"Sorry. No can do. It"s already well on its way."

"Sir, we"ll have to transmit a warning..." the aide began.

"We"re not going to use it to impact your world," the prisoner interrupted. "It"s merely transportation.

From my studies of Mars, I understand you maintain a small installation to warn of approaching ships on your larger moon. We plan to replace your men on that moon, just as you"ve replaced ours out here. Its communications equipment should be more than sufficient to let Earth know what"s happened, and give the home world time to send a military force out here to reoccupy the belt. Then we"ll see what becomes of Roderick and the rest of you pirates, once the rest of the system knows about you and your crimes."

"You may yet talk yourself into an early death," Noctis warned.

"My brother once told Roderick of the mischief we could wreak on an occupation force here in the belt,"

the prisoner continued. "But that"s nothing to what he and I can do on your home planet, once they send up replacements for us. You have no idea of the things we can get into and out of."

Noctis leaned forward, his face inches from the captive"s. "Explain," he ordered in a low voice.

"I"ll do better than that. I"ll demonstrate. After all, that was the reason I came back to the vicinity of New Eden, so I"d get picked up by you people and learn what I"ve learned."

Noctis was beginning to look uneasy. "What"s your name, belter?"

"Gemini." The word was followed immediately by a popping sound, like that of air rushing into a sudden void. The figure on the chair, his clothing, the straps that had been attached to him, vanished in an instant.

A small, metallic object remained behind, on the seat above which the prisoner had floated.

The aide was the first to recover his voice, after the prisoner winked out of existence before all their eyes.

"Say, that looks like one of the belter explosive devices we were talking about..."

No one in the occupation force was ever able to figure out what caused the destruction of their flagship and the loss of their commanding officer.

The moving light over Phobos took on the form of a human, in a pressure suit, out here where no human could possibly be...

THAT DOGGONE VNORPT

by Nathan Archer

Nathan Archer took to writing professionally when his "steady" government job ceased to exist in post-Cold War budget cuts, and has now auth.o.r.ed half a dozen licensed novels based on Star Trek, Predator, Spider-Man, and Mars Attacks, as well as scripting a Star Trek comic book for Wildstorm/DC. Although the money to be made from spin-offs is nice, he is trying to get away from playing with other people"s toys and is working on a novel about his own creation, Amelia Hand.

Anelia Hand didn"t notice the first obvious sign that something was wrong at the Busted Fin. The fact that the huge service doors were standing open somehow didn"t register; she was too concerned with getting inside, out of the blinding white Daedalus sunlight, and getting herself some decent beer and a look at the local talent. Seven weeks alone aboard her ship with nothing to drink but water and condensed fruit juice had left her desperate.

Once she set foot inside, though, she immediately knew there was a problem.

"What"s that smell?" she demanded, before her eyes adjusted to the gloom of the interior. The usual odors of spilled beer and hot oil were overwhelmed by a stench she didn"t recognize.

Then she saw the vnorpt and stopped dead in her tracks, her hand dangling near the b.u.t.t of the blaster on her thigh.

It was standing at the bar-or rather, towering over the bar, its crest stooped slightly to avoid sc.r.a.ping the ceiling- talking to Al, the bartender. Hand had never seen a vnorpt in the flesh before, but there was no mistaking it; no other sentient stood five meters tall and three meters wide.

And no other sentient smelled quite so awful either.

"He was a pet!" Al was shouting. "A companion!"

"Oops," the vnorpt said, in a bone-shaking rumble. It belched. "Sorry."

Hand looked around the room. Half a dozen humans cowered in the booths along one wall. The stools at the bar, and the other tables, were all deserted. A waitress stood cringing in one corner, staring at the vnorpt. She and Al were the only employees in sight, and the six in the booths, the vnorpt, and Hand herself the only customers.

There were at least six a.s.sorted freighters in port, a Patrol cruiser, and the starliner Dreamship III, as well as Hand"s own Tristan Jones; the Busted Fin should have been jammed with people, some of them as eager for human companionship as Hand was.

"What"s going on?" Hand demanded, her fingers lightly tapping the blaster.

Al looked past the vnorpt and said, "He ate Barnstable!"

Barnstable was Al"s dog; Hand had never liked him much. She"d never had much patience with pets, and Barnstable, half bulldog, half ba.s.set hound, and half-witted, had been even less lovable than most.

"Was an accident," the vnorpt rumbled. "Thought it was snack. Pay for damages, yes." It dropped a credit chit on the bar with one of its feeding claws.

"You can"t just..." Al began.

"Said was sorry," the vnorpt interrupted. "Now, beer, yes?""You ate my dog! You get out of here!" He pointed toward the service door.

"Uh-uh," the vnorpt said, lifting one of its hands off the floor and waving the stubby talons in Al"s face warningly. "No racial incidents, yes? Treaty says vnorpt travel freely in public areas of human settlements, no refusal just for being vnorpt."

"I don"t care if you"re a vnorpt or a 1"antar or a G.o.dd.a.m.n tree frog! You ate my dog!"

"Was accident," the vnorpt insisted. "Very sorry. Pay insurance value three times, yes? Now, beer."

"You ate my dog and chased away all my customers!"

"Not responsible for unfortunate prejudice of clientele. Beer, third time asked." This final sentence sounded very much like a warning.

Hand decided that it was time to intervene-and not by pulling a blaster. "Give him his beer, Al," she called, as she strode up to the relatively small section of bar not blocked by the vnorpt. "And file a protest about Barnstable later. You don"t want to make this fellow angry."

n.o.body ever wanted to be around an angry vnorpt.

Al glowered unhappily at her, but picked up the credit chit with one hand and a pitcher with the other, and opened a tap.

The vnorpt looked down at Hand. "Thanks," it said. It took in her size and general appearance, and said, "You little guy, yes? Kinda cute."

"Thanks," Hand said, not meaning it. She looked up at the vnorpt.

It was roughly egg-shaped, covered with bony brown armor. Four long, multiply-elbowed arms hung from its middle, and four feeding claws were arrayed below its gigantic maw, ready to shove in whatever got within reach. Four eyes on stubby stalks bracketed the immense mouth, all of them currently tilted toward her, and a greenish-yellow crest topped it off. Something yellowish was seeping between plates of bone on one side of its head-if it had a head- and Hand suspected that was the source of the worst of the foul smell. Nothing corresponding to ears, nose, or other human features was visible.

A typical vnorpt, in other words, completely nondescript to anyone but another vnorpt. The only thing that made this one unusual was its location, in a human-run bar in Daedalus Port rather than out in vnorpt territory.

This character, Hand told herself, was clearly a problem that had to be dealt with. The Busted Fin was the only worthwhile bar in the entire port, as far as Hand was concerned. The others were all overpriced tourist traps that would be full of the pa.s.sengers off the Dreamship III. Hand was eager to find a little action-a nice big freighter crewman would be very welcome-but she was not about to waste her time on a bunch of overdressed twits who thought tooling around on a starliner made them s.p.a.cers.

And they probably wouldn"t want to waste time on her either, if the truth be told. She was no exotic offworld beauty, just a stubby middle-aged woman with a blobby nose that she kept meaning to get fixed but never had yet.

Freighter crews weren"t so picky about details like that. But freighter crews weren"t going to set foot in the Busted Fin so long as this mountain of alien meat was stinking up the place; vnorpt were known to occasionally smash skulls or break human legs "accidentally," just as this one had "accidentally" eaten Al"s dog. They generally didn"t actually eat humans anymore, not since the treaty, but even that wasn"timpossible if a vnorpt got drunk enough. It would mean apologies and reparations and warnings from the Patrol, but that wouldn"t do the vnorpt"s dinner any good.

"What brings you to this part of town?" Hand asked. She had hopes of convincing it to move on to a different bar-the Stardust Lounge, maybe, where the tourists would probably be just thrilled to meet a real, live alien.

"Beer," the vnorpt replied. "Good beer here. Not like the others."

Al finished filling the pitcher and handed it to the vnorpt, which transferred it to a feeding claw, then tossed it down in a single gulp, like a human drinking a shot of whiskey.

"Can"t argue with that," Hand said. "So you"ve tried the others? The Stardust?"

The empty pitcher dangled from the tip of the claw, swinging back and forth as the vnorpt said, "Tried Stardust. Beer there tastes like dirty water. Here is real beer." It reached up and dislodged the pitcher; Al dove forward in time to catch it as it fell. "More beer," it said.

"I"ll have one, too," Hand said, as Al reached for the tap. "Just a half-liter, though, and make it a stout."

Al grumbled something and began refilling the pitcher.

"I didn"t know that vnorpt like beer," Hand said, as she waited for her drink.

"Yes," the vnorpt said. "Tried some because humans talked about it so much. Good stuff. Got more respect for humans now. Anyone who invent beer is okay."

"Then you don"t make your own? There"s no vnorpt beer?"

"No vnorpt beer, because no vnorpt hops, no vnorpt yeast. Dumb question, little guy." A vnorpt hand lashed out in what was probably intended as a comradely gesture akin to a slap on the shoulder; the impact slammed Hand off her feet.

She reacted completely automatically. By the time she hit the floor, she had her blaster out of the sheath on her thigh and pointed at the vnorpt"s head.

"Oops," the vnorpt said, but Hand wasn"t looking at that-she was looking at Al, behind the bar, who had put down the pitcher and was now nodding vigorously, drawing a finger across his throat.

"Self-defense," Al said. "I"m a witness."

Hand hesitated.

The vnorpt hadn"t intended to hurt her, she was fairly certain. Al was mad about his dog and what the vnorpt was doing to his business, but the vnorpt was still a sentient being and probably hadn"t really meant any harm. Shooting it wasn"t called for unless it actually attacked someone.

Besides, she was only carrying a standard-issue urban blaster, where penetration was deliberately kept low so that random shots wouldn"t punch through entire blocks and take out innocent bystanders. She wasn"t sure what it would do to vnorpt armor.

She lowered the weapon, but didn"t return it to its holster.

"Sorry, sorry," the vnorpt said, and before Hand could get back on her feet, one of those long arms had reached out and grasped her shoulder. It picked her up, and two of the vnorpt"s other arms beganbrushing her off. "Very sorry," it said. "Low gravity tricky, yes?"

"I"m fine," Hand said. "Put me down." The gravity in Daedalus Port was 1.08 gees-not low by human standards at all, though Hand usually boosted her ship at higher acceleration than that, in the interest of saving flight time.

Vnorpt had apparently evolved under much higher gravity. n.o.body really knew much about their origins, but that much was widely believed.

"Just checking for broken bones, things like that," the vnorpt said, as it stuck a hand in her crotch.

She really hadn"t intended to fire, but that was too much. The blaster bolt spattered glowing plasma across the brown armored face.

The vnorpt dropped her, and she landed sitting on the bar. The stench of vnorpt was now worse than ever-whatever that yellow stuff was, it smelled even ghastlier when it burned.

"Ouch!" the vnorpt complained, dabbing at a singed eye.

"Oops," Hand said, smiling broadly. "Sorry, sorry."

The other three eyes swung around to glare at her. It made a noise she had never heard before, and never wanted to hear again; she wasn"t sure whether it was a laugh or a growl or what. "Beer," it said to Al. "And wet cloth."

Al was staring up at the vnorpt in astonishment, his mouth hanging open.

"Beer," it said again. "And wet cloth."

Al remembered himself, and handed up the refilled pitcher and a bar rag. When the vnorpt took them, he leaned over and said to Hand, "You shot it!"

She stared at him silently as she slid off the counter and landed standing at the bar.

"You shot it in the face at point-blank range, and it isn"t even hurt!"

"I think it stung a little," Hand said.

"But you shot it in the face!"

Hand sighed. "Al," she said, "I have some buddies who fought the vnorpt in the Eridani campaign. They told me that the way they used to work was they would systematically cut the vnorpt ships to pieces, and then would go in and potshot the individual vnorpt as they drifted in vacuum. The vnorpt would sh.e.l.l up, to hold in their air as long as possible, and they could live a couple of hours like that, long enough for another vnorpt ship to rescue them, so our side didn"t just let them alone, they went in and picked them off. It usually took a couple of shots to punch through the armor and let the air out, and that was with a ship"s heavy plasma cannon, not some d.i.n.ky urban sidearm. Sometimes even the cannon wouldn"t do the job, and they"d knock "em down into the nearest star, instead." She shook her head. "I used to wonder sometimes whether those guys were exaggerating, or whether the vnorpt crews wore extra armor, besides what nature provided. I guess not."

Al drew her a half-liter of stout while she made this speech; he pa.s.sed it over and stared up at the vnorpt.

"Better," the vnorpt said, dropping the rag, which was now coated with yellow slime, onto the bar. "Yes, vnorpt pretty tough, compared to humans. Good side to that and bad side, yes?""Yes," Hand agreed. "No hard feelings?"

"No anger. Pet eaten, eye shot, b.u.mps, thumps, pokes, no big deal. Tolerance required. Accidents and inappropriate things always happen when people from different cultures interact, yes?"

"Yes," Hand said again. In a way, she was almost beginning to like the vnorpt, clumsy and obnoxious though it might be.

But she didn"t want it in the Busted Fin. There were too many of those inappropriate things happening.

"Al," she said, "I bet our friend here would like to meet Mickey Finn-think he"ll be in tonight?"

Al looked at her, then at the vnorpt. "He might be, at that," he said. He looked up at the vnorpt. "Want another beer?"

"Yes," the vnorpt said, handing down the pitcher.

Al started filling it, and glanced sideways at Hand. He needed her to distract the vnorpt so he could add something to the drink, of course.

"So," she said, "did you fight in the Eridani campaign?"

"Didn"t fight," the vnorpt said. "Not a fighter."

"So you never saw a blaster before?" Hand asked, raising her weapon again.