by Stephen Hunt
Mozart had a point. Perhaps I had wanted to leave a little of myself behind. No fool like an old flattered fool. The truth was, though, that I couldn’t wait to return to the capital and see Alice Blez, again. To update her on our investigation’s progress and see if she had need of my additional services.
‘Her indoors had it right. Get yourself copied onto a quantum substrate inside the grace of Modd, embrace the Merge and ditch that rotting chemical soup you call a body.’
Mozart was testy after casting an inauspicious iChing reading with his Martian mainframe rods. I hadn’t read all the yarrows, but I did note the Eclectic Lie as one of the final patterns cast by my robot friend. Who was lying to whom out here in the Empty? Perhaps a better question was who was left telling the truth. I wanted to consult my prayer box, but feared the runes that Modd might trace inside its sands for me. Left uneasy by how eagerly I allowed the plantation mistress to consume me. Or perhaps, how easily I had lost myself in her. Was I beginning to doubt my mission out here? Is this what happened when you lived long enough? Tottering at the end, balancing on the edge of everything. Learning doubt where there should be certainty. Mankind’s schemes often prove inferior to those made by heaven.
‘You first into the Merge, you old clanker. My rotting chemical soup’s served me well enough.’ I flipped a single silver coin into the air. All that had survived from the murdered poacher’s horde. I discovered the coin half-buried in the dirt, winking at me after Ajola finished milking the cow of the last of its milk. It landed in my palm, hornet side up.
‘Old man, old man,’ cooed Mozart, as though he was about to start singing.
‘So, he sent the Count of Hyper-Zap to give the Queen a dose of clap, to pass it on to the Bastard King of Earth,’ I warbled.
My friend finished the foldship sailor’s ancient ballad for me. ‘When the King of Earth heard the news, he cursed the Oort Cloud farce. He up and swore by the royal whore he’d have that belter’s arse.’
‘There aren’t any asteroid lords here,’ I said, flipping the coin a second time.
‘Doubt if they’re any back in Sol now, for that matter. But what does the Bastard King of Earth think of this…?’ Mozart snatched the coin out of the air, mid-toss.
‘Heads it’s the House of Derechor who did it, tails it’s someone else.’
‘Might as well flip a coin.’ Mozart nodded towards the bloodhound trotting behind our wagon. ‘Or maybe we could ask Lassie down there. Your new cabin boy seems to think Lassie can see the future.’
‘We’ll follow this lead when we get back to the capital.’
‘Of course we bleeding will.’
‘I can see the future too, old friend. It’s not looking terribly encouraging.’
Mozart stared at me suspiciously. ‘You didn’t tell ol’ blue eyes back at the ranch why we’re here, did you?’
‘Of course not. But Ajola suspects what we’re not here for. And that’s to buy spore-spice.’
‘Well, doc, I hope you shag well enough that she’s not on the blower to Lady Blez radioing back her suspicions. Or you’re going to be rogered by more than some warrior princess with neon tats.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘That’s not going to happen.’
No. Ajola Hara and her people weren’t even on the same moon as Lady Blez. They had checked out long ago. It was just that the rest of humanity here hadn’t realized it, yet.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Spores and spice. All things nice.
I sent word of what I had discovered at the plantation to Lady Blez as soon as we returned to the capital. A summons to attend her glorious presence quickly followed. I found myself escorted into an underground spore-spice processing factory deep under the Blez palace. How disappointed was I that this wasn’t Alice’s music room? Crushed! It was all I had been thinking about, recently. Like all effective drug lords, the Blez family kept the final stage - and warehousing - of its narcotics empire close to its well-armed muscle. I didn’t need to consult the historical records to know that the best way to command a fortune at the coming auction was to ensure an “accidental” fire consumed rivals’ stocks. The Four Families had mastered their lessons from the School of Hard Knocks. I arrived alone, Mozart and Simenon not invited, wearing a white gown that made me look like a surgeon – or an asylum inmate, which was probably closer to the truth. From a technological base that had basically degraded back to the medieval, the family had made a good stab at creating a sterile environment. But then, it wouldn’t do to have the rich offworlders who funded their house dying from consuming “bad shit”. I sniffed the slightly sweet thick air. No contaminating moulds I could detect.
Alice Blez walked her drying and curing lines, a vision to my tired eyes, ensuring the hundreds of retainers attending the copper oxidization and polymerization canisters were giving due love and attention to her spore-spice. Too much oxidization and the spore-spice would lose purity and prove little more effective than household dust. Too much moisture content and it wouldn’t be able to be snorted, ingested or injected without sending its purchaser psychotic. A fine balancing act. Little wonder that the artisans working these lines were among the best-paid guild workers on Hexator. They toiled away under electric arc lights rather than gas torches or candles. Guards stood sentry on airlock doors into the sterile environment, ready to strip workers and search them on the way in and out.
I had been spared the undignified smuggling and theft checks, as a so-called honoured guest of the house. As, presumably, had Link, the hulking robot bodyguard clanking loyally a few feet behind her ladyship. I am sure it suited Alice’s purposes to have the shadow of the ever-so-slightly deranged machine regularly passing over her loyal workforce. Reminding them that should they attempted to steal any of her precious spore-spice, all it would take was a single order from Alice for Link to rip a suspect’s skull off their shoulder.
‘Doctor Roxley.’
I bowed for the beautifully imperious noblewoman. ‘Lady Blez.’
‘What do the wages of sin look like these days?’
Given half a chance, I would be happy to give her another close demonstration. But I held my tongue. I produced the single silver coin I had managed to recover from the ruins of the poacher’s dwelling, passing it to Alice Blez.
She held the coin up to the bright illuminating light, turning it over and examining it. ‘And there were more of these?’
‘Enough money to pay for the poison intended to kill your husband.’
‘Well, the vioba you described might not choke on the silver. But the Derechors certainly will.’
‘It’s possible another family paid with coins from the Derechor mint to falsely implicate them,’ I warned.
‘Always a possibility. And the main reason I haven’t sent warriors to ambush the twins and teach them a long overdue lesson in manners.’
I was about to ask what Alice did have in mind when I heard a hiss of airlock doors and saw Jenelle Cairo arriving at the factory.
Lady Blez didn’t seem happy to see the female Watch officer. ‘I asked for Commander General Laur to attend me.’
The captain bowed stiffly before Lady Blez. She didn’t look over-pleased to be at the Blez compound, either. Perhaps she was one of those old-fashioned cops who preferred arresting gangsters rather than taking orders from them? ‘He is otherwise engaged, my lady. I speak for the Watch.’
‘Not too busy to insult my standing among the Four by sending subordinates in his place. Perhaps I should have had my son issue the request?’
Captain Cairo raised her hands, indicating matters of politics were above her pay-grade. I doubted Lady Blez needed the reminder.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ sighed Lady Blez. ‘My husband’s murder is still a crime even if it was perpetrated by one of the Four.’
‘The law of the Four applies to the Four,’ confirmed Jenelle.
Lady Blez indicated me standing by her side and I cleared my throat before explaining what I had d
iscovered inside the plantation. I omitted the spicier parts of my story as well as what Alice probably suspected already, which was the distant plantation’s lingering loyalty to her house in name only. Commander General Laur really wouldn’t be happy about hearing my story secondhand, but then, if he was going to be a home-body and send subordinates in his place, what could he expect?
‘An interesting development,’ said Captain Cairo. ‘How would you suggest the Watch proceeds?’
‘Smack them and smack them and smack them,’ muttered the deranged Link behind his mistress.
‘The twins need to be questioned under official caution,’ demanded Alice.
‘I know a magistrate who detests the Derechors enough to sign off on that,’ said Jenelle. ‘I just hope that the guards on the Derechor citadel’s gates honour my warrant without incident.’
‘The twins are not inside the capital, presently,’ said Lady Blez.
‘You were checking on them out of curiosity, of course.’
‘Quite reasonable. TWIST THEIR HEADS OFF,’ growled Link.
Alice ignored her ancient ruster, ‘Zane and Sarlee Derechor have been visiting Hebateen for the last three days. They are not due to return for another five days.’
‘I am sure your intelligence in this matter is a match for the Watch’s.’
‘Of that, captain, I have no doubt. Take Doctor Roxley and his people with you when you visit Hebateen. I want the doctor to be party to the official questioning.’
I queried my m-brain for a search on Hebateen. I didn’t hold many details, beyond map coordinates. One of the many abandoned cities, this one two-hundred miles north of the capital. Not a plantation. What business, I wondered, did the twins have out there?
Jenelle rested her palms on her hips. ‘I doubt the Commander General will be happy with that, my lady. It will require deputising the good doctor as a sheriff.’
‘I don’t require Laur’s damn approval, only his compliance. A Lord of the Four is dead. I have the right to appoint a Proxy Sheriff for an interrogation made under caution. I trust William Roxley’s presence over any local’s involvement.’
I nodded to Alice, the briefest of looks passing between us, unnoticed by the others in the chamber. Longing? Hope? Hard to say. Such a lady’s trust is not easily earned, but somehow, I had managed it. I resolved not to let Alice down.
Jenelle Cairo left for the nearest airlock, dismissed by the Lady Blez, along with her new partner. Which of us, I wondered, was more reluctant about my attachment to the official investigation?
Jenelle gave the lock’s guard a filthy look as he pondered strip-searching her. Wisely, in my opinion, he decided to classify her as an honoured house guest, too. ‘So, doctor, you’re what a proxy without skin in the game looks like?’
‘Sadly, I think I have far too much skin in this game, captain.’
Hide I could ill afford to lose at my age.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Rolling dice.
I hadn’t realized the Watch owned the last aerial vehicle on Hexator. In retrospect, I should have. The threat of bombing was all the capital had left to keep its collapsing and rebellious outer provinces in line. The Skylander possessed a wing-shaped buoyancy hull shaped like three massive cigars melded together, six gas-powered bow thrusters mounted along each flank with an air-cushioned landing system for vectored vertical takeoff. I doubt the Hexatorians possessed a working alpha-decay synthetic helium plant on their moon. Laur was obviously bribing foldship sailors to skim helium on the side using visiting vessels’ spare ramscoops. Nice work if you can get it. It took fifty trained crew from the Watch to operate their vessel, but then, what price was air supremacy worth? A long white whale of the air, the Skylander could harvest electrical energy from storms using her eight hundred feet-long conductive envelope. A relic of their lost past, I enjoyed riding her as much as Simenon was made uneasy by our voyage.
Simenon moaned, tilting his head out of an opened porthole on the shaking airship. Billy Bones lay by his feet, trying to look sympathetic. In reality, I suspected the hound was more concerned with his next meal’s late arrival. The dog should have foreseen that.
‘I’ll print you a copy of Jules Verne’s Robur the Conqueror when I get back to my ship,’ I told the lad, trying to cheer him up. ‘If you can’t ride one of these vessels crawling at eighty knots, you certainly won’t enjoy atmosphere braking on board the Pleiad’s Daughter.’
‘Yeah, zero gravity is a real bugger, too,’ said Mozart, smug over the advantages of his iron constitution. ‘At least, that’s what the lads say on the street.’
‘This is awful, Master Roxley,’ said the boy. ‘Why do I feel so bad?’
‘I fear the Skylander’s stabilising systems have been non-functional for centuries and your world’s winds blow most fiercely at this altitude. Keep your eyes gazing, without being fixed, on the horizon. That’ll help you feel better.’
It was my legs bothering me, rather than air sickness. I set off for a stroll around the chamber, muscles stiff from sitting down, soft quilted seats notwithstanding.
‘You ever stump up for an m-brain for Tiny Tim, make sure it comes with auto-stabilization algorithms for his inner ear. He keeps on sicking up like that, he’s going to set me off.’
‘Hah, I would pay to see it.’
We had been traveling for three hours and were close to arriving at our destination. I was grateful the airship’s engines, at least, remained in full working order. This journey would take five days by horse and I’m sure the forests below were just as full of Ferals, ravenous viobas and other local delights we would much rather bypass. That was the Skylander’s point. She had started out as a passenger ferry in her original incarnation, luggage areas swapped for bomb bays and luxury cabins traded for troop transport and warhorse stables.
I glanced back at Simenon. He seemed small in the central space of what had been the Skylander’s salon. Mozart went back to keep him company. My old ruster might protest to the contrary, but I think he had gotten used to having the young fellow knocking around.
Jenelle Cairo came slinking down the staircase into our salon. She still wore her black leather uniform, a long cloak the only concession to her de facto position as the vessel’s commander. I think a peaked cap would have set off the look nicely, but it had been six hundred years since I dared suggest fashion advice to a woman. The cape did look rather fetching on her, though.
‘We’ll be setting down soon, doctor.’
I nodded in gratitude. ‘Sink me, but you burned a lot of expensive gas to reach this town. Are you sure Commander General Laur will approve?’
‘The Skylander was due to fly the flag at Hebateen later this month, anyway. I just nudged her schedule forward.’
‘Problems with rebels this far out? The People’s Skull robbing the tax-man of his fair share?’
‘Hebateen is a rough place,’ said the captain. ‘Always was, always will be.’
‘So, what are the Derechor twins doing in this rough place with the auction so close?’
‘The Derechors’ stake in the spore-spice auctions is relatively limited,’ said Jenelle Cairo. ‘Their house owns almost everything else of value, however. The farmlands and timber fields to the south and east. The canals that ship goods into the capital. And the mines under Mount Hebateen. Steel, iron, copper; when you see metal on Hexator the chances are that it was dug out from the deeps under Hebateen.’
So, this place is House Derechor’s goldmine, literally and figuratively. Well, when the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills.
When the mountain finally appeared in the distance it was hard to miss. A towering peak curved around on itself like a hunting horn. Circles of hot white steam rose from hot springs bubbling around its base, putting me in mind of a giant with its feet in chains. I recognized the hoop of artificial structures built into the mountainside. Landing pads and magnetic rail launchers, all in a state of obvious disrepair. ‘T
his used to be a spaceport once!’
‘Hebateen’s always been a mining town,’ explained Jenelle. ‘During the golden age, our prospectors discovered vast mineral riches on the Moon of Metis. A trained workforce of miners was already working under this mountain, so a port was built to ferry miners to the radiation domes on Metis. After that, Hebateen expanded to become a boomtown; a pleasure and barracks city entertaining miners when they returned on leave.’
Metis I had passed in my foldship on the way to Hexator. The fourth of seven moons orbiting the gas giant. Metis born a glowing orange hell-hole moon with a thick poisonous atmosphere of ammonia, liquid hydrogen, sulphur and nitrogen. It would have been the first foothold inside this system to be abandoned when civilization and its attendant technology started to degrade on Mother Hexator. So, the miners had retreated to their original home and kept toiling away here. Humanity always needed knives to stick in each other’s back. I doubted the miners would halt production anytime soon, however many shadows the current Dark Ages cast.
There wasn’t much pleasure to be had any more in the empty city spread out below the mountains. Its ruins ran for miles, dark and jagged. Broken glass and crumbling concrete overgrown by forest. No attempt to live on at a humbler scale like the capital, Frente. A litter of abandoned casinos, pleasure domes, brothels, hotels and sim parlours reclaimed by the untamed ecosystem. Lights still twinkled across the mountainside though; the original mining works struggling on. I saw starlight reflected off a long canal below, not enough resolution to pick out barges drifting towards the capital. They had stopped the canal silting up at least. I felt a painful tinge of melancholy. Humanity dwelled in the ruins of its past glories here on Hexator. But who was I to judge? I dwelled in the ruins of my body, too. We had both seen better days. We had both lived too long and reached our end times.
I hummed to myself. ‘In the pleasure gardens my cloned love did I meet; she passed through the sim-domes with little snow-white feet.’
