It all seemed safe and secure. No obvious pirates, bootleggers, mercenaries, disreputable traders, or axe murderers seemed to be lurking around the corner. They started off in a clockwise direction.
Business was booming by the looks of things. Traders had well-presented shop fronts to do business from, with a lot of passing customers stopping off for a range of goods and services. Their translators showed them the businesses were everything from goods, to professional services such as accounting and tax, something called Procedures Analysts, and a wide range of personal services such as grooming, hair, claw, shaving, and the delights of 'Transcendental Massage', whatever that was.
"Well," stated Snark agreeably. "I think everything’s above board. Let’s split up." He gave a short report to Anna and Jamie, and then pointed the way they’d come. "Brindle and I’ll go back this way. Sissness, you and Patters keep going." He chuckled. "We’ll meet up soon enough, I reckon, if we stay on this level."
The pairs split up. Sissness and Patters planned out what they’d do. They wanted to find somewhere where Sissness could get a massage, and Patters wanted to have a grooming session for her thick spotted fur. They also wanted to check out the local 'scene' at a bar or café, maybe get a meal at a restaurant. There was bound to be something nice, given what they’d seen already.
"And shop," added Sissness. "I’d just like to window shop."
Patters agreed, although she wasn’t much interested in shopping. However, if there were some weapons stores, she’d be happy enough.
Snark and Brindle were arguing about how to spend their time.
"Shopping is a must," Brindle insisted. "Look at the range of things on offer."
"Shopping," scoffed Snark. "Rubbish. I want to sniff out a bar."
This went on for some time as they walked. Finally, Brindle agreed to find a bar and get something to eat and drink. It wasn’t long before they found one. 'The Perfection Bar and Grill' sounded interesting, if a bit too optimistic. They went in through the glass door.
Perfection it seemed to be. It was as if an Obsessive Compulsive Being had laid the tables. Everything was in alignment with everything else. The table cloths were clean. The décor was bright and pleasing to the eye. No dark corners here to disappear into a drunken state. There were several diners and some beings propped up at the bar, but it wasn’t crowded by any means.
An immaculately dressed Maître d’ approached them, beaming from pink ear to pink ear with a broad smile. It was a pig-like being.
"Greetings," he declared with a dramatic wave of one of his three trotter-hands. "How can one help you today?"
The language was overly formal, but perhaps the translator units were not picking up the local speech patterns.
"Table for two." Snark was businesslike.
"Come this way."
The pig-being led them to a small table overlooking a portal with a view of the stars. The sun wasn’t in view. He handed them some menus, and bowed elaborately.
"May I suggest the special of the day?"
He launched into a long-winded description of almost every ingredient, and exaggerated the combination of tastes and smells one would experience in partaking of this particular dish. At one point their translators caught the words, 'fish of the day'.
"What is the fish of the day?"
"This dish is perfect for our FOD, which is a fine steak of Fentonian Shark. Caught early this morning, and shipped here on the fast courier from Gemini One."
Brindle and Snark looked at each other, and handed the menus back.
"Two specials," ordered Snark decisively.
"Drink?" he asked of Brindle.
Rather than have the same palaver over drinks, Brindle said simply, "Two house beers."
The pig-being looked miffed at not being given the opportunity to wax lyrical about the selection of fine beverages on offer, and looked down at the ordinariness of their taste in drink.
"Two house beers," he repeated pointedly, and retreated from the table.
Snark and Brindle smiled at each other as he left.
A leisurely meal followed, with the food actually rather good, even though Brindle tended to be overly critical of other being’s food. The two of them were getting on rather well, especially after they'd consumed at least two beers each, and were on their third.
They staggered slightly as they left, assuring the pig-being maître d’ the meal had been sensational.
Brindle was now interested in checking out another bar. This one with a bit more atmosphere. The neatness of the station was starting to get to her.
Their tablets pinged. Snark looked at the message.
"A fine?" he asked in disbelief. "What did we do?"
"Evidently, we consumed one too many glasses of alcohol in one sitting," said Brindle reading the fine print with difficulty.
"What?"
"It seems there is a policy of certain blood alcohol levels, and they go by standard drinks, calculated to general species, standard size and body weight for the species, and, I don’t know, the list goes on for a while." She grimaced. "My fine is slightly higher because I’m female, and the bar is set lower for me."
"But that’s crazy!"
"Hmmm." Brindle was still reading.
"What’s to stop us from just going to another bar, and having another drink and so on?"
"They track numbers of drinks purchased across all establishments at the station over time."
"Bloody hell!" Snark was ropeable. "You mean you can’t actually get drunk?"
"Seems to be the general idea." Brindle thought for a moment. "I guess you can, but you pay an awful lot in fines."
"Bollocks!" said Snark. "Let’s get out of here!"
Brindle laughed.
"I love it when you get decisive."
Thirty
Sissness and Patters had a relaxing massage, and grooming session, respectfully. Sissness found a bookshop come library, and disappeared inside. They agreed it seemed safe enough for them to split up, and Patters went looking for a weapons or sporting goods store. They made a plan to keep in regular communication.
Sissness was looking for information about the system, and any major events which may have taken place here around three centuries ago. She delved into the computerised search system, and started looking at references. She was soon buried in her work, and oblivious to her surroundings.
On Seasprite, the coms console pinged unexpectedly. Jamie used his PC to pull up a hollo display.
"What is it?" asked Anna.
"Seems we’ve been fined."
"Fined?"
"According to Station Procedures, Section 5, paragraph 2.1, article ii, we’ve brought weapons illegally onto the station. That must be the weapons the team are carrying."
"Why didn’t they warn us?"
"Apparently we were supposed to have read the Policies and Procedures. We’ve accepted them as conditions when we docked."
"How much?"
"One hundred gals."
"What?"
"There’s a number of other fines here."
"I hate to think."
"Over the alcohol limit. That’d be Snark for sure."
"What else?"
"Charges for accessing public information. Library costs."
"That’d be Sissness."
"Evidently we’ve breached the docking privileges, by using an unapproved docking mechanism."
"What is this place?"
"I think they basically don’t bother with Law and Order. They don’t need to. They just fine you for everything antisocial and people’s pecuniary interests take over, controlling behaviour. And if people break the rules, it doesn’t much matter, but they make a lot of money out of it."
"Oops. There’s a fine here for public swearing."
"That’d be Snark," they both said at the same time.
"How much is the total so far?"
Jamie totalled it up.
"Five hundred gals."
They looked at
each other in disbelief.
"Time to go?"
"Let’s find out if Sissness has found anything useful about this system."
He called Sissness, who hadn’t realised there were charges for accessing the public records.
"It’s interesting, but I don’t think there’s much here of use to us. The two planets are called Gemini 1 and Gemini 2. They each have separate governments, but the station really controls everything through governance mechanisms. I can’t find anything relating to the Destiny Stone, or Vasily Petrovsky, or an Anna Romanov."
"I think we give having R&R here a miss," said Jamie.
"I’ll come back now," agreed Sissness.
"I’ll call the others," said Anna.
Snark and Brindle were outside another bar, debating going in or not.
"What?" Snark was livid with disbelief. Public swearing? "Bollocks."
Anna was resigned.
"That just cost us another fifty gals."
"Bloody hell!"
Anna sighed.
They agreed to come back to the ship.
Patters was wandering about, without having found anything remotely reminiscent of a weapons store. In fact there was nothing to do with fighting at all on the station.
"Fined for carrying weapons?" she said in disbelief.
"Yes."
"I’m on my way back," she said promptly.
Jamie was in conversation with the station Chief Officer when she returned to the bridge. The others were already back.
Even though they were on their ship, they were still charged for additional swearing over the public coms system. Snark was beside himself, but the angrier he got, the more he swore, and so they were on a losing streak. Unable to think of a way of stopping him, Jamie hit him in the head, his suit triggering into protection mode saving him from any harm, but it also completely muted him. Patters continued to threaten him, so his suit stayed in protection mode, and Snark stayed silent.
Once ready to go, Jamie smoothed things over with the station Chief Officer, arranged payment, and were given instructions for leaving. There were several taxes for use of docking services, and also a departure tax.
"Just as a matter of interest," he asked. "Would there have been any problem had we done some hull repairs while docked?"
The fine quoted would have doubled what they'd already accrued. What really blew them all away though, was had they had the local shipyard people do any hull work, the fine for 'unauthorised hull material', and 'unauthorised weapons emplacements', would have bankrupted them. Jamie aimed another blow at Snark's head, and ensured the now thoroughly pissed off puss stayed mute. They were all suddenly really glad they hadn’t gone looking for shipyard.
Jamie paid up, received authorization to undock, and did so. He took it as easy as he could as they backed away, not stopping until they were far enough away their turning could not be construed as a threat to the station in any way. It wasn’t until there were well on their way to the next jump point, that he sighed, and started breathing again properly.
"Now we know why no out-system ships come here," he said quietly. "They're little more than civilized pirates."
"BLOODY MOP HEAD!" roared Snark as his suit shifted back to normal. "And you, ya mangy furred beast! You do that again and I’ll shoot you!"
Snark stormed out, and when they were sure he was out of hearing range, they all laughed.
Thirty One
Brother Paulus was pleased. Things were working out nicely. The tracker was still operating, pinpointing the Seasprite at the Outlook Station. He smiled. He'd heard about Outlook from the beings he was negotiating with here. An expensive place to visit.
He had found what he was looking for. A species who specialised in the art of war, and was agreeable to act as mercenaries, for the right price. He needed a great deal of firepower to defeat the Seasprite, and he wanted to disable and board the ship, not destroy it, which meant a great many ships. For the moment, however, he was content to follow them, and let them lead him to the Destiny Stone.
He was no further forward in finding out more information about the Stone. It seemed unknown in this area of space.
Brother Paulus smiled again. He'd dealt with Brother Steadfast. It hadn’t been an ingenious death at all. In the end, they'd just thrown him out of the airlock alive. It was a painful enough death to satisfy Brother Paulus, and he’d sent the vid back to the first sect at the edges of the sector, for dissemination.
The species he was dealing with were rather less intelligent than he would have liked, but made up for it with their warlike tendencies and aggression. They looked nothing like anything in Sector eight. Still with the centaur bodies, they had massively muscled legs, large torsos, and three long arms on their upper bodies. One of these was shaped as a weapon. The head was round, with multi-faceted eyes in a ring right around the skull. Their bodies were covered in spiky but sparse fur.
Ugly, but functional, thought Paulus. Their eyes gave them extraordinary vision, and a completely different perspective on things, while their strong bodies, made for hand-to-hand fighting, gave them controlled aggression. They were armed with a large fleet of ships, and could produce more if needed. It all took funds. He hoped Brother Prime would approve the expenditure.
Seasprite. Brother Paulus considered his next move. Wait for them to find the Stone, and then ambush them on the way home?
They would have the Stone, and the power it would give. Would this make them invincible?
Perhaps he should find out in advance where they were headed, and steal the stone from under their noses? Then he would have the power, and he could destroy them, or capture them perhaps for a little diversion for the long trek back?
He needed to make some enquiries. He needed information. And he thought he knew where he could get it.
He smiled again. When he had possession of the Stone, nothing would stop him. With the Stone, he would control the Brotherhood, and the sector. He could do whatever he wanted. He would have ultimate power.
He caught his own thoughts, and almost giggled. A little megalomania never hurt anyone.
He would stop at nothing to have it all.
Thirty Two
Their next stop on the journey to the Scylla system, was a jump point marked at the end point of the first of a set of three systems, which formed an enclave of trade and defensive power. Sissness had referenced information about the main planet in the tri-system, which boasted a tourist spot similar to the one on Perdita. Not a cave, but a set of standing stones in an open plain. Perhaps the ‘gods’ had visited here as well. And then Vasily, following in their footsteps.
"It’s worth a visit," said Sissness. "It could give us information to pinpoint where we go when we reach the Scylla system."
Jamie shrugged, and looked at the others. Snark sniffed, and Anna looked thoughtful.
Anna had been having more visions of the past, and was very tired. The visions were wearing her out, as they were quite harrowing. She became the Anna of the past, and suffered the same treatment. It was like she was two people. The quiet, withdrawn Anna from the past, afraid of her own shadow, and controlled by Vasily; and her own self, wilful and headstrong, although she was starting to lose some of these qualities as they went forward. The Anna of the past was influencing her own self. She felt less decisive and outgoing, and more submissive and withdrawn.
Snark looked over at Brindle, who was passing around a plate of fish cakes. These seemed to be the favourite of everyone. She'd been spending more time with him lately, and they got on well, even though they fought quite a lot. He liked her, because she was sassy and bold, unlike the more studious Sissness. Yes, he liked Sissness, but she was often in her own world.
It was a bit strange travelling with two female Cats of the Plains. He had always been on his own as a trader, and had not had much contact with other Cats of the Plains, let alone females. He was careful to maintain a 'friends' relationship with them, as he knew it would complicate t
eam dynamics by going any further. But Brindle was quite alluring. As well as being outgoing, she was a good-looking cat, with a very musky scent. Maybe he should stop thinking about her.
Jamie was thinking about Anna. He never stopped thinking about her. Being so close, and yet so far away, was frustrating. She looked very tired, and he knew she was having regular visions now about the past. There were things he knew she didn’t tell them, just by her emotions when she recounted the visions, and also what she wasn’t saying. He wished he could help. Maybe it was a help just being here for her. It didn’t feel enough, either for her or himself. Bloody women! He was getting like Snark.
They went through the jump point into the three-system enclave. As they made their way to the main planet, the team engrossed themselves in their set tasks, systems simulations, research, or hobbies.
Sissness had developed a love of Russian literature, which she was devouring voraciously. It was strange reading the stories of another species, but it did give her insight into human beings.
Patters had set up a fitness circuit and battle ground in the secondary hold, which allowed her to hone her weapons skills, and keep fit. They all used the fitness circuit as regularly as they could, though some enjoyed it more than others.
Jamie used the gun range to try and get Anna a bit more familiar with guns, and aiming them properly. He didn’t want to be shot by her accidently, which was a big risk at the moment.
Snark kept himself amused practicing with the ship’s systems, but was jealous he didn’t have the instant interface with the Seasprite Jamie and Anna had with their PC implants.
Brindle was quite frustrated. While she enjoyed cooking, there was a limit to how much you wanted to do, and others could eat. She needed an outlet. Travelling in Bhatet’s court had been restrictive. She’d been much like a prisoner, because she could never leave, without being hunted down by Bhatet.
Now, she felt she was her own cat, but she was still stuck. She couldn’t go where she wanted to go. Although she was seeing an unknown section of the galaxy, she still craved excitement. The team was as exciting as a dose of the runs. Jamie moped constantly over Anna, otherwise he was quite interesting for a human male. Sissness avoided her, as they didn’t really see eye to eye. Patters was an enigma. Quiet and thoughtful, she’d rebuffed Brindle’s overtures for 'girly talk'. Anna was a hopeless and demanding drama queen. She acted like what she was, a spoilt princess.
A.I. Destiny 4 Destiny Stone Page 14
