drops of liquid fertilizer every fi? fteen days, would reportedly live for more than a hundred years. Not that the pod was a pet. . . . No, the real pet was the six-inch-long Slith snake that lived inside the pod and took most of its sustenance from the plant—a relationship the beast master didn’t fully understand, and didn’t need to, so long as he took the symbiotic coupling into account.
Now, as the norm held the pod up in front of his face, he made use of both spatulate thumbs to rub what he thought of as the pod’s throat. A full ten seconds passed before the tiny serpent made its appearance. It had a single beady eye, a long black tongue, and an orange stripe that ran down its spine.
“Greetings my sweet,” the beast master whispered lovingly.
“And how are you today? Hungry? I’m not surprised.”
Then, having made use of his right hand to reach for a pair of tweezers, the circus performer selected a likely looking insect from a half-full jar, and held the still-wriggling prize up for inspection. “So, sweetums, what do you think? Is this little beauty worthy of your stomach?”
The serpent opened its mouth and thereby revealed a respectable set of fangs. Its head snapped forward, and the insect disappeared. And that, to the beast master’s way of thinking, was something of a mystery. He had observed animals all of his life, and while never the recipient of a formal education, knew how a food chain worked. Which raised the obvious question: Why would an animal that ate insects require fangs? To defend both itself and the pod?
That seemed likely—but there was no way to be sure. What made the little snakes valuable was the fact that they could be trained to follow a particular scent to its source and kill the organism associated with it. So long as the target was vulnerable to Slith venom, that is, which, according to the assassin from whom the serpent had been purchased, included just about everyone. It was an assertion the beast master had tested twice before. First, as the means to eliminate an acrobat foolish enough to sleep with his woman, then as a way to punish the bitch herself. The key, and a very important one, was to provide the tiny killer with an item from which it could extract the necessary scent. In this case a tiny scrap of cloth that one of the troupe’s little people had snipped from the sensitive’s cloak after she boarded the shuttle. “Here, sweetums,” the circus performer whispered, as he held the tiny piece of fabric out for inspection. “Get a good sniff of this.”
The long, narrow tongue seemed to caress the scrap of cloth before being withdrawn. The animal was visibly agitated now, its head jerking from side to side, as the beast master extended his right index fi?nger. It was an act of faith, because a single strike from the Slith snake’s fangs would lead to an agonizing death, but such was the serpent’s training that it had no interest in harming anyone other than the being associated with the newly assimilated odor. Then, once it returned from its deadly mission, the tiny assassin knew that a special feast would be waiting. Conscious of how dangerous a trip across the cluttered deck could be for his pet, and hopeful that it would choose to travel via the overhead girders instead, the beast master stood and held his fi?nger up to a diagonal support structure. He felt rather than saw the serpent unwind itself from his fi?nger, wished his pet well, and watched death slither into the darkness.
A good deal of time and effort had gone into the effort to construct the shack next to the hold’s single water faucet. And while not especially attractive to look upon, or bulletproof, as Rebo had originally hoped, the shelter did provide the threesome with a welcome sense of privacy, and if not actual safety, then the illusion of it, which contributed to their peace of mind. And that’s where the runner was, sitting within the embrace of four rickety walls cleaning the Hogger by the light of an oil-fed lamp, when Norr entered the hut. The entryway was large enough to accommodate Hoggles, but just barely, and the sensitive had to duck before straightening again. Rebo looked up from his work as the variant took the seat opposite him. The runner never tired of looking at Norr’s face and wondered what that meant. There had been women before her, quite a few of them, but none so compelling. That was why he had agreed to a run that was not only unlikely to pay off but could strand him on an inhospitable planet, or get him killed. So, why was he there? Was he in love with Lonni? Or the idea of someone like her? She was in love with him . . . Rebo thought so anyway. Then what was he waiting for? He could tell her, no ask her, and the deal would be done. However, because such contemplations caused the runner’s head to hurt, he put it aside in favor of a joke. “How’s the weather?”
Norr made a face. “There isn’t any, not unless you count the light breeze from the far side of the hold and the stink associated with it.”
Rebo grinned. “I’m happy to report that I can’t smell a thing!”
“That’s because you’re part of the problem,” the sensitive observed tartly. “There’s some news though. . . . When you control the water supply—everyone stops to chat.”
The runner squinted down the Hogger’s bore into the lamplight. Then, satisfi?ed with what he’d seen, Rebo pushed a shell into the weapon’s chamber. “There’s news? I’m surprised to hear it.”
“Yes, there is,” the variant replied, as she held her hands out to collect the scant warmth generated by the lamp.
