Stars Beyond

by S. K. Dunstall

  The man at the other end wore a suit. His expression was severe. “This is the Justice Department. You are entering a restricted area. Only ships with prior approval can enter the area.”

  “We have approval,” Roystan said. “We are expected.”

  “Identify yourself. Identify your ship.”

  Josune and Roystan looked at each other. She could see he was going to laugh. She wanted to laugh too.

  “My name is Captain Hammond Roystan. Our ship is Another Road. We are expected on Zell. Please confirm with them.”

  If Santiago or the Boost were in charge, this was where they’d get shot. Josune itched to warm up the cannons.

  The Justice Department man glanced to one side, perused something quickly. “You are not on my list of approved ships. Please remove yourself from the vicinity, or we will be forced to fire on you.”

  “This wasn’t a restricted area last time we came through,” Roystan said. “Why is it now?” He knew as well as Josune did what the trigger must have been.

  “Don’t play ignorant. We all know what you’re here for. The same thing as everyone else. I notice you haven’t tried to bribe me yet.”

  If he was trying to intimidate them, it wasn’t working. All Josune wanted to do was laugh.

  “I want to talk to Nika Rik Terri, please.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “Alistair Laughton,” Josune said. If this really was the Justice Department, maybe his name would carry weight.

  The Justice Department agent paused, said something quiet to someone off-screen that Josune didn’t catch. He sniffed, then said, “Putting you through to the agent in charge. If she says you can go through, you can, but none of this backdoor stuff.”

  A minute later an immaculately coiffed woman came on-screen.

  “This had better be important.”

  “These people claim they are expected, Agent Teke.”

  “You have a list.”

  “They’re not on the list.”

  “Then don’t—”

  Roystan cut in smoothly. “Agent Laughton is expecting us. As is Nika Rik Terri.”

  She left them hanging while she switched over to another link—calling Agent Laughton, Josune presumed—then came back in under half a minute. “Who did you say you were?”

  “Hammond Roystan and the crew of Another Road.”

  She left the link open while she spent longer on the other link.

  “Must be some conversation,” Josune said.

  “Apparently you’re dead,” Agent Teke said when she came back. “All right, Alistair, don’t be impatient. Switching you through.” She turned to the original agent. “If Laughton says let them in, then let them through.”

  And finally, Alistair was on-screen. “Roystan.” His smile was broad. “Everyone swears they saw your ship destroyed by the Vortex.”

  “That was the Boost,” Roystan said. “But you know when you nullspace out, it can take a while to get back.”

  “Personally, I’d never have nullspaced that close to the Vortex.” It was amazing what people assumed. “Nika will be delighted. She’s working with the Ort. Come on down.”

  “That’s classified information, Alistair.” Agent Teke may have closed the link to Another Road, but she hadn’t closed it to Laughton.

  Alistair laughed. “They know, Paola. That’s why Nika’s here. Come on down.”

  “You go, Josune,” Roystan said. “We can’t leave this—” He glanced in the direction of the cargo.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I get down there.”

  “Take care.”

  “I will.”

  Snow, Gramps, and Josune went down. No one argued with Snow’s right to go, and where Snow went, Gramps went.

  38

  NIKA RIK TERRI

  Communicating with the Ort was much simpler after her mod, and even simpler still once they’d established a scientific basis for their discussions. Eight of the outcasts—the leaders of their colony—were Earth’s equivalent of microbiologists crossed with body modders. Except they modded the body surgically rather than via machine.

  They were as skeptical of the modding machine as Nika was of their knives and scalpels, but they did concede that she had modded herself to communicate with them.

  The communication got easier. They’d all been working in different labs, across different worlds, and had become plague carriers trying to find a cure. That could happen if you caught the plague and survived. Plague carriers were normally killed because the plague was so virulent, but because of their knowledge they had been banished so they could work on finding a cure. Forty plague carriers working other branches of science and medicine had been sent with them, all of them trying to find a solution.

  “How do you get supplies?” Nika asked. “Or do you live off the planet?”

  From what Yakusha and Alistair had said, there wasn’t much on Zell that humans could eat. Could the Ort eat anything local?

  Those sorts of questions caused more confusion than the scientific ones. When they finally understood what she was asking: “Not. Food here poisonous. We bring . . . supplies . . . enough for thirty lunar cycles.”

  Which Nika ultimately took to understand as being they’d brought thirty months of supplies, and when they ran out, they’d starve.

  “We have to find this cure fast, or you’ll starve.”

  “Abandoned . . . cannot go home, even if we find a cure . . . none would trust—”

  A suicide trip.

  Alistair entered. Did the weird leg-and-arms bow that was better suited to four legs and four arms than it was to two, went through the daily “uncles grieve for you” ritual that seemed so important to the Ort. “Please excuse . . . I must talk to Nika.”

  He drew her out. “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

  “Bad news.” It was always better to get the worst out of the way first.

  “A shuttle has arrived to collect Leonard Wickmore.”

  “That’s the bad news?” Maybe it was. She didn’t want him where she didn’t know where he was.

  Alistair hesitated. “His lawyers claim there is no proof he did what we claim he did. Chances are he’ll be out on bail by the time he reaches Kitimat.”

  It was hard to get past a company lawyer. “Not even the word of two Justice Department agents and a body modder?” She should have killed him.

  “I’m a disgraced agent, no matter that I was reinstated. You killed Shanna Brown—on vid.”

  “That wasn’t me.”

  “And then tried to kill Leonard Wickmore by bombing your studio.”

  “I wish I’d been successful. What about Cam?”

  Alistair shook his head.

  The Santiago family had known who Cam was when they’d planned to kill everyone at the settlement. They wouldn’t support Cam’s claim. Nika had sat down and talked with him about his mod, late last night after everyone else had slept.

  As Cam had said, “I’ve been chipped since birth. The whole family is. They knew I was here, but I’m no use to them because I’m not executive material.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?” Nika would have thought a company with multiple heirs would be happy one of them didn’t want to take over. From what she’d heard, the infighting among the executives in most companies was more vicious than anything they did outside it.

  “I’m a terrible lawyer.”

  “I’d make a terrible lawyer too. Does that make me worthless?”

  “But you’re a body modder.”

  “So. You’re part of Zell’s security team.”

  “Alistair is. Not me.”

  “Cam. You’ve been working with Alistair for the last two years. I don’t care what your official title is, I only care what you’ve been doing.”

  She�
�d talk to Melda later, to ensure the position became official, but right now neither member of the Zell security team could protect her against Leonard Wickmore.

  “You should have let me kill him,” she told Alistair.

  “I uphold the law. We don’t take justice into our own hands.”

  Nika crossed her arms. “I don’t know if you’re truly naïve, Alistair, or just plain stupid.”

  They were talking about a man who’d tried to kill them both, who’d killed other people, who would never let either of them go free. “Now he knows about the Ort, he’ll want part of Zell too.”

  Alistair rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Now that the Honesty League has spread word about the Ort, every company wants a part of it. They know Wickmore’s reputation. They’re unlikely to let him in.”

  Wickmore would go where Wickmore wanted to go.

  Nika had never heard of the Honesty League before she came to Zell. They’d turned out to have some big names behind them, along with pirate media that proliferated both inside and outside the legal zone. The four grim-faced representatives who were still here, waiting to ensure that the Ort were treated fairly by the Justice Department, had sent images of the Ort to the pirate media. According to Paola, half the galaxy was headed to Zell. So much so that she’d called in armed Justice Department ships to protect them. She was thinking of hiring merc ships as well.

  Which was funny, in its own way.

  She said to Alistair, “If I see Wickmore again, I will kill him.” Even if he wasn’t doing anything to harm her. “Don’t get in my way.”

  “Then you’ll end up on a murder charge.”

  “Even if it’s self-defense?” It would be worth it if it stopped Wickmore chasing her crewmates.

  “You’d have to prove it.”

  You could never argue with someone like that. Nika changed the subject. “Alistair. Yesterday I saw a Dietel gathering dust in one of your storerooms. Can I have it?”

  “The genemod machine? I’ll check with Melda,” who was official head of the settlement, but if Alistair asked, Nika knew he would get it. “I don’t see why not. It’s no use to us. We don’t have a doctor who can use it.”

  If they stayed on Zell, they’d get a doctor and need the machine themselves, but she didn’t point that out or he might change his mind about allowing her to have it.

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “Extend it.” Build a new container and transfer the electronics to it.

  He looked blank.

  “The Ort won’t fit into a standard genemod machine. They’re too tall, and they don’t lie down.”

  “Don’t they?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. Well,” and he brightened. “There’s even some old supplies with it. You can have those as well.”

  Please tell her they hadn’t kept the mutrient. It went off. “Alistair, I hope you didn’t just offer me two-year-old mutrient.” Still, they might have other supplies that remained usable. “Show me.”

  The building where she worked with the Ort was one of the new prefabricated ones that Cam said had been brought in by Santiago. If Alistair was right, and the Justice Department did try to control Zell, what would Santiago do? Call in the lawyers?

  Alistair led the way past all the new buildings and into the huge, weathered machinery shed behind it. Cheap building materials, a cynical part of her noted. It was already falling apart. It must have come in with the settlers, two-plus years ago. He took her down to the darkest, dustiest area of the shed, she was sure.

  It didn’t matter what world you were on, there was dust. Even in space, where there was no world and no atmosphere to speak of, tiny particles of dust eventually settled.

  “Any chance of some light?” Alistair may have been able to see everything clearly. She couldn’t.

  There was a light above the shelf. The illuminated circle made the rest of the shed look darker.

  Nika covered her nose with her arm to stop a sneeze. There was little here worth collecting. The standard crystals and solutions of a basic hospital kit—some of which she had, some she wouldn’t bother to use, and some she might have used if they hadn’t been two years old.

  “When was the last time you used these things?”

  Alistair picked up one of the plastic jars. “Two years, four months, and three days.”

  “It’s not like you have the date memorized.”

  He laughed. “He thought himself pretty good, our doctor. No doubt he would probably have improved on acquaintance, but we never got to find out. He loved rock climbing, you see.”

  “He fell?”

  “Mmh. There’s not much you can do when someone falls headfirst down a two-hundred-meter rock.”

  “No.”

  “We think it was quick. The body was cold when Cam and I found him.”

  Which reminded her of Cam, and the conversation she planned to have with Melda. Maybe she should have it with Alistair, instead.

  “You said you had good—”

  Alistair looked away, over to the doorway.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head. “I thought I saw . . . No. Nothing.”

  Nika looked to where he’d been looking. Alistair didn’t imagine things. If something caught his eye, and she couldn’t see it, then she wanted to know what it was.

  She couldn’t see anything.

  “The good news?”

  Alistair turned his head again, not quite in the same direction he’d been looking a moment ago, but slightly farther to the left, and sighed heavily. “Come on out, Barry. No need to skulk around.”

  “Barry?” Alistair had introduced him when they’d first arrived. “Why would he be sneaking around?”

  “He’s done it before. He sends people to spy on us.”

  Call her paranoid, but if someone was sneaking around, it was more likely to be one of Wickmore’s people. Or Wickmore himself. If his lawyer was any good, he’d be out on bail a lot sooner than Alistair believed.

  “Where is he?”

  Alistair pointed. “Coming up the side there.”

  The skulker might have been Barry, but until Nika was sure, she wasn’t taking chances. She looked around for something to use as a weapon. The out-of-date mutrient was nearby, but there was no acid of any type. It was probably locked away. Normally she’d approve of that.

  They were targets with the light on.

  Alistair didn’t need the light. She flipped the switch and tugged him behind the Dietel. It wasn’t much cover, but it was better than nothing, and it placed the genemod machine between them and the still-unseen person.

  In the sudden darkness the figure between them and the daylight from the open door cast a long shadow that stretched up the Dietel and onto the back wall. The chunky barrel of a blaster elongated the shadow of the right hand; a longer, slimmer weapon elongated the left.

  The right hand was raised.

  “Back. Back,” but Alistair was slow, and the blaster caught the edge of his foot.

  He grunted, and she grabbed him before he could step back into the line of fire. The shadow had aimed downward. Whoever it was knew that neither of them was armed, or they wouldn’t have chanced the shot.

  It also meant they were playing with them.

  A Dietel was no protection against a maniac with weapons, especially when two of them were crowded behind it. Nika glanced around to see where they could retreat to. Nowhere.

  “You live a charmed life, Nika.”

  Leonard Wickmore. And it seemed that even though he’d just been released from his makeshift prison, he had his hand on a ready supply of weapons.

  Wickmore moved out of the light from the doorway. Nika lost sight of him in the gloom of the shed, had to rely on the direction Alistair turned to watch.

  “How are yo
u out of lockup?” Alistair pushed them around the machine, presumably to keep them out of the line of fire. He put his weight on his injured foot, gripped Nika’s shoulder for sudden support. She thought her shoulder would break.

  Wickmore laughed. “You had to ask? We control the Justice Department, Laughton. Not you.”

  Alistair shoved Nika aside a second before Wickmore fired with his left hand. The Dietel wasn’t nearly enough protection. Hot, molten needles burned her legs. Alistair jerked and dropped.

  A needler. Snow said they didn’t kill, but for a moment, she wished they did. Then she’d be dead and the pain would be gone.

  Focus. The jar of solution Alistair had been holding rolled toward Nika. She grabbed it, concentrated all her efforts on holding it. Her legs. Next time—if there was a next time—she was going to build a mod that would turn off the pain sensors in her brain if they were overloaded.

  Wickmore’s voice came closer. “It hurts, doesn’t it. But don’t worry, Nika. Needlers don’t do lasting damage.”

  She aimed for the voice. Alistair wasn’t looking Wickmore’s way any longer, so she couldn’t use that as a guide. Raised her arm, threw the jar as hard as she could.

  It hit him in the face. She hadn’t realized he was so close.

  Both weapons jerked up, and back, loosing a blast. Nika’s arm was still up. It saved her eyes, but the blaster raked along her side.

  Alistair charged Wickmore, who casually turned the blaster to him. Alistair collapsed.

  Nika grabbed another jar from the shelf. Threw it. And another. If she could make him drop a weapon, they might have a chance.

  Wickmore, close enough now to see—or maybe her eyes were adjusting to the darkness—hunched his shoulder against the missiles and fired at Alistair again.

  “I can keep doing this all day, Nika. It won’t change the end result. You, me, exchanger. I take over the galaxy.”

  Figures blocked the sunlight from the doorway.

  “Ah. My friends. I suggest you surrender now.”

  She couldn’t escape, not right now. But there’d be other opportunities, and Alistair was still alive for the moment. If she surrendered, Wickmore might take her and leave Alistair.