The Path of the Four

The next day, Joe was losing, Ariana could see that, and she could see he wasn’t happy.

This was an outdoor gambling table in the Daily Market. After a pointless argument with a neutrino adjuster up on Vertex (he was a new addition to the crew, and wanted Ariana to write him a letter of recommendation, although Ariana had just met him,

“--For a lot better job than this, back on Saturn.“) She had grabbed a shuttle to go down to the planet, found an out-of-the-way bistro to have lunch, then just started walking, and found this scene.

Du-Gan of the Outer Clan ran the game. Du-Gan always wore a common artifact of Human culture: A pair of dark glasses. He had to tape them on, since Zah-Gre had no ears. (They heard through their skin.)

Three Zah-Gre children, in robes with Upper Clan markings, pranced around Du-Gan, and pointed at his dark glasses, and laughed.

The game played at Du-Gan’s gambling table was a traditional Zah-Gre name called, in its Human English name, “Still.” Ariana hadn’t paid much attention to information about “Still,” but she knew this much:

Colored pebbles had a symbolic tie in with Zah-Gre’s five social groups: black for the merchants of the Outer Clan, white for the bodyguards of the Side Clan, gray for the Upper Clan (the political establishment), red for the spiritual leaders of the Inner Clan, and blue for the “savages” of the Lower Clan. Each group of colored pebbles had some sort of unique numerical value. (Ariana couldn’t remember the details of that part.) Players took turns in a common counterclockwise direction. Each player’s goal was to be the last (and this, Ariana thought, seemed a very Zah-Gre goal, making the point of game to be the last to achieve a goal, and not the first) to achieve the numerical goal of more than sixty-six and less than ninety-nine.

Joe was, with the speed of a drugged caterpillar, drumming the chubby fingers of his left hand next to the colored pebbles he had gathered so far. Joe’s expression was blank, but she knew him well enough by this time to guess the action meant he was not doing well in the game.

Ariana could see the front of the Terra Hotel about four hundred meters beyond Joe. The air conditioning in the Terra Hotel was notorious for breaking down often, so she could tell the room tourists occupied: They were the rooms with their windows open.

The Human male in the player’s chair to Joe’s left had a thick moustache. On the breast pocket of his sweat-soaked shirt was the hawk-emerging-out-of-flames-and-Cyrillic-letters crest of the revived Russian aristocracy.

Next to the Russian sat another player, a woman about fifty with red hair. Her chest, fingers, and ears were heavy with examples of the native jewelry from all five of the Lands. (Jewelry with the black dot in a circle of the insignia of the Lower Clan would appear in the Old City, and nobody asked questions about how it got there.)

Ariana worked her way through the crowd of Humans and Zah-Gre, to get to Joe.

“Hey,” Joe said. “Where’s your buddy?”

“He’s busy.”

“Huh. This is the first time you’ve been down here without him for a while, isn’t it?”

“Are you done losing yet, American?” This from the Russian player, in a thick accent.

That comment got Joe to snap his head in the Russian’s direction, glare at him, and stand up (Humans and Zah-Gre standing behind Joe scampered backwards to get out of the way), and rub his chin.

“You know, my royal little friend, my playing time is all used up, just like your manners.”

Joe dug some paper and coin money out of his pockets, and didn’t put it the pile in the middle of the table, but flung it across the table, letting it bounce off the Russian’s chest.

The Russian’s mouth opened in a comical little “O” of astonishment. He had, Ariana guessed, never gambled with a “spacejack,” or insulted one in the process, or insulted one that had, long ago, killed people for the Universal Resistance League.

Joe looked like he was ready to leave now, so the Russian would never know how easy he was getting off.

“Now if you fine people will excuse me, I’m going to go buy my Chief Engineer a drink.”

“Uh, I don’t drink. Remember?”

“Oh, I do not want to hear that now.”

Then everybody heard, a sound, coming from a distance, and it was a scream of pain and fear, and came from someone very, very young.

From a thirteenth floor window, a Zah-Gre child dangled from a rope. Somebody had tied the rope around his small, skinny chest, with the knot in the back. The rope slid in and out of the window, raising and lowering the child. As he continued his up and down journey, he tried to grab the rope with his tiny, four-digit hands.

Everybody watched, and everybody there ran toward the Terra Hotel. Joe got there first, and Ariana was close behind. From the street Ariana saw, at the thirteenth floor window, two laughing Human males taking turns with the rope that they had tied around the child. They passed a bottle back and forth.

The Humans were Bud and Mac, the two shaved head creeps that had almost knocked down Ab-Druh, the first time Ariana had met him. Bud, the broken nose one, seemed to be enjoying this a little bit more than Mac, who went around with his eyebrows also shaved.

Ariana realized she was standing next to Joe, who was also looking up at the scene at the thirteenth floor window.

Joe’s tiny eyes in his fat face narrowed (Ariana didn’t know eyes so small could narrow), the line of Joe’s mouth and flabby face got harder, not sharper, but harder.

Broken nose Bud and shaved eyebrows Mac, seeing that expression, dropped the bottle they were sharing and the robe.

Joe caught the boy, and handed him over to Ariana. The child was small, but still too heavy for Ariana. Before the little native could slip from her trembling arms, he was swept away by a group of Zah-Gre who separated themselves from the crowd that was surrounding the Terra Hotel. Some of the Zah-Gre got the rope off.

At the edges of the crowd, Ariana could make out blue and green Human Security uniforms and robed Zah-Gre, with the Side Clan insignia: a large black dot in a box of four lines, not quite connected.

In the confusion, the panic, and the anger, so vivid Ariana almost choked on it as it came off everybody in waves, Ariana, somehow, some way, made it past a few people and got into the Terra Hotel revolving door.

“Welcome to the Terra Hotel,” said the revolving door as Ariana passed through it. “There’s a small security disturbance at the moment, but please enjoy your stay at the finest Human-owned establishment on--”

“Please shut up,” Ariana said.

In the front lobby, the hotel manager, a gentlemen in a tuxedo with a hook for a left hand, said from behind the security/courtesy station, “You aren’t H.S.! Where the hell is H.S.?”

“Outside, trying to get through the crowd. Side Clan too!”

“I need H.S.! That fat guy who just stormed through here looks like he moves goddamn pianos for a living! Little native kid OK?”

“Yeah. Where are Bud and Mac?”

“Who are Bud and Mac?”

“The two assholes who--”

The Hotel Manager looked at security monitors in front of him and in the wall behind him. “I lost them on the twelfth floor! Bastards take my security cams and sensors out so fast me, I can’t--”

Ariana looked at a large map of the hotel’s fourteen floors and its complicated hallways. The map dominated the lobby, and even included little animated stick figure maids and guests.

“What are you looking at?” the hotel manager asked.

Ariana pointed up at the map and said, “That is correct, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but what do you think you can do?”

Ariana rushed to a long, long row of solo-elevators.

The voice of the Hotel Manager trailed behind her.

“Hey! Got a niece about eleven about your size! What do you think you can do?”

The door of solo-elevator eighty-three closed behind Ariana.

The guy’s eleven-year-old niece. Damn, I’m not that small.

“Floor, please?”

“Ten. Please,” Ariana said to the synthetic voice of the solo-elevator.

The square of flooring that was solo-elevator eighty-three began to ascend its long shaft. She looked to her left and right, through the transparent walls of the other solo-elevators. She saw a few other people (Zah-Gre?) but couldn’t tell who are what they were.

OK. Assuming I’ve calculated what null-thinkers like Bud and Mac would try to do get out of here. Paths of least resistance. Like two currents passing through conducting metals. If a whole bunch of assumptions of mine hold, I might be able to help here, working this by sneaking ahead. If those new boots so in fashion with that recent group of tourists, and--

Ariana stopped ascending.

“Tenth floor,” said solo-elevator number eighty-three.

A door slid open, and Ariana stepped out.

Down hallways she went.

Need hallway ten-triple g-seven/nine/twelve, and --

She passed a room with boots set outside.

Yes! Bravo for ancient customs!

Ariana grabbed the boots, not even stopping as she continued to jog down the hallways.

No one would polish these for a while.

As per the current fashion, the boots were long, most likely going up past the knees of whomever they belonged to. Ariana needed the laces, both of them, nice and long ones.

She got them off the boots and dumped the boots themselves on the hallway floor as she rounded another corner.

Shouts and footsteps in the distance. Whatever was going on, she didn’t want to get into the middle of it.

Finally, hallway ten-triple g-seven/nine/twelve.

She was wearing pants with many pockets and many tools inside.

She got a small glue gun out and attached one end of one long boot lace to one side of the hallway, about two inches off the floor. She stretched the bootlace, tight, across the width of the hallway and attached the other end of to the opposite wall.

A hiding place?

The doors to each guest room in the Terra Hotel were just fancy enough, just recessed enough from the hallway, that if she pressed up against just this one door here --

Yes. It might work. As long as the guest room behind her, didn’t have an actual guest in it who would open the door and demand, in a loud voice, what going on, thus ruining Ariana’s plan, and getting her broken in half by one of those goons.

More quick footsteps, more shouts.

Footsteps getting closer.

Somebody flashed by her.

Bud, the one with the broken nose.

“Son of a bi--”

Ariana saw the second half of the trip as he went flying up, then down, landing on his ugly and evil face.

Fast, girl. Fast.

Finding the needed physical courage and speed from she didn’t know where, Ariana straddled Bud’s muscular back.

The thug was trying to swear, but couldn’t get hallway carpet out of his mouth.

With the other long bootlace, Ariana tied Bud’s wrists together, then his ankles, then his wrists together with his ankles, hog-tying him, then she leaped back, way back.

OK. Now what? Find a H.S. man or a Side Clan native, she guessed.

Bud managed to get his face off the floor.

“You! You tiny, stupid little bitch! I’ll chew you up and swallow you and shit you out! I’ll break you in half! I’ll put my fist up your pussy and pull it inside out.”

“I’M THE GUY WHO IS GOING TO BEAT YOU TO DEATH, LITTLE MAN!”

An insane, animal roar. It was also Joe’s voice.

Hallway just a little beyond here.

Ariana tiptoed around the thrashing and still cursing Bud, the stench of whiskey and sweat on him hitting her like the brake thrusters on a late discount freight haul on the Moon-to-Earth route.

Ariana moved toward the sound of a fight.

The sound of flesh hitting flesh.

She remembered, as a little girl, dealing with a bully. The bully, like Ariana, was a little girl, only the bully was a little blonde, who the grown-ups would have called pretty if the eyes weren’t always glazed over and if the mouth wasn’t always split by a twisted, crooked smile. The little girl bully had beaten up little Ariana Orlando at least twice, each time saying things like, “Fight back, you little--! You dirty--! You stupid--!” Ariana figured out later the girl wasn’t sure if Ariana Orlando was Italian, Hispanic, Arabic, and Navajo--So the little girl bully’s threats were never finished. Ariana became obsessed with ways to avoid the little girl bully. Ariana’s little girl brain brimmed with images of what routes to take to avoid her nemesis. It was one of Ariana’s first steps toward thinking like a scientist, and an engineer.

Ariana stepped around the corner.

Joe, behind Mac, had Mac’s muscular arms in a solid grasp. Mac’s nose was already bleeding, and his eyes were bruised and puffy. The white T-shirt Joe had been wearing was now torn to tatters, his big gut revealed like a shield. Scratch marks bled on Joe’s chest.

Mac brought his right foot up, shod in, Allah and Christ how strange, golf shoes, and brought the foot hard down on Joe’s left foot, clad in a loafer.

That action did get Joe to let go.

Mac tried to get away from his chubby adversary. The well-muscled man swaggered, collapsed to his knees. Joe darted around Mac, getting in front, and now Ariana could see Joe’s face was covered with bruises.

Joe grabbed Mac’s ear. With his other hand, Joe slammed a fist into Mac’s face, bringing knuckles, wrist, and arm down across the face of the now much-less-tough Mac.

Mac, his head snapping back, tried, it seemed to Ariana, to raise his arms, his hands, defend himself, but Mac’s whole body shook and waved too much.

Joe laughed.

“You wanna tell again how tough you are, baldie? How you’re gonna stomp my fat ass into the ground?”

Joe slapped the back of his hand across Mac’s face.

Mac tried to bring his head back around again, to face Joe. He couldn’t. Ariana could see Mac again try to bring his arms up to defend himself, and he couldn’t.

“You popping biceps loser,” Joe said. “You think I don’t recognize a Swedish muscle graft job when I see one? You and your buddy, huh? Who did you two go to--Eriksson? Motherfucker, I managed the crew that re-built his stable of robot horses. Eriksson wanted to give me a muscle graft job, for free. Said no. Grew up with guys who looked like you ’cause they went to the gym and worked for it. No grafts. No drugs. What’s the matter? Not feeling nostalgic?”

Joe looked at the blood, Mac’s blood on his hands, laughed again, and the laugh turned into a giggle.

Ariana forced his name out of her throat.

“Joe.”

What else could she say? All possible words seemed weak and useless in that hallway, in that moment.

Joe tossed another punch.

Mac’s face looked like one bleeding, puffy bruise. He spat out some teeth.

“OK,” Joe said. “Teeth. Let’s see what we can do with your brains.”

Joe grabbed Mac’s ear again and cocked back a fist.

“That’s enough, Whitney,” said a voice behind Ariana. “That’s enough, or I’ll kill you both.”

The second of time that elapsed seemed to stretch to the point of breaking off with a snap. Roselle’s small silver laser pistol, for it was he who had spoken, Roselle’s prominent brow free of sweat despite the heat in that hallway, or was that just Ariana, and the Side Clan Zah-Gre and other H.S. officers closing in on the scene in the hallway. It seemed to take Roselle forever to stop pointing his weapon at Joe and Mac, and holster it.

Ariana thought, who is lying about “Paladins of Promise,” Captain Roselle? You? Somebody else? Somebody back on Earth? What is “the Alpha Covenant”? Paladins of the Promise. The Alpha Covenant. They, by themselves, had an upbeat ring to them, as words, but they reeked with a sinister quality.

Michael, Yamato, and the shooting in the Two World Clubs. Like a demented master of ceremonies, Brother Chaos, crossing in and out of events, not like he was playing with a chess set, but a capricious child playing with tools. If Brother Chaos was a new breed of E.T., Ariana didn’t want to meet another example of it. Not with all these puzzle pieces that wouldn’t fit together. That was enough of an annoyance.

Events blurred. Somehow, everyone in the hallway, and Bud got out of the Terra Hotel. The Humans in the crowd outside seemed confused, anxious, surprised. Some of them tried to attack Mac and Bud.

The Zah-Gre in the crowds watched. Passive, immobile. The blue-green fur dull, the black glassy eyes bottomless.

A little later, a small part of the Vertex crew crowded into the Alignment Room. Ariana did a quick countdown, flicked a switch, and the test Yamato Beam transmission fired off to that distant moon.

Billy, standing in a corner, looked around. Ariana had heard that, as of a few days ago, he had started dating a woman about his age who worked as a bartender in the Terra Hotel.

“Shouldn’t we celebrate or something?”

Joe sat at the work station, next to Ariana, had his bruised face turned away from everybody.

“We’ll break out that champagne if the bounce-back is successful, kid.”

He got up, and wandered away.

He moved his bulk like a man moving an explosive, but fragile piano up a short flight of stairs.

Crewmembers looked at each other, shrugged, and began to wander off.

Ariana fingered her ponytail, and then went to look for Joe.

She found him in a little side hallway. He was getting a candy bar out of a machine, catching it as it shot out of the dispensing chute. Joe turned around, lowered his bulk to the floor, and tore open the wrapping.

Joe looked up at Ariana, standing over him.

“You want one?”

“No thanks.”

Ariana sat on the hallway floor, across from him, crossing her legs “Indian style,” resisting the temptation to slip into full lotus, and she eased her head and back up against the cool hallway wall. On the wall next to the candy machine there hung a poster for a jet bike manufacturer, the sponsor of the candy machine.

Joe ate his candy bar.

“I hear that guy’s lawyer’s told him not to press charges against you,” she said.

“Well, no. The Upper Clan and the Friendship Bureau are sending both those clowns back to Earth. Permanent, lifelong space travel bans on them both. They can forget even getting into off-Earth orbit. So wanting to play legal get-back at me would waste this guy’s time.” He took another bite of the candy bar and spoke again with his mouth full. “So whoop-de-do for me.”

“Whoop-de-do for you.”

Joe finished the candy bar, and rolled the wrapper into a tiny ball.

“I don’t know how much you remember from when you were kid. What we did in the League--it wasn’t just about what the government was doing to support the war. All sorts of things were going on, with the powerful screwing over the powerless. Because they could. Because, maybe like those shaved head bums, they thought it was funny. Because no one stopped them. Until us.”

Joe rolled the candy bar wrapper back and forth in his big hands. Ariana just kept looking at him, and now Joe seemed willing to look at somebody, not hiding his ugly, bruised face.

Soft, his voice went on.

“God. I was gonna kill that guy. Wasn’t I?”