Flashpoint (Hellgate)

by Mel Keegan

  “Dendra Shemiji,” Travers observed.

  The gun was only the size of a man’s palm, and no thicker than a finger. It was made of synthetic materials which were so close to organic tissue, if it was worn flush against the skin, it would not be detected. There was no powerpack to betray it; using a burst of compressed air from a pump-charged bladder, it fired darts which were as fine as needles and made of hollow bone, and the darts were tipped in an organic toxin.

  With an arch of one brow, Travers handed the weapon back to him. “You’re carrying a couple of these?”

  “Three,” Marin informed him. “No way am I going anywhere near Zwerner’s neck of the woods unarmed. There’s easier ways to suicide.”

  The remark brought Travers up short, just as he began to change. “Misgivings? About going in there?”

  “I … don’t know,” Marin admitted. “It’s difficult to feel anything at all in this place. It’s weird to be working hand in glove with van Donne, when we were trying to kill each other not long ago. And the rest of this cesspit in space – well, I confess, I’ll be glad to leave.” His shoulders lifted in a deep shrug. “Let’s say I’d approach Xanadu with all due caution. If we want coherent data from this Ronald Joaquin Reanie, we won’t get it by sitting here, looking at a face on a threedee!” He tilted his head at Travers, who was half dressed, slacks on but still unzipped, shirt in one hand, a palmgun in the other, selected from a case of odd weapons which lay open on the end of the bed. “You’re going to Xanadu looking like that?” Marin looked him up and down with heavy-lidded, sultry eyes. “Well, now, this could be interesting. You’ll be jumped and raped by four husky studs from every corner of Freespace … unless I race to your rescue.”

  Travers gave him an ancient and obscene salute involving one finger, and zipped the slacks a moment before Vaurien’s voice said over the loop,

  “Neil, where are you? We’re waiting for you. Hangar 4.”

  “On our way,” Travers said dutifully. “You’re taking out the Capricorn again?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Vaurien said darkly. “I don’t trust Zwerner’s security, and I don’t trust this Ronald J. Reanie character. He’s the kind who deals in human bodies and hunts down his recreational thrills in places like Gemini. One meeting, one business transaction, and we’re done – it should be dead simple. But in case it isn’t, I want a well armed, well armored hard-point within sprinting distance. Ask Curtis, he’ll tell you the same.”

  And Marin’s head was nodding as he preceded Travers out of the stateroom, in the direction of the nearest elevator. It was a service lift which shuttled between the labs and machine shops, plain gray steel and far from clean. Travers mocked himself with a wry grin as he deliberately kept off the walls. The lift opened into the passage opposite Hangar 4, where the air smelt sharp with ozone from the nearby fabrication bays and was still hot from the routine preflight test of the Capricorn’s engines.

  Waiting by the starboard hatch, Vaurien was in black, head to foot, save for the burgundy red band tying his hair. The look was severe, dangerous. Of Sergei van Donne there was no sign, but Ramon was up in the cockpit, watching through the thick armorglass for Travers and Marin to show. As they stepped into the hangar he waved, and a moment later the blast doors rumbled shut behind them.

  “Sergei’s not coming along?” Travers wondered.

  And Vaurien’s head shook. “He’s still healing up from the last shot Zwerner took at him. If he shows his face in Xanadu, he could expect to be jumped by seven different kinds of security.” He pulled a finger across his gullet. “Sergei has a keen survival instinct.”

  The engines whined to life as the hatches closed and locked, and Travers settled in a seat in the back of the cockpit. Vaurien was listening to the ship’s loop, and as Jazinsky appeared from the body of the Capricorn, he acknowledged Etienne’s data transfer and throttled up the repulsion.

  Five public docking rings and a hangar served Xanadu in a small, very select rink, and ships would be scanned on approach before the privilege of parking was granted. This was common knowledge, but Ramon reminded Vaurien quietly as he took the Capricorn down out of the belly of the Wastrel and up in a vast arc, to the dorsal spine of the Explorer, where the massive bows were buried in solid, fused rock.

  The panels lit up red with warning lights, and Etienne’s voice whispered into the loop. “Be aware, you are being deep-scanned. Your weapons and human complement are observed.”

  “Thank you, Etienne, it’s expected.” Vaurien twitched the nose over and rolled the Capricorn to align it with the hangar, where blue and green approach lights flashed, marking out the lanes. “Xanadu Control, this is Wastrel 101, on approach and requesting landing clearance.”

  Nothing about Xanadu was as simple as the lower levels of Halfway. The voice answering was crisp, officious, and Travers was sure he recognized one of the homeworlds accents. The woman sounded suspicious. “Wastrel 101, state your business in Xanadu.”

  “Private business with a broker, name of R.J. Reanie. Our weapons are powered down, there are five of us aboard. While we’re in your territory, we thought we’d have dinner, play a little mahjong, maybe take in a show, if there’s something decent in town.”

  “There’s Circus Noir,” the traffic controller suggested, “if you’re into VR trips that’ll blow the brains right out of your skull … you check out, Wastrel 101. Keep your weapons shut down and you’re welcome to a berth – take 17, on your left as you enter.”

  “Merci, madam, nous sommes tres reconnaissant.” Vaurien was already watching the hangar lights, where a red beacon informed him that the outer ’lock was depressurizing.

  Moments later it turned to green, and the hangar’s yellow-checkered door slid ponderously aside. The outer ’lock was designed to accommodate ships twice the modest size of the Capricorn. Vaurien slid the craft in on repulsion, and waited out the forty-second repressurization cycle.

  “You can expect Ronald J. Reanie to be given a swift headsup,” Jazinsky said caustically.

  “I’m counting on it.” Vaurien’s hands were feather light on the control surfaces as the inner door opened, and he took the Capricorn into the public hangar. Berth 17 was flashing orange on his left, and he spun the spaceplane in its own length to fit the space. “The man needs to know there’s business heading his way. If he’s anything like the other cockroaches, he’ll rewrite his busy social schedule for us.”

  “Mahjong, a show?” Marin echoed. “Are you serious?”

  “Why not?” Jazinsky looked down at the russet-red gown which clung to every line of the long, elegant Pakrani body. “Since we got dressed up, why not make the most of it? Working on an industrial ship, you don’t often get the chance to strut your stuff.”

  She looked very good, Travers thought. That Pakrani body was as genetically perfect as the designers could manage, almost two meters tall, and stronger than most homeworlds males. On the streets of Earth and Mars she might be treated like a freak, but out here she was magnificent, and she knew it. He could not remember seeing Jazinsky in a gown before, or with the white-blond hair roped up and coiled around her head. The style was entirely Pakrani. At home, on the streets of Santorini, she would be one of many with the same looks, the same taste in chic.

  She snatched up an emerald green wrap as the hatch opened and a waft of chill hangar air swept into the Capricorn. Travers watched her go ahead of them with Ramon right on her heels, and Vaurien must have seen his eyes following her. He leaned closer and whispered, “C’est la femme magnifique. But I know you better, Neil.”

  “You do,” Travers admitted, amused. “So you made Jazinsky an offer, did you?”

  “She told you?”

  “It was supposed to be a secret?”

  “No. And yes,” Vaurien affirmed. “I made her an offer. Full partnership. Business, holdings, ships. God knows, she’s earned it, and I …” He looked away. “I waited too long for you. I thought I’d give you all the rope you wanted, let you r
un, and you’d come back to me in the end. Then Curtis arrived on the Intrepid.”

  Marin was well within earshot. He only gave Vaurien a faint smile. “It happened the way it happened, Richard. No one planned any of it. What took place between Neil and me was just nature, chemistry, something. Just don’t you dare take Barb on the rebound. She’s worth a hell of a lot better than that – and you know as well as we all do, what happens to rebound affairs.”

  “Tonio.” Vaurien shuddered visibly and ran one hand across his chest to seal the soft black leather jacket. “Don’t remind me. At the time, I’d have told you the little shit cut the guts right out of me, but now … I’m actually glad it didn’t work out. It’s not a mistake I’ll be making again. Barb and me, well we’ve been together almost ten years now.” He gave Travers an odd, crooked grin. “It was a wild affair, after you stood me up and went back to Fleet. And I know there’s close to twenty years between us, but she’s … remarkable. Unique.”

  “So are you. Remember that,” Marin told him. He set a hand on Travers’s arm for a moment, and then followed Jazinsky, leaving Travers and Vaurien inside the hatch.

  The older man studied Neil without a word for a long moment, and then he said, “He’s good for you. The truth? Curtis is better for you than I would have been. You know me too well, Neil. There’s too many causes to fight for, and no place I care to call home except this ship.”

  “It’s been a good home,” Travers argued, “and you’re about to run out of causes. The Colonial Wars? It won’t be long before it’s all history. The Republicans can come out of hiding, take office and start making a whole new mess. The Daku can stop hiding. Who knows? The Resalq might even come out of the shadows at last. Tell the rest of us how to pronounce their damned language!”

  For the first time in too long, he watched Vaurien smile, laugh, and Travers prayed silently that he was right. Richard had been running too hard, too long. They all had. But if Harrison Shapiro’s numbers were accurate, they did not have much further to run. Travers was keenly conscious of operating on an odd combination of momentum and sheer willpower.

  It was Mick Vidal on his mind as he stepped out of the hatch and joined Marin, Jazinsky and Ramon. Vidal’s handsome looks and quirky humor, the man’s cheerful cynicism and reckless courage haunted him. He slung an arm around Marin, wanting the closeness, the body heat, the solid press of human strength against him. Marin angled a look at him, frowning, and Travers answered only with a minute shake of his head: I’m okay.

  It was not entirely the truth, but he put on the familiar mask as Vaurien’s party made their way to the nearest internal armordoor, where security cameras and drones scrutinized them individually. Through that door was Xanadu itself, and the twenty centimeters of blastproof steel would not open until a human security officer was satisfied.

  They showed their faces, let them be identified. The process took a full minute longer than Travers had expected, and he was beginning to turn away, make a remark about the whole expedition being a bust, when the armordoor slid back by a meter and the warning lights shifted to green.

  They were in, but Travers’s hackles were up, and with a glance at Marin he knew Curtis felt the same thing. They were watched. Every step they took, every breath they drew would be monitored. Vaurien gave Travers a speculative glance, but for the moment Neil said nothing.

  The Xanadu rink was bright, sharply cold, with three-meter, animated signage and both human and drone greeters. Young people of every imaginable gender, clad in body paint, tattoos and smiles, handed out garish tokens for the clubs, restaurants and theaters. The entertainments here were as outrageous as those in the lower, darker, colder levels, but here a customer was less likely to catch a disease, be mugged or murdered for the cash and cards in his pocket. The Companions were infinitely more expensive; the VR was much more sophisticated; the booze was more pure, the drugs less likely to be toxic.

  Vouchers for free drinks and chimera, a ‘free ride with the amazing Vincenzo – measure your staying power on the legendary pole,’ were pressed into Travers’s palm. The vouchers were illustrated with a holo of the vaunted Companion. If the proportions were accurate, the greatest mystery about Vincenzo was where he had been augmented. Most geneshops still had some fragment of ethics left.

  “Welcome to Xanadu,” Jazinsky said in acerbic tones as she led them around the long, bright passage which wound up from the rink on a shallow incline.

  Every meter of the way was decorated with posters for the clubs and shows. A visitor to Xanadu could have anything, provided he had the cash. Vaurien and Marin paused to blink at some of the Companions and several of the more gymnastic acts, while Ramon did not seem to even notice the posters.

  Then Travers whistled as they came up into bright lights, noise and bustle of the habitat. The drones salvaged from the Rotterdam Explorer itself had hollowed out the planetoid. The docks, hangars and facilities were installed into the shell, most of them torn from the old ship, and the cavity was a sphere of variable gravity and free-floating lights, where a structure was as likely to depend from the roofing as rise out of the floor. Travers had never seen anything quite like it.

  Almost a kilometer across, the sphere challenged human senses. A moment of vertigo assaulted him as he looked up and seemed to be looking down on the structures opposite. Drone buggies wafted around, skirting the complex, confused gravity fields, and Vaurien summoned one with a few sharp claps. Twenty of the transports jetted in every direction; most were occupied by a curious assortment of humanity.

  Faces turned toward Vaurien as he clapped. Travers could not tell male from female, for the masks and warpaint, spiked hair and iridescent skinsuits. Only where the costume was deliberately abbreviated to present breasts or genitals as if they were trophies or weapons, was gender apparent, and then it was a statement, even a threat.

  Several strains of music overlapped; a hundred voices spoke at once, the buzz and whine of scores of machines thickened the air, until Travers felt inundated. He was reminded of the milling crowd on the street on Cimarosa – the city of Vazyabinsk, and of the senseless opulence of Elstrom StarCity. Everywhere one looked, structures, people, machines, crowded an up-curved horizon where the sky became the floor, and mid-air was a freefall chaos of buggies and gaudy figures riding fragile kite-like contraptions.

  “It’s … incredible,” Marin observed.

  “It’s Xanadu,” Jazinsky growled, “and the name is no joke. It’s quite the pleasure dome. You’re about to pay handsomely for the air you breathe, and if you dare relax here, they’ll have the shirt off your back. Richard?”

  He was looking for something, and before Travers could ask what it was, he had seen it. The public circuit access was built into a clamshell opposite the ramps from the hangars. Vaurien placed his palm on the scanner and addressed the AI.

  “Richard Vaurien, Captain of the salvage vessel Wastrel. Looking for the broker, Ronald Joaquin Reanie.”

  “Wait,” the machine said baldly.

  “I guess we’ll wait.” Richard turned his back on the threedee, shoved both hands into the pockets of his jacket, and watched the local wildlife go by.

  Ramon had seen it all too often to be impressed. “Not long, man,” he promised. “You know security called Reanie, soon as you dropped the name, on the way in.”

  “Which is why I dropped it.” Vaurien glanced back into the blue-back deeps of the threedee. The machine was still processing. Reanie was taking his time. “I’ve no desire to be here.”

  “In Xanadu?” Ramon pretended a double-take.

  “Dangerous,” Marin said quietly. “You could hide a regiment in here. There could be fifty guns aimed at you, and you’d never know.”

  “I’d know.” Ramon touched his temple. “It’s a feeling you get. You, Mister Dendra Shemiji, you don’t get that?”

  “I do.” Marin tilted his head at the younger, smaller man. “So tell me, what do you feel right now?”

  “Me?” Ramo
n took a deep breath, closed his eyes and seemed to listen. “It ain’t me they want, Curtis. It’s Sergei, and he has more brains than to be here.” He gave Marin a thin smile. “You think Boden Zwerner doesn’t know everybody who sets one foot on a deck in Halfway?”

  Before he could answer the comm AI intruded. “Ronald Joaquin Reanie will deal with you. Standby.”

  With a muttered oath Vaurien turned back to the threedee. Jazinsky stepped closer, into the scan field, but Marin deliberately stayed out of the pickup’s line of sight. Travers caught a bare glimpse of the threedee, between Vaurien’s shoulder and Jazinsky’s.

  A face had appeared there. Reanie was not a young man, and he had the look of one who had accumulated a lot of wear and tear. His eyes were slits nested in deep creases; his mouth was an unforgiving line. The voice was like gravel sliding off a shovel.

  “Reanie. You want to talk to me? Vaurien, is it?”

  “Yes.” Richard made sure his face was in the light. “You know me?”

  “Everybody knows you.” Reanie skipped a beat. “Everybody also knows you went legit. You fly for Fleet now.”

  “Then my business will come as no surprise,” Vaurien said tartly. “You know I contract for Fleet Borushek.”

  “As in, Harrison fucking Shapiro,” Reanie agreed.

  “And we know a lot of the survivors from the Battle of Ulrand came here as live cargo,” Vaurien added. “Shapiro’s buying. Top dollar, Reanie. You want to do business?”