Mindworlds Read online

  Live pugs now fought down back alleys in smoky rooms where Ned and Zella did not want to go, and the gladiatorial school where they had been teaching young pugs their moves had gone out of business: now fights were mainly fought by robots—even the cockfights were robotic. And most of the live fights had become criminally controlled and much bloodier.

  He wouldn’t let Zella go to those places, and ducked them himself. He had some hopes for this one.

  The train let him off at the usual station; its clay tile roof was crumbling and the stucco walls were cracking. Ned tried not to see the shabbiness of the main street and its loungers, the rutted roads and dust-spewing landcars. On most blocks the walkways had stopped moving and the treads were buckled.

  It was mid-afternoon and the westering sun was fairly kind to the small shops and eateries he was passing. At the first street branching north he turned right and after the corner fruit market, there was a door, the same thick slab of wood-comp he remembered.

  A big red-lit sign above it said: The CrawlSpace! That was new, and so was the slot for i.d. He paused. Private club … . The back of his neck prickled and he rubbed at it.

  But he’d spent more than an hour on the train and he’d be stuck here for two more hours. He slotted in his District Worker’s Permit.

  The door clicked and buzzed, slammed back in its socket, ricocheted once and slid back again slowly.

  Beyond it was a square room with a high ceiling and skylight. All kinds of crests and shields hung on the walls, naming champions and associations that Ned had never heard of. The ring in the center was bedded with clean sand.

  As he stepped inside Trax came forward with his old fighter’s strut, grinning with new white teeth. He was otherwise exactly as Ned remembered him, with the same bald head and hairy arms and legs. “Come on in, Neddo, welcome to the CrawlSpace—we got some good times today!”

  He came closer, where Ned could smell his sweat. “It’s chebok, your specialty, innit?” And in a low voice through his teeth, “Today you lose.”

  Ned took one breath. “I don’t fight to lose.”

  “You do if you wanna be paid.”

  Ned smelled bloodfight—that often hinted threat he’d managed to dodge in Zamos arenas.

  Behind Trax he could see in the white bloodless light that along one wall fifteen or twenty men, one Varvani, and one or two women were crouched on stools and folding chairs. The youngest were middle-aged with reddened faces and wrinkled foreheads; they wore snapcaps and leather pea jackets, half had thick gold chains and rings. There were curls of jhat smoke rising from their fingers and mouths. They did not speak but every once in a while one would lean over to give a pat on the head or shoulder to a much younger man in leather breeks who was sitting on the floor in front of them with legs crossed. The champion.

  “Here he is!” Trax’s face was all teeth. “Jammer, the winner of the silver Terra Cup, just waiting for you, Ned-boy!”

  The youngling stood up, stretched, and did a little dance in place. He had dark curly hair and smooth skin, looked strong and graceful enough, and well-kept, rather like somebody’s pet. Ned did not waste time wondering who the owner was. His mind was spinning.

  He refused the offered refresher bottle, then shucked his jacket and top and dropped them in a corner, baring his years of scars. Nothing to show for them either. He accepted the chebok, a mailed fist with sharp steel spikes, very new and shiny. And the heavy leather buckler with metal studs that had never been scratched. Chebok fighting went with the trade, but Ned did not like it; he didn’t mind a taste of blood and a touch of fear, but chebok meant too much of both.

  Jammer danced forward snarling and feinted with his chebok to cover the lunge with his shield meant to drive Ned’s own spikes into his flesh. He had frightened eyes, Ned thought; he blocked that and caught a couple of scratches on his jaw: first blood that fell in a spatter on his shoulder. There was a crackling hiss of breath from the audience.

  Jammer followed hard with his chebok and Ned, dodging that, was caught off guard for a fraction of a second too late, and left himself open to a slam on shoulder and cheekbone from Jammer’s shield. He lost balance and landed sprawled on his back. Winded and dizzy, he heard the hissing deepen to a low roar: Give it to him, Jammer!

  Jammer leaped forward to kick at him, an illegal move, but Ned caught him hard on the leg with his own chebok. Dripping blood, Jammer hopped on one leg, screaming, “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

  Silence. Somebody said, “Yes.” Ned pulled himself to his feet, stood back, and waited. His head was still ringing and he had sparkles in his eyes. He shook them away.

  Jammer stumbled forward frantically, eyes in a stare. Ned took pity on him, knocked the chebok out of Jammer’s hand with his own and pushed him down with his buckler.

  Empty hand, a legal end to the fight.

  The audience rose and roared like a thousand. C’mon! Let’s get’m! Ned stood watching them for a moment, while they shook their fists. He waited for them to step forward, but they did not, yet. Two or three of them gathered around Jammer, Get up, boy, you ain’t hurt bad! There were no guns here, but throwing knives were common enough. Now, though, maybe the jhat had dulled their aims as it was slurring their speech.

  He’d seen all these men and women, or others too much like them no matter what their species, standing in the doorways of their offices in casinos, brothels, arenas, waiting for the money to be counted. And now that the empire they had served was fallen, they had laid their money down on such small hopes he would have felt sorry for them if he could afford it.

  He picked up the other ’bok so that he had two of them, and clashed them together, in case anyone had ideas. No one came near him. “Go kiss your boy where it hurts and send him back to the nursery,” he said.

  Trax was kneeling beside Jammer, bandaging his leg. He screamed at Ned, “You crazy bastard, you ain’t getting paid for none of this!” His face was purple, and he was shaking.

  “I guess not,” Ned said. “I guess you won’t be, either.” He dropped the weapons, picked up his clothes and was out of there.

  He went down the street quickly, wiping blood off his jaw with a cloth that had gone through many launderings, and eventually put his top and jacket back on. No one came after him, and he spent the rest of the time sitting on a hard bench in the station, reading the graffiti and watching local news on the sputtering screens.

  He had a bad time of it with Zella when he got back, with that black eye and the slashes.

  I can’t believe you didn’t know what you were in for!

  She was crying, touching him, dabbing him with wet swabs and antiseptics.

  I didn’t, Zel! The pay sounded so good!

  I’m going to be afraid to leave you alone … .

  As he would be left tomorrow. Zella and the children were leaving for Montador to wait at the deathbed of her mother, with whom she had never gotten along, but who had relocated here from her pioneers’ world for an easier old age. Zella usually did this two or three times a year. Her mother specialized in deathbed scenes.

  I’m a grown-up boy, I’ll get along all right.

  I don’t care about the money! It’s not going to happen again!

  He agreed with that. They found a minder for the kids and went to Dusky Dell’s for beers.

  Spartakos Cuts a Deal

  The fight going on in Dusky Dell’s sea-front bar in the Grottoes district of Miramar was a different kind; the awkward punching scuffles weren’t rare around Happy Hour when Dell gave out three for the price of two, and Ned was safely niched in a dark corner with Zella. He was touching his rough fingers very gently to that spot on her neck just over the second cervical vertebra, that was still soft as a baby’s. She hunched her back like a cat. “You’re tickling.”

  “It feels so good.”

  But the back of his neck was still prickling, along with the hurts and his anger. There were other reasons for twinges of the spine that did not acco
unt for this one, and one of them was Spartakos, the robot created by the Lyhhrt as an exhibit, servant, calculator, storehouse of secrets, pet. At their first meeting Spartakos had declared Ned his friend, and when Galactic Federation and the Lyhhrt took them into service and sent them into danger the two had saved each other more than once. Five years ago the Lyhhrt, in releasing Ned, had left the robot with him.

  Spartakos was no longer a servant or an ornament, but a world-citizen. He had vowed to serve the O’e, the slave-race his makers had created: he was up on Dell’s stage now, dancing with an O’e woman and a Varvani who had also become his friends. For this display he had transformed himself into a serpent twining among the limbs of the other two while a couple of Bengtvadi played a nose-flute and a bucciphone. An audience clustered around the stage clapping in time, while drinkers slammed their mugs on tables.

  Dell paid Spartakos a lot of money: he had doubled and redoubled her business. He used the money for energy and upkeep, for tending the O’e with food and medicines wherever he could find them. That took most of it. And what was left over he gave to Ned and Zella.

  That bothered Ned deeply. No way to fight, what can we do? We could find cheaper digs and at least keep the kids in school … . Better than sponging free meals from Dell and letting Spartakos pay the rent.

  Money meant little to Spartakos and could not do much more for him than supply energy: when the Lyhhrt had left him with Ned they had deserted him, and he had no way to cure the deep tarnish of his gold-plated head and hands or the flaking of his chromed body, and lately his coordination had begun to suffer. Even if there were automaton specialists who were skilled enough to restore him to blazing brilliance, none of them would have dared touch a Lyhhrt work. Spartakos would have self-destructed.

  There was a sudden eruption from the fighters who, borne by the circulation of the audience toward the bar, had reached a bottle-breaking stage in their battle. The Varvani raised his hand to stop the music, jumped down from the stage; the customers parted for him as the sea had done for Moses: he was a head taller than everyone else and had arms as thick as taqqa trees. He plucked up the fighters by the scruff, carried them through the exit and tossed them over the railing into the sea. At this level of the Grottoes it was not deep and had no hungry beasts. The Varvani returned and the dance went on.

  The room calmed, and Ned turned his mind back to whatever else was giving him that twinge at the back of his neck. Out of the corner of his eye he had noticed the workman—at least a fiercely weathered Earther in denims with a neckerchief and shabby cap—who seemed to be looking at him with a peculiar intensity. Now as he thought about that he felt himself forced to turn his head and look again. For a moment he thought this might be someone from Lisboa after him.

  No. This was a telepath. Looking at him, pushing at his mind. His anger rose and was damped down by that push. Before he could shake free of the effect the workman rose and squatted by the doorway.

  The show was finishing with a flourish and a bow, with Spartakos reforming into his still handsome self; in the quiet that followed Dell came onstage to announce last round and saw the workman, a stranger. “Hullo, mister! Looking for work? I’m not hiring on right now but I’ll give you a meal.” He was not one of the kind she’d hire anyway, too awkward and sullen-looking.

  Blue-shirt looked up at her with strange eyes, and Ned could see her eyebrows rising at whatever message he was giving her. Dell was an old fighter friend of Ned’s, muscular enough to be her own bouncer, and Ned thought she was paler than usual. She crooked a finger at Ned. “That one wants you. Don’t ask me.”

  “I don’t like the looks of him,” Zella whispered.

  “Nor do I,” Ned said. But he got up uneasily and headed for the doorway. Spartakos came down the steps to join him without being asked. Ned realized: But he has been asked. Radio signal. That boyo is a Lyhhrt.

  Blue-shirt said, “I am not one of those from Lisboa. Come out of here where we can talk.”

  “What about?” Ned said. “You never come near me unless you want something. Eh, I guess you want Spartakos back. Well you’ll have to ask him nicely now you’ve made him a world-cit.”

  “That’s not what he wants, Ned,” Spartakos said.

  “Something else? No, wait, I know. You have a little work for me. Get blown up, beat up, shot at—”

  “Please listen, Mister Gattes!”

  Ned followed him out to the grotto stairway and down a few steps with a very reluctant tread. The night was warm and the sky full of stars out there, and the sea swept with the crossed paths of two or three moons. “Whatever it is, no,” Ned muttered.

  The workman said, “Listen, please! There is not much you owe Lyhhr, but you can give us that.”

  Ned reflected that, since he and Zella had been living off the avails of Spartakos for the last half-year, he owed him that. He settled himself on the stone step; it was warm, but he felt cold.

  The Lyhhrt began: “I/we are—we were, I and my Other—attached to the Lyhhrt Embassy at Galactic Federation Headquarters on this world. Our Embassy did not know that we were also GalFed agents investigating—”

  “Wait a minute! This sounds like very high-level business—you sure you really want to tell me—”

  “A block has been on you since I took sight of you, and if you refuse my request you will forget this conversation. We were placed here because our world government suspected that the Ambassadors were assuming authority they were not given. In fact they are claiming to represent all of Lyhhr and threatening to bring an action against Khagodis for some imagined insult! We had been gathering evidence, they found us—” The workings of his shell began a barely audible hum and he paused to control it.

  “Last night in Montador City one of them killed the contact I depended on, murdered my Other, and shot at me—and that murderer was one of them/us, one of our own people—who is searching for me now and he will find me before the police find him!”

  Ned stared at this ragged creature who was like nothing he knew of as Lyhhrt. “How do I know all this is true? And if it is, what do you want me to do about it?”

  The worker pulled the collar of his blue shirt down from his shoulder. His self-repair had filled in and reshaped the steel-mesh matrix where the shot had hit him, but he had no time to replate himself; he was working in economode, and there was a jagged star of blackness on his surface. Then he pulled the shirt back over his shoulder and hit Ned with:

  Brezant bloody overtures in Montador/ESP woman-

  fear/Bronze and Brass-and-silver and ten thousand

  dropdown Khagodis

  smashglass/smokeflick——beggarcurb WATCH YOU

  DON’T OUTSMART YOURSELF says Willson——

  (greisbach is that you?/NO BUT I WILL DO/Lyhhrt/Tzuk!

  Willson!/omygod nononothing/TZUK! AND AGAIN!/

  /SMASH!

  I-WE/US-MY OTHER!!!MY/BEING—my LIFE—I

  still living?

  —alone with white-hot thoughts crashing rebounding reverberating against the seared walls of the mind—no tears for eyeless Lyhhrt … .

  “I understand, I think,” Ned said. “A chukker named Brezant, wants to send an army to attack … Khagodis?”

  Workman calmed himself and told the story. “It has to do with what happened on Khagodis when you were there five of your years ago.”

  “And was it this Brezant that sent the Lyhhrt to kill you?”

  “I cannot tell that. One of the two he had with him might have done it, but I didn’t dare esp him … .”

  “And you want me for—”

  “There is nothing you can do about any of those—I am trying to explain my desperation. We have never lost sight of you and this artifact”—a nod at Spartakos—“even when we had no need of your services, and I am grateful to have found you here—”

  Ned believed Lyhhrt did not tell lies; he assumed that this one was telling what he thought was the truth. “Because now you need me—”

 
“Lyhhr needs—”

  “—to go down all those alleys through the garbage heaps where people have dirty faces and forgot to shave, where you couldn’t go even if you dress up like one of them, and want to send me instead because you think I’m one of them!” Unconsciously he rubbed his jaw, which had been badly repaired and grafted long ago, and tended to flame or whiten when he was upset. Now it was red with slashes under the padding.

  “No!” :I might have shut your mouth but I would not.:

  “Thanks.”

  “My maker means well, Ned-Gattes-my-friend,” Spartakos said unreproachfully. Ned wondered how he managed this.

  “Ned!” He had not seen Zella slipping through the door and waiting in the shadow. Now she grabbed him around the shoulders and whispered, “Stop it, Ned.” And to the workman-Lyhhrt, “He’s not doing your dirty work!”

  “Listen, Earthers! Listen, Edmund Gattes!” The workman crouched and thrust his arms out as if his body was truly a fleshly one, and the skin split over the crown of his head for a moment to show a glint of metal. “I am trapped on this world without a ship or even a shuttle, I have money that will not buy me protection, because of the work we have been doing I have no public accreditation, and the one person I trust to speak for me is running for her life—(Greisbach, is that you?)—and I cannot go back to the Embassy when the Ambassadors are plotting a war!”

  The workshell gritted under the false skin from his effort to control himself. “Who can tell me from any other Lyhhrt now? I am alone, I have no Other, I have no accreditation! Only my genome can identify me, and I dare not show myself as long as I am hunted! The worlds of strangers are all too glad to be rid of us, but I cannot get off this one! Yes, I/we ask those like you to do dangerous work, and it may be in rubbish heaps, but we need you most because we trust you. We chose to look like common people now because other species are so frightened and suspicious of us, and come to you again because a fighter who is not a thug is the most valuable person to do this work for us—help me escape from this world and carry a message to the world Khagodis that anyone who threatens to attack them is a vicious criminal and not a representative of our people!”