The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

The youth’s facial make-up made him look like an actor in a Noh play. His body was slim, supple, and completely hairless. The room’s score of mirrors reflected all angles of his perfect beauty as he stretched.

“I’ll get some more wine,” he said. “The same vintage?”

Johann Vierziger turned on the blue satin bed. “Yes,” he said. “It wasn’t bad.”

Vierziger arched his chest upward, supporting himself on toes and the tips of his fingers extended backward. The mattress’ resilient underlayer undulated softly in reaction.

“But don’t be long,” Vierziger added with a chuckle. .

The youth opened the door concealed behind one of the brothel’s floor-to-ceiling mirrors. A pair of fireflies drifted in past him.

“Shall we have a friendly talk, Master Vierziger?” Pepe Luria called from the corridor. “You and me and my friends?”

The fireflies halted a meter to either side of the bed, balanced on their hissing violet spikes. Another pair followed them.

“Get out of here, boy!” Pepe snarled to the youth who’d frozen in the doorway. He struck backhanded.

The youth darted past Luria, whimpering. Blows thudded as he ran the gauntlet of Pepe’s coterie further down the hallway.

“Would you mind if I relaxed, Luria?” the Frisian asked from the tight arc in which he balanced. His erection of moments before had subsided, but his voice was calm.

Pepe stepped into the room, flanked by the last pair of fireflies. He wore the belt-pack, but he held his left thumb down on a separate remote control. “Do you know what this is?” he asked in place of answering.

“A dead-man switch,” Vierziger said.

Pepe giggled. “Just so you know,” he said. “If I release the button, poof! My little darlings do—what I’ve directed them to do. Are you faster than an electronic switch, Frisian?”

“I’m faster than some of them,” Vierziger said. There was no sign of strain or emotion in his voice.

“You’re not faster than six at the same time!” Pepe snapped, obviously angry at the lack of response to his murderous banter. “All right, you can sit up.”

Three L’Escorial gunmen followed Luria into the room. Two carried wide-mouthed mob guns, the third a sub-machine gun. They looked relieved to see the Frisian nude and unarmed.

Vierziger lowered himself flat, then turned to swing his feet onto the floor as he lifted his torso. His movement was smooth but not as quick as it would have been under normal circumstances. He didn’t want to startle the L’Escorials.

“Something puzzled me when I went through Suterbilt’s house,” Pepe said. “The house he took from Larrinaga. The psychic ambiance was missing. And that night Larrinaga, who didn’t have a pot to piss in, lifted on a starship to Mahan. Interesting coincidence, no?”

Vierziger shrugged. “Maybe Larrinaga helped the Astras with their attack,” he said. “You say it was his house, after all.”

“I thought of that,” Pepe agreed in a falsely reasonable tone. “But that didn’t answer all the problems.”

The Frisian’s chased and carven pistol hung in its holster from a chair backed against the head of the bed. Pepe nodded toward the weapon.

The sub-machine gunner jumped as though prodded with a shock baton. He snatched the pistol away. The Frisian commo helmet continued to rest on the seat of the chair.

Johann Vierziger smiled faintly. He looked at the constellation of fireflies encircling him.

“Is that fellow Daun your gunsel?” Luria demanded sharply.

Vierziger shook his head. “Niko wouldn’t be in the least interested,” he said. “Even if I were a woman, I’d be too old for him.”

He shrugged. “Besides,” he added, “I prefer professionals.”

Pepe reached into a pocket with his free hand. “But sometimes amateurs, isn’t that so?” he snarled.

He held out his open right hand. On the palm was a shot-out pistol barrel. The iridium had been so hot when Vierziger dropped it inside the Larrinaga house that the cylinder had deformed when it hit the floor.

“I thought to myself,” Pepe continued. “There were very few shots fired. All the guards could have been killed by a single man. But it would have had to be a particular man, isn’t that so?”

He let the barrel fall toward Vierziger’s shrunken genitals. Vierziger’s right hand, flat on the mattress beside him, moved as a blur. When the motion ended, the iridium was a bump raising the knuckles of the Frisian’s hand—palm-down again, beside him.

Vierziger’s lips held the faintest quirk of a smile. He said nothing.

“Ass is cheap in Potosi!” Pepe Luria shouted angrily. “But I can’t imagine why else you would have bothered to help a wretch like Larrinaga!”

Vierziger looked up at the L’Escorial leader. “No,” he agreed. “You wouldn’t be able to imagine it, Luria.”

“Take him!” Pepe said.

Johann Vierziger didn’t move or cease to smile, even as the butts of the mob guns swung toward his head from opposite sides.

“Scramble!” Bob Barbour shouted. “L’Escorial’s picked up Johann!”