Balance of Terror

by K S Augustin

  Turning back to the directory results, she looked up the public information on “Durega Consulting”. The main office appeared to be an anonymous-sounding suite on the other side of Toltuk.

  “Why are these places never next door?” she complained. Transferring the information to her personal unit, she cleared the display then got to her feet. She knew she was going to have to pay “Durega Consulting” a visit. The sooner the better.

  Walking to the bedroom, Moon changed into a pair of loose pants and a baggy shirt, covering a slimmer-fitting tunic. She was prepared for another quick-change operation if need be. Her hand hesitated by a cabinet drawer then she thumbed it open and drew out a small projectile gun. It had been part of the pack the doctor, Leen Vazueb, had given her before she and Srin left Lunar Fifteen.

  At first, when she’d been handed the weapons on the station, Moon felt a bit daring and dangerous. Then she caught a quick, inadvertent glimpse of the Velvet Storm’s armoury and knew that what she and Srin had been given were the equivalent of small pebbles next to building-destroying boulders. Dismayed, and a little embarrassed, she had buried the guns deep in their packs, determined never to use them, and yet here she was, stroking the cold composite barrel while she checked its ammunition level.

  Had Marentim done this to her, or had the metal-hard determination to overcome any obstacle hatched when she first fell in love with Srin? If she didn’t feel so protective towards him, would she have even tucked the pistol into the band of her trousers, covered it with tunic and shirt, then walked out of their habitat with a sense of grim resolve?

  Was love turning her into such a stubborn creature? Moon wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to that question.

  Toltuk wasn’t the kind of city that had a tourist guide. In fact, to Moon’s way of thinking, most of the residents were probably trying to find a way of getting out. Out of the city, off the planet, to a better world somewhere.

  That might have been the common dream of many Republic citizens, but it wasn’t an easy goal to reach. For those with qualifications in important fields, they could depend on having their lives tightly regulated but, within those constraints, live a mostly care-free life. Time was generously provided for holidays on resort planets, attendance at interstellar conferences and even, as had been in Moon’s case, the use of further Republic resources – continents, spaceships, even planets – to help progress one’s research.

  For those without qualifications, however – and that included the vast majority of those that lived under Republic governance – the prospects were grim. For the untrained, or those with experience in disciplines the Republic considered to be non-essential, there were no subsidised trips, no time off for good behaviour, and barely enough money to live on. Looking around, if Moon could pick one example of the depth of desperation that humans could sink to, even with their elevated position within the Republic, it would have been Marentim.

  The transport car she caught on her way to Gauder’s possible office was worn and shabby and swayed on its tracks as if drunk. Moon had learnt early on, during her stay on the planet, that to meet someone’s gaze boldly was taken as an invitation, and not always to indulge in a social nicety. Unlike the brief trip she and Srin had taken while on Wessness, the carriages in Toltuk seemed to be eternally crowded with dull-eyed passengers, matching the lurching rhythm of the transport in beaten down silence. Even during what she considered to be a quiet mid-morning hour, she couldn’t find a place to sit. With no choice, Moon stood in the corner of one of the standing bays, unfocusing her eyes so she looked through people instead of at them.

  It was difficult to tell the proportion of humans that lived in Toltuk. She thought that some individuals looked less than human, with strangely shaped heads and large drooping eyes, but everyone bore the same expression of sullen blankness, masking the visible differences. The statistics she had accessed reported that sixty per cent of Marentim’s population was non-human but added that the majority of them were found outside the cities. That must mean that even those she regarded as aliens were probably just downtrodden humans.

  When she finally alighted at her stop, Moon noticed that the path from the station was in even worse condition than in “her” part of the city. Stained pieces of ancient litter, from decaying shreds of plastic to bent metal panels, piled up along the edges of streets. The air smelt organic, mingled with the sharp scent of ammonia. She stepped carefully along the cracked pavement, looking for the street where Durega Consulting was situated.

  As she walked, the noise of surrounding traffic receded. Rows of anonymous-looking shops gave way to blocks of habitat buildings, each resembling nothing more than tall, grey dominoes.

  Electric vehicles, their soft thrumming the only hint that they were in close proximity, swished past her. A street-stop, its clear walls cracked but still displaying commercials in washed-out colours, housed half a dozen loitering individuals. Moon spared them a curious glance as she walked past – an older woman looking tired yet determined, a young male shifting from one foot to another, a couple who had obviously used the stop as a rendezvous point and were just moving off, and a couple of older children tightly clutching small bags in their hands.

  She was fifteen metres past them when she heard a sudden scream. Turning, she saw the young man trying to grab something from the woman’s grasp. Moon took one faltering step forward then stopped. The woman continued to hold on to whatever she had in her hands. The children watched, their mouths agape. Nearer to the confrontation, several people turned their heads, but their expressions didn’t waver.

  Moon wanted to help but she felt powerless. What was she supposed to do in such a situation? Pull out her pistol and start firing wildly?

  I can’t afford to draw attention to myself.

  Join in with the woman’s shouts in an effort to rouse more official intervention?

  Srin’s life is at stake.

  Run up and kick the attacker in the shins?

  If the Republic finds us, we’ll never be able to escape ever again.

  Then it was over. With a last shove at the woman’s shoulder, the youth pushed her off-balance and took off through the silent traffic without a backward glance, stolen booty in his hand.

  Moon watched but there was little reaction from the crowd. The woman who had been assaulted looked shaken but managed to pull a slim communications unit from the pocket of her jacket and began making a call. Nobody ran up to assist her. The two children angled away and began talking to each other in muted tones. Without a word, Moon turned her back on the frozen scene and continued on her way.

  She had hated people who “didn’t get involved”, had thought of them as moral cowards. Yet here she was, behaving in exactly the same fashion. It was an uncomfortable thought on top of a pile of uncomfortable thoughts. Her steps quickened, as if her feet could outrun her distaste.

  Moon tried not to think of anything in particular for the next few minutes and her relief was palpable as she spotted the building she was after. Hurrying up two flights of worn concrete steps, she stopped at a bland, dirty white door leading off the landing. The lettering on it said “Durega”.

  Taking a deep breath, Moon put her hand on the access panel and pushed.

  Nothing happened.

  With a muttered curse, Moon tried again. The door refused to budge. In frustration, maybe substituting the unmoving panel for the thief she had seen minutes before, she kicked it. The bang didn’t improve access to the office but it brought some attention.

  “What do you want?”

  The voice behind her was male and brusque, but strangely accented.

  Moon spun around to face the source of the question and realised she was looking at an alien. Or maybe he was one of the original descendants of Marentim natives. She had to remember that, on this world, it was the humans who were the aliens.

  “I’m…looking for someone,” she answered. Her gaze darted over his shoulder, to another doorway a few metres awa
y that was wedged open. That must be where he appeared from. But he had been very quick in his approach. And silent.

  “Who?”

  She looked straight into his cloudy green eyes and tried to pitch her voice to match his abrupt tone.

  “Gauder.”

  “What do you want with Gauder?”

  The old Moon might have concocted some barely plausible excuse, trying to hide her intentions behind an innocuous explanation. The new Moon, still shaken by the incident at the street-stop, and the stealth with which the stranger had snuck up on her, said briskly: “None of your business.”

  Alien eyes continued to watch her steadily, but she got the impression she had passed some kind of silent test.

  “He’s not here.”

  Moon tried for disdain next. “Really?” Pause. “Know where I can find him?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to be found.”

  “Believe me, he’ll want to,” she countered.

  They stared at each other.

  “I may have a number for him,” the alien finally conceded. “Hold on.”

  With an odd sloping gait, he retreated down the corridor and disappeared back through the doorway. Not taking any chances, or moving her gaze from the hallway, Moon withdrew the pistol from under her shirt and tunic, clicked off the safety and hid it behind her back. Her hands felt clammy but, contrarily, her mouth was dry. She thought she felt her body start to shake.

  Is this how it feels, she wondered, when a person is ready to kill? What would happen next? Would the alien come out of his office shooting? Would he try to wrestle her to the ground? Was he about to turn her over to the local authorities? She adjusted the hold on her weapon, grasping the handle tighter.

  Despite her attention on the corridor and the partially open doorway, she started when the alien emerged again from his office. He didn’t appear to be carrying anything except for a small thin rectangle. Moon tried to steady her breathing as he approached.

  He stopped a metre away and thrust a small card at her.

  “He has a service he uses sometimes. Leave a message. If he’s interested, he’ll be in touch.”

  Moon reached for the little slip with her left hand, her right readjusting again its slippery grip on a weapon that suddenly felt as if it weighed as much as a small sun.

  She didn’t say “thank you”. Nobody on Marentim said such words. She continued watching the man, willing him to disappear back down the corridor and into his office. Eventually he got the message and, after a long stare, walked away.

  Only when his door slid shut did Moon breathe a sigh of relief. For the first time, she looked down at what she’d taken from the stranger’s hand and saw a series of numbers cut into the rigid plastic. After tucking the gun away, she wiped her right hand down the side of her shirt and hurried down the steps and out of the building.

  She wondered if the itch she felt between her shoulder-blades was the intent gaze of someone watching her from one of the building’s windows or if she was just imagining things.

  Either way, she had no wish to linger.

  Chapter Four

  Only when Moon was back in a familiar part of the city did she look for a public terminal. The foot traffic was jostling and irritating but she kept her mouth shut and kept moving. Occasionally, a Security Force vehicle cruised past, barely above walking speed, its optics scanning the crowd. Was it her imagination or did there seem to be more patrols visible over the past few weeks? As if she needed another reminder that it was past time to move on. Moon pulled a scarf from her bag, draped it over her head and slowed her walk.

  Once at the terminal, however, she hesitated. What should she say? There was a queue for use of the devices, so she had time to think while she waited. She needed this Gauder character to know that she was serious. Should she leave her habitat details? What if his line was monitored by the Security Force? Then again, Kad had told her he could be trusted and that they’d known each other for years. Presumably, that meant that Kad’s contact was smart enough to stay well out of the Republic’s range of scrutiny.

  She shuffled forward and kept her head lowered, aping the general body language of the people around her. Pause, a quick look at the bank of occupied communication units, then she moved forward again. Moments later, another terminal freed up and she hurried up to its panel, tapping out the card’s number with nervous fingers. There was a short period of silence, then she heard the buzz of a line being contacted. Only a primitive beep finally told her that the machine was ready to receive her message.

  “Er, this is Satellite Lace,” she finally said, not trusting to use her real name. “We have a mutual friend and I have a business deal from that friend. He says to tell you that it has to do with,” she hesitated, recalling the code-phrase Kad had given her. “It has to do with castle-communicators. You can reach me,” she paused. Should she provide the habitat number, she wondered again? Did she have a choice?

  “You can reach me at Awl Twenty-Three, Habitat Sixty-Four Phi,” she said in a rush, “or, or I will be back at this terminal at this hour tomorrow.”

  With nothing left to say, Moon abruptly terminated the call. Then headed home.

  She wasn’t used to all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, as they used to call it in the ancient days. All she had wanted from life was a comfortable habitat, a Prime Professorship at a prestigious institute, and her name on a research building. At one time, that goal had seemed so achievable. Fast forward a few years and she barely knew what she was going to eat from day to day!

  That thought was uppermost in her mind as she headed back to Srin. It was early afternoon and her stomach was rumbling. What a pity the Republic hadn’t done research into alternative food regimes for humans. She was sure that there was an alien species out there that only required food once a week. Surely it wouldn’t have taken them much to come up with some kind of genetic manipulation that would pass the same kind of benefit to humans?

  She opened the front door, sniffed and thought that she was imagining things as the aroma of food drifted through the habitat. Entering, she locked the door behind her.

  “Srin?”

  He rose from behind the kitchen counter. “Moon, you’re back.” The smile on his face was warming, but what was he doing moving around? “You’re a little early but lunch is almost ready. Why don’t you sit down?”

  She dropped her bag on the sofa and walked towards the dining table.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked carefully.

  “Not bad at all,” he replied in a cheery tone. “I completely crashed for a couple of hours, but now I’m feeling much better. As good as someone half my age.”

  “I wonder if it’s the result of your new drug mix,” she wondered aloud. “Could excess energy be a side-effect?”

  She frowned. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay? Maybe we should take you off it. I don’t like the idea of—”

  “Of what?” He held his arms out to his sides. “Being able to function like a normal person again? Being convulsion-free for an entire day? Cooking for the love of my life?”

  That caught her attention. “You cooked?” Though, of course, that should have been obvious from the aromas that drifted from the kitchenette.

  “Didn’t you know? I used to cook all the time for,” his movements stilled for a moment, then picked up energy again, “for Yalona.”

  Yalona was the woman Srin had been bonded to, before his fateful visit to the science labs at Tor when he was a young man.

  He smiled brightly at Moon and turned back to the food preparation unit but she wasn’t fooled. Intellectually, Srin knew that he had lost contact with Yalona twenty years ago, when he had been first subjected to memory-wiping drugs in order to keep him compliant and useful to the Republic. But, in his mind, his last clear memory of Yalona appeared to be only months old.

  Moon softened her voice. “Srin, would you like to—”

  “No!” His reply was sharp, then he gave her a look over his sho
ulder. He softened his rebuke with a smile and a shrug. “I know what you’re going to say, but what’s to be gained?”

  “You could find out what she’s done with her life,” Moon argued. “Maybe even contact her, to let her know you’re okay. If she’s anything like me, I’m sure she still harbours some worry for you.”

  “After twenty years, Moon?” He dished out food and served her first, sitting opposite while he poured them some of what passed for the local wine. “I don’t know what the Republic told her. Maybe that I’d been involved in some shuttle accident while on my way back to Tonia III. Maybe that I died when I contracted some exotic virus. Whatever it was, Yalona was fed that excuse a long time ago. I’m sure she’s moved on by now.

  “Twenty years,” he mused. “Time to settle down, raise a family, forget about the man she was bonded to when she was barely out of teenagehood.”

  “Even if you don’t want to contact her directly, you could still carry out some enquiries,” Moon persisted. “While her memories of you are old, yours of her are still fresh. This may be the only way you have to get some closure.”

  “Who says I need closure?” he asked, digging into his food with force. “Who says closure is always necessary?”

  Moon reached forward and covered his free hand with one of her own. “Srin, what the Republic did to you was unconscionable, repeatedly violating a sentient being for year upon year. We’re not talking about owning up to jacking a book from your professor’s office, or forgetting about ten credits you might have owed a childhood friend.”

  “So you know about that too, do you?” he asked in a bluff tone.

  She ignored the poor excuse for a joke. “This isn’t trivial and I wouldn’t suggest it to you if I thought it was. At some point, you’re going to have to confront the consequences of what was done when the Republic lied to the people you loved. It’s the only way you’re going to get any semblance of peace.”

  He sighed, turned his hand so he was gripping hers. The pressure on Moon’s fingers was tight, bordering on pain, but she kept quiet.