Aces High Read online

  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 morgue and its procedures. Jube memorized every detail. “Doesn’t sound so bad,” he said finally. “Maybe I’ll take a look-see, 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 of 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 shop—Croyd asked the man what month it was.

  “December,” the figure said without moving its lips. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Yeah,” Croyd said.

  He tried a few more simple tests as he headed for his first stop, but he could not break the empty whiskey bottles in the gutter with a thought, nor set fire to any of the piles of trash. He attempted to utter ultrasounds but only produced squeaks.

  He hiked down to the newsstand at Hester Street where short, fat Jube Benson sat reading one of his own papers. Benson had on a yellow and orange Hawaiian shirt beneath a light-blue summer suit; bristles of red hair protruded from beneath his porkpie hat. The temperature seemed to bother him no more than it did Croyd. He raised his dark, blubbe
ry, pocked face and displayed a pair of short, curving tusks as Croyd stopped before the stand.

  “Paper?” he asked.

  “One of each,” Croyd said, “as usual.”

  Jube’s eyes narrowed slightly as he studied the man before him. Then, “Croyd?” he asked.

  Croyd nodded.

  “It’s me, Walrus. How’re they hanging?”

  “Can’t complain, fella. Got yourself a pretty one this time.”

  “Still test-driving it,” Croyd said, gathering a stack of papers.

  Jube showed more tusk.

  “What’s the most dangerous job in Jokertown?” he asked.

  “I give up.”

  “Riding shotgun on the garbage truck,” he said. “Hear what happened to the gal who won the Miss Jokertown contest?”

  “What?”

  “Lost her title when they learned she’d posed nude for Poultry Breeder’s Gazette.”

  “That’s sick, Jube,” said Croyd, quirking a smile.

  “I know. We got hit by a hurricane while you were asleep. Know what it did?”

  “What?”

  “Four million dollars’ worth of civic improvement.”

  “All right, already!” Croyd said. “What do I owe you?”

  Jube put down his paper, rose, and waddled to the side of the kiosk.

  “Nothin’,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”

  “I’ve got to eat, Jube. When I wake up I need a lot of food in a hurry. I’ll come back later, all right?”

  “Is it okay if I join you?”

  “Sure. But you’ll lose business.”

  Jube began closing the stand.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “This is business.”

  Croyd waited for him to secure the stand, and they walked two blocks to Hairy’s Kitchen.

  “Let’s take that booth in the back,” Jube said.

  “Fine. No business till after my first round of food, though, okay? I can’t concentrate with low blood sugar, funny hormones, and lots of transaminases. Let me get something else inside first.”

  “I understand. Take your time.”

  When the waiter came by, Jube said that he had already eaten and ordered only a cup of coffee, which he never touched. Croyd started with a double order of steak and eggs and a pitcher of orange juice.

  Ten minutes later when the pancakes arrived, Jube cleared his throat.

  “Yeah,” Croyd said. “That’s better. So what’s bothering you, Jube?”

  “Hard to begin,” said the other.

  “Start anywhere. Life is brighter for me now.”

  “It isn’t always healthy to get too curious about other people’s business around here.…”

  “True,” Croyd agreed.

  “On the other hand, people love to gossip, to speculate.”

  Croyd nodded, kept eating.

  “It’s no secret about the way you sleep, and that’s got to keep you from holding a regular job. Now, you seem more of an ace than a joker, overall. I mean, usually you look normal but you’ve got some special talent.”

  “I haven’t got a handle on it yet, this time around.”

  “Whatever. You dress well, you pay your bills, you like to eat at Aces High, and that ain’t a Timex you’re wearing. You’ve got to do something to stay on top—unless you inherited a bundle.”

  Croyd smiled.

  “I’m afraid to look at the Wall Street Journal,” he said, touching the stack of papers at his side. “I may have to do something I haven’t done in a while if it says what I think it’s going to say.”

  “May I assume then that when you work your employment is sometimes somewhat less than legal?”

  Croyd raised his head, and when their eyes met Jube flinched. It was the first time Croyd realized that the man was nervous. He laughed.

  “Hell, Jube,” he said. “I’ve known you long enough to know you’re no cop. You want something done, is that it? If it involves stealing something, I’m good at that. I learned from an expert. If someone’s being blackmailed I’ll be glad to get the evidence back and scare the living shit out of the person doing it. If you want something removed, destroyed, transported, I’m your man. On the other hand, if you want somebody killed I don’t like to do that. But I could give you the names of a couple of people it wouldn’t bother.”

  Jube shook his head.

  “I don’t want anybody killed, Croyd. I do want something stolen, though.”

  “Before you go into any details, I’d better tell you that I come high.”

  Jube showed his tusks.

  “The—uh—interests I represent are prepared to make it worth your while.”

  Croyd finished the pancakes, drank coffee, and ate a Danish while he waited for the waffles.

  “It’s a body, Croyd,” Jube said at last.

  “What?”

  “A corpse.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There was a guy who died over the weekend. Body was found in a dumpster. No ID. It’s a John Doe. Over at the morgue.”

  “Jeez, Jube! A body? I never stole a body before. What good is it to anybody?”

  Jube shrugged.

  “They’re willing to pay real well for it—and for whatever possessions the guy had with him. That’s all they wanted said.”

  “I guess it’s their business what they want it for. But what kind of money are they talking?”

  “It’s worth fifty grand to them.”

  “Fifty grand? For a stiff?” Croyd stopped eating and stared. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Nope. I can give you ten now and forty when you deliver.”

  “And if I can’t pull it off?”

  “You get to keep the ten, for trying. You interested?”

  Croyd took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “Yeah,” he said then. “I’m interested. But I don’t even know where the morgue is.”

  “It’s in the medical examiner’s office at Five-Twenty First Avenue.”

  “Okay. Say I go over there and—”

  Hairy came by and laid a plate of sausages and hash browns before Croyd. He refilled his coffee cup and placed several bills and some coins on the table.

  “Your change, sir.”

  Croyd looked at the money.

  “What do you mean?” he said. “I didn’t pay you yet.”

  “You gave me a fifty.”

  “No, I didn’t. I’m not finished.”

  It looked as if Hairy smiled, deep within the dark dense pelt that covered him entirely.

  “I wouldn’t stay in business long if I gave away money,” he said. “I know when I’m making change.”

  Croyd shrugged and nodded.

  “I guess so.”

  Croyd furrowed his brows when Hairy had left, and he shook his head.

  “I didn’t pay him, Jube,” he said.

  “I don’t remember seeing you pay him either. But he said a fifty.… That’s hard to forget.”

  “Peculiar, too. Because I was thinking of breaking a fifty here when I was done.”

  “Oh? Do you recall when the thought passed through your mind?”

  “Yeah. When he brought the waffles.”

  “Did you actually have a mental image of taking out a fifty and handing it to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Interesting…”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think that may be your power this time—some kind of telepathic hypnosis. You’ll just have to play with it a bit to get the hang of it, to find its limits.”

  Croyd nodded slowly.

  “Please don’t try it on me, though. I’m screwed up enough as it is today.”

  “Why? You got some stake in this corpse business?”

  “The less you know the better, Croyd. Believe me.”

  “Okay, I can see that. I don’t really care, anyway. Not for what they’re paying,” he said. “So I take this job. Say everything goes smoothly and I’ve got this body. What
do I do with it?”

  Jube withdrew a pen and a small notebook from an inside pocket. He wrote for a moment, tore off a sheet, and passed it to Croyd. Then he dug in his side pocket, produced a key, and put it next to Croyd’s plate.

  “That address is about five blocks from here,” he said. “Rented room, ground floor. The key fits the lock. You take it there, lock it in, and come tell me at the stand.”

  Croyd began eating again. After a time, he said, “Okay.”

  “Good.”

  “But they’ve probably got more than one John Doe in there this time of year. Winos who freeze to death—you know. How do I know which one is the right one?”

  “I was getting to that. This guy’s a joker, see? A little fellow. About five feet tall, maybe. Looks kind of like a big bug—legs that fold up like a grasshopper’s, an exoskeleton with some fur on it, four fingers on his hands with three joints each, eyes on the sides of his head, vestigial wings on back…”

  “I get the picture. Sounds hard to confuse with the standard model.”

  “Yes. Shouldn’t weigh much either.”

  Croyd nodded. Someone in the front of the restaurant said, “… pterodactyl!” and Croyd turned his head in time to see the winged shape flit by the window.

  “That kid again,” Jube said.

  “Yeah. Wonder who he’s pestering this time?”

  “You know him?”

  “Uh-huh. He shows up every now and then. Kind of an aces fan. At least he doesn’t know what I look like this time. Anyway … How soon do they need this body?”

  “The sooner the better.”

  “Anything you can tell me about the setup at the morgue?”

  Jube nodded slowly.

  “Yes. It’s a six-story building. Labs and offices and such, upstairs. Reception and viewing area on the ground floor. They keep the bodies in the basement. The autopsy rooms are down there too. They have a hundred and twenty-eight storage compartments, with a walk-in refrigerator with shelves for kids’ bodies. When somebody has to view a body for ID purposes, they put it on a special elevator which lifts it to a glass-enclosed chamber in a waiting room on the first floor.”

  “So you’ve been there?”

  “No, I read Milton Helpern’s memoirs.”