Velocity

Symptoms of Godhood

“I need to warm up, Suzy. It’s been a while since I’ve done anything for your people,” Mulciber told his employer. Mulciber Sten sat with Suzy in a high class Chicago office, twenty-eight floors below ground level. Hidden vents circulated filtered air around the office. Mulciber could hear the distant, low thrumming of fans somewhere far above.

He sat rigidly upright in his seat. Only his eyes moved, examining the newly reconstructed muscles and veins of his ruddy-skinned hands. No hair grew on the backs of his new hands and his fingertips were just rounded points of flesh, lacking any sign of nails or cuticles.

“Why don’t you warm up here?” Suzy suggested in a warm voice. “I would like that.” She leaned forward, placing her elbows on the expensive desk of molded cellulose that separated them. Her smile mixed with her perfume and washed over Mulciber like a bath of sweet oils. Suzy was a cop. An official of the United Chicago police force, who held the ambiguous title of District Executive.

Mulciber himself was referred to as a ‘special forces unit’ in his dossier. He was a one-man unit; he always worked alone.

Mulciber stood up slowly. It seemed to take a long time for him to rise to his full height. He moved with grace and care, in the smooth manner of a predator that does not wish to startle its prey. He took a stance in the middle of the room and began stretching.

Mulciber was a heavily modified man. His nervous system was only remotely similar to the one he had been born with. His reactions, his senses, and the coordination of the two had been greatly improved. Body-shop surgeons had taken him apart and rebuilt him, doing genetic regrows on most of his muscles and organs, and using synthetic replacements for the rest. They had in fact overbuilt him, perhaps being curious to see what they could create with their skills fully unbridled. He had many unique and experimental features to aid him in surviving, the pet theories of anatomical designers in proto-type form. One of these experiments was his skin. It was tougher, thicker and healed faster than human skin. It was less porous than normal skin and had an artificial texture to it, a shiny smoothness. It also lacked the capability to grow body hair or nails. This didn’t bother Mulciber much, as some women, such as Suzy, said that they found his baldness exciting.

Suzy clicked briefly at the keyboard built into her desk. Her blue-polished fingernails flicked over the plastic keys efficiently. The computer’s printer buzzed, spitting out several sheets of thin, synthetic paper onto the desk. She examined the printout. “Your target is leaving for the Tau planets on the two A.M. shuttle tonight.”

Mulciber made no sign of acknowledgement. He had finished stretching his muscles and tendons. He paused, then with a specific mental effort shifted his modified nervous system to battle-speed. His perceptions slowed time, allowing his brain to keep control of his blinding speed of movement. He was fast enough and strong enough to damage or kill accidentally in one careless moment of action. First he loosed a flying kick at head-level that would have smashed through a wall of cinder block. He followed through with a five-punch combination of straight-armed body blows intended to rupture an opponent’s abdominal wall and shatter his ribcage.

Suzy wriggled up into a better position to watch. She was also the product of body-shops, but for her the surgeons had been artists, working to create beauty. Her long hair-golden blonde this week, her natural color-spilled from her shoulders to hang around her face. She absently curled a yellow lock around one finger while she stared at him. Her eyes shone, reflecting the florescent lights in the ceiling.

Mulciber sped up. His fists and feet snapped out and whipped back like the pistons of a combustion engine gone mad. The air hissed over the smooth unnatural skin of his limbs.

Then he found himself doing something he never did when he was up to full speed. He found himself thinking. He thought about the Tau planets, the destination that his victim would never see. Colony ships were leaving from all the orbiting ports. Every city was sending up all the volunteers they could gather on upper deck tickets and cramming criminals from their swollen prisons into the holds below. The Tau planets were advertised to be nothing but vast rolling gardens, but things were rarely as they were advertised to be. Mulciber had never been in any kind of garden. He thought, just for a moment, of what it would be like to live in the midst of a sea of living things.

Mulciber misjudged a kick. Soundlessly, a tiny crease appeared in the plasti-foam wall of Suzy’s office. He halted his warm-up immediately. A matching crease appeared on his forehead, the equivalent of a fierce scowl for him. He reproached himself silently for his carelessness. Thinking at full battle-speed about anything but combat was dangerous. Suzy gave no sign of having noticed his error. Mulciber sat down and took up the computer file print-out from her desk quickly, so as to keep her eyes away from the dent in her office wall. He flipped through the file quickly to the most important part, the physical description. He always wanted to know first what he was up against. His eyes were arrested by a single item on the page, almost before he had had time to read anything.

What caught his eye was the age. Nine. They wanted him to kill a nine-year-old. For a second time his forehead creased in uncommon emotion. But this time the emotion was that of disgust. He flipped quickly to the slightly grainy, computer-generated color image of the child. His target looked back at him, a sturdy-looking boy with dark hair and dark, serious eyes. His lips were parted as if he had been speaking when the photograph was taken. Mulciber could see two gaps in his front teeth. Mulciber dumped the print-out back onto Suzy’s desk. The pile of paper sprawled out with a ruffling sound.

Suzy, who had been watching him closely, looked up from the file to Mulciber’s grim face. She looked worried.

“No,” said Mulciber.

“It won’t be as easy as it looks, Mulciber-there will be guards…”

“No.”

“But we need you. You know you’re the best we have,” Suzy pleaded, her words sliding off her tongue. Her voice worked on his mind like a balm on a wound. “This isn’t just family-to-family, city-to-city politics, this is bigger than that.”

“If your people want me to kill children then I’m out.”

“This boy’s family, they’re just criminal-” Suzy began, a sharp note creeping into her voice. She quickly checked herself and changed tacts. “Maybe you need a vacation Mulciber… Maybe after this we could go to Io, like we did last year. We could rent a cottage and spend all day feeling the ground tides and just watching the storms on Jupiter. Wouldn’t it be nice to spend some time… together?”

She leaned across her desk to lay her hand on Mulciber’s. There were jeweled rings on three of her fingers. She smiled at him, a bright-eyed smile, full of promise. Her teeth gleamed, matching her diamonds. Gently, with the air of a man picking up an injured songbird, Mulciber lifted her hand from his. He quelled his urge to give her a slight, apologetic squeeze as he placed her delicate hand back on the desk between them. Her hand was small, white and perfectly formed. His was huge and unnatural-looking, built of over-sized artificial bones and overlapping chunks of heavy muscle.

“You don’t understand, Suzanne-”

“Whatever happened to Suzy?” she asked, tilting her head to one side and looking hurt. Her full red lips pouted. She fingered the rings on her rejected hand sullenly.

“-All right, then… Suzy,” said Mulciber in resignation. It hurt him to see her looking dejected. He tried not to let it, but it did. “I don’t kill kids.”

Mulciber turned to one side, away from Suzy’s flashing rings, red lips and expensive desk. He looked down into his lap. His two powerful arms, networked with rope-like veins, ended in the square, thick-fingered hands of a killer. “There’s no challenge left. I’m not a hunter anymore… I do not stalk and defeat equals in combat. You want a scavenger, a thing in the night that steals children.”

Suzy came around from behind her desk. Her sheer clothing clung to the curves of her body and emphasized her attractive shape. She climbed into his lap, sliding herself between his arms and pressing herself against his unnaturally smooth, hairless skin. Mulciber remained motionless, staring grimly past her, staring at the crease he had put in her office wall. He did not shift to accommodate her weight; his desensitized nerves could hardly feel it. It was as if a butterfly had alighted on the lap of a somber bronze statue.

“Mulciber,” Suzy began softly. She pinched up a lock of her long blonde hair and traced the relief of his chest muscles with the end of it, like an artist applying brush-strokes to a painting. “We need you… I need you…”

Although he could hardly feel her weight on his lap, Mulciber could not help but be aware of her. Her perfume, mixed with the scent of her body, filled his sensitive nostrils with every breath he took. Suzy’s scent and the soft warmth of her body so close to his filled his head like a narcotic. He found his hand on her calf, feeling her smooth skin. Then his hand moved slowly up her soft thigh. He turned his head to look down at her. Her eyes were half-closed, her lips parted, waiting for him to kiss her.

But then he heard, saw, smelled and felt something else. Dying screams cut short. Doomed faces, twisted in the horror and surprise of their final moments. The sharp stink of fear. Warm clotting blood, washing his hands scarlet. Mulciber raised his head again, leaving Suzy’s face and the faces of his victims behind. Effortlessly, he lifted his manager off his lap and set her on her feet.

Suzy did not pout this time. She did not look dejected, she looked stunned. She straightened the flimsy material of her clothing with quick, harsh motions, like a cat shaking a wet paw.

Mulciber reseated himself. He sat as silent and impassive as a rock in the ocean. He gazed at the carpet. Suzy moved back behind her desk. When she spoke her voice held a different tone, one with a metal edge in it. “They won’t like this, Mulciber. They won’t let you quit.”

Mulciber made no move to reply.

“What’s wrong with killing criminals?” she asked suddenly, her voice imploring. Her beautifully made-up eyes pleaded with him.

“There is no honor in it,” he replied. He stood up. His body resembled something solid-not flesh-perhaps something carved out of granite. He was built in blocks rather than in curves, each muscle and cord clearly outlined beneath his reddish-tan skin. He raised one hand and closed it into a fist.

Suzy’s eyebrows arched at this; it was rare for Mulciber to perform such an idle gesture of body language. “There is nothing for me in the killing I do now. I do not grow greater by it.”

For the first time, Suzy frowned in annoyance. “You sound as if you think there is no one who can face you,” she said in an irritated tone. She rubbed her thigh where he had touched her. “You aren’t a god, you know.”

“No,” he agreed seriously. He looked into her eyes and grimly locked her gaze with his. He saw no understanding in there, only puzzlement. “Not a god… But am I a man?”

A light, corrosive-carrying rain fell on the city. As with all the larger domed cities, it rained almost constantly in Chicago. Precipitation continually gathered on the vast shining dome’s interior then dripped back again in an endless cycle, like a half-full bottle of liquid left in the sun. In Chicago, once known as the windy city, there was no such thing as open air.

The most foul living conditions in the city were found at ground level or near it. In the ancient, squalid streets it was always wet, hot and dark. The sun never reached down into the black pits of shade between the buildings. It was always night there, with garish neon lights and wispy hologram advertisements smiling and selling over every intersection. Thieves, murderers and vendors of all sorts abounded, working their respective arts on the crowds that thronged the avenues.

Mulciber crouched five stories above the glare-lit streets on an old ledge of eroded concrete. Ten feet below him and off to his left a sky-street ran out of the building. The people on it did not see him. To their eyes, he was only another formless projection of the shadowy building. He had been as motionless as the concrete itself for three hours. Water ran down his hairless pate to form acidic drops at the tip of his nose. He maintained his vigil over the sky-street, ignoring the rain as he ignored all else but the faces of those who slid past his perch. It had been several hours since he had informed Suzy that he was quitting. He expected she would find a temporary replacement, and give him a chance to ‘come to his senses’ — before informing her superiors. There was a quiver of motion on Mulciber’s normally impassive face at this thought, a glimmer of a smile. The superiors would instruct their inferiors, and then they would start to come for him. There was time yet for leaving the city, but he had no desire to run from his enemies. At least they would not be children.

But now he had another errand. A laughing couple appeared on the sky-street. It was Suzy with a man that Mulciber did not know. Suzy swung her hips and bubbled with light conversation. Her arms locked on the stranger’s elbow and her cheek pressed his shoulder. Wispy suggestions of clothing trailed after her like veils of spun gossamer. The man she was with looked slick. His maroon suit was the finest and he had a water-shedding field on it, which indicated a lot of money. The field was powerful enough to keep Suzy dry too-as long as she kept close. The man wore a hat of soft white felt with a violet plume that erupted out of the band. Mulciber knew his type. He was strictly a high-class act, the kind that never got closer to ground-level than the thickness of a speeding elevator’s walls.

Suzy had found herself a new killer. One as smooth and deadly as poisoned wine. Mulciber waited until they had passed by him into the building before slipping down among the sky-street’s shadows next to the railing. At an opportune moment he merged with the traffic and followed his former employer. He tracked the wandering couple about the city for several hours, and felt confident that they had never suspected his presence. He joined them as a silent partner, a spare shadow trailing behind, always there but never seen.

It was near the end of the evening. The three of them had visited each of Suzy’s favorite nightclubs and bars. Mulciber watched Suzy’s consort discuss something with her in a dark corner of a rooftop restaurant. Suzy disagreed at first and then finally let herself be persuaded. Suzy’s new killer hailed an air-taxi that hovered near the crowded restaurant. He joked condescendingly with the hack’s pilot and put a wad of credits into his hand. The night was over and Suzy’s new consort was taking her home with him. Mulciber watched the scene intently, his face a deathmask of stone. Nearby merry-makers, noting his mood, lowered their voices and averted their eyes from him. As the couple boarded the air-taxi Mulciber made his decision. There were no other hacks hanging in space around the restaurant, which left only one way to follow them.

Scattering a startled flock of patrons with the speed of his movements, Mulciber leapt to his feet and sprinted for the hack. He followed Suzy into the backseat and pulled the door shut behind him. “Mind if I share your fare?” he asked. Suzy looked stunned. Her consort looked enraged. As Mulciber had never owned anything with a water-shedding field on it, he was soaking. Water ran across the hack’s plastic seats and quickly invaded the couple’s dry clothes. Before more could be said, all of them were pushed back in their seats as the taxi lifted on boosters and the rooftop restaurant fell away below.

Everyone’s shoulders battled over the limited space. Suzy was forced to sit low and turn sideways to fit between the two large men.

“Get out of this car!” snarled Suzy’s consort. “You’re getting us both wet!” When Mulciber made no reply, the man reached across to the hand release on Mulciber’s door. Mulciber put his own hand on the door’s armrest, gripping it firmly. The man pulled up the release and shoved powerfully. He was strong, very strong, he pushed against the door with what had to be artificially enhanced muscles. Mulciber gauged that he had probably had a skeletal reconstruction as well, otherwise his bones would have snapped under the stress.

The door didn’t budge.

“It’s all right, Kars!” Suzy exclaimed. She squirmed in her seat, her soft body half-crushed between the two straining men. “You don’t have to throw him out! Kars, you’re bruising me!”

Mulciber continued to hold the door firmly shut. Kars shifted for leverage and pushed harder. A drop of sweat rolled down into his eye, making him blink. Mulciber sat silently, gazing straight ahead, as impassive as carven stone. The handle broke off in Kars’s hand. Kars sat back slowly, looking at the twisted piece of metal in his palm. Mulciber had observed him all night, but this was the first time he had see a glimmer of uncertainty in the man’s face.

Mulciber spoke next. “Could you tell me where we are headed?”

“Listen, you streeter bastard-”

“Kars!” Suzy interrupted. “Mulciber is not a streeter-”

“You know him?”

“Yes,” answered Suzy in a softer voice. She picked up his white felt hat and straightened the violet plume. Then she ran her hand up and down Kars’s leg as if calming an excited pet. “He’s an associate of mine.”

She turned to Mulciber. She continued to rub Kars’s leg, but gave Mulciber her warmest, happy-to-see-you smile. “We are on our way to the spaceport to watch the next starship leaving for the Tau planets. Naturally, you’re invited.”

Kars stiffened. Mulciber accepted the invitation with a nod. For the rest of the trip the men sat in tense silence while Suzy talked in an incessant, bubbling fashion. Outside the cab the city swept by them with dizzying speed. The driver swung the taxi around the corners of buildings, cutting hazardously close to the concrete walls. The lights of windows and passing air-traffic gleamed and flashed at them then fell away behind. The rooftop restaurant faded to a pinprick glow in the rear window. When they arrived at the spaceport, Kars quickly led Suzy away from the landed cab without looking back toward Mulciber. Clearly, he did not want a third party along. Mulciber made no effort to catch up, but rather followed them into the crowds a discreet distance behind.

The crowds of colonists trying to board the starship surged and ebbed, their thousands of united voices merging together into a dull roar. Walking among them was like wading through a dark, warm-smelling sea. Kars and Suzy were easy to follow. They stood out from the countless common, unaltered faces of laborers and vagrant street-people. Mulciber watched as a young man dressed in the drab grays of a worker grabbed at Kars’s clothing as he passed by. The man plied Kars with shouted questions concerning the flight, having apparently mistaken him for an official. Kars answered him with a quick backhanded blow to the mouth. The young man collapsed to the concrete in Kars’s wake, spilling blood on his grays, his jaw broken.

As they got closer to the immense hull of the starship the crowds grew thicker and more reluctant to make way for them. When they had made their way underneath the super-structure of the docking towers, the vast bay doors in the hull above opened. Huge ramps lowered slowly toward the ground, with deafening low-pitched groans of shifting metal.

Mulciber was pushed back by the sheer weight of the crowd as it tided backward in fear of being crushed. In the confusion of bodies and faces he lost sight of his quarry. His keen eyes swept the gray-clad hordes for a splash of color but saw none. Moving with decision, he waded and shouldered and shoved his way toward the nearest leg of a docking tower, planning to climb it and survey the scene from above. Reaching the foot of the tower, he easily pulled himself up into the grid-work of steel and onto the first tier. He watched for a moment as the foremost ranks of the crowd mounted the ramps and entered the starship.

Then he turned his gaze down into the seething mass of faces. After a moment he picked out Suzy in her colorful, gauzy clothing. Kars was not with her. Mulciber was surprised to see that she was quite near, almost at the foot of the docking tower he had climbed. Even as he picked her out, she caught sight of him and commenced waving and signaling. Mulciber was already turning when his finely-tuned ears picked out a sound from amid the rolling thunder of the crowd. The sound of stealthy approach from behind.

He whirled to face his attacker, his arms rising into position, his perceptions slowing and his reactions speeding up. Kars, grinning, directed a hissing spray into his face. Vapor gushed out from a tiny oval dispenser in Kars’s hand, invading Mulciber’s nostrils and coating his face and eyes with tiny droplets. Mulciber’s vision began to fade immediately, but his nerves, desensitized to pain, failed to be stunned by the attack.

“I can climb too, street-” Kars began, his words were cut off by Mulciber’s right hand, which had struck out like a snake to grasp his throat.

The poison worked to paralyze him, but as it was a contact poison and Mulciber’s skin was not porous, it could only penetrate through the surfaces of his eyes and sinuses. This slowed down the effects enough to allow Mulciber to squeeze Kars’s windpipe with all the crushing force of his new hands, although he could do little else.

Only the powerful muscles and tendons in Kars’s neck kept him from immediate death. Mulciber could still see enough to watch Kars’s face contort with rage and grow purple. In silent and wild anger Kars ripped and struck at Mulciber’s outstretched arm, but the iron muscles held. Mulciber concentrated all his remaining will upon crushing the life out of his opponent. He began to lose control of his body, he was distantly aware of the fact that his legs were buckling. His vision was gone, his nerves were dying. Still he held on, his hand clamped in a final grip of steel. He distantly felt sharp spikes of displeasure and warm sensations in his midsection where Kars landed heavy kicks and punches in desperate fury.

Mulciber’s artificial ribs gave, the protected organs underneath would soon be ruptured. He slipped to the metal deck of the docking tower, nerveless and blind. Kars worked with all his strength to tear away the unfeeling fingers that clamped his throat. He finally managed to pry away Mulciber’s weakened grip. Kars leaned against a steel beam, massaging his throat and making choking sounds. When he could articulate, he gave a hoarse laugh.

“You’re dead!” he gasped out, sneering down at Mulciber’s prostrate form. “When the poison reaches your autonomic centers your heart will stop beating and your lungs will no longer function.” Kars gave another short bark of laughter and kicked his helpless adversary in the abdomen. Mulciber felt a sick explosion, but could not react.

Kars paused before climbing down from the tower. “While you die,” he hissed to Mulciber. “I want you to think of me. Just think of my smiling face.”

Mulciber heard him, but could only lie motionless, his nerves in effect severed by the paralytic poison. In minutes the poison would reach his autonomic nerve centers and kill him. But there were other forces at work. His overbuilt body contained several artificially implanted organs which tapped into his circulatory and nervous systems to monitor his vital bodily processes. One such artificial organ, attached to the arteries leading into the liver, detected a foreign substance in his blood stream. A microprocessor analyzed the poison and a counter-agent was released to combat the effects. Other bodily functions, some natural and some not, worked to control the injuries Kars had inflicted. Due to the combined efforts of Mulciber’s artificial organs and his naturally strong constitution, the poisoning was not fatal. The counter-agents released into his bloodstream neutralized the paralytic drug rapidly.

After five minutes his senses had returned. Two minutes later he was able to rise stiffly. His new skin had sealed itself over his wounds. Stimulants and pain relievers borrowed time for him, keeping his injuries from slowing him. In less than ten minutes after the attack, he was ready to fight again. While his body worked to repair itself, Mulciber surveyed the docking tower and landing area with gradually improving vision. He sat crouched on a crossbeam, one with the shadowy tower. His unnatural physique had given him a second chance at his enemy, and this time he would not be taken unaware.

The crowds had evaporated for the most part. The last of the colonists were being expertly hustled aboard by uniformed officials. The remaining well-wishers stood in gray clumps on the vast littered expanse of concrete, awaiting the final departure warning that would send them scurrying back to the gates. The final warning indicated that the prisoners were to be loaded into the holds, and anyone left on the field would be treated as one of the prisoners. Kars and Suzy were nowhere in sight. He noted that there were no signs of Kars having gone after the boy that Mulciber had been directed to kill. The boy and his retainers had apparently made it aboard safely.

The final warning sounded. Mulciber’s gaze, no longer impaired, swept the scene for any sign of Kars or Suzy. He saw none. Another minute passed. The last of the gray-clad stragglers hurried away from the starship. Even as they streamed through the gates, a number of large airships floated down out of the night sky, escorted by two police cruisers each. The airships and police cruiser all bore the gold embossed letters UCP, the insignia of the United Chicago Police. The airships landed and their bays swung open. A flood of prisoners were herded out and toward the starship by cursing guards brandishing electric whips. Mulciber watched the proceedings, tensing his muscles, preparing to break for the gate. The guards abandon the prisoners several hundred yards from the starship’s ramp, as the ship was not part of their jurisdiction. The prisoners, left with the choice of boarding the ship or staying outside and being incinerated by her jets upon takeoff, boarded without much hesitation. As the last of them mounted the ramp, Kars suddenly appeared, dragging a disheveled-looking Suzy behind him.

Mulciber, who was about to leap from the docking tower and make a break for the gates, switched directions and launched himself into the air toward the starship. Mulciber hit the concrete running. His muscular legs pumped, the balls of his feet smacking in perfect rhythm. He stretched his stride further, increasing his speed. His heel crushed a discarded styrofoam cup. As he ran he cleared his mind of all extraneous thought. His body prepared itself for battle. Stimulants kept the effects of his injuries to a minimum. When he was less than one hundred yards behind Suzy and Kars he felt his perceptions slowing, so that each second seemed an eternity, giving him time to plan each move of his attack.

At fifty yards Mulciber’s quarry glanced over his shoulder and saw him coming. Kars turned on the ramp, pushing Suzy behind him and facing Mulciber’s charge. His violet plume dipped and fanned. His hat lost its grip on his head and flew off to one side. The slick man reached into his expensive clothing. Mulciber saw Kars move as if in slow-motion, but could tell that in reality the dandy was reacting with great speed. He surmised that his quarry had an improved nervous system, perhaps one as good as his own.

Mulciber was in full battle-readiness now. His body responded with machine-like speed to his will. His eyes no longer needed to blink, save to prevent injury, for the duration of the combat. At full battle-speed much could be missed in the one fifth of a second that it took to blink. All his reconstructed senses were heightened to their peaks. He smelled the litter and the warm human odors that the crowds had left behind on the landing field. He heard the rush of his own breath as it emptied and refilled his lungs.

At thirty yards Kars’ hand pulled back out of his jacket with a weapon. He snapped his arm forward, releasing it with practiced precision. Mulciber watched the twirling object fly directly toward him. It grew steadily and reflected silvery flashes from the landing field’s glaring lights as it spun. It was a throwing star, a wheel of numerous steel spikes. Each of the spikes glinted as it came into line with his vision. Mulciber gauged that it would strike his throat with its present trajectory. He used all his speed to duck to the right.

The star was ten feet away.

Mulciber’s right leg was coming up, readying for another downstroke that would carry him two yards closer to his quarry. His head was ducking, moving to the right, but still in the path of the twirling spikes.

The star was five feet away.

Mulciber’s right leg was on its downstroke now. He gauged that his throat was out of the spinning weapon’s path.

The star was two feet away.

Mulciber fought the urge to blink.

Wet tearing. The star ripped through skin and muscle. The leading spike scored his left collar bone. The bone split and the star caromed off, flying past him and into the night. His skin began closing immediately. He would bleed for less than a minute.

He did not slow his charge. The two men were still thirty feet apart. Kars’ eyebrows rose slowly as he registered surprise. His hand dived into his jacket again to fish out another weapon.

Twenty feet.

Now Mulciber slowed, shifting his weight, gauging the distance. Kars had a knife out this time. It had a short broad blade and brass knuckles for a hand grip. The hilt glinted a dull yellow in the harsh glare of the landing lights. Kars set his legs, knees bent and balance forward to meet the charge.

Ten feet.

Mulciber’s body lifted, extended, like a hurdler at the last step before a jump. Kars saw the kick coming and dove slowly to the right. Too late. Mulciber launched himself. His heavy foot smashed into Kars’ left shoulder. The force of the blow spun the man half around. Something in the joint snapped. Nerves and cartilage tore loose. The arm spasmed then hung, twisting like a beheaded snake as the muscles contracted and locked.

The knife dropped and clattered on the concrete. Mulciber landed neatly and recovered, whirling around to face his enemy. Kars was up too, although a little off-balance. His face was a blood-flushed death mask. He threw his first punch with his good arm, landing it on Mulciber’s chin.

Mulciber’s head rocked back. His jaw dislocated then slipped back into place. His teeth sank into his lips and the familiar taste of his own blood filled his mouth. Kars snatched up his knife again, underestimating Mulciber’s speed of recovery.

Mulciber’s fist slammed into Kars’ chest. Mulciber noticed that the man took the blow well, yielding with it, but he felt ribs crackle. Kars made use of his knife in a lightning uppercut for the throat. Mulciber blocked it just in time, his arm opening in a long red gash. He countered with another body blow that came in under the extended knife-arm, aiming to rupture the organs behind Kars’ already cracked ribs. Kars dropped the knife again when the shock hit him. He was weakening, but Mulciber knew that he had to end things quickly himself, before his prior injuries started to slow him. Acting with the smooth cunning of vast combat experience, he stepped back, as if to disengage and circle.

Kars, ready for a breather, took the cue and began to pull back himself. In that moment he felt relief and was off-guard. In that moment Mulciber reversed on the balls of his feet and attacked again, moving with all his great speed unleashed. Summoning his reserves of strength, Mulciber put all his power into a kick to the neck that struck home. Kars’s windpipe was crushed. The tiny bones in his throat and voice box splintered. His neck vertebrae shattered and tore his spinal cord from his brain stem as a weed rips loose from its roots, killing him instantly.

Mulciber watched with slowed vision as the slick man fell back with lazy grace onto the bare concrete. His broken head hit with a wet slap.

“You see Mulciber, I knew you would track me! You see, there are men around worth fighting!” Suzy exclaimed happily, stepping forward now that the fight was over. “I’ve given you back your spirit!”

Mulciber ignored her. He watched as a dark stain spread around the man’s ruined head immediately. He nodded to his fallen enemy, silently acknowledging the death of a worthy opponent.

She stepped calmly away from the corpse, hips swinging, toward the distant gates. Her manner indicated that she expected Mulciber to follow. “Do you know what that fool was up to?” she asked. “He was trying to get out of the city all along. He was going to drag me with him on a ship full of prisoners to some wild planet full of proles and-” here she noticed that Mulciber was not following her.

She turned to find him standing where he had been, staring at her. Mulciber’s face, normally somber and impassive, was now twisted. He took two silent strides forward. He lifted Suzy effortlessly, bringing her down into a classic killing hold, her back stretched across his knee, her thin spine ready to snap like rotted wood. Sticky blood from his hands stained her gauzy clothing. Suzy looked up into the face of a wrathful demon. Perhaps for the first time in her life she knew true terror. She did not cry out. She could only gaze up in shock and dread at Mulciber’s hairless face and dark eyes. Helplessly, she faced death, a reality that no amount of smooth talking could erase.

Mulciber eyes searched hers. After a moment, he thought he saw what he was looking for. He found comprehension in Suzy’s eyes, a glimmer only, but still, it was there.

“So, you can feel something, can’t you?” he asked her quietly.

“Yes,” she whispered, her eyes staring wide and unblinkingly up at him. With the air of one making a difficult decision, he spared her life. He rose up, releasing her. With no further words he turned and headed up the ramp into the starship. After a moment Suzy rediscovered her voice.

“Are you crazy? How can you leave Earth?” she called after him, distractedly patting her hair back into place. She was speaking to his broad back. Suzy looked back at the city and its glare-lit streets, its arcades and civilized amusements, then down at the dead man at the foot of the ramp.

She picked up the white felt hat and straightened the plume. “But I don’t want you to go!” she cried after him.

Mulciber continued to walk up the ramp. Just before he reached the top he heard the light thumps of Suzy’s feet as she ran up the ramp after him. He allowed himself a quiet smile. They entered the ship together.