Finder

by Suzanne Palmer

  Breathe, he told himself. Just think about the keys. Let them settle and roll around in your memory. You know billions of useless things; something will stick. And you know the Shipmakers themselves; that can’t hurt.

  He laid the pad against his chest, crossed his hands over it, and closed his eyes. Eventually enough dust cleared that he stopped sneezing and fell into a light doze.

  Something needle-sharp jabbed him in the neck. Slapping at it, he came away with a small, dark, chitinous thing that leapt from his hand. It hit the wall, instantly got its feet under it, and skittered away. A line of ballroaches was creeping along the hammock and over his body.

  “Gah! Gowan!” he shouted, brushing them off with fast swipes.

  Adrenaline and the throbbing pain of the sting kept him wide awake and twitching until Bale finally reappeared.

  “What’s the news?” Fergus asked.

  Bale rubbed one hand over his exhausted face. “Getting you out of here isn’t going to be easy. Someone’s jamming the public comms all over Cernee—by now, probably all sides are just to level the field—and word is the Governor is going nuts about Katra. Authority is shutting down all the lines in and out of Central. It won’t be long before the entire inner Halo is either under martial law or at war. In the meantime, I can’t tell what’s going on here in the Rock, but I was chased twice. I’ve seen a few of Gilger’s people in their own colors and at least a dozen in Vinsic’s. That’s an awful lot of stolen or forged suits, if that’s what it is.”

  “Maybe Gilger bought off Vinsic’s men? He did that with his old boss, Tamassi.”

  “You’ve been here three days?”

  “Well, probably four now,” Fergus said.

  “Ahuh. With the number of them here, either they’ve got something else going on or they’re pretty sure we’re not off the Rock yet and they really want us. Want you. Locals aren’t cooperating just on principle—most everyone here is a rockcrapper or descended from one, and every family has lost someone to raids or hostile takeover attempts. No one’s going to give us up voluntarily, but it’s only a matter of time before someone points them at the old mining tunnels, hoping they’ll come in here and meet a bad end just like in the good old days. We need to get out.”

  “And Harcourt?”

  “Comm signal around the Wheels is fouled just like everywhere else, so we’re relying on point-to-point right now. One of our people in Blackcans reported that she saw Mr. Harcourt’s ship come in. No one’s heard anything out of Blackcans since then.”

  “That can’t be good.”

  “It’s a huge fucking mess, no one knows anything, and it’s all just guesses and bad information,” Bale said. “None of us ever thought Gilger would try something this big.”

  Fergus let the man sit and stare into nothing but his own unhappiness for a while, then gently cleared his throat. “If we need to get out of here,” he said, “is there a place we can go where we’ll be safe?”

  “I don’t want to be safe. I want to be back at the Wheels doing my job,” Bale said, and kicked off the wall for emphasis.

  “If you can get me off this rock, I can take care of myself, and you can go do whatever you need to.”

  Bale thought for a minute. “We have a safe house in Boxhome. It’s a ways around the Halo, though,” he said. “My brother still lives here in the Rock, so we’ll go there first. I need to borrow a suit, because I’m a walking target in Mr. Harcourt’s stripes. As for you . . .” He looked Fergus up and down. “I don’t suppose you could try to be shorter?”

  “Not really.”

  “Yeah. The more we keep under cover, the better. Got your stuff?”

  Fergus finished checking his things, tucked his handpad back inside his suit pocket, and slung his pack over his back. “Ready.”

  Bale pointed at the last airlock. “That way. Follow me carefully; the rock is unstable once we get out of the shelter. Stay away from the edges,” he added. “Some places are sharp.”

  He cycled himself out, and Fergus followed. Bale’s handlight threw jagged shadows across the old rock. Fergus turned on his own light to dispel the fear that things were creeping toward him in the dark. He could feel the welt of the ballroach sting even through the many-layered material of his exosuit.

  The miners had left behind the pull cable when they’d abandoned this section of the Rock. Suspended from one wall, they could move themselves along it through the tunnels. Several convoluted twists and turns later, Bale drifted to a slow stop. “Careful up here,” he said. “We have to go through an old cave-in, then through a safety gate that opens onto a live passage. I’ll go first as soon as the way is clear, and I’ll let you know when you can come through. When I tell you, move fast. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Okay.” The tunnel turned, and ahead of them was a massive jumble of stone wedged into a suffocatingly small area. Without hesitation, Bale threw himself into one of the many dark voids, his feet disappearing as if he’d just been swallowed whole.

  Fergus pulled himself forward to where the cable had been bent and permanently interred in stone. He tried to shine his light in, but it didn’t seem to penetrate more than centimeters.

  On one of those rare occasions when his father had paid him any direct attention, he’d tucked Fergus in bed and told him about traveling as a kid with his own Da, and the time they went to the city of Arles to explore the catacombs. He’d tried repeatedly to impart the level of darkness to Fergus. Like a cloudy night with no moon or stars, Dadaidh? he’d asked, and his father shook his head, either angry or disappointed with his lack of understanding, and did not bring it up again.

  One hand on the lip of the hole, Fergus turned off his handlight and let the nothingness press in around him. Like this, Da? he thought. Although you had gravity and tour guides and Grandfather for company. How dark is this compared to the bottom of the Scottish Inland Sea?

  “Come now, through the rock.” Bale’s voice startled him out of his thoughts.

  Fergus propelled himself into the hole. It was a thin, twisty tube, but not as ragged as the tunnel he’d left. Pulling himself out the far side, he was bathed in dim light seeping through cracks in the safety gate ahead. “I’m through,” he replied.

  “Hold where you are. People in the tunnel. When I give the all clear, pull the gate toward you from the left—it pivots, and the lock is disabled—and come through as quickly as you can. Once you’re out, try to look like you belong here.”

  “Right.” Fergus brushed dust off his suit, and waited.

  “Go.”

  He grabbed the gate. It swung open exactly as Bale had said it would. Slipping through, he let it close with a soft thud behind him and took hold of one of the many tunnel cables. Bale pointed. “We go that way. It’s longer but less crowded.”

  When at last they reached a residential area, Bale stopped just around a bend near one of several nondescript doors. “This is my brother’s place. He’s not part of Mr. Harcourt’s crew, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention him to anyone or say you came here,” Bale said. He pressed the doorchime. “Stinky, it’s me. Let me in?”

  A few moments later, a voice replied, “That you, Tig? Hang on.”

  Bale frowned. He reached into a suit pocket, pulled out a small energy pistol, and checked the charge on it. “Trouble,” he whispered.

  “How can you tell?”

  “He’s never called me Tig in my life.”

  “Is that your first name?”

  “Yeah, but he’s my big brother, you know? He always calls me Smelly or Meatbag or Loser. You have brothers?”

  “No.”

  “Then you wouldn’t understand.” Bale motioned for Fergus to pull himself back behind him as the door clicked and slid open. A man who looked much like Bale, only slightly older and thinner, peered out. “Tig? You have someone with you?”
he asked.

  “Just a friend,” Bale said. He lifted the pistol up slightly from where he’d concealed it beneath his other arm, and the other man gave an almost imperceptible nod. Yes.

  Bale backed up, planted his feet on the wall of the corridor opposite the door, and shot himself into the room with force. There was a shout of surprise, cut off mid-cry by the thud of two people colliding. Fergus peered around the corner to see Bale struggling midair with one man while another had his arm around Bale’s brother’s neck. Both attackers had blue stripes.

  The man holding Bale’s brother pulled out a small pistol. Bale’s brother elbowed him sharply in the ribs, sending the man back into the wall. The shot went wide and left a small blackened circle above the doorway where Fergus floated.

  “Asshole! Don’t kill that one!” the man fighting with Bale shouted at his partner.

  Fergus reached around the doorframe, grabbed a lamp from where it was magged to the wall, and slung it across the room at the attacker who had fired. It connected with the man’s head, knocking him into a dazed somersault. The other attacker drew his own pistol. Bale grabbed his arm with both hands and flexed, sending them both into another spin. Fergus ducked as another wild shot went right over his head.

  The two men were in a slow roll in the middle of the room, fighting for control of the pistol. The attacker wrapped his legs around Bale’s torso to give himself more leverage. At the same time, his free hand reached behind him and pulled something from a pocket on his suit. With a quick jerk of the wrist, he flipped it open to reveal a short serrated blade.

  “Knife!” Fergus shouted. He grabbed a wallbar and pivoted around so he could push off and intercept. Bale tried to pull himself away, but the man tightened his grip with his legs and bent his pistol elbow, holding him just long enough to ram the knife up between Bale’s ribs. Bale went limp, gasping, hands opening and closing in spasms.

  The man let go of both knife and Bale. He was grinning as he placed the pistol muzzle against Bale’s head.

  “No!” Bale’s brother shouted. He kicked out, sending both himself and the attacker in opposite directions. The attacker hit the wall and spun around. The smile was gone. Raising the pistol again, his gaze was intent on the two brothers in the center of the room.

  Fergus killed the room lights. One, two, he counted to himself. Time for the moment of surprise, for Bale’s brother to start pulling the both of them out of the line of fire. Time for the attacker to reach up and turn on full infrared on his goggles.

  Three. He flipped the lights back on.

  The attacker flung his arm up over his eyes as he waved the pistol, aimless and frantic, in a sweep in front of him. Bale’s brother had shoved upward from the floor, pulling Bale toward the ceiling. Fergus ducked down low and kicked off the wall with everything he had, slamming into the attacker’s midsection and sending him flying backwards again. The man’s head collided with a wall cabinet with a sharp crack, and he let go of his pistol and curled up, no longer moving under his own power.

  His own momentum checked by the collision, Fergus grabbed a wallbar and snagged the pistol out of the air, then spun around, looking for the brothers. Small drops of blood curled around the room and over to the side wall, marking the path they’d taken. Bale was slumped to one side, pressed into a grippy chair.

  “Is he . . .?”

  “Not yet,” Bale’s brother said, one foot hooked under the chair, trying to apply pressure. “I need to get him to help. What’s your business with my brother?”

  “He was trying to get us off Mezzanine Rock,” Fergus said. “He came here to borrow a suit so he wouldn’t stand out as one of Harcourt’s men. We knew we were being hunted.”

  “Yeah. They’ve been here for an hour, waiting for you. Toss me that energy pistol?”

  Fergus turned it handle-out and gave it a gentle push across the room. Bale’s brother plucked it out of the air and, briefly letting go of his brother, shot both of the attackers. Meeting Fergus’s eyes, his expression was unapologetic. “They’d have killed us. Now there’s two less fighters in Cernee to worry about, and even here it’ll take a few days for Vinsic to replace them.”

  “They may be Gilger’s men in stolen suits,” Fergus said.

  “Well, not that one. He’s Vinsic’s guy through and through.” Bale’s brother pointed at the dead man Fergus had kicked into the shelf.

  “You sure?”

  “Sure like the sun keeps shining. Vinsic broke up a mine strike on Kneewhack by having this guy and his friends shove the supes into vacuum one by one until the team gave in. I’ve owed him for years for that. Help me.”

  Fergus pushed off the wall. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Put your hand over the wound and press as hard as you can.”

  “Got it.” Fergus braced himself against the back of the chair, and when Bale’s brother lifted up his hand, he slipped his own into place. “His suit’s not self-sealing,” he said, noticing it at last.

  “No. Idiot’s suit hasn’t been working right for nearly a quarter now, but he won’t spend money on himself, and he’s too proud to ask his boss for a new one.” Bale’s brother was rummaging through a box of supplies. He came up with a small spray can of disinfecting emergiskin and grunted. “This will have to do. On the count of three, lift your hand up so I can spray this straight in through the hole. One. Two. Three.”

  On three, Fergus pulled his hand away, releasing more blood into the room, and Bale’s brother jammed the nozzle through the tear and emptied the entire can onto the wound.

  Tentatively he pulled the nozzle out and waited. One drop of blood pooled at the corner of the tear, but nothing more. “I’ve got to take him for help right away,” Bale’s brother said. “That knife wasn’t big, but it was mean, and all that spray is gonna do is keep him from leaking on the outside, not the inside.”

  “I understand,” Fergus said. “Where do we take him?”

  “Sorry, not ‘we.’ You said it yourself: you’re being hunted. You need to get off the Rock on your own, you understand? I can’t help you, and if you wait here, someone’s going to come back looking for these two. I’m sorry, but you have to leave.”

  “It’s okay,” Fergus said. “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Tobb.”

  “I’m Fergus. Take care of your brother; he saved my life.”

  “If you didn’t save his in return, it was a damned good try,” Tobb answered. He wrapped one arm up under his brother’s armpit and across his chest, holding him gently but firmly. Bale was pale but breathing. “Security is going to be full of questions. Is there anything you’d like me to tell them?”

  Fergus glanced back at the two dead men. “It was two men, and one escaped with a hostage. You don’t know any more than that.”

  “I certainly don’t,” Tobb said. “Someday, if we meet under better circumstances, you can tell me if this was worth his life.”

  “By then maybe I’ll know,” Fergus said. Tobb slid the door open with his free hand, grabbed the corridor pull, and took off down the hall with his brother slung over his shoulder.

  Fergus closed the door and contemplated the two bodies. Then, taking in a deep breath, he floated over to the taller one and began removing his exosuit.

  * * *

  —

  He left Tobb’s residence cautiously, keeping an eye out for anyone in the hall, but things were quiet. Everyone is staying in, waiting for the trouble to die down, he thought. That was good for moving undetected, but it meant that if he ran into one of the roving groups of armed men, there weren’t going to be any crowds to hide in. Not that hiding would be easy anyway while pulling a corpse along behind him.

  He tucked the body of the guy whose suit he’d stolen securely behind the safety gate to the old abandoned tunnel. A few days in the tunnels would be enough for the dead man to lead people
to him, but until then, Fergus needed the time.

  If Bale didn’t make it . . .

  Then what? he asked himself. I’m just a thief. He needed to get off Mezzanine Rock without anyone else trying to kill him, then hunker down somewhere safe long enough to figure out the handshake keys.

  He checked his wrist, where two comms sat side by side. The dead man’s had been biometrically keyed to its owner, but the reset was beneath a feeble lock Fergus could crack in his sleep before he was a teenager. He wished it would start talking, tell him what was going on out there, but one or both sides were still jamming the signals. Wherever Bale’s safe house was on Boxhome, he had no way of finding it now. He needed time to work his way through the puzzle that Venetia’s Sword had given him. Already he knew two answers and had a good guess at a third; there was always a pattern, so if he could get a fourth, the pieces should start falling into place. Then he’d just need to get close enough to the ship to broadcast the keys back to it, and this would all be over.

  Bugrot probably wasn’t safe to return to. Leakytown, though, was big enough to hide in and close enough to Gilger’s territory to make a fast run from when he was ready. Forty-one hours left.

  Bundled up inside his bursting-at-the-seams pack was the stolen blue-striped suit. He might not be able to infiltrate Gilger’s crew, but if Gilger and Vinsic were working together, he might just get close enough to get his ship after all.

  Chapter 10

  Fergus backtracked through the abandoned tunnels, taking a short rest in the old emergency shelter. The ballroaches had already recolonized the hammock. If anyone else had been there since he and Bale left, there was no sign of it, but he didn’t stick around any longer than necessary. It took him a few tries to find the path back into the cargo tunnels. Once there, he sat for some time in the small bypass, feeling for the vibrations of crates being loaded and timing how long it took them to go whizzing past. Once he had the pattern down, he moved.