Tal slapped him, twice. “Belleraphon. Tell me about him.”
“Wait … will you give me my stuff back?”
“I’ll consider it.”
“I gotta have it back. You don’t know what they … what are you doing?”
Tal had taken hold of his left hand and put it against the floor. He said, “I’m going to take your gripper here, and use it to crush the bones in your little finger.”
“What the hell!” Peeskill tried to drag his hand away and found it trapped in a machinelike vise. “Look, you’re out of your—”
Tal maneuvered the hand into a more efficient position. “Then we can work our way up. The human body has plenty of bones.” He lifted the gripper.
“Wait, look—stop! All right, stop!”
Tal paused. Peeskill said, “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. God! You’re crazy, you know, you’re not normal.”
“I know.”
“You’re not even mad at me!”
“I’m seriously annoyed with you. You can consider that enough to get you killed, Maintenance Worker Peeskill.”
Peeskill put his other hand up to his face, and took it away again when his face hurt. He said, “I never met Belleraphon. I only heard about him … before my time. Maybe thirty, forty years ago, Belleraphon was supposed to be running the underground on Baret One. All the illegal stuff … drugs, proscribed music, weapons, nonapproved sex. I don’t even know if he was real. People say he was. A couple of my off-planet contacts wanted a name from me, and, hell, I’m not supposed to give them any. So I said Belleraphon. That was all! I made it up. I’d have made up someone else if I thought anybody’d be so damn interested.”
“Just out of curiosity,” said Tal, who had not put down the gripper, “what is the name of your employer?” Peeskill met his eyes. Something he saw there made his fingers throb with unpleasant anticipation. Peeskill said, “My direct contact is Warek. I don’t know his first name. He never trusted me enough to tell me who he works for.”
“Very sensible,” said Tal.
He stood up. Peeskill said, “Are you going to give me back my stuff?”
“I said I’d consider it.”
“I told you the truth!”
“I know you did.” Tal smiled. “That was taxmal, after all.”
Peeskill looked down. “God.” Then he said, “How am I supposed to explain this?”—gesturing to his swelling face.
“Tell them you fell down the stairs. Does anyone really care enough about you to pay attention?”
“No.” He said it without bitterness.
“I didn’t think so.” Tal dusted off his hands and went upstairs.
He woke up suddenly. Someone was in his stateroom. Tal lay very still for a moment, breathing lightly, listening. Then he rolled off the bed and came up on the floor holding a pistol. At almost the same second someone came down on his bed. Tal maneuvered between the intruder and the control for the lights; he saw better in the dark than humans, and if the lights came on, he would be momentarily blinded.
It was Peeskill, of course. Threats to his bodily safety were about the only thing that could make Tal genuinely angry; at this moment he was aware of a strong wish to tear Peeskill apart. Then Peeskill lunged at him, and Tal saw the glint of a knife arcing through the darkness. Tal fired his pistol.
Peeskill went down, and his knife hit the floor. Tal kicked it away. He wanted to be sure only Peeskill’s fingerprints were on it, because he was well aware that that shot had done it for both of them. An energy weapon had been discharged aboard ship, and Security was on the way. He flicked on the lights, blinked for a moment, then went over to inspect Peeskill. Unfortunately he was still alive. Tal indulged himself enough to give a vicious kick to Peeskill’s side—Tal had strong feelings about people who tried to end his existence, and it might have the added benefit of killing Peeskill before he could talk to Security. If he had any sense, of course, he wouldn’t tell them the truth, but Tal had no faith in Peeskill’s intelligence.
The door slid open and six security guards entered, fanning out quickly. Within seconds they separated Tal from his pistol, checked him for other weapons, and examined Peeskill. “He’s alive,” said one of them. He looked up at Tal. “Want to tell us what happened?”
“Better wait for the Captain,” said another.
“Can I sit down?” said Tal.
“No,” said the guard.
A few minutes later Captain Nestra appeared. From her crimson dragon-robe and slippers, she had clearly been off-duty. Her white hair hung in a braid down her back, and her captain’s cap had been hastily stuffed in one of the robe’s pockets. She paused at the doorway and inspected Peeskill, who was being helped to sit up, and then Tal, who stood against a wall. She raised an eyebrow.
“Had a busy shift, have we?” She stepped inside and walked over to Tal. Keeping her eyes on him, she said, “Officer Rami?”
Choris Rami, who had so kindly given him a map of the ship his first day out, appeared to be highest ranking security guard present. She glanced toward Peeskill and said, “He’s going to be all right. He’s got a bum down his right shoulder and arm, and some bumps and bruises. Neither of them’s said anything yet.”
“Very good, officer.” She said to Tal, “Would you like to make a statement for the record?”
“I don’t know why he was in my room,” said Tal. “I think he was trying to rob me.”
“That’s a lie!” said Peeskill.
The captain turned to him. “Yes?” she said. “Why were you in his room?”
Peeskill looked around at several pairs of eyes, all waiting for him to go on. He dropped his gaze. ‘This cargo said he wanted sex with me. He said men can’t do it in the Three Cities. Said he was curious.”
Tal noted the eyes turning back in his direction. He said nothing. It wasn’t a bad try on Peeskill’s part, after all. Experience
