The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

“Which we do not,” Moden said. He set down the missile launcher with care. The weapon he carried comfortably was so heavy that if it dropped, the shock would seriously damage it.

“There’s no organization,” Barbour offered. He had directional audio from the spectators across the street, as well as a holographic view sharper than that of the others’ naked eyes. “People run inside saying they’re going to report to Raul or to the Old Man, but they don’t come back with any orders.”

“Raul Luria is head of L’Escorial,” said Georg Hathaway. “With his son Ramon, and Ramon’s son Pepe.”

“Pepe is a weasel,” Evie said in clipped tones. She looked at the Frisians and added, “We have rooms prepared for you. You’ll share baths; I hope that’s all right. But surely you’d like something to eat or drink?”

It was hard to read her expression. The sudden destruction of a dozen gunmen had opened a window on the woman’s mind, but its interior was still thick with the dust of long depression.

“I wouldn’t mind something to drink,” Niko Daun said clearly. “You say you’ve got local cacao?”

“And I think I’ll have a beer or two,” Sten Moden added, quirking the younger man a smile. “It’s been a long day. Not that it’s over yet.”

“Here, I’ll serve you gentlemen,” Georg said. “And lady of course. Evie, I wish you wouldn’t say things like that, you know, in public. Though Pepe’s off Cantilucca now, I believe.”

The local patrons had returned to the alcove in which they’d been drinking. Vierziger walked to the table of the third man, the civilian, and said, “Good day, sir. My name is Johann Vierziger, and I’m a sergeant with the Frisian Defense Forces. May I ask who you are?”

The fellow looked up. His face was handsome in a hollow-cheeked fashion, but there was a gray glaze over him that was more an aura than skin tone.

“My name’s Larrinaga,” he said. He was younger than he looked; thirty years standard at the most. “And I’m nothing, that’s who I am.”

“Pedro’s had a difficult time this past year,” Georg said; half-confiding, half in an attempt to forestall the wrath of the little stranger who made him very uncomfortable to watch. “His wife died. She was an artist in psychic ambiances, a very fine one, known all across the galaxy.”

“Really?” said Niko Daun. “I’ve worked in PAs myself. Who was she? The wife.”

His tone wasn’t precisely dismissive, but there was a challenge in it. Daun didn’t regard himself as a top PA artist, but he didn’t expect to find a better one on this wretched planet.

Hathaway drew drinks. Larrinaga looked up and said, “My wife was Suzette. That was her working name. She was a saint. And there’ll never be an artist like her. Never in all time!”

“Suzette was from here?” Daun blurted. “Blood and martyrs!”

Margulies raised an eyebrow in the direction of the sensor tech.

Daun turned his palms up. “She’s—” he said. “Well there’s taste.

But the best PA artist in the galaxy, yeah, you can make a case for it. I’m amazed…. Well, I didn’t think she’d have come from a place so …”

He looked at Larrinaga, who was staring morosely into his beer mug. “Suzette’s work is so tranquil, you see,” Daun said. “It’s not what I’d expect coming from Cantilucca. From Potosi, anyhow.”

Georg handed out beverages in rough-glazed ceramic mugs of local manufacture. The beer, for all his praises of it, had an oily undertaste that Moden found unpleasant. He’d drunk worse in the field, wine that had rotted rather than fermenting properly …and there were worse things in life than bad booze.

Daun sipped his mug of frothy, bitter, cacao drink with approval. His lips pursed as he considered Larrinaga and the situation. A Tech 4’s pay didn’t run to art the like of Suzette’s, but there was always the chance …

“I wonder,” he said, “if there’s any of your wife’s work still on Cantilucca? Some minor pieces, perhaps, that—”

The local man clutched his empty mug with both hands. He began to cry. He made a convulsive gesture that would have swept the mug against the wall to shatter.

Vierziger, who was standing arm’s length away and didn’t seem to be watching, caught the mug in the air. He set it on the serving counter.

Larrinaga lurched up from his seat. “I’m going to go piss,” he said. He angrily wiped his eyes with his forearm. “That’s fair, isn’t it? I’ve pissed my life away!”

“Pedro?” Hathaway said. “Can I show them the draft? It’s not the same, but they’ll get the idea.”

“Do what you please,” Larrinaga called as he left the alcove.

“He leaves it here,” the innkeeper explained as he opened a cabinet beneath the serving counter. “He doesn’t have a place of his own anymore.”

Margulies returned to the saloon alcove. She’d taken a beer to Barbour at his console. “Trouble with the gangs?” she guessed aloud. “They robbed him?”

“Well, not quite that,” Georg said. “You see, when Suzette died, Pedro sold his house to the factor of Trans-Star Trading on Cantilucca. His name’s Suterbilt.”