Empty Between the Stars (The Songs of Old Sol Book 1)

by Stephen Hunt

  ‘At least call the fire brigade!’ I yelled after him.

  ‘You think the bucket squad wants any of that – taking sides, here?’ the officer whooped back, continuing his evacuation. ‘You better give your badge to someone who knows what they’re doing!’

  ‘They look so tough in those combat leathers, too,’ noted Mozart.

  I saw what the Watch’s man meant as we grew closer. Lady Nie Trabb’s yearning for a good hall burning had been fulfilled. Sadly, it was her hall covered in pitch and encouraged to flames. Her guards had been killed as intended trying to flee the burning building. As had many of her staff. There were other warriors’ corpses, too. Derechor fighters, judging from the emblem on the energy shields inactive by the fallen.

  I knelt among the dead, searching for a pulse. Damn. None of these souls alive enough to help me answer my questions. ‘Why would Derechor warriors attack the Trabbs? It’s meant to be cousin-on-cousin inside their house, not picking a feud with the rest of the Four?’

  ‘I reckon the civil in their war’s misleading,’ said Mozart, ‘if you’re looking for this bun fight to start making sense.’

  Perhaps, but I liked matters to make more sense than this. I stared up at the sky, so tired suddenly. The spores were settling in the mud, the rain of fecundity halting. A heavy comedown was hit to the capital. If things were as bad as this now, what would it be like tomorrow?

  ‘Mozart,’ I sighed. ‘I have a challenge for you.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Consignor.

  Captain Cairo wore a shotgun in her leg holster, her ruby red topknot tied as tight as the lines of her face scowling into the jostling crowd. Jenelle flicked a hand at us and her thugs surged forward, pushing the crowd aside with round metal riot shields so we could enter the cordon formed around the central marketplace. The square outside the auction was not a place to safely tarry, today.

  ‘Is this the comedown from the blossom high, you promised me?’ I asked Jenelle.

  ‘No, this is the Commander General not listening to my advice. He broke seventeen suspected rebels on the wheels yesterday as a warning not to disrupt the auctions. These are their friends, family and district scum come to show Laur what they think of that. Chalkers! Chalkers!’ yelled Jenelle, jabbing a leather gloved finger towards some scallies daubing white skulls onto walls behind the crowd.

  The bother boys spotted by Jenelle were still masked, although the narcotic spores in the air had dwindled to nothing now. I don’t think it was the miscreants’ sobriety they were protecting; instead, their identities.

  A squad of Watch heavies chased after the graffitists and rebel sympathisers.

  Chanting by the mob grew ever louder, swelling to a roar in solidarity with the pursued. OUR HARVEST! OUR HARVEST! OUR HARVEST! OUR HARVEST!

  ‘I hope you bid on some good shit for all those near-immortal moneyass leeches inside your Humanitum,’ shouted Jenelle, jolted back by the angry crowd. ‘because there’s only bad shit out here.’

  ‘The apothecaries of a thousand worlds thank you, good captain,’ I bowed as I fled up the steps to a hail of hurled projectiles. Moz thumped up the steps behind Simenon and me, the rattle of tossed stones against the robot’s steel spine protecting us both. I glanced quickly back.

  Jenelle bellowed, ‘Lamp breakers! Lamp breakers!’ An alley to the side plunged into darkness as sprinting toughs, faces masked by scarves, ran its length spinning clubs up to shatter lanterns.

  ‘Nice bloody day for it,’ said Moz.

  ‘The auctions are about to begin, Master Roxley,’ urged Simenon, eager to put us beyond target practice range.

  I grunted. Actually, I suspected they might be soon to end.

  Inside, all the usual market stalls had been removed for the auction. A wooden fence made a stall for the rich offworlders to be fleeced inside. Quite fitting, for what were we to the locals but sheep with rich coats for the shearing. Mozart and Simenon hung back among the spectators and auction staff. This next act was only for those with deep pockets.

  I nodded to my fellow freetraders and found myself a clear spot standing next to another merchant. She examined the numbered wooden board issued to her to wave in the air once bidding started. Dark-furred, and of course, green-eyed, this trader was from the Humanitum world of Ukarra. Ukarrans edited panther DNA into their genome. A tribute to, and survival bonding mechanism with, the modified panthera pardus used to protect them on Ukarra’s impossibly hostile surface. She hadn’t brought her panther with her. I suspected the port’s customs gate would have much to say about a dangerously intelligent pony-sized sabre-tooth with cybernetic arm implants, even if the creature’s fur did nicely colour match their ever-night moon. The lady wore an amulet to Jute on her jacket, a triangle made up of three helices; her connection to Jute the Bio, Goddess of the Heavy Edit and Transgenesis.

  ‘Look at those fig-lickers. Can you feel it?’ the woman spat at our fellow freetraders congregating inside the auction stall.

  ‘Feel what?’

  She tapped her skull, just above her m-brain augment. ‘They’ve set up private short-link groups. There’re three or four invite-only forums running in here. Freetraders my arse. Cartel fig-lickers and ringers, looking to squeeze us out! You wait. They’ll collude, trying to inflate prices when we bid; making sure their bids sail through on the low-ball.’

  ‘That’s sharp practice,’ I protested.

  ‘You’re not one of them, are you?’ She peered suspiciously at me. The woman didn’t offer to shake hands with me, but then that fine and admittedly exquisite black fur of hers made it near-impossible to trade verified sweat signatures.

  ‘William Roxley, out of Arius. As independent as a hog on ice, sister.’

  ‘Yadira Narm. Out of Ukarra.’

  ‘Really? I could never have guessed.’

  ‘I didn’t see you up on our foldship, brother smart-arse?’

  ‘There’re quite a few miles of the You Can’t Prove It Was Us and, to be honest, I spend far too much time on my own ship. I’m particular about my home comforts.’

  ‘A timid little hikikomori? Well, you’ve come to the wrong world for that!’ As if to underline her point, the sound of shattering windows crackled merrily away on the market’s edge, the thud of hurled stones against our walls.

  ‘I fear you’re very right, m’dear. Is this your first auction?’

  ‘Third time, although admittedly, my last auction was a hundred and twenty years ago. Took me that long to forget how much I hate this place.’ Yadira didn’t bother asking me if this was my first time, that was all too obvious. She pointed to a podium high above the Auction Master’s stand, empty except for four tall thrones. ‘Last time I was here those were all occupied, warlords sitting up there as serene as the Empress on Arius, like butter wouldn’t figging melt. It’s meant to be a show of power. What do those thrones sitting empty tell you?’

  It told me that Major Rolt had taken one look at the riot-in-waiting outside and decided that Alice’s son didn’t need to make this his introduction to the spore-spice auctions. Good man. The other nobles were either killing each other for the right to sit on one of those cushions or had wisely decided that they would snatch the money and make a display of discretion today’s show of power.

  ‘Jute’s Teeth, brother!’ Yadira slapped my left leg, then pointed to the very modern-looking pistol strapped to hers. ‘Where’s your weapon?’

  ‘The damnable port doesn’t allow sidearms through.’

  ‘You really don’t know how things work here, do you? You bring five decent weapons through on an import license for a local chieftain; the warlord gets four for free, you’re given one back as a gift. The Watch knows how unhealthy it is for them to challenge gifts handed out by highborn.’

  ‘How do you smuggle weapons out of a foldship?’

  Yadira sighed as if she was talking to an idiot. I do believe she was correct. ‘You print them on your ship on the way down from orbit, as soon as
the You Can’t Prove It Was Us can’t firewall you. You truly don’t have a gun?’

  ‘Truly, I don’t.’ I pointed to where Mozart stood at the back of the hall with the spectators, market staff and assorted hangers-on. ‘I did bring him.’

  ‘Shit, you brought a robot to a gunfight, brother.’

  I smiled. ‘Sister, it’s not the size of the robot in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the robot.’

  ‘You must be planning to kill that howling mob outside with Tetanus. Jute’s Teeth, last time I was here, we fought all our battles inside the auction hall. This time, our main problem’s going to be getting our cargo home – what with these crazy figgers knifing each other on the streets and that Melding Man-o’War mugging gravity in orbit. How much duty do we pay, and Fleet can’t even deploy a single cruiser to patrol the Empty? What if pirates turn up here?’

  I shrugged. In truth, I suspected all the pirates were already with us inside the market hall. ‘Do you think the prices will be high for Poor Man’s Mud? I have buyers on Arius who’ve promised to buy every barrel of the filth I can ship out.’

  ‘You and every other chancer off our foldship,’ said Yadira. ‘You should try for something less popular.’

  ‘You’re not here for Poor Man’s Mud?’

  ‘Baker’s Bliss,’ she whispered.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought that was favoured on Ukarra?’

  ‘Not for us, for our panthers. We mix the spore-spice with their feed after they fight particularly well. They love it!’

  Ah, all those gene edits and the creatures still needed a touch of catnip.

  The auction began. The Auction Master walked out, wearing a heavy red gown that made it look like he had recently bathed in blood. If the official didn’t get a chivvy on, that look might become the reality of the situation. ‘Welcome, merchants, to the central market and today’s auction. I am Auction Master Yarrn. All bids are final. All bids must be made in Core Humanitum Tokens, fully chained and traceable. All bids will start at five hundred Hu-tokens; increments to be set at the auctioneer’s discretion. All bids are made against the following purities and standard barrel sizes—’

  Master Yawn waffled on in a similar vein until he started boring even the m-brain routine I set to highlight anything of interest. All my peers seemed fierce interested, however, ready for the off like thoroughbreds inside their starting stalls.

  Up went the gates and the action started. After a while, I discovered the attraction of this. The press of competition and the rude jostling for position; blood set flowing faster by egos that needed their victory as much as the Humanitum’s end buyers desired their hit.

  Sadly, Yadira’s predictions about where the two of us sat in the ecosystem of established parties at this auction proved all too prophetic. Every time she or I bid for a consignment, prices would shoot up, the sudden tidal-wave of interest like being mobbed by a biting cloud of local mosquito lizards. Even when we won, our purses had been picked so thoroughly it felt hard to hobble back onto the field for a second chase around the track. A little unfair. But I can do a little unfair, too. My naughty hand. Was there an anti-gravity field sucking my numbered board up into the air? Up. Up. Up and away.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, brother?’ hissed Yadira.

  ‘I’m bidding these rascals up,’ I said.

  ‘But what if you win? You can’t possibly afford so much!’

  Actually, I had enough funds to buy this planet outright. If anyone held valid title to Hexator, it might have been the simplest way out of my mess, too. Not to be, however. ‘I’m wealthier than the cut of my clothes suggests.’

  Yadira glanced at our rival bidders’ furious faces. ‘You better be.’

  The woman wrinkled her nose in suspicion after a jolly hour passed of me returning our Humanitum colleagues’ spanking in full. ‘It’s almost, brother, as though you know how much everyone has to bid and exactly what consignments they’re here to buy.’

  ‘Hah,’ I said. ‘The only way to get that information would be from the local banking guild and this market’s preregistrations of interest. You are aware the records aren’t stored digitally, here, sister? Ledgers and ink only. Probably heavily guarded, given how seriously the local warlords value their loot. Death sentence if you use the wrong colour of ink. There’s nothing that can be hacked here – that’s the strongest air-gap of all.’

  ‘Quite,’ Yadira said.

  Odd’s fish, it’s almost as if Yadira had been with me and Mozart during our epic paperwork trail across the capital. Actually witnessed the bad attack of fleas my bug-ridden robot friend seemed to suffer at the most importune moments.

  ‘You know,’ I said, pointing to a cluster of fuming factors from Aggcara, ‘I bet those ladies and gentlemen over there have their eyes set on that cargo of Baker’s Bliss you wanted.’

  ‘And if you were such a betting man, how much money would you wager they have remaining?’

  ‘Twenty thousand, three hundred and twenty-six Hu-tokens,’ I said. ‘Give or take their beer money.’

  ‘Twenty thousand, three hundred and twenty-seven, it is.’

  Would that all games could be rigged so satisfactorily. Ten minutes after Ukarra had facilitated its catnip supply for the next decade, screams of horror echoed on the far side of the hall. A shrieked cry of “Hexator or death!” left ringing in the air. I swivelled to find the cause of the sudden stampede for safety. One of the Auction Master’s clerks had cast away his robes, revealing a shirt laden with enough blasting caps to lift the mountains at Hebateen.

  Master Kamikaze didn’t need to push passage through the crowd, the insane fellow fair tore towards the rail separating spectators from offworld merchants – and nobody wanted to be near to a suicide bomber this eager to detonate.

  ‘Bloodsuckers! Bloodsuckers!’ the revolutionary screamed on the sprint, the burning stench of so many short fuses lending him the aspect of a smoking demon.

  A third shout of “blood” had just cleared the bomber’s throat when he met Mozart. Mindful of the instability of nitroglycerin, Moz didn’t break the bomber’s neck or stop his heart with a strong penetrating punch. Instead, Mozart seized the bomber’s arm, stole his motion and converted it into a hammer throw. I doubt it was blind luck that sent Master Kamikaze spinning through one of the dome’s already smashed stained glass windows. He exploded high above outside like a mortar shell, a shower of freshly broken glass raining down around us, followed by the patter of body parts on the roof.

  ‘Right,’ hawed Yadira. ‘My, brother, but that robot of yours appears uncommonly spry today.’

  ‘You printed your gun, I printed mine.’

  The near death of everyone inside the hall worked wonders towards the auction’s swift conclusion. No more dicking about with small upticks and long, drawn-out bidding. Those hailing from the Humanitum fair blew their wads in their desperation to conclude the day’s business. To be out of Hexator’s gravity-well as fast as was decently possible. A fine fat profit for the Four, indeed. Few of the highborn fools were going to live long enough to spend it, I feared.

  Then the auction was finished, freetraders scattering as nimbly fast as a flock of sheep spying the wolf in their meadow. I left Simenon to struggle with the red tape of my successful bids. I believe I was finally moving beyond the point where I was willing to honour the forms and manners of Hexator’s fast-collapsing society.

  Outside the central market was where the rebellion officially started this day, the Hexatorians’ Bloody Blossom Revolution. Thousands of extra troublemakers appeared, drawn by raucous sounds of riot like a revolutionary drawn to interview for a well-funded university tenureship. Ironically, I suspect the suicide bomber’s unanticipated finale had acted as a flare for the mob. Jenelle’s brute squad tried introducing the eager newcomers to the sharp edges of their riot shields by way of greeting, but alas, even the most thuggish of fists must grow weary against sheer raw weight of numbers. Crossbow bolts joined the pel
t of stones raining down on the cordon and the brute squad drew their shotguns to give Sergeant Buckshot his 12-gauge salute.

  Bodies lay littering the square outside by the time I passed the central market’s grand exit arch, Watch paddy-wagons used as hearses to carry piled corpses away. Not many of these poor fallen souls would find a decent burial. A dirty deep pit in the forest far more practical for keeping numbers slain at a massacre vague. Disappearing the victims sat with me as a far worse crime than murdering them – that lack of finality and that fallow seed of hope an eternal blade biting at the families.

  Skirmishing had moved further out. I saw smoke rising. Heard distant screams and gunshots. A few beaten and bloody rioters still alive enough to be dragged struggling towards the Commander General’s citadel. I doubted if the kickings and pistol-whippings prisoners received on their journey would make their interrogations go any easier. You needed teeth to talk, even under torture in a well-appointed dungeon.

  Yadira Narm stood with me at the top of the steps, drinking in the vista of carnage. ‘What a mess! I’m off to the port and the bounce, brother. I don’t care if I have to accept a Melding stingship escort across to our ride home. You wish to come with?’

  ‘I have friends here and debts I must honour. Will you be safe – you could borrow Mozart…?’

  Yadira slapped the pistol in her leg holster. ‘Just a girl and her gat, brother. I wouldn’t rely on a rescue mission from civilization anytime soon. First expeditionary force you’re likely to see is going to be wearing wurm force-suits.’

  So it was we came to trade our farewells in civilized fashion; Yadira almost made me homesick for the Humanitum. ‘May the grace of Modd envelop and protect you, sister.’

  ‘May Jute’s touch hallow the truth of your genetic expression.’ Yadira winked slyly at me. ‘And may the gods on Arius supply you with a far more believable tale to tell than spore-spice trader, brother.’ The woman raced away as lithe and fast as one of her panthers.

  ‘She has a point, doc,’ said Mozart.

  What a cheek. ‘The hole in my tale, Moz, is a rebel-shaped one in this market’s dome. You might have broken the suicide bomber on the floor, then leaped on top of him to absorb the blast.’