Dark Sky (Keiko)

by Mike Brooks

  ‘So, Captain,’ Muradov said instead, ‘why would we get these allegations?’ He quirked an eyebrow inquisitively.

  ‘Probably because you listened to Ricardo fucking Moutinho of the Pouco Jacare,’ Drift replied promptly. He’d had suspicions about the source of this latest inconvenience from the moment the police had burst into Cherdak.

  ‘Captain Moutinho?’ Muradov actually seemed surprised. ‘The tip was, in fact, anonymous. Captain Moutinho is well known to us, however; he has been a regular visitor over the last few months. What makes you think he would do such a thing?’

  ‘Moutinho and I are both freelancers,’ Drift told him flatly. ‘We own our own ships and take whatever jobs we can. You do that for a living, you tend to run into other captains who try to undercut you, steal your work or sabotage you. Moutinho and I had a falling out a few years ago and he’s tried to make my life difficult every time we’ve run into each other since.’ He shrugged. ‘It would be his style, probably just to annoy us. I’m surprised he made up something as far-fetched as gunrunning, though.’

  ‘Far-fetched?’ Muradov snorted. ‘Perhaps not so much as you think, Captain. Still, I cannot deny that we found no weapons, and our security feeds show that you have offloaded nothing since you landed.’

  ‘So I’m free to go?’ Drift asked. He didn’t want to seem so eager he drew suspicion, but he also didn’t want to be trapped by the storm. In any case, who would want to remain in custody longer than they had to?

  ‘Not just yet,’ Muradov told him, raising one hand. Drift forced himself to appear calm.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You landed here something like eight hours ago,’ the other man said, fixing Drift with a steady, dark-eyed gaze. ‘You have offloaded nothing, and you have loaded nothing. You describe yourself as a freelance captain, so I have to wonder: what brought you to my world?’ He drummed his fingers on the desk, as if genuinely contemplating the problem.

  ‘Signal transmission across our system is not instantaneous, Captain, but we are not out of range. Your ship was recently docked in orbit over New Samara. New Samara! With its clean air, its plants, its …’ Another half-smile appeared briefly. ‘… its rich people. Why, after spending time there, would you choose to fly to my storm-lashed little rock? For the views?’ He snorted. ‘I think not.’

  ‘Looking for work,’ Drift replied immediately. ‘We’d taken some shore leave on New Samara, yes; my crew had been cooped up for too long. Since we were in the area, I thought I’d see if we could make a bit of cash.’ Technically true. He let his face take on a rueful expression. ‘But of course, all the haulage out of here is handled on governmental contracts.’ Also true. I just knew that before I came.

  ‘And your two passengers?’ Muradov queried. ‘This was not arranged before you got here?’

  ‘Can’t say it was,’ Drift replied easily. ‘I met the older one in Cherdak earlier today when I went there with a couple of my crew; I guess he was hanging around an off-worlders’ bar trying to find a transport. I don’t normally take on passengers, but I figured it would cut our losses a little.’

  Muradov nodded, as though this was all reasonable. ‘And the fare?’

  Drift hesitated for a split-second, sensing a trap. Should he make a figure up? But they’d probably already asked the Shirokovs the same question, so he went for as close to the truth as he dared. ‘We hadn’t agreed a price, I was taking them to see the ship.’ He essayed a mercenary grin. ‘If you wait until the passenger can almost taste their destination, they’re generally a little more willing to part with their cash.’

  Muradov watched him for a couple more seconds without saying anything, then finally chuckled and shook his head. ‘Captain, I do not trust a single word you are saying to me, but I have no reason to hold you further. Everything you have said hangs together … just.’ He pressed a button on the wall next to him, and the door buzzed open to admit a junior officer. ‘Please escort Captain Drift to his crew. They are to be released without charge.’

  Muradov fixed Drift with a steady gaze while his subordinate activated his collar comm and passed on the instructions. ‘I am sure you are intelligent enough to work this out on your own, Captain, but I think it might be best for your sake if you gave us no further cause to investigate you during your stay here.’

  ‘No fear of that,’ Drift replied, getting to his feet and holding out his hands towards the other officer. ‘I’m going straight to my shuttle and leaving. No offence, but I’ve had enough of Uragan.’

  ‘None taken,’ Muradov nodded, ‘but I am afraid you will have to wait a while. The storm rolled in faster than we were expecting. I hear the spaceport was closed about twenty minutes ago.’

  Drift stared at him in horror, barely registering the cuffs being removed from his wrists. ‘What?’

  ‘Meteorology is not an exact science, especially on a planet as volatile as this,’ Muradov explained. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Why, was there somewhere you needed to be?’

  So that was it. The quick-and-easy hundred grand from Orlov and the associated benefits of having the goodwill of the area’s major crime lord, gone just like that thanks to Aleksandr Shirokov’s wanderlust and Moutinho’s pettiness. In fact, forget about goodwill: they’d be lucky if Orlov didn’t decide to make an example of them.

  Drift controlled his expression with an effort, trying to ignore images of some New Samaran thug taking a vibrohammer to his knees. The shit icing on a cake of crap would be if Muradov decided that his eagerness to leave before the storm was suspicious.

  ‘It just means I’m going to have a crew kicking about my ship for three days with nothing to do and no way to earn any money,’ he grumbled.

  Muradov stood. He was not a tall man, and lean with it, but he had a certain air to him that suggested he was not to be trifled with. The security chief didn’t present himself as the sort of man who would take massive issue with you accidentally spilling his drink, for example, but woe betide the person who squared up to him should he accidentally spill theirs.

  ‘Unfortunately, Captain, that assessment is not entirely accurate.’ He sounded genuine, but Drift could feel that cool gaze watching him. ‘It is Uragan City policy that no crew may remain in their ships while the spaceport is shut for a hurricane.’

  ‘I … what?’ Drift tried to fight down the sensation of increasing frustration. ‘Why not, for the love of God? Where are we supposed to go?’

  ‘We have had too many people trying to get out,’ Muradov shrugged. ‘Some idiot decides they can fly through a hurricane and finds some way to open the bay doors, then you get half a ton of sand and three rocks the size of apartments dropping in before anyone can shut it again. As for where you go, Uragan City is well-equipped with accommodation for visitors.’

  ‘Which will cost more money,’ Drift replied through clenched teeth as he stepped out of the interview room, ‘and probably goes up in price drastically when there’s a storm, am I right?’

  ‘Is capitalism not wonderful?’ Muradov followed him out and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Chin up, Captain; I am sure a resourceful fellow like you will be able to survive the loss. I will arrange for your crew to be escorted to your shuttle to collect essentials for the next couple of days, but no dallying.’ He turned and walked away, leaving Drift to trail in the footsteps of the officer who’d released him from his cuffs.

  He found his crew in the main reception area, signing for the possessions they’d had confiscated upon arrest. He’d clearly been the last to be interviewed, but from what Muradov had said it sounded like they could have all been held had he slipped up and uttered a provable falsehood. He exchanged a glance with Jenna as she fastened her wrist-mounted console back onto her arm and booted it up again, but she didn’t seem concerned at what she saw so Drift assumed that there was no sign her files had been compromised. A quick scan of the area found the Shirokovs standing to one side, looking very uncomfortable. He didn’t feel in the slightest bit sympathetic
.

  ‘Can we leave before the storm hits?’ Rourke asked him urgently as he scrawled and thumbprinted to recover his comm, personal pad and credit chips.

  ‘Too late,’ he replied bitterly, ‘we’re stuck here until it blows over now.’ He turned back to face them, saw the mixture of disappointment and anger on their faces and decided to usher everyone out before any comments about not getting paid landed them in further trouble. ‘C’mon, let’s get out of here.’

  ‘So what now?’ Kuai asked once they were safely out of the front doors of the politsiya building.

  ‘I vote we go find Moutinho an’ kick his ass,’ Jia said forcefully. ‘Bet you anything he was behind that pile of hùnzhàng!’ Drift couldn’t deny the appeal of the idea but he gritted his teeth and shook his head.

  ‘I asked the captain interviewing me if it was Moutinho – he said the tip was anonymous. They know Moutinho though, apparently he’s been here a lot recently, and now they know I think it was him.’ He sighed bitterly. ‘I’d love to take that bastard down a peg or two but we can’t afford to do anything that might bring these guys back down on us, and I’d bet good money we’ll be under surveillance for a little while.’

  ‘Brings me back to my question,’ Kuai pointed out. ‘What now?’

  ‘We need to find somewhere to stay until the storm blows over,’ Drift said as calmly as he could, although the frustration inside him was clamouring for at least a minor release by, for example, kicking his infuriating mechanic in his bad leg. ‘We can get an escort to collect clothes and so on from the Jonah, but let’s make sure we have somewhere to put them first. All the outsider accommodation is likely to be priced exorbitantly right now but, luckily, we have a couple of guides who know the city.’

  As one, the entire crew of the Keiko swivelled until they were staring at the Shirokovs, who had tailed them out and then stood at a distance like a pair of anxious puppies. Drift wasn’t looking at his companions, but he was well aware that his own expression probably did not consist of sweetness and light. Aleksandr’s gaze skittered across them, and he licked his lips nervously.

  ‘Um,’ he said.

  A NIGHT ON THE TOWN

  IT WAS TWO standard hours later, the storm on the surface was in full swing and the turmoil in Ichabod Drift’s head was nearly matching it. According to his chrono it was slightly past 23.00 hours on Uragan City’s twenty-four-hour clock, but the bars didn’t appear to be quietening down much. In fact, there seemed to be a certain nervous energy about many of the patrons of Labirint, where they were currently drinking. Perhaps this was what happened when Uragan was on shutdown during a storm? Drift certainly felt cut off and isolated, unable to get back to the comforting freedom of space. Still, you’d have thought the locals would be used to it by now.

  He took a sip of whisky, and pulled a face at the taste. There clearly wasn’t much market for the stuff here, and if it tasted like this he could see why, but he’d never really got on with vodka either. On the other hand, he’d bought it so he was damn well going to drink it. On either side of him the Chang siblings were sipping at báijiŭ, which seemed to have hit closer to their expectations, and across the table the Shirokovs were mainly looking uncomfortable.

  It had quickly become clear that the two men had handed in the key cards for their apparently tiny apartment in the expectation of getting off-world on the Jonah, and that now they’d done that there was no going back. As a result they were essentially tied to Drift, unless they wanted to approach another captain and try to find passage off-world with them. For his part, Drift had toyed with the notion of just leaving them here since the information Aleksandr had provided was useless now in any case. The contract had been to bring it back to Orlov in person since it was too sensitive to transmit, and there was no way they could even get to the Jonah, let alone take off into the teeth of a raging hurricane. However, in the end he’d decided to stick to his side of the deal with Aleksandr, on the condition that the Shirokovs find them accommodation while they were marooned here.

  As he’d expected, there were places to stay that weren’t in the districts set out for off-worlders; these were hotels normally used by other Uragans travelling from one of the other, smaller mining centres scattered across the planet, and they were far cheaper. The staff also didn’t speak much except Russian, but with the Shirokovs along as translators and Rourke and the Changs having a decent grounding in the language, they’d got along well enough.

  Drift hadn’t been in the mood to stay in their somewhat cramped accommodation, however, and had come out to find a drink. Jia and Kuai had been eager to accompany him and he’d dragged the Shirokovs along more out of contrariness and the desire for a local guide than because he really wished to spend time with them. Rourke, Apirana and Jenna hadn’t been interested, and were presumably playing cards or something equally tame at this very moment.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked Aleksandr, trying to ignore his whisky’s unpleasant aftertaste. ‘I’d have thought you’d be eager to say goodbye to this place properly, given how you were just about to up and leave with no notice.’

  Aleksandr glowered at him between furtive glances around the bar. ‘Will you please keep voice down?’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Drift demanded. He was being needlessly abrasive, he knew, but he’d had a bad day and just enough alcohol to not really care. ‘You are still getting what you want. The best I can do right now is try to lose as little money as possible.’

  ‘And maybe you not take us when you go!’ Pavel spoke up angrily, his English considerably more broken than his husband’s. ‘Maybe this all trick!’

  Drift sighed, eyeing the angry young miner. ‘You know, once upon a time you might have been right. But I’m a man of my word now.’ He assessed the blankness of Pavel’s expression and sighed. ‘I mean, I don’t break deals.’

  ‘And you would tell us if you did, of course,’ Aleksandr snorted.

  Drift bristled. ‘If you think—’

  ‘Please.’ Aleksandr raised both his hands, palms outwards. ‘I understand you are angry, Captain, but we did not cause delay. We trusted that …’ He looked around them again, then leaned closer and spoke more quietly. ‘We trusted that documents you give us would work. I give you information you needed. We were coming with you. We did not summon politsiya.’

  ‘No, of course you didn’t,’ Drift muttered. He sank the last of the whisky from his tumbler. ‘Still, I’m surprised you’re not seeking out friends. Or have you already said your goodbyes?’

  ‘Saying goodbye would need explanation,’ Aleksandr muttered. ‘I have none. Not just “why?”, you understand, but also “how?”. This I cannot say to them.’

  ‘Huh.’ Drift nodded slowly. ‘Guess that makes sense. So, why did you want to get out of here anyway?’

  ‘Aside from the obvious,’ Jia put in loudly. ‘I mean, you’ve been living in an anthill all this time, why’s it bothering you now?’

  Aleksandr frowned. ‘Anthill?’

  ‘Oh, for …’ Jia waved her hands derisively. ‘Ants. You know?’ She launched into a slightly inebriated explanation in Russian, trying to get across a concept that simply didn’t have much inherent meaning for natives of a planet that had never seen colonial insects. Drift left her to it and looked around the bar again, trying to put his finger on what was bothering him about the place, and for a sudden, surprising moment found himself missing Micah. The mercenary had always been more than just a gun hand; he’d shown an unexpected ability to read tactical situations on several occasions, spotting inconsistencies and drawing conclusions that Drift simply hadn’t seen, or at least would have taken longer to put together.

  He went back to his roots: reading people. Many of Labirint’s patrons appeared normal, so far as the definition could ever be used of someone, whether that be sitting and drinking quietly or laughing raucously with friends, but not everyone seemed so relaxed. He let his eyes wander, trying to single them out without being too obvio
us about it.

  There. A man with dark, thinning hair, heavy-set insofar as could be told beneath his jacket, a thin sheen of sweat showing on his forehead and what could be seen of his pate. He sat alone, but unlike the other solitary drinkers visible here and there he wasn’t staring into his drink, lost in his thoughts. He was looking expectant, almost nervous, and kept checking the pad on the table in front of him with only the tiniest movements of his hand.

  Someone waiting for a friend, or for a date? Possible, but now Drift thought about it the guy had been there on his own since they’d come in half an hour previously. It was always possible that the person he was meeting was tardy … but it was kind of late to be meeting someone now, wasn’t it? Still, perhaps he was a Uragan night-shifter on a day off.

  Drift cast his eyes around casually, looking for anyone else who didn’t seem quite right. He caught a couple of people looking back at him, but he’d expected that and none of it seemed malicious; a blue-haired Mexican on Uragan would just stick out like a sore thumb in a way that simply wouldn’t have happened on a more cosmopolitan planet like New Samara.

  There. A man and a woman, her as pale and blonde as Pavel Shirokov and he with a thick brown beard which was longer than the buzz cut atop his head. They were nominally part of a group standing and chatting at the bar, but both seemed slightly reserved, as though a little preoccupied. The woman casually checked her pad – simply keeping an eye on the time, or waiting for an important message or call? – and tucked it back into the pocket of her …

  Jacket.

  Drift felt his gut tense. It wasn’t like coats and jackets were only worn on planets with atmospheres, because climate control didn’t always work, or one person might still be cold where another person would be fine, or you wanted more pockets, or you simply liked that jacket and how it looked – Rourke was practically inseparable from hers. But that woman was sweating a little, judging by the slight lankness of her hair, and it was far from chilly in this enclosed bar packed with people. So why wear it?