Read Online Borderlands: Gunsight by John Shirley - Free Book Online

back of the outrunner, and fired the weapon four times into the sky, the alien energy rocketing upward. He waited a moment, then fired it three times quickly. It was like sending up a flare.
    He waited, and time passed. The wind scoured Mordecai’s face. The whirlwinds danced on the plains below. Nothing else happened.
    He growled to himself, then repeated the signal. And repeated it again a little later.
    He waited some more . . . the sun was getting low, burning the mist red . . . the moon was peering through a gap in the clouds . . . Handsome Jack might be staring down at him . . .
    Mordecai swore again, got into the outrunner, started it up and drove off, to the southeast, wondering how to approach this.
    It was simple. All he had to do was work out how to invade an entire fortress packed with gunmen, monsters, and defense systems, and overseen by a notoriously vicious, multi-limbed, extra-large mass murderer—and do it all alone.
    No problem.
    •  •  •
    Daphne was sitting in the chair, staring at the wall screens, when the door opened.
    “And . . . how are you getting along, young lady?” asked Boss Jasper, coming through the door with the scar-faced Nomad and three Marauders fully masked. Jasper smiled; the other men stared at Daphne impassively.
    She stood up and stepped briskly behind the chair, thinking about what she might use for weapons. There was the lamp, the pitcher, the table. But Jasper’s protectors had some of the biggest shotguns she’d ever seen pointed right at her.
    It didn’t seem like a good moment to make a move.
    “No need for apprehension, my dear,” Jasper said fruitily. “I am just . . . inquiring after you. No one’s going to hurt you. Not unless you make a move that we decide is a littletoo quick—anything dangerous-looking, don’t you know. I don’t advise it.”
    She shrugged. “You going to show me how you feed the baby again? I don’t need to watch it. I’ve seen it. You made your point.”
    “No, no, not feeding time yet. We do have to hose him off though, I think, from the looks of his cell. He doesn’t much like that. But that’s not why I’m here—I wanted to say, well, perhaps we might come to some sort of understanding, you and I. I mean—you’re very attractive and you’d be an asset. I could use a bodyguard with such an attractive body, eh? Ha-ha.”
    She didn’t laugh.
    He cleared his throat. “Well, yes, anyway—”
    “What kind of ‘understanding’?” Daphne asked.
    “Ah. Well, just suppose your little murderous Mordecai doesn’t get back alive? I gave him a hard assignment. I do hope he does come back—but if he doesn’t . . . I wonder if it’s really necessary to feed you to Bigjaws. If . . . and I mean if . . . you were fully . . . fully cooperative, fully willing  . . .”
    “Willing to do what?”
    “Willing to give and receive pleasure, of course.”
    “You mean—with you?” She pointed at him. “Specifically—you? In bed. With you. That what you mean?”
    “To put it baldly—why yes . If you were to associate yourself with me in that way, why, I’d be reluctant to feed you to . . . my dear little pet downstairs. But . . .”
    “But what?”
    “But I don’t really want any delays consummating this relationship.” He gave her a look of insincere apology. “I don’t wish to be put off.”
    So much for the one ploy that had occurred to her, a moment before: Pretend that she’d think about it, stall him. Wait for a chance to kill him . . .
    But that suggested another move. Get a guy alone in a bed and he was pretty vulnerable. That’s how it had been with Creel.
    She pursed her lips, looked at the ceiling as if thinking it over. “So it’d be just . . . you and me? In here? No one else? Because I don’t think I would want other people to be, you know . . . I don’t like voyeurs.” She nodded toward his guards.
    “Ah, I regret, my dear, that I myself don’t give