He started giggling wildly. Lawrence hadn't really been paying attention, but he thought Orlov had just come out of the toilets.
"You know, it's still pretty early," Amersy said. "You've got to learn to pace yourself, man."
"Sure thing." Edmond threw a salute, almost missing his head. "You got it, Corp. But don't you worry. I'm on it." He tottered over to the jukebox, and after squinting, managed to slide his credit coin in the slot. A spiral video grid twisted up inside the juke's cylindrical pane. Edmond started muttering: "Oh yeah" and "you, baby, you" to the AS as his finger waved at various grids. "Gimme some of that. Oh brother, I want me a piece of that, too." Ska calypso music started to pound out of the overhead speakers. Edmond backed away from the juke, eyes closed, arms waving in a rhythm that didn't quite correspond to anything being played.
All of the locals were nudging each other and smirking at the solitary, swaying figure. His own platoon mates and several of the other platoons laughed and clapped as he began to speed up.
"I gotta have that beer," Amersy said, and broke for the bar.
Lawrence took a last backward glance at Edmond. Something was going to have to be done about him. But not tonight. "Pain level's too high," he whispered as he went after Amersy.
Hal was still on his prominent stool at the middle of the counter. His smile flicked on at every girl who walked in. It never lasted long. The girls who arrived in groups checked him out immediately, then giggled among themselves as they found an empty section of the bar away from him. He earned himself some hard warning stares from boyfriends. Single girls had seemingly all perfected the same dismissive sneer.
"I've been ripped off," Hal whined to Amersy as the corporal leaned on the counter and tried to attract one of the barmen. "Can we employ lawyers to sue people here?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Amersy asked.
"This," Hal grunted. He flicked his glance downward.
Amersy peered at the trooper's feet. "Your shoes don't fit?"
"No! Not that!"
"What's happening?" Lawrence asked. "Hal, you still here? I thought you'd have scored by now."
"I've been sold a dud," Hal told them through clenched teeth. He held his left arm up. There was a slim black band round his wrist. "I haven't got a bleep out of it all evening. Eighty goddamn credits that son of a bitch took off me."
Lawrence had to forcibly hold back his laughter. "Is that what I think it is, Hal?"
"It's not illegal, Sarge," Hal protested. "The guy in the shop swore everyone here uses PSAs."
"Okay. Maybe there's just no one here with your... preference."
"There has to be." Hal lowered his voice to a desperate plaint. "I keyed in an open acceptance. That's like anything these girls are into, I'll go with it. The fucking thing still doesn't work."
Amersy finally managed to get in an order for some more bottles of Bluesaucer.
"Give it time," Lawrence advised.
"I've been here over an hour already. And Edmond told me about this place."
"What about it?"
"They like—" Hal swiveled his head from side to side, making sure no one was listening, then lowered his voice. "They're into threesomes here."
Lawrence groaned. He might have guessed his men would grab the wrong end of that local legend. "That's trimarriage, Hal. It's different."
"Yeah, but they've got to get used to it first, try it out."
Lawrence put a friendly arm round Hal's shoulder. "Listen, take my advice, kid, forget the bracelet and the threesomes for tonight, okay? Just be yourself. There must be a dozen girls in here. Go over and ask one of them if she wants a dance." He gestured at the dance floor, which probably wasn't the best illustration. Two squaddies were prancing around an oblivious Edmond, imitating his crazed movements with grotesque exaggeration. They were both holding on to their beer bottles, with the foaming liquid sloshing out. Their audience was cheering them on. "Or a quiet drink," Lawrence added quickly. "It doesn't matter what you say to them, as long as you say something. Trust me on this one."
"I suppose," Hal grunted sullenly. He glared at the PSA bracelet, willing its electronics to flicker into Technicolor life. The little display panel remained stubbornly dark.
"Good man." Lawrence and Amersy collected their beer and fled back out onto the patio.
After an hour, Jones Johnson had just about got the pool table figured out One of the middle pockets had a worn cushion that you had to watch when you were shooting from the top, and there was a definite slope away from the bottom left corner. Now that he knew all that, he could maybe start hustling a little credit. Certainly from their fellow platoons, and if he got lucky from a local who thought he was king of the skewed table.
Most of his own platoon hung around as the evening wore on, cheering him, or groaning in sympathy as the balls refused to drop. The Junk Buoy began to fill up after sunset. Platoons who'd been here last night reported that the locals had stayed away. Not tonight. The pool games went on. Three wins. Two losses (one strategic). Karl and Odel and Dennis ordered them all some surf 'n turf. They dug into the big platters, chugging down the too-sweet horse piss that passed for beer in Memu Bay, keeping their cue on the table.
After a couple of hours, Edmond's fix was depressurizing. He packed up the dance floor and slumped in a chair, arms hugging his chest and shivering as if the night had brought a front of arctic air in off the water. Jones was kind of pleased about that. Edmond's dancing was always embarrassing, but stoked up, someone had to watch him. And they'd all seen Lawrence give him the eye—before the sarge and Amersy settled down to get seriously hammered together. Not that it mattered; they all looked out for each other in here as much as out on patrol. That's what platoon membership was about.
Even the kid, who was now drunk enough to venture around the girls. Nobody could quite hear what his lines were, but he kept pointing at a black bracelet on his wrist as he staggered from one to the next. All the girls he talked to waved him on or turned their backs to him. The dance floor was heaving with people. And now that his cue aim was wavering from the drink, Jones quite fancied his chances out there among the sweaty strutting bodies. The Junk Buoy's DJ had taken over from the jukebox, and the mood of the crowd was already up and going higher. There were some seriously good-looking pieces of skirt out there, too. And the can-time had stretched on for way too long since they'd left Cairns.
Jones moved out onto the dance floor along with Lewis and Odel. Even with the beer buzzing him, he could move with a decent groove. And there was one girl in a scarlet T-shirt dress with a high hem. She kept returning his grins. She was way too young, still a teen. Which just made it hotter.
He danced with her for a couple of minutes, then put his arms around her and started making out. She was just as eager, letting his hands squeeze her buttocks while his tongue delved down her throat. Her own hand came round, closing on his balls. They'd still not said a word.
Shouting. Angry yells out on the edge of the dance floor. Bodies moving sharply, the way they always did when they were being pushed. Jones lifted his head to look round. "Oh fuck."
It was the kid. He'd made a play for a girl who was in a group. Hadn't checked, or was now too drunk to notice, the boyfriend, who was being backed up by half a dozen youths.
Drunk or not, Hal was still trained enough to respond automatically to the shove. Going with the momentum of the impact, then spinning round, arm coming out, hand flat to chop. Screaming at the fuckers to back off. Them screaming their own fury about alien motherfuckers. Two of them closing fast. Hal dropped into a self-defense pose, arms and legs locking just so. Looking pretty silly as the oblivious dancers behind him kept jostling him around.
The first barrage of fists flew. A girl screamed at the top of her voice. Hal's knuckles crunched into a rib cage with a satisfying jolt running back up his arm. A fist slammed into his own cheek. Red flash. And he was staggering back into more people. Blood foamed out of his mouth.
Everyone in the Junk Buoy was suddenly aware of what was happening: locals seeing an invader—the perv who'd been pestering girls all evening—brutally assaulting one of our lads, platoon squaddies seeing one of ours being surrounded and smacked around.
An implosion of bodies rushed in toward the fight.
Jones levered his way through the barbarous crush. Elbows thudded into him. He kicked out. A broken bottle was stabbed toward his face. He ducked, spinning around, kick-boxing the attacker.
Screams. Bloodlust. The DJ kept the volume cranked up big. Wild fists and feet. Random targets. Many people started chanting: "KillBoy."
A girl jumped on Jones and bit his ear. He bellowed in fury and slammed her into a pillar. She puked up as she fell away. He saw Lawrence staggering back into the room off the patio. A knife flashed.
"Sarge!" A chair registered as a blur of motion above and behind. Jones's arm came up to block, way too late. The solid wood backrest crashed into his forehead. Stars exploded. Very briefly.
Lawrence just managed to sway away from the knife blade as the man slashed at him. Somewhere in his brain there was a perfect countermove; a sort of physical chess maneuver that would enable him to disarm and subdue his attacker with a bent forefinger. Or something. He laughed joyously as he tried to work out how to slide into a fluid kung-fu-style stance. Unfortunately someone hit the floor behind him and bounced into his legs, sending him toppling backward. He thudded into the wall. "Ouch. Hey, that damn well hurt." He laughed again, then stopped urgently as he threw up. A girl on all fours beside him shrieked in disgust as he spewed over her short red dress. She slapped him hard and scrambled to her feet. Lawrence waved and tried to say sorry. That was important, he felt. He couldn't quite see where she was anymore, so instead he threw up again. It'd been ages since he'd been in a decent bar fight. Mind, he was pretty sure it had been more fun last time around.
Police, reinforced by two Skin platoons, arrived at the Junk Buoy within four minutes of the owner raising the alarm. By then the fight had spilled out into the street. Several people were in the water, thrashing about frantically according to how drunk they were.
"Stop this right now," the senior sergeant said. Even with Skin amplifying his voice, no one took any notice. Several bottles were thrown at the Skins.
The two platoons formed a loose semicircle around the brawl, with the police standing behind them. The senior sergeant took a bulky cylindrical canister off his belt and held it high, angled slightly toward the Junk Buoy. There was a dull thud from one end. Its web flew out, a mesh of fine fiber that seethed like a gray-silver nebula in the air as it expanded, then settled over the fighters. Strands stuck to clothes and flesh alike, stretching with every motion. Nobody noticed.
Several thousand volts were pumped through it. People screamed, muscles suddenly locking. Purple-white static flared around extremities, fingers and hair squirting out sparks. Then the fiber's conductive molecules disassociated and the current vanished.