by Blaze Ward
“You like?” Ozzo asked with a terrible, killing smile on his face.
“Where?” Glaxu sputtered.
The tiny human laughed and laughed and laughed, leaving Glaxu feeling rather like a fool.
“Is junk store,” the man finally managed to get the gales of laughter under control. “Things arrive, come to rest, await need. Need arrives, often in the most unexpected shapes.”
Glaxu turned the blade over in his hand and contemplated it. This wasn’t anything he was familiar with among his kind, but he was a pilot, not a martial artist, and this had most likely been made by some evil Mondi who had obviously wanted a third dewclaw with which to strike.
“How much?” Glaxu asked, handing it back to the man, but he refused.
It ended up on the counter between them.
The human quoted an outrageous price.
“Seriously?” Glaxu scorned him.
“No, little killer friend,” the human grinned. “Now we dicker.”
25
Bayjy
She had borrowed the book from Captain so she could read the entire thing in her cabin. Bayjy wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she suspected it was there. She would find it.
Valentinian had bought it on Kryuome from that weird dude Marduk, looking for some ancient maps he could use to compare geography against the coordinates from that silly-ass map he had won in that crooked poker game. Seriously, you couldn’t make shit like this up, because nobody would believe it.
At least until you pulled out that map and showed it to them.
T'Ilard had been a regional palace, back then. The Urlan did things weird. Had, at least. Royal families tended to run into the thousands, because the cultural ideal of the big, dumb Urlan warrior meant one male frequently went for at least five sons and three daughters.
At least two of the males were expected to die off at a young age doing stupid shit, but that just meant that the breeding stats generally evened out that way.
The more important the dude, the more kids he had. It got worse when you got into some of those bizarre religious sects that held that a successful male should have as many as fourteen wives.
Family reunions must have come with programs, just to list all the names and relations, so you could calculate if the cute boy you ran into was far enough away genetically to marry, and important enough across clan and tribal lines to make a good business arrangement for your family.
Wiping the Urlan Empire out really hadn’t been that great a cultural setback, when you got right down to it.
But that still left her with T'Ilard.
Bayjy had printed out maps from the wall plotter, color-coded against overlays from the scanners. Levels of background radiation, like splotches of red paint that faded, the safer you got. They were tacked to the walls around her to keep her sharp.
Nowhere in this zone was safe, but as long as you showered regularly and didn’t stay more than two months every few years, you weren’t likely to get two-headed babies. Plus, they were doing things to their diet now that would help later, adding all manner of extras, however prophylactic they might be.
Someone had been angry when they hit this place with nuclear bombs. Accurate, too. The palace itself was a jumble of rock reduced to a small hill by the accumulation of two thousand winters of blowing grit. A couple of military bases were simply blood drops on the map, so intense even today that you didn’t even want to spend too much time downwind.
And muties knew that. They had built a compound city out in what had been the lakebed, upwind. Bayjy wondered if that meant that they were smart enough to dig tunnels into the rich soil below them for clean dirt to grow things, since the surface stuff might glow on a really dark night in places.
They weren’t supposed to be that smart, according to what the city folk had said, but she was beginning to assume some level of cultural chauvinism going on that nobody wanted to talk about.
And then the chapter about the city itself. The one that had set Vee off. Tourism guide as much as anything. Most of it was crap, but the references to the great map and how it held the treasure for the ages stored among the stars. Plain as print, if you understood Urlan culture, which few people did.
Urlan didn’t do museums. Never had. It was a human thing to show off your wealth and prestige to commoners by collecting valuable cultural artifacts and charging an admission fee.
Urlan did palaces, where the exterior was grand and imposing, and lined the interior with all their gold and jewels. But you had to store shit. Hide it when you had more treasure than halls for it. Or stuff so priceless that you didn’t even let the servants and slave species near it.
And those were underground vaults. Hidden. Bolt holes you could flee to if you faced an uprising of the lesser species. Like the whole, damned war had been.
On paper, there wasn’t much to expect. Any smart Urlan prince or princess would have evacuated their crap elsewhere, except that most of those folks had been evacuated to Kryuome ahead of other places being splattered by angry humans and all their cousins.
Kryuome was supposed to be a safe-behind-the-lines kind of place. Except that there weren’t none of those when you had overdrives. Killer humans could just leapfrog to other worlds.
So the war had dropped out of warpbubbles and starting pelting the planet with big bombs. Dirty nukes. Suggestions of biological weapons, but Bayjy had read enough science to understand what stress and new germs from other planets could do all by themselves.
And then someone decided to hit the planet with something big enough to knock it slightly out of orbit. Not enough to destroy it, but it was closer to the local sun now than it had been. Drier as a result of all the natural and artificial heat introduced.
Must have had massive groundquakes for a damned long time before things stopped ringing. If they ever had.
That could be a problem when they got back there. Soil and rock probably had shifted around to the point that they couldn’t open it up and find whatever was under that planet gem. Big Guy’s muscles would come into play at that point. Or Kyrie and that big, sticking twin pulsar of her, worse come to worst.
Bayjy put the book down and looked around her cabin. Wouldn’t be hers much longer. Plumbing and air were in place, back aft over the bay. Walls were going up next, to frame out a crew kitchen and rec room not that much different from what Vee and Dave had down and forward. More storage. Two oversized crew cabins for her and Kyrie to upgrade, and six more the same size as this one.
She wondered if they were wasting their time doing it. There was always a chance that someone had beat them to the punch. Twenty centuries was a long time for a secret to be kept. But if they were the first…
Any sort of big treasure would change things again. And she knew how much Valentinian disliked change, especially now, when he had finally gotten his head wrapped around making Longshot Hypothesis a place for a family, and not just a crew.
Would he buy a bigger ship? Or just trade at this scale, so he and some First Mate could go back to being wanderers? Would Big Guy stay, or buy himself a new identity and retire to a beach somewhere? Would Kyrie do the same?
What did you do, if you suddenly had access to wealth beyond imagination?
Butler would have probably managed to blow it all in less than five years, living like a pig and forgetting about tomorrow until he couldn’t afford lunch one day.
And were they a bigger target as a team, where people might recognize a group description? Or could they vanish into the trillions of beings out there, not just in Wildspace, but those places where the Dominion folk had come from? That was only one of six sides of Wildspace. The Mondi were another, from what Glaxu had said.
That left four.
What did she want from her life? Bayjy had closed the book, so she rested her hand on the fabric-covered cover now, as if she could absorb the wisdom of the ages from it by osmosis.
She had no home. Just a series of stations and ships she had been
on all her life, even back before she had run off to get rich. No family she had seen in more than a decade. That happened in space. You had to be self-contained.
Salvaging was a thing she was good at. Three dimensional problem solving to make the fewest cuts in the fastest time, so you could show the best profit when you got the loot back to whatever fixer, fence, or factor was interested.
Even that haul from the Urlan troop transport wouldn’t have done more than set her up for a few years of goofing off, or let her invest in a couple of retirement schemes for later.
Did she even want to retire? Thirty-three Standard was too young to consider that, even if she got lucky and rich. Too many years ahead of her that needed to be insured against, in a galaxy that really didn’t believe in giving a girl an even break.
No, the best thing that had ever happened to her was wandering into that poker game with Vee and the others. Opportunity, if you could grab it and hold on.
Look where it had gotten her. Poised on the verge of…something.
Bayjy wasn’t sure, but there was so much nobody really knew.
What would Glaxu bring back to the fire? How safe was it to return to Kryuome, as opposed to bouncing off to someplace like Vorcia Thiri?
Trade was right out. She understood that. Longshot Hypothesis could get a reputation as a fast, honest ship, that was sure, but the Widow would hear. Would come running and gunning. If she could.
Nobody gave Glaxu credit. He might have arranged an accident or just attacked the Widow, if he thought he could score a quick kill and get away afterwards. Mean, dangerous, little ground cuckoo.
Bayjy set the book on the bunk and stood up. She’d been too deep in it and herself. She needed something to help her calm down so she could sleep.
They were on the verge of something. Maybe the greatest discovery in centuries.
And maybe Dave’s wife coming out of warp right on top of them, guns blazing.
26
Glaxu
Glaxu was feeling proud of himself. Leader had told stories about the grand negotiations with a book dealer, of all people, in Meeredge, even greater than subsequent battles with the being’s cousin over something as mundane as guns.
This last hour had netted him nothing more interesting than a knife-whip meant for Mondi hands, but he had gotten the feeling that Ozzo had come away equally impressed. At least he would respect the abilities of the next Mondi that came along.
The knife-whip was secured in his bandolier for now. The human merchant had possessed nothing like a proper sheath for it, whatever that might look like, so it was in a pouch until he could get back to the ship and putter.
There was a most flamboyant rhythm to his stride as he walked.
Right up until the moment he came around that last corner and saw what was waiting for him. Or rather, whom.
Glaxu had expected the Widow to keep Butler Vidy-Wooders on a shorter leash. Probably, she had intended to, and gotten distracted by some political machinations along the way.
Didn’t matter all that much. The M’Rai was here. Not exactly guarding the lock to Outermost, but making it plain that Glaxu would have to deal with him and the two humans with him, if he wished to board.
He supposed running was an option. Technically, it always was, when one was faced with overwhelming odds.
Glaxu didn’t really think that two human punks and a M’Rai qualified in that department. Maybe if any of them had actually appeared dangerous, but the two humans were standing around like witnesses at a car wreck, and Vidy-Wooders was apparently drunk enough to do something stupid. More stupid than normal.
Even from here, the smell of alcohol was intense enough that Glaxu wondered if the creature was trying to poison land mollusks with his breath.
Glaxu took it all in and slowed from his normal jaunt to a careful walk. Nobody was holding any sort of ranged weapon right now, so it wasn’t just an ambush, however stupidly Glaxu had just walked into one, not paying attention.
“Hey, bird man,” the M’Rai called in a drunken snarl. “Been waiting for you.”
“You’re not my type, tree shrew,” Glaxu cat-called back. “I prefer mates with a three-digit IQ.”
At least one of the humans was sober enough to catch the multi-layered insult. That one staggered a little more upright and started to say something, but Bayjy’s old captain called him off.
“Enough,” Vidy-Wooders snarled. “You’re making me look bad, roadrunner.”
“I’m sorry,” Glaxu sneered at the creature. “I wasn’t aware you needed help with that.”
M’Rai were stupid creatures. Bullies, Miss Lavender had said on more than one occasion. Engineered originally for mass and muscle, and not much brains. This one must have been an archetype. Or maybe he just represented the lower half of the scale.
But his skin was too thin. Probably too much alcohol had sanded all his dermal armor off, or whatever human variants did to engage in verbal fisticuffs.
“Blond lady sees you, and thinks maybe she doesn’t need me so much,” the man snarled, taking a step forward. “Maybe hires you instead and old Butler’s out on his ass.”
“Oh, I doubt she’s that intelligent,” Glaxu taunted the creature, edging slightly to his left. “Women like her always need your kind.”
Whatever kind that was.
This corridor was down in the cheap zones of the outer ring of the station. A spur off that, even, sticking out like a single finger so that ships that didn’t need to get in and out of dock all that often could be packed relatively close together. Freighters needed more free volume, coming and going, and they paid a premium for it. Outermost was just another runabout. With guns.
If the M’Rai moved too quickly, Glaxu could take one long stride to the side from here. That put a bench and planter box in the way, the latter sucking up carbon dioxide and other pollutants while putting out clean oxygen.
Options, depending on the weapon he decided to use here.
“My kind?” the M’Rai’s rage slid a little to the side as his confusion woke up. He stopped moving, which was to his benefit. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Mindless violence,” Glaxu said. “Full frontal assault on a defended hardpoint. Sometimes that’s the only solution, so it’s handy to have folks who think that’s a smart idea.”
“I don’t think she needs you,” Vidy-Wooders growled, eyes moving and hand clenching, but otherwise still.
None of them had holsters visible. Might not mean they were unarmed. Maybe, like Glaxu, they had something tucked under an arm where it took just a shade longer to get to it.
For now, nobody had a gun out though, so it could be that the beast just wanted to issue a warning. That he needed to bring a pair of drinking buddies either meant he wanted witnesses, or maybe he unconsciously realized that he was already out of his depth against one Mondi slayership pilot.
“So convince her not to hire me,” Glaxu mocked the man. “I’ve got other gigs on the boards I could pursue.”
However stupid and inane they might be, but he didn’t say that out loud.
“I think you’re a spy.”
The M’Rai did take a step forward now.
Just one.
Glaxu decided that the man had finally worked himself up to violence. Some folks had to walk a long path before they had the courage to provoke a confrontation. Alcohol apparently helped among humans, as did certain recreational substances ingested via other means.
Butler Vidy-Wooders wasn’t just a dumb bully, but not by much. Still, there was truth to his observation. Glaxu was a spy.
He wondered if he would have to kill the M’Rai now, just to keep the man from throwing a tantrum of accusations in front of the Widow. Wouldn’t matter if she believed. The seed would have been planted. At some point, it would sprout, and perhaps bloom.
Dave had shared a few stories about life in the inner reaches of the Dominion. The rampant paranoia and constant misdirections and maneuvering for fac
e and status. Right now, the Widow considered her pet Mondi as just another thug to be triple-crossed at some point.
Glaxu was still a little insulted at such a low number.
If you’re going to do something, Madam, I would have appreciated five or more layers of deception. Something worth getting out of my cactus for.
Glaxu let his eyes turn cold and angry on the M’Rai.
“And I think you’re an amateur punk,” he snapped back at the giant. “The only thing you bring are your mating proclivities, however warped and disgusting you’ll need to get to remain in her bed.”
He liked the way the monster’s eyes flared a little. Took Vidy-Wooders nearly two seconds to process that through the alcohol and overall mental torpor.
“I’ll kill you,” the M’Rai snarled and took an enormous stride forward.
Humans liked to get themselves out-flanked by other creatures, because they don’t take relative size into account. Mondi rarely fought something their own size that wasn’t another Mondi, so they were used to dealing with oversized creatures with commensurate egos.
Three meters tall. Nine feet to use the other human measure. Triple his size. Probably nine times his mass.
Big, dumb, AND slow.
Butler Vidy-Wooders stepped up onto the bench, and then into the planter, apparently intent on pouncing on a tiny ground cuckoo like a skytiger.
Glaxu wasn’t there. And he even waited until the M’Rai took the step up and jumped before he moved.
Three-on-one wasn’t even a remotely fair fight, but Glaxu didn’t want the other two having time to call in some friends. He raced at the nearer one and kicked at the human’s ankle hard with torque and speed as he went by. This creature also outweighed him, probably by a factor of about five, but he was standing wrong, and not all that sober.
Losing a leg caused him to face-plant with a yelp that ended in the bong of a head impacting deck surprisingly fast.
