Empire of Dust

by Jacey Bedford

  Rosen not reported in yet. Overdue.

  Ari van Blaiden sat erect and very still in his office while he absorbed the contents of the message from Robert. Dammit, Cara was resourceful. She could easily have gone to ground and it would take a station-wide lockdown and search to locate her, especially since the Finder on the team seemed to have gone missing.

  He didn’t want this on record. He deactivated audio and scribbled on his sensapad:

  Find her, Robert. I want the whole station turned upside down until you have her safely contained. I won’t accept failure. Understand? Is Rosen on the trail? Can he be trusted not to damage her? No mistakes. I want her back alive.

  Ari’s balled fist showed white knuckles as he hit send.

  “Damn,” he said softly to himself. “Damn.”

  Robert had wanted to finish her on Felcon, but Ari had been reluctant to let her go. He was still a little surprised at himself, though he could deal with any lingering feelings he had for Cara if he had to. Besides, she not only knew too much, she had the evidence to back it up. McLellan’s conditioning wasn’t complete. He didn’t know how long the neural block would hold, or even if it would, but the fact that he was still sitting here instead of in a top-security holding cell was practically proof itself that whatever McLellan had done to Cara’s mind was still effective.

  He couldn’t rely on it, though. He needed to find out what she’d done with his files, then neutralize Cara fast. Then, maybe, he’d let Robert have her. It was always good to throw your dog a bone now and then. He trod a fine line, giving him just enough affection to keep him faithful, but not enough to allow him to get too cocky. Robert was too useful to waste. Ari knew exactly what Robert wanted and was playing him like a fish on a line, stretching out the sexual tension, anticipating the moment.

  He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t enjoying it.

  It was a game Ari always enjoyed. While Robert Craike simmered, he had Res Darlan at boiling point and was gently warming up Ensign Kitty Keely, a pilot newly seconded to OpCon for his own personal use. He had plans to use her, but not necessarily for her flying skills.

  He’d enjoyed Cara, too. He tried to think of her in the past tense. She’d been remarkable. He was even still a little in love with her. He sighed. He was always a little in love with all of his conquests. He was a man who liked to indulge his sentimentality, morbidly fascinated by the highs and lows of his own relationships. It was a pity Cara hadn’t worked out. He’d wallowed in the heartbreak of her defection. It had finished too early. He’d had a fancy to try her in a threesome with Robert. Knowing that they hated each other would add a certain piquancy. He smiled to himself. If Robert could take her alive, there might still be the opportunity, and afterward Ari could revel in grief when Robert ended her.

  He was conscious of a tightness in his pants. He sent a message to Res Darlan, Be home at six, then called in his secretary. “I need to speak with Donida McLellan. Put in a secure channel call to Sentier-4 and then take a break.”

  • • •

  Cara’s pounding headache proved too much. She felt like shit. Definitely a concussion and nothing to do but take another shot of painkiller and wait it out. She thought she remembered Ben saying he wasn’t out of ideas, and when he smiled, the contrast of white teeth against brown skin focused her attention. He had a kind of wolfish grin that she’d not noticed before. She’d thought him a bit of a stuffed shirt at first, but now she was beginning to wonder.

  She wasn’t sure she’d quite lost consciousness, but there was a gap in her awareness of the last—how long? She was tucked carefully into a light survival blanket and stretched out to full recline in the copilot’s couch. Ben was concentrating on the control panel, making minute adjustments to their course.

  “Did you say Crossways?”

  He turned his head and half-smiled. “Awake, are you? Yes, I said Crossways. Get you a new ident on the black market.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “Well, it’s a bit of a detour, but if I can make the right connection at the next jump gate hub, we could just about do it without Crowder’s blood pressure soaring too high. There’s this little matter of the Olyanda expedition.”

  “Of course.” She eased her couch into a more upright position and winced. “I’ve never been to Crossways. Only heard about it.”

  “Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not far from the truth. Some parts look civilized on the surface, but there’s an undertow. You need good friends or the ability to sleep with your eyes open to survive it. But with enough credits you can get passage to anywhere and no questions asked. You could forget Olyanda and jump ship there. The megacorps don’t have the monopoly on transport that they think they have.”

  “Have I got enough credits?”

  “Barely.”

  “Have I got enough credits for a new ident?”

  “No, but Crowder needs Psi-1s. You can get an advance to cover it.”

  “You sound as though you know your way around pretty well.”

  “I’ve passed through once or twice.”

  “Not on Trust business.”

  “Not strictly.”

  He didn’t elaborate.

  Cara dozed for a short while, aware that Ben was constantly nudging her awake to make sure she wasn’t lapsing into unconsciousness. At some point he must have decided she needed to sleep and was reasonably safe to do so because she came round with a muzzy headache. By her handpad, four hours had passed. They were through the Homeward Gate and out the other side. She hadn’t even noticed the Folds; her head must be worse than she thought.

  “You’re awake.”

  Ben handed her a steaming hot drink, fruit caff by the smell. Normally, she would have sipped cautiously, but she took a gulp, scalded her mouth, and slopped it over her front.

  “Fuck!”

  Sipping slowly this time, she checked the flight display. The figures on the screen seemed to pulse and glare wickedly, and she was only able to read them by screwing her eyes up to keep them still. They were in a holding pattern.

  “Crossways?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Will Crowder take me if I get into Chenon with a forged ident?”

  “He can’t afford not to. The Olyanda mission is already under strength, and he’ll have difficulty attracting Psi-1s to it. Most Psi-1s have got more brains than to sign on for a year of grief. He’s got my old team together, but—well—we lost Psi-1s on Hera-3 as well. There are only two left. He’ll take you.”

  Ben made another course adjustment. “Besides, I asked him to and he owes me.”

  “Why have your old crewmembers signed on?”

  “Damned if I know.” He leaned across and checked her temperature. His hand on her forehead rasped her skin like sandpaper.

  “Here.” Ben offered a blast pack of analgesic and she cradled it to the side of her neck, feeling the slight sting as the propellant drove it into her system. The relief was almost instantaneous. It didn’t take away the pain completely, but it dulled it to a bearable level.

  She dozed. When she woke up again, the viewscreen was filled completely by a close-up of the exterior of a wide-mouthed docking bay.

  Her voice sounded quiet, even to her own ears. “Are we there?”

  “On final approach now. It’s early morning, station time.”

  There was a peculiar time glitch, and she realized it was caused by her losing concentration halfway through the conversation. How long had she been out?

  “You know where I can get a forged ID?”

  “I know a woman who does.”

  Cara desperately wanted to sleep again. Just talking was exhausting her. She drifted and roused to Ben saying, “We’ll see what Mother Ramona can do.”

  • • •

  Ben looked at Cara sleeping fitfully. He wasn’t a loner. Like all psi-techs he was used to that feeling of belonging. He missed his team. He’d left too many dead on Hera-3. The mission was doomed as soon as the p
latinum was discovered. The raiders arrived before the Trust’s Militaire, so they must have had someone on the inside, someone at Board level possibly. He’d followed the trail higher and higher until he’d hit his head on the ceiling.

  The psi-tech survivors had been scattered to other teams when Ben had been stripped of command status. Assembling what was left of his old team was good. And Cara . . . maybe Cara would work out okay. He’d seen a glimpse of her on that first night that intrigued him; it was nothing to do with sex. Well, not completely, anyway. He’d be crazy if he didn’t recognize chemistry at work, but he doubted the attraction went both ways. He didn’t need to know her life story to recognize that she carried significant damage in the relationship department. And that wasn’t all. He glanced over to where she slept. A bruise darkened her hairline, but he thought she’d probably been lucky. It wasn’t the worst concussion he’d seen.

  Ben meshed his implant with the nav-system as he settled down in his couch. He locked onto the local navigation beacon and swiped his hand across the touch pad to retract the forward shield, giving him a clear view of Crossways, a huge dark wheel turning in space. Even from this distance he could see the segment that had been blown away in its war for independence. The generations who followed had sealed it. Newer sections encrusted the hull like a fungal infection. The visible array of pulse-cannon and the knowledge that the station was equipped with hidden weapons of even greater destruction warned off any force that might try to bring it back under outside rule.

  Originally built over four hundred years ago as a transport and trading hub at the confluence of seven gates, Crossways had long since mutated into a miniature artificial world of over a million people. It had its own unorthodox economy and a government based on a surprisingly stable coalition of the heads of the largest organized crime networks and independent trading barons. They imposed order on the disorderly and ensured that nothing interfered with commerce. In a way it was more moral than any of the big corporations. At least Crossways’ villains were honest about what they were. Chaliss was the head, or at least he had been last time Ben had come through. Things at the top tended to be a little fluid.

  Ben broadcast the identification code he’d secured for himself on a previous visit. He’d had to falsify his credentials, of course. His position in the Trust and his history in the Monitors was something better hidden from the dueling paranoias that ruled this place.

  He let the Dixie Flyer glide into the air lock on automatic and settle on to the pad, drive idling. He felt, rather than heard, the clank of metal on metal as the gravity field cut in and the craft’s weight regained meaning. The lock cycled and the bay floor descended through two levels and deposited them in a functional hangar, which looked as businesslike and as utilitarian as any Trust station.

  He changed out of his uniform into a generic buddysuit—no sense in attracting unwelcome attention—and touched Cara’s arm lightly, feeling her jump as though she’d been stung.

  “Time to go.”

  Her harness retreated and she swung her legs over the side of the contour couch, a little unsteady on her feet. He watched her begin to move stiffly.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded, but didn’t speak, and avoided meeting his eyes.

  “They use a low pressure, thin-air system, here, to prevent trouble,” he said. “It’s the equivalent of suddenly being deposited on the top of a mountain without your body having a steady climb to get used to it. We’ll get through the port area as quickly as we can, but it’s going to be uncomfortable, especially with you like that.”

  He handed her a finger-sized alloy canister.

  “I don’t want you collapsing with altitude sickness. If you can’t breathe, draw the tube up from the end and hold it close up to one nostril. It delivers enough oxygen to stave off the worst effects. Don’t use it unless you have to. They assume anyone with breathing gear is a potential threat.” She looked so defenseless that he wanted to be kind, but he needed her on her guard, so he opted for tougher tactics. “But use it if you must. Having you pass out would be highly inconvenient.”

  “Got it.” Her jaw muscles clenched, and Ben reminded himself that looks could be deceptive. She might be sick, but underneath it all she was tough. Just getting through the port had already proved that.

  They crowded together to cycle through the tiny air lock and stepped out onto the dockside. Cara’s red coverall was bright against the grays of the utilitarian dock and the soberly dressed officials. The conditions weren’t conducive to causing trouble. The oxygen-depleted atmosphere made breathing a priority. Ben avoided activating the breathing tube on his suit, but found himself panting slightly just from the exertion of walking across the hangar. He took Cara’s arm to steady her and she leaned into him.

  As long as you had a good credit balance on your chip, there were no spaceport formalities on Crossways. A professionally neutral clerk greeted them at the gate. He had a fine tube bio-grafted onto his face, which ran from a slim pack worn like a pancake hat on the crown of his head to his left nostril. It supplied extra oxygen, allowing him to function normally, giving him a distinct edge over any visitors making trouble.

  “How long are you staying?” the clerk asked.

  “As long as it takes.” Ben fought to keep distress out of his voice.

  He put his hand into the reader, made brief eye contact, then stared, unsmiling, somewhere toward the far side of the cavernous hall, taking care to put over the right persona for the situation, neither intimidating nor intimidated.

  “You want the insurance?” the man asked.

  Ben nodded. It was no use haggling. At least it would ensure the Dixie was still here when they returned. There was a certain amount of honor among thieves. Crossways wanted its visitors to return to do more business, legal or otherwise.

  Cara remained quiet. She clutched his arm for support, but he noticed she wasn’t over-breathing. Despite the concussion, she’d grasped the concept that the weak didn’t last long here; neither did those who looked as though they had something worth stealing—not unless they had connections.

  Ben had a few connections.

  They passed through an air lock, into a short, low-ceilinged corridor and out into a busy transport interchange. Mercifully, the air was good again, even though it had probably been recycled a million times. Ben breathed steadily until he felt his system return to normal. Cara gulped the air as though she’d found water in a desert. He gave her a few extra minutes.

  He found an autobank booth and checked the credit balance on his main account. Despite being run by and for the underworld, Crossways’ interstellar banking connection was first rate.

  “Keep both eyes open.” Ben steered Cara into the little open-topped auto-cab that was next in line at the rank. “Don’t speak to anyone and don’t look anyone in the eye.”

  He tapped an address onto the location panel, passed his handpad over the reader, and was thrown back heavily into his seat as the tub-shaped vehicle whirled them into a traffic lane. It looked more like a fairground ride than a transport system, but with only three glancing bumps from other tubs, all occupied, they eventually arrived at a pull-in by a tall plaza. The airy space was lined with private dwellings built as complete houses, a gross waste of space and resources on a space station, so they were only for the rich. Far above them, the ceiling glowed azure with a natural daylight effect.

  • • •

  “If this is Crossways, it doesn’t look so bad.” Cara stared around her, surprised that it was so light and bright when she’d been expecting something in antique shades of movie noir. If only the walls would stop spinning, it would be fine.

  “This is one of the good neighborhoods,” Ben said. “But don’t let it fool you. It’s no safer than anywhere else if you’re a wide-eyed tourist. Come on.”

  They emerged into a street with a line of vendors’ booths down the center of a wide boulevard lined with narrow houses. A few shoppers clustered
around a fresh food stall and a caff stand looked to be doing good trade. At first everything seemed normal then, gradually, it seemed as though people moved away from them. A woman snatched up a small child and retreated through a door.

  “Uh-huh. Not sure I like this.” Ben glanced behind him. “The citizens of Crossways have a good sense of when to lay low.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “I can’t spot anything, but that means nothing.” He took Cara’s arm, pulled her close, as if they were lovers, and put his lips to her ear in case anyone following had audio enhancers. “I’m pretty sure we’re being followed.”

  He steered her away from the exposed area in the middle of the street. Keeping close to the houses, he walked fast, but not fast enough to attract attention.

  “You know where we’re going?”

  “I’m a Navigator, remember? We need to head rimward by two blocks. It’s a spiderweb layout. You go rimward and hubward.”

  At the next corner Ben turned hubward into a narrow alley between two dwellings, then paused to check the street behind.

  “Thought so. Can you link with me?”

  Cara opened up a channel between them and saw what he saw. A shadow ducked sideways. She felt Ben weigh the odds of waiting round the next corner for the man to catch up, but it was difficult to tell what sidearms a thug would carry on Crossways. All weapons were available here if you had the right contacts. If a thief, or worse, had targeted them, it was likely he’d be carrying a bolt gun or a tangler and maybe even wearing stun bands on his knuckles. One punch from someone wearing a full set of those could disable permanently.

  She wasn’t sure she needed to know the grisly details.

  “This way.” Ben took Cara’s hand and pulled her along. She stumbled behind him. “Run.”

  She rallied. Her coordination became steadier, though every footfall pounded in her skull. He kept hold of her hand, and she made an effort to follow his lead through the maze of streets. He dragged her a little faster.

  She kept the link light, and he let her into his thoughts. He needed to get to where they were going quickly or to find the right place to stand his ground, preferably somewhere without witnesses. The authorities on Crossways always took the side of their own citizens against visitors, no matter what the charge. He didn’t seem to be scared. That was all right. She was scared enough for both of them. In her condition, she wasn’t fit to be much more than a bystander.