Sparks in Cosmic Dust

by Robert Appleton

  “When this arrived I danced a grotesque jig, buck naked, in the empty whirlpool tub. Never happier. Because you, my little Rapunzel, never had to let your hair down for anyone…not until you wanted to. Ker-ching. How right I was. You’ve been the biggest earner in the history of this place. That scrub you spread rug for…I’ll bet he wasn’t in on it, was he? Not until you invited him back for fuck number two. Damn, that must have been agony, trying to make it look professional for the cameras. V.W., I salute you.”

  She gawped, speechless.

  Time to get out…now. But what about her earnings? The bastard had her right where he wanted—in violation of her contract—and he had every right to kick her out on her ass, leave her penniless. Livid shame dredged her guts, snagged on the promise she’d made to Solomon. Tomorrow, the greenhouse, apples and saplings. Make that saps.

  “You left me no choice.” If his delivery had altered in the slightest, if he’d let slip a hint of remorse or even gloating, she wouldn’t have reacted the way she did.

  “Piss on your three percent. I’d rather die than decorate another one of your shit traps.” She grabbed and hurled the digi-foil, forgetting that it took a psammeticum drill to even scratch one. “So you know my secret? Guess what, I know a few of yours, you ass-picking sleaze-heaver. The day you go legit, that’s the day a tin man grows tin tits. Oh, and how’d you get that harem again? A seven-for-one special on lobotomies? Jesus, those broads are desperate. Best check them in at the luggage hatch or their empty heads might depressurize the whole freaking shuttle.”

  “You done?”

  Varinia pressed her fists to her hips, widened her stance. “Not until I get what’s owed me.”

  “Then you’re done.” Arch inhaled a pinch of snuff from a cigar box on the edge of his desk. By the time Varinia noticed one of his cufflinks was flashing red, the door flung open and two imposing bouncers burst in to lash her arms behind her back.

  She kicked at Archie and head butted behind her, but hit only air. “You bunch of bastards. Suck-baits. Get off—”

  Archie slapped her cheek. Twice. The shock silenced her, but the hot smarting sensation seared her rage.

  “Now this is how it’ll happen,” he said. “I don’t give a shit who you really are. Not now. But I am locking you in a cube for two days. Give you a chance to think things over. Then you’re taking the first shuttle back to a hundred zee. You’ll sign my contract for three years, with all the perks I promised you. Until that expires, you won’t leave the maze except when I give permission, and you’ll have an escort. No messing. Try anything else and you will die. I promise you. Oh and by the way, ever insult my wives again and you’ll wind up spreading rug twenty-four-seven…in a very dark room.”

  She had to escape…before the horror flooded in…she had to rise, to steal out of body to where physical pain couldn’t touch her and where she was master of all. The only place she’d ever truly known herself. The last safe—

  Crack!

  Archie slapped her awake, held her face in his hands, then sprouted a sickly grin. “Not yet, princess. I want to introduce you to one of our investors. He’s traveled a long way, and he’s been dying to play the one and only Varinia Wilcox. So be a good sport tomorrow, will you? Lose convincingly.” He chuckled, then squeezed her cheeks until her lips bunched open. “After all, you should be used to that by now.”

  Genetically modified to ripen quickly and survive in low-oxygen environs, the pale green apples were crisp and sweet. As Solomon munched on his second, he checked the solar-powered clock hanging from the greenhouse roof. Twelve-thirty had been and gone. No sign of Varinia. He shifted his weight on the creaking wicker chair in the shade of an oversized apple tree. “You don’t get many pickers these days, I’m guessing?” he asked the twin gardeners, plump Chinese girls in their early twenties.

  “We prefer it that way,” the shorter, cuter one piped up. “Our papa used to say the only thing a plant needs to survive is the one thing man is incapable of providing.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “His absence.”

  “Hmm. Doesn’t really hold true out here, though, does it? I mean, without us, there wouldn’t be a garden.”

  “Right.” The second twin lugged a bushel of apples over to her roly-poly helper. “The garden shouldn’t be here. And neither should we.”

  “That’s an odd thing for a gardener to say.”

  “Is it? All I meant is that none of this is natural. We’re in a greenhouse inside a greenhouse. The asteroid is spinning so fast these plants don’t know which way is up. And the nearest genuine atmosphere suitable for them is light-years away. They’ve no business being here.”

  “In that case…” Solomon gave a sigh, “…they can join the club.”

  “Exactly, friend.” The shorter twin handed him a rare red apple, winked, then left with the roly-poly, ushering it deeper into the warm and misty greenhouse.

  An artificial swamp for Venusian orchids attracted one or two visitors. On the far side, a diminutive woman wearing overalls and thick gloves, probably the girls’ mother, watered a row of Jaguar altos with her hose. He identified them from their silver stems and the quiet but high-pitched note they sang when their thirst was quenched—on their home world, it was during the monsoon. But the twins were right, this doomed colony was no place for sensitive living things like those to linger.

  One-thirty arrived. Two o’clock. He’d guessed Varinia’s boss might protest over that large a sum, but they had signed a contract and shack-sheiks weren’t known for reneging on promises—their competition was too great, too well-informed. Maybe she’d had to wait for Delaney to return from a trip somewhere. What if his accountant had all the earnings figures and couldn’t be reached right away?

  Or what if she’d run out on him?

  Nah, she’ll be here.

  At three-fifteen he leaped up and, convinced she must be in trouble, stormed over to her hotel.

  The desk clerk flicked his ginger eyebrows up in recognition. He’d served Solomon four days ago when he’d handed him Varinia’s credit package, and they’d talked about the border terrorists’ shuttle bombing on the lower-tier launch pad. Crazy stuff, well over a thousand dead. Everyone had seen the fireworks.

  “’Ello again,” the man said.

  “Hello back. I don’t suppose you’ve seen Miss Wilcox, have you? She passed through here at all?”

  “No, señor. I’ve been at the desk all afternoon, and the señorita hasn’t come in or out. Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “I don’t suppose she left a message last night? Or this morning? Password is blackjack.”

  “Sí, señor. You don’t have to tell me. The señorita said I should help you with anything you need.”

  Solomon’s pulse quickened, he inched his sweaty hand onto the desktop damp with detergent. “So where’s this message?”

  “That was it. That I should help you with anything you require.”

  “So there’s no actual message, as in a note in her post-box, or another package?”

  The man double-checked her box—room number 39—then shook his head. “No, señor. Nothing today.”

  Without acknowledging, Solomon took off for the staircase across the unmopped foyer. Litter had been swept against the walls, out of the way, but no one appeared to be shoveling it up. El Oso Negro wasn’t the dingiest dive he’d seen—there were several real suck-bait kip-holes on Kappa Max—but compared to Maggie’s palace, this seemed shockingly low-rent for a famous beauty like Varinia. Maybe that was the point—this was her hideout, the last place anyone would look for her.

  He knocked at number 39. No reply. “Varinia, this is Solomon,” he shouted. “Varinia? Everything okay?”

  Still no response. Getting angry, he stepped back against the emergency fire popper, one of those old extinguishers that sucked all nearby oxygen and flames into a vacuum sphere. He charged at the door, shoulder-first. It slammed open without breaking. It hadn�
��t been locked? One quick scan around the empty room pulled the plug on his heart.

  Varinia had packed up and moved out.

  But when? To where? Why hadn’t she left a message?

  The word bitch clawed the tip of his tongue, but Solomon hesitated in spitting it out. He didn’t simply have strong feelings for her, he trusted her more than he’d trusted anyone in a long time. And this just didn’t smell right.

  The only other place he could think of to try was the only one he dreaded returning to. But if the bastards at Delfin were behind this…shit, he was about to make powerful enemies. The kind that didn’t take kindly to…ringers like him.

  “Hey, can you help me out?” Solomon asked one of the bouncers patrolling the high-priced block inside the Delfin. “I was in here last night—the premier cube—and I’ve lost my goddamn cufflinks. They’re very expensive silver studs. Can you help me out?”

  The blond seven-footer stopped chewing, stared down at him. “You can’t be here ’less you ante up. Paying clients only. I tell you what, though—you go cool your heels at the front desk while I scan the prem.”

  “Okay. Thanks. Appreciate it.”

  The man grunted and waited for Solomon to leave the corridor. Soon as he was out of sight, Solomon returned the favor, his back to the wall, listening while the giant jogged down to the premier cube door. Predictable, the man’s response also made it certain that Varinia was not at work. He keyed the code into the door panel, then dashed in, clearly eager to find that treasure in the sand and keep it for himself.

  This next part was going to be the trickiest. Hell, the bouncer was twice his size. Not necessarily stronger, though. Solomon had broken up enough miners’ brawls, pummeled enough bullies on his various tours that he no longer feared a man’s size as much as his potential for turning psychotic. Someone who knew when to stop was not a threat. What would this one be like?

  It was wiser not to confront him at all, so Solomon crept to the cube door and waited, fist at the ready. If someone else came along, he’d give the same cufflinks story. No one did. The bouncer took his time, the whir of his scanner working overtime oddly soothing to the ear. It stopped. Solomon clenched his jaw, braced his shoulders and coiled his frame, ready to strike. The gentle hiss, hiss of displaced sand sank beneath the thump of his pulse. He’d have to punch up, meaning less power. Lean in, then, full body. The man’s muttering drew closer, a string of expletives preceding him…

  Crunch!

  The momentum from Solomon’s right hook launched them both through the door onto the sand. The man squealed onto his side in agony, blood jetting from his nose onto the violet—now almost black—sand. Quick as he could, Solomon shut the door and lunged at the man before he recovered from the shock. Gripping him by the throat, Solomon threatened him with another fist. “What’s happened to Varinia Wilcox? Where is she? Tell me or I start beating on your throat.”

  A groan. A gurgle.

  “I’ll count to three. One—”

  “Aqua Three, she…she’s not allowed out ’til Mr. Delaney…he’s off-world ’til—”

  “I don’t give a shit. Take me to Aqua Three, right now.” Solomon pressed the sharp point of a credit shard against the man’s jugular. It must have felt like a blade for all the dazed bouncer knew. He struggled to his feet and lumbered down the next corridor, one hand held to his nose, the other feeling his way along the wall. The nose break had obviously affected his vision as well.

  “Right, what’s the code?” Solomon demanded when they reached Aqua Three.

  “Seven, Nine, Seven, Nine, Zero.”

  Solomon’s adrenaline almost got the better of him. He made two mistakes but nailed the sequence on the third try. After kicking the door open, he shoved the bouncer inside, down a half dozen steps. Hardly any sand in this cube, and what was here was deep blue and wet. Water pooled against the far right-hand wall after some kind of drainage. The rest of the floor was slick and damp. Solomon reckoned the entire room flooded during game hours, perhaps as much as four feet, going by the faint discoloration on the turquoise walls up to that height. Some kind of kinky mermaid striptease?

  “Varinia? Varinia!” He gasped with relief as she dashed out from behind the bedroom partition—a similar design to her premier cube. Dressed smartly in skin-tight black pants and a warm black sweater, she looked ravishing. A prisoner, then, but a well-groomed one.

  “Solomon, how did you—”

  The bouncer slid across her path and smacked the alarm sensor with his boot. There were no wailing sirens, no flashing lights. Had the system packed in? Varinia’s quick, desperate shake of the head suggested otherwise.

  Shit. He ran over and kicked the man in the jaw with full force. Lights out. No time for words. He took Varinia’s hand and led her outside. The gathering pit-pat of running steps from somewhere behind forced them into a sprint, all the way down Aqua corridor and prem block, past the janitor’s closet where he’d left his first victim, a suited employee with a quick tongue but slow reflexes, and back to the foyer, past the receptionist whom he’d paid fifty clips and his tale of two cufflinks. He opened the security gate. As an emergency exit, it wasn’t locked from the inside.

  Varinia slowed him down behind the holo-show, snuggled up to him, arm in arm, then started to laugh. Fake. Smart girl. He copied her, shielded her from the reception desk, and even stole behind a gaggle of smogged-up sleaze-heavers along the wall. No sooner had they reached the sun-drenched pavement outside when Varinia tugged him not left, to the safety and anonymity of the central tier, but right, back toward El Oso Negro.

  “What are you doing? That asshole hit the alarm. We need to get lost.”

  “Give me five minutes.” Her radiant resolve and focused glare were impossible for him to deny. “In, out, I promise. All the clips I have left are in there.”

  He jogged alongside her. “How much did Delaney give you?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Not a single clip.”

  Even through his pragmatic armor the blow struck and resounded. Without her fortune, this was going to be a dicey game spent in hiding. They wouldn’t be able to afford their shuttle fare, and he’d spent a big chunk of his wages already. The majority of their fugitive fund, then, would be what Varinia had stashed away in El Oso Negro.

  “How much have we got?”

  She shook her head emphatically. “Less than I promised.”

  “What does that—”

  She threw her arms in the air. “How should I know? I never counted my tips.”

  Chapter Six

  Grace Peters

  “You said you stayed here before? What were you…smogged?” Varinia pinched her nose as she approached what had to be the dingiest hotel she’d ever seen or smelled in her life. Formerly a multi-story freight hangar, it looked as though its top had been ripped off and the proprietor had simply thrown a tarpaulin roof over the thing and called it a hotel. Cody’s was everything Varinia had heard about it and much less besides.

  “Man, and I thought it was a dive back then,” Solomon said. “Two years is a long time. At least the price hasn’t gotten worse. Half a clip a cot. Even we can ante up that much, can’t we?”

  Not funny. She’d absconded from El Oso Negro with several thousand clips’ worth of tips—far more than they’d expected. But he was right—this was the last place Archie Delaney would look for her. She punched his arm playfully then nudged him ahead of her, saying, “Whatever happens to me, I want to see it happen to you first.”

  “You’re welcome.” Deflecting ne’er-do-well glances from the indigenous foyer bums, Solomon dropped two half credits into the turnstile slot. Varinia glimpsed her reflection in the dirty kiosk window. Her tacky Mackintosh coat and hood and her baggy jeans made her look like a fat hiker, while the handfuls of soil Solomon had “borrowed” from the greenhouse now covered her face and jeans. She was every inch the grid-licker he’d wanted her to be. And it felt safe. Anonymous. Despite daubing his cheeks with soil, Solomo
n had only needed to wear his trusty orange mining jacket to fit right in. Oh, and she’d ruffled his hair a little as well.

  He wagged two fingers in front of the old man in the kiosk, who fetched two folded-up blankets and pear-shaped pillows. Disgusting, ill-stained things. Better than nothing…barely.

  “Come on,” Solomon whispered. “Keep your head down, stay right behind me. I’ll look out for you.”

  “Deal.”

  Moisture leaked though the tarp roof onto flaked-out guests who didn’t seem to care. Beds stood inches above the floor, which resembled a chalky subway station with acne. The disused monorail track running in a gulley through the center of the hotel had once carried freight to and from shuttles. Now the only thing it carried was a nauseating whiff of sick. Eight or nine metal sheets bridged the gap, though she reckoned half the regulars here wouldn’t be able to cross the Golden Gate Bridge with a compass. Umpteen hollow oil drums housed fires for the various garrulous cliques scattered about.

  Two things surprised Varinia about the place: how full it was, north of four hundred souls, and how loud the chatter was. She’d expected loners, wasters, smoggers hogging two or three beds each. What she got was a teeming hive of quite startling variety. Tin men, tool-pushers, orcs, the obligatory smoggers euphoric in their own private funk, but also good-looking lads, haulers and war vets, vociferous, close-knit groups of women, trench-coat traders nipping from bed to bed peddling their wares, families, dying men and women receiving the last rites from dodgy-looking pastors wearing fingerless gloves. As overseer to the whole thing, a single, tough-looking black maitre d’, armed with an Enfield auto pulse gun and a holo-phone strapped around his neck like a lunchbox, received a blowjob under his kilt.

  Solomon led Varinia across one of the center bridges to a pair of cots behind a half-eaten pillar. They set their pillows, blankets and carriers down, then she snuggled close to him on the edge of his cot, indulging a huge yawn. The crude shape of a white horse had been drawn in crayon on the pillar. A child’s artwork? How long ago since she’d seen anything so innocent? Spry memories of her riding lessons as a young teenager flickered in, each one sweet but cutting—soon her heart ached. From here to there, no bridge existed.