Borderlands: The Fallen by John Shirley Page B

They’d love to cut our throats in our sleep. Anyhow, Bizzy’ll keep watch.”
    “You know me well enough yet to tell me how you tamed that Drifter thing?” Zac asked.
    “Oh …” The old man touched the strange, alien-tech metal collar around his neck. “Not yet. Tell you someday maybe. If’n I decide I trust you. Which ain’t likely.”
    He controlled the beast through that alien collar somehow, Zac guessed …
    “You want some more skag meat, boy?” Berl asked.
    “No. No that was enough, thanks.”
    “Skags’re as much lizard as anything else. Tamed me a skag pup once. But it got hungry and bit off one of myfingers.” He held the maimed hand up for Zac to see—the index finger was just a stump. “So I shot him.”
    He patted the shotgun by his side. Behind him, within reach, was the rocket launcher.
    Seeing Zac look at the guns, Berl scowled. “Wonder how’m I gonna sleep with you around …”
    Zac shrugged. “I don’t snore much.”
    “Not what I meant. You might slip over here and choke me dead, so’s you can take what’s mine. I don’t know you. Took a big chance takin’ you in.”
    Zac tossed a stick onto the fire. “Berl, I’m a family man. I’m an engineer. I’m not a bandit. You saw what I came down in. I’m an offworlder.”
    “And that’s supposed to make me feel better? Most of these sons of bitches was offworlders once. Some of the worst I met are offworlders. That bastard Crannigan—he’s an offworlder. He’d feed a baby to a skag if it made him a nickel.”
    “Who’s Crannigan?”
    “Skunk mercenary got a job from the Atlas bunch to locate a … well,
somethin’
out here. He ain’t found it yet. He’ll murder to get there too, mark my words.” He grinned, showing gapped teeth. “But he’ll find more than he bargained for. Oh yes. Something’ll be laughin’ at him as it chews him up an’ spits him out …”
    Lying on her back in the sealed lifeboat, Marla decided that they’d camped for the night. The bandits were sitting around campfires, laughing, talking, cursing one another, drinking, arguing, giggling, jeering—just out of her line of sight. She could see the enormous rapacious moon ofthis hungry world hanging over them, as if it were waiting for a meal. Flamelight fluttered to the right; to the left was darkness broken by patches of moonlight.
    It was difficult to see much more from here, with the lifeboat’s hatch shut. It was like a coffin with a transparent lid. The lifeboat was giving her air, somehow; it had given her water from a tube, and another device allowed her to eliminate urine. She’d found a compartment close to her right hand, with several packets of food mash. She’d found a mayday beacon too, in the same compartment—but it appeared to be dead.
    Still, she ought to be able to get out of this space tomb. There was a computer that would let her out if she asked it to. But she didn’t want to leave with these thugs surrounding her. The only thing that had kept them from raping her, maybe killing her, was that they couldn’t get in.
    Sooner or later, though, they’d sell the lifeboat, and her with it, to someone who’d force it open somehow. And that would be the beginning of the end …
    She turned on her side, lifted up on her arms, pressed an ear to the cool transparent hatch, listening. The gruff voices came through now. Some of the men seemed to be singing:
    Oh I’ve got a very good friend, a very good friend he’ll be
    He’s my best friend now for I’ve run out of meat
    He’s got strong legs, does he, and fine strong arms too:
    Got fine good meat upon him, go real fine in a stew!
    For I’ve run right out of food and he’s
    Looking good, awfully good, mighty good … to …
    eeeeeeeat!
    Much hooting and hilarity at that. “Sing another one!”
    But an argument sprang up instead of a song.
    “I told ya, you gamble, you lose, you pay, Snotty! Now cut off that fucking testicle or pay me the fucking money!”
    “That