Intrigued, Mallory noticed that he epitomized the exact opposite of the guys with whom she normally dealt when working for Lebrane.
In general, they could be divided into two categories: shady bureaucrats and low-level hooligans. With his alert expression, his wide shoulders, his scar, and his impeccable appearance, it was unlikely that he belonged to either group, a fact that did not fail to arouse Mallory’s curiosity.
Interrupting the detailed examination of which he was the object, he said in place of a welcome, “A pretty brunette and an extraterrestrial colossus. A rather unusual team for a freight hauler. My name is Laorcq Adrinov.”
He almost held out his hand until he realized that no one was going to return his polite gesture.
“I couldn’t care less what you think of us,” Mallory asserted dryly. “I would rather have turned this job down. I want to get it over with quickly and move on to other things.”
More calmly, she continued, “We don’t know each other. You could be a piece of crap, or maybe you have bad taste in employers. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, but at the slightest surprise, my dear crewmate will intervene.”
A growl from Torg punctuated her reply. Her tattoos sprouted so many thorns that they almost hid her skin.
The scarred man was not intimidated. “Let’s get down to business, then. You’re going to take on a package and a passenger… me. I’ll provide you with what you need to leave the system. We’ll fly to Kenval and land at Gloria City. At that time, I’ll take responsibility for the remainder of the operation.”
Ignoring Laorcq’s brusque tone with difficulty, Mallory returned his gaze directly. “Lebrane mentioned transportation, not a taxi service! Are there going to be a lot of last minute changes? And what if we decide to settle our account with you en route? By throwing you out the airlock, for example?”
Faced with her aggressiveness, he shifted from nonchalance to firmness. “In your shoes, I would think twice. One of the largest companies on Earth has accused you of theft. If you don’t do what I say, you’ll end up in jail —or worse!”
His tone was devoid of mockery and smugness. Nothing but fact, which rendered his threat extremely credible. Another unexpected reaction. Mallory took note and filed him under the category of “potential danger.”
Since no one had contradicted him, he continued speaking. “Seeing that we are in agreement, here’s a transport order with the coordinates of the hangar where the merchandise is located. This is all you’ll need to pick it up. You have one hour to get it onto your ship. I’ll meet you there.”
Without dwelling any further on the details, Laorcq dismissed Mallory and Torg after having given them the form. He waited for several seconds and glanced into the corridor to confirm that it was empty. He then returned to the studio. Through the window, he watched the little brunette and the large black-and-red cybrid disappear into the crowd.
Certain he was alone, he opened a cabinet hidden behind a wall. Deprived of the support provided by the sliding door, a cadaver crumpled to the ground: the body of Lebrane’s real employee. The scarred man leaned over the corpse and went through his pockets. He took a box that looked like an electronic component and a large, cheap earring: the deceased’s navcom.
A small smile appeared on Laorcq’s lips. Duping the pretty pilot had amused him. She had truly believed he worked for Lebrane, which served his interests perfectly.
He slid a hand into his jacket and took out a flask whose contents he poured onto the body. It caught fire immediately, burning like a piece of coal. He stepped into the corridor, locked the door, and left the building. From the corner of his eye, he saw that he was being followed.
He thought it was too soon for it to be one of Lebrane or Morsak’s minions. Probably a thief, of which there was no lack in this kind of neighborhood.
Running short on time, he hurried toward the astroport, hoping to lose his pursuer on the way.
In the Sirgan’s cockpit, Torg was curled up in a ball on the co-pilot’s seat. The hydraulic jacks that held the thing up emitted a squeal of protest from time to time. Distracted, Mallory ate a tasteless meal that she had hastily reheated. She was watching a screen showing the inside of the hold. Two workers were finishing tying down the merchandise, obtained thanks to the document provided by Laorcq. She was still skeptical about him. With her mouth half full, she spoke to the ship’s Natural Intelligence. “…azz? Ut’s your obiniod bout dis guy?” Followed by a swallowing sound. “I mean, what do you really think about this Laorcq Adrinov?”
“You drew me a clear picture. I can sum him up with one word: suspicious! Compared to Lebrane, he seems like a much more serious customer. And yet he claims to be a subordinate. A bit shady, no?”
An image appeared, projected above the control console.
“Look!” Jazz said. “There he is now… I can see him going through security on one of the external cameras. Good timing, the cargo is loaded. We can get off this heap of molten sulfur.”
On the video display, Mallory could see Laorcq in the middle of a heterogeneous group. He showed his papers to the customs officer, as well as a briefcase, which was his only piece of luggage.
An abrupt movement seemed to blur the image and, in the next second, panic spread through the place. Mallory could hear a barrage of gunfire. The personnel on the ground desperately tried to find shelter. A hail of bullets blew the glass walls enclosing the waiting area to bits.
Alarm bells rang out, rousing the few on-duty police officers at the astroport. Before they knew what hit them, several of them were mowed down. In the midst of this chaos, a silhouette rose, covered from head to toe in a dark blue suit. The repeated bursts of fire targeted it in vain.
“Oh shit! No!” cried Mallory. She watched the blue shadow rushing toward her ship carrying the attaché case she had noticed earlier. “Am I dreaming or what? Laorcq! It’s Laorcq!”
The gunshots mapped out a destructive wake in his path. Hit with full force, the reactors of a docked ship were ripped open. With its equilibrium suddenly disrupted, it generated a ball of plasma that filled half the astroport and torched any unlucky people within several hundred yards. In reaction to the flames, jets of dry ice foam sprayed from everywhere.
Stunned, Mallory watched the catastrophe unfold on the screen. Despite the hail of lead raining down on him, Laorcq was still running toward them.
She got herself under control and barked an order. “Jazz! Lock the hold! With a little luck, our unwanted passenger will be killed.”
“Too late!” replied the Natural Intelligence. “He’ll be here before the hatch closes.”
In reaction to the implied threat, Torg prepared to welcome their guest in his own way.
Before he could reduce Laorcq to shreds, Mallory stopped him. “Later,” she told him. “The astroport’s dome is collapsing, so we might as well take advantage to make a quick getaway.”
She sat at her console, concentrating on her task. Coming out of nowhere, the shots were now concentrated on the Sirgan’s hull. Explanations could wait. Once the breach in the dome was wide enough, Mallory launched her ship toward the orange sky, leaving Mycenae behind in complete panic. “Now, you can go welcome our ‘new friend’.”
The cybrid did as he was told. After dragging Laorcq unceremoniously from the hold, he threw him at Mallory’s feet. The tall, scarred man stood slowly, his strange suit retracting into a tube attached to his thigh. As if this way of presenting himself was perfectly normal, he crossed his hands behind his back and waited for her to speak.
“What the fuck was that circus?” she blurted. “Your buddies wrecked half of an astroport! You are going to tell me right now what we’re carrying around on this ship! If not, I’ll order my bodyguard to throw you out into space. We’ll see if your nasty blue suit will allow you to swim in a vacuum!”
Laorcq didn’t seem to be disturbed in the slightest by this threat. “That’s none of your concern. Do your job properly and without asking
questions. We both know the situation you’re in, since, from now on, my pursuers will be after the Sirgan. Killers ready to open fire in a public place won’t let their prey go willingly.”
Mallory wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. “Torg, shake him up a bit.”
Before the cybrid could move, Laorcq continued speaking. “Do you really want to lose the Sirgan and end up broke? If you think you’ll keep your ship by mistreating me, you’re quite mistaken.”
She held Torg back with a hand on his torso. “I think you’re far too well-informed about me.”
Laorcq responded a bit too enthusiastically, “Lebrane told me: you were penniless when you inherited the Sirgan. When he offered to find work for you, you didn’t say no…”
The scarred man’s face had lost all expression.
If not for the black fury rising in her at the memory of that time in her life, Mallory would have suspected he was playing a part. “I didn’t know I was dealing with a con artist, to say nothing of a blackmailer!”
Her exasperation contained with difficulty, she pointed out where the cabins were located and barked, “Don’t come out until you can be useful!”
She half expected him to argue, but he obeyed gladly, giving her the odd impression that he was eager to spend some time alone.
The morning had just begun for Morsak. He was sitting in the kitchen of his luxurious apartment in downtown Nogartha, having breakfast. Wearing a white silk robe, the paunchy fifty-something scanned the columns of a newspaper displayed by his navcom with a practiced eye. Between a mouthful of coffee and croissant, he came across an article about a fire at Io’s astroport. Bad news from Jupiter’s moons was common currency, so much so that the event wasn’t even given a spot on the front page. Nevertheless, several lines, accompanied by a poor-quality photo, were enough to draw his attention. He suspected a connection to his affairs and decided to find out more. He dismissed the newspaper with a movement of his left hand. On his navcom, he searched the business directory for Mycenae, the mining city on Io. The results appeared quickly.
“My memory isn’t playing tricks on me,” he murmured with satisfaction. “I own a majority stake in one of the companies based there.”
He chose three people with low salaries from the list of employees. Each had family connections to a member of the volcanic satellite’s administration. He sent them a note in the name of Idernax’s security services, asking them to collect as much information as they could about the events related to this incident, in exchange for a substantial bonus.
Several hours later, he received the police reports, the astroport’s files, and the street surveillance video. He also obtained a list of bank transactions and communications between Earth and Mycenae on that day. It was too much information for him to process. He entrusted the task to his private Artificial Intelligence in order to avoid irritating questions. Meticulously, he told it to cross-reference the data with information moving across other networks at the same time. Morsak knew it would take the AI days to extract the pertinent information, but that, in the end, he’d know every last detail about this so-called accident.
The clicking of four spiderlike pincers attracted his attention. A large, white-lacquered, cylindrical robot that served as his majordomo appeared in front of him.
“Sir, the link with Alpha Centauri has been established. It will last for approximately three minutes.”
Morsak ran his fingers through his beard to dislodge the crumbs that were stuck there, and then rose. Preceded by the white machine, which moved in a series of metallic clicks across the floor, he went to his office. As expected, the hologram of an Omega Sec agent occupied the middle of the room. The man from the security service, wearing the requisite tan battle suit, acknowledged his superior with a brief nod of his head.
Morsak responded with a nod of his own. “I have a crucial mission for you, Gamor.”
“I've already been notified of a change in the priority of my activities and have delegated my affairs in progress to my subordinates.”
Morsak wished all of his employees were this efficient. “I need you to go to Kenval to ensure the delivery of a package. If you do it quickly, you’ll have time to get your bearings before it arrives.”
The long distance covered by the communication-imposed latency between each exchange. Morsak used that time to appraise the former police officer who was serving him so well. Tall and bald, he seemed deprived of all body hair, which made his age difficult to determine.
Gamor’s reply arrived. “No problem. Should I follow standard procedure?”
“Not this time—the stakes are too high. I’ll send you the details in an encrypted file. For the rest, you have carte blanche.”
IV
THE SCRAP MERCHANTS
MALLORY caught the blow head on. She stared angrily at her training android—an assembly of long, thin tubes that looked like a human in silhouette. The machine was designed to teach about ten different combat sports up to complete mastery. Trying to get a grip on herself, she attacked again.
“Keep moving!” her uncle had constantly repeated, even when she was just a beginner. “Stay on your toes and face your opponent. Always be ready to punch with your legs. If your feet are nailed to the ground, you’ve lost before you’ve even started!”
After years of practice, Mallory rarely allowed the robot to gain the upper hand. However, her recent run of bad luck seemed to have affected her ability to concentrate. She stuck with it for another round before forfeiting. Her exercise outfit—a tank top and a pair of loose pants—was soaked with sweat. On her forearms, the visible roses had turned black: she needed to cool down and rest. She deactivated the android and went back to her cabin.
The boundary of the system drew near. She and Laorcq had established an implicit truce. As the transport ship was not large, common sense dictated that differences be put aside when living in such close quarters. Mallory filled her downtime with boxing. For his part, Torg tried not to give in to claustrophobia: she didn’t want to risk putting him back into stasis with a stranger on board.
After a few hours of sleep, she put her usual suit back on, standard for the flight crew. It clung to her skin to prevent it from catching on things and was black so that it wouldn’t show dirt as easily. Her thick leather boots completed the outfit, ideal for walking on the steel grills that constituted the ship’s floor.
The relentless routine of space travel required Mallory to fulfill her role as though nothing were wrong. Sitting in the cockpit, she reviewed reports about the ship’s operations.
Suddenly, Jazz displayed an image from the camera in the hold. “Captain, step away from your static numbers and take a look at who’s playing with your favorite toy…”
The video showed Laorcq grappling with the robot instructor.
“You see that? The man knows how to fight,” commented Mallory, watching him link hooks and jabs methodically. “He’s doing pretty well,” she noted with authority.
The tall, scarred man confronted the machine, stripped to the waist. His punches were not particularly fast, but they were powerful. Scars even crisscrossed his muscled back, depicting a turbulent life.
“Jazz, since you did some research on Kenval, give me a rundown while I observe our passenger’s technique.”
“With pleasure, Captain. Don’t let yourself become too distracted,” he added mockingly.
Mallory was reacting to the sight of a male body, and she noticed with embarrassment that the roses of her tattoos transformed into cherry blossoms. She didn’t trust Laorcq, but her libido was considering him from a different point of view. She began to regret that he worked for Lebrane. The very thought of the crook pushed away any pleasant ideas.
Sensing the change in her mood, Jazz continued, “Our destination is both a trading post and a real political time bomb. Procyon’s resources are extremely abundant. The result: a couple dozen species live together there, but everything is under the Vohrns’ control,
from the large gaseous planet to the smallest asteroid. They grow rich by hoarding access rights. In return, they are universally detested, since everyone dreams of filling their pockets instead.”
She recovered some of her enthusiasm. “Even if I’m doing it illegally, at least I’m finally going to visit a new world!”
“True! However, you definitely wouldn’t pick Kenval if you had the choice. Its cities are as overpopulated as Earth’s. Even worse, there are Orcants…”
Unlike many humans, Mallory only knew them by reputation. A destructive war had pitted the species against each other twenty years earlier.
Bitterly, she remembered that it was the very same war during which her father had been betrayed and accused of desertion.
“Those fat, shit-colored vermin!” Jazz grumbled suddenly. “I hated them back in the day, and I still don’t like them! They’re aggressive and they reproduce too quickly. Those perverted creatures have tiny heads and too many beady spider eyes. And their carapaces, mounted on those four spindly legs, make them look like centaurs crossed with a crab and a cockroach.”
Interrupting the tirade, a message repeatedly announced that they had arrived at Pluto. Accustomed to Jazz’s interjections, Mallory welcomed the diversion with pleasure. “Perfect,” she declared. “The Sirgan hasn’t left the solar system for years: such a long trip without a complete check-up is out of the question. The reactor, the hull, and the electronics need some serious tuning.”
“It’s time to see what Lebrane’s lackey can do,” added the Natural Intelligence.
Pluto was the last human base on the path to the stars. Every ship passing through underwent a rigorous inspection.
The Kenval Incident Page 3
