by F P Adriani
I couldn’t get far enough fast enough; the place was too fucking crowded. I shoved people out of my way, but it was no good—by the time I got outside, my gun poised for action, Ronin was gone. My feet pumped in three different directions, checking around corners and around buildings—but no goddamn luck.
“Where the fuck did he go?” I said, shaking with rage as I walked back up to the bar’s door—
—where Tan rushed out. “Pia!” he shouted. “What the—they said you took off—”
“It was the bomber from The Festival—the one who almost killed me. I saw him—HERE. His name—it’s seventeen letters, last name starts with a Geeeeeee.”
“So what?” Tan asked, his dark brow lowering.
I just stared at him at first. “My parents, the bombing—don’t you fucking remember?”
Now Hu and Chuck came out the doorway. “What have you got—a deathwish?” Chuck said in his baritone way.
My head shot to him and Hu. “So how the hell do you know Ronin?”
Hu frowned. “Who said I know him? I know of him. He’s a known gun-for-hire—he’s worked for Heran gangsters. I’d never deal with him. I don’t hang around with indiscriminate killers,” she finished, pointing her words at me with a turn of her head and her now-cold face.
“I should have never agreed to this deal,” I said in an icy voice, walking away from the bar and away from all of them.
However, they only followed me. I spun back around and faced Hu. “You led me on to him—I think he’s the one—he killed my parents. The bomb, in the file you gave me. His name was blacked out. But you conveniently didn’t tell me who he was.”
“You think I knew that? I did not. I gave you what I thought was relevant in general. I knew only what was there. And what makes you think it’s him anyway?”
“His name, the letters in it. The fuel in that explosion and The Festival bombing—oh I just know it’s him. Where is he now?”
“Well, he was here only moments ago—“
“No, I mean usually—what’s been his path?”
“How am I supposed to know—” Hu began saying. But Chuck pressed a hand to her wrist, silencing her.
“He’s Earth-born,” Chuck said to me. “I know he was on Crayton two years ago. The brown teeth—they chew a leaf there that permanently stains them. But he’s been floating in and out of Diamond for twenty years, at least.”
“Goddamn this planet,” I said fast as I suddenly walked away from them all once again.
*
I felt one of the hottest angers I’d ever felt in my whole life: my parents had left Diamond in an act of violence at Ronin’s hands, I had been forced to leave Diamond because of that act of violence, but apparently that creep and his violent hands had been enjoying Diamond almost the whole time. It just wasn’t fair….
I stood alone on a back street and pulled my scanner from my case; Tan suddenly ran up to me.
“Pia, what the hell are you doing running off like this!”
“I’ve got to go back to the bar,” I growled, not at him, just at the Universe in general.
“Duh, gee, that’s great—so what?”
Pulling a face, I shook my scanner at him as I kept moving.
When we reached the bar, I saw that the others had gone back inside to the same table. The doctor was sitting there too now. Apparently, they’d either been waiting for Tan and me, or we still couldn’t go back into the transport, or maybe both those things were true.
I stood just inside the place’s door and began surreptitiously moving the scanner everywhere, including along the bar’s edge. I pushed the buttons to run the matching program, then I shoved the scanner into my jacket pocket and went back over to the table.
“So you’re still in one piece,” Hu said to me then, slowly shaking her fake head up at me.
Now I asked, “Don’t you think staying here is unsafe?”
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a choice. We need a few more hours before we can safely go inside and lift off.”
“You don’t think it’s strange that he showed up here? This is supposed to be a nice place. Why would someone like him be floating around in a nice place near The Grasslands?”
For a long moment, no one responded, during which they either stared down into their drinks or up at me.
Then Hu said, her eyes narrowing at the room, “It could be a coincidence.”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said in a very dry voice. I heard the scanner’s tinkling electrical sound. Then I pulled it out and saw the match.
I held up the video screen at Hu. “This is from a partial print at the Castano house. It matches prints I just took from here. Still think tonight’s just a coincidence?”
*
That hadn’t been the only match: the scanner yielded the same one for TNI. Ronin had been there too.
In the bar still, Hu debated with me about my discovery. “It could be someone else’s prints both here and there….”
“It’s possible, but unlikely.”
“Pia’s trying to tell you something important and you’re not listening,” Tan said in an annoyed voice, finally speaking out for me.
“Yep. I’ve just got another match for….” My voice died when I looked at the table’s occupants and spotted Chuck’s frowning face. If I gave them this information, he certainly wouldn’t like it—I was sure of that.
I slid my scanner back into my jacket pocket. Then I said, “It doesn’t matter. I know what I know. You crowd can ignore that or trust me for once.”
Hu’s eyes were a mixture of both curiosity and wariness. “All right. Let’s say you’re right. What does this mean?”
“I…don’t want to talk about this right now. Maybe later.” I gave Hu a meaningful glare that I hoped she interpreted correctly as saying, Let’s You And I Talk Privately.
*
About two hours later we were back on the transport ready to take off. Everything had gone well there; the ship had been repaired and refueled.
I moved down the hall, but before I could walk into the bunk room with Tan, Hu pulled me aside and asked me-only to come to her room.
When we got there, she turned to me. “So what did you want to say to me in the bar?”
“Do you know The Neon Institute?”
She blinked a little, her light-brown eyes looking surprised. “Somewhat. I know of it—yes.”
“At the bar you wondered who was behind the HRA. I think it might be TNI, or maybe the HRA’s behind TNI. Don’t know which is which, but maybe one’s the tail, the other’s the head.” I thought back to when I was on the Heran rail and I’d mentally drawn that line containing TNI, Amy and John. But maybe I’d had that wrong: maybe it was really a wheel, with TNI at the central hub and the others a single spoke each around the hub. There could also be other spokes I wasn’t aware of….
“You’ve mentioned Heran gangsters to me.” I gave Hu a pointed-with-sore-feelings-attached look because she’d first mentioned gangsters while holding me in that cave. “Like maybe they cross planets, like with The Festival bombing, which Ronin did.”
Hu suddenly snorted. “Pia, Ronin’s always for hire, and there’s more than one gangster organization on Hera. It’s definitely true that TNI’s very very wealthy. But they’re a private organization. And the HRA’s supposed to be publicly owned.”
“…So? Human societies have a long history of private organizations secretly buying out public ones. Back-scratching and pay-offs—you name it. What’s to stop a group of people who want a monopoly on something where that isn’t allowed? They invent a public company or they buy up controlling interest. They use a whole bunch of individual people—alive, dead—whatever—to buy shares in each of their names. But the one group behind it all is the real owner. Monopoly by stealth.
“Maybe the HRA’s a front. TNI’s got an amazing museum with some amazing specimens. And that’s only what they show the public. Maybe both places, TNI and then effectively the HRA, are on the hu
nt for new treasure. And they fixated on Amy for that.”
“That’s an incredible story,” Hu said. Then she sighed hard. “If only we had proof, and people would believe it.” Her thoughtful eyes shifted to the ceiling for a moment. “Whatever the case, I’m thinking that maybe this isn’t caused by one thing. Even I’ve been trying to pinpoint that lately. But maybe multiple motives are involved here.”
I nodded. “Multiple people too.”
She looked at me now. “Meaning?”
“The person who took a shot at me in that hotel. You know him relatively well.”
At first she just stared at me with questioning eyes. Then those eyes finally shifted up to the ceiling again, only this time in frustration. “John. So that’s what you didn’t want to tell me earlier. In front of Chuck, I take it…. Wait a minute—couldn’t all the fingerprints be John’s?”
My head shook fast. “Not goddamn likely. There were two clearly different sets in the bar. And he was on Hera shooting at me shortly before the Castano house was attacked. But he’s allied with this TNI now—that’s clear. His refinery’s boarded up—must have gone out of business a while ago. Guess he needed the money. Or he got greedy. Lots of people do.”
“Why the hell didn’t I know all this about him?” she said, sounding furious for the first time that day, furious both at someone else and at herself. That Hu hated making mistakes was becoming obvious….
“Because you’re here and he was there,” I said now. “No matter how many eyes you might have there, Herans can easily be bought off. It’s a goddamn tradition there…. So, here’s the question: how much do you think he knows? Did you tell John everything Amy told you—all the info you have?”
“No…though he could have been listening in when I spoke to others. How can I know for certain? I really don’t know what’s happened here. I should talk to Chuck…but I don’t think he’d take this news too well.”
“It might come out anyway at some point.”
“Then we’ll deal with it then.” She began limp-pacing the room. “I wonder how Ronin found us here.”
My back stiffened at the sound of his name. But I didn’t want to think about personally upsetting things in front of Hu….
For now, I pushed any further thoughts about what-Ronin-did out of my mind. “I don’t know that he found us or just ran into us. Can we be tracked on this thing?”
“No way,” said Hu, glancing at me as she limped on by. “Everything’s been thoroughly checked for tracking sensors.”
“Then somehow they found the general location. Maybe they’re just scoping it out.”
“And now that they’ve seen us here, they have confirmation of the one,” said Hu, looking at me. “So if they have that as correct, they’ll trust any other locations they have are correct too.”
“You got it,” I said.
Pressing a hand to her forehead, she rubbed there and sighed. “We can’t stop now. We’ve got to go on to The Astrals. But we’ll have to be more vigilant in future. Do you think they followed us to where we were parked here?” In answer to her own question, she moved over to the wall intercom. “Shayla, turn on the scope in all directions and have Van keep an eye on the screen. Keep checking if we’re being followed.”
“All right, Arlene,” came Shayla’s voice. “But I’ve got to get some rest. It’s Gerry’s shift now, so he’ll stay on it.”
“Yes, go rest,” Hu said. Then she clicked off the intercom and turned to me. “You too. We won’t reach The Astrals till the morning. Get some sleep. You’ve done enough today. I’ll let you know if there are anymore bad developments before morning.”
*
I went to use the bathroom down the hall from the bunk room. Then I went to the bunk room.
Bare-chested now, Tan was lying on the bunk he’d used earlier; he held one of the fiction books in his hand. But he suddenly tossed it down to the mattress, saying, “Oops—am I still banned from here?”
I just smirked at him as I unstrapped my case and dropped it to the floor near my bunk.
His voice softened. “How are you doing?”
“Oh just great,” I said.
“You going to tell me what’s been happening?”
I filled him in on what I thought we were dealing with, or, more correctly, who. And soon he was repeating my “oh just great” back at me.
I fell back on my bunk, staring up at the ceiling.
His soft voice filled the room again: “Have you been thinking about your parents?”
“Hard not to, given the latest development in the bar.” But it wasn’t just that on my mind: it was where we were going. My memories of my parents were limited, but I did have some good memories of our times in the smaller Astrals. Now it seemed that those good memories would soon be replaced with bad ones….
“Pia, sometimes I think you care more about them than you could ever care about anything—or anyone. It’s unnatural. They’re dead.”
“So?” I said, bristling a bit. “If both your parents died, you’d stop caring afterward? If I died?”
At first his face twisted and shook; then his expression faded into a frustrated sigh. “I never said that. I’m not saying don’t care. But how much? People are alive here now. That guy could have killed you tonight! Chuck said you just took off after him. You didn’t think first.” He sat up. “And I know all about this stuff too—you’re not the only one who lost a parent as a kid. My dad’s getting killed also killed my family. It pretty much destroyed my life.”
His words really weren’t helping me: I finally realized that he had unnaturally lost his father too young just as Hu had. This was something they had in common. Then again, I’d also lost a father while young. I just had the added misery of losing my mother too….
“Tan, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m changing into my sweatsuit. Then I’m going to try to get some sleep.”
“Well, all right. Me too,” he said, his slim torso falling back hard onto the mattress.
*
For the second time on the transport, I woke up with my heart pounding and my hand on my gun. There was a rustling noise nearby…but it was only Tan.
“I’m sorry, Pia,” he said in a soft voice. “Had to use the bathroom. And I wanted to check on what’s going on. Nothing bad’s up. Chuck’s out there haunting the hallways with his gloominess, keeping the ghouls at bay.”
I laughed, but it was a soft weak sound. I felt so tired now, so drained.
“Come in here with me,” I said.
I felt him slide into my bed. It was a narrow single mattress, but I suddenly didn’t care. I pulled his arm to wrap tighter over me. “I’m so tired….”
“I know,” he replied as his hand slid beneath my sweatshirt. And that was how I fell back asleep—with Tan’s hand on my breast.
*
When I next woke, I felt better. Tan was still squished beside me, but when I moved to get up, he barely noticed; he simply rolled over and took over the whole mattress space.
My mouth was dry and smelly. I had to piss and shit. Holding my little overnight case, I left the room and went to the bathroom, using the toilet first, then showering, then dressing in jeans and a t-shirt, then brushing my teeth, then sipping water from the tap using my cupped right hand.
I looked at myself in the mirror there and suddenly remembered the night before’s events, suddenly remembered the connection: Ronin, my parents, possibly Amy too, and then Julianne.
I left my bag on top of the sink and went in search of more answers. I found a few on the bridge.
Seated in the pilot’s chair beside Gerry, Hu was drinking something from a mug.
She nodded at me as I walked in. “Another two hours to our destination,” she said.
“That’s fine, but I’m worried about Julianne.”
“Don’t be. Between the police and my people, she’s all right. Your friends too. I’ve got someone keeping an eye and ear there.”
What on Diamo
nd should I think about that? After all, the last time she had someone watching people here, that someone was John and, apparently, he had been working for the other side. I also wasn’t so sure I wanted Hu’s friends near my friends. Plus, Hu’s people watching them could actually put my friends in jeopardy. Although…it was really too late for that, as Nell had been with me on Hera and Roberto had been dealing with the Castano place directly. No way for the two of them or any others near me to be totally out of this.
I sighed because I’d long ago lost control of the whole situation, and I now felt pulled about by events rather than like a puller of events.
I looked out the window and noticed that the usual high-speed transport blurriness seemed a damp blurriness today. “Great,” I said. “Rain.”
Hu was frowning at the window now. “Apparently, where we’re going will be raining too. I’m wondering what else can go wrong.”
“Don’t tempt the Universe,” I said.
She did one of her curt snorts. “You shouldn’t worry about the rain. We’ve got tents and slickers.”
“Slickers or not, the rain’ll slow us down through the forest.”
“Chuck’s been looking over the notebooks more and the coordinate location on the navigation controls. It might be more open there…well, he’s not sure. But maybe it won’t be as bad a hike as we think.”
I didn’t respond. Then Hu finally said through a small frown, “I’m trying to come up with something to keep us motivated on the end-goal.”
“Which goal is…? Even if we find something important, then what? I keep asking myself that, and coming up with no answers.”
Her cool brown eyes were on me. “Don’t expect to get any answers from me at this time.” Now her eyes shifted back to the window, very fixedly, as if I were no longer there.
I couldn’t figure out if she meant she wouldn’t give me any answers or she simply didn’t have any to give.
I threw up my hands in a brief surge of frustration. Then I left the bridge.
