by J. S. Morin
Carl held up a hand. “No need. We didn’t bring any. Let’s get going.” In some systems, Carl’s statement would have been legally inaccurate. Those closest to the Meyang system generally considered azrin armed and dangerous with their own anatomical weapons. When the security thugs didn’t chime in and mention muzzles or locking mittens, Carl suspected that Hadrian was too far removed for the azrins’ reputation to have reached them.
Celeste piloted an open-top shuttle that hugged the walled-in strip down the center of all the landing zones, never topping 20 kph. Carl watched the speed gauge. He had to fight the temptation to lean past the thugs and bump the throttle to at least half-way. The landing zones they passed were all vacant. The staff must have had their own parking.
“The walls to either side allow us to oxygenate the guest areas,” Celeste said, her cadence that of a tour guide. “Hadrian IV had breathable air, but the low oh-two content generally makes breathing uncomfortable. We have similar arrangements in the habitats. One of the keys to maintaining a multi-xeno facility is being able to provide each species with an environment in which they can thrive.”
“On hand-tossed meat and chemical supplements,” Mriy muttered.
“I’m sorry,” said Celeste. “I didn’t quite catch that.” She didn’t understand azrin, Carl realized, and didn’t have a charm to translate it.
“She was just wondering whether the predator species hunted their own food,” said Carl, giving Mriy an elbow to the ribs to keep her from contradicting him.
“Oh, they hunt all right,” Celeste said with a grin. “We’re expecting feeding-time tours to be popular. Release an entertaining prey item, then follow the predator in a discreet manner while still giving guests an up-close and bloody view of the hunt.”
Mriy’s pupils began to dilate. Carl chuckled. “You might have yourself a customer once this place opens,” he said. Celeste looked over her shoulder with a puzzled frown. “You’ve got no one parked here. It’s not astral cartography to figure out you’re still finishing this place up. Plus everything looks too new.”
“Any reason we couldn’t have just gotten our pay on the landing pad?” Tanny asked. “Why does Mr. Gologlex want to see us?”
“I can’t confirm delivery of the cargo,” Celeste replied. “Mr. Gologlex takes care of those kind of details himself. He’s very … involved.”
Carl and Tanny exchanged a look. In that look an unspoken conversation took place. Carl pointed out that he was right, and that Tanny’s idea to set the terms of the cargo exchange was futile. Tanny countered that this was exactly the sort of scenario her plan would have avoided. Carl replied that she was being paranoid, and she countered that paranoid smugglers lived longer. The look ended with neither of them having convinced the other of anything.
The shuttle slipped into a tunnel, speeding down the gullet of the mountainside. It had been easy to ignore under the skies, with a clear view of the path to orbit, but now that they were inside, Carl was keenly aware that the safety of the Mobius was growing more distant by the meter.
It must have been a kilometer or more before Celeste stopped the shuttle. The retractable bay doors along the way had unhelpful names like K-2, and L-45, codes that no doubt meant something to the facility’s residents, but kept Carl and his crew in the dark. Celeste leaned down to allow a retina scanner to swipe a beam of light over her eye, and a security door popped open with a hiss of released pressure.
“This way,” said Celeste, waving them through as the security thugs subtly herded them from behind.
The corridor was a shock to the system. Gone was the utilitarian access tunnel with its grim steel and bare rock, lit by hard white light. The floor was carpeted and ate the sound of their footsteps. The lighting was soft and warm. A melody played over unseen speakers, just loud enough to ward off any eerie silences that might otherwise plague a deserted luxury hotel. As they followed Celeste, Carl glanced at the artwork on the walls, wondering how much—or rather, how little—of it came from Earth or any human colony.
Celeste glanced over her shoulder and caught him looking. “It’s a scattering of art from across the galaxy,” she said. “Most of them are replicas or modern pieces. A few are from non-sentient worlds, native materials worked by human artists. Nothing worth stealing, if it came down to it. Most of our resources are poured into the wildlife care and acquisition.”
“Which I can appreciate,” said Carl with a tight smile.
They passed into a main foyer area that looked like a cross between a museum entrance and a planetside transport hub. The vaulted domed ceiling was an inverted holographic map of the region—or maybe it was better to think of it as a map seen from the underside. Tunnels ran off in all directions, with friendly overhead signs designating them: Tropical, Temperate, Arid, and Aquatic. They had sub-heading and directions to restaurants and washrooms; to all appearances, it was a regulation ARGO-approved facility. There were information boards everywhere, but most of them were inert, or displayed a Gologlex Menagerie logo.
“This looks like the entrance,” Carl remarked, his voice echoing. “Why’d we come through the ass end of the place?”
“Because for now there’s no way to get here. Construction has the tramway shut down between here and the landing zone,” Celeste replied. “Come on. We’re going to the employees only section.”
“Lucky us,” Tanny leaned close and muttered.
Behind the scenes, the glitz, flash, and fakery vanished. The corridor past one more retina-scanning security door was bare, white-painted steel. 2D image boards showed construction schedules, safety admonishments, peppy slogans, and corporate organizational announcements including a native-species hunt.
What sort of criminal organization was this? Most people who went into a life below the notice of law and order did so because of some fundamental disagreement with both concepts. A marine conforms for a few years’ service, decides she’s sick of getting shipped from one shithole to another, signs on with a smuggler. A navy pilot wears his welcome thin with the higher-ups when he’s not out topping the squadron kill lists, takes a buyout and becomes that smuggler. He knew of kingpins and warlords who ruled little kingdoms of their own, but most took the ‘organized’ part of organized crime with tongue in cheek. He’d never seen one with company outings and workplace safety vids on loop.
Mr. Gologlex’s office was at the end of a hallway, but was otherwise unassuming. At least on the outside. Inside, Carl didn’t quite know what to make of it. He’d met with gang heads and admirals, eccentric wizards and corporate middlemen. None of them had quite the mix of office flunky, corporate ad man, and mad scientist as Mr. Gologlex had going on. The walls were plastered with info panels and paper posters touting the wonders of the Menagerie in overblown terms and loud, demanding lettering. Carl’s boots squeaked on the lab-shiny floor that gleamed in the soft blue overhead lights. Mr. Gologlex sat behind a steel-tube desk piled with datapads and disposable coffee mugs. At the front of the desk, where it couldn’t help being in a visitor’s field of vision, was a line of skulls, all pristine and medical-school perfect, starting with human and working its way through a series of other hominid skulls that Carl didn’t have the background to identify.
Gologlex was thin, with rounded shoulders and a round face covered by a sparse white beard. His eyes were blocked by a pair of data-display glasses, the back sides of the screens all Carl could see. He stood and offered Carl his hand across the desk, his beard parting to display a bleached-white smile. “So, this is the infamous delivery man Keesha Bell scrounged up for me. Now that you’re here, I don’t mind telling you I had two couriers fail this task already.”
Carl shook the proffered hand. Gologlex had the grip of a man who did some of his own work; not a strong grip like a laborer or a soldier, but firm enough to see he wasn’t just a behind-the-scenes sort. “I hate the idea of getting locked up, so I make a point of not getting caught with stuff I shouldn’t have.”
“Yes, of
course you do,” Gologlex said, the smile never wavering. “Now, let’s see about that package.” As Tanny retrieved the box from her knapsack, Gologlex touched a datapad and spoke into it. “Irindi, report to my office. Time to earn that extortion I pay you.” He pushed another button and winked at Carl. “Wizards. So much trouble. But then, you ought to know. Yours wanted a tour of the unopened exhibits. Of all the nerve.”
Carl winced. “Sorry about Mort. He just wanted to see dinosaurs. He didn’t get into the safari park on Vi Tik Naa. I’ll call my ship and let him know to lay off. If you don’t mind …” Carl reached for his comm.
“Oh, he’s not there. He and two others from your crew are on their way into the habitats right now. I didn’t see any reason not to show them around. Might help getting fresh eyes on things … see if we’ve overlooked something before we start taking paying guests.”
“Oh,” said Carl. He didn’t need to look over to know Tanny was panicking. She might be keeping it together, but this was the scenario she had worried about. Gologlex had everyone off the Mobius, and separated.
# # #
Mort felt better with stationary ground beneath his feet again. The Mobius gravity made it feel like a planet’s surface, but the shuttle had a harrowing lack of stability as it wobbled along a few feet above the ground. The bare artificial stone of the tunnel was a comfort, despite the eyesore lighting that forced him to squint.
A plain, low-sci door cranked up and pulled into the ceiling, and their guide beckoned them through. “This isn’t quite what a tourist would see,” said Murray, a fresh-faced smiley little twit who seemed good-natured enough. “We’re still working on construction. A few exhibits still aren’t in viewing shape.”
“Just so long as I can see some giant, extinct lizards,” said Mort. He had learned his lesson with Carl’s semantics. “Extinct from Earth, that is. I don’t want to see any necromancy, scientific or otherwise.”
“Cool it, Mort,” said Roddy. “I don’t think anyone’s wasting their time making a zoo of dead animals. I mean, who’d pay to see that?”
“You’d be surprised,” said Esper. “There are some twisted people out there.” Mort and Roddy both turned to give her puzzled expressions.
“We do have dinosaur-type lizards,” said Murray. “Species equivalents of animals believed to have once inhabited Earth from the Triassic through Mesozoic Eras. None are Earth-native, of course, but we’ve gotten specimens from Earth-likes that never had extinction level events to wipe them out.”
Mort gave a curt nod. “Well, let’s have at ‘em, then.”
“Well, the tour starts in the tropical region, where we have a number of breathtaking—”
“If that next word wasn’t going to be dinosaurs, don’t bother,” said Mort. “I’ve seen animals before, even weird, strange, and downright grotesque ones. But I’ve only seen them here and there, and by chance. If I had my druthers, I’d have found some on my own, but this is the first time that giant lizards and Carl’s backroom deals have smacked heads.”
“Technically,” said Murray, “they’re not lizards. They’re reptiles.”
“Listen here, son,” said Mort. “I appreciate a good pedantic correction as much as the next fellow, so I’m going to level with you. I’ve wanted to see a dinosaur since I was a wee nipper. Best fire for a young boy’s imagination, if you ask me. I don’t begrudge the breath of God’s wrath breathing meteors down onto them all, because if He didn’t wipe them out, mankind surely would have by now. So when I say I’ve been waiting all my life to see one, I only depart from the literal truth by the margin of the five years or so of my life before someone saw fit to mention them. Now, if you don’t take us to see them, I’ll start my own blasted tour and show myself around.”
“I’m … I mean … it’s dangerous out there. I was just … you know, you’re right. But first just let me—”
“Buddy,” said Roddy. “Maybe you oughtta just let this one go. If you’ve got dinos, I’d rather get this over with. I was half expecting you guys to have some slick tech if you could jam all sensor readings from this place, but you ain’t got squat for A-tech around here. You just found a planet with some sort of fucked up magnetic field.”
As Murray turned back to face Mort’s best stern-wizard face, Roddy slipped a keycard from his pocket and handed it to Esper. Murray nodded. “Sure. It’s a bit of walking, but I can take you.”
Mort winked at Esper, and with a few whispered words her clothes transformed into a uniform that matched Murray’s. She slunk away from the group, and Mort planned to make sure that Murray forgot she was ever along.
# # #
Irindi was older than Carl had guessed, probably almost Mort’s age. His first inclination was to assume that Gologlex kept a few pretty wizards around for prestige and his own ego, but Irindi didn’t seem cut out for prestige. She had a ruddy face and a mop of short, curly grey hair. She arrived with rolled up sleeves and a furrowed brow.
“I was working on the water supply. Does this have to be now?” she asked.
“Irindi, meet Captain Ramsey and his crew, Tanny and Mah-riy,” said Gologlex, stumbling over the azrin name. “They finally managed to get a specimen out of Vi Tik Naa.” He patted the box on his desk.
Irindi’s expression softened into one of surprise. “Oh, really?”
“Yes,” said Gologlex. “But before you open it, I was hoping to settle our wager. Captain Ramsey, I have a bet with Irindi that you would open the package to check its contents. If you can tell me what’s inside, I’ll split my winnings with you. Your share would be an additional fifty thousand.”
Carl let out an involuntary whistle. A hundred-thousand terra bet? Over whether he’d open the box? That was a quick seven in his pocket if he split it, and he might have grounds for keeping the whole bundle, considering it was all him doing the work, not the rest of the crew. All he had to do was tell Gologlex what was inside, and the old bastard would be happy to fork over not only the extra fifty, but their promised two hundred as well.
“Sorry, boss,” said Carl. “We don’t open cargo. This was no questions asked, and I’m good to my word.”
“Pity,” Gologlex replied. He opened a desk drawer, counted out a hundred thousand terra, and handed it to Irindi.
“How about ours?” said Tanny. “We did our job. We got no involvement with what’s inside. Pay our share, and we don’t need to be around when you open it.”
Irindi frowned. “I don’t trust them. She’s being evasive, and his mind is like a sack of confetti that used to be a book.”
“Truth charms?” Carl asked. He clucked his tongue. “Amateur hour. Worse than not knowing, from what I’ve been told. False positives, false negatives … you second-guess good decisions and feel good about bad ones.”
“Open it,” said Gologlex. “And we’ll see if you’ve been as good as your word or not.”
Irindi traced her finger along the glyphs, leaving a glowing trail. Partway through, she scowled and washed away the glowing lines with a wave of her hand, and started over. It took her four tries, but on the fourth the glyphs sank into the surface of the box, leaving it smooth. “Blasted Cortez and his impossible puzzles,” she muttered.
Gologlex pulled a device from his pocket. It emitted a high-pitched whine as the eccentric zookeeper punched in a code that must have been forty digits. With wizardry and science bypassed, the box top came free and Gologlex lifted out the egg.
Carl cocked his head. “Was that all? We went through this whole hoopla over an egg? You got a critter there that eats rock and shits computer cores or something?”
“Well, since we’re being cautious,” said Gologlex, “let’s just have a look and see what is in here. Can’t be certain you haven’t swapped eggs on me until I scan it.”
“We played square,” Carl insisted. “Do what you gotta so you can pay up.”
Gologlex exited the office via a side door, with Irindi hanging back to herd Carl, Tanny, and Mriy into the ne
xt room. The med-lab floor continued, and it had a med-lab to go along with it. Gologlex had a fully-equipped scientific rig, with scanners and probes, things Carl could identify only by vague type. All Carl knew for certain was that it was exactly the sort of equipment he’d expect someone like Gologlex to use to look inside a simple egg.
Gologlex placed the egg under the armature of one of the machines. It looked like a blaster cannon aimed to make a messy plate of scrambled eggs as soon as it fired. Gologlex worked at a console, and an info panel on the wall flashed with numbers and geometric shapes, overlaid atop an image of the egg.
“Well now, ready to see what you brought?” Gologlex asked, twisting around to grin at Carl, his finger poised above a button. If he was looking for some sign of worry from Carl, he was going to have a long wait.
With the push of a button, the cannon-like machine shot a cone of amber light that resized itself until it enveloped the egg. There was a faint humming as the armature swiveled around, scanning the egg from all angles. On the screen, a new image overlaid the egg, showing its interior. There was no dinosaur inside, nor any other sort of lizard. The little creature curled up within, large enough to be ready to hatch, looked more like a parrot.
It was in-Tik.
# # #
Esper kept her lips pursed and her gait stiff as she walked the corridors of the Menagerie’s back tunnels. Her false uniform came with a matching short-brimmed cap, which she pulled low over her eyes. Workers in uniforms just like hers rushed by, everyone seeming in a hurry to be somewhere or do something. She drew cursory nods of acknowledgment from some; others ignored her. It took an effort to keep from clenching her fists, but she had brought nothing to carry. Esper snagged a datapad the first time someone set one down and looked away.
The datapad made her look like she was in the middle of something important. It also had a connection to the facility’s mini-omni, including a rough-plan layout of the tunnels. There were no labels—someone obviously still had some programming to do—but it did know her current location. She could infer some landmarks based on the landing pads she knew to be located outside the mountain.