David Brin - The Practice Effect

A hand dropped onto his shoulder. Dennis motioned it away. “Just a minute,” he urged. “I’ll be with you in a sec.”

The brawny hand gripped harder, turning him completely around. Dennis looked up, blinking.

A very large man stood over him, dressed unmistakably in some sort of uniform. On the fellow’s face was an expression that strangely combined puzzlement with incipient rage.

Three other soldiers stood nearby, grinning. One laughed, “Tha’s right, Gil’m. Let’m be! Cantcha see he’s busy?” Another guard, who had been drinking from a tall ale-stein, coughed and sputtered brew as he guffawed.

“Gil’m” glowered. He clutched the bunched fabric of Dennis’s bush jacket and lifted him to his feet. In his right hand the big guard held something like a two-meter quarterstaff with a shining halberd blade at one end. Dennis’s gaze was drawn to the gleaming edge. It looked sharp enough to slice paper or bone with equal facility.

Gil’m called to one of the jokesters without turning or taking his eyes from Dennis. “ Fed’r,” he rumbled. “Come an’ hold my thenner. I don’ wanna mess up its practice by killin’ nothin’ too mushy. This one I’ll take care of by han’.”

A grinning guard came up and took the tall weapon from Gil’m. The giant flexed fingers like sausages and tightened his grip on Dennis’s jacket.

Uh-oh. Dennis at last shook himself partially free of the bemused trance. He began to recognize the harm he just might have done himself.

For one thing, he might have lost his opportunity to recite the speech he had carefully prepared for his first encounter with authorities. Hurriedly, he sought to correct the mistake.

“Your pardon, esteemed sir! I had no idea I was already at the gate of your lovely city! You see, I am a stranger from a faraway land. I’ve come to meet with your country’s philosophers, and hopefully discuss many things of great importance with them. This marvelous lubricant of yours, for instance. Did you know that… Ak!”

The soldier’s face had begun to purple strangely as Dennis spoke. No doubt that meant this was not the right approach after all. Dennis barely ducked beneath a meaty fist that passed through the spot where his nose had lately been.

The guard’s face was hardly a foot from his. The fellow’s breath was something to write home about.

“Aw, c’mon, Gil’m! Can’t you hit a little Zusliker?” Almost the entire complement of guards had come up to watch the fun, leaving their post at the gate a dozen yards away. They were laughing, and Dennis heard one man offer a bet on how far the Gremmie’s head would travel when Gil’m corrected his aim.

The civilians in the caravan backed away, looking on fearfully.

“Hold still, Gremmie,” Gil’m growled. He cocked his fist back, this time aiming carefully, savoring the moment. His face took on a patient, almost beatific expression of anticipation.

This just may be serious, Dennis thought.

He looked at the guard… at the burly hand clutching his jacket. There wasn’t time to grab his needler—as if it would help any, starting his visit by slaying members of the local constabulary.

But Dennis realized he was holding a small open sample bottle in his left hand.

Hardly thinking, he poured the contents over the meaty paw holding his jacket.

The giant paused and looked at him, amazed by the unprecedented offense. After a moment’s thought, Gil’m decided he didn’t like it much. He growled again and struck out… as Dennis slipped from his hand like a pat of butter The northman’s fist whistled overhead, mussing Dennis’s hair with its wake.

Gil’m stared at his now empty left hand, shimmering with a thin coating of bright fluid. “Hey!” he complained. He turned barely in time to see the gremmie vanish through the gateway into town.

Dennis would have decidedly preferred a more leisurely first tour of a Coylian city.

Back at the gate there was a mass of confusion. The initial hilarity of the people in the caravan dissolved into shouts and screams as the guards stepped in with truncheons.

Dennis didn’t hang around to watch the melee. He pounded across a beautiful, ornate bridge that arched over a canal. Pedestrians stared as he wove among gaily painted market stalls, dodging vendors and their customers. The guards’ hue and cry followed only a little behind him as he fled. Luckily, most of the citizens quickly turned away in order not to get involved.

Dennis leaped past a street-corner juggler and ducked the falling pins to dive into an alley behind a pastry stall.

He heard boots pounding on the bridge not far behind him. There were yells as the guards tripped over the hapless juggler and his pins. Dennis continued dodging through the twisting streets and alleys.

The buildings of Zuslik were ziggurat high-rises, some over a dozen stories tall. All had the same wedding cake type of design. The narrow lanes were as serpentine as interdepartmental politics back at Sahara Tech.

In a deserted alley he paused to wait out a stitch in his side. All this running wasn’t easy with a heavy pack on his back. At last he was about to go on when suddenly, just ahead, he heard a newly familiar voice cursing.

“... like to burn this whole damn town to the groun’! You mean none of you saw that gremmie? Or those thieves who snuck in our guardhouse while we weren’t lookin’? Nobody saw nothin’? Damn Zuslikersl You’re all a buncha thieves! It’s funny how a stripe or two can jog a memory!”

Dennis backed into the alley. One thing was certain, he’d have to ditch his pack. He found a dim corner, unbuckled the belt, and let it slide to the ground. He knelt and pulled out his emergency pouch, which he slung onto his Sam Browne belt. Then he looked around for a place to stash the pack.

There was rubbish in the alley, but unfortunately there were no real hiding places.

The first floor of the building next to him was little more than seven feet high. The next level was set back a meter or two, so the roof formed a parapet just overhead. Dennis stepped back and heaved the pack onto the ledge. Then he backed away again and leaped for a handhold.

Dennis swung his right leg to bring it up, but just then he felt his hold begin to slip. He had forgotten the coating of sled oil still on his right hand. His grip was too slick to hold, and he fell to the ground with a painful thump.

Much as he would have liked to have lain there groaning for a little while, there just wasn’t time. Shakily, he got up for another try.

Then he heard footsteps behind him.

He turned and saw Gil’m the Guard enter the alleymouth about ten meters away, grinning happily and holding his weapon high. The halberd blade gleamed menacingly.

Dennis noted that Gil’m wasn’t using his left hand at all and assumed it must still be coated with the sled oil. The stuff was insidious.

Dennis popped the flap of his holster and drew his needler. He pointed it at the guard. “All right,” he said, “hold it right there. I don’t want to have to hurt you, Gil’m.”

The soldier kept coming, grinning happily in anticipation, apparently, of slicing Dennis in twain.

Dennis frowned. Even if no one here had ever seen a hand weapon like the needler before, his own self-assurance at least should have given the fellow pause.

Perhaps Gil’m was unimaginative.

“I don’t think you know what you’re facing here,” he told the guard.

Gil’m came on, holding his weapon high with one hand. Dennis decided he had no choice but to play out his bluff. He felt a brief panic as his oiled thumb slipped over the safety lever twice. Then it clicked. He took aim with the needler and fired.