Yulin was disappointed; it had seemed so easy. But, there was little that could be done. “Come on, Nikki,” he said, and started walking. The fat girl followed meekly, but kept glancing back up at the glowing, strangely surrealistic planet half-visible on the horizon.
That planet was on Yulin’s mind, too. He knew that they’d never have seen it at all if the big dish had been directly opposite New Pompeii, but it was angled, so two thirds of the big planet was visible.
There were few people about, and they made it to the spaceport area in about fifteen minutes. The little spaceport terminal seemed deserted. Yulin really relaxed for the first time. This was almost too easy. He entered the terminal and stopped.
A big man with a Viking-like visage was perched there. He was sitting on a counter, and he seemed to be quite drunk.
Yulin thought him an attractive man, and the fact that it didn’t bother him to have that thought showed the thoroughness of Obie’s conditioning. He tried to remember the man’s name.
“Aha! So you’re trapped like the rest of us!” he roared, and took another long swig from a bottle. “I thought you’d gotten away!”
He stood there, wondering what to do. The man was huge compared to him, and even though he was Mavra Chang physically, Ben Yulin hadn’t been a fighter and those skills were sorely needed now.
Rumney was naked. He jumped up, facing her. “All is lost!” he proclaimed. “You can’t leave, I can’t leave, ain’t nobody can leave!” he almost sang. “So there’s nothin’ to do but get drunk and have a last fling. Why not, honey? Com’on! I’ll take you both on at the same time!” A casual observation of his midsection left no doubt as to his meaning. He pushed out the bottle. “Have a snort?”
Fear replaced any feelings of attraction for this man. Yulin edged back toward the door, but the man was quick, too quick. He was playing with her, and laughing like a maniac.
Yulin moved, and Rumney moved, chuckling all the time. The tiny female frantically looked for some avenue of escape, but the terminal was too small. Zinder gaped at the tableau in confused amazement. This was a Nikki Zinder sex fantasy, and she couldn’t shake that dreamlike quality. Deep inside her mind, Gil Zinder sat, resigned, not caring about anything any more.
“Look—whatever your name is,” Ben tried. “All isn’t lost! I think I can get us out of here if you’ll let me!”
Rumney thought about this a half-second, then grinned. “Nice try,” he approved. “Afterward, tinker away.”
Yulin cursed the fact that he’d had to get rid of the incongruous pistol and wished for Trelig or a guard, anybody, to get him out of this.
“All I want is a piece of tail,” Rumney chided. “I got a tail, you got—” Suddenly he stopped, and tried to focus his eyes.
“You ain’t got no tail!” he accused.
Now Yulin felt even more terrified. It was true! Damn Obie! He’d asked for the last pattern of Mavra Chang, not the alterations!
Yulin edged toward the gateway to the remaining ship slowly. “Take it easy, big man,” he breathed cautiously, soothingly. “You spotted something, okay. Now you know that maybe I
Yulin started deliberately for the ramp, and Rumney leaped for him, knocking him down on the floor, holding him there. The bottle went flying against a far wall, missing Zinder by centimeters.
He had Yulin pinned, and started tearing away at the nearly transparent clothing he wore. “Let’s see if you’re a woman under that,” he growled.
Yulin was terrified, more than he had ever been in his life. As Rumney pawed, Yulin managed to get his right arm partly free and jab him with his sharp nails. He felt something extra there; those little muscles in the back of his nails twitched. Rumney gave a sharp cry of pain, then he seemed to stiffen and collapsed on top of him. Rumney was like a lead sack. Yulin couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
“Nikki!” he gasped. “Help me get him off me!” But Zinder wasn’t about to obey.
He pushed and cursed and heaved, trying to wiggle loose. “I wish you’d roll over, damn it!” he swore—and, to his amazement, Rumney did.
Feeling terribly bruised and slightly crushed, he managed to get up slowly. It felt as if a rib was broken and his body was a mass of internal bruises. There were pains in his back and side and—well everywhere. Coughing and spitting a little blood, Yulin gasped for several minutes, trying to get some control back. Doing so felt awful, but it did the job.
Ben Yulin decided then and there that he very much preferred being 180 centimeters tall and male.
But, trapped for now in Mavra’s body, Ben got hold of himself.
“You on the floor! What’s your name?” he shot, trying a theory.
“Rumney. Bull Rumney,” he murmured.
Ben Yulin marveled at Mavra Chang’s resourcefulness. Obviously these triggers had been surgically implanted by somebody really talented. This was one dangerous lady, he decided, not without some admiration. In a way, he hoped she was still alive.
“Well, Bull Rumney, listen good,” Yulin said sharply. “You are to lie there, unmoving, a statue, until I tell you to do something. Understand?”
The big man nodded slowly, then froze.
“Fetal position, Rumney,” he said, enjoying himself for a minute. Rumney obliged, and froze again.
“Come on, Zinder, let’s see to this ship,” he snapped, sounding more like Mavra Chang than he knew. They went into the ship.
This wasn’t Trelig’s yacht; Chang had taken that. They were left with the shuttle, which was basically well stocked. There were enough emergency rations for maybe three weeks, no more. Yulin cursed under his breath. Enough to take care of the spongies, but not the others. Oh, well, Trelig said he wanted to deal with them, and he was sure
He checked everything out. He wasn’t the best pilot in the world, but he was an adequate one, and the ship was rather simple. Barring a major emergency, he could run it without much trouble. It had been charging all the time it was in dock, so there was no problem there. Atmosphere good, pressurization potential normal. He nodded as he checked each one. He looked for a weapon, but found none—naturally. Trelig had taken no chances.
Sighing, he closed the port and sat down to wait. There was no way he was going back to the buildings of New Pompeii.
Trelig was several hours in coming, and Ben Yulin had started to worry again. There were several false alarms—guards stopping by to check, a few of the bigwigs, too. Since he’d placed the bottle next to Rumney, nobody questioned him being there. Nobody even blamed him.
Finally, hearing some noise outside, Yulin opened the hatch and spied three guards coming in. One, he was sure, was Trelig. Those sexual screw-ups all looked alike. All three looked grim, and one, not Trelig, entered the ship first, followed by the other two. Ben caught Trelig’s eyes and a subtle nod. The nerves were back.
“We’ve decided to let anybody who wants to make a break for it,” the lead guard told the woman in the pilot’s chair. “If you get blasted, well, then it’s quick. If you don’t—more power to you.”
“And you?” Yulin asked.
That grim expression hardened. “I will die—quickly, not slowly. We have already held a meeting to decide that. We’ve just finished killing the poor devils who were much worse than we. None of us wants to become like that. We’ll go help the people who want to run for it to get everything together, and then—well, that’s it.”
Yulin, facing them, saw Trelig slowly draw his pistol and point it at the two guards. He uttered a silent prayer to ancestral gods never believed in, and nodded to the other two.
“I understand. We’ll try and do our best. I guess this is good-bye.”
The guard started to say something, but at that moment Trelig fired, two short bursts at very close range and at full power. Yulin and Zinder ducked in reflex, but the former councillor’s aim had been perfect. The two
