Shaking his head, he said, “You never cut loose at the Academy? Out at Flight School, I swear the instructors damn near ordered it. One of the upperclassmen even took us out on a guided tour our first furlough.” A smile of memory on his face, he added, “I think they wanted to make sure we'd get into trouble, but not into too much trouble, if you know what I mean.”
“We never did anything like that. I spent most of my time studying, stealing simulator time, touring some of the Fleet museums. There never seemed to be any free time for anything like this.”
“You missed out.” He ducked around a lurching freighter crewman, who collapsed onto the ground in front of him, and continued, “Sometimes you've got to get rid of your cares, and this is the sort of place to do it.” Over in a corner, he saw a pack of technicians from Alamo heading into a bar, skirting well clear in case one of them accidentally gave the game away.
“What are we doing here, anyway?”
“Gathering intelligence,” he added, heading towards a shop that looked quieter than the rest. A bored-looking teenager loitered at the rear, lounging on a chair behind a counter, and he looked around the shelves at the datacrystals, collections of movies to suit a wide range of tastes, many of them obscene. Foster looked at some of the packaging, a scowl on her face.
“Not my taste, either,” he quietly said, rifling through one of the tamer shelves, snatching a collection of 21st-century Mongolian Westerns, lurid images flashing on the package's trailer, a bearded man felling a succession of enemies with a single shot. He stepped over to the counter, dropping it in front of the bored attendant.
“Fifty dollars,” he said.
“You take Republic scrip?”
With a sigh, he turned towards the register, punching a series of buttons, and said, “Sixty-nine. With a five percent surcharge.”
“Fine,” Salazar replied, running his card through the counter. The transaction winked green, and the attendant pushed the box back to him, before turning back to his datapad. He stuffed the crystal in a pocket, then walked out of the store, Foster behind him, shaking her head.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“Layers of cover,” he said. “If anyone is tracking us, I'd like them to think we're from the Republic. It might not fool them for long, but anything we can do to confuse things is helpful.”
“What would the Republic be doing out here?”
“I don't know, but we're here, aren't we?” He looked around, trying to take in the sights. A holo-theatre, the placards advertising films that were years out of date, but still with a loyal audience, three different bars in a row, their décor suggesting officer, non-com and enlisted clientèle respectively. All of them were full to bursting, none of them matching what he was looking for. Foster followed along, taking another bite from her kebab before tossing the remains into a refuse chute, rubbing her greasy hands on her trousers.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“We're trying to get past the main crowd of tourists. The further you get from the docking bays, the less crowded everything gets. Most crewmen on leave just want to have fun as fast as they can. I'm looking for something a little more intimate.”
“If you think...”
Turning, a smile on his face, he said, “Something a little quieter, where we might be able to talk to someone.” He gestured towards the end of the concourse, the crowds already thinning out as they walked past a Saint Christopher Hostel, a line of shabbily-dressed down-on-their-luck spaceman outside waiting for it to open, some of them crossing from the small casino opposite.
Looking at the bar he was pointing at, she shook her head, and said, “The House of the Rising Sun? Really?”
“I guess someone has a sense of musical history, if nothing else.” He paused, turned to her, and said, “You get that reference?”
“My Dad was a fan of old music. I spent most of my childhood listening to that blaring around our apartment.” Moving away from him, she said, “Come on. Let's get this over with.”
A smile on his face, he followed her into the bar, looking around at the customers with satisfaction. This was exactly the sort of dive he'd been looking for. Barely intelligible music blaring over the speakers, sport on the holovid on the far wall that no-one was paying any attention to, and a collection of freighter crewmen and prospectors scattered around the room, nursing drinks. This far from the docking locks, the drinks were cheap and nasty, with an emphasis on the cheap.
“The Witch in the Well!” an old man screamed, toppling his drink to the floor. “Let's all drink to the Witch in the Well, the source of all our wealth and bounty!”
“Shut up, you old fool,” the bartender said. “You'd had enough four drinks ago.”
“I won't!” he said, lurching over to Foster, pawing at her flight suit. “Did she send you to torment me? One mistake, one mistake, and old Mack gets thrown on the scrap heap.”
Salazar stepped over, lifting the man's hand from her and placing it by his side, asking, “Who the hell is the Witch in the Well?”
“Don't encourage him,” someone said from a nearby table. “He's had a few too many, and he's watched too many bad movies since he got fired.”
“She sees all!” the old man yelled, looking up at him with panicked eyes. “And she will teach us the wisdom of the universe, all the knowledge of creation, a treasure that will throw us forward a thousand years. We will be like Gods, tossing the stars from their courses, leaping from galaxy to galaxy!” He turned to the bartender, and screamed, “Can't I toast that? The great, glorious success of the human race?”
A pair of bouncers had moved into the room, one each side, and with a quick glance at Salazar to urge him to back off, they dragged him through the door, throwing him out onto the concourse beyond. The old man turned, yelled some sort of unintelligible obscenity, and stumbled away.
“Sorry about that,” the bartender said. “He's been out of his mind for an hour.”
“You should have thrown him out an hour ago,” Foster said.
Shaking his head, he replied, “The man lost his job last week. No return voucher, so the old bum is stuck here unless he can con someone into giving him a ride home. I feel sorry for the old bastard. Here,” he reached under the counter, pulling out a pair of glowing green drinks, a metal straw draped in each. “On the house.”
“Thanks,” Salazar said, walking over to the bar to retrieve them, passing one to Harper and taking a sip through the straw. “Sirian Sunset. Not bad at all.”
“I thought you were a hardened spaceman?” Foster said with a smile. “Drinking through a straw?”
“The flavors settle in levels, and the art is in the combinations. Try it.”
She took an experimental sip, looked up at him dubiously, then said, “It tastes like sherbet.”
“Give it time.” Walking over to the talkative crewman, he said, “This seat taken?”
“I guess not,” the spacer said, looking up at him. “You just in?”
“First time on leave here, out of the Gunslinger.”
“You poor bastard,” he said, looking up from his drink. “Buch-man's about broke. The ship's got the stink of receivers running all over it.” Shaking his head, he continued, “Biggest damn rush for ten years, and he's managing to go broke.”
“The Kolchak?” Foster asked. “What the hell is going on?”
“All I know is that they're having loads of equipment shipped in from Thalassa, and paying a fortune to have it shipped down to the surface. I hear they're building some sort of refueling station down there, maybe heading out into unexplored space, getting the colonization program doing again. Which means big money for all of us.” Looking at the two of them, he said, “I'm Wallach, out of the Bob Altman. You?”
“Jack Miller,” Salazar lied, tapping his chest. “Sandra Blair.”
“
Well, we're hiring, according to the skipper. You engineers?”
“Shuttle pilots.”
“Even better, if you've got half-decent references.” He barked a laugh, then continued, “Hell, if you know which way to point the damn thing, you'll get a job at the moment.” Frowning, he asked, “What the hell is Buch-man doing with a pair of shuttle pilots? He doesn't have any.”
“He was going to buy one,” Salazar improvised. “Something went wrong. He didn't tell me what. We just found ourselves stuck on the maintenance detail for half the pay.”
“Figures,” Wallach said. “When he moves his head I swear you can hear the brain rattle. I was on that ship for a bit myself, couple of years ago, but that was under his mother. She sold out last year, got onto one of the new Triplanetary runs with a tramp freighter. Take my word for it, that's where the money is.” Draining the last of his drink, he added, “I've got a friend on the Haven Run right now, and I'm tempted to take him up on his job offer.”
“You don't think they'll follow up out here?” Foster asked.
“This is the glorious United Nations, remember. The ones who slashed the exploration budget to zero because some of the Colonials dared to reject their glorious rule. No, I don't think they'll follow up. My folks lost out big-time twenty years ago. I've learned my mistake.” Rising to his feet, he said, “Take my advice. Switch to another ship, make a stake, then get the hell out of here and go where the real action is. That's what I'm going to do.” With a roguish smile, he added, “Of course, that's easier said than done. Anyway, I've got to go.”
“Thanks for the info,” Salazar said.
With a shrug, Wallach replied, “It's free, and that's probably about what it's worth.” He slid a card across the table, and said, “If you want me to speak to my skipper, let me know. We're short on shuttle pilots, as I said. On back-to-back flights for eight hours, and that's a good way to have a crash. Catch you later.”
As Wallach walked out of the bar, Foster looked at Salazar, and said, “Is that anything we didn't already know?”
“Of course not,” he replied. “We've been marked.” Shaking his head, he added, “We might as well just go right back to the ship.”
“What do you mean?”
“That was a barely concealed warning for us to leave. Odds are our friend Wallach wears a United Nations uniform when he's on duty.” With a sigh, he said, “At least we can finish our drinks before we go.”
He reached over to take a sip, then heard a loud scream from outside. His chair stuttered across the floor as he leapt to his feet, racing through the door where a man was looking down at a body, a knife in his chest, blood trickling down onto the deck, his lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling. Foster followed him, looking down at the figure.
“I guess the Witch in the Well got him,” Salazar said. “Come on. We'd better go back.”
Chapter 7
“I still think it was a pretty mean trick,” Cooper said, following Harper through the crawlspace.
“We've got to infiltrate somehow, and the Colonel and his bright boys would have been waiting for it. I just gave them what they wanted, two junior Triplanetary officers trying to gather some information.” She shook her head, and said, “I'll apologize to Pavel when we get back to the Beast.”
“And Foster?”
With a snort, she replied, “Maybe she'll be a little less eager to try and play spy next time.” Turning to him, she continued, “You, I trust. You've done this before. And at least you're not marching down the corridors to the beat of a drum.”
Shaking his head, he said, “Let's get on with this, shall we?” Glancing at his watch, he said, “I'd guess our decoys have been marked by now, and they might start wondering about the rest of the crowd that came with them.”
“Don't worry,” Herb said, following them, slouching in his battered jacket. “We come here all the time. No-one's going to spot us.” Gesturing to a door on the left, he said, “Diego. The man to talk to for gray-market crap. He always tries to charge double, so haggle with the bastard.”
She pushed through the door, Cooper and Herb behind her, and saw an old, bald man sitting behind a desk, looking up at her with a sneer as she entered, samples of merchandise flashing on the display behind him.
“Gunslinger's credit is lousy,” he said. “Cash in advance.”
“I'm not here for Gunslinger,” she replied, as Herb closed the door. “I'm in business for myself.”
Raising an eyebrow, he replied, “The rats deserting the sinking ship? You should have taken the ship yourself, Herb. Might have saved something from it.”
“Family comes first. So I was told.”
“Madam Buchanan always was overly sentimental.” Sitting back, he said, “There will still be no credit, but I will listen rather more intently than I might otherwise have done. What manner of products are of interest to you?”
“Actually, the situation is the other way around,” she replied. “I'm far more interested in what I can do for you.”
“I should have more customers like you.”
With a smile, she said, “I've got a couple of contacts in the UN Colonial Office, and they're setting up a support line for this area. A new pioneer group to be trained, that sort of thing, and this planet is one of those considered. Rumor has it that Secretary Lermontov wants a big prestige project to soak up some cash and hide the black budgets.”
“Seems reasonable,” Diego replied. “Matches some of what I heard. You're thinking of getting into the import/export trade, assuming this comes off.” Shaking his head, he replied, “Though with what you are getting on the Gunslinger, I don't see...”
Pulling a datapad out of his pocket, Cooper handed it to Diego, saying, “We called in a little favor to do some very quiet advance work. Our ship will be ours in three months time. Republic Type-9 Transport, military surplus. They're upgrading their logistic train, and that means some real bargains game up at auction.”
Nodding, Diego said, “My apologies. I take it you're taking the opportunity to survey some markets without warning the potential competition. Given, however, that I am part of that potential competition, I fail to see what you are doing here. Unless this is some sort of attempt to warn me off, in which case I must warn you that I have friends in all corners of the station.”
“Ask yourself,” Harper asked, “How I had sufficient advance notice of the auction to put in the correct bid for a ship?”
“The Lunar Republic has, to my knowledge, never visited this system, nor does it seem likely that their sphere of influence will ever extend this far.”
“My contacts,” she said, “are in the logistics division. Meaning I have advance access to surplus equipment that you might find it difficult to procure for yourself. As well as potential trade routes to worlds in the Republic sphere. Don't think of me as a competitor, think of me as an ally. You have no ships of your own, but you do have contracts with others.”
Nodding, he said, “In that case, we might be able to do business. Cheaper to link into an existing network than set up one of your own, especially with opposition.” Looking at the three of them, he said, “What exactly do you have in mind?”
“I've put a lot of my cards on the table,” she said. “Let's see a few of yours.”
“This is a small station,” he replied, “on the fringes of explored space. Most of our visitors are those engaged in, shall we say, semi-legal operations, and their primary interest is in the procurement of parts and equipment outside the usual channels.” Glancing at Cooper, he said, “You're a veteran.”
“Four years,” he said. “Martian Marine Corps. They taught me a lot of skills that have proven surprisingly useful in the private sector.” He managed a menacing grin, and Diego replied with an approving nod.
“Discretion is the watchword, and something my customers crave. You will therefore forgive me for
not wanting to go into details, though as a general role, anything connected to maintenance is of value out here. Of course, should a settlement be built on the surface, that will change the situation enormously.” He waved a datapad in the air, and said, “I've been reading up on the colonization of Thalassa, for just that reason. You aren't the only one with friends in high places.”
Harper glanced at Cooper, who said, “The station seems busy at the moment. I'm guessing that's the Kolchak.”
Nodding, he replied, “One capital ship in this system was bad enough, but having two on our doorstep is making it very difficult for an honest businessman to stay ahead of the game. I don't have any contacts in the Triplanetary Fleet.” With a shrug, he said, “A shame. I'm always looking for new revenue streams, and my information is that they have an interest in this area, as well. Exploration parties in the deep systems, and new trade routes opening up. This is, after all, a neutral port, and very well position for such expansion.”
Herb burst out laughing, and said, “How long have you known?”
Looking at Harper, he replied, “I have my own detectors positioned at the egress points. It's very helpful for me to keep track of everyone's activities, and to know just what people are getting up to. Don't worry, giving the details to Colonel Clarke wouldn't be in my best interests. I find that the payments multiply when I am able to play all sides against each other.”
Cooper smiled, and said, “I can't wait to pass this story around in the Officer's Mess.”
Leaning forward, Diego said, “What I told you was the truth. I would find contacts in the Triplanetary Fleet valuable. Certainly I would like assurances that your people would refrain from interfering in my activities useful. I don't really believe that the United Nations is planning anything out here. That's just a smokescreen.”
“Do you handle refueling contracts?” Harper asked.
“Of course.”
“Alamo will buy its fuel from you, at a quarter above current market rates, in exchange for some information. As well as our other supplies, but you'll have to speak to our Supply Chief for the details.”
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