disagreed at first and then finally let herself be persuaded. Suzy’s new killer hailed an air-taxi that hovered near the crowded restaurant. He joked condescendingly with the hack’s pilot and put a wad of credits into his hand. The night was over and Suzy’s new consort was taking her home with him. Mulciber watched the scene intently, his face a deathmask of stone. Nearby merry-makers, noting his mood, lowered their voices and averted their eyes from him. As the couple boarded the air-taxi Mulciber made his decision. There were no other hacks hanging in space around the restaurant, which left only one way to follow them.
Scattering a startled flock of patrons with the speed of his movements, Mulciber leapt to his feet and sprinted for the hack. He followed Suzy into the backseat and pulled the door shut behind him. “Mind if I share your fare?” he asked. Suzy looked stunned. Her consort looked enraged. As Mulciber had never owned anything with a water- shedding field on it, he was soaking. Water ran across the hack’s plastic seats and quickly invaded the couple’s dry clothes. Before more could be said, all of them were pushed back in their seats as the taxi lifted on boosters and the rooftop restaurant fell away below.
Everyone’s shoulders battled over the limited space. Suzy was forced to sit low and turn sideways to fit between the two large men.
“Get out of this car!” snarled Suzy’s consort. “You’re getting us both wet!” When Mulciber made no reply, the man reached across to the hand release on Mulciber’s door. Mulciber put his own hand on the door’s armrest, gripping it firmly. The man pulled up the release and shoved powerfully. He was strong, very strong, he pushed against the door with what had to be artificially enhanced muscles. Mulciber gauged that he had probably had a skeletal reconstruction as well, otherwise his bones would have snapped under the stress.
The door didn’t budge.
“It’s all right, Kars!” Suzy exclaimed. She squirmed in her seat, her soft body half-crushed between the two straining men. “You don’t have to throw him out! Kars, you’re bruising me!”
Mulciber continued to hold the door firmly shut. Kars shifted for leverage and pushed harder. A drop of sweat rolled down into his eye, making him blink. Mulciber sat silently, gazing straight ahead, as impassive as carven stone. The handle broke off in Kars’s hand. Kars sat back slowly, looking at the twisted piece of metal in his palm. Mulciber had observed him all night, but this was the first time he had see a glimmer of uncertainty in the man’s face.
Mulciber spoke next. “Could you tell me where we are headed?”
“Listen, you streeter bastard-”
“Kars!” Suzy interrupted. “Mulciber is not a streeter-”
“You know him?”
“Yes,” answered Suzy in a softer voice. She picked up his white felt hat and straightened the violet plume. Then she ran her hand up and down Kars’s leg as if calming an excited pet. “He’s an associate of mine.”
She turned to Mulciber. She continued to rub Kars’s leg, but gave Mulciber her warmest, happy-to-see-you smile. “We are on our way to the spaceport to watch the next starship leaving for the Tau planets. Naturally, you’re invited.”
Kars stiffened. Mulciber accepted the invitation with a nod. For the rest of the trip the men sat in tense silence while Suzy talked in an incessant, bubbling fashion. Outside the cab the city swept by them with dizzying speed. The driver swung the taxi around the corners of buildings, cutting hazardously close to the concrete walls. The lights of windows and passing air-traffic gleamed and flashed at them then fell away behind. The rooftop restaurant faded to a pinprick glow in the rear window. When they arrived at the spaceport, Kars quickly led Suzy away from the landed cab without looking back toward Mulciber. Clearly, he did not want a third party along. Mulciber made no effort to catch up, but rather followed them into the crowds a discreet distance behind.
The crowds of colonists trying to board the starship surged and ebbed, their thousands of united voices merging together into a dull roar. Walking among them was like wading through a dark, warm-smelling sea. Kars and Suzy were easy to follow. They stood out from the countless common, unaltered faces of laborers and vagrant street-people. Mulciber watched as a young man dressed in the drab grays of a worker grabbed at Kars’s clothing as he passed by. The man plied Kars with shouted questions concerning the flight, having apparently mistaken him for an official. Kars answered him with a quick backhanded blow to the mouth. The young man collapsed to the concrete in Kars’s wake, spilling blood on his grays, his jaw broken.
As they got closer to the immense hull of the starship the crowds grew thicker and more reluctant to make way for them. When they had made their way underneath the super-structure of the docking towers, the vast bay doors in the hull above opened. Huge ramps lowered slowly toward the ground, with deafening low-pitched groans of shifting metal.
Mulciber was pushed back by the sheer weight of the crowd as it tided backward in fear of being crushed. In the confusion of bodies and faces he lost sight of his quarry. His keen eyes swept the gray-clad hordes for a splash of color but saw none. Moving with decision, he waded and shouldered and shoved his way toward the nearest leg of a docking tower, planning to climb it and survey the scene from above. Reaching the foot of the tower, he easily pulled himself up into the grid-work of steel and onto the first tier. He watched for a moment as the foremost ranks of the crowd mounted the ramps and entered the starship.
Then he turned his gaze down into the seething mass of faces. After a moment he picked out Suzy in her colorful, gauzy clothing. Kars was not with her. Mulciber was surprised to see that she was quite near, almost at the foot of the docking tower he had climbed. Even as he picked her out, she caught sight of him and commenced waving and signaling. Mulciber was already turning when his finely-tuned ears picked out a sound from amid the rolling thunder of the crowd. The sound of stealthy approach from behind.
He whirled to face his attacker, his arms rising into position, his perceptions slowing and his reactions speeding up. Kars, grinning, directed a hissing spray into his face. Vapor gushed out from a tiny oval dispenser in Kars’s hand, invading Mulciber’s nostrils and coating his face and eyes with tiny droplets. Mulciber’s vision began to fade immediately, but his nerves, desensitized to pain, failed to be stunned by the attack.
“I can climb too, street-” Kars began, his words were cut off by Mulciber’s right hand, which had struck out like a snake to grasp his throat.
The poison worked to paralyze him, but as it was a contact poison and Mulciber’s skin was not porous, it could only penetrate through the surfaces of his eyes and sinuses. This slowed down the effects enough to allow Mulciber to squeeze Kars’s windpipe with all the crushing force of his new hands, although he could do little else.
Only the powerful muscles and tendons in Kars’s neck kept him from immediate death. Mulciber could still see enough to watch Kars’s face contort with rage and grow purple. In silent and wild anger Kars ripped and struck at Mulciber’s outstretched arm, but the iron muscles held. Mulciber concentrated all his remaining will upon crushing the life out of his opponent. He began to lose control of his body, he was distantly aware of the fact that his legs were buckling. His vision was gone, his nerves were dying. Still he held on, his hand clamped in a final grip of steel. He distantly felt sharp spikes of displeasure and warm sensations in his midsection where Kars landed heavy kicks and punches in desperate fury.
Mulciber’s artificial ribs gave, the protected organs underneath would soon be ruptured. He slipped to the metal deck of the docking tower, nerveless and blind. Kars worked with all his strength to tear away the unfeeling fingers that clamped his throat. He finally managed to pry away Mulciber’s weakened grip. Kars leaned against a steel beam, massaging his throat and making choking sounds. When he could articulate, he gave a hoarse laugh.
“You’re dead!” he gasped out, sneering down at Mulciber’s prostrate form. “When the poison reaches your autonomic centers your heart will stop beating and your lungs will no longer function.” Kars gave another short bark of laughter and kicked his helpless adversary in the abdomen. Mulciber felt a sick explosion, but could not react.
Kars paused before climbing down from the tower. “While you die,” he hissed to Mulciber. “I want you to think of me. Just think of my smiling face.”
Mulciber heard him, but could only lie motionless, his nerves in effect severed by the paralytic poison. In minutes the poison would reach his autonomic nerve centers and kill him. But there were other forces at work. His overbuilt body contained several artificially implanted organs which tapped into his circulatory and nervous systems to monitor his vital bodily processes. One such artificial organ, attached to the arteries leading into the liver, detected a foreign substance in his blood stream. A microprocessor analyzed the poison and a counter-agent was released to combat the effects. Other bodily functions, some natural and some not, worked to control the injuries
