by Dan Worth
‘What? Wait, you said you wouldn’t kill me!’
‘You might survive. Though of course whether you’ll want to is a bit different isn’t it? Maybe your fucking wife will miss this more than the four hundred thousand.’
‘What the fuck has my wife got to do with this?’
‘‘Cause it was her that borrowed the fucking money wasn’t it?’ replied the giant slowly and deliberately. ‘We can’t find her, so you’ll have to pay. I’m telling you, it was a fucking godsend when one of the lads saw your name on that shuttle’s passenger manifest. What did you come here for you stupid cunt?’
‘My wife? Fuck’s sake, I’ve not seen her in over two years.’
‘What? You telling me you’re divorced?’
‘Not exactly…’
The giant started to laugh. The hoarse throaty sound echoed in the confines of the alleyway.
‘Looks like she’s fucked you good and proper, sunshine. Gave your name and everything when she borrowed the money. Said we should contact you if there was a problem… fuck me, you must have really pissed her off, she’s not paid a fucking cent since.’
‘Yeah, well I have nothing to do with any of this.’
‘Sorry mate,’ said the giant, putting his gun away. ‘But your fucking name’s on the paper. We’ve got our boys watching your ship, so don’t think about running off before you go see Mr Bennett. Either you come up with the goods, or mister one megawatt here…’ he said patting the hand cannon under his jacket, ‘is gonna make sure that you having any future wives might be out of the question, you get my drift?’
‘Could I speak with Mr Bennett?’
‘I don’t think you have choice, sunshine. You’re coming with me for a little chat with him. Very respectable man is Mr Bennett. That’s why he has to use people like me, see? Someone has to maintain that respect. Now come with me.’
Isaacs picked himself up, attempted to wipe the vomit from his face and hair, swore profusely at the stink, his injuries and situation he now found himself in and walked out of the alleyway with the giant following him every step of the way.
In the back of the car to Bennett’s office Isaacs managed to get the rancid chunks of vomit out of his hair and clothes, but despite his best efforts the stench remained. The giant never took his eyes off him whilst another, slender man drove the hydrogen powered vehicle through the busy streets
Bennett’s office was on one of the upper floors of a slender glass and steel building half way down San Cristobal Boulevard. Isaacs had to endure the obviously disdainful glances of the well heeled pedestrians outside and was entirely stonewalled by Bennett’s receptionist until the giant intervened. She made him wait outside on the cheap plastic furniture whilst she went inside to discuss his presence with her boss. After a few minutes she returned and informed Isaacs that Mr Bennett would see him now. Isaacs thanked her and went inside, noting the way her nose wrinkled with disgust as he passed her.
The office beyond was spacious and tastefully furnished. Carefully placed artworks from a number of species adorned the room, whilst a gently curving window filled the far wall, the view looking out across the city towards the landing field where a few indistinct specks could be seen rising and descending to and from the surface. A middle aged man with swept back, greying hair turned from the scene and regarded his latest arrival with curiosity.
‘Good afternoon Mr Isaacs, please: have a seat,’ said Bennett and gestured to the antique wooden chair in front of the equally antique mahogany desk and high backed chair that he now seated himself in. Isaacs did as he asked and eyed Bennett’s suit. Clothing like that spoke of money. Even in these technologically advanced times a high quality suit required the skill and judgement that only a good tailor could provide. Such services did not come cheap. However, despite his cultured accent and the sophistication with which Bennett surrounded himself with, there was a hardness to his appearance that belied his street origins. Isaacs knew a gangster made good when he saw one.
‘Now, this is about the money you owe me, correct?’
‘No, it’s about the money my wife owes you. I tried to explain that to the shaved gorilla you employ on collection duty, after he’d kicked the shit out of me.’
‘Well I’m very sorry Mr Isaacs, but your name is clearly on the policy that your wife Anna Isaacs took out with us. It’s all perfectly legitimate, you see,’ he said and tossed Isaacs a printed form detailing the sum his wife had borrowed: two hundred thousand, the interest rate: fifty per cent per annum and showing both her name and his and both their signatures, though his had been clumsily forged.
Fuck, thought Isaacs.
‘Yeah, well if you’re so fucking legitimate, why are you hiring thugs like the man mountain that gave me this,’ said Isaacs pointing to the cut above his lip where the giant had thrown him to the floor. ‘As far as I’m concerned you can take this policy, with my signature forged on it no less, and stick it up your arse.’
‘Charming. Mr Isaacs I couldn’t give a flying fuck whether that’s your signature or not on that piece of paper. I want my fucking money! Your bitch of a wife has disappeared, so that leaves you.’
‘Well, you should really be more careful who you lend it to then, shouldn’t you? Some people are more than happy to take you for a ride, my estranged wife for example. Now if you don’t mind…’ he started to get up.
‘Mr Isaacs,’ said Bennett calmly. ‘It might interest to know that I belong to the Sirius Syndicate, I’m sure as a freelancer operating around the shadier parts of the Commonwealth that you’ve heard of our activities?’
Isaacs felt his guts turn to water. He’d heard of the Syndicate alright. They weren’t just a criminal organisation; they were an alliance of organised criminals who had joined together in a mutually beneficial arrangement in the face of concerted efforts by the Commonwealth to curtail their activities. They had a very long reach indeed, if rumour was to be believed. Isaacs had heard a few grisly stories about what happened to those who crossed them. Even minor infractions were punished with lethal and inventive revenge.
‘I see you have heard of us,’ said Bennett, having noticed his expression. ‘So you see, you have a choice: either you bring us the money we are owed, or Laurence will be paying you another visit, one that you won’t be walking away from quite so easily. Don’t think you can run off and hide, Laurence will find you eventually. Space is big, but he is patient hunter and we have the resources to find you wherever you are... eventually. ‘
Laurence? Thought Isaacs, the man mountain was called Laurence? He stifled the urge to giggle, despite himself.
‘You find this… amusing?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Laurence is a very thorough man from my experience. Do not mistake his ape-like appearance for stupidity. He’s very adept at tracking people down through our contacts. He will find you, and then you, my smirking friend, will spend your last hours screaming in a locked basement for help that will never arrive as he gets to work on you. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes.’ Isaacs replied simply, a lump forming in his throat.
‘You will pay us the money, or else…’
‘I understand. I think I need to speak with my wife.’ He remembered her last address. She wouldn’t still be there, but it was a start. She’d been renting an apartment in an asteroid trading post in the Quralish system. Quralish… that was in Nahabe space wasn’t it? She’d probably have moved on, she’d have stuck out like a sore thumb amongst all those Nahabe floating about in their caskets. Still, it meant that someone there might remember her.
‘I do hope you have more success than we did Mr Isaacs.’
‘I’ll, uh… I’ll see myself out.’
‘The money, Mr Isaacs. Before the end of the month.’
It was only afterwards, that Isaacs started to wonder why the Syndicate with all its resources had been unable to reach Anna. If they could track him down so easily like they claimed, why could they not get to her?
>
It was a long walk back to the landing field, and the journey back up to Orinoco Station was, as he had expected, rather embarrassing. By the time the shuttle docked, the whole of the warm cabin stank of his vomit-stained clothes. It was with great relief that he returned to his ship in the Navy repair dock. Though he found he was greeted by a few puzzled looks from the technicians in and around it, he was relieved to see that none of Bennett’s men seemed to be around, or at the very least they were not making themselves visible. The ship was the only place he felt safe now. If he couldn’t find Anna he’d have to keep running for the rest of his soon-to-be- shortened life. As soon as the repairs were finished he’d go.
Once Isaacs had left, a large figure entered Bennett’s office.
‘Ah Laurence, I have a task for you.’
‘Yes Mr Bennett.’
‘Follow Isaacs. He has friends and contacts among the trader community that we don’t. Find out where his wife is, where her friends are hiding too and then report back to me. Our clients need this information quickly.’
‘Yes Mr Bennett.’
‘I know you excel at these sorts of things, so I expect results, as do our clients. They paid a lot of money for this job to be done right and so will you be if you succeed. It was fortunate for us that this chance presented itself. Mr Isaacs fell into our lap at just the right time’
‘Yes Mr Bennett.’
‘Why only last week, the Syndicate had no leads whatsoever. Not a single captain across the Commonwealth had heard a word about anyone connected to the Hidden Hand.’
‘Yes boss.’
‘You understand that we have to keep this quiet. This job is very sensitive. If any connection was made between us and our clients...’
‘I understand. Don’t worry, I’ll be discreet.’
‘Good.’
Chapter 6
Katherine rose early, showered and dressed and went to find Rekkid, who was not in his room as she had expected. After asking around she eventually found him in the basement level of the compound, sitting in darkness in one of the observation decks that protruded, blister-like, from the outer surface of the station. The Arkari was staring out at the slowly revolving scene beyond the layers of glass and shields. Rhyolite dominated the view, its mottled surface smeared with the yellow expanses of sulphur deserts blasted from the blackened cones of the volcanoes that dotted its surface. Beyond, Beatty laid half in shadow, its ring cutting a faint line across the leading edge of advancing night before it too faded into blackness. A couple of shepherd moons hovered ghostlike at the edge of vision on the planet’s day side; icy lumps of rock barely visible against the brown banded whorls of cloud. As Katherine watched, a bright spot appeared just behind the terminator line, shining with growing fiery brilliance against the darkness. Looking closer she saw a series of dimly glowing spots that faded into dark smudges that stitched a line along the planet’s plane of rotation as a shell of glowing gas began to mushroom from the new impact point.
‘Rekkid?’ she said. ‘What are you doing? ‘
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he replied. ‘I was browsing through the local newsfeed when I heard about this.’ He gestured at the scene beyond. ‘Impressive isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, what am I looking at? I think I just saw an explosion.’
‘It’s a comet. Apparently it swung by here a few decades ago and the gas giant’s gravity captured it and caused it to loop around and come back again. It broke the comet up into chunks as it did so, and now one by one they’re slamming into the planet at a not inconsiderable speed. Makes for a quite a firework display doesn’t it?’
‘It certainly does. I think this is as close as I’d like to get to it though.’
She watched as waves of lightning flashes began to spread from the point of impact as the energy dissipated by the collision started to play havoc with the already volatile weather of the gas giant. Ripples of lightning expanded like the waves from a stone dropped into a pool.
‘Apparently this sort of thing is quite common in these parts, it being such a young system,’ said Rekkid. As if to emphasise his point a shower of meteorites struck the station energy shielding, leaving a series of glowing sparks as they were annihilated.
‘You’ve been awake all night?’
‘Yes well, I worked late and then… well I had a lot on my mind. I came here to think I suppose, as well as to watch the show. It has wonderfully primeval quality, don’t you think?’
‘And just what did you have on your mind?’ Katherine pressed. Rekkid liked his little secrets, something she knew only too well.
‘That strange message you received last night. Something’s going on here that we don’t know about Katherine.’
‘We only just got here you know,’ she replied glibly and instantly felt a little foolish. ‘Hey, maybe we should try contacting that address.’
‘Hmm. I’m not sure that we should, just yet.’
‘Perhaps they were genuinely trying to help us, whoever they are.’
‘Yes. But what I don’t understand is why we are here in the first place.’
‘Well, the Navy say that they found some Progenitor era relics here that they’d like us to take a look at. Seems pretty straightforward to me.’
‘It does, does it? The Progenitors were gone from the galaxy nearly five billion years or so before this system even existed. Hadar is a relatively young system, only a few tens of millions of years, hence the light show.’ He indicated the scene in front of them with a slender hand.
‘Maybe they were wrong in their assessment, or maybe they found them elsewhere and brought them here.’
‘Possibly. But if they found them elsewhere I don’t know why they didn’t leave them in situ for us to examine. We’re not being told everything here, Katherine. I think we should be on our guard, especially if our mystery would-be guardians are right.’
‘Maybe you’re being too suspicious,’ she said, half in jest. ‘Maybe it was just some random local crackpot. Humans don’t have a monopoly on those you know. Still…’ she shivered a little.
‘I know. Last time we failed to heed any warnings…’
‘We started a war.’
‘Quite.’
Katherine stood at Rekkid’s shoulder for a moment, in silence. The impact on the surface of Beatty was fading. A glowing ring of cooling gas was falling back to the planet’s cloudy surface. She remembered a similar, smaller explosion - though one no less deadly - when the captain of the orbiting K’Soth warship had turned the craft’s main gun on the city that they had been sheltering in, effectively dropping the heart of star onto a city of thousands of cowering inhabitants. She shuddered at the memory and turned back to Rekkid, who from his expression seemed to be reliving similar memories.
‘Do you mind if I play the suspicious one for a moment?’ she asked.
‘Go on,’ he responded warily.
‘What were you working on when I called at your room yesterday evening? I saw Progenitor script on your screen.’
‘Ah.’
‘Ah, indeed.’
‘Well. Let’s just say that Mentith isn’t the only one who has a copy of those data wafers we unearthed back on the Dyson Sphere. When we uncovered the first ones, I took the liberty of backing up as many of the wafers as possible once a colleague of mine had jury rigged interfaces for reading them.’
‘For God’s sake Rekkid!’ said Katherine. ‘Mentith will skin you alive if he finds out about this.’
‘He won’t. I got the impression that he was following his orders rather grudgingly. I’m sure he’d like us to apply ourselves to examining their contents. He seemed rather put out that he’d been overruled you know. He’s no fool, I’m quite sure he’d appreciate a second opinion’
‘What about this colleague of yours? What if he or she lets slip your little misdemeanour?’
‘He won’t. Ormintu’s an old friend back from our last spot of bother. He has no love for the military and also access to Proge
nitor machine language and written language archives. The Esacir species are mostly pacifists and he’s particularly prone to anti-militaristic sentiments, especially after Mentith stormed into his lab looking for me and that log that we found. Apparently it was quite a sight to behold when the War Marshall was escorted off the Riianto Bubble City by the Esacir.’
‘Well, I hope you know what you’re doing,’ sighed Katherine. ‘Did you find anything interesting?’
‘Nothing earth shattering, no. It seems that the wafers are daily records of transmissions sent and received by that particular installation. We were right in our assessment that it was military, by the way, but everything I’ve read through so far has been pretty routine day to day stuff, albeit from a society at war. Interesting in its own right I suppose, but nothing of real top secret importance.’
‘It makes you wonder what they left in the records for us to find.’
‘It certainly does. I’ll let you know if I find anything. To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if those self important fools in our government just caught wind of it being of a military nature and went into their usual paranoid overkill mode of operating.’
‘Hmm. Can’t say I have a great deal of fondness for politicians, but given the sort of war we’re fighting - if you can call it that - I’m prepared to forgive them for their paranoia, knowing the things that they do.’
‘Yes, but bearing in mind our government’s usual way of doing business I wouldn’t be surprised if they manage to tie the whole thing up in endless bureaucracy and committee hearings until we’ve all died of old age. I personally can’t wait that long and I can’t help it when my curiosity gets the better of me.’
‘Well, you know what curiosity did…’
‘No… oh, something about cats.’
‘Old human expression.’
‘One whose true meaning escapes me I’m afraid.’
