The walls past the lock were bare ice with pipes and wires strung from hanging posts above their heads. Here and there other hatches and simpler doors were visible, their frames embedded in the ice that made up the corridor walls.
At the bottom of the stairs, some five meters down, a man sat in the corridor at a small desk with a set of hatch controls.
“You can take on water from the far side of the field,” he said, after Alexis transferred the fee to him. “Three marks a boatload. We’ll know what you take, so don’t try hiding it or you’ll be banned from landing.”
Alexis nodded. “Our purser will see to that.”
“Right, then, all you’ll want’s down that way,” the man said, pointing.
It was warmer inside, at least, though not what Alexis would call comfortable.
“We’ll see this man of Dansby’s,” Alexis told the others as they moved off down the corridor, “sell our prize, then share out a bit to the men and have a day’s leave.”
“I could wish we had a man or two more along in this place,” Nabb muttered.
Alexis was beginning to agree. She hadn’t wanted to march in with a strong force at her back, but the look of this settlement did nothing to make her feel safe. There was a hard look in the eye of every person they passed and she thought those looks lingered on her group a bit too long.
These corridors were not at all what she’d expected, either. Given their proximity to the landing field, she’d thought they’d hold the typical pubs and other establishments catering to visiting spacers. Instead, the corridor was nearly empty, with closed off doorways and people scurrying hurriedly from one place to another.
She wondered where the crews of all those ships in orbit were, as the number of boats on the field indicated there were many on leave here.
After a few minutes of walking with no sign of a business establishment, she stopped a man who looked less angry than the rest.
“Excuse me, but where might we find a chandlery?”
The man shrugged, jerked his head in the direction they were headed, and muttered, “Where you find anything else here — the bloody Casino.”
The Casino, when they reached it, was quite unlike the rest of the settlement.
It was as though every bit of merchanting, entertainment, and debauchery had been crammed into one place and not allowed elsewhere on Enclave. A pair of double-wide hatches allowed entry from the corridor, and where the corridor was dimly lit and quiet, the Casino awash with light, color, and sound.
The walls here were covered, not bare ice, and it was comfortably warm.
Voices, mere conversation as well as shouts of triumph and anger, vied with the sounds of the machines, and Alexis had to squint for a moment against the lights as they entered.
An attendant met them as they entered and offered to take their heavy outerwear, which they accepted.
They wandered for a short time, simply taking in the sight, which was far larger and more extravagant than the typical gambling houses on a station, where space was at a premium. It was only as they wandered farther that Alexis realized just how much larger, as the space wasn’t all one. Instead their path twisted around walls of gaming machines, with each turn revealing yet another space and new, different machines.
Interspersed among it all were the other sorts of establishments she’d expected to see just inside the hatch from the landing field. The pubs, chandleries, shipwrights, houses of negotiable virtue, and all the other myriad sites and services a visiting spacer or captain might need to seek out. And all of them placed in and around the Casino, so that one simply had to pass untold numbers of games to reach them.
“One could become quite lost in here, I think,” Villar murmured.
Alexis agreed. “I rather suppose that’s the point.”
“It explains where the ships’ crews are, certainly.”
“Yes,” Alexis scanned the crowd. “And makes our finding of this friend of Dansby’s — Remington Wheeley, his name is — the more difficult. Dansby said to seek him at the center of things, do either of you see a middle to this —” She broke off, realizing that Nabb wasn’t listening. “Nabb? Nabb!” She grasped his arm and shook it.
Nabb blinked from where he’d been staring at the surrounding machines. His eyes darted to Alexis, then off again. “Sorry, sir, but that’s a powerful lot of coin, that is.”
Alexis followed his gaze to a bank of machines where a blinking sign advertised some sort of possible winnings. It was, to be honest, a very great deal of coin.
“And it’ll cost you a powerful lot of your purse to try for it, I imagine,” Alexis said.
“Aye,” Nabb nodded, not looking away. “But if —”
Alexis grasped his arm. “Come on, then, perhaps you can have a go later when —” She broke off as she noted Villar was now staring at the same number. She could almost see the thoughts working in his head as he imagined what that amount would mean for him — concerned as he was over being able to provide for Marie.
She grasped his arm as well, and tugged the pair along.
“Did neither of you study maths at all?”
Twenty-Two
The center of things turned out to not be so central after all.
Alexis stopped an attendant to ask where the center of the casino floor might be, and the woman, scantily clad with an odd arrangement of studs and rings in her left ear, pointed out the way. When they arrived, though, they found a collection of restaurants ranging from food stalls to far more elaborate dining which gave no further clue to where they might find Remington Wheeley.
“Do you fancy a bite, sir?” Nabb suggested, nodding at a nearby cart selling skewers of meat and vegetables slapped into flat rounds of bread.
“I don’t suppose it would hurt anything to eat a bit.” She paid for food for all of them, noting that the vendor also had an arrangement of jewelry in his left ear. She waited until they made their way to an empty table before mentioning it.
“It’s an odd sort of fashion,” Villar agreed.
Nabb nodded.
“I note it’s only the workers, and none of the patrons, who follow it,” Alexis said, studying the crowd.
They finished their food — good and enough for a time, though Alexis felt they’d need a proper supper soon. She found one of the ever-present girls wandering the tables with a tray of drinks and this time Alexis asked specifically for Wheeley, which got them a bizarre bit of directions through the maze of gaming tables.
“It was around the great, spinning wheel game and past this place with dancing, yes?” Alexis asked.
Villar nodded absently, and Alexis noted the direction of his gaze was toward the place with dancing, which had nearly naked women dancing in silhouetted boxes out front.
Alexis cleared her throat. “Mister Villar?”
Villar jumped, then grasped Nabb’s arm and tugged him along as well.
“We might never get the crew to leave this place once we’ve let them come down,” Villar muttered.
“I imagine they’ll have to once their coin runs out,” Alexis said and moved on.
What “the center of things” actually meant, it turned out, was a discrete, walled off portion of the casino intended for those who wished their gambling to be at higher stakes and in a more private setting.
A large man in a shiny, purple suit guarded the entrance, which had an actual velvet rope stretched across it as a barrier.
Alexis, Villar, and Nabb approached, Alexis very aware of the appraising look the man gave her group. Nabb was in a clean ship’s jumpsuit, though bare of any insignia. Villar was in civilian dress, though Alexis had to admit it was of higher quality than her own linen shirt and denim trousers, brought from Dalthus. A ship’s badge for the crew and any sort of uniform for her officers was something she still hadn’t accomplished — but worrying about it now would do her no good in getting past this gate for a chat with Wheeley.
She stopped at the entrance, but the guard look
ed past her right shoulder to Villar.
Alexis cleared her throat and the guard looked down at her.
“We’re looking for a Mister Wheeley, if you don’t mind.”
The guard raised an eyebrow. “Mister Wheeley is not one for being seen most days.”
That, at least, settled Alexis’ concerns about whether they’d be able to find this Wheeley, as he seemed known to the guard. Whether they’d be let in to see him, was another matter.
“I’ve come at the recommendation of an old friend of his,” Alexis said.
The guard grunted. “Easy to say. Who should I say’s recommended you?”
Alexis hesitated, not sure if Dansby would want his name bandied about except to the individuals she was to speak to, but if they couldn’t get in they’d have to send some sort of message and there didn’t seem to be any other way.
“Please tell him I’ve come from Avrel Dansby, I believe he knows the nam —”
The guard’s reaction was immediate. He stepped in front of the roped off entrance, left hand extended at Alexis, as though to keep her from rushing forward, his right went inside his jacket.
His eyes scanned from Alexis to Villar and Nabb, then to the whole expanse of the room behind them as though searching for something.
“Scan the floor for Dansby,” he said, eyes still moving.
Alexis noted his earpiece and assumed he was speaking to some unseen monitor and not to her, but the reaction amused her more than anything else — if for no other reason than to validate her own feeling that one should reach for a weapon the moment the man was mentioned.
“He’s not come with,” Alexis said.
“Aye,” the guard said, eyes never ceasing their movement, “he’d have you say that.”
She certainly hadn’t expected this. Dansby’d said he wouldn’t return to the Barbary for some reason, but this reaction spoke to a much larger tale than she’d assumed. It also appeared to frustrate her efforts to meet this Wheeley fellow.
“He’s really not,” she said, though what she could do to prove it, she couldn’t think of.
The man’s scanning eyes paused a moment, as though listening, then he grimaced, “Mister Wheeley’ll see you.”
He stepped aside and unhooked one end of the rope, but stopped Villar and Nabb from following. “Just her, he says.”
Alexis nodded to them that she’d be all right and they reluctantly moved to the side to wait.
“That table there in the center,” the guard said.
The indicated table had only a single gambler at it, a heavy-set man wearing a dark suit, in a chair at the center of the table’s half-circle. Across from him sat a woman dealing the cards and before him were several large stacks of betting chips.
Even with the relatively few others in the room, Alexis noted that the tables surrounding Wheeley’s were empty, as though allowing the man maximum space.
Compared to the main casino floor, this room was almost deathly silent, and she felt out of place as she crossed to Wheeley’s table. The opulence made it clear that this was not a welcoming place for a Fringe landholder’s granddaughter, no matter their wealth on Dalthus — and that made her wonder at how much wealth there might be here in the Barbary. How much, and its source.
Wheeley turned to face her when she was a few steps away. She stopped, meeting his eyes.
“You’ve used a name I haven’t heard in an age,” Wheeley said. “But not one I’ve longed to hear again. I’ll give you a few words before I have you thrown out a lock onto the ice, so speak them quickly.”
Alexis clenched her jaw on her first response. She was no longer a Naval officer and this was not New London space, so she had little authority — none, truth to tell — here and no way to object to the man’s manner. She’d have to hope that Dansby hadn’t steered her wrong.
It would be just like the snake to send me off to someone who hated him.
“Good afternoon, Mister Wheeley, I’m Captain Alexis Carew of the private ship Mongoose —”
“Those aren’t the words that’ll keep you inside,” Wheeley said. “Dansby’s an easy name to throw about, so why should I believe you’ve ever met him?”
“All right, then. Mister Dansby said that I should remind you of a debt to him, and —”
“Nonsense!” Wheeley turned his back to her and spoke to the dealer. “Call a floorman, will you, and have this bint tossed out on the ice.”
Alexis stepped closer and raised her voice, if she was going to be thrown out she’d at least have the satisfaction of embarrassing this Wheeley fellow.
“Mister Dansby’s exact words were, ‘Tell that treacherous, cowardly bastard that he owes me and it’s time he paid at least one of his debts.’”
The quiet room grew quieter and several gamers turned to stare at her. Others, she noted, directed their dealers’ attention back to the game and paid her no heed.
Wheeley’s shoulders shook and, without turning, he kicked the chair to his left back from the table.
“Sit down, girl, and tell me what the bugger’s been up to, will you?”
Alexis sat and the muted sounds from the other tables resumed their previous levels.
“Mister Dansby told me —”
“It’s a thousand mark minimum,” Wheeley said, pointing to a spot on the table’s felt top in front of Alexis.
“What?” Did he really expect her to join in the gambling just to sit here and talk to him? And at a thousand marks, the wager was far more than she’d care to hazard.
“You sit at one of my tables, you’d best be playing,” Wheeley said. “The game’s pontoon, have you played?”
Alexis studied the table for a moment. It was a game she recognized, as she’d pulled more than one spacer out of gaming establishments to get them back aboard ship in time, but she’d never had the urge to play herself. It was something about getting closest to some number without going over, she thought she remembered, but didn’t see the point — never mind that the thousand marks Wheeley was demanding came to over two hundred and fifty pounds.
She narrowed her eyes.
“I’ve seen it, Mister Wheeley, but is this some attempt to put off the assistance Mister Dansby believes you owe?”
Wheeley froze, then slowly turned to glare at her. “Are you calling me a welcher, girl?”
“I’m suggesting, sir, that there should be no conditions placed on speaking of a debt’s repayment — one either owes or one does not, wouldn’t you say?”
Wheeley turned from her to the dealer and his voice took on an unexpected whine. “But there’s rules about sitting at my tables, isn’t there, Afet?”
“There are rules, Mister Wheeley,” the woman agreed.
“See?” he asked, turning back to Alexis. “There are rules.”
Alexis nodded. “Of course, sir.” She started to stand. “Perhaps there’s another time we might speak?”
Wheeley grimaced. “No, I’ll not have it hanging over my head to hear what the old serpent wants.”
Alexis raised an eyebrow at hearing him characterize Dansby so — it was her own opinion of the man as well.
Wheeley sighed, then placed a chip on the felt in front of Alexis. “Come on, then,” he said.
Alexis wasn’t sure if he said it to her or the dealer, but sat back down again. If Wheeley wished to pay the cost of speaking to her here, then she’d not stop him.
“I’ll not make your losses good, Mister Wheeley,” she said.
“Just have your say.” He motioned to the dealer. “Cards!” Then to Alexis. “What does Dansby want?”
“As I said, Mister Wheeley, I’m here as captain of a private ship —”
“Card?” Wheeley asked pointing to the table.
Alexis glanced and saw that the dealer was looking at her expectantly. “What —”
“Do you want another card?” Wheeley asked. “Keep up the pace, will you?”
The two cards she had seemed a small enough number. “Yes, fine, I
suppose.” Another card hit the felt. “Isn’t that the sum we’re trying for?”
Wheeley snorted and Alexis felt it must have been, for the dealer collected the cards and placed another chip in front of Alexis.
“As I was saying, a private ship, Mongoose, of which Mister Dansby is a principal. He believes you may have —”
“Do you wish to press, miss?” the dealer asked.
Alexis looked over, distracted. What did that even mean? “Yes?”
The dealer stacked the two chips one atop the other and went back to the cards. Alexis hurried on, hoping to get a full sentence in before she was interrupted again.
“I have letters of marque from New London, Mister Wheeley, to address piracy and smuggling in the Barbary —”
Wheeley laughed. “It’ll take more than a letter to deal with that here. Cards!”
Alexis noted the dealer was again looking to her and wondered if that was how this conversation would go — half a thought before being interrupted again.
“Very well,” she said, then to Wheeley, “Be that as it may, Mister Dansby led me to believe that you might be of some assistance in that regard — yes, press, or whatever it’s called, thank you. Both with the disposal of prizes and with other information I’m seeking.”
Wheeley grinned. “Aye, ships I can … dispose of, aplenty. What information, though, I’ve my own reputation and business to look after — but I do owe Dansby, and if this is what he’d choose to settle the debt, what do you wish to know? Fat hunting grounds for your letter of marque?”
“No. Before the war ended — no, not another, thank you —” Alexis caught Wheeley’s look of impatience and told the dealer before he could demand she do so. “— two fleets are said to have battled their way through the Barbary. I’m seeking word of them, if you have any.”
Wheeley grunted. “There were wrecks from that all through this space.”
“Why no certain word, then?” Alexis had to assume that either Hanover or New London or even both would have sent their own fleets to investigate if they’d known that for certain.
Privateer (Alexis Carew Book 5) Page 15
