by Gary Gibson
Yi lay sprawled across one of the cushions, watching with a brooding, nervous expression as they entered. Where Lin was tall and willowy with a narrow face, Yi – his sister – was smaller and more compact, with the lithe strength and grace of a dancer, which had in fact been her chosen career prior to the most recent outbreak of hostilities between the Two Planets. Since then she had gained a reputation as a merciless warrior with a strong nationalistic streak and a string of recorded kills to her name. Her rise within the criminal societies of Fullstop had been even more spectacular following the resumption of an uneasy peace.
In fact, she and her brother were two of Dakota's least favourite people in the known universe.
Lin now paced nervously around the room, near his sister. 'We want to make a proposal,' he said, glancing towards Dakota.
'A deal,' Yi corrected. She gave her brother a sharp glance before regarding Dakota with hazel eyes that were as pretty as their owner was callous. 'A deal concerning what it is you're here to pick up.'
Dakota briefly considered her options. Immediately turning around and walking back the way she came was the favoured one; but that meant returning to Quill empty-handed, which was something she couldn't afford to do.
'Yi, play "Dragon Lady of the Spaceways" all you like, but I'm here on business. It doesn't involve impromptu "deals". You offload my shipment, and replace it with the agreed quantity of dreamwind spores. I stay away in the meantime, and, as far as anyone else is concerned, I'm here on legitimate business. When you're done, I fly away again. I never heard of you, and you never heard of me. And yet,' she glanced deliberately around the room, 'I have to put up with all this clandestine bullshit and get myself seen in public with your brother. Why is that?'
'There has been a change in circumstances,' Yi replied.
'Really?' Dakota stared at the other woman in a stunned silence for a few moments. 'All right, then, there's a protocol for exactly this kind of situation. I'm going to go back out through that bar. I'm going to go shopping and pretend I was never here talking to you, while you, as far as I know, get busy loading up the spores. If you can't do that, some very nasty people are probably going to come here and ask you why.' Dakota stabbed one thumb towards the room's half-melted entrance. 'So I'll be leaving right now, okay?'
Yi's expression was faintly amused. 'Remind me what it is we got our hands on?' she asked Lin.
'Some kind of fancy alien personal shield tech,' Lin replied. Thick, orange-green smoke squirted from his nostrils as he took another hit from his pipe, and Dakota smelled the distinctive aroma of burning dreamwind spores. 'Acquired from Atn traders, who acquired it themselves from God knows where. They might have been carrying it at sub-light speeds for centuries, for all we know. You know what the Atn are like; they don't care how long it takes as long as they get wherever the hell it is they're going.'
Dakota shook her head. 'I have no idea what you're talking about.'
'Restricted technology,' Yi replied. 'Stuff the Shoal doesn't want us to have. We… acquired it, and now we need your help.'
Dakota stepped backwards towards the exit. 'Right, fuck you, in that case. We're finished doing business. I-'
She turned, and yelled in surprise when her shoulder touched a shaped-field barrier that had suddenly appeared across the half-melted exit. It sparkled where she had collided with it, and her shoulder smarted.
Lin cackled, and instantly started to cough. Dakota turned back towards the brother and sister in time to see Yi reach behind her cushion to retrieve and activate a dock-worker's torchgun that had been hidden out of sight.
Torchguns were handheld plasma-arc cutters designed for small repair jobs and quick fixes, and a device Dakota was far from unfamiliar with. Yi pointed it at Dakota, holding it steady with the other hand under her wrist. The tip of the nozzle was already incandescent with heat. Strictly speaking it wasn't a weapon, and had a range of barely more than half a metre; close up, however, it could do serious damage, and Dakota was currently close enough…
'Didn't you ever hear that line about not shooting the messenger?' Dakota asked, carefully keeping her hands by her sides where the other woman could see them.
Lin wiped at his eyes with one hand, still sniggering. 'Sorry, it was the look on her face. She…' he snickered again, then belched smoke and began to cough loudly.
Yi spared her brother a brief and deeply hateful glance. 'We meant it about a deal,' she repeated, returning her gaze to Dakota, her anger evident. 'We just aren't interested in giving you a choice in this matter.'
'But a "deal" sort of implies I get something out of it, Yi.'
'Well, yeah. We're going to need your ship – and in return, you get to stay alive.'
'What do you mean "need my ship"? I need my ship.'
Lin sniffed and wiped a hand over his face. 'We had a problem, you see. We-'
Yi's face grew red with anger. In one smooth motion, she turned towards her brother, still standing to one side of her, and now pointed the torchgun at him.
A moment later there was a searing flash of light that left Dakota momentarily blinded. She stood frozen with shock, her ears full of Lin's screams. She covered her eyes, waiting for vision to return. When she could see again, Lin was lying on his side and panting like a sick dog, both hands gripping his thigh. The smell of burning flesh now drowned out the more delicate scent of incense. Dakota saw part of one trouser leg had burned away, revealing charred meat and the sickening sight of exposed bone. With his slit green eyes, the injured Lin looked far more like an injured animal than anything human. Dakota looked away.
Yi was standing now, her face a mask of apocalyptic rage. Dakota stayed where she was without moving.
'Fuck! I told you to let me do the talking, didn't I?' Yi screeched. 'But you had to start smoking those fucking spores, you miserable, useless piece of shit! This is all your fault!'
She turned back to Dakota, talking rapidly. 'Shithead here had the bright idea of investing in a hijack operation that grabbed a shipment being smuggled to some Bandati Hive. The hijackers got a hell of a lot more than they bargained for, though, including prohibited tech which wound up here when they realized the Bandati wanted it back very, very badly.' She paused momentarily for breath. 'Except my dear brother here has such a hard time keeping his mouth shut that word got out – and now the Bandati are looking for both of us.'
'So I happened to turn up just when you needed to get out of town?' Dakota replied stonily.
'Tough shit. You're in as deep as we are now, so you've got even more reason to help me get out of here.' She waved towards one of the wall hangings. 'There's another door behind there. Go open it.'
Dakota stepped towards the hanging and pulled it back to reveal a pressure door. Lin went on whimpering and cursing from where he lay on the floor, his skin pale and slick with sweat. Yi stepped forward and ripped the hanging away from the wall. Dakota then spun the wheel on the door, all too aware of the steady hiss of the torchgun's nozzle only millimetres from her spine.
The door hissed open and Yi gestured for her to step through. Dakota found herself on a wide metal platform running along one side of an open docking bay. Overhead was a curving metal roof equipped with gantries on which escape pods had once been mounted during the port's military days. Beyond that and below the platform was only hard vacuum.
The dusty yellow-green surface of Fullstop, several thousand kilometres distant, wheeled out of sight as the port rotated on its axis. The bay was separated from the vacuum by shaped fields and, even though she'd been in many such bays, Dakota's stomach always did a small flip when she was confronted with such a sight.
Some of the gantries were occupied, she saw, by a variety of ground-to-orbit shuttles. Further along the platform they now stood on were several other doors identical to the one they'd just stepped through. She wondered at the chances that some or any of them might be unlocked, and whether Yi would be expecting her to make a break for it.
She turned,
and looked at the door they'd just emerged from. A sign on it read: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY: EMERGENCY LIFE-SUPPORT amp; MAINTENANCE SYSTEMS ACCESS.
'Costs a bundle to keep the Dock Manager quiet,' Yi explained unnecessarily. 'And it took an age and a half to get rid of all the stuff that used to be in there.'
'So what happens now if there's a genuine emergency?' Dakota asked.
Yi stared at her like she'd asked the stupidest question in the world. 'Then they get a big surprise. Now, go down the other end. Move.'
Yi shoved Dakota in the back with one hand, till she stumbled forward. Torchguns tended to run out of fuel fast and, the way Yi was keeping hers burning, it probably wasn't going to last much longer.
'What about your brother?' Dakota asked, stalling for time. 'Aren't you-?'
'A fucking liability is a fucking liability, regardless of whether he happens to share the same genes,' Yi snapped.
Dakota heard Yi stop walking, could almost feel the other woman's consternation. 'There should be…'
'The Piri Reis?' Dakota turned to face Yi. 'You were expecting it to have been moved here by now, right?'
The other woman was now showing naked fear, her attention focused not on Dakota but on the empty gantry where she'd expected to find the Piri Reis waiting for them. 'Yi, let me explain something straight away. I'm a machine-head. Try and screw around with my ship, and I know about it instantly. Someone already tried to override the dock computers and move it here. That was never going to happen.'
Yi, eyes bright with anger verging on madness, brought the torchgun up until its bright blue flame was only millimetres away from Dakota's cheeks. 'Then we go to your ship.'
Dakota shook her head. 'No we don't, Yi. Look.'
Another ship was coming into dock, pushing through the shaped fields surrounding it like a finger pushed through the membrane of a soap bubble. Yi glanced towards it as its shadow obscured the view of the Milky Way beyond, Fullstop having by now wheeled completely out of sight.
Dakota punched the other woman hard, her teeth clicking as her head snapped back. The torchgun clattered to the floor of the platform and Dakota kicked it away. Its harsh blue flame flickered as it slid over the edge and out of sight.
Yi had staggered backwards. Following her, Dakota cupped the other woman's cheek in one hand before hitting her again with the other. Yi crumpled, curling up into a ball on the platform.
'Fucking amateurs,' Dakota yelled, nursing her scraped knuckles against her chest.
She had to find Milligan, and fast. She went back the way she had come, ignoring Lin as she passed him, his frightened pain-filled eyes following her as she headed straight on through the rent in the bulkhead and back into the Wayward Dragon.
Piri, locate Milligan, tell him I'm in trouble. Tell him it's a job for Quill, so he knows the rules. But encrypt this message all to fuck and beyond before you send it.
‹Understood, Dakota. Do you require any other assistance?›
She strode rapidly through the bar and out onto the busy concourse beyond. Nobody paid her any attention or challenged her in any way.
There might be Bandati on our trail. See what you can find out. But make sure you don't leave any trace.
She felt the ship's presence wink out of her mind. 'I heard about it already,' said Milligan, his face appearing bruised and scarlet under soft lighting that looked like it had been filtered through a bottle of absinthe. 'I mean, Yi and Lin, they're not exactly…' Milligan's eyes darted upwards, as he tried to find the right words. 'They're not circumspect, if you follow me. In fact,' he added with a flourish of one scented hand, 'they practically broadcast everything they do. All just a tragedy waiting to happen, really. Sebastian!'
The interior of Milligan's quarters was filled with velour and chintz fabrics, some decorated with semi-abstract patterns modelled after dreamwind spores as viewed through an electron microscope. The room to which Dakota had been brought smelled of burnt spores and dried roses, and the lighting was mostly concealed behind curtains and drapes, leaving much of the room in darkness. Dakota noticed an expensive-looking imaging unit in one corner, which had sat there untouched for as long as she had known the spore-dealer. It, like everything else there, was coated in a fine layer of dust.
'Sebastian' was the young man who had greeted Dakota as she arrived at Milligan's place, his bare chest oiled and features tweaked to present a wolflike aspect. Mog styling was the rage du jour, it seemed. He appeared obediently a few moments later from behind a drape obscuring an inner doorway.
'Sebastian, we have a guest. Tea, please.'
Sebastian nodded dreamily and wandered off again, his pupils wide and dark from constant spore inhalation.
'Now tell me more.' Milligan turned back to his visitor. 'Your ship implied you might be in some trouble.'
Dakota sat herself down on a low couch. 'Well-'
'Wait!' Milligan snapped his fingers and leant towards her. 'The… prosthetic I installed in your ship. How has it turned out?'
'I – oh.' Dakota's face flushed as she realized he was talking about the artefact in her cabin aboard the Piri Reis, which Milligan had helped source for her. 'The effigy, you mean. It-'
'I mean the prodigiously equipped sex toy you keep squirrelled away there for those special, private moments, Dakota. I didn't tell you, did I? I got one for myself '
'Really? I-'
Milligan's expression had become slightly dreamy. 'Sebastian's been rather sullen ever since. Now, I'm sorry, I've been interrupting your story. So please continue.'
'It was meant to be a regular pick-up. I don't ask questions, Yi and Lin don't either. Except this time they went and stole something, and now the original owners want it back. They also tried to steal my ship just so they could get off-station.'
Sebastian reappeared, carrying a silver tray which he placed on the low table positioned between Dakota and Milligan. Two china cups and a teapot sat elegantly on the tray. Sebastian then left, and Milligan began to pour.
'Never fear, no spores in here,' he informed her in his singsong voice, nodding towards the teapot. 'Anyway, it all sounds very unfortunate indeed. But I did hear just before you got here that they'd been taken into custody by the station authorities, pending a special investigation which, in my experience, most often precedes a quick trip out of an airlock minus a spacesuit.'
Dakota drank from her cup. 'Which leaves me.'
'Which leaves you,' Milligan repeated, something feral in his eyes as he leaned back and regarded her once more. He began putting on what appeared to be a pair of surgical gloves. 'Of course I myself have a vested interest in helping you, because if they find you, they find me too, and that isn't good for business.'
Dakota tried not to shrink away from his suddenly menacing gaze. 'They won't find me,' she protested. 'You've known Quill longer than I have. And I know you, and that you're good for your word.'
'That I am. Which brings me to this.' Milligan leaned over to one side and opened a small brass case resting on a side table next to his chair. He reached into it and lifted something out.
At first, Dakota thought what he held was something living. Something black and shiny and wet-looking writhed slowly in Milligan's hands. It appeared segmented, like a caterpillar, and between five and ten centimetres in length.
Dakota's throat felt suddenly dry. 'And that is?'
'This, my dear, is what Lin and Yi got their grubby hands on; a form of artificial skin or armour of some kind. Pretty, isn't it? And quite, quite alien.'
Dakota put her cup down carefully. 'You know, maybe you shouldn't be telling me any of this.'
'In an ideal world, perhaps.'
Dakota tried to stand up, but two pairs of strong hands suddenly pressed her back down and held her there. She twisted her head around and saw Sebastian and another of Milligan's lovers standing behind her. She tried to twist away, but felt suddenly drowsy. The cup slipped from her hand and rolled across the floor, its contents staining the fine car
pet.
As she slumped to one side, suddenly Milligan was sitting on the arm of her chair, one hand resting on her thigh as he leaned in close to the side of her head. 'If there's one thing I want you to remember, Dakota, it's that this is not personal. Mr Quill really needs to find himself a better quality of thief than either Yi or her idiot brother. I'd say his game was slipping, so I'd say it was time we both found a new employer.'
'You drugged me.' She slumped further against Milligan's shoulder.
He patted her head. 'Yes, I did, my dear. It's time we were both moving on. You back to the Sol System, if you must, and me to somewhere my business can't be easily threatened.'
The rich, thick velvet of Milligan's bathrobe felt luxurious against her cheek, and she snuggled against it. 'I'll kill you, you miserable fucker,' she murmured, a drowsy half-smile on her face. 'I'll hunt you down and feed your pecker to your boyfriends.'
'I like you, my dear, contrary to all appearances. Nevertheless, I require you to draw attention away from me before the Bandati decide to turn up on my doorstep. And ours is a business where trust must frequently be sacrificed in the cause of survival.'
Milligan was gently stroking Dakota's hair now, but, deep in her drug-induced warm and snuggly mental cocoon, her thoughts were full of images of merciless vengeance. 'You know what?'
'Yes, my dear?'
'If you go anywhere near my ship, I'll make sure it buggers you to death, slices and dices what's left, and sells the remnants to one of those long-pig restaurants I hear Alexander Bourdain's running.'
'If you're anything, Dakota, you're certainly consistent. But, in the meantime, I'm really, really curious to see if this thing can do what it's supposed to.'
She heard him shifting beside her. 'Sebastian, have you finished programming the medbox? Oh, very good. Now, help me lift her up.'
'Milligan?' Dakota felt herself lifted from her chair. 'What're you going to do?'
'I'm going to see if this… device can really do what it purports to,' he told her. 'And if it can, well, I like to think you'll thank me one day…' 'And you escaped from this man Milligan?' the Queen of Darkening Skies asked Dakota as she finished.