They were kids with personality problems, so they joined tough gangs, living only to fight and kill. Society had to find a way to correct—

The Vicious Delinquents

By Mark Reinsberg

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy October 1958 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Two or three things worried me on my trip back to the hideout. So my astrogation was sloppy and I kept losing Jupiter's shadow.

First, there was the showdown with Naomi over who would lead the Callisto gang. This meant another degravity fight with python whips and steel claws. Having just gotten rid of the old battle scars on my cheek, shoulder and breast, I wasn't so eager to have my title back on the same disfiguring terms.

On the other hand, wouldn't the girls take it as a sign of cowardice if I tried to settle peaceably for second in command?

Next, I kept thinking about the money I'd taken from my parents the day before. What amazed me was how they could be so stupid as to believe I would go to Mars and enroll in that technical school. Two thousand solars was just enough to buy this sweet secondhand 2064 model Spacer coupe. The gals in our ordnance crew would rig it up with missile launchers, turn it into a killer, flagship of our fleet.

But just now my ship was unarmed, defenseless. And as I approached our base on airless, rocky Callisto I again had the feeling I was being followed, trailed in space.

Not by any of the Io boys; I was pretty sure of that. Because that brave gang will always attack when the odds are five to one in their favor. And not by the police either: They've always left us alone. Someone else.

I circled Jupiter's fifth moon warily, searching a half million square miles of space for the suspected other rocket, but my instruments detected nothing man-made. So I radioed the password and hastily set down in the mouth of a giant natural cave entrance—the airlock of our underground hideout.

While air hissed into the chamber I strapped on my weapons belt and glanced in the doorway mirror. Not—mind you—because there's anything particularly feminine about me, but it's still such a surprise not to find a face full of claw marks that I studied my appearance with a kind of stranger's curiosity. Even without scars, I would hardly call myself an attractive girl.

My black dyed hair had reverted to its original blond shade, and the same shoulder length it had had two years ago when I was matrixed. I had a fifteen-year-old's applecheeked complexion, and thick eyebrows that met above the bridge of my long thin nose and cried out for plucking. My ears were too large and my jaw rather sharply angular. Only my neck seemed gracefully proportioned—long, finely sculptured.

At the rest, sheathed in a black metallic leotard, I could only shrug.

The airlock opened. Chin uplifted, I strode from my ship with python whip coiled in my hand, steel claws jingling at my waist. My name, in case you're interested, is Vera.

At the heavily guarded first corridor I was met by Ginger, a fat fog-throated valkyrie who serves as our security officer.

"We were almost ready to blast you, my dear. Good thing you signalled when you did."

We rapped the knuckles of our clenched fists in greeting.

"What's happened in the past week?" I asked. "Kill any more Ios?"

Ginger grimaced. "Naw. I shot the arm off one but I don't think he died. Ran into him in an alley in Ganymede City. Imagine that guy! He was trying to steal an air synthesizer I myself had just stolen."

The corridor led to the First Hall, a large vestibule bright with luminescent wall paint where eight tunnels branched off into separately hollowed-out caverns in the rocky guts of Callisto.

"I'm itching to get back into combat," I said. "What do you say we make a raid on the Io boys tomorrow?"

Ginger realized I was testing her loyalty. "I'd like nothing better," she responded heartily. "But of course we'll have to clear it with Naomi first."

I stopped abruptly. "Since when?"

"Well, Vera, she became leader the day after you fell."

"By whose authority?" I said indignantly.

"Don't play dumb recruit. You know our system. We had no way of knowing you'd return. Naomi and half a dozen others declared for title, and Naomi won out in a fair gang fight. Just like you did before her."

"So it seems we have two leaders now," I said, limbering my python whip.

"That's something you and Naomi will have to work out," Ginger intoned. "I'll leave you here to choose your own tunnel."

This was part of the ritual of our gang. When a new girl arrived, the tunnel she selected, blindly, determined her branch of service on Callisto. One tunnel led to commissary, another to transport, another to ordnance, another to facilities, and the remaining four to combat training units. A girl had to be rather unlucky to miss out on the fighting branch, but in the other units she at least learned a great deal about thievery, heavy drinking and the use of dope.