Police Your Planet | Page 6

some of the very poor, stumbling about and
hoping for a drink somehow; and probably hoods from the gangs that
ruled the nights here.
Gordon left his torch unlighted, and moved along; there was a little
illumination from the phosphorescent markers at some of the corners,
and from the stars. He could just make his way without marking
himself with a light.
Damn it, he should have hired a few of the younger bums from Mother
Corey's. Here he couldn't hear footsteps. He located a pair of patrolling
cops, and followed them down one street, until they swung off. Then he
was on his own again.

"Gov'nor!" The word barely reached him, and Bruce Gordon spun
around, the knife twitching into his hand. It was a thin kid of perhaps
eighteen behind him, carrying a torch that was filtered to bare visibility.
It swung up, and he saw a pock-marked face that was twisted in a smile
meant to be ingratiating.
"You've got a pad on your tail," the kid said, again as low as his
amplifier would permit. "Need a convoy?"
Gordon studied him briefly, and grinned. Then his grin wiped out as the
kid's arm flashed to his shoulder and back, a series of quick jerks that
seemed almost a blur. Four knives stood buried in the ground at
Gordon's feet, forming a square--and a fifth was in the kid's hand.
"How much?" he asked, as the kid scooped up the blades and shoved
them expertly back into shoulder sheaths. The kid's hand shaped a C
quickly, and Gordon slipped his arm through a self-sealing slit in the
airsuit and brought out two of them.
"Thanks, gov'nor," the kid said, stowing them away. "You won't regret
it." Gordon started to turn. Then the kid's voice rose sharply to a yell.
"Okay, honey, he's the Joe!"
Out of the darkness, ten to a dozen figures loomed up. The kid had
jumped aside with a lithe leap, and now stood between Gordon and the
group moving in for the kill. Gordon swung to run, and found himself
surrounded. His eyes flickered around, trying to spot something in the
darkness that would give him shelter.
A bludgeon was suddenly hurtling toward him, and he ducked it, his
blood thick in his throat and his ears ringing with the same pressure of
fear he'd always known just before he was kayoed in the ring. Then he
selected what he hoped was the thinnest section of the attackers and
leaped forward. With luck, he might jump over them, using his Earth
strength.
There was a flicker of dawnlight in the sky, now, however; and he
made out others behind, ready for just such a move. He changed his

lunge in mid-stride, and brought his arm back with the knife. It met a
small round shield on the arm of the man he had chosen, and was
deflected at once.
"Give 'em hell, gov'nor," the kid's voice yelled, and the little figure was
beside him, a shower of blades seeming to leap from his hand in the
glare of his bare torch. Shields caught them frantically, and then the kid
was in with a heavy club he'd torn from someone's hand.
Gordon had no time to consider his sudden traitor-ally. He bent to the
ground, seizing the first rocks he could find, and threw them. One of
the hoods dropped his club in ducking; Gordon caught it up and swung
in a single motion that stretched the other out.
Then it was a melée. The kid's open torch, stuck on his helmet, gave
them light enough, until Gordon could switch on his own. Then the kid
dropped behind him, fighting back-to-back. Here, in close quarters, the
attackers were no longer using knives. One might be turned on its
owner, and a slit suit meant death by asphyxiation.
Gordon saw the blonde girl on the outskirts, her face taut and glowing.
He tried to reach her with a thrown club wrested from another man, but
she leaped nimbly aside, shouting commands.
Two burly goons were suddenly working together. Gordon swung at
one, ducked a blow from the other, and then saw the first swinging
again. He tried to bring his club up--but knew it was too late. A dull
weight hit the side of his head, and he felt himself falling.
* * * * *
It took only minutes for dawn to become day on Mars, and the sun was
lighting up the messy section of back street when Bruce Gordon's eyes
opened and the pain of sight struck his aching head. He groaned, then
looked frantically for the puff of escaping air. But his suit was still
sealed. Ahead of him, the kid lay sprawled out, blood trickling from an
ugly bruise along his jaw.

Then