by S. J. Madill
Rod walked around the front of the Jaljal ship, and approached the Flying Shite just as Dan was climbing down from the cockpit. As he descended the ladder, Dan reached out a grimy hand and patted the crude painting of a turd that adorned the ship's corroded nose.
"Made it once again, eh Dan?" said Rod.
The stubble-faced pilot turned and met him with a grin, wiping his hands on his pants before shaking hands with him. "You bet. Survived another harrowing three-hour flight."
"Jesus, Dan. Three hours from Earth? The new German ships can do it in five minutes."
"Sure," said Dan. "But then I'd have to buy one of those precision-engineered German things. Whereas I already have the Shite, and she was free. So, y'know…"
"I dunno," laughed Rod, pulling his datapad out of his overalls pocket. "Free shit is still shit. So what d'you have today?"
"Would you believe," said Dan, "priceless cultural artifacts?"
"No," said Rod, poking at his datapad. "I wouldn't."
"Fair enough. It's some shit a museum wants sent to Ni Sennid, and they wanted the lowest bidder. Ergo, me."
"Well, good for you. Just the usual, then? Gas and go?"
"Yeah. Two crates gotta come off, though. They're going to Arcturus. The rest goes to Ni Sennid. And I gotta take a crap."
"That's great, thanks for the detail. I'll get a loader in here for the two crates."
"Oh," said Dan, pointing to the rear of his ship. "There's two stowaways. Couple of kids. The tech in Ottawa let them on. I think one of them's a Palani."
Rod raised an eyebrow. "Really? Out here? They'll let anyone fly these days. Don't worry, I'll get rid of 'em."
"Great, Rod. Gotta go, see you in a few."
"Yeah," said Rod, eyes still on his datapad. "Sure." He walked slowly around to the back of the Flying Shite. Its battered and corroded hull still held hints of its original, more elegant self, but the area around the stern ramp was beaten beyond recognition. The ramp hadn't worked properly in almost a hundred years, and every attempt at repair was written in the dented metal. Rod punched a fist at the control hatch, which fell open to reveal the ramp controls inside. Pushing the heavily-worn button, he stood back as the hydraulics wheezed to life, jerkily lowering the uneven ramp amidst a symphony of mysterious rattles and thuds. "Come on out, you two," he said.
Two figures emerged from behind the crates. Both were wearing light summer clothes — not nearly enough for the temperature in the station, let alone a ship in space. The girl was pretty. Built like a linebacker, with a mess of dirty blonde hair, but she moved slowly, like she was tired. The other kid wore a cloth to conceal his head and face; it looked like a paint-covered t-shirt. As they came down the ramp, Rod caught a glimpse of pure white skin and blue, blue eyes. The Palani kid approached him, pulling down the cloth to reveal his mouth. He was about to speak, when Rod raised one hand.
"Look," he said, which made the two kids stop. "I'll tell you what I tell the rest of 'em: I don't care who you are, I don't care what you're running from. You just can't stay on the guy's ship." Rod pointed to an open hatch, a dark hole with a stairwell leading down below the landing deck. "Go that way. No one will see you, and neither did I." Once again they were about to speak, and again he waved his hand. "Just go. I hope things work out for you, whatever it is."
Without a word, the Palani kid smiled and nodded, covering his face again. He turned around to take the pretty human girl by the hand and led her, a little unsteadily, toward the hatch.
Rod turned back to the ship and walked up the ramp into the hold as the loader approached.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
"Five minutes. We missed them by five minutes."
Dillon stomped into the Borealis's hangar bay, tugging at the straps on his upper leg armour. "Five fucking minutes," he muttered, making a fist and punching at the clasp on his hip.
Amba walked behind him. She was fastening the front of a vast grey overcoat that she wore over her robes. "You didn't know, Captain."
"I know," he said. His neck and shoulders were tight to the point of aching, and he knew his voice was betraying his frustration. "If we hadn't been screwing around, we could've been here in time to meet that damned freighter." He grabbed a loose strap on his armour and jerked it tighter. "How the hell does a piece-of-shit freighter get in and out of a piece-of-shit station so damned fast?"
Two crewmembers were waiting next to the open door of the shuttle. They both wore identical grey overcoats, nondescript and without insignia, over their body armour. The shapeless coats also hid the sidearms holstered on their belts.
"Who we got?" asked Dillon.
"Lee here, sir," said the shorter of the two. He jerked his thumb at the other hooded figure. "Brought Amoroso, who needed something to do."
"Sir," said Amoroso's voice from under the hood.
Dillon grunted in acknowledgement. "Fine. Great. Where's my damn overcoat?"
Amoroso turned toward the shuttle's open door, picking a folded coat off the deck. "Here you go, sir."
Taking the coat, Dillon shook it open, turning it over as he searched for the arm holes. He knew he needed to calm down, and forced himself to slow his breathing. "So," he sighed, trying to turn the coat right way up. "You both been to Alpha Bravo before?"
"I have, sir," said Lee. "But not Amoroso."
Dillon looked sideways at Amba. She gave a brief tilt of her head. "I have been here before, Captain. Briefly."
He found an armhole and slid his armoured fist into it. "Got it. So, here's the deal, Amoroso: they don't like Earth warships coming here. The place is like the Wild West: everyone is armed and cranky, and there are no cops. A sort of mafia runs the place, and they've made it abundantly clear that they aren't going to do a damn thing to help us." He slowly rotated around to his left, trying to get his other arm into the other sleeve. Lee reached out and held the coat for him. "Thank you. So, it's two hundred years old. It's an eight-hundred-metre-wide doughnut-shaped pile of junk. It's like rats' warrens in there. No central communications to speak of, and how they manage air, water, food and sanitation is anyone's guess. They don't even use their greenhouses any more. Three hundred thousand people crammed in there, and we're only looking for two. Two needles in a nasty little haystack."
Pulling his hood over his head, Dillon motioned to the shuttle, prompting Amoroso to climb aboard followed by Lee and the Tassali.
"And since we're evil Earth military types," he grumbled, grabbing the handrail to pull himself into the shuttle, "they'll only let four of us down at one time. Let's go."
Amoroso slid the shuttle's door shut as they lifted off the hangar deck. Floating backwards, the shuttle exited the Borealis and began to turn.
As the shuttle floated aft of the ship, Dillon peered out of the window in the shuttle's door. The Borealis's bare metal hull was unadorned save for the maple leaf near the stern, the pennant number on her sides, and the white and red stripes. Her lines were sleek and elegant, a far cry from the station that was coming into view. The station's toroidal hull was battered and corroded, and covered with random patches of newer, cleaner plating welded on over time. Only a faint hint remained of her original markings; the UN flag painted on her slowly-rotating hull was half obscured by a scorch mark, in turn covered by a patch of green-painted steel.
Dillon turned and made a beckoning motion to Amoroso. "C'mere," he said. "You've never been here, so let me give you a quick tour."
"Yes sir," said Amoroso, bending to peek out the small window.
"It's a torus," said Dillon, "a big fat doughnut. It used to rotate faster, to simulate gravity. 'Down' was the outer edge, 'up' was toward the centre of rotation. Somewhere along the line, they gave up on the rotation idea and put in artificial gravity generators." He leaned in closer to the window, pointing toward the station as they approached. "There used to be a central docking hub, but it's gone. See where part of the donut's inside rim has been cut away? That's where they took off part of the hull, to
create a docking bay. Magnetic fields hold the air in. The rest of it," said Dillon, making a circular motion with his pointing finger, "is like the shittiest part of Diefenbaker Station, except not as nice." Dillon patted Amoroso on the back. "There. Did you like the tour?"
Amoroso stood back from the window, a smile showing under his hood. "Aye, sir. Outstanding."
"Good." Dillon scanned the passenger compartment. Amba sat quietly on the bench at the back of the shuttle. Lee was in the middle of the compartment, holding the grab rail over his head. "So," said Dillon, "we're here to find those kids. Since that freighter was supposed to go to Ni Sennid, I'm betting they got off it, and stayed on the station. You got your credit chip, Lee? You and Amoroso, go out there and make friends. Spread some money around, or crack heads if that works better. Just find the trail that'll lead us to those kids. Tassali Yenaara and I will do the same."
The speaker on the ceiling crackled to life. "Steerage class, this is Cormorant. Almost there. Contact in ten."
"Right then," said Dillon. "Good luck. Keep in constant radio contact."
The deck under their feet shuddered as the shuttle touched down. At a nod from Dillon, Amoroso unlatched the shuttle's side door and hauled it open. "Jesus," said the young marine, "will you look at this place?"
CHAPTER THIRTY
Elan had never been anywhere so claustrophobic. Under his feet, rusted and damp metal decking creaked as people walked. Over his head was a steel-plate ceiling low enough to touch. Flickering light fixtures hung from their wires, dripping rusty condensation. Makeshift walls, assembled from crates and sheets of plastic and alloy, were built out from the bulkheads; small spaces claimed by anyone with the materials to build themselves a room.
When they'd first arrived below decks, they'd been confronted by rough-looking people. Scarred faces and itchy weapon hands, aiming to get first dibs on newcomers to the station. He'd had to speak with them, a few words with the Iyurele voice, enough to convince them to let him and Heather pass — and to borrow some of their clothes to blend in. Within a hundred paces of the hatch, they'd been approached three more times by different predators: scam artists, pimps, slavers. Elan wondered how many young lives had come down from the landing deck and into ruin at the hands of such people.
All the sub-level's traffic was shoved into a narrow alley. Garish lights and hand-lettered signs covered the walls, proclaiming vendors, offices, or profanity for its own sake. Judging by the signs and the yelling hucksters, the main businesses were food, clean water, weapons, and prostitution, all available in more variety than he would have thought possible.
Ahead of them, the deck curved uphill, following the curvature of the station's outer hull until it went out of sight behind the ceiling.
Bumping into someone in the crowded alley, Elan mumbled an apology, but never let go of Heather's hand. His battered leather jacket creaked as he reached his bandage-covered hand to adjust the cloth-draped cap that covered his head.
Heather squeezed his hand, looking at him from under the brim of her battered hat. She wore similar old clothes, ill-fitting enough to hide her shape and dirty enough to blend in.
Elan smiled at her, but realised she couldn't see his face, so he gave a brief nod. She grinned momentarily, but kept her head down.
Heather was slowing down. He could feel it in her hand, in the way he had to tighten his grip, to tug at her to keep her moving forward. They'd need to stop somewhere to eat. Find a safe place to—
Elinth. He knew the face, saw it staring out at him from the back of a junk peddler's stall. The smooth, white marble face of Elinth, one of the five Palani Divines. Mistress of Sorrows, of night and the underworld. How fitting, he thought, that a statue of her face would be here. Before he realised it, he had led Heather through the crowded, narrow street to the vendor. People shoved by them as they stopped next to the scrap-metal counter. Behind it, a bald-headed human man was hunched over, twirling his fork in a bowl of noodles. He glanced up at Elan and Heather. "Hey," he said, going back to his noodles.
Elan tried to disguise the harmonics in his voice, leaving him speaking with a grating croak. "That statue," he said, pointing to the sculpted face of Elinth. "You have people bringing things from Palani space?"
The man took a look at the statue, then at Elan. There was suspicion in his narrowed eyes. "Yeah."
"So would you know a ship headed that way?"
Behind the counter, the bald-headed man kept watching Elan, while quietly lifting a forkful of noodles to his mouth. "Nah," he said as he began to chew. He glanced back at the statue on the back wall, then returned his attention to the bowl.
The stall was at a narrow part of the alleyway, and passersby had to slow and thread through each other to move along. A burly woman in a torn jacket bumped into Elan, making him take a step back. The same woman then bumped into Heather, causing her to lose her grip on Elan's hand and spin around, falling hard against the wall. Elan helped her back to her feet, but she was moving slowly.
Underneath the cloth covering his face, Elan bit his lip, trying to avoid the sensation of fear lurking in his mind. With fear comes panic, and with panic comes disaster. All he could see was an endless crowd of dirty, nameless faces: travellers in a world he knew nothing about. It was part of a rough, brutish, self-absorbed culture he hadn't seen before. Nothing at all like the gentle, friendly humans he had encountered back on Earth. Was this the true face of humanity? Were the Pentarch right about humans after all?
He glanced again at the stall, at the vendor focused on his bowl, at the looted statue of Elinth, for sale in a dirty shop on a battered station. A station forgotten by the same humanity that had once, in hope and pride, built it at the star nearest to home.
Not letting go of Heather's arm, he reached into his jacket pocket with his other hand. Pulling out his credit chip, he thumbed at the display until the amount matched the listed price for the statue on the wall. He leaned forward and tapped the credit chip against the vendor's datapad; the two chirped in unison.
That made the bald human take notice. He gently put down his bowl, and turned in his seat to face him.
"How about now?" asked Elan. A hint of his harmonics had returned to his voice, and he coughed to suppress it. "Know of any ship headed to Palani space?"
"The Greenhouse," said the man. "Talk to Beatty."
"Greenhouse?"
The vendor nodded, jerking a thumb in the direction they were already headed. "Keep going that way. Fifty metres or so, go two decks up."
"Is there a doctor up there?"
"Clinic," the man said, watching Heather swaying on her feet. "Same deck as the Greenhouse. Can't miss it."
"Thank you," said Elan.
"Yeah," replied the bald man, turning back away from Elan. He reached down and picked up his bowl and fork.
Elan took Heather by the hand, pulling her behind him. He kept his body in front of hers, pushing with his other hand to nudge people from their path. Under their feet, the rusted decking was slick with water, oil, and worse. Rusty water dripped on him, running down his jacket and dropping to the floor, where rivulets disappeared through gaps in the plating.
Hawkers shouted to make themselves heard over the sounds of arguments, muffled conversations, and the occasional sharp peal of laughter. Behind the sounds of people was the constant mechanical din: rattling fans, hammering pumps and groaning plates.
The stairwell was even more congested, packed solid with a mass of people trying to go up or down. Shoving, swearing bodies pushed their way through, against the flow of traffic. The air was thick with the stink of unwashed bodies, urine, and smoke. Elan adjusted the cloth over his mouth, making sure he could breathe through it. Through his goggles he could only see the back of the man in front of him, slowly taking one step at a time up the stairs. Heather had moved close behind him, her hands heavily on his shoulders, and he could hear her laboured breathing. He didn't know how she kept moving, the way she seemed so exhausted. They nee
ded to rest, give her a chance to recover her strength. The thought kept haunting him, that he shouldn't have dragged her away from her homeworld, that anything that happened to her would be his fault. He just had to keep climbing one step at a time. Everything would work out.
After many physically punishing moments in the stairwell, Elan saw a gap and forged ahead, pulling Heather behind him, to surface into the relative openness of the deck. High on the wall, over the heads of people shoving by, the faded paint of an arrow pointed along the corridor. 'Clinic', it said, in English and two other human languages.
It was less crowded here, with fewer makeshift stalls and buildings in the passageway. Where rows of bright lights once shone, jury-rigged lamps offered only dim cones of illumination. Red lines on the wall, in the same faded paint from centuries past, showed the way to the clinic entrance. The door — once probably an airlock — was now gone, its yawning hatchway cut away flush with the floor.
Stepping inside, the noises and smells of the hallway were abruptly replaced by the cloying scent of disinfectant. The outer wall of the room was lined with worn steel benches, where four slumped figures sat motionless, their eyes studying Elan as he guided Heather toward the counter. A round, short-haired woman sat behind it, impassively watching their approach.
"My friend," said Elan, gesturing to Heather, "she needs to see a doctor."
"Have a seat. You'll be called."
Elan turned around and looked again at the people sitting at the edges of the room. Two of them had fallen asleep. One of them had dried blood spattered and smeared on her shirt, as if she'd coughed it up and wiped it on a sleeve. How could they do this to each other? Was this the price of overpopulation, of a runaway birth rate? The devaluing of individual health, of individual lives? He shook his head, and turned back to the woman at the counter. Elan was searching for something on the counter, and saw it right away: a datapad sat near his elbow, its display showing a financial-transaction interface.