Love, Death and Robots. Volumes 2 & 3

He turned and looked at her and at that moment she lifted her feet up onto the sofa so that he could see that she wore nothing underneath. He wondered if she shaved or if she was naturally bald in that area. Still meeting him eye to eye she dropped one leg back to the floor, reached between her legs, and began to masturbate, gently, with two fingers. Snow wondered what it was that turned her on; his white body and pink eyes? Other women had said it was almost like being made love to by an alien, or was it that he was a killer? Probably a bit of both.

“Part of the price?”

She nodded and put her glass to one side, then she slid closer to him on the sofa and hooked one leg over the back of it.

“Now,” she said, reaching up and pulling apart her toga to expose breasts just like those of the girl he had killed. Snow searched himself for an adverse reaction to that, and when he found there was none he stood and unclipped his dust robes.

“You’re white as paper,” said Aleen in amazement as he peeled off his under suit, and then her eyes strayed to the covered stump terminating his left arm. She said nothing about that.

“Yes,” said Snow as he knelt between her legs and bowed down to run his tongue round her nipples. “A blank page,” he went on as he worked his way down. She caught his head.

“Not that,” she said. “I want you inside me, now.”

Snow obliged her, but was puzzled at something he had heard in her voice. It had almost been as if that part of the act was the most important. Perhaps she wanted white-skinned children.

* * *

Hirald called out before approaching the fire. It had been her observation that the Andronache got rather twitchy if you walked into one of their camps unannounced. As she walked in, she was surprised to see that these were not Andronache. There were two men and two women dressed in monofilament survival suits that looked to be of Mars manufacture. Hirald noted this but pretended not to notice the weapons laid out on a ground sheet that one of the men had hastily covered at her arrival. She walked to the fire and squatted down. One of the women tossed on another crab-bird carapace and watched her through the flames. The man who had covered the weapons, a tall Marsman with caste markings tattooed on his temples, was the first to speak.

“You’ve come a long way?” he asked.

“Not so far as you,” said Hirald. She looked from him to the woman across the flames, who also had caste marks on her face. The other couple; the man a Negro with incongruous blue eyes and the woman Hirald thought could have come from anywhere until she noted the caps over the neural plugs behind her ears. She was corporate then; from one of the families.

“Yes, we have come a way,” said the man, touching his caste mark.

“We search,” said the Negro intently. “Perhaps you can help us. We search for one who is called Snow. He is an albino.”

They all looked at Hirald then, avidly.

“I have heard of him,” said Hirald, “and I have heard that many people look for him. I do not know where he is though.”

The woman with the neural plugs looked suspicious. Hirald continued to forestall anything more she might say.

“You are after the reward then?”

The four looked to each other, then the latter three looked to the Marsman. He smiled to himself and casually reached for the covered weapons next to him. Hirald glanced at the corporate woman, who was staring back at her.

“Jharit, no.”

Jharit stopped with his hand by the covering.

“What is it, Canard Meck?”

The woman, now identified as a member of the Jethro Manx Canard corporate family, slowly shook her head then looked to Hirald, who had not yet moved.

“We have no dispute with you, but we would prefer it if you left our camp, please.”

“But she knows. She might tell him,” said Jharit.

Canard Meck looked to him and said, “She is product.”

Jharit snatched his hand from the weapons and suddenly looked very frightened. He flinched as Hirald rose to her feet. Hirald smiled. “I mean no harm, unless harm is meant.”

She strode out into the darkness without checking behind. No one moved. No one reached for the weapons.

* * *

Snow removed the pistol from its holster in his dust robes and checked the charge reading. As was usual it was nearly at full charge. The bright sunlight of Vatch acting on the photovoltaic material of his robes kept the weapon constantly charged through the socket in the holster. The weapon was a matte-black L, five millimetres thick with only a slight depression where a trigger would normally have been. It was keyed to Snow. No one else could fire it. The beam it fired was of antiphotons; a misnomer really, as what it consisted of was protons field-accelerated to the point where they became photonic matter. Misnomer or not this beam could burn large holes in anyone Snow cared to point it at.