buddies.
I wondered if higna was better than chaudatu. He said some other things. I caught about one word in seven and understood not any. "Butterfly?" said Paladin.
"Shut up." Paladin couldn’t hear anything at all but me and even if he could there was nothing he could do.
What a lousy way to run a communications link.
If I was Brother Rahone, dealer in curiosa, I’d have a back way out. I shoved what was left of the late Rahone off his desk and started going through the contents to find it. My best buddy on the other side of the door lost patience. He said something in a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger voice, and then there was a real determined thump at the door. It’d take him about a second and a half to decide to blow it.
I found a control panel in the desk, hidden well enough that I was pretty sure it didn’t just control the outside door. I bashed the buttons all at once, just for luck, and heard the slow grinding of the hidden door. Too slow.
I heard the prefire whine of a blaster and ducked under the desk. I wedged myself in as high off the floor as I could get about the time the hellflower blew the door and stalked in.
Rahone’s remains didn’t even slow him down. I’d bet he’d seen them earlier, maybe while they was still lively. He was wearing blue leather boots with jeweled spurs and gilded scrolling stamped into the leather and it was a good bet he wasn’t out to roll me for petty cash. He said something real nasty in helltongue when he saw the open door and walked around the desk to get a better look at the way he thought I’d gone.
I swept the floor with blaster fire and took him off at the ankles. He went over backwards and I got him a couple more times going down.
That bought me enough time to come out from under the desk and catch a throwing-spike from him through my skill-wrist. The spike was barbed, and every twitch drove it in deeper. I dropped my heat and it slid in Rahone’s blood way the hell out of reach.
I scrabbled at my other blaster left-handed and got it up and ready to go before I realized there wasn’t much reason to. My playmate had signed the lease on his real estate and was leaving on the Long Orbit.
I got up from behind the desk and looked at him. He was pretty much gone below his waist and what was still there was medium-well done. He wasn’t breathing.
I went around the desk and picked up my other blaster, careful. Had to put away the one I was holding to do it. The wrist he’d spiked was already beginning to swell, but it wasn’t leaking much; he’d missed the veins.
Maybe I should of put a bolt into him to be sure, but I didn’t think anyone could take that kind of damage and live.
I was wrong.
I had to step over him to get to the door. He bucked when I got close to him and dragged me down. His fingers was wrapped around my throat and his rings dug into my jaw. I caught myself on the wrist he’d spiked and the whole room seemed to fill with bright haze for the couple of centuries it took me to bring my blaster up. Then I pumped plasma Miltowns into him until the world went away.
###
Paladin was yelling in my ear. I coughed myself awake and kicked a body off me and coughed some more. Then I sat up.
There was someone pouring ice water over my right hand. I looked down and saw bright cheery rivulets of blood chuckling merrily down, gaudy and inexhaustible and mine all mine.
My glove was soaked and stiff and the skin ballooned between it and the knife sheath on my wrist. The throwing-spike stuck out both sides. That last handstand had sawed the spike through a vein, looked like.
"Butterfly, I know you are not dead. The transponder would tell me if you were dead and it has not. Therefore you are not dead and are capable of responding to me. Butterfly!"
"Here," I croaked. "Shut up." And let me bleed to death in peace and quiet. .
The room was burning; the kind of low smoky fire you get discharging a few plasma-packets too many at a combustible surface. I
I wondered if higna was better than chaudatu. He said some other things. I caught about one word in seven and understood not any. "Butterfly?" said Paladin.
"Shut up." Paladin couldn’t hear anything at all but me and even if he could there was nothing he could do.
What a lousy way to run a communications link.
If I was Brother Rahone, dealer in curiosa, I’d have a back way out. I shoved what was left of the late Rahone off his desk and started going through the contents to find it. My best buddy on the other side of the door lost patience. He said something in a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger voice, and then there was a real determined thump at the door. It’d take him about a second and a half to decide to blow it.
I found a control panel in the desk, hidden well enough that I was pretty sure it didn’t just control the outside door. I bashed the buttons all at once, just for luck, and heard the slow grinding of the hidden door. Too slow.
I heard the prefire whine of a blaster and ducked under the desk. I wedged myself in as high off the floor as I could get about the time the hellflower blew the door and stalked in.
Rahone’s remains didn’t even slow him down. I’d bet he’d seen them earlier, maybe while they was still lively. He was wearing blue leather boots with jeweled spurs and gilded scrolling stamped into the leather and it was a good bet he wasn’t out to roll me for petty cash. He said something real nasty in helltongue when he saw the open door and walked around the desk to get a better look at the way he thought I’d gone.
I swept the floor with blaster fire and took him off at the ankles. He went over backwards and I got him a couple more times going down.
That bought me enough time to come out from under the desk and catch a throwing-spike from him through my skill-wrist. The spike was barbed, and every twitch drove it in deeper. I dropped my heat and it slid in Rahone’s blood way the hell out of reach.
I scrabbled at my other blaster left-handed and got it up and ready to go before I realized there wasn’t much reason to. My playmate had signed the lease on his real estate and was leaving on the Long Orbit.
I got up from behind the desk and looked at him. He was pretty much gone below his waist and what was still there was medium-well done. He wasn’t breathing.
I went around the desk and picked up my other blaster, careful. Had to put away the one I was holding to do it. The wrist he’d spiked was already beginning to swell, but it wasn’t leaking much; he’d missed the veins.
Maybe I should of put a bolt into him to be sure, but I didn’t think anyone could take that kind of damage and live.
I was wrong.
I had to step over him to get to the door. He bucked when I got close to him and dragged me down. His fingers was wrapped around my throat and his rings dug into my jaw. I caught myself on the wrist he’d spiked and the whole room seemed to fill with bright haze for the couple of centuries it took me to bring my blaster up. Then I pumped plasma Miltowns into him until the world went away.
###
Paladin was yelling in my ear. I coughed myself awake and kicked a body off me and coughed some more. Then I sat up.
There was someone pouring ice water over my right hand. I looked down and saw bright cheery rivulets of blood chuckling merrily down, gaudy and inexhaustible and mine all mine.
My glove was soaked and stiff and the skin ballooned between it and the knife sheath on my wrist. The throwing-spike stuck out both sides. That last handstand had sawed the spike through a vein, looked like.
"Butterfly, I know you are not dead. The transponder would tell me if you were dead and it has not. Therefore you are not dead and are capable of responding to me. Butterfly!"
"Here," I croaked. "Shut up." And let me bleed to death in peace and quiet. .
The room was burning; the kind of low smoky fire you get discharging a few plasma-packets too many at a combustible surface. I
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