Absolution

by Rick Partlow

  “File says her parents are dead and she has no living relatives on Morrigan,” he said, his shrug expressively disinterested. “Maybe they just figured a wanted fugitive wouldn’t be stupid enough to just head straight back home.”

  I spared him a baleful glance.

  “If I’ve learned anything working this job, Larry,” I told him, “it’s that desperate people always go home.” I took a last, long look around the station before I headed for the exit. “It’s all they’ve got left.”

  Chapter Three

  I let Dog land the Charietto. I told him it was because I was tired, and I was. I hadn’t slept well the night before we pulled out of the Panicle. I think too much of what Larry and Inspector Tanaka had said were bouncing around inside my head.

  But the truth was, Dog is a better pilot than I am, which might have something to do with the way he can hook right into the ship’s computer and might also have something to do with the fact all my Marshal’s training was in investigative procedures, hand to hand combat and firearms proficiency. I had a single semester at the Academy on flying a starship and it had boiled down to: “let the computer fly it, you’re not a damned pilot.”

  I was trying to get better at it. The Charietto was my home now and I felt like I should be able to handle her better, but it was a work in progress and that morning I didn’t feel like getting a strained neck bouncing the landing gear off the spaceport pavement.

  “Independent Transport Charietto, you are down,” the helpful, automated voice of spaceport traffic control informed us, as if we might have thought we were still in the air despite the jolt of hitting the ground and all. “You will be assessed port fees for a minimum of one local day at the normal rates. Further charges will be accrued at ten-hour intervals. Please have a nice stay on Morrigan.”

  “I hate chatty computers,” Dog told me, shaking his muzzle. “You want me to hire us a flyer?”

  “That’d attract too much attention,” I said, shaking my head. I hit the quick-release for my seat harness and pulled the latch to pivot the pilot’s acceleration couch around, pushing up and climbing out of the cockpit back to the utility bay. “We’ll rent a groundcar.”

  “That’ll take forever,” Dog complained, hopping down after me with an agility I envied.

  “What do you care?” I asked him, pulling my gunbelt out of the equipment locker and strapping it on. “You worried about wasting time? You’re a machine, you could conceivably live forever.”

  “You know they base Artificial Intelligence systems on human brains, right, genius?” Dog tilted his head at me, one ear drooping. “That means I think like a human, and time passes at the same rate for me as it does for you.”

  “And yet somehow, you’re so much less patient than me,” I muttered, grabbing my hat. It was felt, hand-made, modeled after an old Earth fashion called a Stetson. My ex-wife had bought it for me as a joke, and I’d never had the nerve to wear it when I was actually a Marshal, but one of the advantages of self-employment is enforcing your own dress code. Stetsons were required for all humans working at Grant Masterson Fugitive Recovery, Inc.

  I hit the control to open the side hatch, then kicked the pedal to extend the boarding ladder. It was mid-day in the high plains of Philyra and a hot wind blew dust into my face through the open hatch, forcing me to pull my hat down over my eyes.

  “Dang,” I commented, pulling out a pair of protective goggles and slipping them on before replacing my hat and trying again.

  “I’m beginning to agree with the MPs,” Dog said, standing in the open hatchway and staring out at the glare of Epsilon Indi. “Why the hell would anyone come back here?”

  Philyra wasn’t much. It wasn’t the largest city on Morrigan, but it was close enough they’d given it a spaceport. If you wanted to call this a spaceport. It was a paved landing field, though I could barely make out the pavements through the drifts of dust and sand turning everything yellow, including the air. There was a traffic control building out in the middle of it all, surrounded by radar and lidar equipment, and the whole place was ringed by a high fence. There was only one way out, and that went right through the customs’ facility. I’d seen from the air that the transportation rental offices were just beyond customs, and I’d been hoping for a spot near the exit. Instead, it was going to be a long walk.

  The Charietto hurt to look at in the mid-day light, the polished silver of her delta-winged hull gleaming in reflected brilliance. It wasn’t a stylistic choice, just a practical one—it was hard to get rid of waste heat in space, so it was vital to reflect back as much of it as possible. She was about as small as a starship could get and still be useful, little more to her than engines, a cockpit, two small cabins and a utility area that could be used at need as a galley, a workshop, or a medical clinic. When I’d first bought the ship, I’d worried I would go crazy cooped up with so little room, but there was something homey about her now.

  And of course, after a couple weeks, I got used to the smell. I scrubbed and scrubbed, but it’s really hard to get rid of the stench of fugitives who don’t particularly like being locked in the spare cabin and show their displeasure by not taking advantage of the chemical toilet in the ship’s head. Dog is lucky, he can shut off his senses when he wants to. I’d thought about leaving the hatch open and airing the ship out while we were planetside, but I would’ve wound up with three or four centimeters of dust on the deck when I got back.

  Morrigan, like most colony worlds, may be habitable, but isn’t really a pleasant place to live. Not like Earth. Even with what we’ve done to the planet, it’s where we humans evolved. We were made for it, we can live on every continent. Other worlds, there are parts where we can scratch out a living, but most of the planet isn’t livable for humans.

  Morrigan is just slightly hotter on average than Earth, and just slightly dryer, but what “just slightly” means on a planetary scale is, most of the world is too hot and too dry for humans to survive without special protection. The areas just south and north of the poles are the nicest. Philyra was slightly outside that zone, well into “this sucks” territory, and Absolution was officially in the “this really sucks, why do we live here again?” zone. There was talk about terraforming the planet, making everything cooler and wetter, but most of those plans involved evacuating the world for a few decades and hitting it with water ice asteroids and the people who lived there tended to be against it.

  “How come fugitives never hide anyplace nice?” I asked Dog plaintively, falling into a quick walk toward the customs’ station. “Like tropical islands or ski resorts with lots of hot springs?”

  “Who would bother to pay you to chase crooks down in some tropical paradise?” Dog was always the logical one.

  “Okay, time to get all woof-woof,” I reminded him. We were coming up on the customs building and other travelers were walking or driving in from their shuttles and spaceships, funneled in toward the gate by the narrowing pavement. “You dumb dog, me cheap human.”

  He barked and somehow managed to make it sound sarcastic. It’s a real talent.

  “Name and purpose for your visit?”

  The customs agent seemed just as bored as a man might get sitting at the same desk all day watching one person after another pass through, asking them the same questions and knowing their lives were infinitely more interesting than his own. He barely even eyed my gun.

  “Grant Masterson, licensed bounty hunter.” I handed him my credentials before he asked and his eyes opened a bit wider. Apparently, they didn’t get bounty hunters very often.

  “Everything is in order,” he confirmed after checking my license against his database. Then he caught sight of Dog and frowned. “You do know there’s a thirty-day quarantine on all animals imported from off-planet…,” he began.

  “He’s a robot.” It was an old song-and-dance I went through every time.

  The customs agent glanced at me sidelong, skeptical, but ran a quick scan with his hand-held sensor wand and no
dded in obvious surprise.

  “He’s a damned lifelike one,” he said and it felt like a compliment.

  “Woof,” Dog commented.

  The agent frowned at him, far too thoughtful for my comfort.

  “I need to get him looked at,” I said, shaking my head. “That bark is improperly calibrated.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re good to go.”

  “Where’s the local law enforcement offices?” I asked. “I need to consult with your constable or sheriff or whatever you guys have around here.”

  “The Philyra police station is in town.” He waved back behind us, out the exit. “There’s only one road into town and the station is on it about a kilometer after you hit the city limits.”

  “You sure you want to do that?” Dog asked me once we’d walked out the exit and were alone again with the howl of the wind to cover our voices from passers-by. “Remember what happened the last time you consulted with the locals? Shit, these small-town cops don’t even like the Marshals, much less bounty hunters. They’re like as not to go warn this Beckett woman you’re coming.”

  “It’s a legal requirement,” I argued, but only weakly. He was right. “Well, it’s a legal requirement I inform them I’m here. I don’t think it specifies at exactly what point in my visit I have to notify them.”

  “I’m just a dog, pal, but I’d say the best time to talk to the local cops is shortly after you have Beckett in handcuffs.”

  I slowed in my pace, looking back and forth between the car rental office straight ahead and the single, two-lane, dusty road into town.

  “Let’s go get a vehicle,” I said. “I’ll decide when I get behind the wheel.”

  If Philyra had been not much, Absolution was even less. There were a few squared-off, pre-fab corrugated-aluminum industrial buildings, identical down to the pitting from wind-blown sand and the faded yellow paint job they shared. None bothered with a sign or advertising, but I guessed they were the fabrication center and storehouses for raw materials, pretty much universal in any town on any colony I’d ever visited. Various other shops and stores and eateries were huddled around and among them, like children hiding behind their parents’ legs.

  The only traffic we’d seen on the road out here had been a couple of ancient, creaking cargo trucks, rocking back and forth rhythmically with the ruts in the track, their beds loaded down with the finished product of whatever the hell they made out here. I hadn’t bothered to look it up, though I had to assume it involved dust somehow because that seemed to be what they had most of.

  “You made the right decision skipping the police station,” Dog assured me as I shifted our rental into park in front of what advertised itself as a General Store. It looked pretty general, and also looked like it was a miracle it was still in business, because no one was around.

  “Of course, you think it was the right decision. It was your idea.”

  The door of the old, beat-up rover stuck and I had to slam my shoulder into it to get it open. I waited, gesturing for Dog to follow me, but he shot me a disdainful look and tilted his head toward the door on his side. I sighed and slammed my door. I thought hard about leaving him in the vehicle, but the last time I’d tried that, he’d started whimpering and putting on the “I’m a dog stuck in a hot car” act and someone had busted out the window. I hadn’t got my deposit back on that one.

  I yanked open the passenger door and he hopped out, tail wagging.

  “Bitch,” I murmured, slamming the door shut.

  “Cur, if you want to get technical.”

  The clerk behind the counter of the store looked up at our entry and his eyebrows kept on raising when he saw it was a stranger, went up even further when he saw Dog.

  “We don’t allow…,” he began.

  “He’s a robot.”

  “Woof.”

  “That’s…” He trailed off, staring at Dog with a quizzical expression on his long, horsey face.

  “I’m looking for a woman named Delia Beckett. Her family lived around here until ten years ago or so and I thought she might have come back this way.” I shoved my ‘link at him, her file photo displayed. I didn’t give him time to ask questions, barely gave him time to absorb what I was asking. It was a technique. You didn’t want to give them the opportunity to come up with a plausible lie. “You know her? You seen her lately?”

  “I, uh…” he dithered and I could tell almost immediately he was going to deny it and he was lying. “I’ve never heard of…”

  “Okay, thanks,” I cut him off, slipping the ‘link back in my jacket pocket. “Where’s the best place to get a bite to eat around here?” I grinned. “Just kidding.” There was only one restaurant, unless I wanted to grab a burger and a mouthful of dust while I stood at a wooden rail.

  “Why you interested in that woman?” he finally had the presence of mind to ask. “Whoever she might be,” he added with affected casualness.

  “She’s wanted for treason, theft of vital military property and escaping federal custody. There’s a fairly sizable government reward for her capture.” I tipped my hat to him. “I’m Grant Masterson, licensed bounty hunter, and I’d be willing to give a portion of that reward to whoever provided information leading to her apprehension.” I twirled a finger around in the air, indicating the general vicinity. “I’ll be around in case you think of anything.”

  He was still gabbling when we went out the door. I stood on the steps as it closed behind us, regarding the other buildings of the town carefully.

  “You were all impressive and tough and everything,” Dog allowed, “but we still don’t know anything.”

  “Sure, we do. We know she’s here and we know they know she’s here. All we have to do now is find someone willing to tell us where she’s staying.”

  “We know all that?” It’s hard for a robot Dog to look skeptical, but somehow, he managed it.

  “Let’s go get some lunch,” I suggested. “I hear the restaurant here’s strictly five star.”

  I might have been exaggerating, but Greta’s Grill did have a great cheeseburger.

  There were only five people in the whole place today, including the cook, the dishwasher and the waitress. They were all real humans instead of touch screens because out here, it was cheaper to pay someone to work for you than to repair machinery. Spare parts were expensive, fabricator time was expensive and trained technicians were in high demand and not likely to waste their time repairing order kiosks at a diner.

  “We don’t allow dogs…” the waitress had greeted me on the way through the door.

  “He’s a robot.”

  “Are you sure?” She’d seemed skeptical, hands on her hips, eyebrow arched.

  I’d stopped, pushing the door shut against a wind determined to fill the place with dust.

  “Well, either he’s a robot or someone’s been feeding him and cleaning up his poop behind my back for the last year.” I’d frowned. “In which case, I’d have to start charging that person rent.”

  That had seemed to convince her, or maybe it had convinced her I was armed and unbalanced and she shouldn’t antagonize me. Either way, the cheeseburger was pretty damn good. Real cows out here, not processed soy like most people got, or even vat-grown meat like the rich folks ate to make themselves feel enlightened. The fries, however, were soggy, and I was disappointed in the lack of attention to proper French fry procedure.

  “Why you heeled, cowboy?” the waitress asked me when she brought me a refill of my water. She was staring at my holstered blaster. “You think this shithole is full of desperados?”

  She was cute, especially for a place like this, and could get away with being snarky.

  “I am a licensed bounty hunter,” I told her. “And while I don’t usually need a gun to bring in fugitives, it is part of the tools of the trade and I figure I may as well take advantage of all of them.”

  She shaped a silent whistle, now seeming even more intrigued.

  “Bounty hunter, huh? We don’t get a
ny of those in Absolution, not since I’ve been alive. You looking for an escaped criminal out here?” She snorted. “Hell, if I was a criminal, I’d go someplace nice.”

  Dog nudged me.

  “Yeah, I know,” I said to him quietly.

  “I can assume then,” I told her, “that you don’t know of any fugitives in the area? Maybe a woman in her thirties, looks something like this? There’s a cut of the reward in it for you if you have.”

  I held up the ‘link so she could see the picture. She was better than the clerk at the store. He’d practically taken out an ad to let me know he was lying, but she just had the slightest of tells, a tightening around her eyes and a shifting of her jaw.

  “Can’t say as I’ve ever seen her, mister.”

  “Oh, well.” I shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt to ask. You guys got any dessert?”

  The apple pie was decent, though I didn’t know where the hell they got the apples from. Probably imported them from close to the poles because the pie cost an arm and a leg.

  “Is this your idea of an investigation?” Dog asked me sotto voce when the waitress was in the back and none of the other three customers were paying attention. “At this rate, you’re gonna eat us out of a reward.”

  “You saw the town as well as I did,” I told him.

  “Better. I saw it in infrared and thermal, too.”

  “Okay, then. If she lives in this town, she’s going to show up either here or at the bar next store. If not today, then tomorrow.”

  “Not if everyone you’ve been mouthing off to tells her to stay away because there’s a bounty hunter in town,” Dog pointed out.

  “That’s a risk,” I agreed. “But this is a small town. If anyone here’s got a beef with her, or just needs money, they’re going to hear about the reward and want a piece of it.”

  Dog sighed, which is an odd sound to be coming from something that doesn’t breathe.