The Centauri Device Read Free

of the knuckle man as a shoe caught him in the chest. It was a lace-up shoe with a thick sole and a weighted toecap: a fact which surprised him so much that he forgot to keep his head moving. All he could do after a little more of that was curl up into a ball and wrap his arms round his face while he thought about it.
    For a while, there was nothing but the quiet shuffle of feet and a ragged sound in his head which told him John Truck must be involved in it all somewhere — but not how many people were kicking him. Or indeed, why. He was beginning to feel frightened that they wouldn't stop.
    Eventually, though, two of them hauled him upright and began half walking, half dragging him toward a battered black vehicle parked across the street. From Truck's position it looked about the size of a Fleet battleship, but even with both of them working at it they had a job trying to fold him up enough to get him inside.
    'I think I'm going to be sick,' he told them plaintively, but they ignored him.

    While they were sorting it out, a late-model Lewis Phoenix with all eight headlamps on main beam hurled out of Bread Street and drifted to a stop endwise across East Thing. 'Better get a move on, lads,' said Truck. He spread his legs wide and went limp. He jabbed with his elbows, bit a hand that came too close to his eyes.
    Tap, tap, tap, went some heels.
    'Leave him alone,' said Angina Seng, her voice bright and tight.
    She was supporting an ugly Chambers reaction pistol with both hands. Did he detect a slight tremor in her big bony frame? He wasn't in a condition to detect anything. A dark cloak was thrown over her indoor clothes.
    Silence.
    Truck spat some blood into the road.
    'Don't shoot them yet,' he muttered. The inside of his mouth had swollen, he kept biting his cheek by accident 'I would just like a go with one of their knuckledusters first.'
    With sulky looks, they left him alone. Plucky Angina patched them rat off down the street, heading for the dock. They were dressed almost like spacers. She put her Chambers away and helped him into the Phoenix.
    'Well, Captain Truck,' she said. 'You would think, wouldn't you, that they'd at least leave their own kind alone. Do you want the window down?'
    Truck said nothing. One of his lower canines was giving him trouble; and between tentative explorations of his mouth, he was listening to the wind.
    'Suit yourself then.' She smiled encouragingly at him.

TWO

    The Long, Uncomprehending Migration of 'Spaceport Annie' Truck

    'Where have you brought me?' he asked suspiciously. It was all the same to him. He was a heartbreaking sight, slumped in the lift cage with his long chin on his chest, his hair all tangled and dirty.
    'Where's my hat? I can't go anywhere without that hat.'
    He was shivering with reaction. He had a puffy lip, an immense purple bruise stretching from under his left ear down to his shoulder, and swollen glands in his neck. Not that it was anything new. Morosely, he stuck a finger into the great rent in his snakeskin jacket.
    'There was nothing wrong with that hat. Christ, I hate being sick.'
    Angina Seng smiled sympathetically at him. He hoped it was sympathy.
    'I thought you might like to speak to my sponsor after what happened,' she told him. 'Once you know all the facts, you might change your mind about that job.' It was an affront.
    'Facts,' he chuckled. 'Sponsor. Ho ho.'
    He glared at the wall above her head. An uncomfortable silence descended.
    'How did you get this way?' she asked suddenly.
    Stuff you.
    'I don't know what you mean,' he said.
    They didn't speak again, but she wasn't downhearted. Wagging her tail and already anticipating the plaudits of the shepherd, she sheepdogged him out of the lift and into a reception area. There, she vanished behind an unmarked door, leaving him stranded in a front-office landscape of fake-antique carpets like fine soft cellar mold, power-sculptures cunningly designed to achieve optimum blandness and the castration of the art