Le Cirque Navire

by Chele Cooke

  Lachlan pushed open the front door to the station, glad that he wasn’t the first one there. At least he wouldn’t have to fumble with his keys and unlock all the doors and barred windows. He could only hope that whoever had arrived before him had already dealt with the few prisoners they had waiting on transfers to the central cells.

  He made his way to his own office in a daze of pain and exhaustion. While he’d told Hadley that he was fine, he felt like he’d been hit by a mule and then backed up over. He’d not even seen the elephant the night before and yet it was currently trumpeting and stomping through his head before spraying frozen water over the rest of his body until he shivered.

  Digging out his keys from his back pocket, Lachlan unlocked his office with the small brass key and pushed the door open. Instead of his usual morning routine of clearing up papers he’d been too busy to put away before checking on the other men on the morning shift, Lachlan went straight to his window, unlocked the shutters, and pushed the window as wide as it would go. He moved his chair back from his desk and shrugged off his jacket, dumping it on the desk before he took a seat next to the window. He closed his eyes as he slouched down in the uncomfortable chair, massaging the shooting pain behind his temple.

  He undid his top button again.

  The ache stomped through his head and jumped on his stomach. It was only at the squeak of his office door being pushed open that he realised the stomping wasn’t in his head but out in the hallway, the footsteps of one of the other soldiers. He sat up sharply, his stomach protesting and his eyes burning as he lurched towards his desk on reflex.

  José stood in the doorway, his shoulder against the frame and his arms crossed over his chest. His usually smiling expression was practically giddy at the sight of Lachlan, even though he looked like he’d had better days himself. He had dark rings that matched his dark eyes and his skin was sallow and clammy looking.

  “Well, well, well,” he chirped, far too loud for Lachlan’s liking. “Morning, Captain.”

  He tugged his chair back to his desk with a squeal of wood on cheap linoleum that sent a shudder down his spine. Straightening his collar, he glanced down at the papers on his desk.

  “Morning,” he said. “Are the others in yet?”

  José considered his grubby nails for a moment and chewed the inside of his cheek. The steel toe of his boot clacked against the floor as he tapped it absently. Lachlan rubbed his hand over his hair, finding the back of his neck sweaty and warm.

  “Fred’s checking on the cellies and Paul…” José snorted and glanced down the corridor.

  “Paul?”

  “Paul’s putting on his concealer.”

  José dabbed a thumb under each of his eyes in turn. Now Lachlan looked properly, he could see that they were bloodshot. He supposed he could have put it down to lack of sleep, the cirque had only closed at dawn, after all, but his suspicion got the better of him, not to mention that he’d seen José and Paul acting like idiots only a short while after they’d arrived at the ship.

  Sure enough, only moments after José had spoken, Paul appeared in the doorway behind his friend. Paul was about Hadley’s age and, from the looks of him, had never sprouted a hair on his jaw. In fact, this morning his smooth cheeks practically glowed. Whether José had been joking or not, there was absolutely no sign of the after-effects of alcohol on the young man before him. He, if possible, looked brighter than usual.

  “Mornin’ Cap.”

  He gave a small, frilly wave that made Lachlan think of the frivolities of the central planets. Unlike José, with his grime under his fingernails and his constantly dust worn skin, Paul looked like he’d never worked a day in his life. José dabbed his thumb under his eyes again and burst out laughing.

  “What?”

  “You look ridiculous,” the seasoned soldier told him. “I swear.”

  “Ridiculous?” Paul looked down at his shirt, perfectly pressed and clean, his trousers definitely done up. He touched his hair consciously. José waved his hand dismissively before his face.

  “Are you wearing make-up?” Lachlan asked, the incredulity unmistakable.

  Paul flushed. If he was, indeed wearing makeup, he’d clearly not put enough on his cheeks to stop the rush of blood from shining through.

  “No!” he insisted. “It’s just that I have a secret recipe for… for…”

  He glanced between Lachlan and José, his eyes widening in desperation as he searched for the word he was looking for. Lachlan was sure he already knew the word on Paul’s mind, and he might just hang the boy over a large harvest fire for it.

  “Late nights,” he finished lamely.

  “This secret recipe includes eye-liner?” José snorted.

  Paul’s eyes narrowed and he elbowed his friend in the ribs. José’s grunt of pain through his laughter didn’t stop Lachlan from glaring suspiciously at the young man.

  “Crushed some Skimatol and Ennimin in runny eggs and salt in two pints of water.”

  Lachlan and José shared a look but neither disputed the remedy. Lachlan only didn’t comment because the very idea of runny eggs was making his stomach churn again. He straightened some papers and gritted his teeth, swallowing back the urge to vomit.

  “And what about you, Tack?” José asked once he’d finally stopped chuckling. “Not looking your usual stern self.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lachlan grumbled, tugging open the stiff top drawer in his desk and placing the papers away. It wasn’t where they went but it at least kept him from looking at the smirk he knew would be on José’s lips.

  The footsteps seemed to echo as José walked further into the room. He placed his hands on the edge of Lachlan’s desk, leaning over. He could see the smirk in his peripheral vision as he fumbled with the last of the papers.

  “Looking a bit green there,” José said. “Which matches your red eyes wonderfully. What was it you said about not drinking?”

  The papers fluttered to the floor as Lachlan jumped to his feet. His nostrils flared and he glared at the man on the other side of the desk. Jamming his fists in against his sides, Lachlan gritted his teeth.

  “Get out,” he hissed.

  “What?”

  José’s expression of amusement melted, make-up sloughing off his face in the mid-day sun. He took a step back, then again, glancing at Paul uncertainly.

  “I said for you to get out of my office,” Lachlan spat every word.

  “But cap—”

  “Get out!” Lachlan snapped, kicking his chair away from his calves.

  José shared one last frightened look with Paul and hurried from the office. Paul hovered in the doorway, caught half-way between asking what was wrong and fleeing after his friend. Not giving the younger man the choice, Lachlan strode around his desk and flung the door closed in his face. The snap of the wood reverberated in his head making him groan.

  He retreated back to his desk and sunk into his chair. Hunching over his knees, his face in his hands, Lachlan could feel the heat flooding to his cheeks and the sting behind his eyes.

  What was wrong with him?

  The last time Lachlan had remembered feeling like this was back when he was sixteen. He and some friends had gotten one of the older boys to purchase a large bottle of moonshine from Mr. Hale. His brewing had been common knowledge back in those days, half his yeast allowance went to making backroom beers. They’d bought a bottle, figuring that between the five of them it would be enough to get them slightly tipsy. Little had they known that the adults in the city knew the potency of Mr. Hale’s moonshine. Less than half the bottle in and none of them could stand, let alone drink any more. The next morning he’d felt like he’d been dragged behind a mule for twenty miles, information coming and going the same way the cirque blurred in and out of his consciousness.

  Worse yet, he’d lied to Hadley. He didn’t want her worrying about him. He was older, he was supposed to take care of her. Instead, she’d been the one to sit by his
bedside. He wondered whether she thought he’d given in to temptation and bought alcohol from the cirque. Perhaps it would have been better if he had. At least then he wouldn’t be so confused. He’d been drinking lemonade, the stuff they gave to the kids. Were the people of the cirque really so devious that they would poison children?

  Lachlan jumped at the sound of the door. He was halfway to snapping at José to leave him alone when he looked up, his blood running cold. Staff Sergeant Beukes stood in the doorway, his leathery face as stern as ever. Lachlan jumped to his feet and stepped out from behind the desk, saluting the staff sergeant and falling into a stiff stance.

  “Tack,” he greeted. “Take a seat.”

  Lachlan slid back behind his desk, ignoring the thumping behind his temple. He stood next to his chair, waiting until the other man had seated himself before he slipped back down. He grabbed his jacket from the side of his desk and draped it over the back of his chair.

  “How can I help you, Sir?” Lachlan asked, hastily sweeping more papers into a pile.

  “You can tell me what’s going on with this ruddy cirque business.”

  “Yes, sir, of course.”

  There had been a time back when Lachlan was a child that he’d believed Staff Sergeant Beukes to be the epitome of everything he never wanted to be. He’d only been a sergeant then, but he had the same stern glare that destroyed all semblance of fun and adventure from the room. Why the coalition sent him to talk to young children in schools, Lachlan would never know. There was no one less inspiring, especially to boys who wanted to go out and hunt bad guys. To hear Beukes talk about it, it was all about discipline and honour for the coalition. It was only once their parents had disappeared that Lachlan put everything he had into Beukes’ lessons.

  He searched through the papers on his desk, hastily shoving them into drawers before he grimaced. He didn’t have his litcom. In his eagerness to get out of the house, he must have left it. Lachlan pushed the top drawer closed and instead clasped his hands in his lap.

  “The cirque is definitely providing alcohol,” he said.

  “We already knew that, Tack. Tell me something new. How are you getting in there?” Beukes demanded. “If you want me to provide men, you’re going to have to give me a better answer than ‘they have alcohol’.”

  Lachlan shrank back from the staff sergeant. In all his time with the coalition, he’d never been anything less than exemplary. Beukes was brash and stern but there was a note of mocking that he hadn’t heard before from the older man. He busied himself with collecting up a pad and pencil, laying it on the desk between them.

  “The ship sits in the middle of the fenced ring of tents. Small observatories and attractions are built into the ship’s walls. Everyone will need to be searched. Civilians enter through the loading bay into the hold.”

  His drawing was rudimentary but functional as he lay out a diagram of the layout he could remember. Patches remained blank where his memory faded. There had been a circular room, polished and beautiful, but he couldn’t remember where it was or if it had held anything other than the suspended women. He knew he’d been to the menagerie but the path he’d taken was lost on him.

  He stilled his pencil and grimaced. Over half the drawing was blank.

  “There were perhaps two hundred on the ship,” he muttered. “But that is, at best, an estimate. Who knows how many ship hands they have who aren’t on show to the public.”

  “So, you have little more than nothing,” Beukes drawled as he examined the drawing. “You have half a layout and a prayer.”

  Beukes was on his feet. The pad slapped against the unpolished wood, the pencil rolling away. Lachlan jumped up after him. Bile rose in his throat, unsteadying him, and he stared blankly at the wall as the staff sergeant stomped to the door.

  “Go again tonight, Tack. Back here by two AM. We’ll have a force waiting and we’ll hit them at daybreak,” he grunted. “And get me a proper damned report!”

  Lachlan saluted to the empty doorway as Beukes disappeared, probably off back to the central quadrant and his nice office.

  As he sank back into his chair, Lachlan stared at the diagram, swallowing against the acrid taste of bile in his throat. Beukes was disappointed in him, angry at him even, and yet, as his gaze swept over the drawing, Lachlan could feel the excitement bubbling in his stomach that he’d be able to return to the ship before they took it down.

  The air became stuffy and staler than usual within the ship. The warm weather combined with the recharge of all but the essential hitch engines had simmered into a warm, uncomfortable soup. The air systems would be turned back on once the cirque opened for its second night, of course. There would be too many bodies inside the ship to rely on the fresh air coming through the open loading bays and vents. The last thing they needed was patrons asphyxiating whilst watching the clowns.

  The problem with the low air supply during the recharge, however, was that it made people sluggish. He’d called for Kenneth and Malak half an hour earlier, the moment he’d returned to his quarters, and they were yet to arrive.

  He’d taken a dose of Skimatol already but it did little to keep exhaustion at bay. He would certainly need to refresh whilst the sun was up, even if he had other things to worry about.

  Finally, the knock came at the door. Without waiting for him to reply the door opened and Kenneth Clarke and Malak Nejem strode into his quarters. Cole gave the briefest of waves, urging them into the room. Without being told, Malak closed the door behind them. They didn’t sit. They stood by the door, waiting.

  “Mr. Clarke,” Cole began without any further greeting. “It has been brought to my attention that we have a certain problem on board the ship.”

  “Problem?” Kenneth asked.

  Cole nodded. It had been unfortunate to hear the truth behind Clint’s little mishap, especially coming right off the back of losing Annalise. However talented Clint may be with the animals, he couldn’t risk the man going feral on another patron. The first would be difficult enough to hide. They could only hope that their Junkers would do a good enough job that the grave was not discovered until after their departure. If it wasn’t discovered until the body had decayed enough to disguise the cause of death, even better. Cole had little interest in returning to this outlying speck any time soon but there were other cirques out in the black and they wouldn’t appreciate being chased out of town before they’d slammed in their first tent peg.

  “Indeed,” he said. “Please round up three of the strongest men, select from the roustabouts, and collect Clint Lennart and take him to the baggage hold.”

  “Sir?” Kenneth asked.

  “It would be best if this were done quietly and without a scene. We do still have a show tonight and I would hate for further gossip to distract people from their assignments.”

  Kenneth shared a glance with Malak, who looked back with blank confusion. They’d never had problems with Clint before. He had been with them for a while, only a little longer than Annalise, if memory served. He’d always been a little odd but it had never bothered Cole. Cannibalism bothered Cole, as he felt it probably should.

  “Has Clint done something wrong?” Malak asked.

  Cole leaned further back in his chair and massaged the side of his neck. The two men before him were the people he trusted most, not because they had been with the cirque the longest, but because they knew how to do their jobs and when they shouldn’t ask questions. They, like Cole, had the cirque’s best interest at heart, even when the methods were questionable.

  “Mr. Lennart has reached the end of his time with us,” he said.

  “Because he got locked in a cage?” Kenneth snorted in disbelief.

  “I fear it is more worrisome than that. As I said, take him to the baggage hold. I will meet you there.”

  Kenneth opened his mouth and then closed it again, sharing another brief look with Malak. They were both clearly waiting for further instructions. When Kenneth realised none were coming, he
grimaced to Malak and turned back to the door. His hand was already on the handle when Cole stopped him.

  “Mr. Clarke,” he said briskly. “It would be beneficial for all involved if you took a pistol with you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He turned away from the door, his eyes wide.

  “Mr. Lennart is to be treated well, make no mistake. He is one of our own. But, for everyone’s safety, take a pistol and make sure the hold is double locked from the outside.”

  Kenneth Clarke looked like all words had vanished inexplicably from his mind. The pilot’s jaw hung somewhat slack and his pale eyes held no further comprehension. He tugged on a curl of hair next to his ear and Cole had to wave him off before he gathered himself and tugged the door open, closing it behind him.

  Malak stood silent, the only note of his impatience the drumming of his fingers against his thigh.

  “Did you have a job for me, Cole?”

  Malak Nejem was one of the only people on the ship who dared to call him by his first name. He’d been around a long time, privileged to the most sensitive information as time went on. Still, even though he now dared to call him anything other than Mr. Hatliffe or Sir, Cole knew the man was still slightly nervous around him.

  “I did.”

  Cole leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. His second knew the darker elements of running a cirque outside of the law but Cole kept him out of it as often as possible. The man was a quiet soul at heart. There was a reason he kept himself behind the scenes. Kenneth was smart and a talented pilot but even then he wasn’t privileged to half the information Cole shared with Malak.