“Two of them?”
“Yes, two of the mining muscle. The ones they use when they want to put the clamps on a troublemaker. More muscle than wit. Mind, anyone with wit makes sure he don’t end up on Hellfire.” Cackling laughter signaled the joke. “Y’ can stay on board, out of the heat. We’ll stay here until nightfall and then I’ll take you to Shantytown.”
“Shantytown?”
“The company only accommodates miners and their women. The throwouts, men and women, end up in Shantytown. Not safe, that place. Although a young fellow like y’ should be able to survive for a while. Watch y’ back all the time, remember.” Pete fell silent and Steg hesitated to disturb his reverie.
“What did y’ think of that oasis, young fellow?”
The question was unexpected. “Oasis—so you did cause that? At first I thought I was being fooled by a mirage.”
“Nope. I was enjoying a little bit of showing off. Wanted to get y’ attention and it seemed a sure way.”
“Well, the result was effective. The way it moved when I did, made me suspect it might be more than a mirage.”
“See this?” Pete held out a small device. “Picked it up almost a thousand kays from here, back where the surface is still original, not like the magna exposed here.” He caught the unspoken question in Steg’s expression. “Yes, the miners call me a crackpot. But I’ve spent more years on Hellfire than all of ‘em put together.” He cackled. “Many more years. I know the secret, y’ see.” He fell silent for a while. “Must have been one helluva impact. Ripped a slice right off.” He made a cutting motion with the edge of his hand. “The slice broke up and that’s why we see so many small moons caught in the planet’s gravitational field. And here, we’re right in the middle of the dish left by the slice, see.” He again demonstrated with his hand. “That’s partly why the horizon appears to be always above where y’ expect it to be. The gravity helps the illusion, too. Now see this—” Again he fell silent. Steg did not move or speak, as Pete seemed to assemble the words he needed. “See.” Pete picked up another small object and turned it over and over, fingers fumbling and pushing at depressions in its surface. “This is a piece of equipment. Machinery. Functions unknown. I found it—lemme think—way over there,” he indicated vaguely with a wave of his hand. “That’s not all. No, there’s more, lots more. Artifacts of an ancient race. They made that image generator. Took me a year to figure it out. I can find only two scenes. One is the oasis, the second’s a sandy beach. They must’ve had others but they’re lost.” He paused again. “Perhaps they had different brains, and we can only see those two scenes. I’ll never know. They left the planet hundreds—maybe thousands—of years ago. Or maybe they died out.” The last was said without conviction.
“Have you collected many of these artifacts?”
“Why, sure. Some I can work out, like the hunting laser. That’s one of theirs. Wonderful weapon, wonderful.” He shook his head, unable to express the admiration he felt. “It’ll knock out an armored transporter at two kays. Or a tank. The miners leave me alone, now. Learned ’em good, last time.” The cackling exploded. “Of course, they realize they aren’t mining, just raiding old storage silos. Built’em underground, didn’t they? But when the slice went, all those storage silos were exposed. One of these days they’ll come back, looking for their ores. Then, all hell’ll be let loose. Hellfire.” The burst of cackling merged into a paroxysm of coughing and spluttering.
Steg waited until he recovered. “So the company’s mining here, illegally?” He did not wait for an answer. “If these are artifacts, it means that all commercial development is forbidden by Imperial law, at least until the xenos give their clearance.”
“Illegal?” exploded Pete. “Y’ expect the company to worry about a little thing like that? Of course, their mining’s illegal. But they won’t let me talk to anyone, will they? They know y’ won’t be leaving this planet—their muscle will take y’. Or try to. Double jeopardy, now y’ have associated with me. Double jeopardy.”
“What about you, Pete? How will you survive? How will you escape from those two out there?”
“Pete’s a survivor, don’t y’ worry. Found a cache of water where no one goes. Too much surface radiation, y’ see. That’s why this little beauty has all the insulation—it’ll take me anywhere on this continent, this will.” He patted the side wall.
“This is mobile? I thought it was a shed of some kind.”
“A shed,” cackled Pete. “Why, this is the best tracked vehicle on Hellfire. Made her from bits and pieces I liberated from here and there. Go anywhere, she will. I know where to find high-density fuel. They were good refiners, whoever they were.”
Pete fell silent again and Steg did not speak. Now he understood the old prospector’s speech pattern, Steg realized Pete needed time to assemble the words he wanted to present to his new audience. The old prospector obviously had very little opportunity to converse with anyone.
“She probably radiates like hell, too. But this little buggy takes me wherever I need to go. Food’s my main problem and for that I trade with the Shantytowners. The company don’t like ‘em doing that of course and try to stop ‘em. But Shantytowners just can’t resist. Come up here, I’ll show you.” He signaled for Steg to follow him into the next narrow room.
A glass-fronted display case was fitted along the wall and Steg stopped short at the unexpected sight. The case was full of gemstones, mostly cut, sparkling and glittering in the soft light. Steg moved closer to the display, only to be halted by a soft warning from Pete.
“Be careful. Look, but don’t touch. See.” Steg followed the pointed finger and he shuddered as he made out the folded shape of a fire lizard inside the display case. Their venom, on contact, would kill a grown man in seconds.
“I’ve three of those little beasts in there. Don’t like strangers, they don’t. Also, I‘ve set a little booby trap, if ever someone else opens the case. Triggers a radiation bath over the stones and over whoever opens the case. Doesn’t harm the stones and takes only a hundred years or so to decay to a relatively harmless level. Makes ‘em deadly, though, to anyone who handles ‘em. No one robs Pete.”
Steg examined the contents more carefully. “You must have a small fortune here. Enough to buy your way off Hellfire, and to keep you in luxury for the rest of your life.”
“Luxury! Luxury! Why the last thing the company would permit is my departure from Hellfire. Besides,” his voice grew confidentially soft. “Besides, I’m waiting here for the—owners—maybe they’re the Ancients—to return. They left in their ships and they’ll come back.” He was suddenly silent, as though he had disclosed far too much. He shuffled away, leaving Steg in the dark as he switched off the display lights. Pete returned to his living quarters, spluttering with his cackling style of laughter. “Now I’d better set my up defenses and then we need to bunk down for a while. We’ll travel when the sun sets, it’s far cooler then.”
Pete led the way through his living quarters, along a narrow corridor, past storage rooms, to the front of the vehicle. This was the control center although the screens were all blank and Steg was unable to see out to the blistering desert. Pete sat in the control chair and busied himself for a few minutes.
“They’ll clear when the sun goes down,” he explained, indicating the heavy, opaque screens. “It’s best to shield the cabin from the full strength of external radiation. There, I’ve set the controls for intruder detection. Anything larger than a fire lizard comes near and it’ll sound an alarm. Covers a radius of about a kay. So the muscle won’t be able to move in on us without detection. That’s a backup unit, same functions. Both are on. And besides,” he tapped the side wall of the vehicle, “this is laser proof anyway, so they’d need to launch a rocket to take us out.” The next pause was shorter. “Better have a meal, feller. Then sleep. It’ll be a few more hours before we can travel safely.”
Steg tried to sleep, aware of the need to rest before the long trip through
the night. He was tense, unable to relax enough for sleep. He doubted his ability to survive alone on this hellish planet, pursued by company killers presumably under instructions to ensure he did not survive long enough to be rescued by any friendly trader. His despondency deepened as he assessed his inability to further influence the Acolytes’ campaign to regain control of Homeworld. He was now almost alone in his struggle to survive and the casual support of a wandering prospector was not enough to guarantee success. The unrestrained might of House of Aluta had reached out across space and now pinned him like a frail insect unable to avoid its natural predator. Then his mind drifted into memories of safe castle walls surrounded by loyal and peaceful townspeople, of green pastures and cool forests, of excited hunters with their game, and of fishermen sailing blue and glittering seas. He had a need and he had hope. He drifted into the welcome relief of untroubled sleep.
“Wake up,” the old man’s voice roused Steg. “It’s time to move. Sunset was fifteen minutes ago. Y’ can act as my co-pilot.” Without further comment Pete moved off down the corridor towards the control cabin.
Steg rubbed his eyes. His body ached from confinement in the small bunk. He stood and stretched, narrowly avoiding the low ceiling. He followed his host into the control cabin where he was already commencing a well-honed checklist. His running commentary was intended only for himself as he prepared to move his wagon.
“That generator’s a bit cranky. It could well blow one of these days. I need a spare from somewhere, maybe from one of the auto-miners. On second thoughts I could park outside the company town and just let it go.” He cackled at his own wit. “Sure would be one helluva blast.”
The vehicle shuddered into motion and Steg hid his doubts as it lurched and jolted as its tracks grabbed for purchase on hard rock or shifting sand. Pete guided it along with care, meticulously progressing through final checks. Then he opened the throttle. Steg grabbed at railing for support as the sudden burst of speed threw him off balance. Ragged clumps of rock whipped past, almost close enough to scrape off layers of metal. Harsh and discordant sounds from the track drive units, shrieking bearings and groaning metal mixed into a cacophony of unorchestrated sound and he struggled unsuccessfully to block out the deafening result.
“How far do we need to travel?” he shouted as Pete eased off the speed in order to more carefully navigate a rough rock outcrop.
Pete looked surprised, as though he had forgotten his passenger, absorbed as he was in guiding his wagon. “About a hundred and fifty kays. We’ll reach a track in about twenty kays that’ll give us a smoother ride. Then we’ll move along much faster. Now strap in, for there’s some rough country ahead.”
Steg obeyed the casual suggestion in cautious deference to the old prospector’s familiarity with the desert and the trails. He thought the vehicle already was traveling fast over rough terrain and had difficulty in imagining worse.
The crescendo of sound caused the initial uproar to fade into a pleasant memory. Steg felt the harsh vibrations reach in and find a dread harmonic in his bones as the cabin rattled and shook, and the auditory assault made him wonder of his hearing would ever recover. Suddenly the tracks jumped free of the rock shelf and the sound quietened to a heavy and almost bearable drumming. The jolting motion smoothed to an occasional shifting of attitude as the tracks bit into the undulating sand which stretched ahead as far as Steg could see.
“There. The autopilot can handle it now,” Pete indicated the patched mechanism. “We sure got y’ out of there in a hurry. Didn’t want to faze y’ any, but the muscle was trying to move in. It’s all right. They’re on desert bikes and we can go a heck of a lot faster for a heck of a lot longer.” The excitement of the chase had added a glitter to Pete’s already vivid blue eyes.
“They know we have only one possible destination?”
“Of course. But it’s better if I get y’ there first. Cause ‘em to lose face. Puts ‘em at a disadvantage,” cackled Pete. “Mind, they’ll be all the more eager to settle with y’. Get ’em wild first and they’ll make mistakes. That’s y’ only hope, keep ’em off balance and making mistakes.” His was the certainty of an aged and wily campaigner.
“I hope you’re correct.”
“Of course I am,” Pete accepted no argument. “Once I drop y’ at the edge of Shantytown, though, y’re on y’ own. Persona non grata, I am. Oh, if I want to trade, that’s one thing. But openly challenging the company? Not in public, not in Shantytown. See?” He looked at Steg sideways, verifying that his message was clear and understood. “Mind, if y’ want to leave Shantytown and go prospecting, Pete will help y’. This hellish desert is my destiny.” The harsh cackle followed.
“Tell me about Shantytown.”
“Heh. Well, it has about two hundred folks there. Lot of wimmen. Discards. Thrown out of the company town, as I said. No chance of getting passage off Hellfire once they fall foul of the company. And bootleg.” He smacked his lips. “Real rot gut. I trade for that sometimes, if I’ve a serious thirst. They’ve some natural leaders in Shantytown. Big Tim, if he’s still alive. He’s got only one eye, the other was gouged out in a brawl. One or two wimmen have a lot to say. Millie, now, she might help y’. Tell her Pete said. Watch the others. They’ll be after the bounty,” he concluded.
“A bounty? On me?”
“Heh heh. Of course. Latest offer is a free trip home plus one year’s pay. Nowhere near enough, mind. If y’ stand up to them, they’ll run. Otherwise they’ll try and get y’ in the back. On the far side of Shantytown’s the company’s proper mining town. They have a barricade—like a palisade—that keeps out unwanted visitors. No one from Shantytown’s allowed in, not since Mad Harry took in a bomb. Filled his artificial leg with HEx. Nearly blew the controller’s office off the planet. They couldn’t find either the controller or Mad Harry neither, after the smoke cleared.”
Steg shook his head in near disbelief. “How far away from the company town is the mine face?”
“Storage silos, y’ mean. About twenty kays. The company has forty auto-miners. Drill and blast, drill and blast, that’s their approach. Then they cart the ore to the launch pad, that’s another ten kays out. It’s so pure they don’t need to do any local refining, they just load the ore into container shuttles and launch ’em. The shuttles are unshielded and that’s why the pad’s so far away from the mine and the town. They send up maybe one a day and assemble the loads in orbit, ready for the next carrier. The company has close on five hundred men, countin’ guards, maintenance, techs, miners, and so forth. About the same number of wimmen. They all come here on five year contracts, hoping to strike it rich.” His voice expressed his disdain. “By the time the company deducts fares, food, and the like, they need those five years to just break even. Can’t beat the system, see?” He cackled his amusement at the stupidity of man.
Steg listened intently as the old prospector rambled his way through a detailed description of Hellfire. His survival would depend on his ability to cope with the Shantytowners and avoid unplanned contact with the company. Every detail he could learn now was vital to his survival. At least he would enter Shantytown with enough background to avoid instant capture or death at the hands of a hopeful bounty hunter.
Pete halted the wagon a kay out from Shantytown and after a brief farewell Steg donned his desert suit and climbed out into the now cold desert. The night was calm and quiet. The temperature had dropped sharply, was still heading down, and would hit a number well below freezing before sunrise. Overhead, the tumbling moons of Hellfire outpaced the spinning planet. Scattered orbiting rocks reflected the light of Hellfire’s sun, splaying cold diffused light across the barren landscape. Steg sealed his desert suit and lifted Ebony and his pack, now well stocked with supplies including some liberated grenades and spare HEx from Pete, onto his back. Steg thought the explosives would be useful if he needed to create some mayhem. As he moved away, in the direction of the lights of Shantytown, he waved a silent farewell salute to the
old prospector, certain they would not meet again. Pete turned the wagon in a flurry of spinning tracks and fled back into the sanctuary of the desert.
Steg took his bearings from the glitter of lights and paced towards Shantytown. He welcomed the opportunity to walk after the cramp of Pete’s wagon. His debt to Pete was huge because the old man had saved his life, had saved him from an unpleasant death in the furnace heat of the desert. Additionally, he had provided invaluable background details on the residents of Hellfire, both in Shantytown and in the company town. Steg would find few friends in Shantytown and none in company town. Somehow, he needed to find safe shelter, where he could plan his next steps. He had to present the company with a situation to compel them to ship him off Hellfire alive. He strode forward, enjoying the bracing effect of the cold night air.
******
Chapter 20
A sudden surge of sound startled Steg and he froze as he attempted to identify its source. He realized with surprise he had reached the edge of Shantytown and it was the source of the noise. He walked towards the center of the sound and shortly reached the one and only saloon on Hellfire, wistfully named The Golden Nugget. The common dream of exiles in Shantytown was that one day they would discover the most rare and richest ore lode on Hellfire, while the common occupation was to dream.
Steg kept to the shadows as he approached the saloon. Waves of sound cloaked any small noise he made. He pushed open the swing doors and stepped confidently inside. His momentum carried him through the center of the room to the bar, unhindered by the startled crowd. The noise died into silence. People edged away from him, shuffling, not looking, not speaking. They knew his identity and they knew his supposed doom. Steg shrugged. He dropped his pack and ordered a drink from the pensive barman. As he waited, he used the long wall mirror to study his fellow drinkers.
Broken Glass (Glass Complex Book 1) Page 19