Triad Second ’Flix Pt’r X’ai sat with his back to her, crest low and feathers ruffled. The chair across from him was empty—conspicuously so. As she watched, the Tolian looked from that empty seat to the door and back again. Every few moments he’d whistle, a soft noise of distress that the device implanted in his neck didn’t need to translate.
’Flix didn’t want to be here. That makes two of us, Maja thought, and willed the Tolian to rise. Oblivious, the foolish pile of feathers remained, his hand straying to check the small package concealed in the satchel by his side.
He hadn’t done anything wrong—yet. Yes, ’Flix was meeting someone in a bar frequented by smugglers and pirates, and yes, he had brought something with him, but that didn’t mean anything. While Maja had her suspicions, those didn’t mean anything either. Not anything, at least, that she could bring before the First.
Of everyone Maja worked with, ’Flix would have been the last she’d peg to illegally sell Hoveny artifacts—if the broken shards and scraps they’d scraped from their site even deserved the name. But if he’d brought an artifact with him, however questionable—if he was waiting to meet one of the many dealers Maja was all too aware frequented this establishment—
Well. That would be something else entirely.
Maja glanced up as the server approached her table.
“Ready to order?” The being’s tone indicated that her response had better not be “no”—not unless she wanted to be unceremoniously removed from the premises.
It was her airtag, she knew, its golden shine a sharp contrast to the grubby coveralls she’d donned atop her vacationer’s clothes. A grandie’s airtag. A few days before, it had seemed a welcome luxury.
“I’d like to order, um—that.” She pointed randomly at the Human-safe section of the menu.
The server snorted, dismissed the flickering menu projection, and stomped away without another word. She probably wouldn’t be thrown out, not if she stayed quiet and spent her credits. But it was a near thing. If only they knew, she thought with a snort of her own. Missing the shielding protection of the menu, Maja turned back to ’Flix.
The Tolian was no longer alone.
Maja sucked in a shocked breath. Across the table from ’Flix sat a large Human male with more muscle than sense, his coveralls rolled down around his generous waist to reveal a stained shirt and forearms crisscrossed with scars. And his face—
Maja knew that face. His hair was grayer than she remembered, his cheeks broader, his expression more lined. But she would have recognized him anywhere—and run.
There was no running now; ’Flix and his companion sat squarely between Maja and the door. Even rising would draw attention. Instead, she bowed her head, letting shadow shield her expression and airtag alike.
The Human went by the name of Verrick, and he was identified in his warrants as a smuggler. Smugglers were generally offended by the comparison. In truth, Verrick was a pirate, and the strong arm of a captain even more callous than he was. From abduction to drug-running, there was little they would not do for the right price. Even murder and large-scale destruction could be bought.
As she knew all too well.
Maja had expected ’Flix to meet with some small-scale trader, perhaps an antique shop owner who didn’t mind dealing in black market items. There were enough of those to be found on Plexis. But pirates? If ’Flix had come to sell artifacts, or set up contacts for a future sale, he couldn’t have picked a worse one. Maja only had to scan the room to spot at least three beings who would have not only given him a better price, but were infinitely less likely to leave him with a sucking gut wound for his trouble.
“Get up, ’Flix,” Maja whispered. “You know this is a mistake.”
If he left now, he’d probably be robbed regardless—but that was nothing more than he deserved. At least he’d get out alive.
A drink slammed onto Maja’s table, its contents splashing across the tabletop, her coveralls, and folded hands with equal enthusiasm. Suppressing a gasp, Maja looked to the server. The being silently dared her to protest her treatment—or perhaps ask for a cloth to mop up the liquid. She did neither.
“Thank you,” she said instead, keeping her tone light. “I’m parched.”
The server closed one set of transparent eyelids as it glared; then, more slowly, a second. The air holes on its thick neck flared in apparent irritation.
“I expect a tip,” it said at last, before leaving her alone to drip on the table.
Maja shook the sticky beverage from her fingers. At least, she thought it was a beverage.
Thick, bile-yellow liquid pooled in the bottom of the glass, topped with a frothy green-brown layer that looked like dying algae. It smelled like pickles gone to rot—as, now, did she.
“Delightful,” she muttered and looked back to ’Flix’s table.
The conversation did not appear to be going well. Verrick’s expression had grown dark, and he had one callused hand outstretched in clear demand. ’Flix’s feathered bulk was increasing in agitation, while his shoulders heaved; he’d started to pant. Maja could hear the high whistles of his speech, but not the words of the translation. To her, he sounded as he always did: imperious and aloof, no matter his distress. Even negotiating an illegal sale with a known criminal, he sounded disapproving.
Briefly, hope flared as ’Flix stood and held his satchel to his chest as if it were an egg. But when Verrick heaved himself to his feet, tossed a credit chit on the table, and started for the door, ’Flix followed.
Maja swore—then nearly choked as she inhaled the fumes of her noxious beverage.
Now what?
She still had nothing that she could bring before the First—no true evidence, only suspicions and the strange coded messages on the coms that had brought her here in the first place. She hadn’t even managed to see what ’Flix had hidden in his satchel.
She could report that ’Flix had met with pirates on Plexis, but Triad Third Maja Anders had no reason to know criminals’ identities. She had no cause to suspect that she knew where ’Flix was being taken, nor the identity of the person with whom he would shortly meet. Maja Anders didn’t know the back routes that would get her there first, before any such meeting could begin, nor how to position a recorder to capture every spoken word.
But she had not always been Maja Anders.
Maja looked down at her hands. Just forget it, she told herself. There’s still time to catch the ship.
A tenday of sunshine and warmth, a landscape that wasn’t carved from frozen rock—not to mention drinks that weren’t noxious pickle sludge. Nothing to stir up old pain and frustration, all the sharp edges of a life she no longer lived. All she had to do was keep her head down and go.
Even if ’Flix was dealing artifacts from their find—
Even if there was little more waiting for him at that meeting than a blade to the back—
Even if she never saw ’Flix again—
Maja closed her eyes. She couldn’t even finish the thoughts.
“Damn it, ’Flix,” she muttered. She tossed payment for the drink onto her wet table and followed in the pair’s wake, a silent shadow that slipped into the crowd with the ease of long practice.
She didn’t even like the stupid bird.
* * *
• • •
Maja’s first time on Plexis Supermarket, she’d been six years old. Old enough, she’d thought, to know everything, to have seen everything. She’d been a jaded creature in pigtails—until she’d come to Plexis.
“There,” a crew member had told her. She couldn’t, now, remember which one; they’d been a rotating family for her, caring and fun and often interchangeable. Her only constant had been Manny; her guardian, she supposed, though he’d always felt like her father. He was the one who’d taken her in after she’d been found as a squalling infant, the only sur
vivor of a pirate attack on the trader ship Dalton.
That’s what they’d called her, too, her birth name lost to cold space and ash. It was as good a name as any.
Dalton had shaken her head at the crew member. She didn’t care what was out the viewport window. It was all the same to her.
But they’d taken her hand and lifted her up, letting her see Plexis on their approach. Dalton had gasped, then plastered her face and hands to the window. She’d refused to leave, barely willing to blink. They’d had to bring her a chair so she could stand and watch when first one crew member’s arms, then a second, got weary from her weight.
She’d seen ships before; she’d seen stations. But never before had she seen something so massive, like a whole jigsaw world made by sentients’ hands. Even Plexis’ bright sign caught her eye, the glittering words turning in her vision as their ship moved toward the yawning maw, bristling with ship connections.
“It’s so beautiful,” she’d whispered.
“Hah! You have a strange eye for beauty, little one,” Manny had told her, chuckling, but he hadn’t disagreed.
If the outside had awed her, the interior of Plexis Supermarket had shocked Dalton silent. She’d walked with wide eyes and one hand pressed to the waxy tag on her cheek, trying to see everything at once. The shopping corridor arced in either direction, stores and restaurants vanishing into the distance. She’d seen glittering jewelry with beads like small worlds and a pet store with furry lumps that purred and chittered. There were stores with long scarves in gold and green, shoes and silver claw-caps, herbs and strange spices that made her sneeze, furniture for bodies large and small.
There’d been so many people: Gentek and Ordnex, Turrned and Carasians, Humans and creatures for which she knew no name, with tentacles or feathers, scales or knobbled hides or skin so slick with slime it shone mirror-bright in the station’s lights. She’d been all but lost in that crowd, clinging tightly to Manny’s ivory-tipped hand—and loving every moment.
At last, Manny had knelt before her, the Brill’s leathery bulk splitting the stream of shoppers like a stone in a stream. Though he’d worn only the lightest clothes, already he’d begun to sweat, rivulets running down his face and arms.
“Are you ready to see the next level?”
“There’s another level?” Dalton had asked, her voice small, as she looked toward the automated ramp. “Are there stores there, too?”
Manny had laughed so hard he’d near shook the floor. “Oh, little one, just you wait.”
* * *
• • •
Crowds, Maja had long ago learned, were like living creatures: each had its moods and had to be handled with care. The crowds in Plexis? Even now, she knew them as well as any beloved friend.
A friend, but an ill-tempered one. The crowd in the hall beyond the bar was far from jovial, but that was only to be expected on such a low level of the station. She spotted a few disagreements in the corridors, the usual posturing between members of rival shipping clans, even the parting of the crowd as off-duty members of a mercenary ship strolled by, but nothing that required her attention.
Good. It would make her job that much easier.
She trailed the pirate and her coworker for about a quarter turn, tracking the spire of ’Flix’s feathered crest. Just long enough for her to confirm their destination: the lower docking rings, where Verrick’s ship had always parked. Then she cut down a side corridor, sidestepped a servo, and made her way toward Plexis’ back halls.
Maja stuck out in the service corridors like a sore thumb, but she still knew the codes and signals. A hand gesture here, a quickly passed chit there, and those that traveled these ways looked aside as if she were no more than a passing shadow. Some things never changed.
As she made her way toward the docking ring, she tried to predict who ’Flix would meet. If this was a new deal, or there were concerns with the item ’Flix provided, Verrick might have orders for another crew member to validate the piece. On the other hand, if there was another issue—’Flix hadn’t brought the right number of items, say, or there was a debate over a previously agreed price—Verrick might escalate the issue directly to his captain.
If only she knew what ’Flix had taken from their find. There hadn’t been any artifacts worth selling—at least, not that she had seen. A scrap of worked metal. Three short links of shimmering chain. A narrow tube that could have been a machine rod, or a part of a stylo, or nothing at all.
Or had there been more discoveries—better ones, secret ones—that had been hidden from her entirely?
In the two years that she’d worked with her Triad, Maja had never felt that she’d made a deeper connection to either ’Flix or Arendenonail, despite her efforts. Their First was quiet and imposing, a titled scholar who thought he deserved to be in the mountains of Aeande XII, battling the glacier, rather than scratching through rock and permafrost on the backwater world of Rylan III for decayed Hoveny scraps. He’d argued loudly against Maja’s inclusion in the Triad—a fact he hadn’t tried to conceal—and sent a request every few months for her replacement, all denied.
There had been a thousand possible reasons for his dislike. She was new and unproven, and their find bore little fruit. Worse, she was Human. Perhaps, she’d thought no few times, he wanted her to bond with a dog to amplify her weak senses. No matter: she’d kept her head down, worked the coms, and kept digging, so to speak.
’Flix had been another matter. No disapproving silences from him: if anything, he had a comment for her every action, none of them good. There were times that he’d all but bodily pushed her aside from her console to complete some scan himself, his low whistles translating to a string of abuse made both harsher and more amusing by the monotone of his translating device.
Perhaps the Tolian had only been covering his tracks, hiding evidence of his dealings the only way he could. If only she had remote access to their site’s systems, perhaps she could have discovered more.
Maja shook her head; soon it wouldn’t matter. She had a recorder with her—months of hardscrabble work on the find meant she never left it behind, not even on vacation. So long as she reached the ship’s air lock in time, she could get the proof she needed to implicate ’Flix and then wash her hands of the whole situation.
If she could rid herself of one of the two members of her Triad, maybe daily life would get a little easier. Small mercies, she thought, and broke into a run.
* * *
• • •
“When you play a role,” Manny told her once, “be the role. You become that person, understand? But always keep a little part of yourself separate. That’s the part that watches.”
Dalton had nodded, wide-eyed, and committed the words to memory. She’d repeat them before she went to sleep, murmuring softly into her covers: “Be the person, have a part that watches.”
It was part of a game called Surveillance. When Manny or his crew went to meet a supplier or dealer, she’d be there. Rarely at Manny’s side—a Brill with a small Human child as a companion was memorable—but somewhere. She was the little Fem weeping and wailing that she couldn’t buy crystal cakes. She was the happy Hom pressed to the pet store window, his indulgent parents looking on. She was the sleepy little one held in her weary nanny’s arms, waiting at the docking gate.
Through it all, she watched. When they’d head back to the ship, Manny would quiz her: Where were the security guards stationed? Where were the cameras? Was anyone following? Was anyone watching?
Some were tests; Manny would pay people to watch or follow, give her someone to find. Others were trial runs, her answers corroborated by Manny’s crew, her mistakes and missed observations pointed out so that next time she could do better.
And sometimes, sometimes, it was real.
One afternoon on a small supermarket out on the fringe, Manny had been called to a meeting with a new ship
trying to earn its place in one of the Facilitator’s smuggling rings. Conversations with Manny’s underlings had gone poorly; the captain would only believe the word of Manouya, the Facilitator himself.
“Can’t fault their vigilance,” Manny had said with a chuckle, despite the inconvenience, and made preparations.
Dalton had been playing the role of the studious child, her nose in a book, while her “mother”—Manny’s third-in-command, Alexis—scurried about, trying to find passage to take her little scholar to boarding school. Alexis drew the eye; Dalton watched quietly from her shadow.
Which perhaps is why she was the first to see a face pass by not once, but twice in the crowd, both times headed spinward. He’d doubled back unseen—how? Why?
She’d tugged on Alexis’ arm. “Mom, I need to go to the accommodation,” she’d said. Code for a problem. Dalton had whispered what she’d seen; and, as the Human bought himself a snack, Alexis got eyes on Dalton’s suspect.
“Enforcers,” she’d said into her hidden microphone. “All teams, abort.”
The meeting had been a trap. Thanks to Dalton, Manouya and his crew were gone from the supermarket within moments, vanished like breath into air. The enforcers had tried to follow, but there was little in the Trade Pact that could outsmart the Facilitator when he knew to run.
Much later, Dalton had learned that even as Manny trained her, there had been plans to send her away. Life aboard a smuggler’s ship, some Humans said, was no life for a child. She could go to a city or colony; somewhere that she could have a real family, real parents, and a life other than this one. But this was the only life she’d ever known.
There were very many ways to be a smuggler, and as the years slowly passed, Dalton learned them all. On the books, she had been a shop owner, a trader, an antiques dealer, a tour guide, an accountant, and a drug dealer—all legal, of course. She’d dealt in offworld artifacts and outlawed literature, restricted foodstuffs and rare alcohol, bottled oxygen, and even a particular highly regulated scent that smelled like turpentine to Humans and was irresistibly erotic to Nrophrae.
The Clan Chronicles--Tales from Plexis Page 34