Ciler turned, his eyes full of wonder and relief. The striker grinned. “Favor for favor, doc,” he said. “Get them quick before they grow.”
More insects buzzed nearby. Abbado snatched another out of the air one-handed and crushed it, still smiling.
Simple Problems
The woman was in her sixties, though you had to look into her eyes to be sure. A lot of money had been spent to hide the fact. Her hair was a lustrous black which by its very perfection proved that science had augmented nature.
“Now just bend over and throw your hair forward, ma’am,” Abbado said. “And hold still. Before we can put the patch on, I got to shave you with this.”
He gestured with his 8-inch powerknife. The blade was dull gray except for the wickedly sparkling edges of synthetic diamond. When the knife was switched live, the paired edges sawed their microserrations against one another. The half-millimeter oscillations occurred hundreds of times a second and would slice through just about anything.
“Omigod, no,” the woman said, shrinking back against the man standing next in line. She covered her face with her hands.
Abbado opened his mouth to snarl a curse. “Hey, ma’am,” Glasebrook said. “Look here at me. It’s no sweat, right?”
He lifted his helmet and rotated so that all the nearby civilians could see the patch of cargo tape he, like the rest of the strikers, wore where their spine entered the skull’s foramen magnum. The helmets kept the bugs from lighting, but it’d be a bitch having to sleep with your helmet on. The major wasn’t taking chances.
“Let the sarge shave you and you can look as pretty as me,” Flea added, turning again and giving the woman a smile so broad he looked like a finback whale.
The aircar fifty feet away ran up its fans, lifted, and settled back in place. Abbado didn’t try to shout over the induction howl. When it ceased, he said, “We need to shave the hair so the tape seals right, is the thing. You don’t want to be like that Spook we caught, believe me.”
He was glad he was working with Glasebrook. He’d never seen the Flea lose his temper. Abbado’s own disposition—usually balanced enough when he was sober—had gotten pretty frayed since the Spook bit him.
As soon as the strikers near the ship had their brainstems taped, Major Farrell had swapped them with the squads on the perimeter. When all the strikers were protected, the ones now with the ship had been tasked to take care of the civilians. They worked in pairs: one with the knife, the other to hold the civilian’s head still during the rough-and-ready barbering. A twitch at the wrong time and a powerknife could take a head off as easy as it did the hair.
The woman moaned softly and obeyed, sweeping her hair in front of her face in a veil of the greatest delicacy. An insect sat like a tiny scab at the base of her skull.
The civilian behind her gasped and felt his own neck again. Abbado held his finger across his lips and scowled to keep the fellow from blurting something. He thumbed the powerknife live. Glasebrook took the woman’s head between spread fingers that could crush walnuts.
Abbado sheared the back of the woman’s scalp and the bug lurking there in the same swift, smooth motion. Severed hair trailed away as black gossamer. Abbado rubbed the shaven area with the edge of his right hand to smear off any remnants of the insect, then put the prepared square of cargo tape over it.
“There you go, ma’am,” Glasebrook said as he raised the woman to meet his bright smile. “When we get where it’s safe, you can take the tape off and your hair’ll be just as pretty as ever in no time.”
“Yeah,” said Abbado. “The adhesive dissolves in alcohol and the tape falls off without you feeling it a bit.”
And if you believe that, I’ll try you on “I won’t come in your mouth.”
Aloud he said to the following man, “Next?”
Abbado would have liked to hurry things because the line was still damned long, but he knew that wouldn’t work with civilians. He only hoped that the bugs took longer to get dug in than the strikers did to cover the brainstems. He didn’t want some pretty girl to nut on him the way that Spook had.