by Janet Miller
Besides, it was a matter of pride. She couldn’t let her husband go to a seedy bar without her. Why should he have all the fun?
Nick’s Bar was about as lowlife as a bar could be on Ares Five and still be legal. The place was small and dark, meant for people who didn’t want to see anyone and who’d prefer not to be seen while they were doing it. It was crowded, and as predicted there were no women there, and no one Roan recognized.
It was exactly the sort of bar he’d gone to in his early days of being a convict, and for a moment Roan almost felt nostalgic.
He and Allan headed for the long bar that stretched the width of the back of the room. It was standing-room only for a few moments, but when a couple of men in front got their drinks, they moved to a table, leaving space for Roan and Allan to claim their stools.
Roan eyed the bartender as he came over, a burly man nearly as tall as he was but much wider. Clearly the man could also operate as a bouncer if he needed to. Roan caught the man’s speculative gaze just before he spoke.
“You the Dealer?”
“You Tron?”
“Yep. What can I get you?”
Roan and Allan ordered the prison-brewed beer. A gleam of amusement showed in Tron’s eyes as he poured two glasses and placed them on the bar. As Roan and Allan lifted their drinks, Tron moved down the bar, checking on the rest of the patrons’ orders.
Roan took a sip from his glass and winced. The local brew was still as underwhelming as it always had been, made from old grain and brewed for too short a time with too few hops.
Allan actually smiled as he tasted his. “Wow. This brings back memories.”
“Not good ones.”
“Oh, I don’t know. It has character. A nice body, good head.”
“It tastes like old socks.”
Allan nodded. “Probably used them to filter the yeast. But at least it has alcohol.”
“Too much,” Roan said. “They’ve boosted it with the refined stuff.”
Allan laughed. “You have gotten so spoiled.”
“I suppose.” Roan pushed his glass away. “I’ll let it sit for a bit and see if it improves with age.”
Tron was back. “Something wrong with your beer?” he asked, eyeing the nearly full glass in front of Roan.
“Nope, it is just what I expected,” Roan said smoothly. “But we came here to talk.”
“Yeah. My relief will be here in five minutes. Sit tight and we’ll find a table.” Someone down the bar called, and Tron went to answer. By the time a second burly man showed up to take Tron’s place behind the bar, Allan had drunk half his beer. Roan’s still sat untouched but he picked it up and carried it as Tron led them to a table at the far end of the room, well away from anyone with curious ears.
They sat together, Tron with a small glass of what had to be homebrewed whiskey in front of him. He took a small sip and grimaced. “Yeah, they don’t make this stuff back on Gaia, do they?”
“You said you had a deal for me?” Roan prompted.
“I figured we should meet, us being related. Brothers-in-law.”
“Good point. But why here? Why not at your place?”
“This isn’t a conversation to be had where my wife could hear it. I understand you want to take Suna out of here. How do you plan to get to her?”
Roan and Allan shared glances, and after Roan nodded, Allan told Tron about the idea of snatching Suna while on her way to a marriage meet. “We need to find a way to get her entered into the meet and then have some kind of distraction so we can get her away from the guards. Another man would be a big help that day,” he finished.
“I can do that,” Tron said. “But I think I can help more now. When Sulla told me what you were planning, I thought you might need access to one of the company men’s personal p-tabs.”
Allan’s eyes brightened. “Sure could. We could use one to get into the company’s mainframe and assign Suna to the next marriage meet. Trouble is those things are hard to get hold of. Company men keep them close and guard them well.”
“They do, normally. But there are a couple of company men who like to hang out here, for some reason.”
Tron shook his head in disbelief, and Roan knew why. The company had their own bars, which were far more upscale than Nick’s Bar. Why would company men hang out in Nick’s…unless they just liked cheap booze.
“The reason I called you is that those guys are in here tonight, and as usual they’ve been drinking. A lot.”
He lifted his glass and gestured towards a table a few meters away where a pair of men dressed in blue company uniforms were laughing over a game of cards with nearly empty glasses by their sides. The laughter was a little too loud and their faces a little too flushed for them to be sober.
Allan smiled. “So all we need to do now is get hold of one of their p-tabs. That shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Not hard at all,” came a soft-pitched voice from behind them. Roan startled, then groaned, as a slender boy-like figure dressed in black pulled a chair up to their table, cap pulled low over the face.
One hand sneaked forward to steal Roan’s beer and the figure took a deep sip. “Hmm. Not all that bad. I’ve certainly had worse.”
“Who the hell is this?” Tron asked.
Roan couldn’t help shaking his head. “This is my wife.”
Sonja raised her head, and Roan thought she looked extremely pleased with herself. She winked at him. “Hi, honey. Did you miss me?”
Chapter Fifteen
“So who do you want me to steal a p-tab from?” Sonja glanced over where the men had been looking when she’d crept close enough to hear what they were saying. Two men wearing blue uniforms were sitting together playing cards and arguing good-humouredly in loud voices. She figured they must be the targets.
“I might have known you’d follow us,” Roan said.
“I didn’t, really. But since I knew where you were going it was easy enough to find you here.”
“This isn’t the kind of place a man brings his woman,” the big man sitting with Roan and Allan hissed at them. “Suppose someone sees her here?”
Sonja shrugged. “Then they’ll think I like to dress like a man and drink in bars.” She grinned at him. “I know plenty of people who’d be happy to confirm that’s true.” She gave the big man a once-over. “You must be Tron, my sister’s husband.”
“And you must be Sonja. And you should be going.”
“Go now, just when things are about to get interesting? Never. Besides, you need me.”
“What do we need you for?” Tron asked.
Sonja gave each man at the table a withering glance. “Would any of the three of you happen to be trained as a pickpocket?”
“A what?” Tron looked at Roan and Allan, both of whom had apparently decided to sit back and let Sonja run her own defense.
“Pickpocket. One who steals stuff from other people without them noticing.” She took another sip of the truly awful beer. “That’s what you’re going to need to get one of their p-tabs from them.”
Roan rolled his eyes. “Are you saying you’re trained that way?”
“It’s been a while, but sure. How do you think I managed to get hold of a knife back when the slavers were holding me?” She looked at Roan and Allan, who both nodded. Apparently the pair of them remembered the scar on her arm.
“I learned more than lock-picking from that friend of mine. She was a career criminal with more than one trick up her sleeve.”
The three men leaned together and had a quiet discussion that omitted her. Sonja decided not to take offense. After all, they were just getting used to her. Clearly Roan favored giving her the chance to prove herself. Smart man. Sonja appreciated him more with each moment she spent with him.
Finally they nodded agreement. Roan leaned forward. “So what do you need us to do?”
“Just keep an eye on them and let me know when one of those guys decides to head for the sanitary. Given how much they’ve been drinking,
that shouldn’t be all that long.”
“What should we do in the meantime?” Tron said.
Sonja had a ready-made answer to that one. “You said you had a deal for us. Why don’t you tell us what you want in exchange for your help?”
Clearly taken aback, the big man stared at her. Then finally he nodded. “What I want is for you to take Sulla and Alice as well as Suna.”
“What?” Roan sat upright, clearly shocked. “What are you talking about?”
“I want you to get my wife and child out of here. Out of the prison and to safety.”
“But she’s your wife. She should be with you,” Roan said.
“She’s my wife and I love her. I can’t keep her here when things are the way they are.”
Tron shook his head. “I work here five nights a week, in addition to my job in the mine. I hear things. Bad things about what happens sometimes. The men with young wives, particularly those who haven’t had kids yet, they sometimes end up with the most dangerous jobs.” He gestured to the men at the other table, the company men who were still drinking and playing cards.
“I’ve heard them say things that make me think some of the accidents that have happened aren’t really accidents. We know they keep the widows and put them into marriage meets. I think that sometimes they’re responsible for making them widows in the first place.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Roan said, but Allan didn’t argue. Instead he looked thoughtful.
“Every once in a while I get to thinking about the accidents we’ve been having. There weren’t nearly so many two years ago.”
Sonja wasn’t surprised at all. After all, she knew firsthand the kind of men that became slavers, and if there was a company working with them, you could bet they wouldn’t have a lot of scruples. “You think you might be in danger if Sulla is here?”
Tron shook his head. “Not really. Sulla and I have a kid, and that does change things. They might keep a woman from her husband’s family but never his kid. But I don’t like what’s going on, and I worry about her safety. A couple years ago the bubble we’re living in was nicer, the grounds kept up well. You didn’t have to worry about getting attacked on the pathways. Now…”
His voice trailed off, and Sonja remembered how just that afternoon she and Roan had been attacked leaving Sulla’s building.
“In addition to everything else, the company is squeezing profits,” she said. “For example, only taking care of the parts of the bubbles that are highly visible. They leave the plants to overgrow in the rest and don’t repair things that get damaged. That encourages crime.”
Tron nodded. “There aren’t enough guards, and the ones they do have are little better than criminals themselves. It isn’t safe here anymore, and I want my wife and child out of danger.”
Roan leaned forward. “You realize if we smuggle them out we’ll have to send them to the Outer Colonies. Back to where Sulla came from.”
“That’s fine. You take them to the planet and her family’s farm. Once I’m released I can find them there.”
“Have you talked to Sulla about this?” Sonja asked.
“I’ve tried a couple of times, but she won’t consider it. I can’t keep her in danger, though. I’ve got to get her out of here.”
Sonja was going to say more, but just then one of the company men at the other table stumbled to his feet. He balanced himself against his chair back and then with a sheepish grin began to weave his way towards the sanitary at the back of the bar. Without a word Sonja got to her feet and slowly headed after him.
Like most bars where the clientele was mostly men, there was only one sanitary. Keeping her cap down to shield her face, Sonja closed the door behind her and quickly took note of the situation. There was a single long trough suitable for most men’s use and one lonely stall. Her target was using the trough and fortunately there was no one else inside.
Her hand went into her pocket and found the small tranquilizing dart she’d pulled from her duffle bag. Turning her back, she adjusted the dosage to its minimum, far less than she’d given Roan, then thumbed off the needle cover. Before the man even noticed she was behind him, she stabbed him through his clothes.
He started to fall like a sack of grain, and Sonja barely managed to catch him and ease him gently to the floor.
Sonja put the cover back on her dart and replaced it in her pocket. With the amount of alcohol this man had consumed, anything more than the minimum dose could have been lethal. What she wanted was for him to wake up thinking he’d merely passed out while taking a piss.
Quickly, she searched his pockets and found his p-tab. She hid that inside her clothes and headed out of the sanitary back to her table. Roan looked relieved to see her, and it warmed her that he’d been worried about her.
As soon as she was back she handed the p-tab to Allan under the table. “How long do you need?”
Frantically he began to enter the data. “Five minutes.”
Sonja shook her head. Too long. The dosage of the dart she’d given the man would keep him out for two minutes, no more. After that he would take a few moments to get back to his feet and make his way back to his table. If he found he was missing his p-tab right away they could be in trouble. Perhaps he might be too disoriented to notice at first.
“Just get it back to me as soon as you can,” she said.
Allan’s fingers seem to fly over the miniature screen. The minutes passed slowly and Roan, Tron and Sonja waited with bated breath. She kept an eye on the door to the sanitary, but no one went in or out.
After a while Allan blew out a great breath and handed the p-tab back to her. “That’s it. Suna Deems is on the list now. I made it seem like someone high up in the company asked for her in particular. Anonymously, of course.”
Sonja took the p-tab and slipped it into her pocket. The man she’d left in the sanitary still hadn’t come back, so she got up and headed for his companion. Weaving a little as she got near their table she tripped and fell against the other man’s chair, knocking him onto the floor. He started to get to his feet, but Sonja was already helping him up and back into his chair, brushing off his clothes as she did. He grumbled something and pushed her away.
She moved quickly and apologized, speaking softly so the man wouldn’t realize she was a woman. After weaving around the room a few moments she was once more back at Roan’s side.
From the sanitary came the other man, weaving towards the table and looking perplexed. He whispered to his companion who sat up and stared. “What do you mean you lost it?”
“I had it. I’m sure of it. But now…” The man looked panicked. “Have you seen it?”
The man at the table shook his head but checked his pockets. From one he pulled a p-tab. Then he pulled an identical one from another. He handed the second one over to his obviously relieved companion. “Here it is. I guess I must have thought it was mine and picked it up.”
The pair laughed and called over to the bartender for another round.
Roan, Allan and Tron all stared at Sonja, who just blew on her fingers and brushed them against her chest. “Some knacks just come back to you no matter how long it’s been.”
All three men burst into laughter, even the gruff-looking Tron.
“I guess our work here is done.” She drank the last of Roan’s beer and put the glass down. “Why don’t we go someplace else and get a real drink?”
“We could go to my home,” Tron said, “but I don’t know that we have anything but javi there.”
“I don’t think your place would be a good idea,” Sonja said. She fixed Tron with a steely stare. “Before we go any further, I think you better tell my sister what you have in mind for her. She might have different ideas, and to be honest I don’t think you need an audience.”
Tron stared at her a long time, then his lips twisted up into a wry smile. “You’re probably right,” he said.
Sonja decided that when Tron smiled he actually was quite handsome. Not as good-look
ing as Roan, of course, but she could see why her sister might have fallen in love with him.
“We only have one day to get prepared,” Allan said, and he rose to his feet. “I have lots to do in that time.”
Roan stood and pulled Sonja to her feet. “I think we need to head back to Beta,” he said quietly. “I’ve been warned that there’s a company man looking for me and we should stay close to home. But give us a call tomorrow,” he told Tron, “and we’ll come over to finalize plans.”
Sonja eyed her empty glass wistfully. “So no drink?”
Roan chuckled and tugged her hat down over her eyes. “Not unless you change clothes first. There’s a place over in Beta I know you’d like, but if I take you there I don’t want anyone thinking I’m dating a boy.”
Chapter Sixteen
Roan had described Tree Top as Beta Residence’s finest nightclub and said she’d like it. It was almost scary how well this man she’d married had come to know her.
Tree Top was built on the roof of the tallest building in the middle of Beta Residence and was open to the sky…that is, to the bubble that rose to its tallest point just over the building. The transparent plastisteel gave an amazing view of the sky, especially at night when the stars were out.
With bushes and sculpted trees forming green walls around the perimeter of the roof and the clear bubble above, it was the closest she’d been to being in a tree in a long time. Sonja leaned back in her chair and smiled at the stars. “This is wonderful.”
Roan saluted her with his glass. “I’m glad you like it. Was it worth changing clothes?”
Sonja glanced down at the black sleeveless top with its sparkling silver embroidery, long black skirt and delicate sandals Roan had dug out of his inventory and insisted she wear. She missed the boots and their hidden knives but had compensated with a sheath strapped to her thigh under the skirt.
She had to admit, her feet looked cute in the sandals and the rest of the outfit made her feel beautiful. It also made her fit in, since the other women in the place were dressed similarly elegantly. She’d wondered why Roan had insisted she’d need the dressy outfit, but he had a point about wearing clothes that suited the environment.