Dubious Heroes: a novel

by Nicholas Blue

  Vidscreens lined three of the walls, showing what appeared to be several views of the warehouse interior. The staging room where we’d left our suits was on one screen, the rest were showing some sort of activity, which meant the system was probably supervised by an AI; it was the sort of thing they were best at. They were keeping track of things better than I expected, but people were involved, and you could bet that was how anything out of the ordinary got done.

  There was a u-shaped desk in the middle of the room and a man sat behind it, leaning back, feet propped up. He took a sip from a soft pack, and looked us over.

  The door slid closed as our guide left the room. This was about the hairiest man I’d ever seen, including Cozi.

  “So, who is it wants to see Juno?” he asked, in heavily accented English. Thanks to the UP, everyone needed to speak it, but no one said you had to speak it well.

  “I’m Doon, and this is Cozi”, I said. “We’re looking for Juno. You him?”

  “Da“, he said, confirming my guess. “What is this interrupter of my quiet morning?”

  “We were told you could help us with a shipping problem”, I said.

  “Told by whom?”

  “I don’t remember his name”, I said.

  “Of course not”, he said, smiling broadly. “What is problem?”

  “We need to move some cargo somewhere, no questions asked”, I said.

  “What cargo, and where?”

  “Us”, I said. “To somewhere around Saturn.”

  “Lots of colonies there”, he said. “Over thirty. You care which one?”

  “Nope”, I said. “Anywhere around Saturn will do.”

  Grunting, he sat up.

  “Sit down”, he said, and reached inside the desk, as Cozi and I dragged up a couple of loose chairs. As we sat, he tossed each of us a soft pack. It was coffee. I pulled the tab on mine, and it warmed in my hand. I took a sip. The coffee was hot, but not scalding.

  “How much you think you gotta spend?” Juno asked.

  “Well, it’s only six grand each to Titan, on a commercial liner”, I said. “I’m sure we could go a little higher than that.”

  “You want to go a little higher, go buy ticket to Titan”, he said. “Get deluxe cabin. You want my kind of ticket, is fifteen.”

  “Thousand?“ Cozi said.

  “Each”, Juno said. “No questions, no paperwork, no cops. Da?”

  “Nyet “, I said. “Twelve each, half now, the rest once we’re on the ship. That’s also if we leave soon, and if it’s a fast ship.”

  “How soon?” he asked.

  “Immediately”, I said.

  “Ten each, all now”, he said, “final offer.”

  “Deal”, I said.

  “Any other cargo?”

  “One small crate, maybe”, I said. “Otherwise, just personal stuff.”

  “No problem”, he said. “You got cash?”

  I looked over at Cozi, and raised my eyebrows. He shrugged, as if to say hey, it’s your money.

  “Alright, who do I pay?” I asked. “And when do we leave?”

  “You pay me“, he said. “Then I find ship to take you, next couple of days. You meet person from ship; he will tell you details. When I find out, I send you message, tell you when and where you meet them. Get room at Hilton in town, I will find you and send message there.”

  I took two very expensive cash chips from my pocket, and slid them across the desk.

  “A couple of days?” I asked.

  “No more, maybe less. Stay near hotel, be ready to go. Maybe three, four hours notice. He picked up the credit chips and put them inside the desk.

  “Aren’t you going to check those?” I asked.

  “Why?” he asked. “If no good, you get on ship anyway. Along way, you leave ship early. Da?”He grinned again.

  A few minutes later, our guide returned, and we were taken back up into the warehouse. It was a quiet trip, neither Cozi nor I wanting them eavesdropping on us.

  Eventually, we made our way out of the cargo complex, and back into Northport, underground. We ditched our suits at the same place as before, and checked into the Hilton. They were damn near everywhere, but this would be my first time in one. Their new ad slogan was Ubiquitous Luxury, which I guess said it all.

  I retrieved my duffel from a public locker, and we went to our room, a few levels below the surface. The door admitted us to a room that was luxurious, if not ubiquitous. It was also plenty expensive. I collapsed onto one of the beds, and Cozi sat on the other. I still had a bitch of a headache that modern pharmacology hadn’t been able to put a dent in.

  “So”, I said, looking over at a brooding Cozi, “what do you think?”

  He gave me his best scowl.

  “I think those fucking credit chips better be good.”

  Chapter 6

  We got the call a day and a half later. We hadn‘t spent the time sitting around waiting, though. We‘d purchased several cases of Jovian Bliss, and a wheeled plasteel container to cart them around with. Since we were smuggling ourselves, I thought we might as well engage in a little light bootlegging. Plus, the stuff might come in handy for bartering. I also heard a rumor that you could drink it. We also picked up two new spacesuits, custom-fitted for each of us. I rented a larger storage locker, and stashed them with the liquor.

  Cozi did voice one worry, and it was a good one: what would we do if our smugglers decided to rip us off, and dump us out of an airlock? Sure, we could watch each other’s backs, but neither of us had any skill when it came to fighting. On Luna, one might get into the occasional brawl, but whomever you were involved with was probably just as clueless as you were. In fact, violence of any sort, even in sports, was considered socially unacceptable on Luna.

  So, lacking anyone offering crash courses in unarmed combat, I figured we needed weapons. While you rarely saw firearms on the big three (except for law enforcement), they were not uncommon out here on the rocks. Owning and carrying a firearm was perfectly legal, on most bases and colonies. Selling them, however, was highly regulated, and even illegal in many places. Like on Io. This made no sense to either me or Cozi, but the bottom line was that we would not be buying guns to protect ourselves with.

  Police and security people used stunners, which would zap someone with a high voltage electrical charge, and knock them out for a while. They worked up to ten or twelve feet away, and didn’t do anything worse than leave someone twitchy for a few days. Even if we knew where to buy one, we couldn’t have; they weren’t sold to the public.

  That left knives, which seemed like the best solution. While it was uncommon for people to carry them, there were still a lot of them around, even on Luna. After all, anyone with a materials fabrication shop could turn out a passable blade, and sell it as a cutting tool, which it was.

  After a bit of research, I located a tool shop, in an area that seemed to be the equivalent of Spacer’s Row on Phobos. There I bought two knives, made of some composite material. They had slip-proof rubberized handles, and even came with carrying sheaths. I don’t know what they were designed to cut, but they were sharp enough to shave with. I imagined that if you had to poke someone with one, they wouldn’t find the experience pleasant. I gave Cozi his, and after playing with it for a bit, he stashed it someplace. I did the same.

  As luck would have it, the call came while we were laying around the hotel room, watching vids and running up my room service tab. We were to meet someone named Pandahar at another spacer bar, very near the tool shop we’d used.

  It was late evening by the time we got to the bar. Most of Northport was like a ghost town, tunnels largely deserted, except for around the various spacer bars. My knife was strapped to my left calf, inside my pants; I didn’t know where Cozi was carrying his, and didn’t ask. The place was packed with the usual crowd of noisy, smelly spacers. Pandahar was supposed to find us, so we went to the bar and ordered a shot of Bliss. Cozi looked nervous, and I w
asn’t doing too well, myself.

  Finally, a man approached us. He was very dark, and seemed to exude heat directly from his skin. His head was smooth and hairless, and he was, without doubt, the largest person I’d ever seen. I put him at two or three inches taller than me, but he had to mass double what I did. I wondered how he fit into a spacesuit. In his case, one size did not fit all.

  “Gentlemen he said, his voice a deep rambling bass. “I’m Pandahar. Shall we move to a table?”

  “Sure” I said. “Lead the way.” We followed him to a table in back, which hadn’t been open a moment earlier. We sat down, and a flask and shot glasses materialized, from where, I didn’t see.

  Pouring shots for each of us, Pandahar began.

  “We lift tomorrow, around noon. Be at Dock Nine two hours in advance; you’ll board as crew. Bring anything you’re taking with you then. Do you have spacesuits?”

  “We do”, I said.

  “Good. I suggest you bring those too. One never knows.”

  My Pod chose that moment to beep, with an incoming message. I removed it from my pocket, and looked at it. It was a simple text message: Both of you outside, as soon as you can, if you want to live. There was no sender ID, which certainly added to the melodrama of the message. I erased it and put my Pod away.

  “Sorry”, I said. “Message from a friend. It can wait.”

  Pandahar shrugged.

  “There is one other thing. The trip will be a bit more involved than Juno knew. I am embarrassed to ask, but we’re going to need another five thousand.”

  Pandahar didn’t look very embarrassed. I looked over at Cozi, who gave me his own look which clearly said hey, you started this shit, and he was right. This had been expected, though; I was pretty sure that regardless of what we’d paid Juno, we’d be jacked up for more before we went anywhere. Cozi might know engineering, but I know human nature.

  “I’d like to step out for a minute and discuss this with my partner”, I said. “I don’t see a problem, but we do need to go over it.”

  “What’s to discuss?” Pandahar said. “It’s simple. You either want to go or you don’t.”

  “Yes, it may be simple”, I said. “But we’re going to step out and talk it over. If we come back in, and you’re still here, you’ll get your five grand. If you don’t see us again, you can assume we’ve gone looking for Juno and my twenty grand.”

  I stood up, as did Cozi, and we headed for the door. Not looking back took as much willpower as I had.

  We stepped out of the door into the passageway, and walked a few yards to one side. I could see a few pedestrians further down the passage, but no one near us. The door to the bar slid open again, and a short little man walked out. Cozi turned toward me.

  “What the fuck, Doon?” he asked. “I realize this is-“

  “Shut the fuck up”, the little man said, as I belatedly realized he hadn’t moved on. “And keep your hands where I can see them.”

  The little guy pointed what appeared to be a very real, very big firearm at us. Cozi’s eyes bugged out. My knees felt weak, and I tried not to wobble.

  “Alright”, the little man said, “Turn around and walk to the next intersection. When you get there, turn left. Try anything, and the cleaning crews will be picking pieces of you off the walls for a week.”

  I was convinced, and so was Cozi. We turned slowly, and walked the twenty yards to the intersection, taking the left passage.

  “Next door on your right”, he said, from behind us, “And do it slowly.” We obeyed.

  The door slid open and we walked in to face my fantasy in the flesh; the same luminescent red hair, porcelain skin, form-fitting black skinsuit, and those damned inscrutable shades. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

  Arms folded, she looked at us for a moment, and then sighed. When she spoke, her voice had a throaty, smoky purr to it.

  “You guys are fucking morons”, she said.

  “Who are you?” I asked, once I found my voice. I looked behind us; the little man was gone.

  “What he said”, Cozi added. We were standing in what appeared to be a travel office, apparently closed at the moment. Several travel posters lined the walls, going through their spiels silently. A “See Phobos” holo poster was repeating a loop of Mars flowing beneath the little moon, over and over.

  “I’m the person who just saved you from being arrested”, she said.

  “Why are you following me?” I asked. “I saw you on Phobos, at that bar. Were you on the Valkyrie, too?”

  “Arrested?” Cozi asked, looking confused, then looked over at me. “She’s been following you?”

  “This is the woman I saw watching me on Phobos”, I explained. “Remember, I told you about her?”

  “Oh”, he said. “The one with the body paint, from the brothel.”

  She took a step forward, grabbed Cozi by the neck with one hand, and lifted him six inches from the floor. Io was only half a gee, and Cozi was small for a Loonie. Still, she was doing it one-handed. Okay, I was impressed. So was Cozi.

  “Ah, different woman”, I said.

  “Gotcha”, Cozi said, barely audible. “My mistake.”

  She let him dangle a moment longer, and then released him. He drifted back to the floor where his sticky shoes went back to doing what they did best, making sure he stayed put.

  “The beautiful woman from the bar”, Cozi said.

  “The same”, I said.

  “Holy shit”, Cozi said. “No wonder you kept talking about her.”

  She looked over at me, head tilted, and gave me a once over.

  “Please stop talking, Cozi”, I said.

  “Well, it’s true”, he said. “It’s not like she doesn’t know how she looks.”

  “Guys”, she said, “Knock it off.”

  “Who was about to arrest us?” I asked. “Was that guy a cop? And Juno too?”

  “Not exactly”, she said. “Pandahar is CSD; Commercial Securities Division of United Planets. Like cops but sneakier.”

  “Never heard of them”, I said.

  “Me neither”, Cozi said.

  “No kidding”, she said, and rolled her eyes. “Look, we need to move now. We’ll have time for dumb questions, later.”

  “Okay”, I said. “So, Miss whomever-you-are, you just saved us from the cops. Why?”

  “I’m Kyra”, she said. “And I’m not done saving you yet. Stand around and chit-chat if you want, but I’m leaving.”

  We followed her out the back door of the office, into a narrow service tunnel. Several twists and turns later, we entered an elevator, which plunged us deep below the surface. Leaving the elevator, we hiked another twenty minutes through tunnels hewn into the bedrock of Io. Lighting was infrequent, and there were long stretches in near darkness. We passed countless side tunnels and doors, finally stopping before one. It was unmarked, and looked the same as any of the other several dozen we’d passed. Kyra did something I couldn’t see to the door, and it slid open to admit us.

  The room inside was small, maybe twenty by twenty feet, and contained about a dozen plasteel cargo boxes, similar to the one I’d purchased. Two folding tables and several chairs shared the space. There were even two folding cots, alongside one wall. Another door led into what I suspected was a refresher.

  Kyra walked in, and slid onto one of the cargo containers. We followed her in, the door swishing closed behind us.

  “Hand me that Pod”, she said, pointing to the device atop one of the tables. Cozi picked it up and took it over to her.

  “Now grab a seat”, she said. “We’re gonna be here awhile.” We pulled up two chairs, and sat down.

  “Can we get some idea what’s going on?” I asked. “Who you are would be a good starting point.”

  “My name is Kyra Kane”, she said. “I was hired to keep an eye on you, which I’ve been doing.”

  “Who wants to keep an eye on me?” I asked. “TGS?”
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  She pushed her shades up from her eyes, so they sat on top of her head, and shot me a look that clearly conveyed annoyance. I thought her eyes might be green, but I wasn’t sure.

  “Get real. I’m not telling you that”, she said. “It isn’t how this works.”

  “Okay, so someone hired you to protect me, and you followed me here to Io- “

  “That’s not what I said.”

  She tapped on the screen on the Pod, doing something. She could just as easily have talked to it, but the problem with that was that everyone around you would know what you were doing. Talking to your Pod in public, except for actual calls to a person, was something of a social faux pas. She continued.

  “I said I was hired to keep my eye on you “, she said. “Not to protect you. Big difference.”

  “So how does saving me from CSD-”

  “Cops”, she said. “We call them the cops.”

  “Who’s we?” I asked.

  “Pretty much everyone who’s been off of Luna for more than five minutes.”

  “Okay, fine, the cops. How does saving me from arrest by them qualify as ‘keeping an eye on me’?”

  “Judgment call on my part”, she said. “I figured my job would be a lot easier if you weren’t locked up on Mars, or even worse, on Earth. I do not want to have to go to that shithole.”

  “Are you supposed to be watching me, too?’ Cozi asked.

  “Nope”, she said. “Looks like you’re just along for the ride.”

  “Story of my life”, Cozi said, and sighed.

  “You can go back up top, if you like”, she said. “I’m sure Pandahar and his associates will see that you get off of Io.”

  “Thanks”, Cozi said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll stay.”

  “Wise choice”, Kyra said. “I thought you looked like the smart one. Of course, with you two, that’s relative.”