by Mel Keegan
Captivity had soured them, Marin thought. Conway Streller had packed on a lot of weight in the may months of confinement, but the pudgy figure and features only served to give him a mean look, as if he were nursing a great deal of rage and would not hesitate to unleash it when the right victim came close enough. Marianna Wing looked older, Marin decided – embittered, thin cheeked with a fury that seemed to be eating her away. The wild, dark blonde hair was raked back in a band at her nape; she was clean and well fed, but she looked hollowed out, as if the captivity had been brutal, when in fact Marin knew she and Streller had lived in luxury.
They both wore the plan gray fatigues of Fleet’s service corps, but not for an instant would he have taken them for stewards. Streller had shaved the sides of his head and colored his hair blood scarlet, while Wing wore hers in a thick braid. They were both cuffed, and with a glance at Wing’s hands, Marin saw the old scabs of half-healed split knuckles.
She was glaring, slit-eyed, as he and Travers approached. Her voice was a rasp, low and hoarse after too much whisky. “You again. It’s always you. I should have killed the both of you, when I had you on Kjorin.”
“Maybe you should have,” Travers agreed. “Too late now. Shapiro made you an offer?”
“If we were brainless enough to buy into it,” Wing snorted. “We watched his data, all about this great war against the Confederacy.”
“You think it’s a fabrication, or a joke?” Marin raised his voice to get over the growing roar of engine noise as the Mako dropped in over the western parapet and followed the blinking landing lights to the space assigned to it. “You haven’t been watching CNS?”
“We have,” Conway Streller bawled over the din. “But what we see comes from Shapiro’s office. Why should we believe a word of it?”
He made a good point, and Marin gestured at the Mako. “Fair enough. Then don’t believe him, or us. But you know Sergei van Donne, and Asako Rodman, Freespacers the same as yourselves. You know that ship. Believe them.”
Wing and Streller were intent on the Mako, watching it come in at walking speed, riding hot, acrid repulsion that dried out the eyeballs and smarted the sinuses. “Sergei van Donne,” Wing growled as the Aragos howled up to cushion the ship as it set down on short, squat struts. “The last time I saw Sergei, I told him, if I ever saw his face again, I’d blow it off.”
“Oh, great.” Travers drew the back of his hand across his face in the humid heat. “And Shapiro wants this crowd to strike a deal?”
In fact, Wing’s hands were manacled and she was never within two meters of a weapon. Marin frowned at her, watching every minute shift in the muscles of her face, wrists, shoulders, reading her mood, and guessing her thoughts. “You’re scared,” he said into the sudden comparative quiet as the Mako shut down.
“Go to hell,” she told him.
“You don’t have a hope of getting any advantage over Sergei,” Marin said slowly, “and if you offered to kill him the last time you were face to face, it’s a safe bet he’ll blow you away as soon as he sees you.”
“Well, duh,” Wing said nastily.
“Fargo.” Travers beckoned her closer. “You heard? Keep these two apart.”
“You mind telling me how?” Fargo asked acerbically. “If push comes to shove, do we shoot van Donne to save Wing?”
“No, you bloody don’t.” Travers was looking levelly into Wing’s furious eyes as he spoke. “But I’m sure you can improvise.”
Marin stepped closer to Wing. “You know what Shapiro wants. He has ships, it’s pilots he doesn’t have, and he’s going to need them. Believe me, there’s one hell of a fracas coming. We just heard the London and Chicago battle groups are headed our way.”
She studied him darkly. “No bull?”
“No.” Marin gestured at the Mako, which was wreathed in heat haze while the hatches popped with a shush of equalizing air pressure. “Rodman’s about to contract with Shapiro. There’s no doubt about it. She and Roark Hubler have been looking at a data package since they left the Wastrel. They know as much about the political situation as we do. They know what’s at stake – what we stand to lose. Or to gain.”
It was Travers who put it in blunt terms. “You want a piece of that, lady?”
“Sure,” Wing said without hesitation. “But at what price? You want Con and me to take the Ranjipur up against a Fleet battle group? Never going to happen, Marin. She’s good, but not that good.”
“She was crap.” The voice belonged to Roark Hubler, who was stomping down the Mako’s ramp. “You saw the battle of Ulrand on CNS? I flew the Ranjipur there.”
“You – what?” Streller was half a pace forward toward Hubler before Inosanto caught him by both shoulders and physically hauled him back. The Ranjipur was his ship.
“I said, I flew that piece of crap at Ulrand,” Hubler barked, “and a bigger pile of shit I have never handled. It was coming apart at the seams, you didn’t notice? Drive engines were borderline unstable, sublight was intermittent, the hull was corroding through in a dozen places, life support was on the fritz, the AI was thirty years obsolete, power systems were holding together with gum and staples. You flew that commercially? You’re lucky to be alive. You’re better off without it.”
Streller’s pudgy, full-moon face was a study in fury. “Without it? What did you fuckers do to my ship?”
“Not a lot that hadn’t been done to it previously,” Hubler informed him. “You want it back? It was towed into drydock at Ulrand. She’ll fix, but not without new everything and six months of work on the hull. Easier to get a new crate, start over.” He had stomped to a halt three meters from Streller, and first looked him up and down, and then Wing. “Shapiro wants to cut a deal with you? Christ knows why he didn’t just terminate the pair of you a long time ago.”
“Because they were on a legit bounty commission,” Travers said thoughtfully, “and because they have their uses.” He lifted a brow at Hubler. “You saw the data?”
“Oh, yeah.” Hubler knuckled his eyes, face creased deeply. “Vaurien made some calls, pulled some strings. We get the Harlequin back in a week or so. We’re shoving off for Ulrand in a couple of days … just in time to face the biggest carrier battle groups anybody ever saw.”
Wing had seized every word. Her eyes never left Hubler’s face, and though she did not know him, she knew Asako Rodman, who strolled down the ramp, hands in the pockets of a crimson satin windbreaker, as Hubler spoke. Wing pulled her shoulders back and cocked her head at Rodman, challenging, inviting, even daring.
“I thought you were dead,” Rodman said, as if it amused her. She stopped at Hubler’s side, and he slid one arm around her.
“You fly with her now?” Wing asked of Hubler.
“Yeah, I do.” Hubler gave Travers a nod of greeting, and his brows popped up in Marin’s direction. “You ought to know, Sergei’s up there, mad enough to spit. Seems the lady cost him a cargo, a fortune, a year ago, maybe two.”
Was there anyone in the Deep Sky with whom van Donne had not done business, and either cheated or been cheated by? Marin sighed lightly, and looked up at the wide cockpit windows of the Mako, high above the stained plascrete. He fished a combug out of his pocket and slipped it into his ear. “Sergei, you listening to any of this?”
The man’s voice was heavy, angry. “Every word. Give me one good reason why I don’t put a bullet in her.”
The armorglass was darkened, Marin could see nothing of the cockpit interior. “Settle your differences later. Shapiro needs pilots, and this one is good. If you both survive the storm that’s coming in, you can play ‘last man standing’ afterward.”
“Shapiro needs –?” van Donne echoed. “That’s not a reason I’d have cared squat about, a week ago. Now? Maybe, Marin. Maybe.”
“You’re getting well paid, Sergei.” Travers had just slid in a combug, and was looked at Wing and Streller. “If you want to slug it out with these idiots, pick your time and place. After.”
“
After,” van Donne echoed. “Last man standing, is it?”
Marin indulged himself in an acid chuckle. “Around you, isn’t it always? Look, Wing, Streller, I’m up to my eyeballs with this already, it’s hot out here, and humid, and it stinks, so I’m going to cut to the chase. You want to die? Because you’re going to. You’re down for termination if you don’t wake up to yourselves and play nice – and if Shapiro were the bastard you seem to think, he wouldn’t even give you the chance. You’ve seen the data, you know the score. Nobody has the time or the manpower to keep you idiots under close guard anymore. You’re either with us, or you’re terminated and incinerated, tonight or tomorrow. Your call.”
And without waiting for an answer he turned his back on them, cut a line for the kiosk beside the elevators, where a utility ’chef was set up with soft drinks and snacks. He punched for a bottle of water and studiously avoided looking at Wing or Streller. There was no question about their decision – the alternative was extinction.
He drank half the water in one long series of swallows, and moments later footsteps told him Travers was right behind him. He passed the bottle to him and worked his neck around, easing the stiffness of tense muscles. He needed to relax, to meditate, purge the apprehension from his mind and the stress from his body with Resalq disciplines that had been ancient ten centuries before he was born. More than anything, he had come to long for peace, quiet, an end to the politics of war and the technology of a threat so great, humanity in the Deep Sky could easily be extinguished.
“You okay?” Travers’s hand was on his back, his voice low. “You look like you could terminate the pair of them yourself and call it done.”
“I could,” Marin admitted. “I’m just –” He tipped back his head and studied the sky, where the last trailing edge of the afternoon rain storm was sliding into the west. “I don’t know. Tired. And I don’t mean I need to sleep!”
“I know what you mean.” Travers emptied the water bottle, leaned over and lobbed it into the chute, and touched Marin’s face with the cool fingers that had been wrapped around the bottle. “Talk to Mark.”
Marin produced a smile for him, but it was an effort. “It’s not Mark Sherratt I need.”
“No? Then what?”
“You,” Curtis said quietly, honestly. “You, and time, and space of our own, and the peace to remember who I am, much less who you are.” He caught Travers’s hand, held it. “How long is it since I told you, I love you? Have I said it this week?”
“You don’t have to say it.”
“Yes, I do. It needs to be said. You’re not psychic.” Marin took a long deep breath and looked up into Travers’s eyes, which were dark enough, blue enough, to reflect the silver of the sky and the vast armorglass windows. “Consider it said. In fact, we’ll be staying over in Riga tonight, maybe tomorrow night as well. And I’ll show you, never mind tell you.”
“Well, now.” Travers traced the line of Marin’s cheek. “I could go for some of that. And incidentally – ditto.” He glanced across at the knot of security, where Streller and Wing were still manacled, talking in terse voices with Rodman. “I have to hand it to van Donne. I thought he’d have wasted them by now.”
“Not if he wants Shapiro’s money, and a stake in the Deep Sky when this is over.” Marin passed both hands over his face and gave Travers a grateful look. “I’m all right now. Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For not giving me a kick in the pants when I miss a gear,” Marin said with all due pragmatism. “Shall we?”
It was the terms of the contract that were being discussed as they rejoined the group, and Rodman was saying, “It ain’t up to you to decide, Streller. He trusts you less than I trust you. You want a ship and a license to fly it, you get chipped and like it. You keep your nose clean, stay off Shapiro’s shitlist, and then all you have to worry about is Sergei … and it’s a big universe. If you can’t settle with him – avoid him.”
“Are you people done?” Marin barked as Rodman finished. “Because this party’s breaking up, done or not. Streller, Wing, you’re either going to a holding cell pending termination, or you’re going to the lab to be chipped, and then you’ll see what ships are available. Asako, get Sergei out here. Shapiro wants a meeting.”
“Already arranged,” she told him. “We’re going down with Fargo and company … and you?”
“Riga, and then we’re on the Mercury to Velcastra.” Travers was watching Fargo and Inosanto, checking in with the building’s security and the lab. Wing and Streller would be chipped before they were unmanacled, and Shapiro’s AI would have the ability to terminate them at any moment. Perhaps they should have been chipped long ago, Travers mused, but it was an invasion of human rights, the kind of violation Shapiro had spent his whole career trying to avoid.
Even when they left this building, the termination signal could be given via the Deep Sky data conduit. The only way to outrun it was to run for Freespace and never return. And the ship they were about to be assigned would not allow them that much freedom. Until or unless the bugs were surgically removed, Streller and Wing were on probation, and they knew it.
The lab authorized Fargo’s security detail to take them down, and Marin watched without comment as the squad stepped into a lift. Only then did van Donne saunter down the ramp from the Mako, with Ramon and Rafe Byrne on his heels as always.
“You’re an oddball, van Donne,” Travers observed.
Pale Pakrani eyes looked him over from behind green aviator’s glasses. “Because I didn’t kill Marianna Wing?”
“You could have,” Marin said. “Easily.”
For some time van Donne was silent, and then he adjusted the glasses with a flourish. “Shapiro made me the proverbial offer I can’t refuse. He can wipe the records, dump the files out of every Fleet and Tactical database in the Deep Sky. I get a clean restart.”
“Aside from regiments of people like Wing, who want to blow your face off – and I’m quoting,” Travers scoffed.
But van Donne was indifferent. “I’ll deal with darling Marianna when the time comes. She owes me, and I’ll take the price in blood. Or,” he added pointedly, “Ramon can handle it.”
The shooter from Marak City smirked. “You got a lot of enemies, Sergei … good thing you’re shacked up with the best.”
“Good thing.” Very deliberately, he laid one arm over Ramon’s shoulder and the other over Byrne’s, though he looked from Marin to Travers and back. “If anybody on Shapiro’s staff is thinking about getting aboard the Mako, forget it. The AI is rigged to disable, not kill, but you can believe me, it won’t hesitate to maim. Vaurien’s people, Shapiro’s people, it doesn’t care. So stay the hell off my ship, entiende?” He leaned heavily on his partners and raised his voice to get over the clamor of an approaching shuttle. “Rodman, Hubler!”
Then he was gone, making his way to the same lift Fargo’s squad had taken, and Marin and Travers had the east parapet to themselves. For some moments they stood under the shade sails, watching the antlines of the crosstown traffic. Marin leaned both forearms on the guardrail and cast a long, speculative glance along at the Mako. “What do you make of van Donne?”
“He’s good,” Travers allowed with grudging respect. “In his game, you won’t last long if you’re not. Can we trust him? That’s another question. It all depends how much he wants to legitimize.”
“Shapiro has the power to make it happen.” Marin turned his shoulders to the guardrail and looked up into Travers’s face. “He’s Shapiro’s problem now. Riga?”
“Riga,” Travers agreed. “Good company … and lousy food.”
With a chuckle, Marin pushed away from the parapet. Neil was right. The Resalq palate was nothing even vaguely similar to the human. The differences were among their many charms.
Chapter Eight
Riga, Borushek
The Capricorn was parked on the private apron, well inside the security cordon. The air park was stressed to take a craft of
its weight, like the Mako, but space there was at a premium and with several other small ships ahead of them in a holding pattern, circling Fleet Sector Command, Travers had opted for groundside parking space.
He was talking to Shapiro’s AI as they rode the lift down. They paused on Shapiro’s own level to return the sidearms to the armory stash, and then moved on, back to the regular service levels, and the more public face of the DeepSky Fleet.
Ten minutes later they were airborne, with the city of Sark a great, sprawling carpet of lights in the gathering haze of a purple twilight, and Curtis felt himself beginning to relax for the first time in far too long. The Capricorn fell up from the surface of Borushek, rising far above the civilian traffic lanes before its nose turned north-west, toward the spinal range of mountains.
As the ship rose, its AI – a clone of Etienne – was talking to the Sark ATC, going through the ancient process of identifying and logging a flightplan, and with a cursory acknowledgement from another AI buried in an armored chamber deep beneath the city, the Capricorn’s jets ran up. Sark raced by below with a streaking of a million rainbow lights, and Travers gave an expressive groan.
“Two days. Two whole freakin’ days before Shapiro can yank our chain again, because the drive engines on the Mercury are jacking around.”
“Four days to Velcastra,” Marin added. “Nothing much to do on the way but sleep and eat and get laid.”
“Like a vacation.” Travers swiveled the seat around and deliberately lifted his feet onto the workstation. “Furlough.”
“Oh, no,” Marin argued. “Furloughs are taken by servicemen. Furloughs are what you get passes for, when you belong on a super-carrier. Not me, Neil. Not in years. Not even when we were on the Kiev, pretending to be Delta Dragons.”