“Problem?”
She sighed, then put her hands in her lap in defeat. “I can’t seem to get a lock on the Special Services team Admiral Hansen told us was down on the surface.”
“Are you sure you’re using the correct frequency?”
She looked at the transmitter and nodded. “It’s like they’re not even there.”
Shawn didn’t like the sound of that. They’d had too many similar situations in the past, and the thought of finding everyone on the surface missing—or worse, dead—was something he didn’t want to contemplate. “Can you feed the coordinates for the mining installation into the ship’s computer?” he asked her.
Pivoting in her chair to face the ship’s library computer, she keyed in the latitude and longitude. “Done.”
Accessing the short-range sensors, Shawn aligned them squarely at the coordinates on the surface.
Noticing what he was doing, Melisa leaned closer to the readout display between them. “That’s something of a gamble, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, a sensor scan of that intensity would certainly alert anyone down there that we’re looking at them.”
Shawn nodded. “If the SS team is down there, whoever received Jerry’s encrypted message likely already knows it.” A moment later, the sensors returned the information he was after. “Well, that explains why they aren’t receiving,” he said as he perused the readings on the screen.
The screen was all a jumble of numbers and letters to Melissa. “Why?”
“There’s a sandstorm raging down there. It’s kicked up a lot of particles and they’re scattering the sensors. It’s no wonder you can’t get a lock on their signal.”
“But that still doesn’t tell us if they’re all right … or that they’re down there at all,” Melissa replied.
“True, but it also doesn’t mean something is wrong.”
She looked from him to the screen, the numbers still not making any sense to her. Knowing that staring at it wouldn’t make it any clearer, she looked out the view port to the dusty world below. “So now what do we do?”
“We could wait out the storm, but that could take hours.”
“Or days,” she said under her breath, the thought of Shawn not being able to return to active duty weighing her down once again.
“Possibly. Our best bet is to set the ship down in the city for the night.” He reached down and turned the sensors to the settlement to the east of the sand storm. “Everything looks pretty clear down there. See if you can hail the port authority.”
Melissa pressed a series of commands and was greeted with a green indicator. “I think we’ve got … someone.”
“Don’t keep them on hold too long. There’s no telling if that storm will suddenly change course. We could find ourselves stuck up here for a long time if that happens.”
Melissa stretched the nearby headset over her ears and began speaking. “Port of Salias. This is transport Gamma-3-7 now in orbit above the planet. We’re requesting permission to land.”
“We’ve got to think of a better name than Gamma-3-7,” Shawn said sideways.
Melissa smiled softly. “You’re the captain, remember? That’s your department.”
A moment later a guttural voice crackled over the ship’s intercom. “This is the port master at Salias, Gamma-3-7. Welcome to our little slice of desert paradise. You’re cleared to land on platform two.”
“Roger,” Melissa confirmed.
“Just follow the guide beam, Gamma-3-7,” the port master returned a moment later. “You’ll be down in a jiffy, darlin’.”
“Darlin’?” Melissa asked to Shawn.
Shawn shrugged. “Give the guy a break. He probably doesn’t get many callers, let alone female ones.”
Dubiously, Melissa turned back to her controls. “Understood, Port Master.”
Twenty minutes later, the sleek transport was secured on the shelf-like landing pad projecting from the side of the towering administrative building—one of the only structures in the city that appeared to be routinely maintained. As Shawn exited the ship behind Melissa, he caught sight of the raging sandstorm far off to the west.
“That doesn’t look very inviting,” he said.
“The SS team is equipped to handle these kinds of contingencies,” Melissa replied, suddenly feeling a cool draft, and wrapping her arms around herself tightly.
Seeing her discomfort, Shawn removed his well-worn flight jacket and draped it over her shoulders. Her appreciative glance instantly warmed any lingering chill he might have felt. Looking back to the west, he saw that the twin suns were beginning to rapidly descend, and their glow from behind the sandstorm was decisively stunning. A line from a poem Shawn had once read popped into his mind, but before he could quote it, a panel in the side of the administrative building opened.
At first, Shawn thought it was their escape from the cold, but soon noticed a flotilla of maintenance droids exit the bay. They immediately went to work, hooking up heavy power and other such umbilical lines to the ship. A multi-jointed robot—looking eerily like a three-foot long metallic spider—attached thick metal chains to the transport’s five landing pads.
“Seems that we’ll be staying put for a while,” Melissa said, resigned.
“This isn’t all that uncommon. It just shows that the power to the landing platforms isn’t as dependable as we’d like. Because the ship’s magnetic landing system is now dependent on that power, those chains will help keep the ship down in high winds.”
Another burst of cool air, twice as pronounced as the last, whipped Melissa’s auburn hair into her face. “Let’s get inside. It’s getting too uncomfortable out here.”
Placing her arm inside his, Shawn walked her to a nearby control panel. Opening the adjacent door, the two strode quickly inside.
After checking in with the dock master, Shawn and Melissa quickly made their way down to the city streets below. Exiting the building, they were nearly run down by a taxi that fortunately swerved at the last moment, honked its horn several times in succession, and then sped down a distant dark thoroughfare.
“Friendly place,” Shawn muttered to himself.
“So it would seem.”
“Well,” he sighed, “with the mining station currently out of reach, where do we go from here?”
Melissa smiled, and mirroring his earlier gesture, put her arm around his. “The only other place where we can get any valuable information, my dear commander.”
“And that would be where?” he asked, looking at their surroundings suspiciously, then finally back to her.
“Come on. I’ll lead the way.”
Unconvinced, Shawn reluctantly acquiesced, but not before checking the charge on his pistol.
Walking down the neon-lit streets, Shawn had the distinct impression that the two of them were being followed. He’d turned to look over his shoulder so many times in the last ten minutes Melissa had taken notice, telling him he was beginning to act paranoid. As they continued on another two blocks, he had to force himself to keep his head forward. His eyes, on the other hand, continued to scan every dark alley, person, and alien they passed.
There seemed to be a motley assortment of citizens in the city. Some of the cultures he recognized, a few he didn’t. Those unknowns were the ones to receive the brunt of his scrutiny. When they rounded a final corner, the two were immediately bathed in a soft pink neon glow from an overhead sign. The text was alien—but Shawn understood the single word.
“A bar?”
Melissa clutched his arm tighter. “Like I said, the best place in town to get information.”
“And here I thought you were taking me to the library … or the local news agency.”
She tugged him toward the door. “The facts we’re looking for are going to be off the books.”
He looked at the frosted doors, trying to decipher what they’d find inside.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of going in there
?” she asked jokingly.
Shawn gave her a stern look. “I’m just cautious. I like to know two ways of getting in and out of every place.”
Shaking her head, Melissa opened the door. “You’ll just have to live with the unknown,” she said over her shoulder, then stepped inside, the door swinging closed behind her.
Letting out a held breath, Shawn opened the door and walked in behind her.
The inside of the establishment was a brightly lit place, with triangular tables scattered across a large clearing that was capped by an expansive bar at the far side of the room. The bar was lit with bands of alternating lights, purple on the top, blending into a pink near the floor. There were decanters of all shapes and sizes, holding liquids in every color of the visible spectrum. Behind the bar, a four-armed, two-headed Thesian was serving drinks to a handful of patrons. Melissa was there, seated on a barstool, talking to one of the two heads.
That was fast. Stepping up beside her, Shawn took the only remaining stool.
“What’ll you have, stranger?” the left head asked.
“Bourbon. Neat.”
The leathery brown lips peeled back in a sneer, showing a mouth full of fang teeth. “None of that here, unless you know anybody willing to part with a case or two.”
Shawn tried to hide his repulsion of the face. “Sorry. No. Have anything close?”
“Got just the thing,” the alien said. Without turning his eyes from Shawn, two of the arms reached behind the creature, grabbed a bottle and glass, and poured the drink. A third arm dropped in a scoop of ice, while the fourth put in a straw, then placed it on the bar top. “Give that a go.”
Sipping, Shawn was pleasantly surprised by the sweetness. It was almost like liquid brown sugar, but with a cinnamon aftertaste. “That’ll do, barkeep. What is it?”
“The name’s Grib,” the Thesian said. “You’re human, right?”
Shawn nodded, then looked to Melissa. “Both of us.”
“Well, if that’s so, then you don’t want to know what you’re drinking.”
Shawn cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? Why’s that?”
The fang-lined smile reappeared. “Just trust me, Earthling.”
Shawn nodded, then looked back to Melissa. He held up his glass, which she clinked against her own. “To living with the unknown?”
She smiled in return. “That’s the spirit.” She sipped at her glowing blue drink, then turned to face the Thesian. “Maybe you can help us out.”
“Oh?” the left head asked. “How’s that?”
“We’re looking for some information.”
This seemed to get the attention of the right head as well. A mirror image of the left head, it swiveled to face her while the left head and arms dried and stacked glasses. “Information seems to be a growing commodity around here.”
“Then business has been good?” Melissa asked slyly.
The right head wavered. “As long as there’s profit in it.”
She turned to Shawn, who slipped a small stack of unified credits onto the top of the bar. Neither the left or right heads paid it any mind, but in a flurry of movement from all four arms, the stack seemed to vanish from sight. “It seems business is going to be good today,” the left head said to the right one.
“What can you tell us about the mine complex to the west?”
The face on the left head looked worried, but the scowl from the right head caused it to focus back on drying dishes. “The one out in the wastelands?”
“Yeah,” she replied and took another sip.
“Krador’s mine,” the right head said with an expression of disgust. “A collapsing heap of ruins. It’s a wonder no one has gone out there and razed it.” The left head then piped in without missing a beat. “Then again, there’s plenty of desert to go around.”
“So,” Shawn asked, “nobody goes out there?”
The two heads snorted in unison. “Who would want to?” the left asked. “All that sand and wind, and for what? There’s nothing left there.” The right head nodded in agreement to the left’s words. “Just a pile of rusting machines and worthless rocks, not to mention a pretty deep hole in the ground.”
“I take it then,” Melissa said, “that you haven’t heard of anyone going out there recently? Maybe an offworlder, perhaps?”
The two heads looked to one another, each one shaking. “No,” they both said. “We haven’t heard of anything like that. Just that old coot and that babbling, blundering robot of his.”
“The who?” Shawn asked.
The right head turned to him. “Just some crazy old alien who came in here about two months ago.”
Melissa gave the bartender’s heads a quizzical look. “I thought you said nobody goes out there.”
As if cued by some unseen force, the attention of right head of the Thesian was drawn to the other side of the room. The left, however, smiled at the two travelers. “Sorry. As you humans say, the meter has run out. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to start the music. We have a dancer about to come on stage.”
“Stage?” Melissa asked, then pivoted to face the back of the room. As she did, a six-foot-wide hatch opened in the wall, and a narrow twenty-foot-long stage hovered out from within it. When it stopped, a pair of double doors opened and smoke began billowing out as synthesized orchestral music began to play. It could have been Beethoven, or perhaps Mozart. Either way, it was a strange ensemble to say the least.
A moment later, a tall, green-skinned Antosian woman appeared. She was wearing what looked like a stylized military uniform, but the material looked more like glossy leather than the typical synthetic fibers. The jacket was black, flaring out over her hips, with chrome buttons down the center and over the pockets. Her slacks, or lack thereof, were more like shorts, and she wore knee-high boots made of the same high-gloss material. On her head, she wore a black wide-brimmed hat, and had a dark orange armband around her right arm. She paraded out to the end of the stage with measured, high steps. It reminded Melissa of historical videos of parade formations of European dictatorships from Old Earth’s twentieth century, although she was quite sure the cut of this woman’s jib was far from proper military etiquette of the period. As soon as she reached the end of the stage, the music abruptly changed to something more fitting the Antosian’s attire, and the woman began to gyrate her hips.
Turning her head away from the hedonistic display before her, Melissa noticed Shawn seemed to be captivated by it. She coughed loudly, but it didn’t seem to alter the commander’s gaze. “See anything you like?” she scowled, watching as Shawn’s head began to bob in time with the beat of the music.
He turned to her in surprise. “What? Did you say something?”
Her scowl intensified. “I should punch you in the mouth.”
“What?”
“If you’ll kindly keep your focus on things of more importance than your libido.”
“I’ll have you know that I happen to like this song,” he said.
Something flew onto the bar between Shawn and Melissa. Curiously, Shawn picked it up, only to discover that it was the dancer’s shiny shorts. Slowly, his body began to turn in the direction of the stage while his eyes remained fixed on Melissa.
“You do, and you die.”
This stopped the pivoting of the barstool, but didn’t return Shawn to his original position.
Melissa leaned in closer, grasping his upper leg tightly. “Slowly.” This got the desired reaction, and Shawn turned his back to the stage. Before either of them could say anything further on the subject, Grib the bartender returned, both of his heads swaying to the music.
“Need a refill?”
Melissa withdrew another stack of silvery credits and tossed it into the air. One of Grib’s hands snatched it while the three others prepared a new round of drinks. “As long as the service is still good,” she said.
“The service is only as good as the credits provide.” One pair of eyes counted the credits while the other stared over Shawn’s
shoulder at the stage and grinning madly. When Melissa thought she perceived Shawn’s body beginning to spin around again, she quickly reached down and spun the stool, knocking Shawn’s knee into the bar.
“Ouch!” he yelped, but Melissa paid him no mind.
“And what kind of service will we get with that?” she asked Grib.
Both heads turned to one another and smiled. “More than adequate, I’m sure.”
“Good,” Melissa nodded with a smirk. “Now, about this ‘old coot’ you mentioned …”
“Two heads are never better than one when they’re attached to the same body.”
-Unknown remark attributed to any and all Thesians
Chapter 10
Grib, one head staring at Melissa while the other scanned his recently acquired credits, seemed impassive to her request.
“Surely there’s something you can tell me about him and this robot of his?” Melissa asked.
Both of Grib’s heads bobbed and swayed, as if the Thesian was looking for an answer that would satisfy her request. Each pair of arms came up, scratching and rubbing the two faces in contemplation. “There’s not much to say about his droid, other than it’s a bumbling hunk of tin,” the left head began.
“Yeah,” the right one was quick to agree, “it cost us two tables and three chairs last time it blundered in here.”
To this, the left head nodded, then looked to Melissa. “As for the man, there really isn’t much to say.”
“There’d better be,” Shawn said defiantly. “Or I’ll be taking those credits back with or without your consent.”
All four arms went up in a gesture of surrender. “No need to get touchy, human. I’m just trying to remember the last time I talked to him.”
“How long ago was it?” Melissa asked, her tone more sociable than Shawn’s, but no less insistent.
“A week … maybe two,” the left head answered.
“Where?” Shawn asked.
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