THEIR MASTER

The fourteen troopers boiled out of the booth. The pilots were almost on them. Renchett's knife flashed in the dim light. There were shouts and screams as the noninvolved struggled to get out of the way before the two gangs ran headfirst into each other. Dyrkin's voice rose above the general din.

"Flying wedge! Hit it!"

Dyrkin had no intention of ru

At first, it was a surprisingly quiet fight. Nobody yelled or screamed; all that could be heard were grunts, curses, and the sounds of falling blows. The troopers started to fan out, pushing the jocks before them. The nature of the fight began to change. The crawler jockeys wanted to break and run, but the troopers were pressing them too hard, and they were being forced into the surrounding booths. This, in turn, caused a new phase of confusion. The occupants of the booths took exception to a crowd of bruised and bleeding men falling into their parties. Further fights started, with the crawler crews taking the brunt of it. Dyrkin's single sharp burst of organization had been more than enough. He relaxed. The troopers who still wanted to brawl followed them into the booths and added to the mayhem. Others stood and caught their breath and watched as the chain reaction got started.

The fighting was threatening to spread all the way down the corridor. Men were thrown through the flimsy partitions that separated the booths. Crystal screens splintered and fragmented. Curtains billowed into strange shapes, were ripped down, and drunks staggered blindly, wrapped up in their folds. The walls around a jum-yum show collapsed, and the participants scrambled from the mudpit, reaching for their clothes. A sluicer on a private orgy of property damage ran headfirst into a stone column and stu

Only the very, very drunk needed a second warning. Nobody wanted to be grabbed by the shore patrol. Such an unlucky offender automatically went back to his ship and maybe a field punishment. The fighting stopped instantly, and, to a man, the brawlers scattered. The sirens were coming down the corridor. There was no way that anyone could stand up to the shore patrol. The white-uniformed women in their heavy-duty servo rigs were stronger than any man. There were rumors that even without the rigs, the women of the shore patrol could incapacitate a man. Once those steel pincers locked onto one's arm, there was no escape. If the victim struggled, they'd crush the bone.

Hark took off with the rest. He was ru

The sirens seemed to be falling back, but still he kept going. He stopped only when he was far ahead of them. By this time, he was completely winded. He had to bend double, hands on his knees, to force air into his straining lungs. Opposite him, in a similar position, was one of the jocks who had been involved in the fracas. They looked at each other. The earlier fury seemed a little absurd. Slowly they straightened up and went off in different directions.

Hark suddenly realized that he was lost. He turned around twice. Everyone who had run from the shore patrol had zigzagged and turned corners. He had simply followed suit. Now he didn't have a clue how to get back to the booth or to the rest of his messmates. There were people strolling by, but there was nothing that he could ask them. He didn't even know the name of the place. All he could remember was the phallic serpent ba

A nearby drinking booth looked inviting. It was a low, faceted dome, and a warm red glow shone through the translucent hexagonal panels. He ducked through the low entrance, thumbing the sensor as he moved inside. A couple of people glanced up at him, but there was no overt hostility-in fact, the place was strangely subdued. The patrons there came from all the functions on a cluster and seemed to share two things in common: Almost all of men were veteran longtimers, and a high proportion were fitted with prosthetic limbs. They lounged on cushions that covered practically the entire floor. There was very little conversation, a noise generator filled the booth with quiet ambient sound. There was a drifting dreaminess to the interior of the dome that was like nothing Hark had previously encountered. Drinks were being served from a low half-moon bar, but they were largely ignored. Instead, attentions were focused on the small, pink ceramic cylinders, each about the size, of a man's forearm, that were being passed from hand to hand. Each man in turn opened the valve on the neck of the cylinder and drew deeply on the molded plastic nozzle. One lungful seemed to be enough. The valve was closed, the cylinder passed on, and then the man who had just used it flopped back on the cushions. Escaping gas filled the place with a sweet, almost sickly smell that made Hark feel a little queasy.

There were surprisingly few women in the dome, and the ones who were lying on the cushions looked much the same age as the men. They were certainly much older than Zydell and the other women who'd been at the "phallic serpent." The only exception was a very young woman who was sitting on a stool in the center of the floor. Naked to the waist, wearing only a pair of very tight cut-off shorts, she leaned back, one knee raised, arms braced against the back of the stool. She was staring dreamily at the ceiling. Blond curls cascaded down her shoulders. Although the pose was deliberately sexy, the girl seemed totally oblivious to the rest of the room. She looked like a living statue.

Hark squatted down on a cushion next to the half-moon bar. He wasn't sure how one was supposed to behave in this place. He glanced at the bartender.

"Could I get a juliet?"

"What the hell's a juliet?"

"I don't know." Maybe the juliet was something exclusive to the "phallic serpent." "So what's your special?';

A longtimer with a steel hand leaned over and spoke to him. His voice was slow and slurred and grated from deep in his throat. "You're in the wrong place, kid." I m sorry.

"You're too young. You need to be out fighting and whoring. You'll get to be like us soon enough. If you ain't killed first."

"I don't understand."

"Of course you don't. You're too young and green." "Do you know a place that has a serpent ba