How Dark the World Becomes

by Frank Chadwick

  I was plenty nervous, myself. If the plan to kill the two kids really did trace back to someone inside the Co-Gozhak provost corps, there might be a data dump with the ship listing Tweezaa and Barraki as fugitives.

  Or maybe not, since that would get them publicly into custody, and from there it would be tough to touch them. Well, not tough to touch them, but tough to do it without ramifications. How concerned were these guys about ramifications? If they really were imbedded in the Co-Gozhak, probably very concerned.

  So a more dangerous possibility was that the data dump just had us listed as “persons of interest.” Then they’d let us go on our way, but quietly inform somebody somewhere where we were, and then silencers would start to show up.

  I did the only reasonable thing under the circumstances. I took a nap.

  * * *

  The jolly boat off-loaded us at a fairly small cargo bay, the magnetic harnesses took us to an elevator, and that took us down to the body of one of the wheels, where there was gravity and we could unharness. Then we had to thread our way down a corridor to screening.

  The first things I noticed, once we got out of the elevator, were the big, grim-looking Zaschaan in the mottled gray fatigues of Co-Gozhak dirt soldiers. We passengers were in a line down the middle of the corridor, and there were Zaschaan on either side, every ten meters or so. They weren’t packing polite crowd-control weapons, either; they had room sweepers—selective fire 31mm “thud guns.” Not even the Zaschan were nuts enough to load sabot or HX grenades inside a pressure hull, so that meant either flexible baton rounds or multi-flechette canister, and, knowing Zaschaan, my money was on the canister. If these assholes started shooting in this corridor, as full as it was, in about twenty seconds anyone who wasn’t dead would be up to their knees in blood.

  I’ll say one thing about using Zaschaan troopers as hall monitors—nobody tried to jump the line, and whatever bitching there was, it was subdued. The line was moving pretty slowly, and it gave me time to try to remember some of my pigeon Szawa. I was seven or eight years rusty, and even when I was using it regularly there weren’t a lot of subjects that I could converse about. Fortunately, there weren’t a lot of subjects which interested the average Zaschaan grunt. The next trooper on my right looked more bored than pissed off—and since those are usually the only two moods you get to choose between with these guys, I figured I had a winner.

  “Hey, Corporal,” I said in Szawa, letting him know that I was enough on the ball to read the rank brassard on his shoulder. He looked at me—he had to look down a little—and I gestured at him and another of the soldiers.

  “Where the monkey grunts? Shit duty like this—job for them.”

  Of course, I didn’t say monkey—I used the name of a small hairy animal from the Zaschaan home world known as a high-strung troublemaker, but monkey’s a close-enough translation. Monkey grunt was Zaschaan slang for Human soldiers.

  They say that the development of intelligence in a species is tied to communication, and I believe it. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that every intelligent species we know of has remarkably sophisticated facial expressions, provided you know how to read them. For a moment, the Zaschaan corporal looked like he wanted to spit. Instead, he belched—a low, smelly rumble of disdain—from his lower mouth, and then spoke from the upper one.

  “Fuck you, monkey boy,” he answered, in the high-pitched nasal voice that always comes as a surprise at first, issuing from that massive body. But he was still bored rather than pissed off, so I grinned at him and shook my head.

  “Zack corporal too big—hurt my ass.”

  That got a rumbling grunt of a laugh from his lower mouth, and it tickled his curiosity a little, too.

  “Where you learn Szawa?” he asked.

  I held my right arm across my chest as if it were a rifle at port arms, my index and middle fingers extended like a two-barreled pistol. That was the Co-Gozhak tactical hand signal for an armed soldier. He nodded, but his eyes narrowed a little.

  “Which side?”

  I laughed, because it was a stupid question.

  “The one talks to Zacks in Szawa instead of pointy light.”

  Pointy light—laser fire—was more Zack soldier slang. He relaxed a little and nodded.

  “Monkey grunts got sent away,” he said, finally answering my original question.

  “Lucky bastards,” I said. He looked at me without nodding.

  “Maybe not so lucky,” he answered. “Couple monkey grunts the ones that blew up the C-lighter. Maybe more of them knew about it, but didn’t say anything. Maybe whole cohort goes some place dark, gets talked to long time. Long fucking time.”

  Oh, great.

  It had been almost ten years since two Human Co-Gozhak brigades mutinied and went rogue on Nishtaaka, but nobody in uniform had forgotten. Since then, almost all Co-Gozhak combat brigades had been made up of cohorts from different races, even though that made logistics and medical support a bitch, and unit cooperation . . . well . . . spotty. The thought that another Human cohort might have gone bad was just the sort of thing to drive the Cottohazz’s military brass ape shit. Any local commander’s first instinct would be to come down as hard as he could, as quickly as he could, just to cover his ass to the guys upstairs. It would go hard on the six hundred or so guys in the cohort, not because they’d done anything, but just because some dickless asshole would think he had to “take decisive action”—and nobody who mattered was going to shed any tears over a couple hundred monkey grunts.

  “Anybody hurt on the C-lighter?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Maybe dozen ship crew, three monkey grunts, and five brothers. All dead.”

  Brothers—what Zaschaan dirt soldiers call the others in their cohort.

  The line had been moving a step every now and then, and I’d edged a little past him. The gap had opened ahead of me and it was time to move along, catch up with Marfoglia and the two kids, who I saw were watching me carry on a Szawa conversation with the corporal in openmouthed surprise. We were also almost to the end of the line, to the interview rooms.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him.

  “Brollo-Keetlun ah-Kap,” he answered. “You?”

  “Aleksandr Sergeyevich Naradnyo,” I answered, like him using my patronymic. I couldn’t remember the last time I had. “My brothers call me Sasha,” I added. I didn’t offer my hand—Zaschaan don’t particularly like being touched.

  “Sorry for your brothers, Brollo,” I said, and I meant it. It’s not like soldiers have a really great life or anything, and these were just five guys doing their job—five big, ugly, cranky guys, to be sure, but that wasn’t a capital offense last time I checked.

  He nodded, and I walked ahead.

  “Hey, fuck you, monkey boy,” he called after me, and it was about as friendly as Zaschaan get.

  Without looking back, I patted the top of my head three times with my open right hand, another tactical hand signal—take cover in a combat situation, but between soldiers out of combat it just meant keep your head down, pal.

  I heard another rumble of laughter.

  “Where did you learn their language?” Marfoglia demanded when I caught up.

  “I’ll tell you when I know you better. Look sharp—showtime.”

  The door to one of the screening rooms opened and the Zaschaan senior sergeant at the head of the line waved us in. There was a Human seated at the table, wearing the black and red uniform of a Co-Gozhak provost corps captain, with two gold crescent-shaped gorgets dangling from chains around his neck.

  “I have all of our travel documents,” Marfoglia said in her cold, authoritative voice, with just the right touch of bitchy boredom. She was perfect—that’s the virtue of typecasting. When she handed over two sets of documents for each of us, the Human provo captain looked up, interested. His gorgets made a faint jingling sound as he reached for the documents.

  “I am escorting the two e-Traak heirs home,” she went on. �
�Mr. Naradnyo is our security coordinator. These are our travel covers.”

  Also very good—a minimum of words. Never explain anything until they ask for an explanation. Otherwise you look as if you’ve got a story all cooked up you’re dying to tell—which, of course, you do, and you are.

  The captain hand-scanned the codes on the documents, looked at his viewer for a moment, and then nodded and handed the documents back to Marfoglia.

  “Very well, Dr. Marfoglia. We’re sorry for the inconvenience. We’re bringing a replacement vessel here, but it won’t be available for another eight days, I’m afraid. Of course, I will make sure that your party has priority reservations for Akaampta, but beyond that, I’m afraid there isn’t anything I can do to expedite your travel.”

  Of course, of all the things it was possible for the captain to have said, this was the one that we had never anticipated. Marfoglia hesitated.

  “The travel cover . . . it’s in your database. Correct?” she asked.

  He looked back down at his viewer and nodded.

  “Yes. Everything is in order.”

  “I only ask . . . ,” she said, stumbling, not quite sure what to say. “There was a problem earlier . . .”

  He shrugged.

  “Perhaps a cross-referencing error,” he offered. “It seems to have been corrected.”

  I fought down the urge to vault over the desk and look at the damned viewer myself, but Marfoglia snapped out of her momentary paralysis and recovered like a pro, taking the documents from the captain and dropping them into her briefcase in one motion. She said, “Come, children,” in aGavoosh, and four pairs of wobbly knees carried us through the door.

  “That was lucky,” Marfoglia whispered to me, once we were out into the corridor. I just looked at her.

  Lucky?

  We were dead.

  FOURTEEN

  Whenever I have a very big problem to solve, I find it helps to lay it out as clearly as possible, so I can see what I have going for me and what obstacles are in my way. Also, it gives me something to do in lieu of hyperventilating.

  Okay. We were on an orbital station light-years from any of my friends or contacts. Both our real and cover identities were in the security database, associated with each other, and somebody with access to that database wanted us dead—and had the resources to make that happen. We were sitting ducks at Rakanka High, and it’s a safe bet that whoever was coming to kill us would show up before our ride did.

  See? When you lay it out that way, it gets very simple, and the solution becomes obvious.

  “What do you mean, obvious?” Marfoglia demanded.

  “Well,” I explained, “obviously we can’t stay here and wait until the replacement C-lighter arrives, so we have to leave. Obviously we can’t leave as passengers, because our identities are compromised, so we have to leave as cargo. Obviously, we are not—legally speaking—cargo, so we have to find someone with a flexible approach to the law, and who is leaving in the next couple of days.”

  “And going to Akaampta,” she added, but I shook my head.

  “Let’s don’t complicate things. Our immediate problem is staying alive, not getting to Akaampta. I don’t care where they’re going, as long as it’s away from here.”

  She was annoyed—nothing new there—and my explanation didn’t do much to reduce her irritation level. Instead she took a few paces back and forth, thinking it over, looking for a different way out.

  “Where are you even going to find someone?” she demanded.

  I just looked at her. We were on an orbital station that was a jump transit hub. About a dozen commercial ships coasted in nearby parking orbits, and only half of them had major line logos painted on the sides. Commercial ships don’t make any money just hanging around, so they were all going someplace, and independents always need extra cash. The difficult part was going to be approaching them in such a way that they didn’t think we were Co-Gozhak spooks trying to trap them into an illegal move so the Cottohazz could impound their ship. That part would be a delicate dance number, but finding them was going to be ridiculously easy.

  “And how do you know which ones are honest captains who would turn us in to the authorities instead of taking a bribe?”

  “The honest ones have already lost their ships,” I answered. “If they’ve got a mortgage, they’ll take the money.”

  More nervous pacing back and forth. Finally she stopped, her back to me and her arms folded, looking at the wall viewer with Rakanka filling the image. There was a big storm down there, one of those gas giant meta-storms visible from space, with an eye thousands of kilometers across. I thought she was looking at it, but I guess she was just trying to gather herself for what came next.

  “How are we going to pay them?” she asked.

  “We?” I asked. “Are you pregnant, or do you have a mouse in your pocket?”

  She turned to look at me, anger on her face, but something else, too, something the anger was meant to cover. Panic?

  “I paid you up front, and I had to pay Markov a deposit as well. All I have left is about four thousand Cottos.”

  “What do you mean, all you have left? Those kids . . .”

  No, come to think of it, those kids might be rich beyond any mortal’s dreams of avarice, but they were just kids. They had no access to bank accounts or stock portfolios. So they were all traveling on Marfoglia’s cash, and she was just visiting on Peezgtaan, so probably wouldn’t have had all of her assets available. She’d had a fair chunk of change, but I’d taken forty-five thousand of it, no telling how much Kolya had taken, so she’d gone through a nice little fortune in the past few weeks, and now she was down to her last couple grand.

  “How long have you known those kids?” I asked.

  “I never met them until Mr. Arrakatlak contacted me, the day I came to you,” she answered.

  “What did Arrie promise you?”

  “Nothing,” she answered, and I could see she was telling the truth. No pledge from Arrie and no family member to promise her reimbursement when and if she got the kids home safe.

  “Then why?” I asked.

  “I’ll tell you when I know you better,” she answered defiantly.

  Touché.

  Now this was an interesting situation, and one of considerable ethical complexity. My agreement was to get them safely to Akaampta, for which we had agreed to a price and an itinerary. The itinerary was broken—or rather sticking to it would likely get us all killed—and the client did not have sufficient resources to adjust the travel arrangements. Under the circumstances, was I obligated to stay with them until the silencers showed up and killed us all? Or could I, in good conscience, simply refund the unearned part of my fee and walk away? This was, after all, a business deal, not a suicide pact.

  Not that I considered walking away. It was just, on a theoretical level, an interesting ethical problem. But on a practical level . . .

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” I said. “From now on, we travel on my nickel, and at the end of the trip, I will be fully reimbursed—by you—plus an additional fifteen percent of whatever my out-of-pocket comes to. Is this acceptable?”

  She looked surprised, but nodded quickly. I wasn’t rich by any means, but since I was relocating, I was liquid—everything carried along in the form of bearer bonds and cash—and cash opens doors.

  “You understand that if the e-Traaks stiff you, it’s not my problem, right? You still owe me.”

  She nodded again.

  As I think back on it now, I don’t really have a good explanation for why I didn’t consider leaving them. I didn’t leave, and perhaps that’s what’s important—the choice I made. But it’s interesting that I felt no urge to do otherwise.

  At least I think it’s interesting. Of course, I find everything about myself interesting. We each think we’re the most fascinating person in the world, but we can’t all be, can we?

  * * *

  The only sushi bar on Rakanka Highstation was about a
s good as you’d imagine, considering it was nearly a hundred straight-line light-years from any place where Human-edible fish swam. Since room on the station was limited, and there were only so many Humans around anyway, the sushi bar doubled as a veggie burger joint. You want fries with your unagi? No problem.

  The menu was almost all Human-specific. Most restaurants have a couple dishes available for other races, just to cater to mixed parties, and this was no exception, but the clientele was overwhelmingly Terran. I looked around and the only non-Humans in sight were Barraki and Tweezaa—sitting with Marfoglia two tables away and eating some kind of fried brown starchy stuff—and a pair of Zack dirt soldiers with slung thud guns, standing outside the dining area but keeping a grim eye on everything going on inside. It was a Human gathering place, and Humans were the problem, so keep an eye on them.

  Everyone in the restaurant was aware of the two Zacks, and everyone knew why they were there, so the food was seasoned with resentment, and just a touch of fear. But the patrons also stole occasional glances at their fellow diners, and wondered. The young man and woman leaning together, their heads almost touching—were they lovers, or anarchists figuring out what to bomb next? The two families having a boisterous dinner—were the noisy kids just a cover, a distraction?

  Suspicion is a disease, and once it infects a community, the suspicion becomes the reality. Once you start thinking that the parents might be using their children as a cover, then whether those particular parents are or aren’t, you hate them anyway, just for being capable of it.

  Well, the good news was that it rendered us real conspirators fairly inconspicuous. I pow-wowed over beer and tofu katsu with the master and mate of a Terran registry freighter called the Long Shot out of Bronstein’s World and inbound for K’Tok. K’Tok wasn’t Akaampta, but it was in the right direction, and only one jump away for anything with a good set of legs on it—maybe two jumps if we weren’t as picky about what we flew on.