"So you keep saying, but we don't know if it's paleotech," said Tila, dismissing his opinion with a wave of her hand. "We don't even know what it's made of."
"All the more reason," Malachi said as if this were obvious. "You have to admit, it checks all the right boxes." He counted off fingers. "One, we don't know where it comes from. Two, we don't know what it's made of and three, we don't know what it's for or how it works. Uh, four. So it must predate the war."
"So how do you know it works properly if you don't know what it does?" said Ellie.
"I know how it works, and I know it's a weapon. And I know without it I wouldn't be here now." Tila said. "I don't need to know any more than that."
"Maybe you should find out what it's worth," urged Ellie, "Then we can buy our way out of here."
"I'm not selling it. Ever. We've come a long way together. It's worth too much to me."
"But how much is it worth to me?" Ellie said with a grin.
There was a cough behind them. "Excuse me, ladies, did one of you mention paleotech?" His eyes darted to the short staff on Tila's back, evidence enough he had overheard their conversation.
"It's not for sale," Tila said quickly.
"Oh, I understand! Really, I do. But items like this don't pass through here every day. Could I at least look at it? Maybe I can tell you what it's worth?"
"It's not for sale, there's no point. I don't care what it's worth," repeated Tila.
"You don't care what it's worth?" He sounded appalled at the idea. "But it could be ancient tech, before we lost contact with Earth. It could even be from Earth! How can you not want to know?"
"Because none of that matters to me. I don't care where it came from, or how old it might be. It's mine now."
"But..."
"It's not for sale, and no, you can't touch it." Tila said firmly to stop him leading the conversation where she knew it was going. "And stop romanticising everything, you too Malachi. It was barely a hundred years ago we lost contact with Earth. It's hardly ancient technology."
He grumbled something, realised there was no profit to be made here and vanished behind his stall, muttering to himself. A few seconds later he reappeared with a broom. This time he was brusque and demanding. "You can't sit there."
The girls looked up into a scowl that resembled a face.
"You can't sit there. You have to move," he repeated.
"We're not in the way," protested Ellie.
"You can't sit there. This is my space for my trade. Clear off. You want to sit there you can rent the space."
Ellie tried again, "We weren't in the way a moment ago. We're not stopping anyone. Tila?"
"Come on, Ellie. Not today. I'm trying to be less confrontational, remember?"
They gathered their things. Malachi reluctantly tore himself away from the parts on offer. Tila held her staff close to her body to ward off curious hands. Ellie continued to grumble, and together they dived back into the fast-flowing waters of the market.
Six
They wandered through the market awhile longer. Malachi led the way, idly browsing things they didn't need and couldn't afford. Then Tila suddenly realised where they were headed.
She nudged Ellie and pointed at Malachi. A look of puzzlement crossed Ellie's face, then she understood what Tila was trying to tell her. She grinned at Tila, held her gaze and asked innocently, "Hey, Malachi. Where are we going?"
"Uh, nowhere. Why?"
"Nowhere?" said Tila.
"Oh," said Ellie, "because I thought we were heading toward Nina's stall."
Malachi had his back to them but the girls knew he was blushing.
"Well, as we're in the area I just thought..." he trailed off into an unintelligible mumble. No plausible excuses came to mind.
"Thought what?" said Tila, who had no intention of letting Malachi off the hook too easily.
"I thought she might have something new for me," he finished helplessly.
"Something new like...?"
"Like news on ships," Malachi said, now more confident in his lie. "I don't know how she keeps up with it but she's always one step ahead of everyone else."
"So, that must be why she's so popular," said Tila. "It's good of her to let him know, isn't it, Ellie?"
"Why yes, Tila, it is!" Ellie's voice dripped with good-natured sarcasm.
"They must be getting on very well!"
"Yes, very well!"
"Shut up," said Malachi, refusing to turn around and see their grinning faces. "Anyway, my dad asks me to see her sometimes. She's a good information broker."
"I bet she is," said Tila. "Did he ask you today?" Ellie had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing.
"Shut up," he repeated.
The turned away from the central market area and headed for one of the terraces, where services and information rather than products and goods, were always on offer. Many of the services available would be illegal on any other space station but on the Juggernaut there was no law.
Malachi ignored the giggling and whispers behind him.
"Hey, Mal," said Tila, "How does Nina always know when new ships are coming in, anyway? There must be hundreds of people all over the Juggernaut wanting the same thing."
Grateful for a sensible question at last, Malachi said, "She pays people to look out for her, for one thing, and don't forget how big this place is. New ships arrive almost every week but no one can keep watch over the whole city. She makes sure she's the first to know about any new salvage. Otherwise someone else will strip them first. Plus, I gave her a list of parts we need in the shop so if anything comes in she sends me a message."
"What if someone else wants the same parts?" said Ellie.
"I don't know. It's never been a problem."
Ellie and Tila exchanged a wink.
"Why is that, do you think?" Tila asked innocently.
"I don't know. Why?"
"Oh, nothing," said Tila.
By now they had climbed a third of the way up the terraces. From here they had a commanding view of the main trading area below them. Tiers of stalls spanned out to either side, encircling the room, and more than a dozen more rose to the ceiling above them. Each level up had fewer stalls than the tier below until the top three levels were almost empty.
Malachi led them to an empty table only one turning from the main staircase. Screens had been erected behind the table. Each one scrolled slowly through pages and pages of indecipherable technical data.
Malachi rapped on the table. "Hey, Quinn? You around?"
A woman, young, but still several years older than Malachi, stepped into view from behind the screens. Dark red hair spilled down one shoulder over skin the colour of almonds and crowned an assortment of pen-sized tools clipped to her white coveralls.
She held a data tablet in one hand and a stylus in the other. Her wide-eyed broad smile faltered when she realised that Malachi was not alone.
"I thought I recognised your voice." She flicked her hair back over her shoulder with an effortless cool that Ellie envied and Tila was sure she practised. "Hi, Malachi."
Ellie and Tila exchanged a silent high-five behind his back.
"Hi, Nina."
They stared at each other for a moment, saying nothing. When the silence became uncomfortable Ellie poked Malachi in the back. He jumped and started up again like a broken toy that needed a push.
"Oh, uh, did you have anything new for me?"
Ellie looked at Tila again and rolled her eyes. "Terrible!" she whispered to Tila. Tila pulled Ellie away from the table and they made a show of pretending to study one of the technical displays.
"Give him a chance," Tila whispered back.
Together they faced the screen but paid it no attention. Instead they watched Nina and Malachi in the reflection and on listened to Malachi's attempt at small-talk.
It was painful.
"He should say something about her hair," Ellie whispered.
"Or anything that doesn't involve a machine,"
Tila agreed.
After overhearing a few more awkward exchanges Ellie decided she couldn't take any more and turned around. "Malachi!" she snapped, "Didn't you say you were coming here to see what Nina had to give you?"
"Oh. Uh, yeah I think-" Malachi began.
"I have your list here somewhere..." said Nina.
Ellie rolled her eyes as she watched them fumble through around the stall looking for the inventory.
"Why are you rushing them?" Tila whispered.
"I was trying to get them to hurry up and decide if they like each other. I didn't mean for them to start talking business."
"You broke the spell. You pushed them too quick and too hard and made them uncomfortable."
Ellie was impressed at Tila's observation from her friend. Perhaps there was hope for her, too.
"That's very insightful, Tila."
Tila shrugged. "I have layers."
"So, since when did you become an expert on flirting?"
"I haven't always lived here, you know," she winked. "Anyway, when did you? I've never seen you flirt."
"I'm not that sort of girl, Tila."
Nina finally found what she was looking for and handed Malachi a datapad showing her long and detailed inventory. "Do you know how to use this model?" she asked him hopefully.
"Say no," Ellie whispered into the screen.
"I got it, thanks." Malachi input some commands and the list was replaced by something considerably shorter.
"Oh, for goodness sake," Ellie said.
"Is this all the recent arrivals?" said Malachi.
"Everything in the last two weeks in these areas." Nina handed him a second datapad which displayed a three-dimensional map of the city. Several locations glowed white. "It's been unusually busy in the last few days. We've had eleven new – well, old – arrivals abandoned in the system. Four have been fully integrated already. The other seven are still looking for their final resting place."
Malachi nodded. New ships were the fundamental resource of the Juggernaut. Sometimes they would be stripped for parts or recycled. There was an endless need for repairs and replacement tech. At other times, they would provide much needed living space.
"Anything interesting nearby?"
Nina touched two of the glowing points nearest to New Haven. "I have people running salvage on the closest ships, here and here, but even they are half a day's journey." She leaned over the data pad to press a button for him. Red hair trailed across the display.
"These are the ship names and everything I know about them."
Malachi traced down the list with his finger as he read the names and possible salvage. "Blue September is a private shuttle. I doubt we will find anything there we don't already have in the workshop. The Lesnar looks promising if we can get there in time. Far Horizon could be useful. Haulers like that have good power-to-weight ratio's and-"
"What did you say?" said Tila sharply.
"I said haulers have a good power-to-weight ratio."
"Before that! What was it called?"
"Far Horizon."
"Far Horizon? Let me see that!" She pushed between Nina and Malachi and snatched the datapad. "Where is this? Where did it come from?"
"What's the matter? Oh..." said Malachi as realisation dawned.
"What is it?" asked Ellie. She looked at Nina who just shrugged helplessly.
"The Far Horizon? Here? How?" Tila said again. She shook the computer at Nina demanding answers.
"Whoa, whoa, calm down. Let me look at it again," said Malachi.
Tila pressed the datapad hard against Malachi's chest, "Tell me."
"Ok, ok, give me a moment." Malachi interrogated the machine further, extracting as much detail as he could.
"You know that ship?" Nina asked Tila as Malachi worked.
Ellie caught up at last. "Oh! The colony mission!" Tila nodded, her face set as she watched Malachi.
"It's not a colony ship," said Nina, puzzled, "it's far too small. Anyway, no one has built one of those for over a decade, not since the last mission blew up because of negligence."
Tila froze Nina with her glare.
"Because of what?" she asked coldly.
"That's just what I heard," she said, "Why, what did you hear?"
Tila glared at Nina. Will people always think that the failure was my parent's fault?
"I heard that my mother was the captain of the mission, and my father was on board the Far Horizon when it vanished."
Nina clamped one hand to her mouth. "Oh, Tila, I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"But you knew they were negligent, didn't you? You knew it was their fault. You knew enough about that."
Ellie tried to defuse the situation. "Tila," she said softly as she touched her friend's elbow.
"Get off me." Tila shrugged Ellie aside and stepped away from the group.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Nina hissed at Malachi.
Malachi shrugged. "It never came up. Why would it? It was years ago, and she never talks about it anyway," he whispered back. Then, trying to defuse the situation further, he walked over to Tila and said, "It's just a cargo hauler. See?" He passed her the datapad.
Tila studied the small display, not understanding. "But how can it have the same name?" she pleaded.
"There's a lot of ships out there, Tila. Some of them have the same name. Ships only have to have a unique name when registered with the same port authority."
"And every planet is a port authority, and some space-stations, so there could easily be more than one Far Horizon," added Nina.
"But...it's the same name." Tila protested again.
Ellie rubbed Tila's arm. She had never seen her friend seem so deflated, so lost.
"I think it's just a coincidence, Tila," she said gently.
"I want to see it." Tila said.
"Do you think you should?" Ellie asked carefully, "It might just upset you more."
"I need to see it," she demanded again, "I just need to, to...to know."
"Could we?" Malachi asked Nina.
"If you think that will help, sure. I already have someone else due to run salvage on it but I can send them to the Lesnar instead. But you'll have to move fast before word spreads and someone else scalps all the best parts." Nina passed Malachi a list of components and closed his hand around it. "Be careful," she told him.
"You really want to go?" Malachi asked Tila.
"Yes."
"And you know that it is half a day from here?" He checked the data again. "More than half a day."
"Please, Malachi," she said. She was almost begging. "I have to. I need to see that ship."
Seven
The Juggernaut grew like a tumour. In fact, a tumour was the best metaphor anyone had come up with to describe the Juggernaut. It grew slowly, without thought or design, and was big, ugly, dangerous and unwanted.
The original kernel at the heart of the city had long ago been lost to tons of metal which had accumulated around it.
Like an oyster layering nacre around an alien particle, the Juggernaut too had grown, skin by skin, blister by blister, into the titanic beast it had now become. It shared the same process without producing the same beauty.
The Juggernaut attracted wrecks and husks of old ships like refuse did to flies. As more and more people from nearby systems found themselves among the low ranks of the dispossessed the demand for living space grew rapidly.
The increasing population brought with it a commensurate increase in the need for power, light, food, raw materials and the hundred other things on which a city feeds.
But the city never stopped feeding. Never stopped growing. Its impossible hunger could never be sated. The only option was to add more ships.
In time this mantra became 'add more anything', and residents soon welcomed a diverse array of hulls and structures which quickly became part of the city.
This growth happened slowly, and, without any central government or oversight, it took place haphazardly.
I
n the long years since the first two ships were fused together the city had grown in bumps and bulges, fits and starts.
The fastest growth occurred near docks and ports as new parts were layered around the most convenient places for ships to land. In time these areas became entirely rimmed with habitation and the ports began to resemble metal craters on an artificial moon.
The next logical step was to enclose these craters entirely. Once sealed and pressurised, they became bubbles of life and beacons of hope. Beacons which attracted the hopeless.
Eventually, inevitably, the new growth would cover the old, further burying the past in the artificial stratum of cable and steel.
And so the city grew.
Some unconscious instinct of design had meant the city had grown longer than wider, and wider than taller.
From a distance the Juggernaut appeared like a giant flattened and misshapen potato, aligned along its vector.
But despite the hope and home it offered to hundreds of thousands there could be no happy ending in store for the city. It lived in a decaying orbit and tumbled slowly through space with nothing able to stop its growth, or its eventual impact with the sun.
No one could stop it, so they called it the Juggernaut.
In space there is no up or down, and yet human ingenuity, boundless and resourceful, had found a point of reference. The orbital plane of the star had become the compass by which starships sailed. The solar north became up, and the solar south became down.
But the Juggernaut was no space station. It had no planned orbit. It spiralled through space, so there was no common up or down on which to agree.
This meant that it was not uncommon for travellers on foot to have to adjust themselves to the local gravity field.
So, it was a wise and wary traveller who paid close attention to the clues before them. Dirt and debris gathered unnaturally in a corner, or corridors lit from the side, rather than from above, would all be signposts that the conditions ahead may not be as expected. The next airlock could see the floor become a wall with one step.
Tila had spent days and weeks exploring the regions around New Haven and had trained herself to become alert to all the subtle changes in the environment. She was a wise and wary traveller.
The Juggernaut (Tales from the Juggernaut: Act 1) Page 7