The Horseshoe Nail (The Donn Book 1)

by S Thomson-Hillis

  His blissfully ambitious dreams fused with reality.

  Rocket went to heaven while Ellis went to work.

  * * *

  That was a fairly busy night on the island.

  Harris and Edger had landed safely and were exploring down by the Dome. It was dark, it was wet and it was windy and Sim Edger was having serious problems working a perfectly simple, bog-standard locater that Harris’ youngest daughter could’ve managed.

  He fiddled with the display in the murk. “I don’t like this.”

  Tam Harris gritted his teeth. Scolosians were famous for strict honour, family ties, courage and meticulous attention to detail, ergo, the complete antithesis of Edger. It was a mystery to Harris how the man had made a UC-I post, when he should never have passed the tests for UC operations in the first place. It made him wonder if they’d downgraded the entrance exam and made it multiple-choice – with special printed hints for those who couldn’t understand the questions without explanatory notes and bold diagrams.

  “You’re not paid to like it.”

  Edger was cold and wet. “Scum-bucket.”

  “Pardon me?” enquired Harris, icily polite.

  The younger man fumbled harder, wondering if he could lie about the signal because he couldn’t click it in. Possibly not a good idea. Harris was mission commander, a man who played it strictly by the rules and could turn scathing. Night thickened into sodden purple soup, Edger couldn’t see what he was doing and the cold and damp made him even clumsier. He hated losing face. When the locater’s amber-go signal finally lit he gasped in genuine relief and then jumped when it beeped stridently enough to wake the dead.

  Harris had developed ignoring Edger’s cock-ups into an art form because it was the only way to stay sane. The racket had probably already put most of the neighbourhood on red alert, so what was the point of snapping? He did, however, sigh, deep, loud and martyred.

  “Ok,” said Edger, after a short struggle with the silencer. “Always presuming we’ve arrived on the right planet...” He paused for the weak joke to sink in then rushed on as the damp air around his ears chilled. “Ok, so, we have the right coordinates, but there is nothing here but scrub, this hump over here, rocks and that interesting village down the cliff.”

  Targeting data was rarely wrong, especially if Timmis transmitted it, and Harris’ instincts assured him this had to be ground zero for Solly Dennis’ beacon.

  “I vote we go down to the village, get warm and ask. Asking the natives is the only way we’ll find out anything.” The disgruntled Edger shut down the locater and scowled.

  Good idea. They’d buy them all a drink, show them their Union ID, explain what their jobs were and ask if anyone had spotted anything untoward, hence completely missing the point of UnderCover operations. In some circumstances, fine, but right now it was better that nobody knew they were there. Perhaps Harris should order Edger to go to the village on his own, then he could nip back to the ship and leave. Unfortunately the boss expected the Commander to return with his team. Harris was Scolosian, wearing the traditional mourning plait with honour for the partner Edger had replaced, and he’d sworn to do his duty. However, there was a limit, and babysitting as grief-therapy hadn’t worked. When they got back, he was going to request to transfer to a UC-II or even III grade post after all. No more UC-I and no more bloody babysitting. No more reliable old Tam Harris, he thought bitterly, and inched forward scoping out the land ahead. “No, it’s here, I know it is. I can feel it.”

  Edger stumbled, rasping a curse, bugger-thud-thud-thud-clink.

  “Quiet!” Harris growled. “We’re wide open out here.”

  Suddenly he realised. Clink?

  And there it was, the target, ground zero, they were practically on top of it.

  It was an untidy hillock twice his height and Tam was tall. Stepping forward, he ran probing fingers over the rough bank and felt loose sticks, mud... and metal. In the weird muffled light the cold alloy gleamed a pale steely blue under the slim beam of his torch.

  He tapped gently. Yep. It went clink.

  Edger gasped, twisted and snorted as he tried to right himself.

  There was a harsh curse and a wicked grunt and lastly a heavy crash.

  “Edger?” Harris stiffened and stared blindly down at his grubby fingers.

  This wasn’t going to be his night, was it? Doomed from the start and now this, oh sweet life, this. What had he done to deserve it? Without looking round he knew what had happened to Edger. They’d crept up behind them. There’d been guards. There had to be. And now Tam could feel them. If he listened hard enough the buggers were probably sniggering.

  Stepping smartly backwards, he spun and flashed the beam in their eyes.

  They didn’t blink. He’d swear they’d had their eyes shut and ready.

  Well, it was an old trick...

  There were three of them, armed and serious, with Edger’s immobile body at their feet. Harris doused his torch, jabbing hands up without being asked. There was no point in going for the natty little jimmy-spot nestling in the concealed holster under his coat. It would only serve to irritate the opposition and winding them up would make for bad news.

  There are some things that are inevitable, aren’t there? You just can’t duck them.

  So you might as well just go with the flow and see where it takes you.

  Chapter Four

  When she wasn’t working or on the floor in the bar, Ellis slept in the stores at the back of the kitchen. It was a hole under stacked shelves, furnished with rough sacks and a curtain for a door but it was warm and once you got used to the smell of bad vegetables it wasn’t too bad. Most importantly it was private. Once safe in this bolthole she curled up, clasping her tiny prize. It was hard to concentrate. She’d brought up most of the bowl of stew she’d been given for supper and her head felt as if live-wires had been drilled into her skull. Every time she took another punter upstairs the reaction got worse and lasted longer. This time it swamped her. Sheer obstinacy had kept her on her feet until she could rest.

  Delving in Rocket’s mind had not worked well. Her talent dulled by exhaustion, she hadn’t been able to find out much, though to be fair there wasn’t much to find. Rocket was a tag-along ganger; a low level snitch of the dirtiest order. It was humiliating to be too feeble to manage him. He had a bad habit of blocking out faces, which was convenient for a man who made his down-low career choices. He’d remembered his killer trip through the Dome vividly enough but was fuzzy about details and the disc. He kept replaying a hazy image of a dark tunnel and a door with a high-tech lock and someone tall and thin who frightened him.

  It was common knowledge that Tye Beven didn’t want word of the Dome leaking out. He was scared of an organisation called the Union ruining a sweet nest and so, therefore, was Rocket, but there was another faction that worried Rocket much more than Tye did.

  Who were Tokkers? She’d never heard of Tokkers.

  That was when she’d had to let the slimy worm wriggle off the hook.

  Let him go or pass out.

  Sharp metal edges bit her palm as Ellis’ fist clenched. Instinct told her to keep her prize secret and safe. It felt like a key; that was backed up by Rocket’s hazy memories, and Donn instinct never lied. Snapping a lace from her boot, she threaded it through the key’s loop and knotted it around her neck, tucking it under her shift where it should be safe.

  After that she lay and stared at shadows. Something insectoid and hungry clicked softly to itself nearby as it wove a web and to that music she drifted into a fitful doze, waking when ever a footfall drummed or voices drew too close. Dawn saw her wakeful. Every atom felt bruised, her rebellious stomach cried for food it couldn’t keep. She wondered about the Union that so frightened Tye. The Union was law. What was the old saying? My enemy’s enemy is my friend? Possible, but for all she knew the Union was as bad as the Autocracy.

  There was nobody else.

  No one to help, no one to trust. She was utte
rly alone.

  Being a rare breed was something Donn of Ellis’ generation had accepted but it was very different being the last. Telepaths wove a tight network. You could be the sole Donn at the pole of a planet and still be able to reach out to another who was sitting on the moon.

  She couldn’t give up.

  Rolling onto her back, she tried to make her aching head more comfortable.

  Help me, she prayed to anybody out there. Kai, don’t be dead, be hiding, please.

  Help me. Is anybody listening? There must be someone left…

  * * *

  “Someone somewhere is very lonely,” announced Sam Nevus.

  For a moment he goggled at the tools he’d just dropped as they rolled down the slope of hard-packed pink earth. “She is dying,” he added, precise and prim and grim.

  Soren glanced up and then got back to work. No, he denied, flat and defiant, this is not happening. There was nobody left to contact Sam, it was impossible, none of his people had survived the vicious Autocracy purges. There could be no Minders left, for nobody had done genocide more thoroughly or enthusiastically than the Autocracy, it was their trademark. Sam was the last Donn and he might never know. It was too dangerous, even now.

  “More fantasies,” he jeered with a lopsided smile. “Dying lady-duck? Boy, you surely want to get over to Hannah’s place tonight, you need the company.” He even managed to produce a humourless chuckle. “Hand me the sprockets over there and stop dreaming. We’d be through quicker if you’d attend to the job in hand. You know you’re no mechanic.”

  Sam sniffed a vivid whiff of dung. No, something rotten, old and dirty, not dung.

  “Soren?” he asked. “Can you smell anything strange? Something rotten?”

  Soren concentrated furiously on hammering the loose boundary-post and didn’t reply.

  * * *

  This time Mark Macluan was wide-awake when it happened. He swallowed a mouthful of hot breakfast too fast and dropped his fork, staring fixedly at nothing. HStJ Jenson was aware that on-ship catering wasn’t up to top standards but he didn’t believe it was dire enough to account for suddenly flipping protein substitute into his coffee. He fished the uninvited lump out of his mug gloomily. “Thanks,” he muttered hollowly. “I just ate.”

  There was no reply but he hadn’t really expected it.

  “Bit quick, but good shot all the same,” he added politely, neatly stacking his own plate under Mark’s and punching up for two mugs of fresh coffee on the local mechanical’s dial. If it hadn’t been so early Jenson would have gone for something stronger. When coffee arrived, Jenson, dutiful and honest HStJ Jenson, thumbed in his very own credit tag and notched another tally on the mental spreadsheet he held for Mark. Dinner was owed. After that there wasn’t much he could do, so he sat back, yawned, and stared around. They’d taken on new staff at the last way station and a new Communications rating was holding court two tables down. A blonde with blue eyes, unless he was mistaken she was looking his way.

  Dutiful as ever he looked back. Sideways eye-contact was achieved.

  Almost smiles were exchanged.

  A gasp recalled him to Mark and Jenson shoved the mug across the table.

  “Drink,” he advised, short but not unkind.

  Pale eyes focused, bewildered by the order and the intrusion. Then, still somewhere else, Macluan latched on. “Sorry,” he apologised, and gripped the mug.

  “You need a bodyguard when you start with the mystical input.”

  “It was very quick. I think it was the same...”

  “Do you now?” Jenson waited patiently for reality to return. Half the trick of dealing with Mark was waiting. While he waited he blonde watched. By now she was very obviously ignoring him and like the gallant man he was he ignored her right back. After a decent interval passed, he returned to Mark. “Audience participation often helps. So tell me.”

  “I thought I got a fix, but whoever is calling is far too weak. I lost it again.” An anxious light flared and dimmed in Macluan’s eyes. “She winked right out. I lost her.”

  “She?” Jenson perked. “I thought that was impossible. Definitely a she?”

  Mark clambered purposefully to his feet. “I dunno, H, but I think we’re lucky I’m still on Krystie’s payroll not Carolli’s this spell. I’ll need to talk to the boss about this.”

  * * *

  Deep in Harth Norn’s Dome, behind the locked door where Rocket had found the key, something strange stirred. Ellis’ wail struck like lightning and seared like fire. Shocked, the creature tried desperately to snatch it but failed. Fear exploded, toxic, stinging like static, as terrible possibilities rolled out. It had been led to believe that the enemy was extinct, its light forever extinguished. Yet it had caught the echo of a Donn in the dark crying for help.

  The mere possibility of Donn survival meant danger.

  Infuriated, it fell to raging against its sedentary nature, wallowing in the familiar vitriol of its state. Later, when contacted, it screamed at its ally again and again, Are you sure there are no Donn left? We are so near the end, so nearly free, are you quite sure?

  * * *

  They slung Harris & Edger’s bodies down in a tangle, and surveyed the ship.

  “That’s a ZR-2 Union barque, fair enough. Neat little baby, ain’t she? Perched right on the end of Leary’s Crack,” whistled one. “Someone can fly. That’s a tricky landing.”

  “Convenient,” said the second man, his mind racing greedily. “You mean somebody can’t fly, don’t you? Just think. No need to fire it. If we grabbed one of those ground-trawlers from the docks we could just push it off and wreck it. Simple crash is all. Easy-peasy.”

  “Cost a fortune, a ship like that,” the third agreed. “In a couple of weeks we could claim salvage rights if we happened to find a wreck with no one else interested.”

  There was silence while they considered pros and cons.

  “Wouldn’t the crew still be inside if it crash landed?” suggested the first finally.

  There was another lengthy pause. It was a fair point.

  After all if it was a real crash, that’s where you’d find them, wasn’t it?

  Dandy had only said to keep the Dome clear.

  Oh yes, and to keep Tye Beven happy.

  Anything else, like salvage rights, for example, was down to them, wasn’t it?

  Chapter Five

  Tam Harris retched. He tasted metal, cold and acid, and the world flashed past in an ice-blue orbit. At the fuzzy end of a kaleidoscope the motherboard of his ship strobed. There was something he had to do. What was it? A starburst struck and he blacked out again. A zillion years later he remembered. Imperative. Inform base. Cry for help. Good idea...

  He rolled onto the board. The board was on the deck? Why? That was not good.

  Time flew sharp, then lumpy, mostly uncharted.

  Clawing up a strut, he glimpsed the control swinging crazily beside him.

  Weird. It kept changing places...

  There it was, there it was, right there, no there, and over there...

  Something jerked, the ship shook, his head jerked. It fell off.

  Harris’ personal universe winked out.

  This time he did not wake up.

  As luck would have it the impact of Tam on the board engaged automatics.

  A Coded Roll launched, a signal peculiar to Union UnderCover operations and nigh on undetectable. It would automatically navigate the Bylanes until it reached Imperious.

  If it got there it should ensure a rescue attempt would be made. If.

  * * *

  Tye Beven’s inn was heaving. Two or three times a year Mining Convoys passed Harth Norn on a wide parabolic Trade Route, and they always stopped to trade ore for the fish oils believed essential for health and sanity, well, health at any rate. The illicit A-vine they took on board ensured neither but some risks are acceptable. This year the visit came early and Sheek, plus his stressed assistants, raced up and down behind the bar as if
someone had sounded the last trump. Beven lurked smugly in his private room with a flagon of A-vine while they worked. It was all hands to the bar and that included the Drudge who’d been confined to the kitchens for a few days to get over some mysterious and disgusting ailment that had laid her lower than usual. Thus Ellis, not much the better for the prolonged rest, was ferrying bad ale when three mouthy drunks at a rear table made her dreams come true.

  Honestly, who’d believe what some people discussed in an open bar?

  While Ellis had been working in the kitchen the Union had arrived and been dealt with. The three idiots who’d done the deed were waiting for a decent time to pass before ‘discovering’ the wrecked ship and filing a claim for salvage. Were they insane? Yes, she reckoned, of course they were, clinically insane, absolute imbeciles. But if they believed that the ship was worth the risk of filing a claim, didn’t that mean it might still be flyable?

  There was only one way to find out.

  It was an epiphany. It was Ellis’ ship, it was escape. Suddenly there wasn’t a ship she couldn’t fly from here to wherever, there wasn’t a lock that would stop her or a plan that wouldn’t work. She was going to fly off-world and bring back the cavalry to rescue the others. Packing up her tray she went hunting a suitable customer and found Rocket.

  Rocket was easy meat. He’d had never even given the missing Dome key a second thought. He was happy to enjoy his lavish fantasies while Ellis clambered out of the window and slipped and slithered down and away over Tye Beven’s lackadaisical roof.

  Whatever was waiting for her, she had to find that ship.

  * * *

  The red light bleeped somewhere in the Communications banks.

  It had to bleep four times, each more angry than the last, before the officer working the terminal, busy with mundane tasks, grabbed it out of the ether and locked it home for transcription. He pursed his lips as though a mere Coded Roll dared challenge him.