Metal Sky

by Jay Caselberg

  Landerman continued. “I think it would only be right that you tell me what Danuta, or Bridgett, as you know her, discussed with you. Otherwise, I might start to become suspicious.”

  Jack glanced down at the weapons still lying casually on the table. Landerman followed his gaze.

  “And yes, Mr. Stein. There are implications.”

  Jack came to a decision very rapidly. There was no way he could keep track of the little guy, Larkin, twenty-four hours a day and have any hope of working the case, and who knew what the so-called implications might be, especially with Billie around. He had no idea how far Landerman might be prepared to go.

  He cleared his throat. “All right, Landerman. Bridgett Farrell hired me. She hired me to find this artifact. Or at least she hired me to find who she thought had taken it.”

  “And who might that have been?”

  “Carl Talbot.”

  There was a flicker of interest in Landerman’s eyes. “Really?”

  “Uh-huh. Really. But I’m afraid I’ve got some news for you. Talbot’s dead.”

  Landerman placed his cup and saucer back down on the table once again. “Is he now?” he said, for once not looking at Jack. “That is most unfortunate.”

  Slowly the cold, probing gaze lifted again. “And what might you know about that, Mr. Stein?”

  “Not a hell of a lot,” said Jack, returning the gaze just as pointedly. He looked at the weaponry again, then across at the door that Larkin had disappeared through. “I thought you might know something about it.”

  Landerman pressed his lips together; then a moment later, his face relaxed and he gave that low annoying chuckle. “Oh, Mr. Stein. Very good. Yes, very good. But no. That is not the answer. Not at all. So, you see, we seem to be no further on than when you first arrived. And what of Ms. Farrell?”

  “I haven’t heard from her for a few days. I don’t know where she is.”

  Landerman linked his fingers again, obviously considering. “Interesting. Well, we both seem to have a problem then. Let me see if we can’t address that. I have a proposition for you.”

  “Okaaaaay,” said Jack slowly.

  “Well, I find myself with this dilemma, and I think you might just be able to help with it. It is clear to me that Danuta is looking to profit from the transaction with you. She clearly knows the full value of the item we are seeking. Obviously, when we commissioned her and Talbot to find it, her little mind started scheming again. Let me suggest something that might serve both of us better than the current unfortunate circumstances. We are businessmen, Mr. Stein. Let us do business.”

  “Go on.”

  “Let me propose this to you. You were looking for Talbot, but instead, you change the emphasis of your search. You continue to look for the item. Instead of working for Danuta, you work for me. I am prepared to offer you double whatever she was paying you.”

  It made a kind of sense, but there was still a lot about Landerman that he didn’t like. It was nothing to do with his extended senses. He just didn’t like the guy, or his little sidekick. If he refused the offer, there might be consequences that he didn’t want to think about right now. Regardless, there was another consideration—if he took the case, it would go some way to recouping some of the losses he’d accrued over the last few days.

  “Okay. I’m listening. She was paying me fifteen hundred a day and expenses. You’re saying you’ll match that . . . double?”

  There wasn’t even a flicker. “Of course.”

  “Oh, and there was more. She said that there’d be a reward for the object’s retrieval.”

  Landerman nodded. “Whatever it was, I’ll double it too.”

  Jack glanced quickly around the room. It looked like Landerman could afford it, but not even a moment’s hesitation? He must want this thing pretty badly.

  “I don’t buy it, Landerman. Why’s this thing so important to you?”

  “That’s nothing you need to worry about, Mr. Stein. Nothing at all.”

  Jack shrugged. “Yeah, whatever.”

  “So, I take it we have a deal.”

  Jack nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Very good. Larkin?” he called. “Will you come in here?”

  The little man entered from the adjoining room, shooting a look of undisguised hate in Jack’s direction. He stood there in the doorway saying nothing.

  “Mr. Stein here is now working for us. You will please show him the courtesy of any of our people.”

  Larkin’s eyes narrowed and Landerman continued. “I would like you to accompany Mr. Stein when next he goes looking.”

  Jack stood. “Now wait a minute. What I do, I do my way. I don’t need some useless little piece of baggage hanging around to get in my way. Forget it. I don’t need a sidekick. Especially not this one.”

  Larkin took a half step forward, but Landerman waved him back.

  “As you will, Mr. Stein. It doesn’t matter, Larkin. Let us trust Mr. Stein to do things his own way.”

  Jack nodded, satisfied. “Oh, and one more thing, Mr. Landerman.”

  “Mmmm?”

  “You might want your boy here to grow up a little bit before you let him run around playing with toys that are too big for him. He might just get hurt.” Jack reached down and pocketed the larger of the two weapons. Somehow, he had the feeling he might be needing one around. He looked deliberately at Larkin as he did so.

  Larkin’s eyes widened and Jack could see the fury and desperation working in his face, but the little man didn’t make a move. Jack smiled sweetly, then looked back at Landerman.

  “I guess you’re not going to be checking out?”

  “No, Mr. Stein. We will be here.”

  “Okay. I know where to get in touch with you then. And if that’s it . . . ?”

  Landerman nodded.

  “Good. I’ll see myself out.”

  Outside the door, Jack pulled the gun out of his pocket and stared down at it. Why the hell had he taken it? He hated guns. And this one was a high ratio energy weapon, guaranteed to take a good chunk out of someone at a distance. He hated to think what it might do close up. The damned thing wasn’t his sort of thing at all. Sure, he knew enough about weapons from his time in the military, but even then he’d tried to avoid them. The more you obviously carried a gun, the more you were likely to get shot at. He’d learned that on more than one occasion. During his time in the military, it was luck that had kept him going rather than a weapon. The gun was just the sort of thing he’d expect of someone like Larkin though. Little man, big gun. With a shake of his head, he buried it back in his pocket and turned toward the elevator. He kept his hands in his pockets all the way down to the street, unconsciously fingering the thing as he thought about the encounter.

  Landerman was weird. Clearly a man used to power and someone with resources, but the little game he played all the way through his visit was almost too much for Jack to deal with. The little verbal flourishes, the chuckles, the circumlocution.

  And as for Larkin . . . he didn’t know what it was. Jack didn’t know why he’d acted the way he did toward the guy. Sure, part of it was performance, something designed to deliver a message to Landerman, but there was more. He really did feel the aggression. Maybe he was just seeking a target for his frustrations. Anyway, as far as he could tell, Larkin was insignificant. He just jumped to his master’s tune.

  He wandered out of the hotel’s front doors and scratched his head. He just couldn’t see why everybody seemed to be placing such value on this metal tablet. It was an artifact, okay, some chunk of alien metal. Rarity generally upped the value of things, but there had to be much more than simply wanting to own it. As he walked toward the shuttle stop, he thought about the treasure map aspect, but that didn’t really make sense either. Sure, it was a nice theory, but a treasure map only meant something if you had a good idea there was some treasure there.

  What did they expect to find? As far as he knew, nobody else suspected what he did about the City of Trees. Som
e great force had simply sheared off the top of an entire vast city, destroyed it completely. There was no rubble or anything. Even if they did find these supposed aliens, who was to say what the results would be? They could be hostile. If the aliens had the power it looked like they had, it could be disastrous. He shrugged. There were just too many what-ifs involved. Way too many. All that really mattered right now was that he had another case—well, the same case—and it was going to pay, unless Landerman and his little henchman pulled a disappearing act as well. He could worry about the other parts of it later. All he knew now was that if he was going to find this artifact, then he had to find the Farrell woman again, or Danuta Galvin as she was called. Funny, he couldn’t really think of her as a Danuta. Somehow, the name Bridgett suited her.

  Danuta. He rolled the name around on his tongue a couple of times testing it, but it still didn’t feel any more comfortable.

  When he got back to the apartment, Billie was huddled on the couch, her arms wrapped around a cushion in front of her, the wallscreen wide open on some text.

  “Hey,” he said.

  She looked up at him and then returned to looking at whatever was on the screen.

  “Well, aren’t you going to ask me what happened?”

  She gave a little shrug. “I guess.”

  Jack sat and dug the gun out from his pocket, placing it carefully down on the table, waiting for her to turn her attention back to him.

  “What are you looking at?” he asked her, finally.

  Again a little shrug. “Some archeology stuff.” She pulled the cushion tighter against her chest.

  “How come?”

  She took a little while to answer. “Because I like it.”

  “Okay. Did you manage to find anything on this Landerman?”

  She glanced at him, then looked back to the screen. “Nuh-uh. Not yet.”

  Jack watched her for a little while, but he decided not to push it.

  “Okay, well, when you’re ready.”

  She nodded.

  “So,” he said. “Our little friend from across the road with the gun works for Landerman. His name’s Larkin. I don’t think he’s important, just an annoyance. And guess what . . . he had another gun. Well, he used to have it.”

  She merely glanced at the weapon.

  “Landerman’s everything you’d expect. Money, definitely, and an attitude that says he’s used to authority. Real boss man, that one.”

  Jack rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’ve got something more for you to find out too,” he said. “Our lady friend, Bridgett Farrell . . . well, that’s only one of her names. She goes by at least one other. Her real name is Danuta Galvin, according to Landerman, and according to him she also works for him—or did. The case is back on. Landerman hired me to find the artifact. If we can track down the Farrell woman, or Galvin, or whatever she wants to call herself, then I think it’s going to lead us to where the artifact is. I’m going to need your help for that, Billie.”

  She turned slowly to look at him. “And what’s happened to you?” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Where are these ‘talents’ of yours? What’s happened to the great Jack Stein? How come I’ve got to do everything?”

  Jack sighed. “I don’t know, Billie. I don’t know. It would have helped if I’d been able to bring something back from Mandala other than bits of rock. Luck just seems to have been working against me this time. I can’t seem to get anything solid. That’s why I need you to do the research.”

  “Hervé told me what you said.”

  There was a long pause while Jack thought.

  “Yeah, and . . . I told you about it too.”

  “He wasn’t very happy.”

  “Yeah, I could see that. What’s wrong, Billie? What did you expect me to do? It seemed like the perfect opportunity, don’t you think?”

  She shrugged.

  “So what else did Hervé tell you?”

  “He thinks the City of Trees is one of the most important archeological sites ever. They think it’s going to lead them to lots of stuff. He said it was really important to keep everything that they could until they worked out what the things mean.”

  “Okay. I can see why this guy would be excited about it, but it’s only a few rocks and lumps of metal, isn’t it? Sorry, but I just can’t get excited about some old ruin, whether there’s supposed to be aliens or not. And of course he’d want to keep it. I mean, that’s what he’s studying. This guy’s just some student.”

  “Nuh-uh,” said Billie. “Well, kind of.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hervé isn’t just a student. He’s Dr. Antille. He was leading part of the research team.”

  Jack frowned. “Well, what the hell was he doing acting as our guide then?”

  Billie shrugged. “He likes to do that in his off time. He likes telling people how important the site is. He wants the message to get out about what they’re doing there.”

  Apparently, some of the enthusiasm had rubbed off on Billie. He tugged at his lower lip. “Hmmm, that’s interesting.” He didn’t quite know what else to say about it. “So, did he tell you anything else we might be able to use?”

  She pressed her lips into a thin line and shook her head.

  Okay, wrong approach.

  “Listen, Billie. I know you like this stuff, that’s fine. But we need to think about the case. You were the one pushing me to get something to start with and now that I’ve got something, I need you to help me. Is that okay?”

  She nodded, slowly, reluctantly.

  “Good. Now, I’ll wait until you’re ready, but we need to find out about Landerman and Danuta Galvin. Then I can do some work. And you never know, this might turn out the right way. I don’t particularly like Landerman and there’s something weird about what he’s doing. I just have a gut feeling that we’re in this for a reason. So,” he said, slapping his thighs. “I’m going to leave you to it and when you’re ready, just do the stuff you’re good at for me. Okay? I’m going to be in the office doing a bit of my own research.”

  He waited for any further reaction from her, but there was none.

  “Okay,” he said, pausing only to retrieve the gun from the table and shove it up on one of the upper shelves. “I’ll talk to you later to find out what you’ve come up with.”

  In the meantime, Jack spent his time in the office scanning through notes on Mandala. He couldn’t quite see what Billie’s fascination with the whole thing was. She’d always been quick to seize things and run with them, but this was somehow different. When he finally emerged from the office, thinking, for once, about something to eat, she didn’t appear to have made any headway either. He got her to call up the directories and order whatever she wanted. She seemed happy with that, though still a little withdrawn. She said barely a word to him as she worked through the listings and made her choice. When the food arrived—Chinese—they ate in silence, and then Billie announced she was going to bed, leaving Jack to sit there staring after her retreating back. He had no idea what had gotten into her. It didn’t take much for him to say the wrong thing these days, apparently.

  He cleared away the containers and dropped them into the recycling unit in the kitchen, then headed back into the living room to take a seat on the couch. He spent some time flicking through the vid channels one after the other, trying to find something that would hold his attention. Yorkstone programming was pretty bland. Finally, he found something that was almost watchable and settled back, his brain on auto. After an hour or so, he started to drift.

  He was standing in front of the City of Trees, only it wasn’t the ruins, but the whole version. Shiny silver shapes whipped between the spires. The sky, green-tinged, was clear, bright, the light making him squint. Each structure with its central spire reflected the light around them, shining. There was movement between the structures too. He was too far away to make out any detail, but things drifted and raced in between the large legs of th
e buildings. An ozone smell caught in his nostrils.

  “You see this?” said someone beside him.

  Jack turned. There stood Hervé, pointing out across the plain. He wasn’t wearing his hotel uniform, but some sort of simple one-piece white garment that fell to his knees, straight down from his vast belly. Simple sandals were on his feet.

  “What am I supposed to see?” asked Jack.

  Hervé slowly lowered his arm. “You must understand. This is what it was. Before.”

  “Before what?”

  “We do not know. Perhaps we will find out soon.”

  Jack looked back at the city. There, near the foot, small figures moved. He could tell they were figures now. He strained to see the detail, but it was still too far away.

  In the next instant, he and Hervé were close to the city. Hervé had something held under one arm. Jack peered closer. It was the metal tablet. Herve’s arm was looped around it so that the detailed surface was facing toward Jack.

  “You see?” said Hervé.

  “No, dammit, I don’t.” There was something he was forgetting. He turned slowly, seeking. Everything had slowed. He was moving through a thick atmosphere, pushing, slowing his reactions.

  Something was standing in front of them.

  It was one of the silver tripod things. A tripod that wasn’t a tripod because it had four legs. The top section tilted down toward them. It was as if it was looking at them, but there was nothing to look with. The top surface of the central cylinder was blank, smooth and silver. The thing tilted up again.

  Without any sense of arrival, there was another. And then another. One by one, more of the things appeared around them, tilting at the top and then straightening. They were encircled. Hervé looked around the circle and gave a big grin. Jack couldn’t see what he was so happy about. What Jack felt was . . . was . . . He was afraid. These things, these alien, living pieces of equipment, were encircling the both of them and there was no way Jack could know what they wanted. He couldn’t read them. He couldn’t feel them. The chill grew inside. A sense of panic was starting to well up from deep within him.