Myra,: The start of a galactic adventure. (Dave Travise Book 1)

by Richard Dee

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Nancy had been right; Ma Esters was a dive, there was no other word for it, the chipped swing doors opened onto sawdust covered wooden floors with tables and chairs that showed wear and multiple repairs. It was the archetypical frontier bar, just like in a thousand bad movies. There were no windows; just holes in the wall with curtains and shutters. “It hardly ever rains here,” Griff informed me, “that’s all on the uplands, it’s a desert down here. Anyway,” he chuckled, “the glass wouldn’t survive more than a couple of nights.”

  There were two very large men at the door checking out all the arrivals, they had the broken nosed look of bouncers, but their faces cracked into grins as they saw Griff. The three of them group-hugged, with lots of back-slapping and expressions of mutual admiration. Rixon shook his head. “Boys,” he muttered. Eventually, they waved us in.

  The place was packed and all conversation stopped as we entered, every face swung to inspect us. People were sat at tables, playing cards and drinking, while there were groups dressed as miners with girls hovering round them. The stairs were lined with more women, heavily made up and under-dressed. They all looked us over as we walked in, a few nodded at Griff and Rixon, who stopped and introduced me to so many people that I soon lost track. I noticed that he only ever called me Dave.

  Eventually, we arrived at the bar, in front of a bony, rat-faced man sitting on a stool. He had his back to us; headphones in and was nodding. He must have suddenly seen us in the dirty mirror, or perhaps he had a sixth sense because in one fluid movement he drained his beer, stood and headed for the exit. He wore sweat-stained clothes that were too big for him and had patchy stubble on his pointed chin.

  “Danno,” rumbled Griff, “where are you off to then.” The man heard that over the noise in his ears. He pulled the ’phones out; stopped and swallowed, his throat twitching.

  “Hello, Mr Griff,” he whined, if he had been a dog his tail would have been wagging. “Fancy seeing you here,” he licked his lips nervously. “Are you looking for someone in particular?” His head swivelled on his weedy neck. “Oh and Mr Rixon as well; who’s this you’ve got with you then?”

  “This, Danno, is Dave Travise,” Rixon announced.

  Danno’s whole body shook, as if he had been shot. “Of course it is. Hello, Dave,” he said, starting to edge sideways past us, towards the door.

  Myra must have come in after us and was blocking his way. “Going somewhere, Danno?” she asked him; although she was dainty she was bigger than him, and more robust.

  “And Myra too,” he gulped. Sitting back down, he waved at the bartender. “Let’s all have a drink.”

  “Thanks, Danno,” she said, flirting with him, fluttering her eyes and altering her pose, pushing one hip out toward him. “Why are you acting so nervous?”

  I noticed that she had undone more buttons on her blouse since we had dropped her off; was it for the shipyard or Danno’s benefit? Either way it was worth it, at least as far as I was concerned. Rixon had noticed the display and looked annoyed, I wondered if there would be an argument.

  “No reason,” he answered.

  Her voice dropped in tone, “Is it to do with Dave here?” she leant over and touched his arm and he twitched again.

  “Of course not; I’ve never met him before.” His Adam’s apple was working overtime and sweat dripped from his face.

  “That’s funny,” she continued in the husky whisper. She was stroking his arm, her fingers tracing circles on the skin. “I’m sure you would have known him, I must have been mistaken.”

  Danno looked tortured as he bought the drinks; he kept looking at me as if trying to work something out. Clearly I had spooked him.

  “Tell you what, Rixon,” Danno said, swallowing half of his beer in one go. “It’s funny you’re here now. I’ve heard of a job, I was gonna call Griff about it, there’s a miners’ group that come in here most nights, they’re setting up for a survey but their ship has fallen through. I figured you might want to cart them around.”

  “We’ve got a job, we’re on the way to Michael’s Hollow,” said Rixon. “But thanks for the info.”

  “That’s okay,” said Danno. “They need another month before they’re ready.” He drained his beer. “I gotta go,” he said and this time no one stopped him. With a longing glance at Myra he scuttled away.

  “Who’s he?” I asked after we had ordered more drinks, Griff was the first to answer.

  “Danno is a low level trader, but based here, he buys and sells, mainly stuff that no one else will touch. He seems to be left alone by the local gangs so we think he has friends.”

  “My money’s on the Chenkos,” said Myra.

  “Hang on a minute,” I had déjà vu, I turned to Rixon. “Was this another little one of your ideas, using me to flush out answers without me knowing what the hell is going on?”

  He looked embarrassed. “Not this time, I was as surprised as anyone to see him. I certainly hadn’t planned it. I know it’s his home planet, but the stuff we’re loading wasn’t arranged by him and meeting him here was random.”

  “He would know that we were coming in though,” said Griff. “It’s not his stuff but like everywhere, we all know who’s doing what.”

  Fair enough, it wasn’t planned but that didn’t mean Rixon hadn’t taken advantage. I remembered that he hadn’t used the name Travise in any of the other introductions. Perhaps I was getting paranoid.

  The conversation turned to the cargo, and the possibility of taking Danno’s job after we had finished on Michael’s. After an hour or so Tan called to say they had finished setting up the hold. We drank up and went back to the Orca so they could go for a beer.

  “Did you see his reaction when I introduced you? He knows,” said Rixon when we were back on board. The hold was prepped and marked but there had been a call. Rixon had been right; we were not loading till the morning. Everyone accepted the news with resigned shrugs. Myra went off to sort out her purchases, which had been delivered and were on a pallet by the ramp. Food was supposed to be arriving and the fresh water we had ordered was dripping from a hose into our tanks, via a filter.

  “He must have known about other Dave spying on us and he’s probably talking to the Chenkos by now,” agreed Griff. “He’s a slimy little weasel but he keeps in everyone’s good books by feeding them bits of information, making himself indispensable.”

  “A bit like you then,” said Rixon, getting a punch on the shoulder for his trouble.

  “But not so nice… or good looking,” Griff added.

  “But the Chenkos already know,” I pointed out. “We saw Vlad on Wishart, remember.”

  “Yes, but Danno might know that yet.” “And the miners, was that a real job?”

  “Yeah probably, he’s one of the men to see if you want to set up a job like that; at least if you want anything slightly dodgy, it probably won’t be an official survey, more like claim jumping or removals.”

  This was all too familiar, on the Moth we had often had to try and sort out title disputes, where more than one person claimed mineral rights or settlement, they usually turned into a nightmare of ‘He said. They said’ going round in circles. Dror used to say, ‘What’s wrong with the planet next door’, but a lot of the time it was down to people using force to steal what someone else had worked for. It was just proving it.

  “Danno’ll be on a percentage,” explained Griff. “It’s just business to him.”

  “Will you do it?”

  “We’ll see; if I think it’s some poor settlers getting cheated then I’ll pass.” Rixon was proving to have standards; after all it was a job. He turned to Myra, who was walking past with a large box.

  “You shouldn’t lead Danno on like that,” he said to her in an annoyed tone but Myra was in full feisty mood.

  “Why not?” she said, glancing at me. “I’ve as much right as anyone to a bit of fun.”

  I got the message; she was teaching me a lesson. I tried to
look contrite.

  “Well I think it’s stupid,” Rixon replied. “Danno is not the sharpest tool in the box, if he thinks he’s got a chance with you, he might just do something stupid.”

  “I can cope with Danno,” she replied defiantly.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  I knew that the settlers on Michael’s had had a rough time, I had been part of the relief operation after all, but as we flew over the rebuilt settlement we could see that they were getting back on their feet again. And it turned out that there was more to the job than just delivering the stuff they had ordered from Coopers Post, they had asked us to take a load of processed foods to market on a local planet, in convoy with one of their ships, which didn’t have room for it all in their hold. It looked like they had started exporting again.

  As we flew through the atmosphere we could see that nature was starting to cover the scars dug in the earth by the meteors. Although there were still plenty of gaps in the forests and burnt vegetation, there was grass covering the gouges in the ground.

  The cut lumber had been put to good use, new buildings had grown up in the couple of months that I had been away, they had replaced the tents we had left behind and I was pleased to see that.

  The beard that I had been growing since we had left Basilan had changed my features enough to make me less recognisable, last time here I had been in uniform, with a cap; that was all most folk saw. And if they were not using the Navy gear, there was less chance of them associating me with it.

  We landed quite a distance from the settlement, by a large barn where they wanted the supplies we had brought.

  Mind you, I still only intended to go off the Orca as little as possible. But when Myra asked me to help her with some maintenance I couldn’t really refuse. Since she had flirted with Danno we were friendlier, as if she had paid me back and we could start again. On the trip over I had mentioned my fears about being on Michael’s and she had been her usual practical self about it.

  “You could have any number of good reasons for being here,” she said. “It’s only because you’re feeling guilty. And it’s not as if they knew your name last time, you were just one of the men from the Navy.”

  I met up with Myra and we carried our tools and kit down the ramp. We turned under the wing and I bumped straight into one of the settlers. We both stepped back and apologised.

  Looking up I recognised the man; he was one of their council, Mal or something. How could I just walk straight into him? This was some sort of bad joke. I kept going but he called out. “Hey, don’t I know you?” I tried to look blank.

  “You were here on the relief, was it the Moth or one of the other ones? We can’t thank you enough, you did a great job.” I had to answer that, beside me Myra was quiet.

  “Not the Moth,” I answered, seeing a way out. “Dror wouldn’t have had me on there, thank Gaia.”

  He laughed. “Lucky for you then, I heard that he was a surly bastard.”

  I’ve got away with it, I thought, and was starting to feel safer when he was joined by a woman.

  “Hey, Greta,” said Mal. “You’ll never guess what, this fellow was here, on the relief.” She was big and blonde and capable looking, a no-nonsense colonist if ever there was one. She looked me over and her eyes narrowed.

  “Yes; I remember you, you were one of Dror’s puppies.”

  “No, Greta, that’s what I thought too,” Mal replied before I had time to speak. “He says he was on one of the other ships.” I kept silent.

  “If you say so, Mal, but I’m sure he was from the Moth.”

  Typical, I thought, nosey and observant. “Anyway, you were Navy then; so what are you doing here with the traders?” She looked straight through me, as if she could read my mind and I almost panicked. I hoped I wasn’t going red.

  “My time was up,” I said casually. “That was my last trip. I paid off when we left here, got this job straight after.”

  She thought about it for a moment. “Of course you’re right,” she said. “You can’t have been from the Moth because it’s gone.”

  I tried to look surprised and shocked. “What do you mean, gone?” Word had clearly got around, Liesh had known and now these people did.

  “Well when they left here they just vanished, no wreckage, no boats nothing.”

  I tried to remember what, if any, reason we had given for our departure, I seemed to recall that criminals were mentioned. Taking a deep breath I said, “They must have been jumped by the criminals.”

  I knew straight away that it was the wrong answer. She turned on me. “How would you know that and what do you mean, criminals?”

  Oh how I hated her at that moment, her attitude was right for building a colony but I just wanted her to shut up and accept my story.

  “Well that was the mess room talk.” It was the only thing I could think of to say.

  “And we were at a mining station recently,” chipped in Myra. “They said they had heard the same, that they were after some criminals and got jumped.”

  She gave both of us a funny look, she was suspicious. “I need to see your captain,” she said. “I’ve got another job for him, if he wants it.” They both went up the ramp.

  When they had gone I thanked Myra. “That’s okay,” she said. “Now you owe me one.” Clearly relations were improving. I was pretty sure Rixon would deflect any enquiries if he had to.

  We rigged a self-propelled hydraulic platform under the wing and were checking engine control lines and filters when Griff called from the ground. “Hey, Dave, can you get Myra down here for a minute?”

  “Sure,” I answered, I grabbed her ankle, about the only thing of hers outside the hull and gave it a tug. There was a bang and a curse, then she wriggled back out of the inspection hatch she was wedged in.

  “What do you want?” she asked rubbing her head.

  “Griff wants a word.” I helped her climb onto the platform and we descended.

  “What is it, Griff?” she asked. “I was really busy there.”

  “Boss has been offered some salvage gear in payment for the job,” he said. “He needs your opinion.”

  “I know what that is,” I said. “It’ll be the stuff we dropped off from the Moth.” Griff grinned. “Well Dror won’t be back for it will he? Perhaps you’d better come along as well then.” I didn’t fancy that; but what choice did I have?

  “Give us half an hour,” said Myra. “I have to finish what I’m doing up there.”

  He waited while Myra completed her work, we descended and he helped us stow all the gear away. As we walked over to the barn Griff said to Myra, “Rixon says pick the best bits, we need to make about twenty grand to cover the bill for transporting their produce so aim for half again. Lots of small things if you can, high value stuff; you know the drill.”

  Inside the barn was a large collection of the supplies that we had brought on the Moth, portable generators, pumps and a whole load of lifters and construction equipment. Altogether it was worth a sizeable amount to anyone wanting to start a settlement, and was in pretty good condition. But because we would be half loaded with produce there was no way we could carry it all. Greta was waiting for us and she watched in silence as Myra quickly checked it over.

  “Well?” asked Greta, clearly she was keen to get on with things, and didn’t appreciate being kept waiting while Myra examined every item. “You can see it’s all new stuff, hardly used, just ask your bearded friend here.”

  Myra stopped her prodding and looked around. “I’m inspecting, not him, and I’ll take my time.”

  Greta looked affronted that someone had dared to disagree with her. “He delivered most of it,” she said, turning to me. “Didn’t you?”

  “Sorry, Ma’am,” I answered. “She’s in charge now, I’d just leave her to it.”

  “Spoken like one of Dror’s puppies,” she muttered. “I know you were on the Moth. The question is, where you got off if they went straight from here to their doom.” She paused, “Unless
you survived, that is.”

  The statement hung and I didn’t answer, fortunately Myra had finished her inspection and came to my rescue.

  “The stuff is in good condition,” she said. “We can take some and sell it.”

  “Help yourself,” she replied, still casting sideways glances at me. “Just pile it up and we’ll see.” Between Griff and Myra various items were selected, I just drove the lifter and made a separate stow. Greta saw what we had picked and grunted, removed a high-value compressor and a pump. “You can have that lot,” she said. “We’ll bring it over to you.”

  I drove us all back to the Orca on her lifter. She could have it back when she brought the pallets over.

  Greta was as good as her word and the next morning the gear arrived. We stowed it clear of the produce and returned to checking the engines.

  By mid-afternoon we were all done, the settlers transport was ready so we took off just after it, we would follow it to the market. It was only a short hop and less than a day later we were unloaded and free.

  “So where will we take this kit?” I guessed that Griff, with his wide range of contacts would have a buyer lined up.

  “We’ll just take them over to Passing Thru,” he said. “Someone will buy them there.” That was another place I hadn’t heard of, Nancy would be due a round of questions on watch tonight.

  Rixon was lounging in the mess room, coffee in hand. “Hi, Dave,” he greeted me. “How’s it going? Has Myra forgiven you yet?”

  Certainly things were better between us, but I hadn’t pushed. “Hard to say,” I answered, and he laughed.

  “She’s not one to hold a grudge, and after all, it’s life, but the fact that she was upset tells you how she thinks of you.”

  “No need for the big brother lecture,” I told him. “And anyway, I’m not over Vlad yet.”