Project Charon 1

by Patty Jansen

  "Will you stop turning everything into a fight?"

  "As soon as you stop turning everything into something I am not allowed to do.”

  "I am protecting you. I'm doing my best. Yes, someday you will have your harness. But first we have to survive."

  His face hardened. He didn't need to say anything about that being her usual response, and that never changed. She knew it, and he knew it, and things truly never did change. Because there was no money for big items like a modern harness.

  And he had no comprehension of how much that hurt her.

  It still didn’t change the fact that the money was not there, and that the future of her business was at stake, and that she needed to find a creditor tomorrow. And to tell Simon Fosnet where he could collect his thugs.

  Chapter Seven

  The road to Gandama was mostly straight and riddled with potholes from the supply trucks that came to the general store every couple of days. It ran through the piece of country cheerily named Dead Tree Plain, even if the trees that had prompted the name were now so dead that they had ceased to exist. It was flat, dusty and exposed to the baking sun and the occasional whirlwinds that locals called dust devils.

  Tina made her way in the old truck, having retrieved the vehicle from the shed where, begrudgingly, the inhabitants of the hamlet shared their meagre resources.

  Old Janusz needed the vehicle, he said, and she answered that she’d be back before mid-afternoon.

  She could have taken one of the camels, which were less in demand, but they were slow, grumpy and wouldn’t allow Tina to carry supplies. On this occasion, she wasn’t going to get supplies, but she wasn’t going to give that away by not getting the truck. She always got the truck, so she got the truck. She’d deal with the gossip about her lack of bringing back goods later.

  If she came back without supplies on the truck, they would gossip about what she had been doing. They would have known about the visitor and the intruders, because Janusz would have told everyone, and someone would work out who this visitor was. If she started asking around for someone to take over the loan, they could add up the facts.

  That was the part she hated about living here.

  The small community was probably still chewing on the happenings from last night, even if she had fixed the fence with Janusz’s borrowed planks as soon as it got light this morning.

  Old Janusz was such a gossip.

  On that dusty drive—with the window open because the truck’s internal climate control system had long since broken—many thoughts whirled through her mind. Uncomfortable thoughts, mostly.

  Thoughts about money—or the lack thereof, and thoughts about burglars and that Rex was minding the shop by himself. She had given him instructions to barricade himself into his bedroom at the first sign of trouble. At least he was wearing his harness.

  She would have taken him to town if not for Jando Kelway coming to pick up his hub, and Tina needing Jando’s money. He was well off and easily annoyed. He would pay immediately, but his work had better be ready.

  Jando’s payment would be but a drop in the ocean of money she needed, but somehow keeping up a façade of business as usual was important to her. It kept her mind from the really disturbing thoughts, involving a position she had held, long ago, in the Federacy Force, and all the loose ends she had left dangling by disappearing, her Federacy-funded pension being one.

  Somehow, some way, she needed to retrieve that money and have it paid into a civilian account. If that was not possible before a certain age, she needed to have it set up so that it would be transferred to another account at whatever the eligible age was.

  But, no, she wasn’t going to be able to locate and get her hands on that money before the three days were up.

  There was the issue of the ship, though, and that might be a bit more promising. She had come to Kelso Station in her own ship, docked it, paid the going rate for an average visit of average duration, and had never gone back to retrieve the ship. She’d kept up with the occasional docking fee notices.

  But the old boat was still there, and after fifteen years of disuse, might just be worth enough to pay for the repayment of the loan, if she could succeed at refinancing it. And she very much preferred to refinance the loan, because she planned to use the money from the ship to buy the final equipment that Rex needed once the shop was paid off. The ship was her own nest egg, and besides, it wouldn’t be easy or quick to sell.

  Selling it would mean going to Kelso.

  That would mean having to ask Simon Fosnet for an extension of the loan terms. It would mean letting him know she owned a ship, and running the risk that he would try to extract even more money out of her.

  No; she’d already decided that she’d best deal only with the loan broker and not with him. He was angling for her to contact him. Most likely, he was waiting for her angry call about last night.

  She wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction.

  Going to Kelso would mean getting back on the radar of the Federacy and—worse—the Perseus Agency. It would mean that if they wanted to charge her—and she was sure that if they wanted to do that, they’d make up a charge she couldn’t fight—they would know where she was.

  It would mean facing the trouble, retracting the report on Project Charon she’d made that had prompted her sudden departure because she had refused to retract it as ordered.

  But damn it, that whole project was dangerous as hell, the civilian settlers should know about it, and she wasn’t going to retract it just because some military man with shiny stars on his shoulders told her so, not even if it meant having to leave her coveted and well-paid position, not even if the man was her ex-husband.

  She wasn’t going to retract the report, even after fifteen years.

  To open a rift to another dimension was dangerous and nothing in the world would change her mind about it. Not even if the past fifteen years had proven that this particular rift had been safe.

  And damn it, she was still angry about it.

  She forced her hands to unclench from the steering wheel.

  The first houses of Gandama came into view. They were blocky things, set in the dust. She needed her wits about her in case those hawkers were again following her and trying to lure her into their road trap so that they could waste her time with their sales pitches for whatever they were selling today.

  But she didn’t strike any trouble—they must have trapped some other poor sod—and she reached the town’s centre unhindered.

  For a town of forty thousand—give or take a few thousand illegal seasonal workers—the central square was what you’d generally describe as “not much”, a sorry collection of square, blocky single-storey buildings with awnings that covered the footpath so that the shoppers could walk in the shade.

  For vehicles, electronic, animal-drawn or otherwise, there was the centre of the square, a hellishly hot piece of dirt where vehicles and animals were parked in no particular arrangement.

  Tina preferred to leave the truck at the very edge, in case some idiot parked her in, but the bus from Peris City had just arrived and those spots were all taken by the people meeting the arrivals from the big city. So she parked on the other side, away from those casual visitors with expert degrees in cluelessness, and went into the offices of the town lenders before any of the visitors had decided that they needed to go in there, too.

  Sadly, that was where her smugness ended.

  To suspect that no one would lend to her was one thing, to have it confirmed, time and time again, in her face, was quite another.

  What did these people know about running a shop, and anyway, why were they all half her age? If only she could speak with the agency’s supervisor, she could talk them around. Some of these upstarts didn’t even know what the Perseus Agency was, and why the hell did they want to know about her employment from fifteen years ago anyway?

  And so, as the morning progressed—and Tina was denied by one after the other—the prospect
of having to do something radical became ever more real.

  She even walked past the rental office to see what would be available for her and Rex, but none of the cheery ads said anything about wide spaces where Rex could move around freely, or bathrooms that were big enough to hold a table to wash him and a seat next to the bath so that she could hold him up.

  And then she walked past the ticket office for the shuttles to Kelso Station, and kept right on walking when she saw the prices and that prospective ticket buyers will need to provide full identification, including previous employment history and criminal records, and declare any dual citizenships. Yeah, like that was happening any time soon. As soon as she entered her ID, the Federacy would be on to her like a leech. If Jake Monterra had contacted her, it was likely that the full bureaucracy would, too.

  But she still needed the money. She had given up planning to raise the entire amount. If she could only bridge the gap between what she’d borrowed fifteen years ago and what the shop was worth today. She even considered using the truck as guarantee, conveniently forgetting that it wasn’t hers, and that it wasn’t worth that much.

  No, going to Kelso Station and selling her ship was the only option—except it was expensive, she didn’t know what to do with Rex while she was gone, and a visit to Kelso was sure to bring unwanted attention to her when she re-entered space.

  On the one hand, she was only going to sell the craft.

  But there was no “only” as far as the Federacy was involved. Their spies were relentless. Their mercenaries were worse.

  There was no reason for them to shadow her. She was only visiting, with no intention to return.

  But Jake had said the Force was looking for new blood. Positions paid well.

  But she couldn’t leave the shop that she had worked so hard for. And she couldn’t move to town with Rex.

  She didn’t trust Simon Fosnet’s offer for the cactuses. Besides, if it happened that she could save the shop, she still needed the cactuses to fix the hole in her budget. Then if she gave him the cactuses—which she didn’t want to do—and she kept the shop, she’d forego her income from the dealer who came every month. She needed his money. If she quickly collected new stock, he would be able to tell. Already, last night’s events had damaged some of her lab equipment.

  Sell the ship.

  But how long would she be away? Rex needed medical attention.

  Damn, damn, damn, what was she going to do?

  Then she remembered the existence of a place that might be useful.

  Chapter Eight

  On the outskirts of the town lay a sprawling complex with low, single-storey buildings. In better years, it would have been located at the banks of the creek, but it was a long time since the creek had held any water, and the present dry cycle would last another thirty years at least.

  These days the building lay next to a sandy patch that, with its many pipes, basins with vivid green water, and tanks, looked like a mining site.

  Mining was indeed what happened here. For water.

  For all that this was a desert, the ground water in the area was not deep, but it contained an unhealthy concentration of salts, which was the reason for the presence of the evaporation plant that occupied the bank of the creek.

  The sprawling complex with low buildings predated the desalination plant by a few years. When people in Gandama had a relative with health problems, and looking after them at home became too much, this was where they went. A building in peaceful surroundings, with no stairs and wide corridors.

  A care home, part hospital, part respite centre.

  If Tina went to Kelso Station to sell the ship, then maybe she could leave Rex here for a short time. As far as she knew, mostly old people went here, but she wouldn't be away long.

  Tina left the truck in the dusty parking lot at the front of the building. A few other vehicles stood there, most of them battered and dusty, except for one that she recognised as Dr Fenwicke’s. He visited her house sometimes, and already looked after Rex.

  Tina entered the building. The door creaked, an old-fashioned sound that made Tina think of the days she spent in her grandparents’ house among the grain fields of Tirkala. A thin layer of dust had blown into the foyer, but the rest of the hall looked clean, and the woman who came to the reception at the tinkle of the bell smiled at her.

  Tina asked if the facility could take care of one more person for a short period.

  She was glad when the woman said, “We may have some vacancies. Is the resident mentally well?”

  Tina said yes, and explained that she only needed someone to look after Rex for a short while and that it was only because he used a harness and needed medical care associated with it.

  “Certainly, we can do that. I’ll show you around so you can see that he will be quite comfortable.” She led Tina down a corridor to the right of the entrance. “We have several levels of care, for residents who can perform their own basic functions and for the ones who can’t.”

  “Basic functions?”

  “Yes, dress themselves, clean themselves, visit the amenities, feed themselves.”

  She said that Rex could do only one of those things.

  “Then he’s a high-level care patient and his stay will be more expensive.”

  “I understand. It’s not for long.” Hopefully not too expensive. Her trip was about raising money.

  “How old is he?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Pardon me? Fifty? That’s a bit young, isn’t it?”

  “No, fifteen. He was… born without arms and legs.” Tina hated saying that. Forever she wondered if, had she known she was pregnant, she could have prevented Rex’s misfortune.

  “Oh. I see. Well…we can still look after him, although most of our residents are much older. We do have a few younger residents.”

  “Only for a short time,” Tina said for the third time.

  A really short time, if it was up to her.

  “I understand. We can definitely look after him. Come in here, this is the communal room.”

  A good number of the home’s residents sat in the spacious room, most of them on assisting chairs of the type that could be moved into standing position so that the resident could stand up.

  Tina couldn’t see a single person who did not have grey hair. Most of them were wrinkled, thin with watery eyes.

  Many of them sat in VR bays. They walked past a woman who was smiling and rocking to an inaudible beat while wearing a headset. A group of residents, two of them in a wheelchair, were talking into their headsets. It sounded like they were talking to each other as well as to people not in the room.

  “The VR bay is very popular with the residents,” the nurse said. “Wherever they come from, whatever language they spoke there, we can request scenarios that suit their tastes.”

  Tina felt tempted to ask if they had racing or flying games, but she was sure they would have those, too.

  A few other residents sat at a couch facing a screen, watching the news at an extremely loud volume. The voice of an announcer blared through the room.

  … And the citizens of Pandana have been advised to await further instructions as it is unclear what the nature of this disturbance is.

  That snatch of news caught her attention.

  She stopped walking. Pandana was the nearest civilian settlement to the highly secretive Project Charon. Ships that travelled to the Perseus Agency base regularly put in at Pandana for supplies. In fact, she had bought her ship there. It was the supply base that the Federacy agencies used as backup, and the commercial station owners had only been able to build under that understanding.

  Disturbance was a Federacy code word for trouble. That the news report used it could be a coincidence but, likely, they had copied it off some memorandum issued by the agency. Which meant that the agency had made a public statement, and they didn’t do that very often.

  She waited for more information, but the announcer had already moved to another
subject.

  Tina felt cold.

  “What’s going on at Pandana that’s important enough to be reported here?” she asked when she had caught up with the nurse.

  “Oh, I heard something about a pirate fleet that they’re concerned about.” The woman laughed. “It’s a long way from here. Who cares?”

  Well, she might not care terribly much, but Tina thought it was strange. Since when did the most powerful, the most sophisticated and technologically advanced military base in all of human settlement need to worry about pirates, and make a public statement about them?

  Pirates had never been more than a nuisance, and one that didn’t bother even the bigger commercial vessels, let alone the military. Pirates, or Freerangers, were poorly organised rogues, usually men, who didn’t have the skill or determination to organise in groups of more than a handful, who felt lost and disenfranchised and unhappy with their lot in life.

  Had something changed?

  A pirate fleet?

  She followed the nurse to the individual rooms. Each room contained a normal bed—that Rex couldn’t get into—a chair that would be too narrow for him, and a wall console with buttons that his mechanical fingers would probably find too fiddly to use. At least the doors didn’t have those horrible round knob handles that he found so hard to turn.

  The nurse told her about meal services and laundry services—all for a fee of course.

  Then she said, “Let me introduce you to Dr Fenwicke.”

  “I already know him.”

  Indeed, it was that Dr Fenwicke. He lifted his eyebrows when Tina came in.

  “This is an unusual place to see you. What are you doing here?”

  Tina explained her situation with Rex. “I had hoped that you might be able to look after him here, but all the residents are much older. The nurse said something about a few residents his age.”

  “Yes. As a matter of fact, we do have a few patients his age.”

  “I didn’t see them.”