Alien Chronicles 1 - The Golden One by Deborah Chester Page A

parts.
    Then the beeping alarm suddenly changed pitch to something shriller and more insistent. The sniffer came flying after him. “Warning,” it blared. “ID chip five-five-seven-two-one-zero, you are in violation of city ordinance—”
    Elrabin snarled a curse and ran, dodging pedestrians and stacks of uncollected garbage on the decaying street. At the corner ahead of him was a group of Toth thugs, seemingly idle and talking to each other in the guttural, broken phrases they considered their own language. In reality they were looking for their next victim to shake down. Elrabin veered instinctively away from them, because Toths were always big trouble, then reconsidered and ran straight toward them.
    The sniffer followed, locked on him now and still blaring its message. If the stupid thing expected him to stand still as ordered and wait until a patrol skimmer showed up to arrest him, pass sentence, and utilize the wrist cutters on the spot, he wasn’t going to behave like a good little slave-grade citizen.
    Ahead of him, the group of Toths stopped talking and stared at the approaching sniffer, their floppy ears extended. Uneasiness showed on their broad, ugly faces.
    Grinning to himself, Elrabin stayed on direct approach. He figured they all had record sheets. Let the sniffer get in range of their registration codes, and it might short-circuit from trying to lock on everyone at once.
    Muttering, the Toths could have scattered, but instead they spread out to face Elrabin. They were all adults, well above twice his height. Their massive, oversized heads were covered in mats of brown, curly hair. Their small, dim eyes glittered with brutal malice and little else. Originally brought to Viisymel for heavy labor, the Toths were rebellious and hard to control. Most ran in gangs or worked for slavers as enforcers. They respected no authority, followed no rules. Genetic bullies, they fed on fear and intimidation.
    The sniffer was still blaring at Elrabin, ordering him to halt for arrest. He ran right up to the Toths, watching the sniffer from the corner of his eye to make sure it was close enough, then veered to dart around the thugs.
    One of them grabbed him by the shoulder and brought him to a halt so sudden that Elrabin was nearly jerked off his feet. Snarling and snapping in fear, his plan suddenly cooked, Elrabin tried to break free of the Toth’s grip and failed.
    The sniffer halted and floated over their heads, still blaring its message. Elrabin glared at it, wondering why it didn’t scan the Toths. The stupid sniffer’s multiscan capability must be broken, he figured. Elrabin muttered under his breath and tried again to twist free. His captor only clamped Elrabin’s shoulder harder, making him gasp with pain.
    A small red light suddenly glowed on the sniffer’s scuffed ovoid surface. Elrabin’s heart lifted with hope, but one of the Toths pulled out an illegal sidearm and shot it, exploding bits of wire and circuitry over their heads. The bits came raining down, white-hot, singeing Toth fur where they landed.
    Elrabin’s captor bellowed in pain and slapped at his head. Elrabin took a chance, twisted around, and bit the hairy wrist of the hand clamped on his shoulder.
    Toth blood, hot and foul-tasting, spurted across his tongue. The Toth bellowed again and slung Elrabin away. Elrabin went flying bodily through the air, arms and legs windmilling, and slammed into the graffiti-covered wall of a building.
    The impact jolted his bones and knocked the breath from him. He lay on the ground, stunned and only half-conscious. By the time he managed to suck air back into his lungs, he found himself roughly flipped over on his back. Hands groped and patted through his pockets and belt pouch.
    When he realized groggily what they were doing, he tried to sit up. “You—”
    The Toth kneeling over him butted him in the chest with that massive head. Everything went black, and when the world came back again Elrabin found himself