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  Mulciber spoke next. “Could you tell me where we are headed?”

  “Listen, you streeter bastard-”

  “Kars!” Suzy interrupted. “Mulciber is not a streeter-”

  “You know him?”

  “Yes,” answered Suzy in a softer voice. She picked up his white felt hat and straightened the violet plume. Then she ran her hand up and down Kars’s leg as if calming an excited pet. “He’s an associate of mine.”

  She turned to Mulciber. She continued to rub Kars’s leg, but gave Mulciber her warmest, happy-to-see-you smile. “We are on our way to the spaceport to watch the next starship leaving for the Tau planets. Naturally, you’re invited.”

  Kars stiffened. Mulciber accepted the invitation with a nod. For the rest of the trip the men sat in tense silence while Suzy talked in an incessant, bubbling fashion. Outside the cab the city swept by them with dizzying speed. The driver swung the taxi around the corners of buildings, cutting hazardously close to the concrete walls. The lights of windows and passing air-traffic gleamed and flashed at them then fell away behind. The rooftop restaurant faded to a pinprick glow in the rear window. When they arrived at the spaceport, Kars quickly led Suzy away from the landed cab without looking back toward Mulciber. Clearly, he did not want a third party along. Mulciber made no effort to catch up, but rather followed them into the crowds a discreet distance behind.

  The crowds of colonists trying to board the starship surged and ebbed, their thousands of united voices merging together into a dull roar. Walking among them was like wading through a dark, warm-smelling sea. Kars and Suzy were easy to follow. They stood out from the countless common, unaltered faces of laborers and vagrant street-people. Mulciber watched as a young man dressed in the drab grays of a worker grabbed at Kars’s clothing as he passed by. The man plied Kars with shouted questions concerning the flight, having apparently mistaken him for an official. Kars answered him with a quick backhanded blow to the mouth. The young man collapsed to the concrete in Kars’s wake, spilling blood on his grays, his jaw broken.

  As they got closer to the immense hull of the starship the crowds grew thicker and more reluctant to make way for them. When they had made their way underneath the super-structure of the docking towers, the vast bay doors in the hull above opened. Huge ramps lowered slowly toward the ground, with deafening low-pitched groans of shifting metal.

  Mulciber was pushed back by the sheer weight of the crowd as it tided backward in fear of being crushed. In the confusion of bodies and faces he lost sight of his quarry. His keen eyes swept the gray-clad hordes for a splash of color but saw none. Moving with decision, he waded and shouldered and shoved his way toward the nearest leg of a docking tower, planning to climb it and survey the scene from above. Reaching the foot of the tower, he easily pulled himself up into the grid-work of steel and onto the first tier. He watched for a moment as the foremost ranks of the crowd mounted the ramps and entered the starship.

  Then he turned his gaze down into the seething mass of faces. After a moment he picked out Suzy in her colorful, gauzy clothing. Kars was not with her. Mulciber was surprised to see that she was quite near, almost at the foot of the docking tower he had climbed. Even as he picked her out, she caught sight of him and commenced waving and signaling. Mulciber was already turning when his finely-tuned ears picked out a sound from amid the rolling thunder of the crowd. The sound of stealthy approach from behind.

  He whirled to face his attacker, his arms rising into position, his perceptions slowing and his reactions speeding up. Kars, grinning, directed a hissing spray into his face. Vapor gushed out from a tiny oval dispenser in Kars’s hand, invading Mulciber’s nostrils and coating his face and eyes with tiny droplets. Mulciber’s vision began to fade immediately, but his nerves, desensitized to pain, failed to be stunned by the attack.

  “I can climb too, street-” Kars began, his words were cut off by Mulciber’s right hand, which had struck out like a snake to grasp his throat.

  The poison worked to paralyze him, but as it was a contact poison and Mulciber’s skin was not porous, it could only penetrate through the surfaces of his eyes and sinuses. This slowed down the effects enough to allow Mulciber to squeeze Kars’s windpipe with all the crushing force of his new hands, although he could do little else.

  Only the powerful muscles and tendons in Kars’s neck kept him from immediate death. Mulciber could still see enough to watch Kars’s face contort with rage and grow purple. In silent and wild anger Kars ripped and struck at Mulciber’s outstretched arm, but the iron muscles held. Mulciber concentrated all his remaining will upon crushing the life out of his opponent. He began to lose control of his body, he was distantly aware of the fact that his legs were buckling. His vision was gone, his nerves were dying. Still he held on, his hand clamped in a final grip of steel. He distantly felt sharp spikes of displeasure and warm sensations in his midsection where Kars landed heavy kicks and punches in desperate fury.

  Mulciber’s artificial ribs gave, the protected organs underneath would soon be ruptured. He slipped to the metal deck of the docking tower, nerveless and blind. Kars worked with all his strength to tear away the unfeeling fingers that clamped his throat. He finally managed to pry away Mulciber’s weakened grip. Kars leaned against a steel beam, massaging his throat and making choking sounds. When he could articulate, he gave a hoarse laugh.

  “You’re dead!” he gasped out, sneering down at Mulciber’s prostrate form. “When the poison reaches your autonomic centers your heart will stop beating and your lungs will no longer function.” Kars gave another short bark of laughter and kicked his helpless adversary in the abdomen. Mulciber felt a sick explosion, but could not react.

  Kars paused before climbing down from the tower. “While you die,” he hissed to Mulciber. “I want you to think of me. Just think of my smiling face.”

  Mulciber heard him, but could only lie motionless, his nerves in effect severed by the paralytic poison. In minutes the poison would reach his autonomic nerve centers and kill him. But there were other forces at work. His overbuilt body contained several artificially implanted organs which tapped into his circulatory and nervous systems to monitor his vital bodily processes. One such artificial organ, attached to the arteries leading into the liver, detected a foreign substance in his blood stream. A microprocessor analyzed the poison and a counter-agent was released to combat the effects. Other bodily functions, some natural and some not, worked to control the injuries Kars had inflicted. Due to the combined efforts of Mulciber’s artificial organs and his naturally strong constitution, the poisoning was not fatal. The counter-agents released into his bloodstream neutralized the paralytic drug rapidly.

  After five minutes his senses had returned. Two minutes later he was able to rise stiffly. His new skin had sealed itself over his wounds. Stimulants and pain relievers borrowed time for him, keeping his injuries from slowing him. In less than ten minutes after the attack, he was ready to fight again. While his body worked to repair itself, Mulciber surveyed the docking tower and landing area with gradually improving vision. He sat crouched on a crossbeam, one with the shadowy tower. His unnatural physique had given him a second chance at his enemy, and this time he would not be taken unaware.

  The crowds had evaporated for the most part. The last of the colonists were being expertly hustled aboard by uniformed officials. The remaining well-wishers stood in gray clumps on the vast littered expanse of concrete, awaiting the final departure warning that would send them scurrying back to the gates. The final warning indicated that the prisoners were to be loaded into the holds, and anyone left on the field would be treated as one of the prisoners. Kars and Suzy were nowhere in sight. He noted that there were no signs of Kars having gone after the boy that Mulciber had been directed to kill. The boy and his retainers had apparently made it aboard safely.

  The final warning sounded. Mulciber’s gaze, no longer impaired, swept the scene for any sign of Kars or Suzy. He saw none. Another minute passed
. The last of the gray-clad stragglers hurried away from the starship. Even as they streamed through the gates, a number of large airships floated down out of the night sky, escorted by two police cruisers each. The airships and police cruiser all bore the gold embossed letters UCP, the insignia of the United Chicago Police. The airships landed and their bays swung open. A flood of prisoners were herded out and toward the starship by cursing guards brandishing electric whips. Mulciber watched the proceedings, tensing his muscles, preparing to break for the gate. The guards abandon the prisoners several hundred yards from the starship’s ramp, as the ship was not part of their jurisdiction. The prisoners, left with the choice of boarding the ship or staying outside and being incinerated by her jets upon takeoff, boarded without much hesitation. As the last of them mounted the ramp, Kars suddenly appeared, dragging a disheveled-looking Suzy behind him.

  Mulciber, who was about to leap from the docking tower and make a break for the gates, switched directions and launched himself into the air toward the starship. Mulciber hit the concrete running. His muscular legs pumped, the balls of his feet smacking in perfect rhythm. He stretched his stride further, increasing his speed. His heel crushed a discarded styrofoam cup. As he ran he cleared his mind of all extraneous thought. His body prepared itself for battle. Stimulants kept the effects of his injuries to a minimum. When he was less than one hundred yards behind Suzy and Kars he felt his perceptions slowing, so that each second seemed an eternity, giving him time to plan each move of his attack.

  At fifty yards Mulciber’s quarry glanced over his shoulder and saw him coming. Kars turned on the ramp, pushing Suzy behind him and facing Mulciber’s charge. His violet plume dipped and fanned. His hat lost its grip on his head and flew off to one side. The slick man reached into his expensive clothing. Mulciber saw Kars move as if in slow-motion, but could tell that in reality the dandy was reacting with great speed. He surmised that his quarry had an improved nervous system, perhaps one as good as his own.

  Mulciber was in full battle-readiness now. His body responded with machine-like speed to his will. His eyes no longer needed to blink, save to prevent injury, for the duration of the combat. At full battle-speed much could be missed in the one fifth of a second that it took to blink. All his reconstructed senses were heightened to their peaks. He smelled the litter and the warm human odors that the crowds had left behind on the landing field. He heard the rush of his own breath as it emptied and refilled his lungs.

  At thirty yards Kars’ hand pulled back out of his jacket with a weapon. He snapped his arm forward, releasing it with practiced precision. Mulciber watched the twirling object fly directly toward him. It grew steadily and reflected silvery flashes from the landing field’s glaring lights as it spun. It was a throwing star, a wheel of numerous steel spikes. Each of the spikes glinted as it came into line with his vision. Mulciber gauged that it would strike his throat with its present trajectory. He used all his speed to duck to the right.

  The star was ten feet away.

  Mulciber’s right leg was coming up, readying for another downstroke that would carry him two yards closer to his quarry. His head was ducking, moving to the right, but still in the path of the twirling spikes.

  The star was five feet away.

  Mulciber’s right leg was on its downstroke now. He gauged that his throat was out of the spinning weapon’s path.

  The star was two feet away.

  Mulciber fought the urge to blink.

  Wet tearing. The star ripped through skin and muscle. The leading spike scored his left collar bone. The bone split and the star caromed off, flying past him and into the night. His skin began closing immediately. He would bleed for less than a minute.

  He did not slow his charge. The two men were still thirty feet apart. Kars’ eyebrows rose slowly as he registered surprise. His hand dived into his jacket again to fish out another weapon.

  Twenty feet.

  Now Mulciber slowed, shifting his weight, gauging the distance. Kars had a knife out this time. It had a short broad blade and brass knuckles for a hand grip. The hilt glinted a dull yellow in the harsh glare of the landing lights. Kars set his legs, knees bent and balance forward to meet the charge.

  Ten feet.

  Mulciber’s body lifted, extended, like a hurdler at the last step before a jump. Kars saw the kick coming and dove slowly to the right. Too late. Mulciber launched himself. His heavy foot smashed into Kars’ left shoulder. The force of the blow spun the man half around. Something in the joint snapped. Nerves and cartilage tore loose. The arm spasmed then hung, twisting like a beheaded snake as the muscles contracted and locked.

  The knife dropped and clattered on the concrete. Mulciber landed neatly and recovered, whirling around to face his enemy. Kars was up too, although a little off-balance. His face was a blood-flushed death mask. He threw his first punch with his good arm, landing it on Mulciber’s chin.

  Mulciber’s head rocked back. His jaw dislocated then slipped back into place. His teeth sank into his lips and the familiar taste of his own blood filled his mouth. Kars snatched up his knife again, underestimating Mulciber’s speed of recovery.

  Mulciber’s fist slammed into Kars’ chest. Mulciber noticed that the man took the blow well, yielding with it, but he felt ribs crackle. Kars made use of his knife in a lightning uppercut for the throat. Mulciber blocked it just in time, his arm opening in a long red gash. He countered with another body blow that came in under the extended knife-arm, aiming to rupture the organs behind Kars’ already cracked ribs. Kars dropped the knife again when the shock hit him. He was weakening, but Mulciber knew that he had to end things quickly himself, before his prior injuries started to slow him. Acting with the smooth cunning of vast combat experience, he stepped back, as if to disengage and circle.

  Kars, ready for a breather, took the cue and began to pull back himself. In that moment he felt relief and was off-guard. In that moment Mulciber reversed on the balls of his feet and attacked again, moving with all his great speed unleashed. Summoning his reserves of strength, Mulciber put all his power into a kick to the neck that struck home. Kars’s windpipe was crushed. The tiny bones in his throat and voice box splintered. His neck vertebrae shattered and tore his spinal cord from his brain stem as a weed rips loose from its roots, killing him instantly.

  Mulciber watched with slowed vision as the slick man fell back with lazy grace onto the bare concrete. His broken head hit with a wet slap.

  “You see Mulciber, I knew you would track me! You see, there are men around worth fighting!” Suzy exclaimed happily, stepping forward now that the fight was over. “I’ve given you back your spirit!”

  Mulciber ignored her. He watched as a dark stain spread around the man’s ruined head immediately. He nodded to his fallen enemy, silently acknowledging the death of a worthy opponent.

  She stepped calmly away from the corpse, hips swinging, toward the distant gates. Her manner indicated that she expected Mulciber to follow. “Do you know what that fool was up to?” she asked. “He was trying to get out of the city all along. He was going to drag me with him on a ship full of prisoners to some wild planet full of proles and-” here she noticed that Mulciber was not following her.

  She turned to find him standing where he had been, staring at her. Mulciber’s face, normally somber and impassive, was now twisted. He took two silent strides forward. He lifted Suzy effortlessly, bringing her down into a classic killing hold, her back stretched across his knee, her thin spine ready to snap like rotted wood. Sticky blood from his hands stained her gauzy clothing. Suzy looked up into the face of a wrathful demon. Perhaps for the first time in her life she knew true terror. She did not cry out. She could only gaze up in shock and dread at Mulciber’s hairless face and dark eyes. Helplessly, she faced death, a reality that no amount of smooth talking could erase.

  Mulciber eyes searched hers. After a moment, he thought he saw what he was looking for. He found comprehension in Suzy’s eyes, a glimmer only, but stil
l, it was there.

  “So, you can feel something, can’t you?” he asked her quietly.

  “Yes,” she whispered, her eyes staring wide and unblinkingly up at him. With the air of one making a difficult decision, he spared her life. He rose up, releasing her. With no further words he turned and headed up the ramp into the starship. After a moment Suzy rediscovered her voice.

  “Are you crazy? How can you leave Earth?” she called after him, distractedly patting her hair back into place. She was speaking to his broad back. Suzy looked back at the city and its glare-lit streets, its arcades and civilized amusements, then down at the dead man at the foot of the ramp.

  She picked up the white felt hat and straightened the plume. “But I don’t want you to go!” she cried after him.

  Mulciber continued to walk up the ramp. Just before he reached the top he heard the light thumps of Suzy’s feet as she ran up the ramp after him. He allowed himself a quiet smile. They entered the ship together.

  Discharged

  “Oh Lord, that nursebot is coming for me again. Is that a needle?”

  “Nope, she’s headed for the captain’s pod.”

  “There may be a moment of discomfort,” said the nursebot in a soft, soothing, feminine voice. It approached the captain in Pod Four. Its plastic feet moved with the measured, confident stride they all had. He tried to squirm, but servos whined, cinching his straps. Our movements within the locked healing pods were tightly restricted, anyway.

  “Nooo, hold on. Ow,” complained Captain Jeff Tumas. The dripping stainless steel needle plunged into his immobilized thigh. “Dammit. They don’t listen at all.”

  Lounging next to him in Pod Three, I chuckled at him. I could afford to chuckle, of course, I was past the need for shots now. My arms in their regrow bags were doing quite well. Soon I would be able to flex my new fingers and a few days after that, maybe I would get rid of the bags entirely.