Balance of Terror

by K S Augustin

  Toy took a deep breath and hit his chest. “Ah, all that fresh food. You can just smell the goodness, can’t you?”

  All Moon could smell was coolant. The floor under her feet was wet and she was afraid of slipping into the puddles of grey liquid that dotted the clumsily-laid and uneven pavement.

  “Are you joking?” she asked.

  He looked up at her and an expression of pity filled his face. “You’re just like Saff, you know that? She doesn’t have a sense of humour either.”

  “Humour is one thing,” she replied tartly, “sarcasm is something else again.”

  Without waiting for a response, she started down the nearest alleyway. “Let’s get started.”

  “Whatever you say, doc. Say, why are you called a doctor anyway? You don’t know any medicine, do you?”

  Moon thought of benzodiazepine, of cognitive enhancers and of spasm suppressants. “Not much,” she replied, scanning her surroundings for anyone that looked out of place. Although, with not even a clue as to who – or what – was due to meet them, how was she going to know?

  “So why the ‘doctor’ tag then?”

  She thought she could hear an insolent shrug in that one sentence.

  “It’s a term from old Earth,” she replied. “Old old Earth. It just means I can teach, that’s all.”

  “You saying that the original medical doctors were nothing more than teachers?”

  “That’s right.” She tried peering into the frosted windows of the shopfronts. “Medicine, law and philosophy. Those were the first three big areas of instruction.”

  She was going to have to wear warmer clothing if she wanted to traipse around the food merchants for any length of time. Already, she could feel the chill starting to seep into her fingers. Clenching her fists and folding her arms, she continued walking.

  “What’s the other market like?” she asked, after ten minutes of silence.

  “Guess.”

  She winced. She was afraid of that. She had never before thought of frozen food as being so…depressing to be around. Even the deliberately mislabelled boxes in Gauder’s tanks had been more interesting, imbibed with a sense of danger and farce at the same time.

  “Let’s stroll around for an hour,” she decided, “then we’ll try the second market.”

  “And then what? We just keep going back and forth, hopping like fleas from one place to the other?”

  She continued walking. “Yes.”

  Toy sighed dramatically. “And how long are we going to do this for, doc?”

  She turned and looked him full in the face. “For as long as it takes. So I hope, for your sake, Mr. Cenredi, that your body holds as much endurance as your mouth.”

  He stared at her for a moment, then laughed. “You’re a prize, doc. No wonder Saff likes you.”

  That sentence arrested Moon. Did she hear that correctly? “She…likes me?”

  Toy’s gaze shrewdly skimmed over her features. “What’s the matter? Not used to that?”

  No, Moon admitted to herself, she wasn’t. A friend, after so many years of not having one? Of so-called confidants dropping away from her, once she came under the magnifying-glass of Republic approbation?

  “Yeah well,” Toy continued, “it doesn’t mean anything to me, know what I mean?” His voice sounded a little too casual. “If having you around means it gets Saff off my back, then I’m all the happier for it, that’s all.”

  Despite his surly attitude and careless words, Toy didn’t make a bad companion. He attended to what Moon had to say and, despite the crass way he expressed himself, Moon found herself listening to his advice more carefully as the day wore on. There was someone observant and astute, under the occasional sneer and muttered obscenity, that piqued Moon’s curiosity. What was his story, this thin, waif-like boy, so full of thorny belligerence?

  The day ended with no results but a greater understanding of the Perdition’s young engineer. However, the revelation, no matter how welcome, didn’t lessen Moon’s exhaustion. They returned to the ship, where she stumbled to her quarters and threw herself onto the nearest bunk bed.

  “I gather you didn’t find anyone?” Srin asked, looking up from the room’s console.

  “Mmph,” Moon replied, her voice muffled by the sweet softness of the mattress. She turned over and looked up at the ceiling. “I didn’t know there were so many ways to freeze vegetables.”

  “Leave me in ignorance,” Srin laughed. “Please.”

  “It could be used as a torture mechanism,” she mused. “’Tell me what I want to know, or I’ll lecture you on enzyme retardation techniques.’ I can’t wait to go back there tomorrow.” Her voice was deadpan.

  “Hmmmm.” Srin frowned. “In that case, you may be the ideal subject for my patented, extended-duration shoulder massage. Do you think you’d be interested in such a service, madam?”

  “Am I a struggling stellar physicist coping with a smart-arsed kid all day?” she groaned. “Get over here with those hands.”

  Moon struck it lucky on the fourth day. She and Toy were bickering about which market to hit first – he was unhappy that they were sticking to the same schedule, instead of “mixin’ up the skeeves”, as he put it – when something caught her eye.

  It wasn’t the person itself, it was more the suggestion of movement, something about the being’s rhythm. She focused first on the feet, then moved up to the torso. By the time her gaze climbed its way upward, Moon knew who it was.

  “Kad,” she gasped.

  Beside her, Toy stopped and turned. “What did you say, doc?”

  But Moon wasn’t listening. Focused on the single humanoid figure moving away from her in haphazard fashion, she surged through the small stream of pedestrians, her apologies perfunctory. She couldn’t be mistaken, not after having worked next to that figure for years.

  “Kad.” She cleared her throat and raised her voice. “Kad!”

  To her stunned disbelief, the person she was pursuing stopped, then turned around. The look on his face, when their gazes met, was equally incredulous.

  “Moon? My God, is it you?”

  They met in a clash of limbs, twirling in the puddles of grey, and keeping their footing amid the uneven slipperiness. Toy Cenredi, the market, the system, disappeared.

  “Kad,” Moon finally sobbed, holding his face between her hands, “what the hell are you doing here?”

  He smiled, equanimity reasserting itself even as she watched. “What am I doing? I thought that was obvious, Moon. I came to find you.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I’d love to follow you to this mysterious ship of yours,” Kad said, just before they separated, “but I don’t want to chance us being seen together too much.”

  “I have so many questions,” Moon said, frowning and shaking her head.

  “And we’ll have plenty of time to catch up, but I’d prefer to do that in a safer location. I’ll send someone to meet you. Be back here, at the head of the food alley, in three hours. That person will lead you to my ship.”

  “But—”

  “No excuses, Moon. Three hours.” He touched her lips with the tip of a gloved finger, then melted into the surrounding crowd.

  Perplexed, Moon looked over to Toy, who shrugged and looked bored. “So your guy knows how to make an entrance. That was some reunion.”

  “We should get back to the Perdition.”

  “Sure, whatever you say, doc.”

  Moon was expecting a stronger reaction from the young engineer, especially when the deadline of three hours was mentioned, but it was as if he hadn’t heard a word. With one hand stuck in his trousers, Toy sauntered back to the shuttle, looking – to all intents and purposes – as if he didn’t have a care in the world. She wished she knew how she felt herself, but she was consumed by conflicting emotions. Relief, trepidation, fear, joy, exhaustion, they all surged through her. They had found Kad! The thought alone was almost enough to make her collapse to the floor.

  “T
hree hours, huh?” the young engineer finally commented as they strapped themselves in.

  “I know, it’s not much time is it?” Moon was still a little disconcerted by his casual tone, especially since it contrasted so starkly with the violence with which he handled the controls.

  “Enough to leave a life behind, doc,” he replied, then said nothing more as they undocked and headed for the Perdition.

  Quinten was the first to notice them. Toy was striding into the ship’s main corridor, his slouching gait even more pronounced than usual. His face must have borne a mutinous expression because Quinten looked first at him, then past him to Moon as she cleared the cargo bay doorway.

  “Was there…did something happen?”

  Toy brushed past without a word.

  “Actually, it’s good news,” Moon said. She frowned at Toy’s back. “I think. I found our contact.”

  Again, she saw that strange mix of emotions flash across Quinten’s face.

  “That’s, er, very good news,” he said. “Will we have time to meet this contact?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. In fact, I won’t see him again myself until we’re on his ship.”

  Quinten frowned. “Really? And do you know you can trust this person? I’d hate to think of a sweep team waiting for you to step across their threshold.”

  “It’s not as bad as that,” she laughed. “My contact is actually an old research partner of mine...the person we were scheduled to meet at the end of this journey.”

  Her lips curved. “It was good to see him again, and we have a lot of catching up to do, but I’m afraid we’re running out of time. Kad gave us three hours to get our things together and meet back at Ion Market, and that was almost an hour ago.”

  “Then you have a tight deadline to meet.”

  Despite Quinten’s words, neither of them moved.

  “I…I’d like to thank you for all your help,” Moon told him. “For a while, this ship almost felt like home.”

  “Well, if you ever find yourself at a loose end…. The same goes for Srin. I hope he gets better soon.”

  “So do I.” Her tone was heartfelt.

  After that, it was a flurry of activity as Moon and Srin quickly packed their belongings together. Moon couldn’t believe how many of her meagre possessions she’d been scattering around the Perdition. Srin was happy to be on the next leg of their journey – doubly so when he found out that Kad Minslok himself had arrived to do the pick-up – but Moon was starting to see, yet again, the same bemused expression on his face.

  “What happened on board while I was away?” she asked, as they did a final check of their quarters. “Did everyone indulge in some Oseriad melodrama?”

  “What makes you say that?” Srin’s gaze was skimming every surface one last time.

  “Well, the minute I mention we’re leaving, it’s as if I’ve declared a blood feud.” She stopped suddenly. “Srin, are we doing the right thing?”

  Srin laughed and moved up to give her a quick hug. “Now who’s being melodramatic? I thought the whole idea behind this pan-galactic tour was so that we could meet up with your old research partner? If anything, this would appear to be a stroke of good luck.”

  “Yes,” Moon echoed softly. “Good luck.” And wondered at her own ambivalence.

  Quinten and Saff were standing next to the shuttle when they finally made their way there.

  “Where’s Toy?” Srin asked, looking around. “I wanted to say good-bye.”

  “Mr. Cenredi has begun a rather complicated diagnostic routine involving synchronised plasma flow to the primary thrusters,” Saff replied. “He informs me he’ll be very busy for the next several hours.”

  “Saff will take you to Ion Market,” Quinten cut in, “but she won’t hang around. I hope you understand.”

  He extended his hand, holding something. When Srin put his open palm under Quinten’s fingers, a cash disc fell into it.

  “Quinten,” Srin objected, “you don’t have to—”

  “I took out two kilo-credits,” Quinten interrupted again, “to cover energy costs.” He withdrew his hand. “You’d better get going.”

  As hard as it was to believe, Saff turned out to be the most communicative of the Perdition’s three crewmembers.

  “If your contact doesn’t arrive,” she told them as the shuttle headed for the market, “send out a general signal using the catch-phrase ‘sustained re-entry’. I’ll monitor communications for the next two hours. If I receive a transmission containing that catch-phrase from the market’s approximate location, I shall come back and retrieve you.”

  Moon hadn’t thought she would ever feel close to an alien, but that was how she felt about Saff. The female was smart, resourceful, and friendly enough in her own fashion. Compared to what they’d faced in the past few months, that added up to an individual that could almost qualify as a blood relative.

  “Thanks for all your help,” Moon said as they approached one of the landing pads that led to their rendezvous. “I wish there was some way we could keep in touch….”

  Saff slowed the shuttle for approach manoeuvres. “Maybe, between us, we can bring down the Republic. And then I’d be happy to update you on my news.”

  The small craft touched down lightly within the blinking circle of landing lights.

  “Good-bye Moon Thadin. Good-bye Srin Flerovs. Quinten Tamlan taught me a phrase that only now seems to have acquired meaning for me.” She twisted in the pilot’s seat and looked at both of them. “It was a pleasure meeting you.”

  Moon didn’t know why she suddenly felt a sharp tickle in her nose. She stammered out a farewell, fumbled with her harness and stumbled onto the landing platform, her satchel knocking at her feet hard enough to almost trip her up.

  “Hey, are you feeling all right?”

  Srin’s solicitous comment made the tickle even worse.

  “I’m fine,” she said, blinking hard. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  Kad’s contact found them at the designated spot fifteen minutes later and quickly guided them to another small shuttle. Within the hour, they were aboard the Unfinished Tale and speeding out of the system.

  Moon knew she should have been delirious with joy but, instead, there was a dull ache in her chest.

  They hit the crease hard and hot and she didn’t even get time to program the viewport to see if she could spot the Perdition before they entered hyperspace.

  “After I received Gauder’s message, I started to panic.”

  Kad leant forward to pour drinks for his guests. The liquid was so cold it instantly chilled the tumblers, turning their outsides frosty.

  The Unfinished Tale was smaller than the Perdition but appeared to have a full crew’s complement, which was around a dozen or so people, from what Moon had seen. After welcoming them aboard, Kad settled them in a cosy alcove in between living quarters before disappearing again – to oversee departure from the system, he said. He only came back when the viewports had been tightly locked down, indicating their passage through hyperspace.

  Moon and Srin looked at each other.

  “What did Gauder say?” Moon finally asked, a frown pleating her brow.

  Kad shook his head. “That’s the thing. It made so little sense. He wanted to thank you both for the adventure and the ‘bonus’ – that was how he put it – and said that, assuming he was sufficiently armed, he looked forward to meeting both of you again.” Kad shifted position. “Now, what the hell did that mean, Moon?”

  For now, she deflected the question. “Have you used him for any other journeys across Marentim?”

  “Gauder? Yes. I’ve used his services off and on for the past six years. He usually makes sense.”

  Six years? That meant that Kad already knew the trader when he was still working by her side at the Phyllis Science Centre. With that one casual comment, Moon was starting to realise the enormity of the secret her partner had kept from her.

  “We found him a very interesting pers
on,” Moon remarked, “and I think we’d both enjoy the opportunity to see him again.”

  She looked enquiringly at Srin who, after a moment’s consideration, also appeared to concede the point. “He was certainly an interesting character,” he added.

  “As are you, Mr. Flerovs,” Kad commented, settling back in his chair. “I had some of my specialists see what they could find on you, and what they told me was very interesting. You began your career as a physicist – so please consider yourself among friends here – but got waylaid by the Republic while you were presenting a proposal on behalf of one of your planet’s scientific establishments. The official story is that the transport you were on, heading back to Tonia III, was jacked by a band of pirates, and that all the passengers were killed.”

  Moon took in a sharp breath. She hadn’t been aware of the specifics of whatever excuse the Republic had concocted. In fact, the fate of Srin’s bonded partner, Yalona, kept surfacing in her mind from time to time, as she wondered what the woman had done with her life. Now she knew. She had been told that Srin had been murdered.

  A quick glance in Srin’s direction showed him to be his usual serene self.

  “Unofficially, of course,” Kad continued, “they kept you confined and drugged, and hired out to promising research projects throughout Republic space as the ultimate in computing power. And everything seemed to go according to plan…until you ran into Moon here.”

  Srin didn’t change his position or the angle of his gaze, but Moon felt a nudge as his fingers enfolded hers. Silently, she squeezed his hand.

  “And what about you, Kad?” she asked, deflecting the line of conversation. “At least you were able to dig up some information on Srin, but I have almost no information on you. How long were you an anti-Republic sympathiser? What made you start? And the most burning question of all – why didn’t you tell me?”

  Kad laughed. “Tell you? My dear Moon, if you can ask me that, it means you never saw yourself as you truly were.” His gaze softened. “You’re a smart woman, Moon Thadin, but if that intelligence is matched by anything, it’s your ambition. You were so determined to make your stellar re-ignition project a success that I feared you would jettison me in a heartbeat if you thought it would bring you closer to your objective.”