Aces High

He shook his massive head. What could he do? If Ekkedme was still alive, he would make his way here. Jube was powerless to help him. Meanwhile, he had a more urgent problem: something, or someone, had discovered, attacked, and destroyed the singleship. The humans had neither the technology nor the motives. Whoever was responsible was clearly no friend of the Network, and if they were aware of his existence, they might be coming after him as well. Jube found himself wishing that he hadn't just given away his weapon to Doughboy.

He watched the Embe's last transmission one last time in the hopes of finding a clue to the unknown enemy. There was nothing, except.. . "The Mother!" Ekkedme had said.

What was that? Some Embe religious invocation, or was his colleague actually calling on the female who had hatched him? Jube spent the next few hours floating in his tub, thinking. He did not savor those thoughts, yet the logic was inescapable. The Network had many enemies, within and without, but only one truly powerful rival in this sector of space, and only one that might be violently disgruntled to find Earth under observation: a species so like and so unlike the humans, imperious and aloof, racist, implacably bloody-minded, and capable of most any atrocity, to judge from what they'd done on Earth, and what they so regularly did to each other.

When dawn neared, and he dressed after a sleepless night, Jube was virtually convinced of it. Only a Takisian symbiont-ship could have done what he had witnessed. The ghostlance or the laser? he wondered. He was no expert on things martial.

It was a gray, slushy, depressing day, and Jube's mood matched it perfectly as he opened his newsstand. Business was slow. It was a little after eight when Dr. Tachyon came down the Bowery, wearing a white fur coat and mopping at an egg stain on his collar. "Something wrong, Jube?" Tachyon asked when he stopped for a Times. "You don't look well."

Jube had trouble finding the words. "Uh, yeah, Doc. A friend of mine… uh, died." He watched Tachyon's face for any flicker of guilt. Guilt came so easy to the Takisian, surely if he knew he would betray himself.

"I'm sorry," Doc said, his voice sincere and sympathetic. "I lost someone myself this week, an orderly at the clinic. I have a horrible suspicion that the man was murdered. One of my patients vanished the same day, a man named Spector." Tachyon sighed. "And now the police want me to perform an. autopsy on some poor joker they found in a dumpster in Chelsea. The man looks like a furry grasshopper, McPherson tells me. So that makes him one of mine, you see." He shook his head wearily. "Well, they're just going to have to keep him on 'ice until I can organize the search for Mr. Spector. Keep your ears open, Jube, and let me know if you hear anything, all right?"

"A grasshopper, you say?" Jube tried to keep his voice casual. "A furry grasshopper?"

"Yes," Tach said. "Not someone you knew, I hope."

"I'm not sure." Jube said quickly. "Maybe I ought to go and take a look. I know a lot of jokers."

"He's in the morgue, on First Avenue."

"I'm not sure I could take it," Jube said. "I got a queasy stomach, Doc. What kind of place is this morgue?" Tachyon reassured Jube that there was nothing to be frightened of. To allay any misgivings, he described the morgueand its procedures. Jube memorized every detail. "Doesn't sound so bad," he said finally. "Maybe I'll take a looksee, in case it is, uh, the guy I knew."

Tachyon nodded absently, his mind on other troubles. "You know," he told Jube, "that man Spector, the patient who vanished-he was dead when they brought him to me. I saved the man's life. And if I hadn't, Henry might still be alive. Of course, I have no proof." Folding his Times up under an arm, the Takisian slogged off through the slush.

Poor Ekkedme, Jube thought. To die so far from home… he had no idea what sort of burial customs the Embe practiced. There was not even time to mourn. Tachyon did not know, clearly. And more importantly, Tachyon must not know. The Network presence on Earth must be kept a secret at all costs. And if the Takisian performed that autopsy, he would know, there was no doubt of that. Tachyon had accepted Jube as a joker, and why not? He looked as human as most jokers, and he'd been in Jokertown longer than Doc himself. Glabber was a backwater, poor and obscure. It had no starflight of its own, and less than a hundred Glabberans had ever taken service on the great Network starships. The chances of him recognizing Jhubben were slight to nonexistent. But the Embe filled a dozen worlds, their ships were known on a hundred more; they were as much a part of the Network as the Ly'bahr, Kondikki, Aevre, or even the Master Traders. One glance at that body and Tachyon would know.

Jube bounced on his heels, feeling the first faint touches of panic. He had to get that body before Tachyon saw it. And the shifter, how could he forget that! If an artifact as valuable as a singularity shifter fell into Takisian hands, there would be no telling what the consequences might be. But how?

A man he had never laid eyes on before stopped in front of the newsstand. Distracted, Jube looked up at him. "Paper?"

"One cf each," the man said, "as usual."

It took a moment to sink in, but when it did, Jube knew he had his answer.

ASHES TO ASHES

By Roger Zelazny

The radio spat static. Croyd Crenson reached out, switched it off, and threw it across the room toward the wastebasket beside the dresser. He took it as a good omen that it went in.

He stretched then, flipped back the covers, and regarded his pale nude body. Everything seemed to be in place and normally proportioned. He willed himself to levitate and nothing happened, so he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. He ran his hand through his hair, pleased to find that he possessed hair. Waking up was always an adventure.

He tried to make himself invisible, to melt the wastebasket with a thought and to cause sparks to arc between his fingertips. None of these things occurred.

He rose and made his way to the bathroom. As he drank glass after glass of water he studied himself in the mirror. Light hair and eyes this time, regular features; fairly good-looking, actually. He judged himself to be a little over six feet in height. Well-muscled, too. There ought to be something in the closet that would fit. He'd been about this height and build before.

It was a gray day beyond the window with patches of slushy-looking snow lining the sidewalk across the street. Water trickled in the gutter. Croyd halted on his way to the closet to withdraw a heavy steel rod from a crate beneath his writing table. Almost casually, he bent the rod in half and then twisted it. The strength had carried over yet again, he reflected, as the metal pretzel joined the radio in the wastebasket. He located a shirt and trousers that fit him well, and a tweed jacket only slightly tight in the shoulders. He turned his attention then to his large collection of shoes, and after a time he came up with a comfortable pair.

It was a little after eight o'clock according to his Rolex, and this being winter and daylight it meant morning. His stomach rumbled. Time for breakfast and orientation. He checked his cash cache and withdrew a couple of hundred dollars. Getting low, he mused. Have to visit the bank later. Or maybe rob one. The stocks were taking a beating, too, the last time around. Later…

He equipped himself with a handkerchief, a comb, his keys, and a small plastic bottle of pills. He did not like to carry identification of any sort. No need for an overcoat. Temperature extremes seldom bothered him.

He locked the door behind him, negotiated the hall and descended the stairs. He turned left when he reached the street, facing into a sharp wind, and he began walking down the Bowery. Leaving a dollar in the outstretched hand of a tall, cadaverous-looking joker with a nose like an icicle-who stood as still as a totem pole in the doorway of a closed mask shopCroyd asked the man what month it was.