“Really? And what do you know of my fine ship, considering you thought I was dead?”
Zadim laughed, unconcerned that his little white lie had been unmasked. “It is only good business to know what my competition is doing, or which traders are looking for cargo. You wouldn’t be looking for cargo by any chance? I could use a ship as fast as yours.” His eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Would you consider selling her?”
“You’ll be the first to know, Ameen.” I promised, lowering my voice, “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
Zadim’s eyes suddenly glowed as he sensed opportunity. “Certainly my friend, this way.” He led me deep into his emporium, stopping at a dark red drape which he pulled aside, revealing a room decorated as a Bedouin tent. A hookah stood smoking in one corner, an urn boiled in another and silk cushions lined the floor. Zadim poured us each a strong coffee, then we took up positions within reach of the hookah. He sucked on a pipe, then exhaled a toxic cloud that hung in the air like a cloud of gray poison.
I took one polite puff, then didn’t touch it again.
“Now tell me, my dear Sirius, how may I help you?”
“I’m looking for a man, a Republic broker by the name of Mukul Sarat. Ever heard of him?”
He scowled dismissively. “If you are looking for cargo, I have some particularly interesting opportunities for a man like you.”
“Not this time. I’m looking for Sarat. Do you know him?”
Zadim shrugged. “I know of him. A little rat among weasels. There is no profit in dealing with his kind. Why do you want him?”
According to Lena, the Indian Republic broker had arrived in Hades City almost a month ago. Two EIS agents had tried to make contact with him. Both were now dead.
“It’s a personal matter.”
Zadim studied me thoughtfully. “Ah! He has knowledge you seek. There is always opportunity in knowing the unknown. What is this information?”
“Nothing I can share.”
Zadim looked crestfallen. “You do not trust me, Sirius? Me, your oldest and dearest friend?”
“You sold me a cargo of Iridian Spice that was rotten before I even took delivery–”
“Let us not trifle on the past, old friend!” He said quickly, then poured himself another coffee. “This Sarat, he pretends to be a man of taste, but he is a nasty little thief. He is not like us. He thinks he is above all of us . . . and he is a killer.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“I know his kind.” Zadim sobered. “You and I, we are brothers. We trade, sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, but we always have love and respect, even if we have an . . . occasional misunderstanding.” He gave me a meaningful look which I took for an apology.
“Help me find Sarat and all is forgiven. The Iridian Spice deal, the time you stiffed me on payment for the Eden Jewel, even the Askari swindle.”
Zadim looked profoundly wounded. “My dear Sirius, swindle is such a harsh word!” He appeared about to shed a tear, then gave me a sideways look. “You say, all is forgiven?”
“Help me find Sarat, and it’ll be like you never cheated me, not even once.”
“And you will run cargoes for me again?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Zadim took a deep breath. “It will be like old times! I will send my little ferrets out among the weasels to find your Republic ratman, and you will not have to pay me even a single credit because we are family – again!”
“Distant relatives,” I said, offering him a toast with my coffee cup.
Zadim smiled with delight. “Blood is blood!” Maybe it was genuine, maybe it was part of his act, even threaded I couldn’t tell. He leaned forward, “You remember the Oniedyn belly dancers? Hmm? What a night!”
My head hurt just thinking of that feast. “I remember. You disgracefully over-tipped the tall one, with the big . . .” I gestured meaningfully.
He laughed. “Ha! I more than tipped her, my friend. She became my third wife!”
* * * *
I left Zadim’s, hoping my new best friend would discover Sarat’s location, and took the tube to the shipping district. It was a huge square cavern adjoining the spaceport, lined with warehouses full of cargo brought out by long haul transports from the Core Systems, the expanse of space within two hundred and fifty light years of Earth containing mankind’s largest colonies. Once offloaded, the cargo was carried by local freighters to systems up to several hundred light years away. In the center of the cavern was a cluster of modern buildings, where shipping companies were headquartered, and a grand stone structure stood containing the Exchange. Every outpost and settlement had an Exchange, although this was one of the largest outside Core System space. The Exchanges were run by the Beneficial Society of Traders, the organization to which all traders belonged and which underwrote every contract, ensured every deal was honored and kept the wheels of interstellar commerce turning – for a slice off the top.
The trading floor was filled with people, gathered around dozens of free standing data nodes, small cylindrical stands arranged in neat rows. Large rectangular displays lined each wall, constantly scrolling through the list of open contracts, their destinations and completion bonuses. I found a spare node, signed for payment on the cargoes I’d just delivered, saw my digital-vault balance increase slightly, then started skimming data dumps Hades City wanted sent to regional outposts. With ships being the only way to get information from one system to another, data runs were a monotonous staple of the trade. Whether it was news, entertainment, statistics on everything from crop yields to hydrogen production, or simply a message to a distant family member, someone wanted to transfer it somewhere. It was dull subsistence work, but it paid the bills.
I searched for contracts under twenty light years with a low threat rating. Taking contracts to high threat systems paid well, but the risks were great and I wasn’t looking for a fight. I’d marked six possible contracts when I spotted a familiar pair of beautiful dark eyes looking my way. They belonged to a petite woman with an elfin face framed by straight black shoulder length hair. While she appeared to be in her late twenties, I knew she’d had gene work done, enough to shave a decade off with no side effects. It wasn’t as radical as what I’d been through, but it was good for civilian cosmetics.
Marie Dulon, captain of the Heureux, gave me a genuinely warm smile, but the look in her eyes told me she was as surprised to see me as I was to see her. For a moment, I wondered if that look meant she was with someone else and having me on the scene was an unexpected problem. Only one way to find out. I cancelled out of the data node, retrieved my skipper’s tag – a slender encoded slip of metal which allowed me to enter into lawful, Society sponsored contracts – and approached her.
“Hello, Marie. I thought you’d be a hundred light years from here by now.”
We’d planned to meet up in a few months, when our schedules crossed again. Neither of us had told the other they were going to Hades City, me because I hadn’t planned to go there, but why was she here?
“Hello Sirius,” she said in her Gascon accented voice. To my knowledge she’d never set foot on Earth, let alone visited Bordeaux, but her family had stubbornly retained their ancestral heritage. “If I didn’t know it was impossible for you to track me through interstellar space, I’d think you were following me.”
“Would you be disappointed if I were?”
“No, but I’d want to steal your technology so I could sell it to the highest bidder,” she replied playfully.
I hadn’t given it much thought, but she was right. If anyone ever figured out how to see through a spacetime distortion bubble, they’d become the richest human who ever lived. As far as we knew, none of the Orion Arm Local Powers – our interstellar neighbors – had that technology, perhaps not even the Tau Cetins, so the chance of mankind inventing it in the next hundred thousand years was zero.
“If I had that technology, I’d sell it myself.”
“Then I’d
have to marry you, but only because you were the richest man in the galaxy!”
“If I were the richest man in the galaxy, I wouldn’t need to marry you. I’d just make you my concubine.”
“If you had that many credits, I’d gladly settle for concubine.”
We exchanged a long look, for a moment enjoying just being in each other’s company again, then I asked, “So what are you doing here?”
“Looking for work,” she said innocently, although the way she avoided my eyes told me she was lying through her teeth. “And you?”
“The same, looking for work.” Now we knew we were both lying. “What happened to those oxy runs you were doing out to the Kazaris Belt?”
“The miners started haggling, trying to drive the price down.”
“So you threatened to cut off their oxygen supply if they didn’t pay up?”
She shrugged helplessly. “What’s a girl to do?”
I glanced at her screen, seeing the contracts she was considering. Data dumps, protein packs, fishing and mining equipment, all going to the same place: a frozen hell hole I’d been to once before and never wanted to return to. “Planning on doing some skiing?”
“No, just killing time.” She switched off her screen and retrieved her skipper’s tag a little too quickly.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re hiding something from me?”
She gave me a sultry look. “As if I have anything you haven’t already seen.”
Marie always used sex like a weapon, but I enjoyed her games so I didn’t care. “Seeing you naked and knowing what you’re thinking are not the same thing.”
“No, but they’re close,” she said and kissed me on the cheek. “Got to run, Sirius. I’ll see you soon.”
Not giving me a chance to ask where she had to run to, she hurried out, giving me a wave at the exit before vanishing. I stared after her a moment, smiling to myself, then realized I’d forgotten to DNA lock her! Stalking my lover wasn’t what threading was meant to be used for, but where Marie was concerned, I needed all the help I could get. Forgetting to lock her made me realize how out of practice I was with the technological wonder hidden throughout my body. On the chance she was a known criminal, I checked the list of Humanity’s most wanted, but Marie wasn’t listed. I’d have been surprised if she was. She’d cross the line if the reward was worth it, but she was way too smart to get caught.
I recalled Lena’s warning about Marie being my weakness and wondered if she’d been aware Marie was heading for Hades City. Surely Lena would have told me if she’d known, so I figured her comments were simply the result of the mind probe, not intel on Marie’s movements.
My sniffer scanned the data node she’d been using, found dozens of DNA traces, although none of the female signatures were Marie’s. She hadn’t worn gloves, so there should have been traces where she’d touched the data node console, but there was nothing. Marie must have been wearing skin seals to mask her DNA, which made no sense. Simply docking her ship revealed her identity to the entire city.
I logged into her data node and scanned the register of ships in port, but the Heureux wasn’t listed. Either she was on someone else’s ship or she was using a fake registry – which was against Society rules. Marie smuggled a little – we all did – but using a dummy registry in a port as big as Hades City was risky. She’d need a good reason for taking such a risk, which for her would be nothing less than a mountain of credits.
Wondering what she was up to, I took the walkway back to the spaceport. As mole-ports go, Spaceport Hades was a busy place: berths for hundreds of ships, all with pressure bridges connecting each ship to the spaceport; six well equipped maintenance docks, one large enough to take Core System super transports; and a secure zone set aside for the Earth Navy’s exclusive use. There was nothing like it in human hands for five hundred light years, although some of the Local Powers had heavily populated worlds nearby, all of which were off limits to probationary mankind.
Near the Lining’s gate was a viewport overlooking the berth. I stopped to check her paintwork, wondering if heat seeping through her shield had done any damage, but she looked as clean as a whistle. The Silver Lining was a Penguin class light freighter, small and fast, two and a quarter times wider than she was long. Her leading edge was crescent shaped, giving her the appearance of a flying wing, with two large maneuvering engines at the tips and three magclamps, each with their own support gantries, between the engines for towing vacuum-radiation-sealed cargo containers. The rectangular VRS containers quadrupled her interior cargo capacity and gave us the option of dumping cargo fast if we needed to run.
The two oversized engines were complemented by a series of thrusters discreetly hidden around her hull, making the Silver Lining one of the most agile ships not in military service. When towing three full VRS containers, she handled like an underpowered barge – sluggish and with terrible inertial drift. Without them, she was as fast in flat space as a system racer. Beneath her skin were the sixty spacetime distorters that generated the bubble for superluminal flight, while a dozen gentle bulges hid the emitters for our mil-spec bleeder shield. The single particle cannon mounted off center on top of her hull was deceptively impressive. Apart from being one of the most ineffective weapons a small ship could mount, it took forever to charge because its capacitor lost more juice than it stored – which was why I’d fitted it. And it was dirt cheap. Anyone scanning us from long range would see it charging up and assume the energy bleed came from a beast of a weapon, making them think twice about tackling us. That was the theory anyway. The Lining did have one real weapon hidden in a forward compartment, but it was only detectable when the outer doors were opened – which they never were, because the navy would impound her if they knew what she carried.
She stood on three landing struts, with her large underside cargo door open forming a rectangular ramp down to the rock floor. Two cargobots were unloading the hold while an eight-wheel flatbed hauler backed up under one of the VRS containers. When in position, its elevated platform rose to take the weight of the container, then Jase released the hull and gantry magclamps.
I was about to turn away when I noticed one of Izin’s hull crawlers creeping over the starboard engine housing on an inspection tour. It was a six legged spider-like bot fitted with retractable arms and various sensors that enabled it to conduct hull scans and perform emergency repairs. We’d been docked only a few hours and Izin already had a full inspection cycle underway. He wasn’t wasting any time, but he didn’t have much else to do. Most humans were wary of tamphs, so in crowded ports he worked on the ship and stayed out of sight.
Izin was why the Lining was in such good shape. I’d get the gear, often from the black market, and he made it work. Sometimes he tinkered with it, improving the design. I could have patented some of his modifications and sold them back to the original manufacturer – or the navy – but then everyone would have what I had and where’s the profit in that?
I headed for the gate, which read my DNA before letting me through into the pressure bridge. Jase was hurrying towards me from the ship’s airlock, looking sharp in clothes that told me in a day or two, I’d either be bailing him out of jail or finding him dead drunk and broke in a back street. So I did the only responsible thing and had my sniffer DNA lock him. At least he’d be easier to find this time.
“Skipper, I’ve heard of this great place. You should come–”
“No, not tonight.”
“Hot and cold running women! Every kind of drink you can imagine! Sixty four different games of chance and for a few extra credits, psychedelics even Earth Navy hasn’t outlawed yet – only because they were just invented!”
“You’re going to get arrested. You know that, right?”
“Not this time, Skipper. I have a plan!” He gave me a knowing look, then declared proudly, “I’m going to pace myself!”
“That’s your plan?”
He laughed. “It’s better than no plan! So, what do you sa
y?”
“No, I . . . might have something else to do.”
“Like what? It’s Hades City, the hottest night spot in two hundred light years!”
“I know, but . . . she’s here.”
“Who?” Jase asked, then his eyes widened as he realized who I meant. “Oh no! Skipper, she’s bad news. Forget her, come with me. We’ll show this city how to party!”
With a slight shake of my head, he knew there was no changing my mind.
He gave me a resigned look. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” he said before stepping through the gate.
While Jase went in search of a good time, I went to my stateroom for a shower, wondering what Marie was doing in Hades City. We’d discussed spending a few days together in the hot springs on Taralis, but not a word about Hades, even though she must have known she was coming here. So why keep it a secret? She’d obviously been surprised to see me and would rather I wasn’t here, which normally meant she was working on a deal and didn’t want competition.
I hoped that was all it was.
* * * *
A message arrived next morning, ship’s time – early evening Hades time:
Charon’s in the Slot has a rat problem. AZ
It was Zadim’s way of telling me his spies had picked up Sarat’s trail. I dressed quickly, grabbed a ration pack from the galley and stopped by engineering to find Izin watching his toys crawling over the Lining’s hull.
Izin Nilva Kren had been born on Earth at the Timor Sea Hatchery north of Australia more than a century ago. At one point two meters tall, the dark skinned amphibian was not physically imposing, but his icy persona and penetrating alien stare unnerved all who met him. Everything about tamphs seemed disproportionate to the human eye: the hips and shoulders were too broad; the bulbous, blue-green flecked eyes too far apart; the smooth, elongated head too large by far. He was small and streamlined for underwater speed, while the bulge on his forehead housed biological sonar that gave him sonic vision in darkness and long distance echo location underwater. His kind were ambush predators, different to man, but formidable on any world, in any galaxy. More importantly, Izin was an outstanding engineer and perhaps even a friend – if tamphs and humans ever really could be friends.
Mapped Space 1: The Antaran Codex Page 4
