Kate Wilhelm - The Killer Thing

“Ramses, admitted to the World Group Government as a protectorate in 2158. Population of one billion, seventeen million; principal exports: platinum, magnesium, peridots, and related minerals. Humanoids, sub-class C, averaging five feet two inches for the males, four feet six inches for the females of the species. State of technology comparable to Earth in year 1975, sans space travel…”

From the other end of the carrier a chant began that gradually picked up voices, finally drowning out the grinning second lieutenant, whose lips continued to move as he read from the guide-book.

There was much laughter, and someone started another of the Fleet songs:

The song went on for six more verses, each verse less inhibited than the last, and Duncan and Trace bellowed out the words with the others. Trace was grinning broadly when the bawdy song ended, and the carrier slowed down to follow winding city streets. He turned to look about.

The carrier was on tracks that were six feet above ground level, rising to cross roads and buildings now and then, falling to skim over the surface by inches of clearance, and then rising again. The buildings were of translucent green stone for the most part, with dark polished trim, and jade-green inlays in geometric patterns. The roofs were white, very clean and sparkling. The same shades of green ranging from pale grey-green, through emerald, to black-green were everywhere; in the streets, sidewalks, buildings, contrasted with the dazzling white, and with brilliant complementary colours in unexpected places. There were orange and red umbrellas over canary-yellow tables along the sidewalk, awnings with red swirls on white, rows and rows of deep purple flowers in white planters, trees with grey and white leaves.

People were everywhere. They looked like children masquerading as adults. The women were petite, graceful, with long flowing hair and tiny hands and feet. They were from four feet to not quite five feet in height, and were dressed in pastel tunics that were fastened at the shoulders with jade and peridot clasps. Their hair was agleam with the green ornaments; pendant earrings swung as they walked. The men wore longer tunics that were as simple as the women’s, but were white and black, or grey. They wore hip pouches held in place by wide metallic belts. Their heads as well as their faces were clean shaven.

“Nice, isn’t it?” Duncan said, at Trace’s side.

He was as tall as Trace, and at twenty-three, three years younger. Both were second lieutenants. His black eyes were shining with the excitement of leave after four months’ running battle with the fleet dispatched by Mellic. “You have any plans for the duration?” he asked.

They had come to a larger shopping area, where stores were open to the warm air and sunshine, and goods were spread out to be seen and handled. “No,” Trace said. “You?”

“Shopping first, for my sisters. I promised them something from each world I get to see, you know. They’re dopes, think all I have to do is shop for gewgaws for them.” He looked pleased at the thought. Trace grinned at him.

“Okay, we shop, and sightsee. How about taking a look at the mines?”

“Yeah, that’s great.”

They roamed the streets, laughing at the musical tones of incomprehension voiced by the natives when they tried to explain what they wanted. They lunched in a sidewalk cafe where they ate food they couldn’t identify, and drank a pale green, milky liqueur that made their heads swim pleasantly. Somewhere along the way they picked up two girls, each of them under four and a half feet, looking more like dolls than like women. The one who linked her arm through Trace’s arm said her name was Fez. She spoke in broken English; her eyes were like immense green lakes, flecked with golden brown dots. Later that night the girls took them to a hotel where the furnishings were golden and white silks and soft candlewood, and the four of them bathed and swam in their own pool with a centre fountain of translucent olivine rock.

Fez was very beautiful; her body had soft down all over it; her pubic hair was gold. There was more of the milky-green liqueurs, and music before the lights dimmed and went out. When Trace awakened in the morning, his tongue was thick and dry, and his head ached. His money was gone, as was Duncan’s. They swore, but in resignation. They had expected it. After collecting more from the Field Commander’s office in the official government building, they continued their tour. There was more shopping, more strange food, more girls, more liqueurs, and the next morning the same thick tongue and the same swearing over the inevitable robbery.

That day there was a fight in the dining-room of the hotel where they had decided to spend their last night. It started with one of the fleet men, a technical sergeant named Jensen, spying a girl who had taken him for two hundred World Group credits. He jerked from his chair and ran across the large room, upsetting three tables in his path. When he caught the girl’s arm and swung her around, her free hand flashed at his face leaving his cheek cut wide open, streaming blood. In the confusion that followed, she sped from the building, only to run into three more of the fleet men entering. One of them caught her, and pinning her arms behind her, brought her back.

Trace and Duncan were on the opposite side of the dining-room when it started, and they started to cross at the same time everyone else in the room began to try to get through.

“She has a knife,” Jensen said, holding a napkin to his bleeding face. “Watch her, she’s a real bitch with it.”

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen, please. Come into the office. Please!” It was the manager, or the owner. He was four feet eleven inches at the very most. Jensen shoved him aside and reached for the girl. She squirmed furiously in the clasp of the second fleet man, who grinned and twisted her arm. Her face went white and shiny. There was no sound or movement in the restaurant.

Jensen slapped her, and with the sharp sound of flesh striking flesh the tableaux exploded. Someone threw a bottle, and it caught Jensen on the back of his head, spilling the milky green liqueur down his white off-duty blouse. He staggered, but instead of looking around to see who had done it, he slapped the girl again. She screamed. None of the fleet men was armed, but among the Ramseans knives began to appear, and bottles were flying. Trace and Duncan had been in the outskirts of the crowd, but when screams and crashes, curses and falling bodies began to show that this would be a serious fight, Trace caught Duncan’s arm and pulled him back. They retreated to their table, fending off two small men who tried to stop them with chairs. Trace tripped one of them as Duncan grabbed the chair from the other one and smashed it against the little man’s chest.

Trace lifted a second chair and sent it crashing through the window behind their table, and they ran out through the jagged opening. They ran for a block before they stopped to catch their breath.

“Let’s get a ticket for the mines,” Trace said, leaning against a luminous, intricately carved panel of green. “The whole fleet’s probably going to get recalled for this.”