Odd Girl Out

by Timothy Zahn

  Now, I was glad we’d made that effort. Very glad indeed.

  Nine hours later, we reached New Tigris Station.

  To my complete lack of surprise, Bayta and I were the only ones who got off there. We watched the Quadrail pull out of the station on its way to Earth and the Bellidosh Estates-General beyond, then went to the stationmaster’s office to see about getting a shuttle to the transfer station.

  Like most other small colony worlds across the galaxy, the low amount of Quadrail traffic at Yandro meant the shuttles worked on an on-demand basis instead of running a continual loop between Tube and transfer station. Here, apparently, demand was so low that the shuttles weren’t even left on standby. As a result, it was over two hours before we finally stood at the transfer station’s Customs counter, dutifully answering the standard entry questions, and having ourselves and our luggage scanned for contraband.

  I still didn’t know how my kwi looked on a Customs scanner. As long as no one challenged it, I wasn’t inclined to ask.

  “And that’s it,” the Customs official said briskly as he handed me my lockbox, the final step in the entry procedure. “Welcome to New Tigris. Are you here on business or pleasure?”

  “Pleasure,” I said. “A friend told us that Janga’s Point has some of the best scuba diving in the Confederation. We thought we’d try it out.”

  “Excellent,” he said, his eyes lighting up. Not only visitors to his modest little colony system, but visitors intent on spending money. “I’ve heard that, too, though I’ve never had a chance to go there. Now, you do understand that we have only a weekly torchferry service to New Tigris proper, correct?”

  “Yes, we know,” I said. Briefly, I wondered how many visitors arrived here expecting the daily service enjoyed by real planetary systems. “According to the schedule we saw, it’ll arrive in two and a half days?”

  “That’s correct,” he said. “We do have torchyachts for rent, though, if you don’t want to wait.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. New Tigris’s torchferry service was heavily subsidized by the mother world. Torchyacht rentals, unfortunately, weren’t. “I assume you have rooms available while we wait?”

  “Absolutely,” he assured me, pulling out a registration form. “In fact, at the moment we only have one other guest.”

  “Human?” I asked, snagging a pen from the cup beside the computer terminal.

  “A Pirk, actually,” the clerk said.

  My hand froze midway through writing my name. “A Pirk?” I echoed cautiously.

  “Yes, but don’t let that worry you.” He glanced around and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “This one is actually safe to stand downwind of, if you get my drift.”

  “Right,” I growled.

  “No, really—he doesn’t smell at all,” the clerk insisted. “Damnedest thing. Kind of like when my sister found the one cat in the entire Western Alliance that didn’t trigger an instant asthma attack—”

  “Yes, very interesting,” I interrupted, laying down the pen. “On second thought, I think we’ll take that torchyacht after all.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, taking the half-completed form from me and blanking it. “He really doesn’t smell, you know.”

  “And I’m sure your sister wouldn’t mind being locked in a room with a bunch of cats, either,” I said. “You have a rental form?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, pulling out another form and handing it over.

  I glanced at Bayta, noting the stony look on her face, and started filling in the blanks.

  An hour later, sitting at the controls of our new torchyacht, I maneuvered us away from the transfer station and turned us toward New Tigris. “I’d been wondering where our Pirk had ended up,” I commented as I eased the drive up to full power.

  “Now we know,” Bayta said, her voice as stony as her expression. “I hope you’re not expecting the Spiders to pay for this.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “Our agreement was salary and expenses. This is an expense.”

  “We could have waited for the torchferry,” she pointed out. “If this girl Rebekah has been all right all this time, another two and a half days probably wouldn’t have made a difference.”

  “Though at some point in every crisis a matter of hours or minutes does make a difference,” I pointed out. “But that’s not the reason I opted for the torchyacht. Or hadn’t it occurred to you that by some standards a non-stinky Pirk could be considered an abomination?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not serious.”

  “Deadly serious,” I assured her. “After all, we don’t really know how the Modhri sees things. What would be a triple-A-rated blessing for everyone else in the galaxy might be complete anathema to him.” I shrugged. “And our Pirk did seem to be watching Tweedledee and Braithewick pretty closely back at Terra Station.”

  “You’re reaching,” she said. But her stony expression had softened into something merely annoyed. Annoyed, and thoughtful.

  I thought about pressing the point again about the torchyacht rental, decided against it. Ultimately, the decision on who paid for that would rest with Bayta’s recommendation. If the Modhri was as involved with Rebekah Beach as I suspected he was, there would be no question that this was a legitimate use of Spider and Chahwyn funds. If he wasn’t, this might actually end up being a nice relaxing trip for a change.

  Like I really believed that.

  FIVE

  The trip to the inner system and New Tigris proper took five days. Bayta and I spent most of that time eating, sleeping, watching dit rec dramas and comedies from the torchyacht’s limited selection, and going round and round on the topic of the Modhri and this Abomination he seemed so eager to wipe off the face of the universe.

  We didn’t reach any firm conclusions, or even any tentative ones. But we came up with a whole laundry list of options, none of them very pleasant, about what the Modhri might actually be up to.

  Which meant that by the time New Tigris Control called us with landing instructions we were about as paranoid as it was possible for two Humans to be.

  But that was all right. In this business, too much paranoia might annoy people. Too little could get you killed.

  The spaceport was a couple of kilometers north of Imani City. It was a pretty casual affair, as landing areas went, little more than delineated rectangles on a reinforced concrete slab. I put us down on our assigned spot, noting as I did so that there were two other rental torchyachts squatting in various places across the field. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who’d decided not to share the regular torchferry run with even a deodorized Pirk.

  The Customs procedures were a quick and painless formality, partly because we weren’t bringing any luggage off our torchyacht for the moment, and partly because New Tigris needed all the visitors it could get and wasn’t about to scare them off with annoying bureaucratic procedures. The official did, however, make a point of carefully scrutinizing my Hardin Industries carry permit before allowing me past his counter with my Glock.

  There were two autocabs waiting outside the terminal. We grabbed one, gave it an intersection that my map said was at the edge of Zumurrud District, and headed south.

  Imani City, once we were actually traveling its streets, was a pleasant surprise.

  I’d seen pictures of the place, of course, and had studied maps of the city and surrounding regions during our torchyacht flight. But most of the reports I’d read had focused on New Tigris’s dead-end status. Yet another of Earth’s ill-conceived and badly managed colonies, the hand-wringing stories went, that would probably be a drain on the public treasury until the heat-death of the universe.

  But someone had apparently forgotten to pass on all that depressing news to the colonists themselves. In the city’s center, as well as in most of the neighborhood districts we passed through, the people looked for the most part to be cheerful, optimistic, and showing the kind of energy and dogged determination Human pioneers have always displayed.
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br />   I also saw that the private sector had responded to the UN’s arm-twisting in spades. Along with their probable cash donations, I spotted the logos of at least five major corporations on various buildings along the way. Small operations, undoubtedly, at this point. Nevertheless, it was a vote of confidence in the colony’s future, and a nice psychological boost besides.

  The locals had done their part, too. There were all sorts of businesses nestled in among the houses, from bakeries and neighborhood grocery stores to the more homespun sorts of places like leather-workers and pottery makers. I spotted electronics shops, small-engine assembly plants, and even a tool-and-die manufacturer, all the signs of a colony determined to become self-sufficient as quickly as possible.

  The colonists’ private lives also seemed to have been taken care of. The houses were simple but nice and seemed reasonably well-kept. There was a fair sprinkling of homes that looked unoccupied, but it was possible their owners were simply off at long-term jobs elsewhere on the planet, working the mines or forests or else renting scuba equipment to holiday-makers at Janga’s Point. Nowhere in Imani City, not even in those half-empty neighborhoods, did I sense anything remotely resembling an atmosphere of defeat, as one of the more effusive commentators had dubbed it.

  Not, that is, until we reached Zumurrud District.

  If the reporters had come to New Tigris looking for doom and gloom—and knowing reporters, I had no doubt that they had—this was definitely where they’d spent most of their time. The houses here, which had probably started life as nice as those in the rest of the city, were showing the signs of severe neglect. Worse, there were a surprising number whose broken windows and carved graffiti showed complete abandonment. The handful of shops had security grates on windows and doors, and there seemed to be at least twice as many taverns decorating the street corners as I’d spotted elsewhere in the city.

  There were also a lot more people on the streets. Some of them were walking purposefully along, but there were a goodly number who were merely sitting or standing in small groups, clustered together on doorsteps or leaning on lampposts. The groups seemed self-segregated by age, with one block’s loiterers consisting of bitter-faced middle-aged men, while the next block’s were composed mostly of teenagers.

  There were few women in evidence in any of the groups. Possibly they were gathered inside the houses instead, looking as bitter or depressed as the men. Or maybe the majority of the women had long since moved out of the neighborhood.

  “All this in only twenty years?” Bayta murmured as we walked past another group, this one composed of bitter-eyed men in their mid-twenties.

  “It’s actually worse than that,” I said. Like the other groups we’d passed, the men here had broken off their conversation as we approached, gazing at us with the odd expressions of people who wanted to be suspicious of the strangers but weren’t sure we were worth even that much effort. “It’s probably really only ten years of decay, not a full twenty. The first ten years would have been filled with typical mad-dash government activity and excitement. Hordes of new colonists being brought in, buildings and businesses going up, industries started, and everyone as optimistic as hell.”

  “What happened?”

  “What happened was the same thing that happened with all the colonies,” I told her, feeling a quiet pang of sympathy for these people who’d been casually brushed aside when the governmental winds changed direction. I knew exactly how they felt. “The initial push wound down, the UN brought all the temporary workers back home, and all the extra torchliners they’d rented for the big push were flown to the Tube, disassembled, and packed back aboard Quadrail cargo cars. Suddenly the colony found itself basically ignored while the UN started pouring its money and attention into the newest rage to catch its eye.”

  Bayta shivered. “Yandro,” she murmured.

  “In this case, yes, it was Yandro,” I confirmed. “But it could have been anything that caught the bureaucratic imagination. Regardless, New Tigris suddenly found itself in the position of a jilted girlfriend. All alone, the gravy train dried up, and with a couple of wheezing modified torchferries her only contact with her former boyfriend.”

  “But the colonists must have expected something like that would happen eventually.”

  “I doubt the plan was any big secret,” I said. “And to be fair, most of the people here don’t seem to have been all that bothered by it.” I looked at a group of four teenagers idly tossing a small ball back and forth by one of the broken-windowed houses ahead. “Unfortunately, others just gave up. Interesting.”

  “What’s interesting?”

  “That group propping up the front of the bar,” I said, nodding toward a tavern a couple of doors past the four teens where a half-dozen men were idling around the doorway. “Notice anything unusual about them?”

  “In this neighborhood?” Bayta countered.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “Note the age range. Everywhere else it’s been teens or middle-aged or whatever. Very age-segregated. But the group up there has a teen, a young adult, two thirty-somethings, and that white-haired man has to be at least sixty.”

  Bayta digested that for a couple more steps. “And you think that’s significant?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “But it makes me curious enough to want to check it out. You thirsty?”

  She sighed. “Do I have a choice?”

  “Sure,” I said. “You can wait outside.”

  “In that case, I’m thirsty.”

  “Good. Let’s get something to drink.”

  We’d made it two more steps when the four teens between us and the tavern detached themselves from their abandoned house and casually re-formed themselves into a line across the walkway in front of us.

  At my side, I felt Bayta tense up. “Just keep walking,” I murmured to her, eyeing the youths and shuffling quickly through my options.

  I didn’t have many, and none of those were particularly attractive. I’d seen enough gangs in my time to know that any sign of weakness, such as turning around or crossing the street, would probably be like throwing raw meat into the shark tank.

  On the other hand, showing too much strength, such as drawing my Glock, might easily escalate matters way beyond the point where I wanted them right now.

  Which left only one real option: to continue on and hope my diplomatic skills had improved since my days in Westali.

  I waited until we were within a few steps of the line and then nodded genially toward them. “Afternoon,” I said, smiling pleasantly. “Nice day, isn’t it?”

  “Depends,” one of the two boys in the middle said. His voice had the gruff toughness to it that I’d heard many a time in classic dit rec dramas. “You a cop?”

  “Why, you think a cop would be interested in what you and your friends are doing?” I asked, still smiling. “No, we’re just tourists.”

  “Tourists don’t come to Zumurrud,” he retorted darkly. “Who are you working for?”

  The mixed group by the bar, I noticed, had stopped talking and were watching our little drama. “I’m not working for anyone,” I said, taking Bayta’s arm and bringing us to a halt three meters back from the line. “Like I said, we’re just tourists.”

  The kid said a couple of rude words, again straight out of a dit rec drama. Apparently, when he wasn’t hanging around street corners he was loitering in front of his entertainment center. “Yeah, right,” he said.

  “Fine; you caught me,” I said, giving Bayta’s arm a gentle but steady push to the side. She took the hint and eased a long step away from me. “I’m a special investigator for the Terran Confederation Opinion Bureau. Tell me, what do you and your friends like most about living on New Tigris?”

  I’d expected that to do it, and it did. Glaring at me, he stepped out of line and threw a punch straight at my stomach.

  At least he hadn’t learned his fighting technique from the dit rec actioners, with their fondness for fist-to-the-jaw punches that in real l
ife usually wrecked the attacker’s knuckles. But he hadn’t learned his technique from an actual combat instructor either. Pivoting on my left foot, I swiveled out of his way, catching his fist in my left hand and helping it along a little. As he continued to lunge forward off-balance I bent his arm back at the elbow, pushing his fist over his shoulder and dropping him flat on his back on the walkway.

  “I’m guessing it’s the opportunity for fresh air and good healthy exercise,” I continued, taking a step away from him. “That’s probably enough of both for one day, don’t you think?”

  Apparently, he didn’t. Scrambling to his feet, he squared his shoulders and came at me again.

  Not in a mad-bull rush this time, but with the slower, warier approach I recognized from the better class of martial-arts dit rec actioners. I held my ground, ignoring the insistent tingling of the kwi in my pocket as Bayta kept activating it. Obviously, considering the four-to-one odds I was facing, she thought I should haul out the artillery and put the whole lot of them down for the count.

  Under other circumstances, I would probably have agreed with her. But my old Westali combat senses were buzzing with the nagging feeling that something was wrong here. With the casual humiliation of their leader, the other three teens should have waded into the fray, hoping to overwhelm me with sheer numbers.

  But they were still standing there in their line, watching the show but making no move to join in the fun. I flicked a glance at the bar, wondering if the crowd there was still watching.

  And in that moment of apparent distraction, my attacker struck. Rotating on his right foot, he threw a side kick toward my stomach with his left.

  Unfortunately for him, my distraction was indeed only apparent. Even more unfortunately, his kick had enthusiasm going for it but not much more. Again I slid out of the way with relative ease, capturing his leg and locking my arm around it at waist height.