by K S Augustin
“Sure,” Moon shrugged, “who isn’t?”
“You wanted to be Prime Professor in one of the institutes in the Tor system. Win the LaCoeur Prize for Physics. You were incarcerated by the Republic for more than two years yet, the moment you were given the opportunity for release, you signed a loyalty oath and, after almost a year of intrusive surveillance, went back to your research.”
“What are you trying to say?” Moon’s voice was tight.
“I am curious about your motivations.”
Anger flared, and it took a few precious seconds to realise that it was fired by guilt rather than the humanoid’s words. At that revelation, her ire deflated.
“You can be smart, ambitious and stupid, all at the same time,” Moon finally said, her voice sad. “You can blind yourself to reality by thinking that somehow, by wilfully continuing to be blind, you can bring about a better world.” She rubbed at an invisible spot on the table. “At least I was disabused of the idea at a point when I could still make amends.”
“By helping Srin Flerovs?”
Moon glanced over at him and smiled. “I’m not sure that he isn’t helping me more than I’ve ever helped him.
“Have you ever felt that?” she asked, suddenly intent. “That feeling that the person you think you’re doing so much for is actually the one redeeming your own soul?”
“I am familiar with the emotion.” Saff’s voice sounded fainter.
“Well, that’s what it’s like with Srin. Him and me against the entire universe.”
“And what about your research? The Solar Missile?”
Moon grinned across the table. “All gone. Exploded into random bits by a series of data scramble-bombs.”
A light appeared in Saff’s eyes. “Ah. That was not specified in the reports I read. So the Republic has lost your research?”
“I’m sure they have some archival documentation,” Moon conceded. “It’s difficult to keep a complete secret in an information-connected world like ours. But what was destroyed was years ahead of anything the Republic might still have.”
“And it was completely destroyed? This research that can be used to annihilate worlds?”
Moon looked her straight in the face. “Utterly demolished.”
Saff nodded and finished her drink. “Good.”
The chair next to Moon’s shifted as Srin eased himself into the seat. At the periphery of her vision, Moon noted that Cenredi had just left the canteen.
“He’s a bright boy,” Srin said, by way of greeting.
“You get on well with him,” Saff commented. “He is not an easy person to know.”
“He just needs to be shown some friendship.”
Saff hesitated for a second. “The relationship between Toy Cenredi and Quinten Tamlan can be…adversarial.”
Why did Moon get the impression that Saff didn’t like conflict? There must have been a subtle change in her voice or the way she angled her head.
Srin shrugged. “Different people have different kinds of relationships. Maybe Toy and I get along so well because he doesn’t look up to me.”
Both women stared at him and he blinked. “Why does that sound so strange?”
“He doesn’t look up to you?” Moon prompted.
“No, and why should he? The first time he saw me I was probably an unconscious, dribbling wreck next to a shuttle we were trying to jack. Then I was unconscious in the medical bay for more than a day. Neither image is awe-inspiring. But your captain,” he jerked his head towards Saff, “he’s different. Focused, driven. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the relationship between Quinten and Toy is a lot like…father and son.”
Moon heard the wistfulness in his voice and bit at her inner lip. She felt so useless in situations like this, where no finely-crafted equation or well-chosen variable could help.
“Father? And son?” If anything, Saff sounded a bit stunned.
“Why not? From what I gather, Quinten rescued him from a dead-end planet with few options. People get adopted in all kinds of ways.”
Saff looked at Srin with dark, unblinking eyes. “As you say.”
Then she got to her feet abruptly. “Thank you both for your conversation. It has been most enlightening.”
She recycled the dishes and left them with the barest of nods.
“I bet she has a real story to share,” Srin said, watching her back as she left.
“I think they all have,” Moon commented.
He shifted his chair, bunny-hopping it over to be closer to Moon. “So what do you want to do?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows.
She laughed. She hadn’t seen him this happy since the Differential, and that didn’t count, not while he was in the throes of a two-day memory cycle.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “Got any ideas?”
He pursed his lips. “I might have a couple.”
Their laughter echoed down the Perdition’s corridor as they walked back to their quarters.
“What time is it?” Moon asked as Srin locked the door behind them.
“Hmmmmm.” He briefly kissed her neck then began undressing her, peeling the clothes from her body with infinite care. “Early afternoon, I think.”
“Afternoon? Isn’t it a bit decadent, making love while others are working?”
She rested her hands on his shoulders while he lifted each of her legs, stroked off her trousers and flung her garments to the other side of the room. “For the kind of money we’re paying,” he kissed his way back up her leg, “I’m expecting nothing less than decadence overload.”
It was like honeymoon sex, wild, rowdy and rambunctious. They rolled on the narrow bunk, dropped off it in a fit of giggles and continued on the floor. Srin’s flesh was hard beneath her questing fingers, his lips insistent, his hair soft and spiky with his sweat. She kissed him, caressed him, licked, squeezed and fondled him until his voice was hoarse with need and he promised he would do anything – anything! – if she would just stop her erotic torture.
“Stop?” she asked archly, deliberately stilling every one of her movements.
He groaned. “Moon. Please.”
“Stop? Or finish?”
His laugh was choked. “Anything,” he said, his throat arched so she could see the bob of his adam’s apple as he swallowed. “Do anything.”
The spasms of her answering giggle clenched around him and he moaned. “But make it soon.”
When it came, her climax was wonderfully uninhibited, rolling waves of pleasure that crashed her to the floor, turning her into a quivering, boneless mess.
“Ugh,” she finally said, after many long minutes passed. She lifted her head and looked down at Srin, a dazed smile on her face. “Am I still alive?”
“I literally can’t remember the last time it was that good,” he replied and she felt the tremors of his words pass from his chest to the satiated and sensitised parts of her flesh that were pressed against him.
Reluctantly, she levered herself off him. “Bathroom,” she said succinctly, and stumbled to the small cubicle that adjoined their quarters.
When she returned, feeling a lot more conscious, she saw that Srin had tidied up the room. He lay in bed, half-draped in a thin blanket, a smile dancing on his lips. Catching her eye, he drew back the blanket and patted the mattress.
“Come here, my tigress.”
“Tigress?” she teased, slipping into bed beside him. “Really?”
“Well, you almost drew blood,” he assured her.
She snuggled next to him and breathed in a mix of Srin and sweat.
“It’s nice here, isn’t it?” she murmured.
“You’re only saying that because it’s the first time we’ve been any place where nobody’s tried to kill or exploit us.”
Even as she chuckled at his words, there was a longing deep in Moon’s breast. She wanted to articulate it, but she couldn’t. The honest truth was, a part of her yearned to stay on the Perdition. She didn’t like Cenredi very much and the
superiority that Tamlan always showed her was also more than a little wearing, but there was nothing malicious or exploitative about any of the small crew. She never felt that she had to be on her guard, in case someone tried taking advantage of her or Srin. For the first time in months, she felt that she could rest – just relax and enjoy herself – for a little while, and she actually dreaded their reaching 3 Enkil IV.
Despite its name, the Perdition was the closest thing Moon had felt to a possible home in four years. And she was starting to feel loath to leave it.
Chapter Sixteen
“That is 3 Enkil IV?”
The voice belonged, of course, to the irrepressible Toy Cenredi, but Moon couldn’t disagree with his sentiment. The five of them were squeezed into the Perdition’s cockpit, jostling for space amid the consoles and well-upholstered swivel seats. In an act of charity, Saff had taken the initial chaotic view of their destination and reduced it to a symbolic representation, but it hardly helped.
Tamlan pointed to the screen with a lazy circling forefinger. “Saff, can you…?”
“Using what parameters, Quinten Tamlan?”
Moon mentally tried dividing the picture into a series of concentric zones in an attempt to make sense of what she was seeing. At the epicentre was 3 Enkil IV. In the end, as Saff had discovered, the designation hadn’t indicated a planet at all. It wasn’t even the name of the system. In reality, 3 Enkil IV was the fourth satellite of the third gas giant (1 Enkil, 2 Enkil, 3 Enkil) in the 76 Delta Shala system. And it was a satellite that hadn’t risen to prominence until several months ago.
“It only recently appeared on the charts,” Saff explained. Her calm contralto voice was a soothing contrast to the zipping polygons of light that appeared to infest the system like fleas attacking a Marian badger.
“I knew minerals are the trade backbone of the Republic,” Moon said, her gaze locked on the viewscreen, “but…this?”
“It’s a new opportunity,” Tamlan remarked. “A chance to make some money, then run before the Republic catches up.”
At a distance from the satellite, but still within the gravitational pull of 3 Enkil, several artificial conglomerates – drifts – had been hastily assembled. Even as Moon watched, they appeared to morph, shrinking in some areas, expanding in others, as ships either locked on to a promising-looking super-structure or unclamped and spun away into the darkness.
“It’s a wonder they don’t smash into each other while docking and undocking,” Srin said.
“Jumping new claims is dangerous work,” Tamlan agreed. “I wouldn’t do it, but others are not so fussy.”
“How long will it take before all this settles down?” Moon asked.
“Depends on how long it takes for the Space Fleet to establish order. It’s usually on the order of four months, sometimes even six.”
Moon looked at Tamlan’s profile. “You’ve seen activity like this before.”
He met her gaze briefly then looked back at the filtered command screen. “A few. If you were due to meet an underground contact here, you could do a lot worse. At this stage of a port’s establishment, a lot of things fall through the cracks.”
“Including our contact,” Moon added dryly.
They were here. 3 Enkil IV. Moon had been expecting a bucolic planet, along the lines of Marentim, but not as stark. Instead, she was looking at feeding time at a mechanical zoo. Her gaze stepped out one more invisible zone, to an orderly line of transports that appeared to circumnavigate the frenzy closer to 3 Enkil’s moon.
“What are they doing?” she asked, jerking her chin at the screen. “Those transports don’t appear to be engaged in any activity.”
“They’re keeping their crew and cargo safe,” Tamlan replied. “It would be suicide to venture any closer to the moon without, at the very least, an armed escort vehicle of some sort.”
“They still look like they’re a little too close to the drifts.”
“Close enough for quick transport turnarounds, far enough for relative safety. They’re doing the right thing.” He turned to face his passengers. “I’ve brought you here, as agreed. Where do you want to be dropped off?”
Everyone – even Srin – looked at her expectantly. At her sides, Moon’s fists slowly clenched and unclenched.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
Tamlan was the quickest to respond with his characteristic frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I-I need time to think.”
She licked her lips. “Kad…he always leaves some kind of puzzle for me to solve. It’s a bit of insurance, in case someone else stumbles across the message, I suppose. What I need now is some time to figure out what exactly I’m supposed to do, who I’m supposed to contact.”
“You don’t even know who you’re supposed to contact?” Tamlan’s voice rose.
“We’re trying to liaise with an underground organisation,” Moon told him angrily. “A network that the Republic would rather destroy than let live.”
“Like mine, you mean.”
The words, their inherent truth, deflated her.
“I need time to think,” she repeated dully.
Tamlan looked from one to the other. Finally, he sighed. “Fine. I’ll leave you with your thinking. Do whatever you have to do, but find your contact. I didn’t bring the Perdition all the way here to act as possible target practice for mercenaries with more weapons than brain cells. Cenredi, come with me, we need to check the secondary thruster relays.”
“Thruster relays? But grandpa, we already—”
“Now, Mr. Cenredi.” The tone of voice brooked no argument.
Cenredi rolled his eyes in a melodramatic fashion but dutifully followed the ship’s captain out of the cockpit.
“I don’t quite know what to suggest,” Moon said in the ensuing silence. She thought she understood a little more fully the ship’s humanoid crewmember, and was hoping that the understanding was mutual.
“Kad Minslok didn’t give you any further clues as to who your contact was going to be?” Saff asked.
Moon shook her head. “He just told us to get to 3 Enkil IV and that he’d organise some way to contact us when we got here.” She looked at the screen. “Somehow, I’m not sure he had this in mind.”
“Maybe he did,” Srin added. They were some of the first words he’d uttered since entering the cockpit. Sometimes, due to his periods of exhaustion and unconsciousness, Moon forgot that he was around, but he was there, always listening, always analysing, picking up the important fragments she often missed.
“Think about it,” he added. “What better camouflage than a mass of buzzing ships, each operating according to its own agenda? As Quinten says, even a squad of Space Fleet ships would need several months to get this mob under control. And, in the meantime, people can appear and disappear at will.”
“But this is such a new venture,” Moon objected. “How could Kad plan something like this?”
“Not plan. Leverage.” Srin gazed at the screen. “I think I’m looking forward to meeting this old research partner of yours.”
Moon’s voice was dry. “We have to figure out how to find him first.”
Moon tentatively approached the door. She registered the label next to it – “Hydroponics” – before the panel slid open with an audible hiss. Taking a breath, she stepped inside.
Green and white surrounded her. Rows of large rounded tubes, open at the top, were suspended from floor to ceiling. In between, foliage dominated, mostly a healthy-looking forest tone, but interspersed with some reds, yellows and browns. The air smelt damp yet fresh and filled with an additional scent that Moon supposed must be fertiliser.
She walked carefully, peering down each aisle until she saw a tall distinctive figure three-quarters of the way down.
Saff looked up as she approached, but her fingers kept picking the tips off a row of tall seedlings in front of her.
“This is a lovely place,” Moon said, and she meant it. She was s
urrounded by life and quiet in a chamber that was in stark contrast to the metal panelling outside.
“When I joined the Perdition, working in Hydroponics was my first duty.”
“Do you like it?” Moon asked, genuinely curious.
Saff’s nimble fingers paused. “It’s nice to give life,” was all she said.
Moon licked her lips. “I, er, I have a favour to ask you.”
Saff stepped away from one of the plant tubes and let her arms fall to her sides.
“I spoke to Toy Cenredi – well, actually, Srin spoke to him and then he told me what the young man said – and consensus seems to be that you have an almost supernatural ability to find things.”
“I recognise patterns,” was all Saff had to say in reply to that.
“Well, I was wondering if you could help me find my contact. Since the conversation in the cockpit yesterday with, ah, Quinten, Srin and I have tried thinking of any way we could somehow send the correct communication to a place on 3 Enkil IV, but we don’t know where to start. You were there, remember? You saw the chaos of the mining operation.”
“Are you certain you don’t know who your contact is?”
Moon nodded. “Unfortunately, yes.” She hesitated, then added: “And there’s a further complication. We were supposed to take a particular ship in order to reach this system. It had been all arranged. But we didn’t. We came with you instead.”
“You do not know your contact, and your contact doesn’t know that this ship was your transport. In fact, he, she or it,” there was the barest stress to the third pronoun, “might be waiting for a signal from the transport you never caught and, thus, never entered this system.”
“Something like that,” Moon agreed with a grimace. Put in such bald terms, the quest sounded hopeless.
“Very well,” Saff said, without changing expression. “I appreciate a challenge.”
She turned away then stopped and swung around to face Moon again. “What happens if I fail to find your contact?”
Moon didn’t want to think about that but couldn’t deny that it was a reasonable question. She shrugged her shoulders and gave a nervous laugh. “Then I suppose we might be reduced to asking your captain if he has room on this ship for two more crewmembers?”