The Cryonite Caper

by Felix R. Savage

  I reminded myself that she was talking to save her life. Still, did she have to say that?

  I glanced around at Dolph and the realtor, who was laughing and twirling a lock of hair around one finger. It didn’t sound like they were talking real estate anymore.

  “But Starrunner’s gonna have to wait,” Parsec continued. “First things first. We gotta get the package back. I’m not rolling on an Ek hospital. We’ll wait until they move, then we move, too. And you’re coming with us.”

  “Hell yeah,” Irene said. “I want my share. And maybe you need a reminder of how good I can shoot.”

  Parsec burbled laughter, appreciating her feistiness. Just like that, he was back to being Mr. Congeniality, calling for drinks and telling one of the bears to get Irene one of those burgers.

  I yearned to cross the street and wreck their pool party. Disciplining myself, I stared at the front of Parsec’s house. A beautiful house like that deserved a better owner than him. His front garden had the bland, generic look that said maintenance was left to a yardwork robot. His neighbor on the left had a fishpond, and his neighbor on the right had a jungle gym. As I watched, two grade-school kids bounded up the street, wearing those levitating shoes that Lucy wanted for her next birthday.

  I peered down into the model house I’d been idly playing with. I had arranged a big sofa in front of the fire, added a bookcase display all around the living room, and resized the kitchen furniture to accommodate Nanny B’s diminutive stature. This house had five bedrooms and six bathrooms.

  I lowered the volume on my phone to a whisper and strolled back to the realtor and Dolph. “I was just wondering if you had anything smaller?”

  They did have smaller houses. I took a virtual tour, and the realtor made sure I knew about the defensive laser installations, the plasma toroid gun, and the bug-zapping perimeter, as well as the excellent reputation of Ville Verde Elementary. I ended up with a stack of electronic brochures and pricing guides, and an appointment to view the smaller houses in person next week.

  “You’re taking this pretty far,” Dolph said under his breath. “Now Bonita thinks she’s gonna get a sales commission.”

  “She might,” I whispered back.

  Yes, Parsec lived here. No, I didn’t want to live in the same community as Parsec. But the way I felt, he wasn’t gonna be living here much longer.

  Out loud, I said, “You’ve been amazingly helpful. Thank you so much.”

  “See you next week!” said Bonita the realtor, all smiles.

  We couldn’t feasibly kill much more time in here, so we walked back to the gate, aware that the Ville Verde AI was surveilling us through a multitude of concealed cameras and constantly updating its threat assessments. Unsure how good their audio surveillance was, I kept quiet until we were back in the visitor parking lot.

  There, I faced Dolph. “I was wrong. You were right. She dropped us in it.”

  “Uh oh,” he said.

  “He was holding a gun on her. But still. The damage is done.” Taking out my phone, I replayed the key bit of the conversation between Irene and Parsec. I even let Dolph hear Parsec calling me a rabbit.

  As he listened, his face grew grimmer and grimmer. But all he said was, “This is why Shifters can’t have nice things.”

  “Yup,” I said.

  “I’ll cut off Parsec’s stubby little tail and feed it to him.”

  The way I felt right now, Dolph would have to get in line. But I clung to my purpose. “Right after we rescue Risk.”

  I got in my truck. Dolph got on his bike. We drove down the winding road, almost back to Space Highway, and found a place to conceal the vehicles in the woods. Branches scraped along the roof. Ripe pufferplant pods burst on my windshield. I killed the engine. We were sitting in the middle of a cage match among a hundred species of flora and insect life from different parts of the Cluster, all duking it out for supremacy. Dolph came and waited in the truck cab with me because the bugs were eating him alive.

  We sat in tense silence. My phone continued to transmit the unlovely sounds of a bear pool party, and the even more depressing sound of Irene bantering cheerfully with Parsec.

  I borrowed Dolph’s phone to call Nanny B and check on the girls. She said they were eating at Burgermeister’s, and there was a tasvagga conjuror. Hopefully that would keep them distracted for a while.

  After that, there was nothing to do but wait. The sun went down. Glowbugs danced through the jungle. Visions of mauling Parsec while Irene watched danced through my mind.

  “Did you hear that?” Dolph said.

  I sat up. The first thing I noticed was the silence from my phone. Irene had cut the connection.

  Then I heard the sound of engines.

  I glanced in the rearview, hoping the back of my truck was adequately concealed.

  In a chink between the leaves, I saw the bears’ rustbuckets bouncing past, followed by Parsec’s sub-limo. I even caught a split-second glimpse of Irene in the sub-limo’s passenger seat.

  Dolph slid out of the truck cab. I started the engine.

  5

  Dolph took lead on his bike. “They’re heading for the spaceport,” he reported through the phone hookup in his helmet.

  “Got it.” I yanked the steering wheel over manually and followed.

  Although the sun had set, the horizon still glowed orange, silhouetting the control towers and warehouses of Space Island. Ships launched into the blood-orange clouds. Traffic on Space Highway had finally thinned out. I stayed in manual mode, lane-hopping to keep up with the tail lights of the sub-limo, while my truck complained at me, and I wondered if, even at this speed, we’d get there in time to stop the Eks from putting Risk on a spaceship bound for God knows where. I assumed that was their plan.

  To my great surprise, Parsec’s gang didn’t head for the freight launch terminals.

  They hooked left as soon as they were over the Space Island causeway, and drove out along the shore, towards the cargo warehousing and ground shipping area.

  Huge godowns lined the shore of the island. Long-haul trucks glided the other way in self-driving convoys.

  “They’re going into the Nittsu Fresh parking lot,” Dolph reported. “I’m gonna double back.”

  I reached a layby in front of the Nittsu Fresh complex, which was mostly full of long-haul rigs. I slotted my truck in between two articulated monsters and got out. The Ponce de Leon trucking industry isn’t entirely automated, only about 90%. Human drivers still own certain destinations in the interior where the insurance companies fear to tread—an analogue of my own precarious niche in the space freight industry. These drivers have it tough, and often sleep in their rigs between runs. I wondered how they could manage it with the noise of launches thundering through the air, so loud and close that the very ground seemed to shake. I checked that their blackout curtains were drawn. Then I leant against my truck and watched through the fence as the Bad-News Bears and Irene left their vehicles and sauntered towards the entrance of the Nittsu Fresh complex.

  Dolph’s bike crunched gravel. He stood beside me, pulling his helmet hair into a ponytail. “What the heck are they doing?”

  The complex was closed. Glass walls enclosed a foyer in which the Nittsu Fresh logo glowed behind a deserted reception desk.

  “Nittsu Fresh, Nittsu Fresh,” Dolph said. “Where’ve I seen that name before?”

  “On our cargo manifests,” I said. “It’s a cryo-shipping company.”

  Inside this huge, featureless building, many tons of fresh fruit and other perishable goods were packed every day in cryonite, to be shipped across the Cluster.

  “Ek-owned?”

  “I figure yeah, partly,” I said. “Lot of companies are …”

  I trailed off. Scanning the parking lot, I’d just spotted a familiar SUV.

  “Bingo,” I said, pointing. “The Eks are here.”

  “Which means Risk’s in there.”

  As we watched, Parsec’s gang rolled on the Nittsu Fre
sh complex.

  They may give the impression of rank stupidity, but the Bad-News Bears have never yet paid for their crimes, and there’s a reason for that. They are good at what they do.

  One of the Kodiak twins strolled up to the doors. There was a brief flash. The doors slid open. The other twin dashed inside and did something behind the reception desk. I assume he was disabling the alarm system.

  The rest of the gang crowded in, chatting and laughing, as if they were employees. They were even dressed for the part, in black coveralls that wouldn’t show blood. They carried soft-shell briefcases. I was betting those briefcases did not hold computers.

  Parsec and Irene brought up the rear.

  I heard a click, and looked down.

  Dolph had just powered up the pocket Gauss I took off the Eks.

  “Can I use this?” he said, and loped towards the gate.

  I grabbed my Midday Special and caught up with him halfway across the parking lot, with my Midday Special in my hand. We slid in through the ruined doors and cleared the foyer, working together like in the old days. Beyond the reception desk, a long gray corridor stretched into the building, with a set of swing doors at the end.

  Somewhere in the building a motorized whine started up.

  Dolph raised his eyebrows.

  I shrugged.

  We carried on to the end of the corridor, watching for threats and moving as quietly as possible. I cracked the swing doors open, then edged into the cryo-packing plant.

  In the feeble light from standby LEDs, the place didn’t look like anything special. Just a lot of hulking machines with conveyor belts running through them. There was a strong smell of liquid cryonite, and a fainter aroma of strawberries. And of course, it was cold.

  Darkness swiped at my face.

  I ducked just in time. The paw of a black bear swished above my head.

  The bear followed up with an immediate left hook. I spun sideways and the fan of long yellow claws raked just above my eye. One claw sliced my eyebrow, but in bear terms that’s as good as a miss. I reeled back, catching my balance.Behind the bear, something went phut. It was the same sound that had shattered all my chinaware this morning.

  The bear toppled forward.

  I caught him—or he landed on me, depending on your perspective. Either way, he weighed a ton, but I got him to the floor without making a sound.

  “Can I keep this?” Dolph whispered.

  Sticky blood covered my hands, but the bear was still breathing. I hoped he wouldn’t die. I decided I’d call an ambulance.

  Later.

  Right now we had to find Risk.

  Dolph and I dashed to the shadows along the wall, as quietly as possible, and stopped behind a cryo-packing machine.

  In the distance, the whining noise stopped, then started up again.

  We sidled along the that wall for what felt like a mile. Then I froze. Ahead, dim light shone from through a window in the same wall we were moving along.

  It glowed on the eyeballs of bears standing and squatting around the window, watching whoever or whatever was inside.

  Yes, bears.

  The whole gang had Shifted.

  I identified Parsec’s grizzly form in their midst, and spotted Irene crouching on top of a cryo-packing machine. She was still in human form.

  I hand-signaled to Dolph. We backtracked, split up, and circled around behind Irene and the bears. Of course a couple of them were facing away from the door, watching their six, but they neither saw nor heard me and Dolph. Special forces training is an advantage you never quite lose.

  When Dolph and I were safely crouched behind a machine on the other side of the hall, we studied the window.

  A room adjacent to the packing floor held a dozen steel tables. All of them were unused except for one.

  On that one lay my weapons officer in his cryonite prison.

  All three Eks were there, too, as big and blue and four-armed as ever. One stood guard and was not doing a very good job of it—xe clearly couldn’t see the bears on the other side of the window, as it was dark out here and bright in there. Another one was holding Risk’s cube steady. The third one, heavily patched and bandaged, was working the diamond saw suspended over the cutting table.

  That’s what was making the whine.

  Slowly, but relentlessly, the blade carved into the cryonite over the helpless old fox’s stomach.

  They were cutting him in half.

  That’s why they had brought him to the Nittsu Fresh complex.

  A cryo-packing facility is the only place you find saws rated for cryonite.

  Dolph gave me a look. His bottlenosed psycho look. “Let’s kill them all.”

  I opened my mouth. I don’t know what I would have said.

  Parsec brought his paw down in a slashing motion.

  The Kodiak bear beside the window wound up and smashed it with one blow from his mighty paw.

  The other Kodiak bear was at the door just past the window. He smashed it open with a roar. The other bears piled through the opening, bellowing.

  The Eks around Risk glanced up in a moment of perfect confusion.

  The Ek guard got off a few shots that went wild, but that was all. The wave of ursine muscle pummeled the aliens to the floor. Teeth and claws lightly savaged them until all three were cowed. Eks curled into fetal balls and whimpering for mercy—it was a sight to behold.

  Parsec rested his front paws on the fox-cube, sniffed the groove that the diamond saw had made in it, and let out a triumphant growl.

  He turned to say something to his thugs—and then hell broke loose.

  The cryo-packing plant flooded with brilliant light—all the overheads going on at once.

  Ten more Eks thundered down the aisle between the packing machines, guns out.

  You can do the math: ten armed Eks means forty handguns. That was bad for Parsec but then it got a smidge worse: the tenth Ek, the boss, had six arms, and in each hand was a shiny new Gauss Railleur Ultra.

  With one look, the bears scattered in every direction.

  Some fled back toward our door, others deeper into the cutting room.

  All around the room, on every wall, loading doors suddenly flew up with a crash.

  More Eks stepped in. Rows of them, armed to the teeth. How many more I couldn’t say, but it seemed like every Ek in existence. I couldn’t get a firm count on them because a barrel pressed into my spine.

  Someone had a gun on my back, and it was humming and ready to discharge.

  I glanced over. Dolph’s hands were already up. Yet another Ek towered behind us, and he had two guns for each of us.

  In seconds, the bears were herded back together, and Dolph and I were forced to join them. Irene sat above the fray, still on her packing machine, her hands in the air. Parsec growled at me, Dolph glowered back at him, Irene avoided my eyes altogether, and the bandaged—now mauled—Ek from my apartment saw me and tried to crawl away.

  For a moment the place was quiet, and gloriously awkward.

  Then the six-armed Ur-Ek fired all six Gauss Railleur Ultras into the ceiling. If he wanted our attention it was overkill, but he got it.

  “So,” xe boomed. “All of you we have. For cooperating, I thank you.”

  The original trio of Eks winced to their feet, gabbling in their own language. The Ur-Ek silenced them with a look. “Resume the retrieval operation,” xe ordered. “Be very careful not to damage the memory stick. We must ensure it has not been tampered with, or … copied.”

  The memory stick.

  I finally understood. All of it: what had happened to Risk, how Irene fit in, why Parsec was going up against the Eks in his ‘million-credit play.’

  But first things first. My yelp of horror was drowned out by the whine of the diamond saw as it started up again.

  They thought the memory stick was in Risk’s pocket.

  They were going to cut my old fox in half for a prize that wasn’t there.

  While I was desperatel
y thinking, the Ur-Ek ordered xis minions to herd all of us into the middle of the cryo-packing floor. They disarmed me, Dolph, and Irene, and frisked us. The reek of the Eks, and the touch of their clammy hands on my skin, gave me the willies. That was nothing to what the Ur-Ek said next.

  “Laws against murder there are.” Xe rubbed xis long square chin thoughtfully. “However, laws against cryo-freezing there are not.” Xe smiled horribly at us. Ek smiles are perfectly circular, giving us a great view of two rows of blunt brown chompers. “I know of a ship departing for the Hurtworlds later tonight. It has room in its hold for thirteen … passengers.” Xe surveyed the bears. “Very fond of Shifters, the Travellers are.”

  If animals could go pale, Parsec and his gang would have turned into polar bears. I was feeling none too sanguine myself. The Travellers are fond of Shifters … as combatants in their gladatorial games. If Six Arms had his way, we would finish up fighting giant land crabs or Raptivans for the viewing pleasure of those vile pirates, and end our lives on blood-soaked sand.

  “You can’t do this to me,” Parsec blustered. “I’m a ship-owner, a successful captain! If I vanished, everyone on PdL would—”

  “Breathe a sigh of relief, I expect,” the Ur-Ek said. “And that for your whole crew goes. Start the machines.”

  Some of the Eks powered up the two nearest cryo-packing machines. The stench of cryonite got stronger as the evil mixture began to churn inside the mixing tanks. I looked at the size of the openings that the conveyor belts fed into. Yes, a full-grown human could easily fit in there.

  Irene said desperately, “I’ve got children. They need me. Please, please let me go! I had nothing to do with this.”

  The Ur-Ek stared at her coldly. “Lying to us, a waste of time is. We have already obtained a full confession from the Holoventures employee who sold the memory stick to the fox Shifter. Ex-employee, I should say, and in fact,” xe added, “ex-person.” Another of those hideous smiles. “Remind you, shall I? There was the fox Shifter; browsing idly through oniline online offerings of black market goods, he was …”

  So it had all started with Risk’s sketchy side business.

  “Spots an interesting item, he does, and purchases it on a whim. Later, realizes the true value of the memory stick, he does. His fortune is made, he thinks. But safely sell it on Ponce de Leon he cannot. He comes up with a clever plan, and that is where you, madame, come in. He asks you to encase him in cryonite, with the memory stick.”