House of the Silent Moons

by Tom Shepherd

  “How reliable is this report?”

  “Reliable enough to trouble me.”

  Tyler sat back. “Let’s take one doomsday scenario at a time, please.”

  They spent two hours reviewing Flávio’s verifiable acts of piracy—privateering, he insisted—based on the list of stolen items recovered from sites on Emily-4. But Tyler’s mind kept drifting from the stacks of stolen goods in the Howling Tadpole’s cargo compartments to the minefield they had to negotiate before leaving for Drifter Gate 2.

  A hostile court, stacked jury, Sakura House assassins, Parvian drones, and a client who was guilty of all charges. Tyler smiled like a baby with gas pains. Just another routine mission for Star Lawyers Corp.

  He shook off despair and handed out more assignments. “Mr. Blue, visit the market square. See what you can learn from the Groxbitz.”

  “A waste of time, ” Flávio said. “They are animals.”

  Zenna shook his floppy ears. “I am not certain that is correct, Mr. Pirate King. Just because you eat them doesn’t mean they’re animals.”

  “Who eats a sentient being?” Flávio said.

  “Cannibals,” the Quirt-Thymean replied.

  Tyler ended the discussion. “The Groxbitz might be smarter than we think. If so, they’ll know what’s going on in this rat hole settlement better than anybody. Go find out. I don’t want anybody flying solo. Take Lovey for a wing-woman.”

  “Boss-man,” Lieutenant Frost said, “I’d love a shopping trip with my husband, but I’d better stay aboard and start prepping the Capitão for direct examination.”

  “All right. I could use the help,” Tyler scowled at Tavares. “We will grill you hard, Flávio.”

  “I expect nothing less, Star Lawyer.”

  “Zenna, take Wife Number One along for security,” Tyler added.

  Yumiko nodded briskly, never disturbing her arrow-erect posture.

  “Okay, everybody get a good night’s sleep. We hit the deck running tomorrow morning.” He checked his chronometer. “Damn. It’s two A.M. in KCMO. No wonder I’m bushed.”

  Suzie smirked. “Give it up, luv. You’re not in Kansas City anymore.”

  “My quirks are inviolable.” Tyler asked Julieta to hang behind as the others went to their quarters. Suzie kissed her fiancé and said she’d wait up for him.

  Julieta sat on the table’s edge. “Whatcha got, Ty?”

  “Special assignment for you.”

  She smirked. “Naca Jen?”

  “Yes. No. Maybe.”

  “I get to choose?”

  He nodded. “Find that murdering bastard, Augusto Cellar.”

  “Shall I kill the Capitão’s former associate straightaway, or jam a needle packed with truth serum up his ass first?”

  “Whoa, cowgirl. This is a recon mission, not practice for the Ms. Torquemada Competition.”

  “Yes, Boss-man.” She pouted, but it was pure fakery, so far out of character Tyler laughed.

  “I needed that.” He patted his cousin’s head.

  “Mission objectives?”

  “Don’t you think it’s odd that a veteran privateer like Cellar suddenly throws his brains overboard and attacks a luxury liner stuffed with the elite of the Parvian Republic?”

  “What are you thinking, Ty?”

  “Roll with me while I process this. We always speak of ‘the Parves’ like they’re a monolithic bloc of bad asses, who want to get along with everybody, but woe be the fool who attacks them.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “What if it’s never been true? What if they’ve constantly had to put down movements in their culture who want to kick ass and take planets? We saw the nationalist phenomenon reemerge among Quirt-Thymeans.”

  “And you think a contingent of Parve expansionists has forged an alliance with Sakura House?” Julieta said.

  “It would explain the drones.”

  She nodded slowly. “Cellar might know a lot more than he told that French whore.”

  “Exactly,” Tyler said. “Find Cellar. Get him alone. I’ll leave the where and how to you. He enjoys boasting to beautiful humanoid women. And you, Cousin, are a fine example of that species.”

  “You want what information, specifically?”

  “Not totally sure. Anything he can tell you about the attack on the Star of Parvia. I’m betting there’s a lot more going on than a momentary lapse of a cutthroat into suicidal behavior.”

  When she was gone, Tyler lingered in the empty meeting room. He wanted to call up Father Cárcel and make confession, just to talk with somebody wise. But the Howling Tadpole had no religious holograms in the MLC, in fact it had no holographic capability whatsoever. Neither did Port Royal at large. Public Defender André Mercier carried his holo-projecting hardware in a metal case.

  Tyler really wished J.B. were here instead of halfway across the galaxy again. He envied the simplicity of J.B.’s assignment, a straightforward murder trial. Well, maybe the Bear was getting some R&R with his hottie Parvati.

  He briefly considered activating his galaxy-wide, real time communications system which M-double-I technicians had installed in the Tadpole, but that was a card he wanted to hold in reserve. As soon as he transmitted, the Pirates would know he had Apexcom, even if they couldn’t receive the signal, and it was a technology he did not want to fall into privateer hands. Even Flávio had managed to conceal his Apexcom hardware to protect against charges that the Capitão was colluding with the enemies of the Free Enterprise League.

  Tyler longed to call his brother and swap stories about their missions. Hell, even talking to Dad didn’t sound so bad.

  Then he remembered a wise mind within a smoking hot body awaited him in their cabin two decks above. Suzie. Thank God for Suzie…

  Seventeen

  Public Defender Félix Koshka sat on a tall stool at the bar of the Lonely Sailor Cantina drinking black coffee poured by the holographic hands of André Mercier.

  “So, my dear Monsieur Félix. Tell me more about Kaito Tsuchiya.”

  “I don’t want to talk about nothin’. My head hurts. I think I’m not getting enough oxygen. This fucking place.” Koshka adjusted his cannulas. “It’s damned unfair. Did I tell you, my client got blasted an’ never paid me a credit?”

  “You did, you did. It was most unfortunate.”

  “Unfortunate? How’s a Public Defender gonna make a living if’n the Captain-Judge keeps blasting the buggers before they pay their bills?”

  “Do you not get a salary?”

  “Sure. Just enough to pay the rent and get drunk twice a week. I have to eat, too. And pussy. There’s good whores to be had in this stinking town for a reasonable price. But I don’t got no reasonable price. It’s damned unfair.”

  “Let me help you. You have needs. I need information. Perhaps I may offer a small compensation. Your cooperation is valuable, n'est-ce pas?”

  “Andy, you’re a hologram. You don’t got jack shit to offer.”

  “I work for the Matthews Star Lawyers. They have very much money.”

  “Matthews Corp?” Koshka cocked his head. “And they’ll pay me just for providing information?”

  “Oui.”

  “So, assuming I’m interested, and assuming this information don’t get me hanged by a court of law, or shot in an alley—nobody don’t like snitches, you know—how much ‘compensation’ are we talking?”

  “If your facts can be substantiated, and if the information helps our defense of Capitão Tavares—”

  “That two-faced dog? Forget it!”

  “But I am authorized to reimburse you handsomely for your trouble.”

  “No.” Félix scowled. “How handsomely?”

  “Twenty thousand Galactic Credits.”

  “Bank of Rahjen? We got a Bank of Rahjen branch right here.”

  “But of course! Galactic Credits. Accepted by all civilized star nations.”

  Félix cursed softly. “When do I get paid?”

  A Groxbi
tz rolled up to the bar with a fresh decanter of coffee. Attorney Mercier refreshed Attorney Koshka’s cup.

  “Your money will be deposited as soon as I pass your information along to my employers,” André said. “Perhaps this very night.”

  Félix took a sip. “I’m going to regret this.”

  “Shall we sit at the table? I will buy your meal.”

  “I’d throw it up. Yeah, let’s park and palaver. I want my money.”

  “For good information only.”

  “I won’t lie to you. I hate Sakura House almost as much as I hate M-double-I. Only the Jappos ain’t paying me.”

  They found a table in the corner and André ordered a tray of bananas, nuts, and crackers. Félix chose the saltines and coffee. Mercier stated for the record he was recording this deposition and asked Félix to state his full name and place of birth. With the legal formalities observed, André began direct examination.

  “What is your connection with Sakura House and Kaito Tsuchiya in particular?”

  “I briefed his team on Privateer Law and courtroom proceedings. He promised to pay be five thousand credits, but the weasel stiffed me.”

  “Do you have an attorney-client relationship with Sakura House or Kaito Tsuchiya?”

  “No. I was an advisor on the local situation, not his attorney. Besides, like I said, the cheap fucker paid me no retainer.”

  “Did you provide any other services?”

  “I procured a walled villa at the edge of town. He intended to use it to lure the Matthews people into a trap. Mind you, he ain’t stupid enough to say that outright, but his men were arguing about who should have the honor of killing Tyler Matthews the Fourth.”

  “Arguing in Terran?”

  “Naw. Japanese.”

  “Do you speak Japanese?”

  He smirked. “I’m Tali’auon.”

  André put a hand on his metal case. “The humanoid polyglots?”

  Félix smiled. “Yep.”

  “They say Tali’auons can speak any language you encounter. How is this possible?”

  “I hafta hear the language a few minutes. Then something kicks in. My people call it their psionic-linguist gift. I dunno how it works. But after ten minutes with the Sakura House people, I understood most of what they said. It ain’t something I talk about. Lotsa people will say things an attorney can use, if’n they think they’re protected by a wall of foreign languages.”

  “Do you know where Kaito Tsuchiya obtained Parvian drones?”

  Félix plopped the cup on the tabletop. “Now you’re going to get me killed for sure, Andy. My life is worth more than—”

  “Fifty thousand credits, Monsieur?”

  Félix Koshka blinked. “You’ll pay that much?”

  “Oui.”

  “God, what a man does for money.” He sighed. “There’s a Parvian sailor aboard the Tsuchiya vessel at Port Royal.”

  “And when did you see this sailor?”

  “Aboard Tsuchiya’s ship, while I was explaining the legal quirks to his team of attorneys.”

  “And you’re certain he was Parvian?”

  “She,” Koshka corrected. “Right busty thing, wearing that spring green, nice ‘n tight starship uniform of their navy. Blonde eye-catcher. Damned Parves look more human than some Terrans do.”

  “And she was in Parvian uniform, you are certain?”

  He nodded. “Full lieutenant.”

  “Has this eye-catcher returned to her vessel?”

  “Naw. I heard rumor there’s a Parve ship hiding somewhere in this system. But it seemed like she was traveling with the Jappos on the Sakura House ship. They’s parked at the field.” His nose wiggled slightly. “Besides, it ain’t like Parvian ships to hide. They’re more like, boom! You’re a goner.”

  “Is she making the suckee-fuckee with Kaito-sama?”

  “How do I know?” he protested. “When do I get paid?”

  “After you show me this Sakura House ship where the buxom damsel awaits.”

  “She ain’t no damsel, Andy. She’s a Parvian staff officer. Charming little bitch. Looks like a boobilicious angel. Nice laugh. Knockout smile. Very cheerful personality, like most Parves I met. But Lord have mercy—they’s meaner than a demon with hemorrhoids if’n they be threatened.” He shook his head. “Fifty thousand ain’t enough to cover—”

  “Seventy-five.” Mercier folded his hands across his belly. “It is a good bargain. You need the money.”

  “It’s damned unfair.”

  “Life is the vale of sorrows, mon ami.”

  “One hundred.” Koshka grimaced. “Pay for my funeral. Scatter the rest among my ex-wives.”

  André chortled. “We have the deal. Let us go now.”

  Félix swallow the dregs of his coffee. “We better, before I lose my nerve.”

  * * * *

  Prince Zenna-Zenn and his First Wife, Security Officer Yumiko Matsuda, strolled down the boardwalk at the center of town. With every step he felt the mud squish beneath the planks underfoot, which he reasoned was a good thing, or the trees cut down to make the walkway would have died in vain. Streets paved with cut stones all led to the town center, which was oddly unpaved. Zenna wondered if downtown merchants laid out the wood walkway during muddy seasons, or was it permanent?

  The morning was cool, but Mr. Blue and Yumiko had no trouble breathing the thin air, thanks to the supplemental O2 from cannulas fed by a portable oxygen generator.

  Groxbitz rolled past them whistling merry tunes. At least they sounded merry to Zenna’s highly sensitive Quirt-Thymean ears. He paused and scanned the square. Humanoids dominated the plaza, but Dengathi amphibians, Rek Kett mudballs, Zenji dog-men, green floral-based Kolovites, a few serpentine four-legged Yak Na, and other aliens also roamed the shops and stalls.

  “Many races. Pirates from everywhere,” he said.

  “It is always so, husband.” Yumiko’s hand rested on the blaster at her belt, but the truly lethal weapon—a micro-honed katana—Yumi-san wore across her back in a titanium scabbard. Matsuda held tenth degree black belts in multiple martial arts, but she was a Grand Master with a sword.

  “This is a pleasant assignment,” Zenna remarked cheerily, “even if the air is oxygen poor.”

  Shopping always brightened Zenna’s day, and this plaza presented an ongoing yard sale of goods pilfered from a multitude of star-faring civilizations. His olfactory and auditory senses—far more acute than his human counterparts—detected a scent of roasting meat and the crank of a hand-turned rotisserie. He followed the pleasant odor across the town square to a vendor who cooked some unknown game animal on a spit over a gas fire. The flesh, which looked like half a legless hog, was perfectly cooked, slightly dark on the fatty skin but medium rare in the cuts made to expose its texture and sweet odor to passing shoppers.

  Zenna’s Quirt-Thymean people were omnivores, but the civilization drifted toward vegetarianism millennia ago. Contact with humans and other meat-eating races had revived the Quirt taste for cooked animal flesh, and they were scrupulous about how creatures were raised and treated and ultimately slaughtered for food.

  “May I have a slice of roast?” he said to the proprietor, a spindly little Dengathi amphibian.

  “Ten Rahjen credits.”

  First Wife Yumiko passed on the animal flesh. She was a strict Buddhist vegetarian. Zenna’s Second Wife Lovey Frost was a true omnivore who enjoyed meats, cheeses, vegetables, starches.

  Zenna paid and took a bite. Too bad Lovey isn’t here. She might enjoy this gamey taste.

  “What meat is this?” he said, chewing happily.

  “Only game available,” the Dengathi croaked in Terran. He seasoned the roast and turned the spit. “Prime cut of Groxbitz.”

  Zenna spit the mouthful onto the ground and discarded the remaining portion in a disposal tube. Yumiko put a hand on her husband’s shoulder and led him away wordlessly.

  They wandered around while Zenna attempted to clear his mind of that awful ex
perience. Finally, they found something to distract him. An arched entrance to a covered building, one of the few wood structures in town, and they went indoors.

  A light, permeable forcefield shimmered when they strolled into the mini-market, and since browsing shoppers wore no cannulas he happily removed his to explore the place. Yumiko followed his lead. The little market had skylights in the roof and aisles of carts and portable tables overflowing with produce, most of which Zenna did not recognize.

  Young human females tended most of the displays. They wore kaftan abaya robes and hijab headscarves, and none of them made eye contact with him. Muslims? How fascinating!

  Zenna reflected on his good fortune. He had read extensively about Islam and was fascinated with the religion, especially after the merger of the progressive wing of Shiah Islam and a schism of Mormonism in the twenty-fifth century. There were many kinks in the mythological matrix, but theologians and Imams worked it out over a hundred years of heated argument. The hybrid Mormon-Muslim Reconstructionism spread to half a billion people on Earth and several colonies.

  Prince Zenna once visited a colony world settled by the Reconstructionists. Although their ideas about one rather austere and solitary God for the whole Universe befuddled a Quirt-Thymean—Tyler called Mr. Blue’s people Quirt-Epicureans—Zenna found Mormon-Muslims in general to be quite admirable in manners and integrity. True, both traditions had a long history of slavery, and Islamic piracy dated back three millennia. But all human cultures held slaves once, and many had produced buccaneers. Or Vikings. Or scavenging armies on the march.

  Humans loved to steal things. It eliminated so much work. Throughout human history, acts of piracy were tolerated by an odd consortium of religions and political philosophies.

  A mustachioed man in a white, brimless kufi cap and long sleeve thobe stepped from the shadows.

  “Ah! You honor my humble market with your presence, Amir Zenna of the Quirt-Thymean Empire.”

  “You know my name? How delightful.”

  “All in Port Royal know of the barristers who come to defend Capitão Tavares. You are a welcome diversion.” He smiled at the diminutive Asian in white fighting togs. “And you must be Yumiko, queen of swords.”