The Kenval Incident

by Philippe Mercurio

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  Copyright © 2017 by Philippe Mercurio

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 9791097258054

  First published in France: April 2017

  Translated from French to English by Michele Rosen

  Cover art: © 2017 - Tzu-Hui Chan

  I

  ANGER

  MALLORY Sajean walked into the Reylor, one of the poshest restaurants in Nogartha, with a determined step. Just past the entrance, she found herself in a vast room lined with arches. A cloud of small drones with metallic chassis buzzed around between the rough stone columns. The flying robots fluttered above the massive, tinted-glass tables, efficiently serving the diners in the crowded room.

  Several faces turned toward Mallory. The athletic young woman with black hair cut in a medium bob could see that her appearance was attracting some interest. Instead of ignoring the onlookers, she stared back with her dark, slightly slanted eyes. A small smile flickered across her face when her unexpected demeanor compelled them to hastily turn their attention elsewhere.

  She had no trouble finding the man she had come to meet. With his garish green clothes, Vael Lebrane stood out from the rest of the guests like a parrot in a flock of doves. She headed toward him without detouring around the cleaning androids, which were forced to stop abruptly along her path.

  Her thick, leather military-grade boots clicked on the marble slab with each step. Aside from her burgundy leather jacket, the only touch of color on her came from half-hidden tattoos: a long branch of roses that began on her hands, travelled up her forearms, and disappeared under her sleeves.

  Lebrane looked a bit disappointed. He probably had hoped to be dining with an elegant woman like the blond to his right, at whom he was leering openly when Mallory spotted him. Instead, he found himself confronted with a serious-looking brunette wearing a skin-tight black flight suit.

  She bet he hoped she would be wearing one of those sexy outfits made of strips of cloth, which exposed more than they concealed.

  “I should have known,” he said by way of salutation. “You haven’t changed.”

  That didn’t stop him from appraising her harmonious curves when she came to a stop in front of him. Having noticed the movement of her host’s green eyes, Mallory was already dying to slap him.

  Not being inclined to allow herself to do so, she restrained herself with difficulty. The budding flowers that covered her skin closed and were replaced with a mass of intertwined vines adorned with spikes: the ink used to etch them onto her flesh reacted to her mood.

  “Why didn’t you just send a contract as usual?” she demanded, skipping the formalities. “What are we doing here?”

  “Don’t be nasty! In fact, I have several pieces of good news for you.”

  Lebrane grinned at her and ran a hand through his blond mane. She knew many women found him quite attractive, and she had to admit she had thought him nice to look at until she had gotten to know him. He seemed convinced that, despite the partnership he had forced on her, she would not be able to resist his charms. A matter about which he was seriously mistaken.

  Nevertheless, being too arrogant for self-doubt, he gestured grandly to one of the robotic waiters. The machine approached and poured each of them a strong alcoholic beverage that looked like liquid gold.

  “I transferred double the usual sum to your account,” he declared with self-importance.

  This affront, which reminded her of her dependence on him, did nothing to improve Mallory’s dismal mood. Controlling herself with great difficulty, she wet her lips with the golden drink to avoid responding.

  “To tell you the truth,” he continued, “I think I’m bored with space travel…”

  Surprised, she forgot her anger for a moment and put down her glass. Obviously pleased that he now had her attention, he affected a long pause during which he took the opportunity to closely inspect her features.

  Mallory had a delicate face, a small nose, and pale skin. Her slender eyebrows were frowning, and her well-defined mouth pouted. When she noticed its effect on Lebrane, she managed to refrain from biting her lips in a vain attempt to conceal them: it was the kind of thing that guys like him always found arousing.

  She knew very well she was nothing like his usual conquests, which likely made him want her in his bed even more.

  Lebrane grinned with satisfaction as a result of the effect of his announcement. “I am prepared to sell my share of your ship back to you,” he declared, “and at a good price! Just imagine —you’d be free to pursue your uncle’s insane quest.”

  At these words, Mallory tensed. She dreamed of nothing else but was too smart not to sense a trap. “Why would you do that?” she asked skeptically. “Aren’t you still interested in easy money?”

  “I need cash for other purposes. Incidentally, I’d like you to come by my place after dinner to discuss it further.”

  As if they were the best friends in the world, Lebrane clinked his glass against hers and drained it in one swallow. The lewd expression on his face left no doubt as to his true intentions.

  Anger flooded Mallory: now this bastard wanted her to sleep with him just to keep what was hers!

  To her increasing disgust, she realized the liqueur was lowering his inhibition even further. Now, he was eyeing her chest openly. As soon as she noticed, the tattoos on her arms reacted. The rosebud-covered stems sprouted menacing thorns. A fury too long restrained swelled in her, almost becoming uncontrollable. She rose abruptly, knocking her chair to the ground. “Blackmailing me isn’t enough for you anymore?!” she shouted. “You also have to climb on top of me?”

  Stunned by this sudden and violent outburst, her “ally” froze for a few seconds before defending himself. “Come on, now! Spicing things up with a bit of sex never hurt anyone. You should avail yourself of your assets from time to time…”

  Grabbing her still-full glass, Mallory threw the contents hard at Lebrane’s face. She stormed away without looking back, leaving him half-blinded and prey to the intent gaze of the bourgeoisie patronizing the establishment.

  Back on the street, she walked away from the restaurant at a brisk pace. Teetering on her last nerve, she kicked out in the direction of a trash-collecting robot. The tread-mounted vacuum cleaner evaded her heavy boot with an abrupt swerve. Knocked off balance, it emitted a whine of protest and vomited a trail of garbage onto the asphalt.

  Vaguely ashamed by this childish gesture, Mallory touched the finely wrought bracelet she always wore on her left wrist. The jewelry concealed her navcom: a few grams of circuits made of carefully assembled molecules that allowed her to access the communications networks on all of the known worlds.

  Luminous symbols appeared in her field of vision. Her eyes found the icon for a taxi company. Detecting the direction of her pupils, the system launched the corresponding function.

  Shortly thereafter, the car appeared: a small, ovoid vehicle with a dilapidated body. She got inside, impatiently pushing away the trash left behind by the previous customer and announced her destination. A second later, the metal egg took off like a shot and began slaloming through the heavy traffic.

  Reduced to the role of a mere passenger by the automatic navigation, she thought back to her Uncle Max’s “insane” quest: exonerating her father, Kyle. After disappearing during a war between humans and extraterrestrials, he had been convicted of war crimes and desertion. When he heard the verdict, Max had become mad with rage.

  As soon as his niece was old enough to understand, he had explained why.

  “Your father was s
ent on a mission to the Eridane-E system. He didn’t desert. He was forced to destroy a civilian space station, and his superiors betrayed him by denying that they had given the order! It was during the height of the war with the Orcants, and he knew things might go badly. In his last message, he told me where to find a copy of the orders he had received. Only you and I can access it: it’s protected by DNA-based encryption. I’ve found someone I can borrow money from. In addition to what I’ve saved, I’ll have just enough to buy a ship so I can get to it. It won’t bring Kyle back, but I will expose the truth, I swear to you!”

  As if fate had decided to punish them, her uncle died just after having bought a ship. Mallory inherited it, along with her uncle’s debt and his unfulfilled quest. She barely remembered her father, but those few memories of him were precious to her. Although it had been years, the false accusation against him still felt like an open wound.

  Returning to the present, she looked out at the city streets through the window. The boomtown, completely lacking in allure, had been built to respond to a pressing need. The wide, ruler-straight avenues repeated endlessly. Only the artificial lights that smeared the facades with their advertisements broke up the uniformity of the whole.

  Ravaged by a series of civil wars and ecological catastrophes, all of Earth’s megalopoleis had since been rebuilt. No urban center was now more than two or three hundred years old, and in each case, function had triumphed over form. Despite mankind’s expansion toward the stars, Nogartha, built on the ruins of Europe, suffered from ever-increasing overpopulation.

  The sidewalks were black with people. Children left to their own devices weaved in and out between the legs of peddlers, then disappeared into back alleys full of street carts. A generation adrift lived by begging and theft. Mallory watched them sadly. She knew that few among them would survive to adulthood.

  “You have to deal with Lebrane before you can help anyone else!” she lectured herself wearily.

  Several streets away, the children gave way to drug users. She noticed that the blight was continuing to spread and that gangs would soon take control of the sector, forcing taxis to avoid this route.

  The trip continued for a few moments, and then she finally arrived at the astroport. The gigantic arena of glass and steel dominated the surrounding area with its size. At the heart of that cold and smooth Colosseum, hundreds of perfectly aligned ships sat like modern metallic gladiators, ready to confront the stars.

  Outside, the windows in the curved walls reflected the boulevard encircling the building. Mallory amused herself by imagining that some enormous creature had dropped a silver ring the size of a city there, an involuntary gift to humankind.

  The narrow vehicle stopped, and she extracted her five-foot-five-inch frame. After the security screening, she hurried through the complex until she reached the terminal where the Sirgan, her transport ship, was docked.

  She had hardly had time to sit down in the craft’s cockpit when a small blue sphere appeared above the flight controls and pulsed three times. She hesitated. Her instincts told her that this was going to be yet another problem. The globe quivered again. Reluctantly, she reached out her hand and touched it. The shining marble shattered and transformed into a white rectangle on which several words appeared.

  It was a message from Lebrane. Apologizing awkwardly, he asked Mallory to undertake one last haul in exchange for his share of the ship. A signed and sealed contract was attached. Suspicious, she transferred the message to her law firm. The document came back a second later, marked with a wide strip of blinking green. It was authentic. It seemed too good to be true. She felt the jaws of the trap closing around her, but she had no choice. Fatalistically, she sent an affirmative response, certain she was making a huge mistake.

  Jonas Morsak regarded the dozen or so geezers standing around him with contempt. Most had carefully coiffed white hair, intended to give the appearance of a degree of wisdom that far exceeded what they actually possessed. Sitting along one side of a mahogany table, so polished that the ceiling was reflected on its surface, they discussed potential investments.

  Morsak, CEO of Idernax, had been ignoring them for more than a quarter of an hour. Despite his fifty-two years, he was the youngest in the group. Rudely welcomed when he succeeded his father, he had ruined his credibility by buying nortium, a metal imported from the planet Kenval, at the worst possible moment. Colossal losses followed. Since then, he had served as a figurehead while decisions were made around him.

  “It was the Vohrns’ fault, those filthy alien lizards,” he repeated to anyone who would listen. “By meeting demand too quickly, they crashed the price. If not for those morons, the profits would have been enormous.”

  Being sidelined vexed him all the more because the members of the board of directors, each responsible for one or more branches of the conglomerate, were themselves far from paragons of virtue.

  Slowly, Morsak’s clear brown eyes surveyed his colleagues. First, the manager for banking subsidiaries and other lending establishments. That malevolent reprobate had no equal when it came to manipulating official interest rates. He worked in the shadows through the intermediary of several young up-and-comers who could serve as scapegoats in case of trouble. To his right sat the manager of the construction division. By the CEO’s standards, he was a real incompetent, shamelessly bribing state officials so they would select his bids. As for the woman responsible for energy, particularly the manufacturing and sale of fusion reactors, Morsak knew perfectly well that she had to suppress an ecological scandal weekly. He didn’t linger over the rest, fearing that his disgust would show on his face.

  At least these vultures hadn’t thought to confiscate the medical division, which still reported directly to him. Other than health, he also managed networking and communications. That department was a real asset for the company, thanks to its dominant market share.

  The meeting ended, to Morsak’s great relief. As usual, the majority of his proposals had been ignored. Masking his frustration, he waited patiently for his associates to leave the room until the last one had gone, acknowledging each with a degree of courtesy that fooled no one.

  Fortunately, he had an escape valve. Thanks to his consumption of illegal substances, he had an extensive list of dealers. With the help of a former police officer recruited by Omega Sec, Idernax’s security agency, he controlled his own cartel. Today, the drug trade brought in more than his legal activities. However, for someone like Morsak, “more” was not enough.

  Finally alone, he leaned against the back of his chair and looked around the empty room. The walls were decorated with masterpieces by artists he could not name. These works only served to put the company’s prosperity on display. He far preferred the view through the enormous bay window.

  Getting out of his chair, he walked over to it and briefly considered his reflection: that of a man whose tailor-made suit was cut to hide his portliness, just as his short chestnut beard tried to hide his double chin.

  The sight of the relentless ballet of ships around Nogartha, the global capital, calmed him a bit. He also found it extremely satisfying to watch his employees come and go as they worked. Idernax’s corporate headquarters presided over an industrial complex that doubled as a supply chain hub. Eighty percent of their products were routed through this facility, which rendered it a hive of perpetual activity.

  As if this spectacle had recalled something to his mind, he activated the navcom on his gold signet ring. A bell rang, and an image appeared before him. The display was reminiscent of devices that dated back to the earliest era of telecommunications. After several seconds, the logo disappeared and was replaced by the hologram of a blond forty-something with green eyes: Lebrane.

  The man recently rejected by Mallory Sajean asked, “Boss! What can I do for you?”

  “What do you think? Are we on schedule?” Morsak inquired dryly.

  “The package is ready for transit. I’ll contact the transporter to explain what’s re
ally going on as soon as it leaves Earth. It’s a little independent company. I have taken steps to ensure compliance.” Lebrane hesitated for a moment before continuing, “We can still drop everything. This plan isn’t going to end well for us, I fear…”

  Morsak’s face wrinkled with disapproval, accentuating the lines etched there by his dissolute lifestyle. “Since when do you think you’re allowed to question my decisions?” He paused before continuing in an insulting tone. “I don’t see why I should waste my time talking to you about this. It’s above your pay grade. You forget that without me you’d still be a small fry, a little ‘big shot’ with all the others. Not only are we not dropping anything, but you’re going to make sure it all goes off without a hitch, or I will have to deprive myself of your expensive services.”

  Morsak always enjoyed testing his employee’s limits, but Lebrane seemed to have too much on his mind to take the bait. “My rate is high because it leaves you with clean hands. If you have the means to manage your projects inconspicuously, it’s thanks to me,” he replied calmly.

  Morsak smiled predatorily, and his brown, bloodshot eyes gleamed. “I’ll grant you that. However, if you don’t want to work for me anymore, I know a dozen men who would be delighted to kill you and take your place. There are losers who would sell their parents for a hit or a little money, and I have plenty on hand. Whereas you only have me to pay you generously and to protect you from overzealous cops…”

  II

  BLACKMAIL

  MALLORY inspected every component on the Sirgan, one compartment after another. She tracked down each abnormal reading without neglecting the smallest control panel. Her inspection complete, she returned to the cockpit and activated the ship’s propulsion system.

  A familiar purring arose, displacing the silence. Everything seemed to be running smoothly. Nevertheless, she worried: Lebrane had forced her hand, and now this would be her first haul for a major corporation. Her mood oscillated between bitterness and anger. Working for Idernax represented a real opportunity, which was unfortunately ruined by having come from Lebrane. In general, a large client was synonymous with steady work. The con man’s involvement could lead to the opposite effect.