They exited the shuttle and followed the route card that Marten had been given at the barracks. He limped because of his ankle. It was tightly wrapped and he’d been given a shot to reduce swelling, but it was tender. Soon they stood in a sterile hall and before a row of steel-colored lift doors.
“Seventeen C,” Marten said, checking his card.
“This way then,” said Lance.
They found the lift, Marten slid the route card through the slot and door binged, opening. They entered. He slid the card in the destination slot, and up they went toward Level 49, the Pleasure Palace.
Most of the Sun Factory was automated and empty of people. It was a giant construct and it would have taken billions of people to fill. There was a funny psychological fact concerning it. Most people wanted to be around other people. So there were a few areas in the Sun Works Factory were the vast majority congregated. The Pleasure Palace was one of those places. The shock-trooper training area was another and the third was the Highborn facilities.
Each was an oasis of humanity amid an empty sea of thousands of miles of corridors and holding bays.
“You owe me a drink,” Kang said as they rode the lift.
“I haven’t forgotten,” Marten said.
“Where do we go first?” Vip asked Lance. “The game pit or the card room?”
“You got to study the crowds first,” explained Lance. “Get a feel for the luck of a place.”
Vip nodded sagely.
Kang said, “Only losers talk about luck.”
Vip laughed in a know-it-all way, while Lance looked at the ceiling and pursed his lips.
“I don’t how many times I’ve heard losers whine to me to give them a second chance,” Kang said. “‘The shipment got fouled up due to bad luck,’ they’d say. ‘Yeah?’ I’d ask. ‘Real bad luck, Kang. You watch, and my luck will turn around. No,’ I’d say. ‘I don’t think your luck will ever change. Why not, Kang? Sure it will.’ I’d shake my head, get up and stick a vibroblade in their belly. ‘That’s why not,’ I’d tell them. I was never wrong.”
“Where was that?” asked Lance, perhaps a bit too eagerly.
Kang shrugged.
Marten knew where. Back in the slums of Sydney, Australian Sector where Kang had been the gang leader of the Red Blades. Just like in the old French Foreign Legion, many in the shock troops kept their past to themselves. Neither Lance nor Vip had been with them in the Japan Campaign, back when Omi, Kang and Marten had been soldiers in the 93rd Slumlord Battalion of the 10th FEC Division.
Before anyone could say more, the lift opened and they were assaulted by noise and a waft of mingled human odors. They hurried onto the broad passageway with its glittering festival-lights. Slender imitation-trees swayed in the perfumed breeze, while crowds seethed across the floorspace. The people wore bright party clothes and happy drunken grins. Paygirls or men in even gaudier costumes draped on a partygoer’s arm. Dotted among this mass were the obvious uniformed police and undercover monitors. Along the sides of the passageway stood souvenir shops, restaurants, pleasure-parlors and game and card rooms. Snack-shacks provided a shot of pick- me-up that aroused the sluggish or pills and sandwiches to provide energy.
“Back at ten?” asked Lance.
“Don’t be late to the shuttle or it’s a mark against all of us,” Marten said.
Vip waved good-bye and then plunged into the crowd. Lance strode after him.
“Now what?” asked Omi.
“Now Marten owes me a drink,” Kang said.
Marten peered at the festive masses. Tonight few cared that the Highborn ruled, few cared that a vast civil war raged in the Inner Planets. This was Level 49, the party palace. “What’s your poison?” Marten asked Kang.
“Smirnoff on the rocks at Smade’s Tavern.”
“Never heard of either,” Marten said.
Kang turned his bulk toward the crowds and waded in. Marten glanced at Omi, who shrugged. They followed Kang. Like a bear or gorilla, the huge Mongol shouldered people out of the way. Many saw him coming and hurried aside. A few glared. Those found themselves sprawled on the floor. A policeman with a truncheon squinted as Kang headed straight at him. With a brutal shoulder-shove, Kang knocked the cop flying.
As Marten passed, the cop leaped up and snarled into a mike on his collar. Then he sprang after Kang.
“This could take care of our problem,” Omi said.
“No,” Marten said. “Kang’s 101st. We’ve got to back him up.”
“Getting motherly are you?”
The cop grabbed Kang’s arm. Kang jerked his arm in annoyance and kept moving. Then the crowds thinned and two more policemen bore down on Kang. At a more leisurely pace behind them, there followed a thin man with bushy eyebrows. He wore a red tunic, with purple pantaloons and curly-toed slippers. He was older, with sparse hair, maybe in his late forties.
“Halt,” said the cop behind Kang.
Kang neither halted nor acknowledged that he’d heard.
The two approaching cops glanced at one another. They drew shock rods and flicked power so the batons hummed. They braced themselves.
Kang stopped so suddenly that the cop behind crashed into him. Kang seemed barely to swivel around, but he put that cop in a headlock and applied pressure so the man’s face turned red.
“Let him go,” warned the taller of the other two cops.
The thin man with the purple pantaloons and curly-toed slippers widened his eyes in astonishment. “Kang?” he asked.
Kang peered at the thin man with sparse hair. The man had foxy features, sly and cruel. Kang snorted. “Heydrich Hansen, huh? Good old Sydney slum-trash.”
The taller of the two police turned to Hansen. “You know him, sir?”
“Indeed.”
“What are your wishes for him, sir?”
“Sir?” Kang asked Hansen. “Changed professions, huh?”
Hansen’s smile lost some of its charm. “Why not let the policeman go, Kang. I’ll buy you a few drinks—to make up for that time I was late.”
Kang seemed to consider it, as if he was doing Hansen a favor.
Marten leaned near Omi, whispering, “Do you know this Hansen?”
Omi frowned, shaking his head.
The policeman in the headlock had started to turn purple. He no longer seemed to be breathing.
“Sir!” said the taller of the two policemen.
“I’ll buy your friends a round, too, Kang.”
“You said several rounds,” Kang said.
Hansen turned rueful. “Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but these days I’m a monitor. I’m presently on the job.”
Kang tapped the shock trooper patch on the breast of his jacket.
Hansen peered at it. “Ah. You and your happy band of killers are here tonight. Seems like nothing ever changes.”
“No,” Kang said.
“Why not consider yourself my guest tonight?” said Hansen. “For old time’s sake.”
Kang thought a moment longer and finally released the cop, who dropped like a sack of carrots. The cop shuddered and wheezed. He began to tremble.
The two cops with shock rods warily advanced toward their fellow peace officer.
Kang paid them no heed. He lumbered up and slapped Hansen on the back, staggering the monitor, the secret policeman for the Highborn. Marten and Omi trailed behind.
“Where were you headed?” asked Hansen.
“Smade’s,” Kang said.
