Flashpoint (Hellgate)

by Mel Keegan

  He sublimated it, buried his face in Travers’s dark hair, rocked with him, matched his rhythm – urged him when he seemed to need it, soothed him when he needed that instead. Neil was stronger now. The debility was gone, his health was restored. Grant was satisfied with them both, even if Travers was now as sterile as Marin had been since the Argos disaster.

  The tiny surgery was performed with no more intrusion than a shot. Nano were injected into the iliac artery, and when they were done a man’s sperm would never be completely formed. Travers had joked about shooting blanks, but in a private moment he confided that it was odd, knowing he was sterile. In the past, the procreative choice had always been his own.

  Marin’s hands were talons on his back, urging now, as he got close. For Curtis the end was a long way off, but Neil seemed to have had a head start on him, and his sinews were roping with effort. Marin caught him tightly between all four limbs, hugged him close enough to crush the breath from his lungs, and Travers froze, gave that high, sharp whimper, before Marin’s belly was suddenly slick with the fluids that were part Neil Travers, part medical nano. Necessary.

  He caught his breath fast and sat up again as Marin’s legs relaxed. Stretching and yawning, he watched with lazy blue eyes as Curtis set his own hands to arts of pleasure that were ancient when pharaohs ruled. Most of the techniques were human. Some were Resalq, and Travers was intent. He knew nothing much of Resalq sexuality, save that Mark Sherratt’s people were androgynous enough to be baffled by humans. Marin counted himself privileged to have had a Resalq lover – and doubly privileged, that his lover was Mark himself.

  The two species’ physiology was enormously different, but at the surface level, like enough for a caress to remain a caress, and for nerves to respond to similar pressure points, even if they were in slightly different places. There was a point on the hipbone that would slow a man down, make it last a long, long time. Marin pressed his thumb into it, and Travers knew what he was doing.

  “Let me,” he murmured. “Show me the place.”

  “You have to find it on yourself first,” Marin sighed, “and you can only find it when you’re so close to the moment of glory, most people couldn’t be bothered looking for it. Another time.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Travers warned.

  “Well … hold me to something.” Marin took a deep breath, and swore softly as the threedee chimed. “What the hell is that?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” Travers said honestly.

  But for Marin the languor was dispelled and he tightened his fingers, shifted his grip. His left arm wound about Neil’s neck, pulled him down for a kiss which searched him to the last molar, while he finished himself deftly.

  The threedee chimed a second time before the room had fully righted itself, and Travers threw a bunched-up teeshirt into it. The image fragmented, distorted and reformed around the bunched fabric which had landed on a section of its base-mounted projectors. Marin laughed. “Etienne, what is it?”

  “General crew call,” the AI told him. “The Wastrel is two hours from negative Weimann transition on the edge of the Celeste system. Captain Vaurien requests the presence of all senior crew at a meeting over breakfast in the crew lounge.”

  “Captain Vaurien requests,” Marin muttered. He caught Travers again, dumped him flat on the mattress and plastered himself against Neil’s side. “Supposing we just said no?”

  “He’d come find us,” Travers said philosophically. “Richard’s requests are a lot like Mark’s. You’ve had your orders.”

  “Etienne, tell him fifteen minutes,” Marin began.

  “Tell him twenty-five,” Travers said loudly. “Shower. Both of us.”

  Hot water and cologne were among life’s luxuries, and Marin basked in both. He had his shoulders against the tiles, his face turned to the flow, Travers hands roaming over him, when he said,

  “I’m ready to do it.”

  “Ready for some exotic Resalq perversion?” Neil’s hands did not even pause.

  “Not quite what I was thinking.” Marin indulged himself in a chuckle. “I’m ready to get the hell out … of the service, and Dendra Shemiji, and the city. If I have to look at the inside of one more ship, one more pile of crud like Halfway, one more citybottom warren like Hydralis – well, let’s say I’ve seen enough to last the rest of my life.”

  Now Travers’s hands stilled, curved around Marin’s waist. “It just took time.”

  “What did?”

  “For you to catch up with where I was, when the Intrepid died. I was ready to walk away that day. Ready to go home.”

  “Darwin’s World.”

  “Three Rivers.” Travers’s blue eyes closed, and he smiled at memories Marin genuinely wished he could share. “Listening to eagles over the slopes up by the Fox Glacier, and larks over the flatlands. Betting on the time and date of the first crack in the river ice, at breakup. Sailing iceboats on Lake Argyle – not the big boats that need a big crew. The small ones, made of kevlex and good, old-fashioned carbon fiber. They weigh about twenty kilos, max, ride on skates that are sharp enough to cut the feet off you, if you don’t jump out of the way – and you put a kevlex kite up in the wind, jink it around to find a cross-breeze, and run with it. Jump the boat over snarls in the ice … airborne for a hundred meters, two if you can manage it. Dead quiet, only the shush of the skates on the ice, and the flap of kevlex if you spill the wind.”

  The imagery was powerful. “They race the small boats?”

  “Oh, yes.” Travers’s smile widened. “There’s no set course, just several checkpoints. You can tack any which-way you want, so long as you make the checkpoints. It’s a rush like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “So show me,” Marin invited.

  Travers’s eyes opened, warm and dark. “I will,” he promised. “Just as soon as this crap is over, and we’re free to go. God knows, even Harrison Shapiro’s found himself someone, which means he has to be thinking forward, past the war. Win, lose or draw, it’ll be over soon, and then we’re out, all of us. Richard and Barb, you and me, and Shapiro and Jon Kim, if Kim can just get himself as far as Velcastra in one piece.” He paused to consider the situation. “You know Jazinsky hacked Shapiro’s system, and she and Mark did the full security screen on Kim?”

  “Yes. I’d have done it, if they hadn’t,” Marin retorted. “All parties came up satisfied, and that’s the end of it.”

  “And if they weren’t satisfied?” Travers wondered.

  “You mean if Jon Kim were hiding some detail that didn’t fit just right with Shapiro’s position in the Deep Sky, Fleet and politics?” He shrugged eloquently. “Why do you think Shapiro’s been alone so long?”

  “That stinks,” Travers observed. “Against all the odds, you find someone, and some little square detail won’t fit the little round hole everybody has to be hammered into. You ditch the person, retreat to your office, probably get stinking drunk for a while, and start over.”

  “But Jon Kim turns out to be a good guy, so Shapiro lucked out at last,” Marin said reasonably. “And like you said, as soon as this crap is over, we’re out of here.”

  The crap still ahead of them was considerable. Marin underestimated none of it. First, Celeste and the return of the prisoners of war. Then, the struggles for the freedom of the major colonies. Omaru, Velcastra, Jagreth, Borushek itself. And then the challenge few of Mark Sherratt’s or Harrison Shapiro’s people had dared look at in any great detail. Lai’a, and the seething innards of Hellgate which had swallowed Mick Vidal – and beyond, the nameless, formless threat of the Zunshu. Only when it was all done would Travers and Marin be free to go, and the danger was acid-etched into Marin’s mind.

  They were five minutes late at Vaurien’s breakfast briefing, but since he was still waiting for both Jazinsky and Tully Ingersol, Marin was unperturbed. At one end of the long mess table, Richard was spooning berry preserves onto croissants and working on a second coffee. At the other end, Sergei van Donne
looked like a ghost who wished he could remember how to fade back into the aether, while Ramon and Byrne hovered over him with coffee and food he clearly did not want.

  From the door, Bill Grant aimed a handy at him, taking fresh scans without van Donne being aware of them. Marin dropped a hand on the Australian’s shoulder as Travers headed directly to the ’chef, and said quietly, “He giving you a hard time?”

  “Told me – explicitly, with instructions – where to shove my handy,” Grant said with all due pragmatism. “He’s a lousy patient.”

  “You said Neil and I were lousy patients too,” Marin reminded him.

  “Did I?” Grant blinked up at him. “That was naivety talking. It was before I had him to deal with.” He shuddered animatedly.

  At the ’chef, Travers was grumbling over the menu. “Who the hell programmed this? Who eats fishcakes and fried pineapple for breakfast?”

  “I do,” Grant said loudly. “Anybody from Lushiar does. You never took a vacation there, sprawled naked on a white coral beach at dawn and perved at the boys and girls frying pineapple over charcoal fires?”

  “Never,” Travers confessed, “but I could go for that.”

  “I thought you wanted to race iceboats.” Marin squeezed Grant’s shoulder and made his way to the coffee pot.

  “That too.” Travers settled for the croissants and raw pineapple, and took a mug from Marin. He pulled a chair up beside Vaurien, but frowned along at van Donne. “You look like hell.”

  The man’s pale blue eyes were smudged. “Looks aren’t deceiving.”

  Grant turned off the handy and slipped it into the back pocket of his baggy bluejeans before van Donne could see it. “He should be resting.”

  “I am resting.” The big Pakrani frame shifted a little to the side, and van Donne pointed at his backside. “See? Butt and chair are connected by gravity. Result: rest.”

  “If you say so.” Grant rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “But don’t blame me if you turn into one big, blond ache that starts at your toenails and ends up in your scalp.” He emptied out the coffee pot as he spoke, and set it up for a fresh brew.

  Sliding into the seat beside Travers, Marin was watching Vaurien, still waiting for him to speak. Richard seemed preoccupied, which was nothing unusual lately. It was some time before he noticed Marin’s attention, and then just shook his head and mouthed, later. He nodded discreetly at van Donne’s party, and Marin let it be. The less van Donne, Byrne and Ramon learned about Shapiro’s and Sherratt’s business, the less they could give away when they left this ship.

  Arguing voices announced Jazinsky and Ingersol, but their tone was affable. Argument was life’s blood to them. They lived for it; they were at their best when they were bouncing ideas off one another, and the resulting creativity always astonished Marin.

  They had both been in the lab most of the night. If Jazinsky had catnapped on a bench while waiting for some data to process, she could have got no more sleep, and Ingersol was rumpled, wearing several days’ growth of ginger beard, which conspired with the gold hoop earrings to give him a rakish, piratical look.

  “I’m telling you, it’s zero-point-four-seven millihertz,” Ingersol was saying blithely as he preceded her to the ’chef. “I ran the numbers six ways and sideways, and I bloody know the optimal setting. It’ll work, and it’s not going to shatter the matrix.”

  Marin knew almost intuitively what he was talking about. Ingersol had been trading data for weeks with Paul Wymark aboard the Wings of Freedom. In the labs there, Wymark was trying to tune an Arago field finely enough to work Zunshunium, to shear it along its natural fracture points, the way diamonds were cut. From the sounds of what Ingersol was saying, getting the right settings was more difficult than wrangling the Arago field, and Marin was surprised.

  A strategic cough from Vaurien silenced Ingersol, and Jazinsky jabbed one large elbow into him. They need not have worried. Rafe Byrne and Ramon had no chance of understanding any fraction of the work, and van Donne – who might at least have tried – was so consumed by the discomfort of his welded, patched and still healing body, he had not heard a syllable. None of them was wasting a brain cell on Ingersol’s and Jazinsky’s technical talk.

  But Ingersol gave Vaurien a sheepish look as he brought coffee and croissants to the table. “So, what’s the big news, boss?”

  “Why drag you to a briefing?” Vaurien set down his cup, leaned back and looked from Jazinsky to Travers and back. “We’re about an hour short of dropping out in the outer Celeste system, and it could get very ugly, very fast. We all want to be on the same page.”

  “You think the bastards are going to start a shooting match,” Ingersol concluded. “I can give you Arago fields, cross-laced and as dense as anything between us and Fleet at Ulrand. The Freespacers can take their best shot.”

  “All right.” Vaurien looked at van Donne. “I don’t suppose you’d like to contribute?”

  “What he said.” Sergei gestured at Ingersol. “They’re a pack of bastards, and they’ll screw you if they can, and try to see if shooting will get them what they want, if they can’t actually screw you over. Don’t take any shit from them, and keep your eyes wide open.”

  It was only what Marin had expected to hear. “You’ve flown into Celeste a few times, I take it.” The answering grunt made him smile faintly. “I’ll take that as a maybe.”

  “Often enough to have gotten so pissed, I don’t know which whore gave me the case of clap,” van Donne said sourly, “and to know there’s maybe five thousand people, total, on the whole crappy ball of rock, including the labor.”

  “The slaves,” Jazinsky mused.

  “Call it what you like.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Out here, convict labor is a fact of life on the worlds where no amount of money will buy you tech support or spare parts, much less a new drone. You can always patch a human body up, give it a few weeks to heal. Machines go to hell while you watch. And as for the sexshop ‘stock’ as they call them … that’s also a fact of life here, same as it is in any army town. Ask Travers. He stuck around in Fleet a whole lot longer than anybody else I ever knew. He knows Army towns, one side of the Deep Sky to the other. They run on three things. Booze, ass, and gaming.”

  And Travers’s dark head was nodding. “He’s not wrong. There isn’t an army town, back as far as Darwin’s, that doesn’t have three sexshops for every temple, and four bars for every restaurant. Every Shanghai grunt who lands in a Celeste sexshop knows the trade as a customer. Don’t think of them as innocent little angels. They’re not. They’ve seen it all and done most of it, and when they had the liberty of being customers, it was all a massive thrill, and the hustlers on the receiving end were supposed to be transported with delight.”

  Vaurien gave him an odd look, reluctantly amused. “So much for wounded honor. We can expect casualties. It’s only been a few days since they were shipped out, but Ron Reanie said he took the low price to get them off his hands because he was already burying some of them.”

  “Casualties from the battle at Ulrand,” Marin reasoned. “Internal injuries that didn’t show, didn’t get treatment. A week later, people just turn belly up, even if they’re kept reasonably clean and fed.”

  Back at the ’chef for more coffee, Grant made noises of agreement. “Leave the casualties to me. I’d prefer to scan the whole scabby lot of them before you let them loose on any part of this ship. Christ knows what they’ll have picked up on Celeste, either from the other inmates in these sexshops, or out of the environment. Celeste,” he added, “was never terraformed. It’s not a proper colony. It’s probably infested with all kinds of vermin, from fleas and ticks on down to microbes.”

  “Do it,” Vaurien agreed. “Quarantine them on deck 8. Lock it, recycle the air, till you’re satisfied, or till you’ve treated them – probably both. You can also expect a few injuries. Rough trade is a hustler’s occupational hazard, and industrial work is always risky even when there are proper safety standards, none
of which you’ll find here. Sergei?”

  “Exactly,” van Donne said tersely as he pushed his feet under him. “The headman – not a governor, as such, but close enough – is a bastard called Belczak. That’s the only name I know. He killed the previous boss to get the job, and they tell me he has a lot of enemies who preferred having Irene Danko where Belczak is right now. She was a cast-iron bitch to deal with, but she wasn’t going to get Celeste into the kind of trouble they can’t talk or shoot their way out of. Belczak seems to think they have nothing to sweat over, because they’re in Freespace.” He dragged his spine straight, leaned one big arm on Ramon’s slim shoulders and the other on Byrne’s. “You watch yourself,” he told Vaurien. “Give them half a chance, they’ll toast your balls for breakfast.”

  “Planetary, or system defenses?” Travers wondered, as van Donne shuffled around, about to leave.

  The big man paused for long enough to give Travers a hard look. “They’re Freespacers. Means every bastard in the system is looking out for his own interests. They could have dropped sensor drones in the outer system, if they could get their hands on the hardware, which is doubtful, and if they could keep it running, which is even more doubtful. So they might know we’re on our way in, which doesn’t hurt, since you’re coming in through the front door. Closer to home, when it turns ugly – and notice, I said when – you can expect maybe half a dozen of them to form up and fly together.”

  “In other words,” Ingersol concluded, “nothing we have to sweat blood over, in terms of the Wastrel herself.”

  “The prisoners are another matter,” Marin warned. “If it goes bad, you can expect this Belczak to use them as bargaining chips, hostages, human shields. If we came here to get them, he knows we value them. They’re the weakest link in the chain. Sergei?”

  “Oh, yeah,” van Donne grunted, obviously in escalating levels of pain. “You’re going to lose some. Grasp that, Richard. Play the percentages and take the best deal you can force out of the bastards.”

  With that, he was on his way out of the lounge and Jazinsky called after him, “Are you up to flying? If it comes to a shooting match, Sergei, are you game?”