Jimmy had plenty of time to tell me all about Ganymede during the long journey from Earth to Jupiter. Anything could be had for a price, he said. Available pleasures ranged from a cheap socket buzz to Direct Neural Stimuli, a process declared illegal by the UN because of the risk of the brain's pleasure center being left in a state of permanent orgasm. Jimmy had been everywhere and knew everything. This was my first time off Earth, although I'd worked on the Antarctic Skyhook and the Nagasaki Orbital. Jimmy sort of took me under his wing, treating me like a kid brother.
I wanted to experience it all as soon as our Company transport grounded, but Jimmy suggested we visit the spaceport bar, have a quiet drink and obtain first-hand information from the locals. "Ganymede is just like every other port," he said. "There are some places you'd want to avoid. Stick with me and you'll be okay."
We cycled through Customs and entered the Dome, the transparent, kilometer-high spiderweb that shields the colony more effectively than plasteel. Jimmy had to stop and come back for me and pull me inside. You've seen the simulations, but nothing prepares you for seeing Jupiter live. Big, bright, beautiful.
The spaceport bar turned out to be a chrome/neon dive with its fair share of tired-looking hookers and drunks, the latter mostly spacemen who'd waited too long for their next berth and got immersed in Ganymede's sub-culture. It was early evening local time so the place wasn't busy yet, but the barman told us that just before midnight you couldn't get in the door. Floating plates advertised live entertainment later, symbiotic twins from some Outspace colony I'd never heard of. The barman promised we wouldn't be disappointed. Jimmy was unconvinced, but he said we'd at least stay to see their act.
A girl sat down on my knee and put her arms around my neck but the barman shooed her away, telling her to come back later. I was none too pleased but the barman, Olee, explained that finding company on Ganymede would be the least of our problems. He even hinted that the symbiotic twins might be available for the right price after the show. When he told us what that price was likely to be, I couldn't help but smile. Apparently heaven could be purchased cheap on Ganymede.
Our first drinks were on the house and we toasted our new friend Olee, who told us about some of the famous bordellos of Ganymede. According to Olee the native Ganny women, descended from the first genofixed colonists, were the most talented lovers in the entire Solar System. I snorted my derision but Olee called one of his regulars over, a spaceman by the name of Buddy who'd missed his ship six months ago and had been living in the bar ever since. Buddy happily confirmed everything Olee said about the Ganny women was true, but also warned us not to overlook the Ganny men, who were equally gifted. Trying not to choke, I bought Buddy a drink. The spaceman wandered back to his corner, to nod in time with the music and enjoy the rest of his miserable existence, the poor sap.
Ganymede moved into Jupiter's shadow and the bar became more crowded, but Jimmy and me were in the right place and had plenty of room. Olee checked on us every so often to see we were okay. The same girl came back to sit on my knee and introduced herself. Her name was Kitty and she told me she was the daughter of a space princess and a pirate warlord. I didn't have the bad manners to ask her why the daughter of a space princess was working in a spaceport bar. Her good friend Dolores made friends with Jimmy. I watched as Dolores nibbled his ear lobe, then whispered something that made him laugh. She suddenly looked up at me, eyes wide open, and I knew that she and Kitty were immersed in a well-practiced act, their sole intention to extract UN credits from our pockets, but that didn't matter because Jimmy liked Dolores and I liked Kitty, who was working her tongue around inside my ear, her breath warm and friendly.
The music changed and the symbiotic twins swung down from somewhere above to take up position on the floating stage. I just sat there, open-mouthed and barely able to comprehend what I was seeing, and what I was feeling. Waves of telepathic pleasure washed over me, leaving my mind reeling and my hands trembling. When their act finally ended and their twitching bodies were removed by trained medical staff, Dolores whispered into Jimmy's ear, pointing at me. I turned scarlet with embarrassment and we all laughed together. Olee brought us some more drinks and asked if we'd enjoyed the entertainment. His smile said he already knew the answer.
The music was loud, the drink intoxicating, the company perfect. The night couldn't possibly get any better, I thought. But it all came to an end abruptly when the cyborg walked into the bar looking for a fight.
Olee swore under his breath as he stared at the tall figure standing in the doorway. I've known people who have taken cyborg parts for various reasons. I recalled the marine engineer who'd wanted gills and an internal body shell because she found diving suits too clumsy. After the contract ended she'd had the gills and shell removed. Other cyborgs I'd met had only displayed their add-ons as amusing party pieces, usually when they were drunk, and only when encouraged by friends. The cyborg who filled the doorway wore his gleaming metal proudly, like a suit of armor. The only flesh visible was his scarred face. Possibly he'd been in a terrible accident that denied him the option of regeneration, and I badly wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but there was something in his sunken, staring eyes that suggested otherwise.
Kitty whispered urgently to Olee, "Call the Spaceport Police."
Olee looked miserable. "Won't do any good," he said. "The cops won't come."
Jimmy, still smiling, said, "What's going on? Who is he?" No one answered him. The crowd moved back to make space around the cyborg, who took a clanking pace forward, then another. Someone didn't move out of his way fast enough and the cyborg's head snapped round to look at the unfortunate. It was our pal Buddy, who'd been up at the bar scrounging another drink and was on his way back to his corner table when he'd got confused by the shifting crowd.
The music stopped, and the cyborg and the spaceman became the focus of everyone's attention. Buddy's hand shook and some of his drink spilled onto the floor. The poor guy was terrified, I could sense his fear from where I was sitting. I'm glad it's him out there and not me, I thought—and was immediately disgusted with myself.
Then the cyborg spoke, his voice a mix of human vocal chords and machine voder that sent a shiver up my spine. "Seems to me," he said, "you're looking for trouble, Pilgrim."
Buddy shook his head. "Don't want no trouble," he mumbled, still shaking.
There was a long pause during which no one dared breathe for fear of attracting the cyborg's attention. Then the cyborg smiled broadly and said, "But I think you do."
What came next was accomplished with such speed that I expected Buddy to fall down there and then, stone dead. I thought the cyborg had killed him. Instead, Buddy was still standing, but now he wore a gunbelt about his sagging waist. The holster contained what looked to be a plasma blaster, the type of deadly handgun the UN military uses. The man-machine had extracted the belt from a compartment in its side, put it around Buddy's waist and fastened it, all in the blink of an eye.
I've never seen a place empty so fast. The crowd used doors, windows, hatches. Some threw themselves bodily over the bar and crawled along the floor to reach the back exit. Olee plainly wanted to join them, but he was the barman and couldn't just abandon his post. He moved to the end of the bar and took a couple of steps forward, then stopped when he realized that aside from ourselves and Buddy, everyone else had fled. Worse, the cyborg's eyes were glowing red, which meant it was all machine, its human half submerged completely as its mek-brain switched to combat mode, targeting Olee as well as Buddy. The cyborg wore a matching gunbelt and plasma blaster. They were going to die but there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it because if I tried to interfere, I'd be dead, too.
Dolores gasped as Jimmy stood up, sliding her off his lap. Before I could stop him, before I could even think of opening my mouth to scream a warning, Jimmy moved past Olee and put himself squarely between the cyborg and Buddy, whose bladder had just released, staining the grubby worksuit he wore. Mine threatened to do the same. I wanted to shout at Jimmy, to make him come back, but it was too late.
The cyborg looked at Jimmy. Jimmy looked at the cyborg.
"Seems to me," the cyborg said, "you're looking for trouble, Pilgrim."
My stomach knotted. It was the same programmed challenge, proof that the machine had taken over, suppressing human decisions.
Slowly and deliberately, Jimmy raised his hand and prodded the cyborg's chest with his forefinger, tap-tap-tap.
"You're the one who's looking for trouble," he said. "Why don't you turn around and get out of here, you sorry excuse for a human being, before we report you to the authorities and get you thrown into a Police cell, Pilgrim."
Oh God, he's going to die, I thought.
But instead of killing Jimmy, the cyborg threw back his head and laughed. It was the most inhuman and unnatural sound I have ever heard, before or since. The laughter slowly died away and the cyborg's eyes fixed upon Jimmy again, but they no longer glowed red. The immediate danger, of automatic impulse attack and total obliteration of the acquired target, was over—at least for the moment.
One metal claw-hand snapped up to grasp Jimmy's shoulder and move him to one side, while the other extended to reach Buddy. The gunbelt buckle was removed from Buddy's waist and suddenly re-fastened around Jimmy's waist, again in the blink of an eye. The cyborg stepped back and appeared to admire his handiwork, while Jimmy looked down in surprise at the gunbelt.
His immediate reaction was to try to remove it. He found he couldn't. The buckle was locked, and despite his most strenuous efforts Jimmy couldn't open it.
The cyborg turned on its heel and headed for the door.
"Wait!" Jimmy shouted, and the man-machine stopped. The body still faced away from Jimmy but the head turned fully one hundred and eighty degrees to look at him.
"I'll be back," the cyborg said, "in one hour. You have precisely that amount of time to arrange for your own funeral, Pilgrim."
With this, the cyborg went out through the doors, which closed silently behind him.
"Who the hell is that guy?" Jimmy demanded.
Olee sighed before answering. "His name," he said, "is Masterson. Colonel Augustus Masterson. He was a UN Special Assault Forces officer before he took a direct hit during an attack on a space pirate base, so I heard. They had to rebuild him from scraps of flesh. He had the choice of having his mind transferred into a cloned body, or becoming a 'borg. He chose metal."
"He must have left his brain in outer space," I said. "Does he do this kind of thing often?"
Kitty said, "Usually he contents himself with terrorizing the mining settlements on the North Plateau. They must have hired private security to get rid of him. It's been a while since we last saw the Colonel."
I indicated the gunbelt that Jimmy was still trying, with little success, to remove. "What happens now?" I said.
"He's going to come back in an hour, like he said he would," Olee explained. "He'll challenge your friend to a duel, which your friend will lose."
"A duel?"
"We call it a quick draw. You stand facing each other, maybe ten paces apart, and—"
I held up a hand, stopping him. "I understand."
What a devil of a situation! A lunatic cyborg intended to blast Jimmy to atoms! My friend was going to die—unless, of course, we got the hell out of there fast.
"Olee," I said, "can you oblige me by calling the Booking Desk and asking them to reserve two seats for us aboard the first ship leaving Ganymede? It doesn't have to be a Company ship. Anything will do."
Olee shook his head sadly. "Won't do no good," he said. "That buckle contains a transponder. The Colonel will be tracking it. As soon as you walk out of this place, he'll come looking for you."
Jimmy slammed his fist down upon the bar. "That's just great! Does anybody have any suggestions for getting this damned belt off me?"
I leaned forward to examine the belt, feeling the material. It was soft and smooth, and the latter gave me great cause for concern. It was so smooth, in fact, that I didn't seem to be able to grip it, my fingers just kept slipping off. . . .
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Jimmy said.
"Yep." I nodded confirmation. "The buckle is a force field projector. The belt is pattern-restricted energy, which can't be physically cut or broken."
"What about trying to cut it with this blaster?" he said, slapping the weapon hanging at his hip, but I shook my head. Nothing less than a battleship's main blast-cannon could overload the field. And even if, by some curious and fortunate coincidence, we'd brought a battleship with us—which of course we hadn't—Jimmy would have disappeared when the cannon opened fire, along with most of the bar.
There was an additional complication.
"I can see an explosive charge," I said. "My guess is, it's set to go off if you move out of transponder range."
"That's wonderful," Jimmy said through clenched teeth. "That's just wonderful."
Actually it wasn't, and we both knew it.
I looked up at Olee. "There's no way out of this, is there?"
The barman shook his head, then shrugged apologetically. "Sorry," he said.
"It's not your fault," Jimmy said.
"What are you going to do?" Kitty asked.
Jimmy looked at me, as if he expected me to know the answer. But I had no ideas, no solutions. Well, not really.
"If we can't run, then we have to win," I said.
"No kidding!" said Jimmy. "And how do you propose I out-draw a military configuration cyborg? If I get some cyborg implants of my own and start practicing now, I might be just about ready by the turn of the next century. There's only one thing wrong with that—I only have fifty minutes left to live. Is that the best you can do, for cripe's sake?"
"Can I see your blaster?" I asked, desperate not to look stupid in front of Kitty and Dolores.
He drew the weapon and offered it to me. I took it and examined it closely. There were more sophisticated killing devices available on the market, but this one, doubtless a veteran of numerous battles, was still in perfect operating condition, fully charged and ready for action. I weighed it in my hand, then shook my head in frustration. All thoughts of designing a spring-loaded mechanism to launch it from the holster directly into Jimmy's hand faded.
"It's too heavy," I said, defeated.
Olee, who had been watching with interest, held out his hand. I gave him the blaster. It was only then that I noticed the UN Space Navy tattoo on his wrist, which told its own story. I recalled reading that only a couple of years ago, the Jovian Subsystem had been plagued by space pirates. Maybe Olee had played his part in that clean-up operation, and had stayed behind on Ganymede after the pirates were wiped out?
"I never did like this model," he said, and his pudgy fingers seemed to work of their own volition, snapping open the casing to reveal its multicolored guts. He stripped the blaster down, disassembling the complex mechanism as if he had been
doing this very thing every day of his life. Then he put it all back together again while we watched, fascinated.
Olee looked up and smiled at our bemused expressions. "Nothing to it," he said, happy to have shown us his skill.
"Do that again," I said.
He raised an eyebrow, but did as I asked. At first the revealed mechanism made no sense to me, but then I saw the similarities between the blaster's innards and the technician's laser I carried in my travel bag. There was the induction feed, linking to the polarity regulator, coiled around the Hoffmann phase generator. . . .
I reached out and clapped Olee on the shoulder, laughing. He didn't understand then, but soon did, when I explained how we were going to beat the cyborg.
Masterson entered the bar just before the specified hour had elapsed. His eyes swept the bar and focused on Buddy, who was still asleep in his corner. Then he turned to look at the small group of desperate people gathered about the other end of the bar.
Kitty and Dolores had their backs to him and were blocking his view of Jimmy. The cyborg moved sideways but the girls moved too, hiding what I was doing. Masterson was early! I'd assumed his internal clock would bring him back to the bar on the very stroke of the last second of the hour he'd designated. But here he was, his hand already resting on the butt of his blaster, eager to draw the weapon, eager to kill.
His voice was something from beyond the grave.
"Time to die, Pilgrim," he said.
"You said one hour," I called over Kitty's shoulder. "We still have a couple of minutes."
"Patience was never one of my virtues," he said. "Step out of the way."
This time I shouted at him: "You said we had exactly one hour, Colonel!"
The use of his former rank seemed to quieten him for a moment. "Very well. Another sixty seconds. No more."
I worked as fast as I could, tying off the last wires, and then I realized it was as ready as it would ever be. It would either work or it wouldn't work, and if it didn't, then Jimmy was a dead man.
"What do you think?" Jimmy whispered.
I gave him a winning smile. "No problem."
Which was something of a lie. If I'd made the slightest mistake in rewiring the blaster then the resultant explosion, as positive matter unexpectedly met antimatter outside the blaster's magnetic bubble, would send Jimmy into oblivion a fraction of a second ahead of schedule. The only consolation was that he wouldn't know a thing about it.
Kitty and Dolores, on my signal, joined Olee behind the bar. Jimmy took a deep breath and slowly turned to face the cyborg. The cyborg clumped forward and took up position at one end of the open floor, watching Jimmy closely, itching to draw and fire the instant Jimmy's hand moved.
Jimmy reluctantly moved to stand at the other end of the room. He licked his lips nervously, glancing from the cyborg to me. I took my cue and said, "Wait."
Risking all, I walked forward. The cyborg's eyes, when they looked at me, were glowing red again. I cleared my throat and somehow found my voice.
"I propose that a signal be given," I said.
"Explain," the cyborg invited.
"We can't just allow you to draw your weapon and shoot when you feel like it. That would give you an unfair advantage. Which is why there has to be a signal, so you both draw at the same time."
The cyborg considered this. If his smile was anything to judge by, he rather liked the idea. Of course, he knew full well that his cyborg reactions would decide the result, regardless of how we wanted to play it.
"What signal will you give?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I can't give the signal. It's possible my friend and I may have arranged for me to pass a secret signal to him just before I give the official signal. That would never do."
The cyborg digested this piece of fabricated chivalry, but couldn't find any holes in the logic. "Very well. How, then?"
I held up Kitty's perfumed handkerchief.
"I suggest you both hold your arms straight out in front of you. My friend will hold this handkerchief. When he lets go, this will be the signal for both of you to draw your weapons. He can't reach for his blaster without you seeing the handkerchief drop, so there is no unfair advantage. I trust that, as an officer, you will honor these rules and not draw your own weapon before you see the handkerchief move?"
"You have my word," Masterson said at once, meaning it.
I approached Jimmy, taking care not to move between him and Masterson, and gave him the handkerchief. He held it between thumb and forefinger and raised his hand, straightening his arm so it pointed at Masterson. I winked encouragingly. Jimmy swallowed hard. Then I stepped back, distancing myself from the target zone.
Kitty hid her face in her hands and turned away, unable to watch. Dolores had her eyes closed and was muttering a prayer. Olee had ducked behind the bar. Me, I would have to tell them what happened, so I had no choice but to keep watching.
The cyborg grinned at Jimmy. "Ready when you are, Pilgrim," he said, obviously enjoying the moment tremendously.
A split-second later the man-machine was dead on his feet, his entire face and most of his head gone. His hand jerked spasmodically in mid-air. It came down a fraction, but didn't continue toward the gun holster.
The remains of the handkerchief, cremated by the blast that had erupted from the stripped-down mechanism tied to the inside of Jimmy's forearm, fluttered to the floor. The cyborg's body followed a moment later, the bone-jarring crash sufficient to disturb Buddy, who waved his hand at an imaginary fly and snorted twice before he sank down into blissful sleep again.
Jimmy was jumping up and down and shouting. Olee came from behind the bar with a jug of water, which he emptied over Jimmy's forearm. And then everything was okay, because Jimmy was still alive and the cyborg was dead, and that was all that mattered.
Laughing, Jimmy drew his blaster from the holster on his hip and threw it up into the air. It spun, catching the light, then fell to the floor, breaking open on impact, the two empty casing halves rocking back and forth. It had served its purpose, to fool the cyborg into thinking Jimmy intended to participate in the quick draw contest. A contest he couldn't have hoped to win by fair means.
Dolores put her arms around his neck and kissed him. At that moment Jimmy was the happiest man in the Solar System. He was happier still when Olee called the Spaceport Police and they carried the late Colonel Masterson's corpse away in a heavy-duty hauler. No one even suggested that charges be brought against Jimmy, who had done everyone a favor. And in any case, he'd been forced into the deadly competition by the man-machine. Self-defense, beyond any doubt. If the outcome was swayed by a little cheating on our part, why, that was just too bad.
The police allowed me a moment to tinker with the cyborg's remains. I found the transponder control, a little black box with winking lights, and slipped it into my pocket before joining Jimmy, Kitty, Dolores and Olee at the bar to celebrate our victory.
Six months later, and Jimmy's happiness is forgotten.
He won't even talk to me now. I can't say I blame him.
You see, the gunbelt Colonel Masterson put about his waist has driven him to a level of frustration which I can't even begin to imagine. We can't get the damned thing off him. We've tried everything. Masterson used a military encryption key which I've been working on since we got here, but judging from the initial results it may be years before the too-dumb colony computers spit out the correct solution.
Matters have been complicated further by the fact that the explosive device inside the buckle turned out to be a low-yield nuclear warhead, so no one is willing to even consider forcing the lock. Jimmy tried to, but we grabbed him in time, and the Company psychologists planted inhibitors into his behavioral matrix so he won't ever tamper with it again—but it was a close thing, I can tell you.
Jimmy is refusing to eat now, determined to lose weight until the belt drops off his shrinking frame.
Me and the boys are drawing straws tonight to see who gets to tell him the belt will probably shrink along with him, since it's a flexible force field that responds to the physical characteristics of whoever is wearing it.
I just hope it isn't me who draws the short straw.
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