Planetary Parlay

by Cameron Cooper

  Keskemeti got it. After all, he was smart, when he wasn’t being an idiot. “Me,” he said heavily. “You want me to make her think she’s made a difference for me.”

  I patted his shoulder. “There you go.”

  The girl moved through the tight group of Drigu, Slate beside her, and the older woman on her other side. The older Drigu looked like she was ready to attack us with her curled up fists. I probably outweighed her by a dozen kilograms, and she’d seen me shove everyone aside to reach Keskemeti, too, but she was still ready to defend her fellow Drigu.

  I had to admire her attitude. I realized with a little frisson of shock that it was the first time I had seen anything resembling a fighting spirit, moxy or even a backbone in these ground-down people.

  I had got used to the idea that they didn’t have any.

  The threesome stopped before us. I glared at Keskemeti, who drew in a breath and said, “I must humbly apologize, Mercia. I did not fully understand what my command meant when I said you should go. I have upset you, and that was not my intention.” His tone was stiff. I wondered if Slate was conveying that stiffness in his translation and watched Mercia’s tear-swollen face carefully.

  She relaxed a little as Keskemeti continued. “It was my intention, in fact, to make you happy. So I offered you what would make me happy. That is what I did not understand. If you can forgive me for upsetting you, would you continue to help me, as you have been?”

  He glanced at me. I gave a little nod. I hoped it would do, even though I could see the cracks in his sincerity. But he was trying, I had to give him that. He was cooperating with me.

  Mercia began to weep again, as Slate finished his translation. She nodded, her tears rolling down her cheeks and beamed at Keskemeti. The older Drigu next to her beamed with approval, too.

  I let out a silent sigh of relief. A disaster had been averted and it was only noon. I couldn’t wait for the rest of the day to unravel.

  —18—

  A stream of Terrans emerged from the little door at the back of the hall and sent startled looks toward Keskemeti and I and the Drigu surrounding us. Another larger stream of Drigu crossed the bridge between this building and the next and sailed into the hall.

  Some of the Drigu who had been threatening to beat Keskemeti up also went into the hall.

  “What’s happening, Slate?” I asked.

  “The morning session has ended,” the android said. “The Drigu must prepare the hall for the midday meal, which will be served in twenty minutes.”

  “They’re going to break down the entire hall and rebuild the dining table?” Keskemeti said, sounding both awed and horrified.

  “It is the way of it,” Slate said.

  Yep, I was already sick of that phrase. I stirred. “I’m going to find the biscuits that were out last night and have those for lunch,” I declared. I looked around and found Kamil hovering nearby, as I had expected and beckoned to her. “Slate, how do I get a message to Isuma Florina?”

  “If you tell me the message, I will ensure it is conveyed to The Florina,” Slate replied.

  “Okay, great. Tell her I would like to tour the wreck of the Success to the Bold this afternoon.” I added, “The Florina said she would provide a guide.” I knew the guide would be there to keep us out of mischief, not to provide us with a memorable experience, but it would keep the Terrans happy if I appeared content to have a guide with us.

  Getting away from this building, even off this island, even if it was only a few meters offshore, sounded like a fantastic idea to me.

  Slate swiveled and spoke quickly. One of the Drigu I did not know looked from Slate to me. Then he gave one of those back-bending bows, straightened and moved into the hall through the back door.

  Message on its way. I sighed with relief.

  “You said something about biscuits?” Keskemeti said to me.

  “You’re skipping lunch, too?”

  Keskemeti’s smile was knowing. “I think that would be best. At least for today.”

  “This way,” I told him and dived down the stairs before anyone showed up to change my mind.

  *

  Travert was a taciturn Ami, with facial scarring and a bearing that made me think he was from the military, possibly still in the military and stuffed into civilian clothing to escort us around the wreck.

  But before Travert knocked upon the suite door and asked for me by name, my tour party increased from me and Slate to include Dalton, Yoan—who couldn’t resist an engineering mystery—Sauli, Eliot Byrne, Juliyana and Lyth, Calpurnia and Marlee Colton. It wasn’t a surprise to me that everyone who wanted to examine the wreck either had an engineering background, or a military one. Lyth was the outlier, but as he had once been a shipmind, examining a mystery ship seemed appropriate for him.

  Mace came along, too, curious to dig into a historical mystery.

  Kristiana looked intrigued, but regretful. “Jai and the rest of us have to brainstorm some strategies and tactics,” she admitted. “Plus I should also turn up for the midday meal, speaking of which…” She checked her pad and hurried out of the suite.

  Travert had brought his own interpreter android, which took some of the pressure off Slate.

  “You are interested in the Success to the Bold, yes?” Travert clarified when he stepped into the suite. He looked around curiously, taking in the stacks of crates and the rough-and-ready kitchen, where I stood eating biscuits from the tray.

  I brushed off crumbs and nodded. “Yes. How soon can we start?”

  “As soon as the car arrives,” Travert told me. He glanced around the room. “Are all these people to come with you?”

  “Is that alright? The Florina did not indicate there would be a limit on the numbers.” I deliberately invoked her title, rather than her name.

  Travert shook his head. “It is alright. But I must ask for more cars.”

  “Let’s walk,” Dalton said. “I’ve been on my ass—rear, sorry, for days. It can’t be more than five klicks to the beach from here.”

  I nodded enthusiastically and so did most everyone sitting about the room. “Yes, let’s walk there,” I told Travert.

  Travert frowned. “I suppose, yes. Walking…but you must stay with me, yes? If you separate, that will not be good.”

  We were a lighthearted group who descended the stairs behind Travert and moved through the ground floor of the palace and out into the sunshine. I was so glad to be out of the building that I didn’t even mind the wind flipping my hair about, or the sun in my face, or the humidity.

  Unlike the day we had arrived—which had only been yesterday, stars!—the grounds in front of the palace building were not empty of people today. More Drigu, these wearing wide-brimmed hats, were raking the grass. At least, I presumed that was what they were doing. I had heard of raking, but never seen it done, and the tools they were using were not brooms. Others were sweeping the road itself—and they were using brooms. They all looked up as we passed, startled.

  I almost wanted to wave to them but resisted the impulse.

  I moved through the group to catch up with Slate, who walked steadily just behind Travert and his android.

  “What can you tell me about the Success to the Bold, Slate?”

  “Me?” He sounded startled. “You do not wish to consult with Travert?”

  I snorted. “He’s a guide, not a walking encyclopedia.”

  “Danny,” Dalton said, behind me, his tone warning.

  “I cannot be offended by the truth,” Slate told Dalton.

  “There,” I replied. “So, what do you know of the ship?”

  “I have one record. What I have has little content and is heavily cross-indexed.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means the entry he’s looking at says ‘see this entry instead’,” Lyth called out from even further behind.

  “Yes, precisely,” Slate said.

  “What does the content say?”

  “The Success to the Bol
d was a Patriarch class Gibson-Maass Spacial Compression Drive interstellar craft registered to The Muradar Alliance Defense Force.”

  “That’s it?” I breathed. “Not even a list of active years, or significant battles?”

  “No, Danny.”

  “When they say they expunge all knowledge of a defeated enemy, they really mean it, don’t they?”

  “What are the other suggested entries, Slate?” Lyth called.

  “The HMS Titanic,” Slate said. “The Marie Celeste mystery. The fate of the Jian Seng, the disappearance of the Sofie Sartor, the Hope of Leokadia, the Majesty of Maximon.”

  I mulled over the list as we moved down the curving road through thickly clustered trees. Many of them were palm trees, mixed with other very tall trees and beneath the canopy, the shade was dense and the ground mostly clear of growth, for the sun did not directly reach the earth. I moved over to the side of the road where the shade lingered and wished I had a hat like the slaves wore.

  The name of the entries cross-indexed with the Success to the Bold told me they were all to do with mystery ships—those that had disappeared or been lost without explanation. Only I knew that the Terrans knew exactly what had happened to the Success to the Bold. “How do they not break out in hives, with all this self-censoring?” I muttered.

  “What was that last ship you named, Slate?” Juliyana called.

  “The Majesty of Maximon.”

  “The one before that, then?”

  “The Hope of Leokadia.”

  “That one,” Juliyana said. “Leokadia. I know that name, but I can’t remember why. I do know it had nothing to do with a ship, though.”

  “Lyth, do you recall anything?” I asked.

  “Sure, ask the eidetic idiot, when you have an amateur historian right next to you,” Mace said. He didn’t sound upset though.

  “You know the name, then?” I shot back.

  “Nope.” He grinned.

  “Leokadia is a myth,” Lyth said. “It’s a stretch to call it a myth, too. More like a rumor. Some of the worlds—Uqup Pedrottle in particular—believe that the very first settled Carinad world was Leokadia.”

  “I thought Uqup said they were the first world,” Sauli said.

  “They do, but that’s where it gets confusing,” Lyth said. “Leokadia, if it existed, was abandoned or lost before the Universal Data Archive was built. There are no documents or records proving Leokadia existed.”

  “Maybe Uqup Pedrottle was Leokadia,” Mace suggested. “And they changed the name—also before the UDA was started.”

  “And maybe it’s the same myth as the Terran version, only theirs is a ship and ours is a colony,” Yoan said.

  We rounded the curve, moving out of the trees and onto the stretch of the road that ran beside the beach. Travert was setting a cracking pace, as if he wanted to get this over and done with.

  Far ahead, we caught our first glimpse of the high hump of the bridge to the next island, with the raised drawbridge section like a solid finger jutting into the air.

  Beside it, the Success crouched in the water. The Success made the bridge look microscopic.

  “Wow, those things are big,” Calpurnia said.

  “What was the class name, again, Slate?” Marlee asked.

  “Patriarch class.”

  “Good name,” Dalton said.

  “Says the man,” I replied.

  “Matriarch class just doesn’t have the same ring,” Dalton said.

  “Yet we’re calling them motherships,” I pointed out.

  That was your name for them, I believe, Lyssa said in my ear.

  You can shut up and listen, I sub-vocalized to her.

  Yes, mother, she whispered back, her tone sarcastic.

  We moved down the road, and now we were in full sun, we were sweating freely. Nearly a kilometer on, we came across a Drigu work crew repairing the road. They should have looked cool and comfortable in their tunics, but they were wet with sweat and black with grime, as they spread fresh surface sealant on the road.

  Dalton came up beside me. “Have you noticed how many Drigu are on this island?” He kept his voice down, so Travert’s translator wouldn’t hear it.

  “A lot.”

  “I think they outnumber the Ami and the Asgar put together,” Dalton said. His glance met mine.

  “They need them just to get through their days,” I pointed out. “They can’t even pour a glass of water without a Drigu running to fetch it for them.”

  “Yep.”

  We fell silent while we passed the road crew. Even though walking in the direct sun was unpleasant, I still felt embarrassed as I by-passed the crew, because their situation was far worse. Yet their expressions were not miserable, which I had expected them to be. They seemed absorbed in the work, and oblivious to what had to be severe discomfort.

  “Uh-oh,” Dalton said, when we had the road to ourselves once more. He sounded concerned.

  “What?”

  He turned his head and looked out at the blue green sea. “On the horizon.”

  I peered. A band of dark grey seemed to highlight the edge of the ocean. “What is that?”

  “Clouds,” Dalton, the baller, said. “A storm,” he added, with a quick glance at me. “Do you want to go back?”

  “Hell, no,” I said without hesitation. “I’m enjoying being out here.”

  “Really?” He raised a brow.

  “I’m enjoying not being in the palace,” I amended.

  Someone snorted, behind me. I thought it was Yoan but didn’t bother checking. Instead, I studied the grey on the horizon. It looked like it had widened just in the few seconds we had been talking about it. “Is that…sprinting at us?”

  “Slate,” Dalton said. “How fast can storms come in, here?”

  “You refer to the clouds on the horizon, Dalton?”

  “Yes. Do you have access to weather forecasts?”

  “Is there such a thing?” I said. Yeah, I was out of my element on a sodball. Weather didn’t exist in deep space.

  “All dirtside states have weather forecasting,” Lyth said. “They’re critical if they have exterior cultivation industries.”

  “The forecast I can access is forty minutes old,” Slate said, responding to Dalton. “It does not suggest rain or a storm.”

  “But it’s right there on the horizon,” I pointed out. “They can see it.”

  “It’s probably a squall, then,” Mace said. “Eliot, remember that rock where we found the uranium?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Eliot Byrne said heavily. “Right next to the sea. Clear skies one minute, raging storm ten minutes later. It lasted about that long, too, but we lost half our shelters because of the rain and winds.”

  I shuddered and found myself examining the grey and black clouds scudding toward us.

  “Your call,” Dalton told me. “We can head back if you want.”

  “I’m not going to ruin this for everyone else.”

  “I’m not going to let a little rain stop me,” Sauli said. “You can go back if you want. I want to see this ship from the inside.”

  “Thanks,” I said dryly. I shook my head. “No, I want to go on. And from the look of those clouds, I don’t think we’d make it back to the palace before it gets here, anyway.” What I didn’t say was that I was getting used to the breeze pushing my hair about—and I’d tucked it behind my ears, which helped stop it slapping my eyes. Being deluged in water right now was almost welcome.

  “I predict it will reach us in fifteen minutes,” Slate said.

  “Yeah, a squall,” Eliot Byrne said, his tone cheerful. “Well, once we’re wet through, it won’t matter.”

  “In this heat, it will feel like a shower,” Marlee Colton added.

  The Success and the drawbridge grew closer, and I was starting to be able to pick out details. I frowned as I stared ahead. “Is something blocking the road, up ahead? Marlee, Lyth…can you make out what it is?”

  They peered ahead for a few dozen
steps.

  “It…looks like people,” Marlee said.

  “They’re very dark,” Lyth added. “Drigu, with their white tunics, would be clearer.”

  “Dark, like dark blue?” Dalton asked, a sharp note in his voice.

  Lyth nodded grimly. “Could be. Another half-klick and we’ll know for sure.”

  By then, even I would be able to see the details, and if it was what I thought it was, then I didn’t want to get that close, because it would put us in firing range.

  Lyssa, can you analyze what is ahead of us? I asked silently.

  Looking.

  I waited and watched the road ahead.

  I count ten Muradar soldiers, gathered in the middle of the road.

  “It’s Terran military,” I said grimly, halting. I raised my voice. “Travert, why is there a squad of Muradar soldiers up ahead?”

  Travert turned to face us, bringing everyone to a stop. He shrugged. “The army practices. It could be a drill. Anything.”

  I stared at him, thinking fast. Dalton turned to face me. “A confrontation is the last thing Jai needs. They’re already taking a beating at the table.”

  I nodded. “And the squad up there might have nothing to do with us, as Travert says.” I spoke quietly so his translator didn’t pick up my voice. “But if we turn back, we’ll never know why they’re there.”

  Dalton got it. “Better to confirm the data,” he concluded.

  “Then back off as quietly as we can, if Travert is wrong about them.” I glanced over Dalton’s clothing and raised my brow.

  “One or two things, here and there,” he assured me.

  I just had an emergency blade in the band of my trousers. “It will have to do, if it comes to that.”

  “I’m packed,” Juliyana said, right behind me, her voice very low.

  “You would be,” Dalton said, not quite rolling his eyes.

  I twisted to look behind me. Everyone in the group had gone through basic training for the raid on Hegara. “Eyes in the back of your head, people,” I said softly. “Let’s find out what’s going on.”