“All things are known to me, you said.”
“Look, I was speaking cosmically, any idiot could see that!”
Dave frantically wound the long thread into a roll and tucked it into the top of his robe. “Have you any idea how long it took me to make this?” he demanded.
“No.”
“It took… it took… well it was a long time, I can tell you!”
“I’d rather you told me where Rosto is.”
“What do you want with him?”
“Got a message for him.”
“You can give it to me, and I’ll pass it on.”
I shook my head.
“You refuse a direct command from Dave? Your soul shall be laid to waste in the outer realms of Space and Time!” Spittle drooled from a corner of his mouth, adding to the impression that I was dealing with a crazed and demented lunatic.
“It’s addressed to Rosto. And it is too blasted heavy to move around too much. It’s a crate.”
Dave calmed down. “Oh. Well, come with me, then.” He marched away, this time keeping a close watch on his clothing.
“Is Rosto here?” I persisted.
“As time is an illusion, and space can be bent by time, all things may be possible. Let us see.” More cosmic observations followed, and I tuned them out until Dave halted. “Now you must kneel,” he told me.
“Why? I kneel to no man.” I know that it sounded a bit pompous, but I was probably affected by listening to too many of Dave’s utterances.
“Kneel. Now. Beside me.” Dave sank to his knees in an attitude of prayer. “It creates a properly humble demeanour.”
“No chance.”
“Look, the door is broken and it only opens part way. If you don’t kneel down, then you can’t get through the doorway.”
In proof, Dave opened the door to a room deep inside the core of the spacestation. As he said, it made a horrid grinding noise and only opened half way leaving a gap at the bottom to crawl through. He went first. Grumbling under my breath, I followed him under the door, hoping that it wouldn’t drop on me.
“There,” said Dave, still on his knees.
Still on mine, I followed his finger with my eyes. On what appeared to be a lavishly appointed altar was a large vidscreen, hung about with faded garlands of what had once been genuine imitation flowers, but were now mainly composed of dust. Dave wobbled precariously over to the altar, still on his knees.
“You get the best picture from this angle,” he explained, settling comfortably into the lotus posture before the altar. “The pixellation on the screen makes it hard to see clearly while standing.” He fiddled with the controls, and a wobbly image, with strange and bizarre colour distortion, appeared. I couldn’t recognise it, and said so.
“It’s a private and discreet line. You won’t have seen it before.” Dave assumed the lotus position and clapped his hands together three times, before bowing deeply.
“I still can’t see what’s on the screen,” I complained.
“That is because you do not know what you are looking at, or how to look at it,” replied Dave.
“Isn’t this all needlessly mystical?”
“It isn’t.”
“Needless or mystical?”
“Neither, either, both. Now please, be quiet. I am concentrating.”
“On what? All I can see is something that looks like a Black Hole on the screen.”
“Ommmmmm; amazingly, you are more perceptive than I thought.”
“That is a Black Hole?” I backed away from the madman and his screen.
“Well, maybe a virtual one.”
“In that case I’ll just do a virtual runner.” I stopped backing away, but only because I had reached the doorframe.
“You don’t have a grip on modern technology, for a pilot.”
“Me?” I said, bemused. “I just fly the things, I don’t need to know exactly how everything works. Especially the comms channels. I turn them on and either they work or they don’t.”
Dave gave an exasperated sigh. “Researchers like me spend the best years of our lives creating something just amazing, only for people like you to use it to order pizza or watch porn.”
Clearly, I was not the first solitary spaceman he had met. That became clear as the mad hermit clapped his hands twice. The screen cleared and a view of the derelict looking space station appeared. My Speedbird was in clear view, as was – to my horror – another ship. It was about the same size as my Speedbird, and obviously military. I didn’t recognise the class, but the emblem of the Imperium was clearly blazoned across the nose. I was about to dive for the door when Dave interrupted me.
“Relax. You don’t know what this place is, do you?”
“It’s a derelict space station with an Imperium space ship too close to my Speedbird, that’s what it is.”
“You are quite safe. This is neutral ground. Your ship will not be touched here.”
I relaxed a little. But not very much. “I’ve been on neutral ground before. The Imperium doesn’t respect neutrality very much.”
“This they do. This facility may be a little run down, but that is basically because, being neutral, it is hard to get anyone to agree to cough up money for the repairs. This is neutral because everyone needs a place like this.”
“A wreck in space?”
“A place where people can meet. Deniably. Covertly. Discretely. I am here to meditate and mediate and carry on such research as I choose in my free time.” Dave waved a hand vaguely at the screen and the image changed.
“How do you do that?” I asked, as my curiosity briefly overcame my fear.
“Magic.”
“All right, be like that.”
Dave hummed to himself, and twisted his hands in a complex motion. The screen changed yet again, this time to show a picture of Colonel Rosto. Rosto blinked, focussed and half smiled.
“Frank!” he exclaimed.
“You can see me?” I looked around for the camera, but it must have been well hidden for I could not see it.
“No, I was just guessing. Of course I can see you, you dolt. Whatever are you doing in Refuge?”
“Refuge?”
“You don’t know what the place is called, yet you are there?”
“Colonel Starker gave me the coordinates.”
“Did he now? Well, well. You work for him now, then?”
“I’m not working for anyone. Honest. I just want to go about my business in peace. Which reminds me, you don’t know of anyone in need of a load of nearly-out-of-date computers, do you? I need to sell these quick.”
“Can’t help you there. But Dave might, if you are nice to him.”
Dave looked inscrutable.
“Why did Starker send you to Refuge?” asked Rosto.
“He gave me a package for you. Said I could find you here.”
“Well, where is it?”
“On my ship.”
“Dave, would you be so kind?”
The hermit nodded and crawled out of the hatch. I watched his scrawny frame from the rear view, and shuddered. “It’s a bit heavy. He’ll never move it.”
“Dave has many qualities you wouldn’t understand, Frank. That’s why he runs Refuge.”
“Well you should pay him more, then. He looks in desperate need of a good meal.”
Rosto chuckled, but the mirth didn’t reach his eyes. “Why are you running messages for Colonel Starker, Frank?”
“Some of his Black Ops people got hold of me. Either I ran this errand, or…”
I didn’t need to finish the sentence. Rosto understood blackmail very well indeed. So well that I was sure that he had been using it ever since he went to school. I had heard that he used to write rude things on the toilet walls at school, and extort sweets from his school friends by threatening to tell the teachers they were responsible. With a background like that, his only career options were Politician, Criminal Mastermind, Captain of Industry or Espionage. He had ended up in the latter.
“Right, let’s see what’s in it then!” ordered Rosto.
Dave nodded. For no readily understandable reason, a small drawer under the vidscreen held a small but entirely serviceable crowbar. Dave levered the top of the crate, and twisted his face into the most appalling gurning expression I had ever seen. With clear distaste he reached into the case and hauled out a clear plastic bag. Fortunately the bag was sealed, otherwise the severed head inside it would have been a bit smelly. Surprised, I jumped back, fell over some random computer cabling and ended up on my back on the floor.
“That head’s a message?” I asked.
“Yes,” replied Rosto. “That’s my head agent on Lerontz. Or rather, it was.”
“Well, it still is,” said Dave. “Being dead doesn’t change his identity.”
“But it does rather diminish his usefulness,” mused Rosto. “Fancy a job, Frank?”
“Not his, thank you.”
“You haven’t heard about the rewards, yet.”
“But the risks are pretty clear.” I scrambled to my feet. “I like my head where it is, thank you very much!”
“You’ll never achieve anything in life unless you are prepared to take a risk occasionally, Frank.”
“Yeah, well. Whatever.”
“Frank, I’d really like to offer you a job. Secure employment, regular money, career prospects.”
“The prospect of ending up in a packing case?”
“Colonel Starker doesn’t kill everyone he meets, you know. You have survived him pretty well so far. He must like you.”
“The feeling is not mutual. I’d prefer to stay as I am.”
“As a rogue pilot in a stolen spacecraft, hunted across the galaxy?”
“I thought that I was a free agent. And you gave me the Speedbird!”
“Did I? You’ve got the paperwork to show that?”
Obviously I didn’t. I had stolen the Speedbird, although the authorities had turned a blind eye to me making off with the spaceship as a reward for my services. I couldn’t think of a snappy reply, so kept my mouth shut and headed for the door.
“Frank.” Rosto’s voice held rather a lot of authority, so I stopped just as I was about to duck under the door, and regarded his face on the screen from between my legs. “Thank you for delivering the Colonel’s message. You might find a ready market for your computers on Octagon Eight, in the Sisyphus System. Good luck. Au revoir.”
The screen went blank. Dave bowed deeply, then waved his hands in a series of mystical gestures that I now realised actually controlled the comms system in some bizarre way. The deeply disturbing image of a black hole reappeared, pulsing obscenely and showering the room in with a strobe effect of unpleasant colour. I ducked under the door and started running.
“Wait!” Dave called after me. “Can I help you in any way before you go?”
“No thank you!” I shouted back, and kept on running. Of course, I bumped into the unsuspecting Imperium pilot as I rounded a corner. He cursed at me, and grabbed hold of my arm.
“Where do you think you are going?” he snarled, reaching for his sidearm.
“Urgent business,” I gasped. A sudden recollection of that severed head swam before my eyes, and I recognised the truth: that I had some very urgent, if not immediate, business to conduct unless I was to need a change of clothes.
“I think not.”
The Imperium pilot yanked painfully at my arm, and twisted it until I was held in a distressingly severe arm lock.
“Captain.” Dave spoke quite gently, but we both turned to look at him.
“Refuge is accorded neutrality. This is most rigorously enforced, by Colonels Rosto and Starker: but mostly by me.”
“You?” sneered the Imperium pilot.
There was a brief blur of movement, during which my arm was released. At the end of it, the Imperium pilot lay on the floor while Dave held him down with two judiciously applied fingers. The pilot squirmed in pain and distress. “Me,” agreed Dave. He wasn’t even breathing hard. He casually smoothed his robes with one hand. The fingers on the other hand twitched slightly, and the pilot gasped in pain. “I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you,” Dave said.
“My fault, I’m sure,” replied the prone pilot.
“Well, yes. Now, shall we let this gentleman continue his journey?”
“By all means! Can I get up now? Ouch!”
“Safe journey to you, and may all your stars be beneficient.”
I gave the space hermit an awed look. “Thanks, Dave.” I fled, leaving the hermit to continue with to enlighten his new pupil.
Chapter six
Octagon Eight could have hung like a jewel against a backdrop of stars scattered on the velvet night of infinity. But it didn’t. Instead it lurked deep within a system that seemed to be devoid of all the basic pleasantries of space life. There were no guidance beacons, no Flight Information System for incoming or leaving pilots, or indeed any guidance for the traffic. Of which there was, in fact, plenty although mostly interplanetary rather than interstellar.
Left to their own devices the pilots had created a rough traffic system, but it was quite haphazard. Emerging from hyperspace at the edge of the system, I slid the Speedbird into orbit around the moon of the outermost planet and made some coffee in the small kitchen.
Returning to the flight deck, I sat back in the pilot’s chair and turned on all the vidscreens. The lights on the small craft plying back and forth were quite pretty in their own right, but rather than be distracted by the view I was trying to work out the pattern of movement. I didn’t want to plunge down into the system only to collide with some rough and probably unwashed shuttle pilot. I was confident that the Speedbird could fight her way out of any such confrontation, but restocking the weapons systems was fiendishly expensive and quite risky as the arms were not legally on sale, despite being freely available if you knew where to shop.
After an hour or so, a pattern of movement became clear. I finished the coffee, which was cold now but too good to waste, and raised the power levels. The engines seemed to be rather sluggish in response, so before leaving the lunar orbit I throttled back, ran a full diagnostic check and checked my underwear. Neither showed any damage. According to the computer, the engines were fully operational with no problems or maintenance issues.
Again I raised the power level. This time the engines replied at once, without hesitation. I filed the anomaly away at the back of my mind for proper inspection later, when I had time and hopefully some money for any repair work. Taking manual control, I set a course away from the outer moon and let the Speedbird fall deeper into the system at a slow cruising speed. There was a long line of small cargo shuttles winding its way through the system and heading eventually towards Octagon Eight.
I opened up the commschannels. I expected to hear a normal hum of basic chatter, with pilots offering flight information, speeds and vectors, in a normal and self disciplined manner. Instead the speakers rattled with invective in as many languages as were spread across the galaxy, as the shuttle pilots jockeyed for position in the throng and encouraged others to keep back or away in the most lurid terms you can imagine. Drunken sports crowds had nothing on this, it even managed to be worse than the language you can hear from the mothers fighting for a parking spot outside an infant school fifteen minutes before the teachers finally throw their charges out on the streets for the evening. I was shocked. And a little frightened. I opened the defence computer controls and set the defence screens to work, on a medium low setting. The chances of a full on assault were low, but forewarned is a better chance of running away.
On the other hand, I cheered up. Any star system tha
t could sustain this level of commercial traffic was probably quite rich, and certainly in need of assistance from the computer equipment presently filing every spare bit of space on the Speedbird. I watched the vidscreens carefully. Even at a slow speed setting, the Speedbird, designed as a military scout ship, was much faster than these local craft. I began to use the directional thrusters to make minute course adjustments, trying to anticipate a suitable gap in the traffic.
Then the inevitable happened. Some small distance ahead, two cargo shuttles that clearly had ore mining in their design ancestry collided, with some flame and escape of oxygen. The invective over the commschannels wound up several notches, and all the traffic slowed to watch.
One craft, crewed by Rigellians from the markings, was badly damaged by the impact, which had been close to the main engines, such as they were. Two Rigellians – probably the whole crew – both emerged in space suits, and cautiously made their way to the rear of their ship. They manoevered around the damaged area, obviously both inspecting the damage and taking phots for the coming insurance company argument about whose fault it all was.
The other cargo shuttle was crewed by Andromedans. It was possible to tell by the intricate patterns made by the cables and pipes around the space suit. The Andromedans were primarily a water based lifeform, so normally they didn’t mix with many of the rest of us around the galaxy. I was mildly surprised to see one of their craft in this system. Only one spacesuit came out of the entry port, and the assessment it made of what seemed to be a relatively small hole in the hull was brief, if not cursory. Of course, any hole in a hull is capable of being a critical problem in space, and when the hole began seeping water out into the vacuum of space, the suited Andromedan began to show some behavioural traits I could identify as high emotion, even at this distance.
The Andromedan was joined by two of his fellows, and they all started on some frenzied activity that seemed to be targeted at fastening a plate over the hole in their hull. The flare of portable, hand held welders hurt my eyes, and I looked away.
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