because she was a woman; and at first the idea had appealed to her. But it had soured soon enough. She was a Blue because she liked the job, and the job wasn't getting done...
Half-glimpsed movement set off an alarm in her unconscious. 'BZ, back up! Hit the flasher, I saw something down that alley.' She clapped on her helmet, jerking the strap under her chin as she hit the door open. 'Follow me down.' She was out, running, as the patrol craft jounced to a stop at the dim alley entrance. Cooking smells hung heavy in the air; the narrow cul-de-sac was lined with hole-in the-wall eateries, and dinnertime empty. The few bodies who were out in it seemed to melt into the walls at the sight of a red light and a dusty-blue uniform. Halfway, it had been just halfway... She slowed, reaching for the light button on her helmet, angling toward the black crevices that pitted the three-story makeshift building face on her left. She switched on her headlamps; it showed her nothing in the first one but piled metal drums, nothing in the next. She was aware of Gundhalinu's footsteps coming after her down the pavement voices.
Her lamp flooded the next break in the wall, deeper than the others. It pinned three figures — no, four — five — one squatting over a prostrate victim, something alive with its own light in his hand. 'Freeze!' Her stunner was in her hands and pointing.
'Blues!' A confusion of movement, like insects dazzled in the light; one movement that struck her wrong.
She fired, saw a weapon fly free as the man went down. 'I said freeze! Get up, you with the blade; switch it off and throw it out here. Now!' She felt Gundhalinu stop beside her, stunner out, all her own attention focusing on the fourth man as he obeyed her order. The light-pencil slid across the pavement and struck her boot. 'Now flat on your bellies, scum, and spread-eagle. BZ, pull their teeth. I'll cover you.'
Gundhalinu went forward quickly; she watched while he crouched down by one and then another and checked them for weapons. While she waited, her gaze wandered to their victim lying helpless to one side; she frowned, moved closer to look down at his face. 'Uh oh ...' She caught a blurred image of youth and red hair in the harsh light; saw the terror whitening his eyes and heard the raw noise of his crippled breathing. She dropped to her knees beside him. Gundhalinu was searching the last of the slavers. 'BZ, find the key for the cuffs they put on this boy. He took a bad jolt, I think he needs some antifreeze.' She snapped open the aid kit at her belt, removed a pre filled syringe of stimulant. 'I don't know if you can see my face, boy, but picture a big smile. It's going to be all right.' Smiling, she pulled open the boy's shirt and injected the medication directly into the muscles of his chest. He gave a small grunt of pain or protest. She lifted his head, let it rest on her knees as Gundhalinu moved in with jingling keys to take the handcuffs off him. The boy's hands dropped limply at his sides.
'I know where I can put these to good use.' Gundhalinu grinned, holding up the cuffs.
She nodded. 'Good. Do it.' She unhooked her own binders and passed them across to him. 'Here you go. Equal treatment under the law.' Gundhalinu got up again. She watched him handcuff the three mobile slavers. A tremor ran through the boy's body; glancing down, she saw him begin to gulp air with desperate relief. The lids drooped closed over his wild, sea-colored eyes. She smoothed the wet tendrils of red hair back from his face. 'Better radio in, BZ; we'll never get this crowd into the back seat. I think our young friend is coming out of it all right.'
Gundhalinu bobbed his head. 'Right, Inspector.' The slaver he was straddling raised his face and then spat. 'A woman! A fucking woman Blue. How the hell do you like that! Busted by a woman.' Gundhalinu nudged him ungently with a boot; he grunted.
Jerusha leaned back against the wall, propping her stunner on her knee. 'And don't you ever forget it, you son of a bitch. Maybe we can't get at the heart of what's rotten in this city, but we can sure as hell cut off a few fingers.'
Gundhalinu stepped out into the alley and started back to the patrol craft If anyone else out there wondered what had happened, they weren't stopping to ask. She was certain that anyone with any real interest knew already. The boy made a tentative sound that was half a moan, and his hands came up onto his chest. He opened his eyes, squinted them shut again against the glare of her lamp. 'Think you're ready to sit up?'
He nodded, put his hands out again to push as she shifted him back against the wall. Blood oozed from his nose and a scrape along his chin; his face and his shirt were smeared with oily stains. He fumbled among the strings of gaudy broken beads hanging around his neck. 'Hell.
Oh, hell ... I jus' bought these!' His eyes were glassy looking.
'Never mind the packaging, as long as the goods are in tac—' She broke off as she saw the tarnished medal of honor swinging among the beads. 'Where did you get that?' She heard the unthinking demand in her voice.
His fist closed over it protectively. 'It belongs to me!'
'Nobody's saying it doesn't-Hold it!' Movement caught the corner of her eye; her gun came up. The slaver nearest the alley entrance swayed, halfway to his feet with his hands locked behind him. 'Flatten, creep; or you'll do it the hard way, like the boy did.' He flopped onto his stomach, glaring obscenities at her.
'He ...' the boy began, and pressed a hand against his mouth. 'He was gonna — cut me. They were gonna sell me! They said they I'd ...' He shivered; she watched him struggle to control it.
'Mutes tell no tales ... though where you were going they wouldn't have understood a word you said anyway. And they sure wouldn't have cared... No, it's not a pretty thought, is it?' She squeezed his thin arm gently. 'But it happens all the time. Only these big-hearts won't be making it happen again. You're from ofiworld?'
His hand tightened over the medal again. 'Yeah ... I mean, no. My mother wasn't. My father was.' He squinted fiercely into the light.
She kept the surprise off of her own face. 'And the medal belonged to him.' She made it a statement of accepted fact, not caring where he'd gotten the medal, more interested now in the possibility of bigger crimes. 'But you were raised here? You consider yourself a citizen of Tiamat?'
He rubbed his mouth again, blinking. 'I guess so.' A trace of hesitation, or suspicion.
Gundhalinu reappeared from the alley; the beam of his light overlapped her own to drive the shadows back. 'They'll be here for a pickup any time, Inspector.' She nodded. He stopped by the boy. 'How you doing?'
The boy looked up at Gundhalinu's dark freckled face, almost staring, before he seemed to remember his manners. 'All right, I guess. Thanks ... thanks.' He turned back to Jerusha, met her eyes, looked down, away, back again. 'I don't know how ... I just thanks.'
'You want to pay us back?' She smiled; he nodded. 'Be more careful where you walk. And be willing to swear in a monitored testimony that you're a citizen of Tiamat.' She grinned at Gundhalinu. 'Not only kidnapping and assault, but attempting to take a citizen of a proscribed planet off world She stood up. 'I'm feeling better all the time.'
Gundhalinu laughed. 'And somebody else is feeling worse.' He bent his head at the prisoners.
'What does that mean?' The boy climbed to his feet, leaning heavily on the wall. 'Do you mean I can't ever go to another world, even if I want to?' Gundhalinu put out a hand, steadying him.
Jerusha glanced at her watch. 'In your case, maybe you can. If your father was an off worlder that makes a difference — if you can prove it. Of course, once you leave here you can never come back... You'd have to take it up with a lawyer.'
'Why?' Gundhalinu asked. 'Were you planning to ship off?'
The boy began to look hostile. 'I might want to, some time. If you come here, why won't you let us leave?'
'Because your cultures haven't reached an adequate degree of maturity,' Gundhalinu intoned.
The boy looked pointedly at the off world slavers, and back at Gundhalinu. Gundhalinu frowned.
Jerusha switched on her recorder. 'If you don't mind, I'll just get a few facts for the record. Then we'll see about taking you down to the med center for—'
'I don't need it. I'm all right.' The boy straightened up, pulling at his clothes.
'You're probably not the best judge of that, you know.' She looked at him sharply, met embers in his gaze. 'But that's up to you. Go home and get a good night's sleep instead, if you want. In any case we need to know where to reach you when we want you. Please state your name.'
'Sparks Dawntreader Summer.'
'Summer?' Belatedly she registered the burr in his speech. 'How long have you been in the city, Sparks?'
He shrugged. 'Not very long.' He glanced away.
