by Greg Chase
“What do you want to know?” Sam asked the pirate captain.
And what am I supposed to tell him? Sam’s telepathic link to the Tobes would be weaker in space, but he needed a convincing cover story.
The pirate grabbed a bottle of cheap scotch from the cubby beside his chair. He didn’t bother offering it to his passengers. “I won’t ask your names. You’d just lie. People don’t hop rides aboard a pirate ship for the thrill of it. You’re hiding something or running from someone. That stuff doesn’t matter to me. If Spike wants you here, that’s all the reference I need. He might be a Tobe, but he’s a damn fine co-captain. All I care about is how much risk is involved. How soon before someone starts taking shots at us?”
Sam had wondered much the same thing. After all, his daughter Sara had been kidnapped from the family’s penthouse with ease. If someone so dear to him could be taken from the ultimate security of their home on Earth, how long before his wealth made him a target so far from the protection of the Tobe community? “If our identity is kept quiet, I can’t foresee a problem.”
The captain’s laugh ended in a nasty cough. “I doubt foreseeing problems is your strong point.”
Another man materialized next to the captain’s chair. The Tobe’s black-leather jacket made everything but his face fade into the background. Red eyes mirrored the red light. Deeply lined wrinkles, crisscrossed with scars, mapped his face. “We’re ready to leave.”
Sam noted the lack of title in the address. The human might be captain, but the Tobe wasn’t accepting an inferior role in the operations of the ship.
Spike hadn’t changed much. Sam had only seen him once, on Persephone’s view screen. Sophie vouched for him. Their interaction left Sam uneasy—flirting seemed unnatural for Tobes. Sweet, caring Sophie being attracted to the solar system’s bad boy made Sam grateful nothing physical could result from their mutual attraction since Tobe captains couldn’t leave their ships.
The human captain got out of his chair, glaring at Spike. “I hope you know what you’re getting us into.”
“Never forget it’s my hide at stake.” Tobe captains were more part of their ships than autonomous beings.
The human captain’s exit from the cabin didn’t ease Sam’s apprehension. Spike might be a Tobe, and Sam might be their god, but how much weight did that carry away from Earth? Immortal, all-knowing beings weren’t the type to engage in religion.
Sam nodded toward the ship’s bridge, where the human captain was headed. “Are we going to have any problems with him?”
“Right about now, he’s looking over the manifest of a storage bay full of alcohol. If there’s anything left by the time we reach the asteroid belt, he can make a tidy profit. And if there’s nothing left, he’ll be in too much of a drunken stupor to care.”
“And what about you?” Sam asked.
The whole negotiation for their passage to the Moons of Jupiter, and what was to happen once they got there, had been far too covert for Sam’s tastes. He understood the reason for the stealth—sometimes you had to keep secrets from god for his own safety. Sam and Jess had been so focused on how they’d free the Moons’ Tobes they hadn’t bothered with certain details that now seemed vitally important. Without knowing Spike’s compensation for helping them with their travels, they couldn’t trust his motives.
“Have you ever crossed Sophie?” Spike asked. “She’ll rip my power cells out through my engines if I let anything happen to you two.”
Sam had only had one semidisagreement with Persephone’s Tobe captain. It wasn’t something he wished to relive. “But that’s not a reason for taking on this danger.” Compensation was a complicated situation. What would a pirate Tobe want?
“If you accomplish what you have in mind, communication and navigation throughout the solar system will be much improved. Sucking in methane for traveling through the Jovian shadow isn’t my cup of tea. Stuff tastes like space farts. And those centaur planets that sell the stuff are getting a little too greedy.”
Evacuating the terraformed minor planets had been met with mixed responses from the colonies that called the rocks home, and companies with natural methane resisted the relocation of their workers. Apparently, they’d been correct in their assessment of the potential worth of the gas, though Sam doubted the human workers found the lack of solar heat and light a comfortable working environment.
“We have no option but to trust you,” Jess said.
Spike’s weathered hand rubbed at a scar close to his mouth. “Never a good idea with pirates. Your quarters are through that hatch.” He nodded toward a rusted oval door before dissipating to return to his duties.
Storage containers were crammed into the small sleeping cabin. A dusty hammock floated between two wall supports, but other than that, Sam couldn’t make out any furniture. “Not what you’d call opulent.”
“We’ll make do. We’ve slept in worse. Do you suppose there’s anyone else aboard?”
So far, they’d only seen the captain’s office, the hatch to the bridge, and their cabin. But from outside, the ship had appeared only slightly smaller than Persephone. A pirate ship wouldn’t be worth much if it didn’t have ample storage. “If there are, I’d suggest we keep to ourselves. We’ll be risking our necks plenty once we get to the Moons of Jupiter. No point in letting curiosity push our luck before we even get started.”
Days and nights took on their familiar lack of definition in space. Time had little meaning except for their progress on the line between when they’d left and when they’d arrive. Sam dealt better with his lack of telepathic communication than Jess did with being stripped of the lens. They devoured what few books were available on Rampike’s computer.
Sam didn’t bother asking if the human captain minded their use of his office. The man’s drunken singing from the bridge—so out of tune and rambling that Sam and Jess started betting on which song he was attempting to sing—indicated he wasn’t up for wandering through the ship’s cabins. As Sam’s eyes adjusted to the low light, he could make out the details of the ramshackle office. A second chair stood on one side of the desk. It’d probably always been there, but the layers of dust that covered it and the shelf behind it left the impression the two pieces of furniture had morphed into one. Had Sam not been wearing his space leathers, he wouldn’t have attempted to use the chair for its intended purpose. But adding one more layer of dust to his space jacket wasn’t going to matter.
Jess shut off the computer screen that projected from her chair. “If we just had more information, maybe we could develop a plan.”
Sam shared her frustration. Weeks of inactivity wouldn’t result in a well-prepared attack against the most cunning corporations in the solar system. “Spike’s not big on answering my telepathic questions. I get the feeling he resents our presence but he’s trying to curry favor with Sophie.”
“Men do strange things when they’re in love.”
Sam tried rubbing the idea out of his forehead. “They’re Tobes—”
“They’re sentient beings,” Jess said. “You don’t get self-awareness without also getting curiosity about others of your kind.”
It wasn’t a new argument. Sometimes he thought Jess was just pushing his buttons to create some discussion even if it consisted of disagreement. Spike, I know you’re busy, but can you please stop by to give us some information? Sam’s silent request felt too much like a desperate plea for some distraction.
“Ask your questions.” If it hadn’t been for the fact that Tobes didn’t sleep, Sam would have thought Spike looked exhausted. The black, ominous coat hung from his shoulders. His red eyes glowed from inside sunken black sockets. Fresh scars across his face oozed blood as he spoke.
The polite thing would have been to show concern for Spike’s condition, but Sam didn’t have the niceties left in him after being cooped up in the small cabins. “Tell me about life on the moons.”
Spike’s eyes glowed a darker shade of red. “I only know the information
of a pirate. Among the humans, there are two classes: the rich and the workers.”
Jess leaned forward. “Tell us about the rich first.”
Spike slowly turned to her as if he were on a turntable. “The rich are mostly the board members of the corporations. The corporations own everything. On some moons, the board is made up of family members. On others, it’s a group of the original rich and powerful. The well off who are not on the board are typically workers who have contributed something substantial. There aren’t many of those people—mostly, they serve as an example of what a worker can achieve. On most moons, there are more than one hundred people in this upper class, but on no moon does that number exceed a thousand.”
“And of the workers?” Jess asked.
“On the smallest moon, the number of workers is slightly under a million. On the most populated, there are two and a half billion workers.”
Sam rubbed his temples, trying to come to terms with the numbers. “And what of the poor, middle class, and unemployed?”
“There are only workers,” Spike said. “But some workers do not make enough money to survive. This isn’t a socioeconomic theory. Life on a corporate world has been well studied and documented. The amount of money a person needs to survive is well known, and not just by the board members. Rent, food, and utilities are all established figures—everything needed for life is purchased from the corporations. If a person makes less than that figure, they cannot survive.”
Jess shook her head. “What happens to those people?”
“Discontent. The ruling class believes it’s important for people to see the results of a lack of ambition. Poverty isn’t just used as a threat, though. The average person can’t help but feel compassion for others based on their shared suffering. Those at the bottom of the economic scale are less despised than pitied. These are emotions that are used by those in power to keep the working class under control.”
Sam looked back to the red eyes. “And what about the Tobes?”
Spike shook his head. “I have no information. They are secretive even regarding their existence. Only the top board members know of them. It’s clear these people use the Tobes as servants to control the workers. But how this is done is a mystery.”
“Who is our contact?” Jess asked.
Spike slowly closed his eyes to black then returned the eerie red stare. “A worker for a minor corporation, Carpo. Life is a little less regulated on the smaller moons. To ease tensions among the differing corporations, each company is limited to its own moon, but of course the larger firms find ways around such limitations. For your own safety, I’d recommend not venturing to the larger corporations. Once you make it to Carpo, your contact will find you.”
3
From the small view screen in the captain’s office, Priamus didn’t appear to be more than a rock in space surrounded by ships in various degrees of decay. As Rampike grew closer, Sam could make out the cut-up spaceship pods that had originally brought life to this small asteroid. The myriad of arched metal sections now served as shelter for the inhabitants’ homes and businesses.
Jess pressed hard at Sam’s side to share the view screen. “So that’s a pirate outpost.”
“Let me guess—not the way they’re described in your adventure novels?”
Jess hunched her shoulders. “Not as far off as you might think.”
Spike materialized behind Sam, something he’d been doing with increased frequency during the trip. “Priamus is a Trojan asteroid of Jupiter. Between the ones ahead of the great planet and those behind, there are over a million such rocks. Add in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, and you’ve got a lot of places to hide if you know how to navigate the areas without getting crushed. We’ll land on the far side. You can find your way from there. Ask for Luther Montoya.”
Compared to the terrifying shuttle landings on Earth, Rampike—a much larger ship—settled down onto the small asteroid like a leaf enjoying its fall on a windless summer’s day.
Dust rose around Sam’s boots as he set foot on Priamus. One solar array bathed the area in light reminiscent of dusk on Earth. No sooner had Jess left the ship than it pushed off from the small planet.
Sam watched as Rampike headed for another ship in orbit. “Not much for good-byes, is he?”
Jess shivered. “I think we both got what we could from each other. How do you expect we’ll find this Luther person?”
Sam pointed to some tossed-together buildings on the horizon less than a mile away. “That looks like a good place to start. We’ll have to be suspicious of everyone. But that’s probably a good habit to develop for now.”
In the low gravity, they didn’t take long to traverse the distance to the small camp. Only a handful of people were on the dusty street, and all of them had their hoods up over their heads.
“Inviting, isn’t it?” Sam asked.
Jess nodded. “Looks like a bar over there. I know it sounds like a stereotype, but that’s where people were found in every adventure novel I read as a kid.”
Sam wasn’t comfortable taking his attractive wife into a pirate bar, but he didn’t see much of a choice. Being uncomfortable was just a state he’d have to learn to endure.
The rough bartender glared at the newcomers. Even as Jess offered to pay for information, his demeanor remained surly. “I don’t sell information. I sell drinks.”
Jess ordered two beers.
Sam nursed the dark-amber liquid, not so much to make it last but because it just didn’t taste like beer. “Any other ideas?”
Jess contemplated her drink. “In the stories, someone always comes along with information.”
Sam looked around the bar. The three other patrons didn’t look like the informative type. “Let’s walk. I always think better when I’m walking.”
Sam thought it was probably an insult to leave so much of his drink unfinished. And insulting people out here was not a good idea. But he just couldn’t face pouring any more of the vile liquid down his throat.
It didn’t take long to walk the length of the main street, then even less time to check out the secondary pathways that led off the main road. Jess pulled Sam toward a small table and chairs at what had to be an eating establishment. An old woman stumbled out of the shack. It took a bit of imagination to see the tattered, loose-fitting garment she wore as having once been space leathers designed to keep her safe on this forbidding asteroid. “All I’ve got is kitchen stew today.”
Jess smiled up at her. “We’ll take whatever you have and some water if it’s available.”
The woman grunted an unintelligible response and returned to the shack.
“Are you really hungry?” Sam had trouble envisioning kitchen stew as being anything but revolting.
Jess made a very small shake of her head. “We need to be seen. Maybe the sight of some strangers will shake this Luther out from where he’s hiding.”
She grasped his hand as the woman returned with plates of something Sam couldn’t identify and two dirty glasses of what he hoped was water.
The food was better than he’d expected. As for the water, he could only hope it wasn’t as contaminated as it tasted. They ate in silence, sneaking peeks at the outpost between bites.
As the woman returned to collect the plates, Jess turned to her. “We’re looking for a place for the night and maybe transportation tomorrow.”
The woman grunted again and pointed toward one of the larger makeshift buildings.
Sam pulled out his ID card, hoping it would at least cover the food. After all, Jess’s had worked okay for the drinks. The woman gave him a dead-eyed look as she passed her reader over it. At least they could pay for things among the pirates. The Tobes would have created a cover identity for their cards, but if they kept accessing their money, the lie wouldn’t last long. Exchanging currency on the Moons of Jupiter was sure to be a problem.
The hotel made Sam miss the cramped storage room on Rampike. This room was larger, true, but covered
in the planet’s dust. “I know I shouldn’t be tired, but my connection with Rendition is so weak—maybe if I put my mind at rest, I’ll have better luck.”
Jess nodded but remained quiet as she sat on the side of the bed.
The monster corporation that dominated Earth—Rendition—and the interconnected Tobes were but a faint hum hidden in the static of the solar system. How anyone transferred information over the solar array so far out in space was a mystery. With only one satellite, and one that was in all likelihood bootlegged, Sam could see the challenge rocks like Priamus faced.
Before he fell asleep from the mental exercise, the door to the room glowed with a request from someone to enter. Jess nodded her acceptance. Sam opened his eyes to see a tall, imposing figure filling the doorframe.
“You were looking for me?”
Sam rose up on the bed. Dust followed his movements. “If you’re Luther Montoya, then yes.”
The man took the lone chair. “I am he. Spike left word you were looking for transport to Carpo. That’s not a place many people want to go voluntarily.”
Sam searched for the man’s eyes inside the dark hood. “We have business there.”
“Best I don’t know. What do you have for me?”
Sam closed his eyes, hoping that somewhere out there, Rendition had an answer for him. He opened his eyes and handed Luther his ID card.
The dark man shook his head. “I don’t take Earth money.”
“I wouldn’t think you would. But the proof of my offer is on the card.”
With a skeptical eye, the man took Sam’s light-refracting card. He examined it closely then passed a small reader over the surface.
For the first time since leaving Earth, Sam saw someone other than Jess smile. “Quite the offer. What do you need me to do?”
Sam wasn’t even sure what the card said, only that he was to present it to Luther then destroy it. “We need passage to Carpo, enough local currency to survive a week—and your silence.”