by C. Vandyke
“Grab that skin bag!” Sali screamed, powering the air car straight for him.
“Jump,” Meital said. “I’ll catch you.”
It was either let go or be smashed, so Abraxes dropped and Meital, good to their word, caught him in their artificially strong arms without so much as a whimper. The air car meanwhile burst through the railing and smashed straight into the opposite wall, leaving a gaping hole while the other workers skidded to a stop on the precipice.
“Put me down, please. Because I think we better run.”
Run, they did. Down endless stairways. Through working warehouses, ore storage rooms, and a crowded workers’ mess where they apologized for interrupting a rowdy drinking song.
“Hey, I know that shanty,” Meital said once they’d made it to the tube transport station which would take them to Delving Prime. Abraxes was hunched against the wall, wiping breathless spit from his beard and trying to blink away the endless stars swirling through his vision.
“Sing one note and I’ll sell you for scrap.”
“I’m looking for someone,” Abraxes said to the serving wench behind the dark bar. She glowered at him under a tight head wrap, her bare arms jiggling as she cleaned a goblet with a filthy rag, replacing it in the rack above her dirtier than before. The bar was busy and getting rowdier as more miners, skin and clothes sparkling with star dust, crowded the place. At least their attention was expectantly trained on the stage at the far end of the bar, complete with shimmering energy pole. Abraxes couldn’t even see Meital over sloshing drinks being passed over heads while bellies and elbows bashed into him. “I said I’m looking for—”
“I heard yeh. You gunna buy a drink first?” But it was hardly a question. Abraxes nodded, and she pulled down the same filthy goblet she’d just put away. She spat in it, then wiped it with the same rag slung over her shoulder and filled it with ale. At least the drink was fresh, unlike the pisswater back on Tunis. If they tried to serve that nonsense here, there’d be a riot. In fact, that probably caused most of the miner’s revolts. The corporations knew what kept their workers happy.
“Fifty,” she said.
“Fifty? Even five is expensive…” Abraxes didn’t fancy his chances against her. He pulled a silver token from deep in his jacket pocket and tapped it against his wrist-tech, filling the token with fifty. The wench slid it straight into her bosom.
“So, who’s you lookin’ for?”
“The most dangerous person in Delving Prime,” Abraxes said, hoping she would catch his drift. Unimpressed, she spit-cleaned another goblet. Abraxes leaned closer, the elbow patches of his jacket damp from the ale run-off. This was not the kind of place to whisper, but there was no other way. Abraxes was wanted dead or alive in more systems than not. His license to fly anywhere beyond the Maelstrom permanently suspended. Seeking out illegal transport to a protected world put a price on his head higher than most of these miners would see in a lifetime. But he had no other choice. Like a holy cleric unable to renounce their faith, even as they were cast out of an airlock, Abraxes would never be unable to hunt the Kraken. “A guy who knows the way from here to… Trenchfall.”
The wench’s lips widened into a gap-toothed grin. Abraxes’ heart shot into his throat. He thought he’d been set up, but the crowd whipped up into a roar as a crush started towards the stage.
“He’s about to go on,” she said, then turned away. That fifty lost forever. The little light in the bar deadened, followed by a hushed silence interrupted only by burps and sloshing ale. A pulsar floated across the room, illuminating two long, dark legs in diamond-heeled shoes. Slowly, the light moved up the figure’s body as the whooping grew louder from the hungry pen of caged animals.
“Hello, boys.” An unmistakably male voice said to the chomping crowd. Dazzled in pulsar light, the figure approached the energy pole, strategically wrapped in strips of rigging—
the kind workers wore when lowered into the mines. They flipped a long silver wig across their bare back, skin the color of a sunset, as they mounted the pole to the cheering crowd. It had been a long time since Abraxes last saw a sunset. It had been with Franx. Abraxes watched in open-mouthed shock as the figure danced while Meital emerged through the crowd, drinking a golden and expensive Lactarian Malt.
“What Franx ever saw in you,” Meital said, watching the figure dance.
“That’s not…”
“Come on, boys,” the now clearly Franx shouted as he dangled from the pole, held aloft only by his high heels. “Who wants to love me?” A pounding ‘roid-rave dance track pulsed through the bar as Franx owned the pole, flipping and twisting while the audience went wild, pelting him with tokens. Abraxes sighed, stroked his beard, and did the only thing he could in the circumstances. Get drunk.
“This is him, boys,” Franx said. He sat across the table in an exquisite Dalvian silk wrap, his wig and “outfit” left on the stage. The surrounding miners, all big and brutish women, men and enby’s, surrounded the slim and regal Franx like an honor guard for the thu’Alarian Empress. “This is the man who broke my heart.” Franx wiped away an imaginary tear, and his supporters audibly crowed. Abraxes swallowed hard. Meital’s leg restlessly tapped the floor right next to him, a pneumatic twang to add to his thumping heart.
“Could we talk in private?” Abraxes asked. Franx sipped luminous green liquid from a twisted glass and dabbed his powdered cheek.
“No. I don’t trust myself around you.” Long eyelashes flickered Abraxes’ way. Truthfully, he didn’t trust himself alone around Franx, either. That was not a black hole he wanted to get sucked into again. Abraxes glanced at Meital for some help, but Meital just shrugged.
“We need a ride to... the Valdian Gateway.” Abraxes started, despite Franx looking away. “It’s a small job—” Abraxes glanced nervously at his surroundings ”—but huge potential payoff.”
“You abandoned me, Abraxes.”
“Come on, Franx.” The miners edged closer. Abraxes heard the gin of an electro-cutter rev up. “Do you know how dangerous that mission was? I lost an entire crew to the Kraken. I lost my legs… twice, and I lost… well, I wish I could’ve died instead of... Well, you know how much he meant to me.” Franx began to thaw. Abraxes knew this act. “The only reason I didn’t bring you to the heist on Bazman was because I was ashamed. Ashamed because I had debts to pay. Ashamed because I knew the only way to save my worthless life was to sacrifice my freedom. I loved you too much to put you at risk.”
Far from laughing in his face, several of the miners shed stray tears and bit down on wobbly lips. Franx’s silk-wrapped shoulders relaxed. He took a long sip from his cocktail and glanced straight at Abraxes. A shade of a smile creeping under his steely exterior. Abraxes offered a hint of one in return.
“Boys, prepare my travel chest. I will escort this scallywag to the end of the galaxy, and I shall return with many wonders and great riches.” Franx stood, glass in hand. “And we’ll finally be able to take over Restless Home, then the entire Maelstrom!”
“Hurrah!” A great cheer rose, and Abraxes couldn’t help but be swept up in the good feeling. It ended with the remainder of Franx’s drink splashed across his face, the luminous liquid burning his eyes.
“Betray me again and you can add the Maelstrom to the list of places where you’re worth more dead than alive.”
The Valdian Gateway orbited high above the protected planet where wooden ships sailed through night-black oceans and air pirates fought high in hazy clouds. Abraxes had only once broken the Galactic Law forbidding contamination with under-developed species, and traveled down to Trenchfall. On a starless night, he and a crew of young bandits risked an airlock execution by tying their spaceship to the floating raft market in the middle of an ocean and selling scrap tech as magic to the locals.
The Valdian Gateway was a space magnet for scoundrels and pirates, vagabonds and cutthroats. The narrow corridors of the orbiting merchant market, fused together from the shards and hulls of old ships, were
patrolled by Revenue Service agents and mercenaries, partly there to enforce the boycott of sending advanced tech down to the protected world, and partly there to be bought off by those who made their money by smuggling to and from Trenchfall. Once, while on a moon of thu’Alar, Abraxes had tasted wine from Trenchfall. He’d spent the rest of his life lusting after that taste.
Abraxes sat next to Franx in a long, circular bar in the Idonian casino, on the exclusive upper decks of the Valdian Gateway. The cavernous ceiling was a translucent bubble, constantly facing the gas giant so rejuvenating radiation could spill upon the rich and powerful on the gaming floor. Naturally, on their young and beautiful playthings as well.
Abraxes had taken the form of a rich and powerful white robed thu’Alarian duke. Franx, his young and beautiful companion, dressed in skin-tight leathers. Both of them looked the part. Franx could unzip at a moment’s notice, primed to distract whatever being stood between Abraxes and the last gem. Meital turned wheels at an AI gaming station, a cellular disruptor weapon strapped to their thigh hidden by a flowing gown. Abraxes had to hope this would not end by blasting their way out of the casino. It wasn’t that Valdian didn’t have places to hide, more that Abraxes had a greater fear of what lurked in those hiding places.
“Shall we, my duke?” Franx said. He fully inhabited his character, an arm draped casually around Abraxes’ padded shoulders, twisting his well-oiled beard forked in imperial thu’Alarian style. As they dotted through well-dressed crowds alive with the buzz of spending small fortunes, Franx leaned closer and whispered: “Do you have any idea what you’re looking for?”
“I do, actually,” Abraxes said as they stopped to watch an incomprehensible game. A tiny moon creature wearing an anti-oxygen mask sat at the center of an intricately carved table. Its eight legs clacked and spun a series of interlocking disks with symbols carved around the edges. “We have to get thrown into the Cheater’s Lounge.” Franx might have said something, but the cheering crowd coaxing the poor little creature to clank the wheels harder drowned him out. The players in their anti-grav hairstyles and dressed in strips of strategic ribbon threw tokens and even jewels into rivets under the disks. Then celebrated or commiserated as the wheels came to a stop.
“I said,” Franx gripped his shoulder hard. “You brought me all the way here just to get thrown out?”
A few people glanced in their direction.
“They lost the decoding key on Deck Three of the Rebellion. The only way there is to be ejected via the Chearer’s Lounge. We need to—” the most beautiful figure he had ever seen walking past shut Abraxes up. Their skin was as black as space, their woven gown shimmering like star light as they passed by, escorted by armed mercenary security. The figure didn’t notice Abraxes, or frankly anyone, but he saw what hung around their neck. The last Ekidnolk Gem—the decoding key.
“Abraxes?”
“Shh,” he said, slipping into the crowd following the security guards. “Just… stay here and don’t get into trouble.” With a bit of luck, Abraxes could get his hands on that key and sell it to Seawatch without Franx being any the wiser, or demanding to come with him as he searched for the Kraken. The only thing between him and fulfilment were half a dozen guards.
He followed the group, escorting the gem-wielding performer to a doorway roped off with pulsing energy beams where even more security waited by the entrance. The beams dropped as the figure with the gem swished in, then immediately returned. But a small queue was forming to get into the protected room. The rich and powerful gathered, this time without their young and beautiful playthings. Abraxes glanced across the gaming floor to Meital. He nodded, so did they. Everything was fine. He’d lost sight of Franx, but that was better. This section of the casino was rather more upmarket, and Franx fit in more with miners and pirates.
“Excuse me,” Abraxes said to a gruff security woman with his smoothest nebula accent. “Must dukes also wait in line?”
“We’ll be opening in a moment, your worship.” Abraxes nodded, acting slightly put out. True to her word, the energy barriers dissipated, and those first in line happily let a single white-robed member of the imperial family walk through first.
Circles of floating tables gently lit by pulsars ringed a small stage, the darkness offering an intimate setting for whatever performance was about to take place. Abraxes sat front and center, snapping his fingers until a server in a black suit appeared.
“A Lactarian Malt, and now,” Abraxes said, without looking at the server.
“Of course. We have two-hundred-year-old, four hundred—”
“No less than three thousand years. And nebula smoked. None of this vaporized nonsense.”
“Y-yes, b-but that costs—”
“Now,” Abraxes commanded, scaring the server into action. True, the cost of that drink was astronomical, but he had no intention of paying this bar tab either. The appearance of grandeur was all part of the plan.
As soon as his golden drink was presented, he yanked the server’s collar close to his face.
“Who is the performer?”
“Maxam Gracia, your worship.”
“I want a private audience with them immediately after the show, understood?” He swirled the thick liquid in the diamond glass. “Send them one of these backstage.”
“Right away.”
The performance was haunting. Maxam Gracia sang a medley of Bazmanian operetta at pitches that would’ve shattered the chalice had it not been made of pure diamond. Abraxes studiously joined in with the smattering of applause after each crescendo. But he had eyes only on the gem around the singer’s neck. It had no color, yet every color. Nor any discernable shape as, like a sun, the eye could not focus on it for very long. Of interest only to Maelstrom Watchers or Kraken hunters. More accurately, folks with a death wish. Maxam Gracia had an eye on Abraxes, however. Singers like them lived on the patronage of rich dukes like him.
After a double encore, Maxam Gracia was taken back through the curtain while the audience rose and chatted with the distinct air of self-congratulation. A server came forward and invited Abraxes through the curtain.
He found Maxam Gracia sitting alone in front of a brightly lit mirror, rubbing a steaming balm into their impossible cheek bones.
“That was quite the performance,” Abraxes said, now with two fresh Lactarian Malts in either hand. He placed one in front of Maxam. They sipped it, but said nothing. “Forgive me, but I didn’t catch your gender.”
“Aren’t thu’Alarian dukes supposed to be raised better than that? Does it matter to you?”
“Not one iota. I merely wish to investigate your clothes as quickly as possible.”
“Investigate my clothes?”
“Yes. From the floor of my master suite while I caress your beautiful body.” Maxam laughed in shock. “You can keep the necklace on though, I rather like it.” Maxam turned in their chair, still laughing. That was a good sign. Their fingers clasped the enchanting gem as they took a sip of the rich malt. Maxam leaned in closer, their hand now running up Abraxes’ leg. He wished he still had feeling there. Slightly north of his thigh, though, his feelings were fully clear. Maxam grinned.
“‘Scuse me.” Heavy hands fell on his shoulders. Maxam recoiled in shock. Abraxes saw through the mirror three large security personnel standing behind him. “But you gotta come with us.”
“Unhand the duke this instance!” Maxam shouted.
“He ain’t no duke.”
Maxam’s face dropped. As quick as a supernova, they returned to their seat with the Malt, sipping it like an innocent bystander.
Abraxes tried to protest, but he understood it was useless. There would be another way. He’d located the gem. Now it just had to be pried from their neck. A perfect job for Franx, who’d never slept with anyone without stealing something of great value. That’s exactly how Abraxes had lost command of the Midnight Scythe to damn Captain Braddock.
Abraxes was firmly handled back onto the casino floor, where
calm reigned under the glowing gas giant radiating them all. Meital suddenly saw his predicament from across the floor, but he shook his head, standing them down. Now he just had to get a message to Franx.
“You’re outta here, scoundrel.”
“Very well.”
“You and your cheatin’ boy.”
“What!”
Suddenly Franx appeared, also escorted by three security guards.
“You told me to cheat,” he whispered.
“I told you to stay out of trouble! Excuse me, but I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I am a duke of thu’Alar, and this is my, uh, squire, B-bloriguard.”
“Shut it, the pair of yeh.” A gruff guard said quietly. The peace of the casino was not to be disturbed. “You’re lucky we’re taking you to the Cheater’s Lounge and not out with the trash to get burned up in orbit.”
Franx nodded enthusiastically.
“See?” He whispered as they were led to the back. “Exactly where you wanted.”
Abraxes just shook his head. He’d been so close. Another few hours. Infinity, even another few minutes, and the gem would have been his. He let himself be escorted to the far side of the casino and tried to think up a plan. The Cheater’s Lounge was like a time out. Only on the third infringement was a person permanently excluded from the casino. And even then, Maxam Gracia had the gem. It wasn’t lost on Deck Three of the Rebellion and it wasn’t being guarded by the nightmarish Parson Thrull. It was here, and it could be stolen. They just needed a way back in.
“Take ‘em straight to the tube,” said a guard at the door to the Cheater’s Lounge, right next to the kitchens.
