It's been some time since I've posted. I needed a break from the world of Mercator and was struggling with some "prequel" material. Then one night at Wal-Mart I chanced upon two double feature DVD: Sergio Leone's classics "A Fistful of Dollars", "For A Few Dollars More," and "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly", plus "Hang 'Em High." Having seen these movies with my dad on television as a boy, I decided to buy them. What struck me was the dynamic character introductions. You knew who these guys were and stood for immediately. Here was a lesson to learn.

So I thought I would do something different for a change and do something a little funner as an exercise, a sci-fi spaghetti western, and admittingly a rip off of Leone's archetypical characters and story lines.

It hasn't been as easy as I hoped. I open on three characters and I've been beating and shaping these introductions for a few weeks--I haven't completed the third character's intro, but I think I've got the first two worked out well enough for public veiwing.

And because it's science fiction, its really a four character introduction, the fourth character being the planet. It's just as important to let the reader know the environment and the culture shaped by it.

In Leone's westerns, the plots center around gaining a fortune, usually money or gold. That wouldn't work too well in a sci-fi setting, so the fortune is something other than bags of gold coins, but of something the characters believe will bring them wealth. And so the hunt and the chase is on.

The story is yet to be titled.

The rider stared at the object along his path. Here was fortune, for good or for ill.

Serpents of sand and dust rasped against the surface of the canister. Wind moaned its lonely haunt across up-thrust ledges of dark jagged rock scattered across the boulder-littered landscape.

Another sound met the pained moans of wind: the whine of servomotors and bangs of hydraulic pistons. The rider's rambler made its careful four legged gait down from the blunt ridge of an escarpment, twisting its ovoid sensor-laden head to map the terrain. The rider sat tall and sure, his hands resting around the button studded control levers as he swayed in the saddle-seat mounted between the spars of the machine-beast's broad shoulders and hips. A wide brim hat threw faint shadow across the man's wind-burned face. Pale eyes squinted against the glare. All this brightness and yet the air carried a biting chill. A tattered and faded poncho kept him warm and hid the instrument of his business: a pulse revolver strapped to his right thigh.

The rambler stopped at the edge of the rock. One diffident foot tested the sand. Loose. The machine bleated a status tone and lifted each foot, drawing its mechanical toes to form a single hoof, one after the other. Guided by limited intelligence, the mechanical beast stepped out in a slow gait toward the broken house-sized globe.

As he neared, the rider wondered at the dampness around the split sphere. He eased back in the levers, halting the rambler. He looked behind him and out along an indistinct horizon, looking for motion against the cloudless silver sky. Signs of life.

Nothing.

The rider dropped a foot into the top rung of the short ladder and dismounted, sinking to the tops of his grit-scuffed boots. He stepped out from between the legs of the rambler, laying an affectionate leather gloved hand on the plates of the retracted drive tracks attached at the forelegs. The rambler sniffed and whinnied an oxygen level report. Higher than expected. The man lifted his face to the white sun; it glared from a shield of pale blue.

At the edge of the dampness, the rider lowered to his haunches and scooped up wet sand. He brought it to his nose. Flinty. Nothing but sand. No oils. No chemicals. No hydrocarbon soups. He dropped the sample and peeled off a glove. He reached into the dampness again, rolling clumps of wet grit between finger and thumb. Water dampness.

He studied the canister.

Ice water.

The rider stood and looked up past the broken globe into the western sky. There a magnificent pale gibbous disc bright as marble hung over horizon with a throw of glinting jewels arcing away and fading in the sunlight. Rings of ice.

Here was the cargo of an ice harvester. A jettisoned load. The rider looked to the titled apex of the globe. Three of the disc-shaped grav-trappers had snapped off, but a fourth remained pinned to the side, never deployed.

The man craned his neck to look into the sky as if he could see the harvester that dropped this cargo, or any other searching craft. Here was wealth not to be lost. Yet the cloudless vault of the sky faded from blue to silver-white without mar. No vapor trails. No signs of activity. He was alone.

And here was water! He moved around the busted metal sphere, wet sand and grit sucking at his boots. He came to a large rent in the side where the plating had torn free of its support rib. Above his head, the swirling Calisenne numeral five seemed to climb out the scorched bottom of the globe. He reached a gloved hand out to the blackened, pitted twisted plating. Warm but not hot; it had had time to cool. Most of the water had gushed out but there was still some left in the shallow bowl of the bottom of the sphere. The man slipped off his hat, letting it hang at his back, and ducked under the jagged edge of twisted metal being careful not to cut himself. He stepped into the pool finding it warm. Sand swirled from his dirty boots. The reflective interior smeared his reflection as he tugged his gloves off and kneeled. He cupped water. He sucked the refreshing liquid into his mouth. So much water!

Drops and splashes dappled his dusty trousers. He did not care. He cupped up more, drenched his face in it. Clean, clear water. The bit of sand from his hands and clothes did not matter.

Water.

He stood and turned about, looking around the mirrored finish, seeing dew drops of condensation everywhere. The throat of the inlet canted about fifty degrees from the top and the main pump inlet protruded above the newly established waterline. Spacious, there was enough room in the sphere even for the rambler. It had lost uncountable liters, but liters remained. The man ducked out to get water jugs. He had filling to do.

He had stepped out of the busted orb and was crossing to the rambler when he heard the roar and whine of hovercraft. He looked toward the sound, southward where a dust cloud like talcum rolled away from a boulder strewn island of bedrock. Three hovercraft came into view, two small one-man vehicles escorting a larger third coming fast to the remains of the harvester globe. The man stopped between the canister and the rambler, the machine-beast grunted a late proximity warning. He whipped the poncho's right side up across his left shoulder, exposing his gun and let his right hand hang loose and ready. He stood easy, casual.

The hovercraft slowed, came to a stop many paces away. Dust swirled and drifted. The gunman suppressed a cough.

The drivers wore long coats, tight dust caps of leather, and dark lens goggles. They disembarked their craft and approached with caution, the tails of their coats flapping against their legs. The man in the middle lifted his goggles and wiped his face clean with the end of the scarf wrapped around his neck. The other two put wide space between them and stood ready for violence. They disappeared into the rider's peripheral vision when he focused on the man in the center.

The driver of the larger hovercraft clipped his doffed goggles to his belt, pulling the open edge of his coat back to reveal a short-barrel caliver holstered across his waist over his left thigh, the power cable looped around his right hip to the energy pack clipped at the back of his belt. He pulled off his dust cap, dark sweaty hair sprang out in disarray. The cap he fastened to his belt as well. The man snorted and spat, then grinned wide and devious.

"And here I was thinking I had all day to get here," the leader said throwing his jaunty voice into the air. "No rush." He eyed the rider with distrust. "After all, no one else is out here on the edge of the plume."

He was met with silence.

"No one else out here to take my claim," the man warned, holding his hard gaze on the rider. "What am I to do?"

After a pause of a few breaths, the rider did a quick sideways nod to the cargo globe. "There's plenty. Let me fill my casks and ride out."

The leader shook his head slowly. "We need all that water." The leader dropped a palm on the butt of his caliver. "You know how it is." Motion. The other men swept their coats aside revealing their weapons, the one on the left owned a large caliber ballistico, the one on the right a pulse hand-cannon.

The rider of the rambler said nothing. There was nothing to plead. He saw the larger hovercraft outfitted with a tank and pumping equipment.

"We are going to take things slow and easy," the leader said easing his caliver out of its holster and activated the charging circuit. The gun began to hum.

The rider threw quick sideways glances at the others. The two escorts leveled their guns at him, the barrels like blank dark eyes peering with deadly intent. Not likely he could put them all down spaced as they were.

The leader leveled his weapon at the rider. "Now use your left hand and remove your gun . . . slowly. And toss it this way."

The rider complied, his awareness open to all motion from the three harriers. His gun lay in dusty sand between him and the leader.

"Put your hands on the back of your head and turn around."

The rider did so, his ears attuned to the sounds of the men behind him.

"Now get on your belly . . . and don't take your hands from your head."

The man sank his knees into the soft sand. He bent over and twisted so that his left elbow met the ground. He lowered himself, stretched flat. Dust billowed around his nose and mouth.

"Go stun his hands," the leader barked to one of his men. The sounds of crunching, sighing sand came from right: the gunman with the ballistico. His shadow fell across the rider.

The henchmen reached into his coat and removed the thick cylinder of the stunner. He switched it on and reached down to make contact with the rider's wrists to numb them into uselessness.

Yet the rider rolled quickly into the man's ankles, nearly toppling him, and swung his left arm high slamming his fist into the man's soft groin. The harrier coughed a yelp and buckled over as the leader was shouting for his man to move. The rider reached his right hand around and pulled the ballistico from the holster. A fine mechanical weapon, he discharged it into the man's chest taking the brunt of blood spray in the process, the blast a hard clap slapping the air.

The man flew back, and before his body came to rest the rider rolled to his right, a near blinding flare of heat zapped over his shoulder sizzling into the sand, a whip crack following its dash through the air. Once on his back, he fired two shots, his hand a blur, the din rebounding off rock and ringing in his ears. The harriers were thrown back, their coats like demon wings. Dark blood arcing across the sky. They fell to heaps, throwing fine grains of dust into the wind. The leader's leg twitched. Fell calm. His gun still humming in his dead hand. The other had lost his useless hand cannon. It lay partially buried in loose sand, a big gun for such a slow hand.

Dust coated the rider's tongue. Blood sprinkled his lips. He spat and eased himself up onto his feet. The rider tucked the ballistico into the back of his waistband. He fetched his own weapon and returned it to its holster. He looted the bodies of stamped coins and water tokens.

In the leader's overcoat, his fingers brushed against the smooth surface of a projection disc. He removed it, turned it over in his hands. The back of its silver finish was inscribed in superfluous Calisenne script: "to my darling Henvor." The gunman turned it over and pressed the emission stud. A young woman's face loomed out at him accompanied by a tinkling refrain. Pretty girl. Poor choice in men. They could have walked away water rich and alive. The rider dropped the disc onto the blood-soaked shirt.

He went to the rambler, opened a cargo bin and removed a container of water to wash his face and to clean as much blood as he could from his poncho and trousers. He stowed the ballistico.

He filled his own water casks from the pool at the bottom of the globe. After he had his casks stored, he walked the rambler across the loose sand to the hovercraft. The gunman checked the unlocked cargo bins of each vehicle, finding rations and power cells. He shoved as much as he could into his own cargo bins, replacing rations he thought he would have to purchase in the town of Branlin. Climbing aboard the rambler, he paused only to cast an inspective eye across the black surfaces of the solar energy collectors open across the back of the machine. The large rectangles shadowed the empty cargo rack. It wouldn't be empty by tomorrow.

Uraeda, The gas giant, had long slipped behind the horizon when the silver coin of the sun dipped into the ochre shroud of dust. To the northwest a wide band of stars laced with veils of coal-black dust stretched low over the southern sky. The rambler moaned a warning. It detected something ahead. The gunman raised his field scope. The enhanced image zoomed to another object along his route. It was not an ice water cargo globe.

The rambler had made good time across the sand in drive mode and he had passed only one other canister. That globe had smashed upon rock and disintegrated into nothing of interest or use. Kiloms back that had been, and the thing ahead was a speck against the horizon. The sun would be down by the time he reached it.

It was dark and bitter cold when the rambler's shoulder mounted spotlights played curious bright circles across the object: an escape vehicle. There must have been some problems with the descent devices; the craft lay on its side, pulled over by emergency parachutes. The gunman could hear them out in the darkness flapping in the gusts against the sand. The module appeared archaic, a broad peakless cone with mechanical components forming a squat cylinder partially buried in a trough of sand. The base was mounted to a much wider crumbled and dented heat shield whose ledge was ringed with grav-traps. Small, it couldn't fit more than a few people.

The rambler snorted and gave a worried whinny. The wind was driving more southward, the oxygen levels dropping this close to the plume's edge. A strung gust of wind tugged at his hat and poncho. Such gusts indicated that a dust storm was fast approaching. He did not want to be in the squall for as long as he could help it. The rider thought to move on toward the canyon kiloms to the southwest to camp—he wouldn't reach Branlin until tomorrow—as there were rocks along his route where he could shelter through the blinding thick of the sandstorm. That was provided he forgot this escape pod and the possible tradables it held. But salvaging shouldn't take long. And it did not look as if anyone had come out the downed craft, the hatch was shut and there were no eroded vehicle or foot tracks around.

And not likely anyone would be coming out. The spotlights found a hole thick as his arm punched through the capsule. Particle beam perhaps.

He edged the rambler closer and dismounted. The closed hatch faced the ground. The gunman ducked under the pod. He searched around the seal, found a small panel on the hatch's surface and popped its flush latches. The little door opened revealing a pumping lever inside its depths. The man reached in and yanked the lever back and forth until the seal popped. He uncorked the hatch and swung it open.

He slipped off his hat and slipped on his night goggles. He poked his head up into the darkness. The particle beam had pierced some of the control consoles. Some of the panels had exploded. The motionless pilot hung in his harness upside-down, the angle and rotation of the craft turning the floor of the command chair into the ceiling. The overhead panel directly under the pilot's body was coated in blood. The gunman's breath fogged out. No fog came from the pilot's head. The other four seats arranged along the curving wall were empty. Cargo boxes as big as man's torso were secured along the wall behind the seats.

There may be something worth having here. He moved to the closest box and popped the latches to the thin metal arms that held it in place. A ragged moan filled the cabin. The gunman jerked toward the sound above him, his hand racing to his gun, throwing aside the hem of the poncho. He stepped under the pilot to see the man's face.

The pilot wheezed and trembled violently in his harness. Dim spot lamps began to glow a weary orange light. His eyes fell to the pitted and scratched surface of the gunman's goggles. Desperate frantic eyes. His mouth moved. Blood dribbled out. Drops splashed on the gunman's shoulder. "Thr-uh," he attempted, something thick gargled in his throat. An arm pinned in the seat fell free. The pilot managed to curl his thumb and little finger together and tried to speak again. The sound was horrible.

"Three," the gunman acknowledged.

The pilot nodded. His eyes rolled around and then stopped on the gunman's right hand resting on the butt of the revolver. The pilot's mouth curled in a near grin. His arm flinched and jerked up, wrist flailing and fingers doing their best to point at the back of his head. The limb trembled with the effort. "Shoo . . . shoo . . ."

The arm fell and swung, the hand like a claw. The pilot moved no more. The gunman's breath plumed and dispersed.

The gunman looked around at the cargo boxes. They were numbered in serious stencils. He sighed. Number three was behind the pilot's chair. He studied the empty crew seats and climbed atop the nearest. A strong gust of wind rocked the pod and the gunman held onto the chair above him as he regained his footing on the angled shoulders of the other. The storm neared. If he could climb up onto the higher chair, he might be able to reach the cargo box and be done here quickly.

The rambler whinnied with uncanny nervousness. He would have to act immediately.

As he scrambled up using the edge of the closest bin as a foot hold, another hard gust pushed the heat shield of the craft like a sail. He swayed with dizziness in the offset perch of the chair, looking around at the false colors of the interior presented by the goggles. The seal irritated his skin and he thought to remove the eyewear but the orange glow was fading. His breath blew out in chugs. The walls of the pod seemed to close in. His gaze wandered, searching for an anchor, found the number three stenciled on a cargo box latched to the ceiling.

A dead hand hung near his face. He looked at the white claw. Another desperate whinny. The pod rocked like a boat on water and he almost fell. He breathed as if he had run a marathon. It seemed to clear his mind. "Three," he muttered. He reached for the cargo bin, outstretched fingers struggling against the closed latch. His gloved fingers could find no purchase. He drew his arm back and fought his own body to get his fingertips into his mouth. With his teeth he pulled off the glove, his nails bluish. His breath exploded from his dry mouth. His lungs sucked dead, dusty air.

The gunman reached for the latch, his fingertips brushing under the cold metal edge of the flat tab. Groaning, he managed to spring it free. Another latched band held the bin. His arm dropped, so tired. He raised it, head swimming, bright spots popping around him. His fingers found the other latch, struggled to move it. He thought of shooting it, but it popped free. The band swung open and the cargo box fell to the deck with a loud clang.

The gunman followed it, landing on his left shoulder and hip. He rolled over and pushed himself up on hand and knees. He shouldered against the cargo bin, sliding it closer to the lip of the hatch. A stretch of centimeters, then another and the shifted weight of the box carried it over the edge of the opening.

The rambler snorted and whinnied. The rider slipped out of the hatch as if the craft were birthing him. He lay in sand beside the box, looking up into the craft. He wanted to sleep. His fast breathing did nothing. He pulled himself up, staggered to the rambler. The northern gale blew away the oxygen saturated air. He used the rambler's front leg to support himself and reached for the breathing mask hanging near the steering levers. He held it to his face, not caring about a tight seal, and opened the release valve.

He drank in oxygen.

Later, with the mask sealed to his face and the portable tank at his side, the rider found the cargo bin unlocked as he sat near the crumpled heat shield in eddies of dust. Wind howled. He undid the latches that circled its lid and pulled the lid up, set it aside. A small trunk lay in wait, a box within a box. The gunman lifted it up seeing all he needed to see. The lockplate had the distinct characteristics of a biolock. This personal trunk would not open unless the owner was physically touching it . . . and alive.

"Hmm." The gunman frowned as a wall of airborne dust swept over the pod. The rambler's twin shoulder mounted spotlights became merging cones of bright swirling chaos.

The woman laughed near the man's ear as she bent over, straddling him on the bed. Loose strands of pinned hair tickled his face. His hands rested on her sides against the soft fabric of her corset. Her hands sank into the mattress near his armpits having unbuttoned his shirt and exposing his chest. She smelled sweet, a medley of sugared fruit. Her lips parted against his earlobe. He felt the wet tip of her tongue, a gentle scrape of teeth.

She had laughed at something he had said, but what that had been had fled his mind as someone banged on the room's plastic door, a frenetic clapping of desperation. "What . . . what!" the man yelled at the door. The woman sent an exploring tongue into his ear.

A muffled voice came from behind the door. "You said to tell you if anybody is come for . . ." The man's voice was cut off by a sudden ruckus and the sounds of his body being slammed against the wall. An ornate framed cameo fell from its nail.

The man sat up, pulling away from his woman and looking across the small bedchamber to the narrow round table where his gun belt sat folded. The grip of his ballistico pointed at him.

The plastic door caved in from a sudden onslaught and popped its hinges. A wide pillar of clothed meat burst in snorting anger. Beady black eyes under a shelf of tangled brows glared at the man on the bed. "Brovorchi! You spend what you owe me on a whore?" the brute yelled, moving to the foot of the bed.

Cavan Brovorchi rolled the woman over to his left side. "This is nothing. She's cheap."

The whore back-handed him in the chest. "I'm worth twenty liters to the ounce!" The hulking man did a double take on her.

Brovorchi rolled off the bed, his booted feet thudding against the pour-stone floor. He leapt toward the narrow table. The big man saw his goal, moved to block him. The men collided. Brovorchi found his throat caught in a powerful grip in the crook of the Ovi's arm. He couldn't breathe. The whore screamed and pulled herself against the headboard, her eyes searching for an escape route.

Cavan beat at the man's arm, his face reddening and his body weakening. Ovi smelled of weak horrible cologne and pungent sweat, like a man who hadn't bathed in months. Cavan's back ached forced along the man's rotund girth. His heels kicked against the floor as Ovi walked him backward. He felt some pressure come off his throat and squeezed in a draft of air. Cavan's heart hammered at the near death. He felt giddy for being alive.

"All I want is my water," Ovi breathed hotly in Brovorchi's ear. "I get it. You get out of Branlin and never come back."

Brovorchi squirmed his right arm around and planted a quick elbow into Ovi's lower ribs. The big man groaned and stumbled backward. Brovorchi stumbled forward, colliding into the narrow table. His hand fell around the pistol's grip and, still in the holster, he swung the ballistico up and around toward Ovi, knocking the little table over.

The hulking man grimaced staring down that evil barrel wrapped in a cave of leather. He put his hands out. "We make arrangements, eh? A deal?" He allowed himself a large friendly grin.

Brovorchi held the gun steady. The whore's breathing was fast and loud.

Ovi's grin began to wilt as he recognized the madness in Brovorchi's eyes. "Brovo," he whispered. "We make a deal." His hand shook as if they hoped to wave off Brovorchi's threat. "This is nothing but misunderstanding." His face pleaded for reason. "Misunderstanding," whispered.

"You say that now," Brovorchi said. The whore jumped and screamed at the gunshot.

Ovi's back exploded, showering the battered door and walls in a spray of hot blood. The body thumped to a heap.

Brovorchi gathered the gun belt around his waist and bunched his hanging duster in a fist. He crawled over the bed. The whore stared at nothing, trembling, hyperventilating. He sat near her, buttoned his shirt. He looked over at her, a terrified little creature not so interesting in poking his ears with her feverish little tongue now. He cupped her chin and turned her face to his. "I had to." He leaned over and pressed his mouth to hers. He forced her chin down, prying her mouth open and thrust his tongue against hers. She moaned a long wail expecting something worst than intimacy. Brovorchi pulled back. "No one comes after me." She withdrew into the pillows, eyes denying him. Brovorchi stood and slipped into the duster. "Understand?"

Her fearful eyes said she did.

Frantic footsteps in the hall. He drew the ballistico and shot the man that filled the doorway. Another ducked into the open space and he fell dead. Blood splattered and dripped down the corridor wall. His ears rang like mad bells. He heard another man just outside the empty frame of the door, breathing heavily, boots scratching at the floor.

"We'll get you, jobojack," the unseen man called.

Brovorchi kept his gun trained on the doorway and closed his free hand around the cold metal neck of a slender oil lamp. He smothered the flame against his duster and poured the oil onto the floor. He broke the large pane window behind him, smashing at the ledge as best he could while watching the door. The man out there didn't risk getting killed and bolted down the hall to the staircase.

Brovorchi sheathed his ballistico and slipped over the edge of the window into the darkness of midnight. Glass cut into his left hand as he hung and dropped to the roof of the porch. He staggered and tumbled on the slick metal, catching himself at the edge, his legs dangling. He dropped to the dusty ground at the feet of his sprinter.

Gas burning lamps lit the town in the canyon and two wall mounted lanterns threw a sick flickering yellow light into the space of the saloon's porch. Men shouted from inside, barking orders. The sprinter's encasement split open at Brovorchi's proximity and he mounted the cushioned saddle. He sent full power into the sprinter's systems and the encasement closed around him. He leaned forward, gripping the control bars, and using foot pedals, backed the sprinter from the porch were men spilled out of the door raising long calivers.

Brovorchi shifted his weight to the left, rolling the drive pod to direct the sprinter. The legged vehicle lurched sideways, and he twisted the control grips, bolting away. The sprinter's four legs thundered at full run, kicking up a cloud of dust that scattered the high-power laser bursts from the calivers.

"What are you hiding!"

The man holding Dusana was a filthy straggler who reeked of sweat-soaked coats and an unwashed mouth of food bits gone to spoil in the gaps of his teeth—what he had left. Wild, large eyes rolled beneath a knit cap of dust speckled dark green. Late morning sunlight gleamed off his greasy face, at odds with the coating of grime and grit.

Again, he clouted Dusana against the side of her head with a hand wrapped in a dirty make-shift glove of swatches. "You come to take something," the man shouted and pointed at the escape pod leaning on its side with Clovovac's jumper parked behind it. Cloth around the man's hand hung like a loose bandage. "Tell me what it is!" Clouds of his breath hung on the air.

Dusana shivered. Her coat had been stripped off. "Nothing," she cried, tears of anger and pain hot on her eyes and cheeks. "Just come for our friend."

"You tell me lies," the tramp said and back-handed Dusana, letting her fall sideways into the rough sand. A heavy boot toe pressed onto her arm. That dirty swathed hand grabbed her hair, pulled her face up from the grit. Dusana's eyes and mouth scrunched in pain and fear.

"But maybe he won't." He held her head up so she could see across several meters to two other struggling figures. "No?"

Clovo focused across the sand to the tear blurry figure of Dusana. A powerful arm locked across his throat like an iron bar. The flinty sting of dust on the thick quilted sleeve burned his nostrils. His blood smeared that sleeve from palms abraded against the sand and grit as they had scuffled. It was said the desert drank the blood of many.

Dusana screamed and tried to wrench away from the captor that stood on her arm. Bastards! He coughed and drew a ragged breath. "Don't hurt her."

The vagabond laughed. Clovo watched in horror as the desert harrier pulled his pistol from its place inside his ragged coat and leveled it at Dusana's head. He heard the whine of a power pack charging. No! He tried to free himself but his captor was too strong and his ribs were molten pain whenever he moved.

The dirty man reached down and lifted Dusana up by the armpit and thrust the barrel of his pulser against her head, her long hair flowing like a tattered flag in the cold wind. "A girl," the man called to Clovo, " she might not be told everything. She knows nothing, right?"

Clovovac breathed heavily. Dusana's face pleaded with him. He ached for her. "Just let her go." His tired voice carried no conviction.

"What are you here for," the straggler shouted. Dusana startled against him. "And don't tell me for dead friend!" His pistol was at full charge and he pressed it harder behind Dusana's ear. She trembled and moaned. The man reached a grimy hand to her breast and clutched it. "I will take her and kill her!"

Clovo labored for breath, the ugly man's hand on Dusana's body burned in his mind. "A key!" The word came wrenched from him.

The man laughed. "A key? A key to what? To what Laanid found?"

They knew. Somehow these hateful men knew. Clovovac's eyes fell to the sand. "Something you'll never understand." Defiance.

For a moment there was only the sound of the wind sighing around the escape pod and slapping the parachutes.

"And Laanid has this key? In the pod?"

Clovo said nothing. The arm of his goggled captor squeezed against his throat. "Ne budt clup," he growled at his ear. Don't be stupid.

Clovovac managed a sigh. "Yes."

Dusana's captor shoved her away. She stumbled. The man aimed the gun at her and fired a pulse into the back of her head. Clovo strained against the arm holding him screaming rage and denial. Dusana sprawled into the dust, kicking up a talcum fine cloud that caught on the wind.

Clovo thrashed his arms and body and won his freedom. He stumbled forward, caught his balance and began to sprint to Dusana's unmoving form. Clouds of breath steamed from his mouth. He had no idea what he was yelling. He barely registered the tramp bringing his gun to bear. Then nothing as a plasma wreathed laser burst bored through his skull.

Sarko opened his coat and tucked his pistol into the net of wide strips sewn into the lining. Sand began to collect against the woman's form. "Less trouble in our lives, eh Gorro?" He laughed. It was a dead sound on the air.

A pulsing thrum from high above caught both men's attention. Sarko tilted his head back, shading his eyes from the glare of the sky. A dark speck threw a hard glint of sunlight, growing as it drifted down.

"Ah, the Good Captain, no?" He grinned at Gorro. "Soon, we will be rich enough to bathe." As soon as he got what he needed from this meddlesome out-worlder. His face cracked under his smile. His partner's expression hid behind dark lensed goggles and a dust scarf wrapped around his face. He said nothing.

The lighter was made of three component littered cylinders joined by a thick, wide, angled cross spars: a central crew module hung slightly beneath the two mammoth engines. Grav-trap blisters near the bottom of the engines let it drift down like a balloon. Close to the ground, doors sprang open from the spars and legs uncurled, banging as they stretched open and locked into place. The craft settled on broad landing pads. Dust swirled in vortices. Metal hull plates ticked and popped. Purge vents shot geysers of billowing gas. It was like a beast settling down to felled prey.

A hatch under the crew module dropped open. A sliding ladder extended, stopping knee-high from the ground. The Good Captain descended, his dark duster buttoned tight, defying the wind and airborne grit. Once upon the ground, he retracted the ladder and closed the hatch.

Sarko stood a little straighter and proud. The captain approached with a casual gait, thoughtful eyes moving from the escape pod, to the bodies, drifting to Gorro, and coming to rest on Sarko just as he halted a good meter or so in front of the vagrant. Wind lifted the captain's brown hair into waving streamers.

The corners of the captain's lips curled with a hint of a smile under his drooping mustache. He pointed a lazy hand at the bodies. "What you lack in sagacity, you make up in lassitude."

The meaning was lost to Sarko, but the tone sounded friendly. "Captain Weslock, you honor me."

 The captain frowned. "You know who I am." It came more of a statement than question.

Sarko grinned like a devil, large eyes straining at their lids. "Ah, there is much information in the air," he opened his mummy-wrapped palms to the sky. "Ripe for the taking." He gave a quick introduction.

Weslock stepped near to Sarko and snorted dust from his nose. "What happened here?"

Sarko threw a sanguine glance at each body. "Oh these? They come for Laanid." Sarko shrugged and was about to speak their names when Weslock interrupted with a hand in the air.

"I know who they are. I was expecting them."

The smile dropped from Sarko's face. He gave a nervous look around, pausing at Gorro as if for support. He turned back to Captain Weslock and found his broad grin again. "Fortune favors the bold, eh preeta?" he said by way of explaining his presence.

"I'm not your friend," Weslock said and moved toward the body of Clovovac.

Sarko squeezed his hands together. "Perhaps that is too soon. But partners . . ." His voice hung on hope.

Weslock stared hard at the man. "I have no need for partners."

Sarko wet his lower lip. "The water barons keep us thirsty and dirty. It is told that Laanid found a sea of fortune."

"Too much is told." Weslock stood over the corpse staring at the burnt hole in the forehead, the entry wound. He toed the body over.

"We know this moon very well," Sarko implored, "from plume to plume. You know everything up there." He pointed to the heavens. "We cover the ground, you the sky, and we find this fortune. Partners." Grease and dirt cracked in the creases of his face from the leer that suggested the plan was the best damn one ever had.

Weslock locked eyes, then broke contact to hunker down to the corpse. The path of the expanding pulse burst had vaporized a fist-sized cavern in the skull. Most of the brain was gone. He reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a white elastic glove. Sand drifted over the corpse, settled in the bloodless hole. He tugged his right hand into the glove and probed the devastating wound with his protected fingers. Sarko came to stand near him.

Weslock motioned the outlaw to squat. He did. The captain rolled his gloved hand around the gaping hole in Clovo's head. "Do you know, my vacuous dear Sarko, what the visual cortex is?"

Sarko frowned and with a shake of the head guessed, "Part of the brain?"

"Yes," Weslock rejoined. "Specifically this area here that you have so expertly eliminated."

Sarko's ears heard only praise. He chuckled like a man over a cold pint. "A good shot, yes? "

Weslock sighed. "There is much information in the visual cortex," He leaned over to Sarko. "Ripe for the picking." He watched Sarko look down into the empty skull, his eyes widening as he began to understand.

Sarko began to chuckle as if he had one over on Weslock. "You don't need Clovo's brain."

"And why is that," Weslock goaded. "Since we are partners and all."

Sarko chuckled through exposed yellowed teeth. "Partners. Yes. Now you see the advantage." He pointed to the left of him to the escape pod. "Laanid has the key."

Weslock rubbed the straggle of hair at his chin with his ungloved hand. "You know about the key?"

"Aye," Sarko nodded, his face in serious conspiracy. "Clovo said it's in the pod."

Weslock cast his gaze back to the escape pod, then to Gorro standing silent as a statue as if there was no one inside that thick coat or behind those goggles, and again to muddy eyed Sarko, a bum spewing horrid breath. The captain curled his mouth and raised his shoulders in a half shrug. "Yes. And I suppose well hidden."

Sarko unconsciously mimicked the half shrug. "It is a small pod. Should not be that hard to find."

Weslock slapped Sarko's shoulder, let his hand rest there good-naturedly. "Ah, it is not so much the difficulty that bothers me, it's the urgency." A key was no good if it unlocked nothing. He brought his gloved fingers together, and with a press of his thumb against the knuckle of his first finger, the mechoid glove flowed and fused over his hand, growing outward into a milk-white blade. The Good Captain grabbed Sarko by the neck and thrust his bladed hand into the sternum. The man's eyes bulged in surprise. Blood bubbled on his tongue, disgorged over his stubbled chin. Weslock yanked his hand free of the gripping bone and pushed the dying man over.

Gorro jerked into alertness, his hand sweeping for his pulser.

Weslock cocked and flung his arm forward, flicking his wrist and sending the blooded blade through the air in an upward arc where it caught the heavy coated harrier in the throat. The man's hands went to the blade as his feet stumbled out from under him. He hit the ground in a spew of dust. Gorro gurgled. Fell quiet.

Adrenalin fueled breaths raced. Weslock calmed. The wind pushed against him. Parachutes snapped. He watched their folds and twists lift and collapse.

Captain Weslock stood and stepped to Gorro. He pulled out a flask from inside his coat and twisted the cap free leaving it to dangle on a lanyard. Bending, he liberated the stiff blade from the corps's throat and poured water over the gore. The cleansed milk-white knife flowed back into a glove and Weslock wriggled his fingers into it.

The key lay somewhere in the derelict craft. He had no time to search every cargo bin and nook and cranny. It would be hidden, and Laanid knew where. The pilot may be dead, but Weslock could probably coax something out of that brain.

He crossed the sand to the escape pod. Weslock admired the work of his particle cannon, the exotic energies that ate into the craft. "Did you think you could get away, Laanid?" he asked aloud. Perhaps the spirit of Laanid lingered to haunt this place among scattered boulders. He glanced at the jumper sitting several meters away behind the pod, an aircraft with tilted engines and an aerospike genny used to hop from plume to plume. "Clovo come to help you?"

The hatch hung open. The sand lay disturbed under the pod. Sarko interrupting Clovo's inspection. The captain pulled a beam from his belt and ducked under the pod. He lifted his head in the hatch and threw the beam's spot of white light around the cabin. Laanid hung upside down in his seat, an arm hanging loose. All the storage bins were accounted for and secured against the wall. Sand and grit had been tracked in, no doubt by Clovovac or even Sarko.

Weslock climbed aboard and made careful advance down the inclined wall, stepping on a control box splashed with dried blood and the grated surface of a dark lighting panel. The particle beam had lanced through Laanid's leg. The flightsuit bunched above the wound, having formed a reactive tourniquet that released when the suit ran down on power. Shrapnel from exploding panels punctured the pilot's chest. There didn't seem to be an easy way to get to or release Laanid's body without righting the escape pod onto its heat shield.

But Weslock had no use for the whole body. He climbed up on angled seats and perched himself precariously near the dead pilot. The glove became a blade again. Serrated.

The images on flickering in his vision were murky indistinct blobs. A makeshift lounge had been set up amongst the equipment and bins inside the cargo bay of his lighter. Laanid's head rested in a nest of exotic thin coils, like a wicker basket woven from dark shiny cable. Nanomachines had been flushed into the brain to replace deterioration. Weslock wore the receiver headband, his thoughts directing the scanning system's searches. A flat hand-held device helped control the process.

The corpse's disturbing eyes remained rolled upward. What had Laanid been looking up at? Weslock mused. Or rather, what had he been looking down at? What had gathered his attention? Had he been reaching for something? Had he been reaching for that which he had secreted? The key or that which it unlocked?

The captain's visual field flashed in a motley of shapes. Weslock focused his mind. Parts of the images seemed focused, other blurry. Then . . .

"A control panel," Weslock muttered. His brows furrowed, "Of the harvester, not the pod." He used the tablet, fingers wriggling against the control field.

The images jerked and sputtered. A flash of dim orange and a man shape. He tried to refine the image. While the background of the escape pod came into better clarity, the figure did not. "Laanid didn't know you, did he?" Weslock refined the memory, his fingers moving on the tablet. The form and face were not recognized. But the goggles were. They clarified.

Of course such goggles were everywhere on Ureys. Weslock thought of Gorro. He intensified the gain to drop the contrast of the shadows. As more memory was pulled from the dead brain, other items came into clarity. Not Gorro, the indistinct figure wore a poncho and not a heavy quilted coat. There a darkness behind his neck. Something like a wide brimmed hat, common head gear to shade the eyes.

Something dropped into view. Laanid's arm. Fingers curling to show three extended digits. Weslock cast aside the pilot's captured simulated memories from his vision and turned his head toward the heavy cargo winch mounted to the deck at the back of the bay.

Weslock stood in the upright escape pod holding the empty stowage bin in his hands. One corner had been dented, a flake of paint chipped off. Fine bits of sand lay inside. His eye ticked in a surge of anger. The stranger had taken the key. He was certain of it. The contents of the other bins lay scattered at the captain's feet. And none of them held the thing the key would open; he found no container shielded with a layer picotech—exotic matter—or anything directing him to where it might be. "You sons of bitches," he shouted, flinging the metal box out of the hatch.

He backed out of the opening and dropped to the grated walkway across the ledge of the battered heat shield. Weslock shaded his eyes with his hand and looked about as if hope beyond hope he would see some clue that would point him toward the stranger. Nothing. But what could he honestly expect? A miracle?

He stormed off the downed craft thinking that he did not have enough fuel in the lighter to go flitting around the moon searching; he had only enough to reach orbit and rendezvous with the Filthy Tramp. He couldn't very well leave it here where vagabonds would likely steal the metal from its hull. Weslock could gather supplies and send the lighter up. The truck of Sarko and Gorro sat parked nearby. It would be better than the jumper. The suborbital craft would be locked into a predestination and was practically useless as an aircraft. Besides, where Clovovac and Dusana had come from was no secret.

The truck would do.

But go where?

Was the stranger a native of Branlin, or a vagabond prospector who happened to see the escape pod come down? That made more sense than if the stranger had come down from the nearest plume hundreds of kiloms to the northeast. There were faster ways to get from town to town than an overland trek across the choking ground. And safer. Perhaps the stranger had also seen the water globes come down. Who could resist the possibility of free water?

But then again if the stranger had been coming from the northeast and making his way to Branlin, he wouldn't be far into the canyon leading to the town. Weslock could catch him provided the lighter's launch window was relatively soon.

After programming the lighter, that turned out not to be the case. The captain had a four hour wait. He should have brought the Tramp down into a closer orbit, but he would have lost her scanner's wide coverage vantage point. The wait seemed interminable, and in the end it didn't matter; wasted time was wasted time. He decided to check the crash sites of the water globes.

Bodies.

Captain Weslock had reached them by the time the sun was sinking toward the ringed gas giant. It would be an early ecliptic sunset. He parked the truck several paces away from the sprawled corpses, keeping the two closest ones in the twin beams of the forward lamps. Grabbing the large bin that stored the probing gear, he climbed out of the truck, throwing only a casual glance at the derelict water container behind him.

Wind blew his hair around his face as Weslock put his back to it, regarding the three hovercraft resting on their skirts several meters away before peering at the dead. From the lay of the men, he had an idea about what had happened. He kneeled at the taller, better dressed corpse. Maybe one brain of these dead remained viable enough to coax the image of their killer. Maybe. They were layered in a day's worth of dust and sand.

The captain opened his gear and removed the thick, metal syringe filled with nano-matter and stabbed the needle into the skull. As the fluid poured in and laced the brain, Weslock wrapped the coiled headpiece around the body's head. He decided against sensorium immersion as the remains were old enough for someone to miss the men and he did not chance to be surprised by a search party. Instead, he directed the output to the hand-held unit.

By the time he found anything substantial, the sky had become a dark vault of brilliant stars with curtains of red and green shimmering in the north. Bent for too long, his knees hurt, and he couldn't wait to return to the warmth of the cab. On the tiny screen, the gun fight played out as indistinct objects. He guided the lace to capture, copy, and replace neural structures until the scene clarified and he was able to fast-reverse time. There was the killer.

The dead man hadn't known the stranger either, but he had spent his last living moments intently studying him. There was the poncho. There was the wide brim hat. And in the glare of the sky and sand, there was the face unobscured by goggles, the chin the same as Laanid had seen.

There was the stranger that took the key.

Weslock looked up across the darkness where the stranger had stood near the edge of the escarpment . His fine rambler had been facing the busted globe. The killer had come out of the north after all, out across the choking ground. "Resourceful hard bastard," the captain muttered. He had been making for Branlin. He wouldn't enter unnoticed.

Weslock captured the best image and neural imprint as he could manage with a dead brain, recalled the nano-matter, and stowed the probing equipment back into the bin.

Standing his eye caught the glimmer of a keepsake laying on the bloody chest of the corpse. Having seen it earlier, he saw it for it was: something the killer had not deemed worthy enough to steal. Or perhaps a calling card of sorts, something left behind for the search parties, provided these men had comrades that cared. Weslock lifted it and scrubbed the dried blood away on the coat of the dead man. He pressed the projector's emission stud and heard the tinkling jingle.

Perhaps the stranger would remember it just before he died.

Posted by Paul Cargile at 12:01 AM EDT

Updated: Friday, 28 October 2011 3:14 PM EDT

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