by J. N. Chaney
Thorn?
She sat bolt upright, inadvertently breaking her concentration and abruptly ending her attempted Joining.
Not even a hint of Thorn, not anywhere in the ether. She couldn’t find a trace of the most powerful Starcaster she knew. That meant that either someone or something out there was powerful enough to block access to him—
Or Thorn Stellers was dead.
22
Thorn groaned.
“I wish I was dead.”
He sat up, gingerly lowered his feet to the floor, and took his head in his hands. He then took a moment for self-examination. He wore a tunic and shirt, underwear, and, for some reason, a boot and sock on one foot, the other being bare.
He continued his personal assessment. His body ached in every joint, a shrill whine filled his ears with a piercing white noise, and his head—
Oh, yes. His head.
Someone had replaced his brain with a throbbing brick of agony. He could feel it pounding behind his eyes, like an irritating harmonic from a fusion reactor in need of tuning. Pain—less pain—more pain—less pain—more pain—
He heard someone moan. It was him.
He felt a metallic rush as the door slid open.
“Thorn, my friend, how are you?”
Thorn shrank back from Bertilak’s booming voice. “Please, Bertilak, keep it down to a dull roar, okay?”
The alien laughed but at least tried to restrain himself, with only modest success. He saw Bertilak’s enormous green feet cross to a chair and heard him sit down—but he didn’t look up, because that would involve moving his head, and that was the last thing he wanted to do right now.
“I’m sorry, Thorn, but you can’t carry on the way you did last night and not pay the price for it.”
Thorn levered his head up so he could look at Bertilak. “As I recall, you were carrying on just as much as I was.”
“Ah, but I’m used to it, and in terms of mass, I am both heavier and denser than you. A fact that carries some weight when it comes to revelry, if you’ll pardon my pun.”
Thorn lowered his head again, ignoring Bertilak’s irritating use of humor, and his breathing, and even the presence of his enormous green feet, which were close enough for Thorn to see without moving at all. He could well believe Bertilak’s assessment. Everyone at this strange, lonely outpost seemed to know Bertilak. Even in the bar, all he had to do was order the usual, a feat that Thorn considered to be the result of many trips to the same watering hole, to quote an old commander at Code Nebula.
Fringe was, Thorn had to admit, a remarkable place. Located just outside Allied Stars space, but still well away from the demilitarized zone, Fringe answered to no one.
And that was the point. No one even seemed sure who’d first established the place—a waystation for smugglers, a refuge for those on the lam, and a generally freewheeling, rambunctious place where the rules were simple: you pay your debts, you don’t rat on anyone, and you never, ever ask anyone about their past.
And all of it happened aboard an orbital platform, in the sense that it was platform-like and it orbited the relatively benign moon of one of the most violent gas giants Thorn had ever seen. But the similarity with other orbital platforms Thorn knew about, like the one serving Code Gauntlet, ended there. Someone had dropped the hull of an old bulk carrier into orbit, stripped out the drives, kept the powerplant running, and turned it into a makeshift space station. Someone else had come along with a smaller derelict ship and strapped it to the bulk carrier, then someone else had done the same. Eventually, the place known as Fringe came into being, a shabby mishmash of ships, hulls, and cargo pods, all bolted together into a single, sprawling thing. There was no better word for it, Thorn thought. Fringe was definitely a thing.
It also reminded him of other places he’d been, although in bits and pieces, not as a whole. The bar where he and Bertilak had done most of their carousing, for instance, was strongly reminiscent of a place on Seagram’s Planet where he’d once taken leave.
Which raised another question. How did the ON not know about this place? Or, maybe they did and just kept it under wraps. For that matter, given the sorts of trade that went on here, everything from pale grey markets, to the blackest of black ones, maybe the ON did know about it and just let it do its thing. Before he joined, Thorn had been around enough shady types and places to know the score. Places like Fringe had some advantages, not the least of which was tending to congregate all the rogues, rascals, and reprobates in one place. It made it easier to keep any eye on them.
Bertilak’s feet reappeared in Thorn’s field of view, which was still pretty much stuck on a spot between his own. “Thorn, I know you feel unwell.”
“Oh, I passed unwell a few light years back. I’m well into shitty, believe me.” He dragged his gaze upward again. “I’m no lightweight. What the hell was I drinking?”
Bertilak laughed, making Thorn wince. “What weren’t you drinking? You were the life of the party—the life of the life of the party, even. Color me as surprised as anyone to find that you could sing,” Bertilak said, holding out a cup.
“Color me your color. Because that’s how I feel.”
“Drink, friend. It’s a remedy, and it will help you immediately. It’s tailored to your blood chemistry, and—”
“Shh. I’ll drink it, if only to keep you from talking,” Thorn said. He took the cup, sniffed, made a face, then drank it—and felt his lips begin to rise in alarm. “Was that hair of the dog? Smelled like the muck on Murgon-4, but with the added stench of death.”
Bertilak shrugged. “Maybe they’re the same thing.”
Thorn grimaced. He didn’t really think Bertilak would try to get him to drink hydrocarbon sludge, but the alien was still something of an unknown.
“I haven’t yet steered you wrong, Thorn. Trust me on this.”
Thorn sighed again and finished the mug, his throat working mechanically as the thick, noxious goo began to go to work. He’d tried many hangover cures before, only a few with even mild success, so he expected this one to be no different. Still, get hungover enough, and you’d do anything to—
Thorn’s eyes widened. A soft warmth radiated from his stomach, rolling through his guts, his chest, then into his limbs, and finally his head. As it filled him, it completely washed away all traces of the night before.
Thorn looked up at Bertilak. “Holy shit.”
The alien grinned. “What did I tell you?”
Thorn stood. No aches, no pounding head, no wonky stomach. His mouth no longer tasted like an ashtray.
“I’ll say it again. Holy shit. Bertilak, why haven’t you put that on the market? You’d make a fortune!”
“If I did that, I wouldn’t be able to appear as a miracle worker in moments like this, now would I?”
Thorn chuckled. “I guess.” He looked at the dregs clinging to the inside of the mug. “Still, you’re sitting on a mountain of wealth here, my friend.”
“I thought you were more interested in my tech, my sensors and weapons and the like.”
“Who the hell needs those when you’ve got this?”
“Well, since you seem to be back on your feet, why don’t you get dressed? We’ve got work to do here at Fringe.”
“What sort of work?” Thorn asked, putting the mug down and reaching for his trousers. “For that matter, why are we here, Bertilak? You were pretty determined to be all coy about it last night.”
“I still am. However, once you get dressed and have had some breakfast, all your questions will be answered.”
Bertilak left. Thorn watched him go, then finished dressing.
Breakfast. Now there was something he’d assumed he’d just skip this morning, because nothing he’d have eaten would’ve stayed down for long. Now, though, he was ravenous.
He glanced at the mug as he strapped up his boots. An instant, almost perfect hangover cure. Was there anything Bertilak couldn’t do?
Which was a question still plucking a
t Thorn as he followed Bertilak through the maze of nearly identical twisting passages and compartments that made up Fringe. Some of it was still devoted to actual operations, housing generators and energizers, power converters and air processors. Fringe was still an orbiting platform, if a bizarre one, and had to maintain attitude control and a livable environment. The bulk of the place, though, seemed to be devoted to storing and moving cargo, or to debauchery, without much of a transition between the two.
They threaded their way among some crates and saw clothing scattered around the deck. Thorn’s gaze followed a trail of hastily flung-around trousers, shirts, belts, socks, and eventually underwear. The trail led around the corner of a stack of cargo pods, around which drifted an awful lot of pretty distinctive noise. He glanced at Bertilak, who just grinned and shrugged.
Thorn agreed. He really didn’t want to know and just followed Bertilak onward.
Eventually, the big alien stopped. “We’re meeting several, um, individuals just ahead. Please, let me do all of the talking. Oh, and no questions,” he said.
Thorn cocked his head. “Individuals? Who are they? What are you going to be talking to them about?”
“Now what did I just say.”
“I thought you meant don’t ask them any questions,” Thorn replied.
“Ah, technicalities and loopholes. You’ll fit right in here.” Thorn noted it explicitly didn’t answer his questions, but Bertilak had walked on before he could speak. He followed the big alien through a tight hatch into another compartment, this one apparently a repurposed cargo module. It was set up like another bar, with tables and chairs bolted to the deck. Thorn noted that the ashtrays were fastened down on the tables, and all the food and drink was served in flimsy, plastic containers. None of it could be weaponized during a brawl.
Which would be fine, if not for the fact that the two people glowering at them as they entered were already armed to the teeth.
A man and a woman, both looking as hard as ablative armor. He had a scruffy beard, a sneer, and a pair of massive handguns strapped to his waist. She wasn’t much different, aside from the beard.
“Bertilak, you were supposed to be here ten minutes ago,” the man snapped. “And time is money.”
Bertilak laughed and reached into a pocket. “Ten minutes? Here.” He tossed a single coin, a microcredit, onto the table. “That should cover ten minutes of your time, Garlen. You can owe me the change.”
Thorn followed Bertilak to the table, warily, taking in all of their surroundings the way one did when stepping into a new watering hole for the first time. Aside from him and Bertilak, and the man apparently named Garlen and his companion, there was one other man jammed behind a table covered with empty plastic cups. A gruff-looking bartender watched them all suspiciously from behind a pile of crates set up as a bar.
Bertilak sat down at the table, Thorn beside him. “So, Garlen, who’s your friend?” he asked.
The woman sat up. “I can speak for myself, thanks. Name’s Keely.”
Bertilak grinned. “And this fine gentleman is Thorn Stellers.”
Garlen scowled. “Looks like a cop. Are you a cop?”
“A cop? No. Not a cop.” Thorn considered telling him he was a Lieutenant in the Orbital Navy, but he decided to hold back until he knew just what the hell was going on here.
“So, what then? You’re some sort of aw-thor-it-ee figure, that’s for sure.” Garlen said it that way—aw-thor-it-ee, each syllable drawn out for emphasis and dripping with suspicious contempt.
Thorn sighed and prepared himself for a fight. He figured he and Bertilak should have this, but just in case, he touched his charm, his grubby old book, which was tucked away in his jacket’s inner pocket.
But Bertilak leaned forward, muscles bunched in menace. “Thorn is my friend and new partner, Garlen, and that’s all you need to know.”
Keely glared. “Sorry, but—”
Bertilak stood. “Fine. Thorn, these people don’t want our business, so let’s find some who do.”
“Just wait a minute,” Garlen said, raising a hand. “You can’t fault us for being careful, Bertilak. There’s a lot at stake here.”
“Most of it illegal,” Keely put in.
Garlen looked at her. “There are parts that aren’t illegal?”
She laughed.
Thorn shot Bertilak a glance as the big alien sat back down. A lot at stake, and illegal. What the hell was Bertilak up to?
“Alright, we’ll stay and keep talking. But I’m vouching for Thorn. And that should be good enough, right, Garlen?” Bertilak said.
The man gave a grudging nod. “I guess.” He suddenly raised his voice. “Mind you, I don’t like talking out in the open like this, where just anyone can hear it, you know?”
The bartender snorted out a resigned sigh and came out from behind the bar. He collected the bar’s only other patron, the barely conscious man now slumped in the corner, and bundled him out through the hatch. Before he left, he paused and turned back.
“This is going to cost me business, Garlen,” he said, glowering. “At least a hundred credits worth.”
“I’ll give you five hundred if it’ll shut you up.”
The bartender gave him a gap-toothed smile. “Don’t burn the place down,” he said, then left and closed the hatch.
“Now then, how about we get down to business. Bertilak, I’ve got some good stuff this time around. Think you’ll be damned interested in it,” Garlen said.
Keely leaned forward, a glare hardening her face. “You’ve got some good stuff, Garlen? Remember how you got your hands on it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Force of habit, sorry. We’ve got some good stuff.”
Bertilak glanced at Thorn, his expression one of warning. “Alright, and what, exactly, would this good stuff be?”
Garlen answered by pulling a battered data pad out of a belt pouch, tapping it, then dropping it on the table. Its screen was smeared with something. Thorn didn’t want to know what. It showed a schematic, one that Thorn didn’t immediately recognize.
“Particle cannons. Three prototypes, never deployed. The Calusians were trying to work out the bugs,” Garlen replied.
Keely tapped the grimy screen. “They never could get them to work properly, mainly because they were being sabotaged. These ones were supposedly scrapped.”
Thorn stared around the table. Particle cannons? Weapons? These people dealt in illicit arms? Bertilak dealt in illicit arms? It was a direction he hadn’t expected, because Bertilak verged on being goofy, with his oafish presence and boundless positivity. Weapon merchants—at least the ones Thorn had seen—were dark shadows in any room, no matter how many lights were glowing.
“I need a moment to speak to my friend,” Bertilak said, standing and gesturing for Thorn to follow him.
Thorn followed him out of the bar compartment, holding his tongue until the big alien had closed the hatch.
“What the hell, Bertilak? These are, what, black market arms dealers? You’re a black-market arms dealer?”
Bertilak smiled. “Now you see why I asked you to step out here.”
“Instead of being honest and telling me up front.”
“If I had, would you be here now?”
“No. No, I wouldn’t. In fact, I wouldn’t be on this little jaunt with you at all. This is illegal, Bertilak. The ON arrests traders for this sort of thing.”
“It would probably count as unethical, too. Even immoral,” Bertilak put in.
Thorn just stared at him. “Immoral? Bullshit. It’s unconscionable. Do you know what these people do with shit like this? They kill children. They kill—”
“Children? The weapons are not intended to kill children,” Bertilak protested.
Thorn’s bark of laughter was loud and harder than steel. “Are you serious? How naïve are you? Once these are out of your big, green hands, every weapon you sell can and will be used to kill whatever is in the way. Of course innocents will die. It’s what happens wh
en you sell hardware to people who have a cause and don’t care who gets hurt. Why would you do this?”
Bertilak grinned. “For the money. There’s a lot of it involved. A lot. That’s what those high stakes we were talking about really are,” he said.
Thorn was apoplectic, his fingers tapping across the talisman in a barely suppressed need to ’cast. “So who are these people, Garlen and Keely?”
“Traders, like me.”
“Traders.” The word was a curse. And more.
“It sounds much better than arms dealer, or smuggler, don’t you think?” Bertilak offered.
Thorn shook his head in utter disgust. “I can’t have any part of this, Bertilak. None. I’m an ON officer. I might be wearing civvies, but it doesn’t change my sworn duties, and even more importantly, I’m a human. I won’t give you an assist on stacking the bodies of people who aren’t soldiers. Hell, I wouldn’t even do it if it was strictly to be used on military targets.”
Bertilak’s grin faded, and he gave Thorn a thoughtful look. “Does it change things if I tell you how much we stand to make from this job? That it’s three million, five hundred thousand credits, which I would of course split with you—sixty for you, forty for me?”
Once again, Thorn briefly lost his words. Three point five million credits was nearly a lifetime of pay for him. Sixty percent of that would be a fortune. It wasn’t that he desperately needed the money for anything, at least not right now. But he wouldn’t be a soldier forever, and ON pensions were notoriously thin.
He finally just gave Bertilak a look of confused surprise. “Sixty percent for me. Why? I’m just your passenger.”
“To buy your silence, of course.”
“You really aren’t worried about the ethics or morality of this, are you?”
“I don’t make money off of ethics or morality.”
Thorn scrubbed a hand through his hair. “So why didn’t you hand Tanner an invoice for saving the Hecate?”
“Because there are good reasons to ingratiate myself with the Orbital Navy. Contrary to everyone’s image of the roguish, romantic outlaw, the best way to stay in this sort of business is to cultivate good relationships with the authorities.”
