by C. Gockel
Sean’s leap forward sent a lightning bolt down her spine. Her pulse rate slowed when she realized he’d snared two seats against the wall when the incumbents went to the counter. She flung herself down in her chair and rolled tight shoulders. The shuttle should be boarding soon. Surely.
A flash of blue at the edge of the crowd. Her heart bounced. She grabbed Sean’s arm. "Bronx’s goon. Over to the right."
"Yes, I see him," Sean said.
The big Ptorix was so obviously a thug. His dark-blue fur marked him as low caste, and his tentacles slashed in rhythmic arcs; backwards and forward, purposeful, concentrated. She slid down in the chair. The three eyes at the top of the Ptorix’s conical body could easily cover three hundred and twenty degrees. But big as he was, most of the human men were taller; he’d find it difficult to spot them in the crush of bodies and luggage.
The piped music stopped. Silence fell as people looked up expectantly, listening. At last, the boarding announcement.
"Galaxy Interplanet would like to welcome all passengers traveling to Carnessa Station for transit. Please have your ticket ready for scanning."
The room erupted into noise and activity as people stood and gathered up belongings. Multi-headed queues began to form at the gate, passengers jostling for position to be first into the ramp. Allysha couldn’t see the Ptorix thug anymore through the thicket of bodies. Or more importantly, he couldn’t see them.
"Hurry." Sean pushed his way forward. "We can go to the front—we’ve got first class tickets."
"I’m impressed," she said. "Employers with money."
Sean barged his way through the throng, brandishing his ticket like a weapon in response to any protest. Even so, he had to work to get through the logjam at the gate.
"Ghatuzsh!" The Ptorix howl rose above the din.
Her pulse raced. "He’s seen us. Quick."
Sean surged forward, shoving his way through protesting passengers to the scanner. The match of ID and ticket took a split second, then he was through, sprinting down the passageway, Allysha pounding at his heels.
The ramp bent to the left, no longer in a direct line from the lounge. Sean slowed to a rapid walk and she followed suit, panting. She glanced over her shoulder. Shouts in Ptorix and Standard issued from the shuttle lounge but no one seemed to be following.
"We’re okay, Ally." Sean’s face creased into a satisfied smile. "We’re safe. They won’t let him follow us."
She just looked at him. If this was safe, so was holding up the targets in a shooting gallery. "Whatever you say. I hope this job’s worth the effort."
"It’ll be worth it, Ally, you’ll see. We’ll be able to buy Bronx off and still have plenty left."
She hoped so. This job on Tisyphor wouldn’t be hard work. An old mine being reopened, existing Ptorix systems to be interfaced with a brand new human system. Set up the security, set up monitoring. It was similar to the work she had completed at Brjyl. And the money, as Sean had said, was excellent.
A steward greeted them at the airlock and directed them to their seats, half-way down on the left of the first-class compartment. The cabin started to fill; grim faced businessmen, a couple with two children, an elderly couple, all escaping Carnessa. When a couple of Ptorix came on board her pulse began to race again. But she recognized the high-caste businessmen she’d seen in the departure lounge. They were guided to two places on the other side of the shuttle, where the steward pressed the buttons that converted the human seats to Ptorix platforms for them. Soon all the seats were full.
"Welcome aboard the transfer shuttle to Carnessa Space Station," said the IS in Ptorix. "The flight will take approximately forty-five minutes. Please relax and make yourselves comfortable."
The announcement was repeated in Standard. At last. The hatch seals hissed. Harnesses rose from compartments in the seats and clamped into place over her shoulders and legs. The ship lurched into motion. She let out a breath, blowing away the tension in her shoulders.
The ship’s cabin had been conditioned for take-off, but she still felt some of the pressure of acceleration. She gazed at the view screen as the ground raced away below, details lost in the greater whole. The lights of Ullnish lined the dark ribbon of river and out to sea scattered gleams betrayed ships waiting to dock. To the west, a small patch of lights must be Shernish.
The ship pierced the clouds and the ground disappeared. Like a curtain closing at the end of a performance. One last job. One last job and she could get on with the rest of her life.
2
"We’ve made orbit and are making preparations to land." The announcement startled Allysha out of a doze. The harness slid silently from its housing in the seat and snapped down over her legs and shoulders. Sean, interrupted in mid-snore, rubbed sleep from his eyes.
The view screen in the passenger cabin showed a cloud-swathed, green and purple planet with bright white polar caps and dark blue oceans. Past the terminator line, the darkness was complete, without the telltale sprinkling of lights that indicated technology.
Tisyphor. A whole new, mysterious world; at once scary and fascinating. What would it be like?
The atmosphere thickened. The harness tightened around her as the ship shuddered and bucked its way through a deep cloud layer and then slowed for its final descent.
Gases hissing, the ship settled onto its landing pads. The whine of the engines faded into silence, the external hatch soughed open and the harness retracted back into the seat. Her stomach churning, Allysha rose to her feet and collected her bag. She glanced at Sean, still dithering with his belongings, and strode the short distance down the central aisle of the passenger compartment to the open hatch.
Good grief, it was like walking into a sauna. She hesitated until Sean’s hand on her back urged her forward. Moisture began to bead on her face, her shirt stuck to her skin and she was certain she could feel her hair begin to curl. The air tasted different, too; a little bit earthy and sweet. Not unpleasant; just not what she was used to and different again to the arid, dusty air of Brjyl, the only other planet she’d been to apart from home.
The ship had landed on a platform above purple and green forest that spread to the horizon on three sides. Blues and greens seemed brighter, somehow, and reds and oranges more subdued. To her left a sheer rock face rose into an overcast sky. That would be the extinct volcano where the mine was situated. Below and to the right, a short distance away, she caught a glimpse of buildings clustered around a cleared area.
A man came out of a lift on the opposite side of the platform and approached, smiling one of those broad, false smiles that didn’t reach the eyes. "Welcome to Tisyphor. I’m Gerrit van Tongeren. You must be Mister O’Reilly and Miss Marten."
Sean plastered on an equally broad smile, took the proffered hand and shook it. "Pleased to meet you."
"If you’d like to come this way." He herded them into the lift and pressed the button for the ground. When the door opened, he gestured at an open-topped skimmer standing in the road. "Hop in."
She sat in the back, while Sean sat beside van Tongeren. They drove along a road through the jungle toward the cluster of buildings she’d seen from the platform. The place was so different to home; strange trees with speckled trunks and leaves like enormous hands hanging down. The clicks and whirrs of wildlife filled the air and a few winged insects drifted amongst the overhanging branches, bright wisps of color against the foliage.
The vehicle pushed through a transparent barrier. She felt the substance, whatever it was, mold briefly around her body and then spring away. The temperature and humidity dropped as though they’d driven into a refrigerator. Wow, that was better. She hadn’t fancied working in a steam bath.
"What was that?" she asked.
"The settlement’s built in a climate-conditioning bubble. Pity it doesn’t extend as far as the mine," van Tongeren said.
"Is there a tavern here?" Sean asked.
Van Tongeren’s eyebrows arched. "Of course, but don’t you
want to see your house?"
"Ally can do that. I’m parched."
Allysha rolled her eyes. Typical. "That’s okay. Maybe you can drop him off."
Van Tongeren stopped the skimmer outside a welcoming looking place where scattered tables and benches were interspersed with plants in colored planter boxes. The sign over the door proclaimed the ‘Miners Refuge’. Bouncy, repetitive music played too loudly. Sean alighted and van Tongeren drove on to a stand-alone prefab house just off the main square.
She walked through the rooms. A pre-fab, sure, but neat and clean, the furniture modern and functional. "Only one bedroom. Is this for both of us?"
"You were listed as a married couple."
"Estranged. I don’t want to share with him. Is there anywhere else?"
"Well… you could bunk in with some of the other girls in a dorm…?"
She shook her head. Not a chance. "He can bunk in with somebody."
"We don’t have much spare space. Maybe I can put him in the Ptorix quarters." He muttered the words, almost to himself.
Ptorix quarters? That sounded interesting. "You have Ptorix quarters?"
He rubbed his hand over his lips. "Well… there’s what used to be the Ptorix mine manager’s quarters in the mine itself." His lips curled in distaste. "Not ideal, but we fitted it out for humans so we could use it while the real accommodation was built."
That sounded good. She could live in a Ptorix apartment, especially if it had some human furniture. "I’d like to see that, please."
Van Tongeren drove back the way they’d come, passed the landing platform and pulled over next to a shiny new human door in a towering rock wall. Allysha eyed a remnant of lichen-encrusted carving and swirling, dancing symbols on the door surrounds, leftovers of a Ptorix past. He pressed a switch and the door slid away soundlessly to reveal a well-lit tunnel, clearly newly worked. A tingle of disquiet disturbed her thoughts as she followed him into the mine. A Ptorix tunnel would have been decorated but the rock was bare, not even weathered. Van Tongeren turned left into a side passage. Thirty meters along he ran up a flight of flowing steps on the right until once again they stood at the pointed arch of a Ptorix doorway with a very human door carved into its center.
He opened the door for her. "We had to whitewash the walls. Those complicated patterns they use are so hard on the eyes. We fitted it out with proper furniture and a bed and such but none of our people wanted to live here after we’d built the settlement. Understandable, really."
Allysha gazed around at arched doorways and curved walls and ceilings. Typically Ptorix, but fitted out for humans. The living room contained a dining table and four chairs, a sofa, a couple of comfortable looking chairs and a Holovid setup. She glimpsed a large bed and a wardrobe in the second room.
Here and there the original decoration on the walls was just visible through the whitewash, ornate and organic. Oh, the vandalism, the wanton, mindless destruction. But then again, she could see the patterns the way the Ptorix did and humans would just see a complex, shifting, disconcerting mess. Or so she’d been told.
An archway inside the bedroom led to a washroom containing a large bathing pool and a Ptorix-style toilet—usable by a human if you knew how. The bathing pool was empty. These people probably didn’t know how to find the faucets let alone operate them. If she stayed here, she’d have privacy, be close to work and away from Sean. They’d all think she was crazy but that was okay.
"They must have filled the bath with buckets," van Tongeren said behind her. "We have proper ablutions blocks quite nearby so we didn’t refit—it would have been an enormous job."
"I’ll stay here," she said.
His expression hardly changed but she’d caught the glint that said he thought she was insane.
"If you’re sure." He lifted his shoulders in the briefest of shrugs. "I’ll have your luggage delivered. There’s a canteen here of course. I’ll show you that and the control room where you’ll be working. Is there anything else you’ll need?"
"Just access to your IS from here. A data point is fine. And you’ll need to give me administrator rights to all your systems."
He nodded. "I’ll have it arranged." After a moment’s hesitation he added, "I can’t do that for the Ptorix systems."
She grinned. "No, I guess not. I’ll manage that myself." She could have given herself administrator access to the human systems, too. But he didn’t need to know that.
"I’ll leave you, then. I’ll introduce you to Emment the shift manager tomorrow morning. He can take you around so you can give me a solid estimate of cost and time if that suits?"
"Sure."
She closed the door behind him. Ignorant schlon. She wondered if all humans who came from human planets were as intolerant as him. At least at home humans and Ptorix got along. Most of the time, anyway. Although even on Carnessa the relationship she and her father shared with Professor Xanthor and his family was vanishingly rare. Her father. It had been five years, now. She missed him so very, very much.
Sean knew van Tongeren had arrived without even looking. The pretty barmaid took out a cloth and started wiping the benchtop instead of leaning over to talk to him.
"A word, if you please," van Tongeren said. He led the way to a bench outside the tavern where the music receded to a background thumping. "It seems to me you and your wife don’t get on, O’Reilly. Is that going to be a problem?"
Fuck. He’d hoped they could paper over the cracks; for now, anyway. No chance of winning her back this time. If she hadn’t come back early and caught him with Nessa, it would have been okay. "Don’t worry about Ally. She gets like that sometimes. She’ll get over it."
"And if she doesn’t?"
Sean shrugged. "She will." He hoped.
"If she’s as good as everyone seems to say, I’ll want her to move on to the other work as soon as possible."
"I told you, it won’t be a problem."
Van Tongeren leant back in the chair and smiled. "Would I be right in assuming you don’t want me to discuss the other matter with her?"
"Not if you want it done. Just leave it to me."
The other man’s smile widened; a calculating, evaluating smile that had nothing to do with humor. "Just bear in mind, you get paid for the whole job. Or not at all."
Sean’s heart jolted. He didn’t like the way the fellow said that. But it would be all right. All he had to do was make sure Ally went on to van Tongeren’s other task. One way or another.
3
Allysha hung the last of her shirts in the decidedly un-Ptorix, pale-grey polyplast wardrobe in the bedroom. It was so incongruous, so out of place in this quintessentially Ptorix room. Now what? Back to the bar? She better tell Sean about the living arrangements, at least. Besides, a walk would do her good.
She strode along the road, grateful to pierce the bubble into cooler, drier air. The sweat dried on her face, a welcome relief from the enervating atmosphere. The tavern’s music provided her with an audio-beacon. She followed her ears to the ‘Miner’s Refuge’.
She paused at the doorway for a few moments. A few men sat at tables scattered around a stone floor and a pretty girl leaned on the well-stocked bar in the corner, flashing her generous cleavage to the male patrons perched on bar stools. To one side, two potball tables had attracted a group playing or watching play. No sign of Sean. Oh, well; she might as well have a drink, maybe meet some of the locals.
She headed for the bar, trying to ignore the stares, despite the flutters in her stomach. There were hardly any females here, of course they’d look. The barmaid, busy talking to a man on a stool, straightened up when Allysha arrived. "What can I get you?"
"A citrose, please."
"Sure." She placed a brimming glass on the bar top. "My name’s Trina. There aren’t many women here, nice to meet you."
"Allysha. Nice to meet you, too. Have you been here long?"
Trina shook her head and leant her elbows on the bar, large breasts only just contained in a
low-cut top. "A few weeks. It’s been good."
"Where are you from?"
"Chollarc—do you know it?" When Allysha shook her head she continued, "It’s the closest inhabited world. They advertised positions here; short term contracts, good money, so I thought it would be worthwhile." A huge grin threatened to split her face. "And of course, with all these men here… I ignored the stories and gave it a go. It’s been great."
Allysha sipped the citrose, cold and tangy and perfect after her walk from the mine. "Stories? What sort of stories?"
"Well, see, Tisyphor is part of Chollarc’s history." Trina looked around her, and leaned forward, almost conspiratorially. "This place is really old. The toe rags used to mine jewels here and then take them back to Chollarc for processing. But thirty years ago, something happened and they closed it all down. It was empty until about five months ago, when they set up this new settlement and said they were going to reopen the mine."
"What was it that happened?"
"My dad said they found something in the mine and it killed everybody," Trina whispered, round eyed. "Some strange jewel that glowed and radiated everyone."
The man on the stool snorted. "Strange jewel my arse. There’s this other story that the karteks broke down the fences and killed ‘em all. Just fantasy. The mine ran out, is all." He stood, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and walked out.
Allysha kept her face straight.
Trina sniffed. "What would he know?" She flounced around the bar and went to collect empty glasses from the tables.
