Date: Sat, 28 May 1994 18:47:17 +1000 Reply-To: Highlander TV show stories Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: kat@WELKIN.APANA.ORG.AU Subject: Winning is the Only Safety: First Death (part 2/4) Well, I got one letter about the previous part. Guess I'll keep it coming.... Winning is the Only Safety First Death (part 2) by Kathryn Andersen Vila managed to get the flyer to the spaceport in one piece. He had managed to turn on the autopilot and investigate the interior. His two greatest finds were a map, and a secret compartment containing papers and valuables. It had been no great challenge for his talented thievish fingers. The papers included identification for one Del Green. Well, Del Green wasn't going to miss them - Del Green was probably dead. And so would he be if he didn't get off this armpit of a planet. Dead or worse. But spaceport bars never close, and money can open many doors. Surely there would be someone here willing to take him off planet, no questions asked. *** Ricardo Kidd sighed. It wasn't his real name of course. It was more of a joke, really. On account of his looks, too often he was referred to as 'the kid' so he decided to adopt it as his current nom de guerre. Fresh faced, pale brown curly hair, with the kind of looks that made teenage girls sigh and older women motherly. But it was no help when he wanted people to take him seriously. All they saw was a rich young man, ripe for ripping off. He cursed the meteor storm that had forced him to put down on this pesthole of a planet. What with the inflated prices for the repairs, and the port fees, he was running short of acceptable currency. Oh, his credit balance would have made most people's eyes pop out, but this barbarian planet didn't accept credit balances - just hard valuables, such as metals and gems. And he didn't have quite enough to pay what they euphemistically called 'departure tax', which was really a fee to give safe passage through the blockade. If you didn't pay, they'd shoot you down as soon as you left atmosphere. He didn't fancy that, not at all. He had to get cash for the fee. So he'd put word about that he was willing to take passengers. Passengers who would find a regular route difficult to obtain. But there'd been no takers in the past few days. Maybe he would have to sell one of the swords. Surely not? In this fleapit there wouldn't be a collector who would *know* their value, let alone pay a tenth of what one of them was worth. He'd have to wait a little longer. He sat in a convenient corner making the nearby potted plant quite sozzled on his untouched beer. A man approached his table. He had thinning light brown hair and walked small, as if he didn't want to be noticed, as if this was a habit. "*You're* Ricardo Kidd?" "I'm cursed with youth and good looks," he said, deadpan. "What do you want?" "I want passage off this planet." "And who might you be?" "Del Green." Kidd suppressed a quip about green dells. Most people wouldn't get the joke, and the fellow looked nervous enough already. Probably on the run. Del Green probably wasn't his real name, but then again, a lot of his own friends didn't go by their real names either. The delicate dance of negotiation began. Kidd was going to Bucol-2 'to look up an old friend'. Half the payment in advance - now - and half on delivery. A pouch changed hands. "Day after tomorrow - Ryan's Pride, bay nine." They shook hands and "Green" left. *** The pine needles prickled his face. He ached. Avon rolled over and looked about him. The bounty hunter was lying on the ground, not far away. It looked as though he'd tried to crawl to the flyer, but the knife wound had been too much for him. Just unlucky. Or lucky, depending on how you looked at it. But how come he himself was alive? The bounty hunter had shot to kill - at least it felt like it. But all he had now was a pounding headache. Did he miss? Impossible. There was something strange going on. This was no time to be squeamish. Avon cleaned himself up with water from the flyer. He took the dead man's identification, and some spare clothing that wasn't covered with blood. Luckily it wasn't too bad a fit, though it hung loosely in some places. He was now Ren Perera, bounty hunter. He buried the dead man, adding an unmarked grave to a forest that had held such secrets for many years. He tried to sleep the rest of the night in the flyer, but he was interrupted by nightmares; first, where he shot Blake over and over again and Blake kept on dying in his arms, and then where the bounty hunter shot *him* over and over, and he wouldn't die. And then it was Blake who shot him. When dawn came, he made a beeline for the spaceport. Avon was hungry so he decided to look for somewhere that was open at this early hour. When he saw the slight figure eating breakfast at the table his numbed mind couldn't comprehend it. He approached the table like a sleepwalker and sat down. "Vila," he said. The thief went white and tried to jump out of his skin. "You - you're dead!" "I expect so," he said. It all made a sudden crazy sense. "Is this Hell, Vila? They won't let me die." "What are you talking about?" Vila said confusedly. "I'm talking about this!" Quick as a snakestrike, Avon took the knife from his boot and slashed his left wrist. "Avon! What d'you think you're doing?" Vila cried, and went to staunch the wound with the nearest thing to hand - the tablecloth. The cloth soaked up the pulsing blood, turning red on white. Vila frantically wondered what to do next, and tried not to feel sick - he'd always felt faint at the sight of blood, but when your only friend in the world has sudden suicidal impulses, your own nausea somehow takes second place. But Avon calmly took the cloth away, and when Vila tried to put it back, Avon held him back with an iron grip, and merely said "Look." There was something in his voice which made Vila look. The wound had stopped bleeding. Even as he watched, the gash closed up and then even the scar faded awayas if it had never been. "I wondered what might happen," Avon said hollowly. "They won't let me die. This is Hell." ........... end of part 2 ............... --- _--_|\ Kathryn Andersen / \ Hawthorn -> Melbourne -> Victoria -> Australia \_.--.*/ -> Southern Hemisphere -> Earth -> Sol -> Milky Way Galaxy v Maranatha! =========================================================================