Pelquin's Comet

by Ian Whates

  “The message I mentioned, the one I composed while waiting to see you, is addressed to one Kenneth Brockheimer, the man who oversees First Solar’s interests here on Brannan’s World. If sent, it will set in motion a most unfortunate chain of events, resulting in a demand for instant repayment of your mortgage reaching you tomorrow morning and notice being served on the lease for this property, making it clear that your continued employment within this department is the reason for said notice.”

  Willis said nothing for a protracted second, before managing, “You’re bluffing.”

  “No I’m not, Sergeant Willis. I never bluff. You can verify everything I’ve said in minutes. The ownership of the Bulman Welfare Bank and the Hoffman Group are matters of public record and I’m sure you can call up your own mortgage contract. Oh, and one more thing while we’re having this little chat. This is your son, Jai Pol, isn’t it?” He indicated the latest image displayed on the photo cube. “Sweet looking boy, by the way – clearly takes after his mother. He goes to a rather exclusive school, I understand.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Dismay had replaced indignation in the sergeant’s voice and the rising note of alarm was unmistakable.

  “The Calbreith School for Technical Excellence – a very impressive title. It’s a shame they didn’t include excellence in financial management as part of the curriculum. You’re aware, I take it, that the school’s former Treasurer, a Miss Emilia Pershaw, absconded some ten months ago with a considerable sum of the money that had been entrusted to her care? No? Well, I suppose it’s not the sort of thing that such a prestigious institution would wish to make public. Your colleagues in the police haven’t found her yet, by the way, and nor have they recovered the funds. The school came close to financial collapse. No need to worry, though. Thankfully, a company called Bulman Investments stepped in and provided a substantial loan to prop up the tottering edifice. Recognise the name? Yes, you’re quite right, Bulman Investments is a subsidiary of the Bulman Welfare Bank, which is owned by… But you know that part by now.

  “The situation is only temporary, of course. I’m sure the school will recover and endure in the long run; but, in the short term, they’re dependent on that loan and, need I say, deeply, deeply grateful.

  “Now, let’s be candid here. Your grounds for holding the ship Pelquin’s Comet are spurious and clearly motivated by malice. I don’t know whether you are the person directly responsible for this outrage or somebody higher up in the chain of command, and frankly I don’t care. Whoever’s getting the payback on this, you are the man I’m dealing with and you are the man who will suffer as a consequence. If you do not give immediate clearance for Pelquin’s Comet to leave port, I will send this message, and by tomorrow morning you will have no home, no job, and your son will have been expelled from his highly prestigious school.

  “Tell me, Sergeant Willis, is your wife an understanding woman?”

  Ten minutes later Drake walked out of the port authority police building with Pelquin at his side. Neither looked back and for the first few moments neither spoke, as if by doing so they might risk fracturing the spell and bring events tumbling down upon their heads once more. They simply walked at a smart pace towards where they knew the Comet to be waiting.

  “Not sure what the hell sort of magic you worked back there, Drake, but I owe you one,” Pelquin said at last.

  Too true he does, Mudball concurred.

  Drake just kept walking, his thoughts troubled. Being a bank representative in the field often required quick thinking and the use of initiative. His employers expected as much and were happy to turn a blind eye to a certain degree, so long as it got the job done. However, Drake knew there was a point beyond which the bank would refuse to condone his actions and disown him if things turned sour. He had a feeling he might just have crossed that line.

  “Hell of a job. Well done.” De Souza stared at Archer approvingly, impressed despite himself; though it was past time the man started to pull his weight. A few hours ago, all his plans had threatened to collapse into rack and ruin. Pelquin and Drake were languishing in custody and the Comet impounded. In a fit of rage, de Souza had demanded that Archer do something about it… And, wonder of wonders, he had. De Souza wasn’t sure how Archer had managed it, but all concerned were now free as birds. He was forced to admit that the banker had surprised him this time.

  Not that Archer looked particularly triumphant… “I wish I could take the credit,” he said, “but the truth is I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Oh?”

  “I told you Drake was good. He managed to talk his way out of jail himself, somehow.”

  Dear Lord, the idiot didn’t even have enough intelligence to claim glory when de Souza was trying to thrust it upon him. “Lucky for us that he did, then.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you at least manage to discover who tipped off the authorities to the Comet’s stunt at New Sparta?”

  Archer shook his head. “Could have been any of the ships that arrived here in the past few days; without backtracking each and every one of them there’s no way of knowing.”

  So he hadn’t succeeded in any of the tasks de Souza had set him; what a surprise.

  “You do realise that Pelquin’s going to assume it was us, don’t you?” Archer continued.

  De Souza nodded distractedly. Of course he realised – and had done so the moment Pelquin was arrested. Did Archer really think that everyone’s mental processes moved as sluggishly as his own? “That’s no bad thing, overall. The hot breath of pursuit on the back of their necks can only make them run faster.”

  Archer smiled and nodded, as if the two of them were colluding as equals. The idiot.

  EIGHTEEN

  The ship was cleared for departure within minutes of Pelquin and the banker returning. Bren had made it back on board just ahead of them.

  Pelquin was feeling good. This was due in no small part to the excitement of what lay ahead, but it was more than that. He felt secure. An odd thing to claim perhaps when the dice were rolling on the biggest gamble of his life, but it was true none the less. Ever since New Sparta and the decision he’d been forced to make regarding Monkey, Pelquin felt that his authority had been slipping and that he no longer commanded the full support of his crew, particularly Bren. Bit by bit, though, he’d won them back, and that was important to him; more important than he’d realised. With his ship and this crew once more at his back, he felt whole again, cocksure even, ready to defy the universe and deal with whatever obstacles life tossed at him.

  He finally released the coordinates of the cache world to Anna. Until now they had been secreted away in a bubble file isolated from everything else and accessible only via his own perminal; he wasn’t taking any chances, not with this.

  The cache was located on an Earth type world which was not so very far inside Xter space. There were pluses and minuses to this. On the plus side, the fact that this wasn’t natural territory for the Xters doubtless accounted for the cache going undiscovered for so long, and this being a human-friendly world meant that Pelquin could tap Oily up for the Sanction that lent the trip a thin veneer of legality. On the minus side, the same factors made the host world a natural target for the integration programme, which meant that a genuine survey team would be dispatched there sooner rather than later.

  He and Nate knew they had to act quickly but also that they had to do so effectively. Rather than dashing straight to First Solar with the gonk, they’d set things up properly: ensuring the brief recording of the cache shown to Terry Reese was professionally scrubbed of any locational indicators, commissioning a cloaking system from Babylon, setting up the opportunity to confront Oily on Brannan’s World… Only once everything was in place did they approach the bank.

  The one fly in the ointment was Jossyren. He’d expected interference at New Sparta; he and Nate knew the mining corporation had a strong presence there, but how had they turned up on Brannan’s World? Des
pite his assurances to Anna before they landed, he was in no doubt that the attempt to have him arrested and the ship impounded could only have one source. Oily wouldn’t have dared a tactic like that. Thanks to Anna’s vigilance he knew that the Jossyren ship was there ahead of them… which meant they’d known in advance where the Comet was going. But how was that possible, when the only person he’d discussed things with was Nate?

  He shook his head, refusing to accept where that train of thought was leading. He had too much riding on this to start doubting Nate at this point.

  Jossyren aside, everything was going more or less to plan. The need to replace damaged equipment and find a new mechanic had delayed them at Babylon and left things tight but they’d still made it to Brannan’s in time for the reception, and the nonsense with Sergeant Willis and the Victoria Port Authority had delayed them a little, but not significantly.

  Bren seemed to have forgiven him for his treatment of Monkey. She had backed him all the way with Oily Webster, and she and Nate were currently setting up the Ptarmigan, deploying the cloaking device’s relays at strategic parts of the ship as if she’d been doing things like this all her life. The Ptarmigan might be overkill in some folk’s eyes but he felt better for having it, and between that and Oily’s Sanction, he reckoned things were pretty well covered.

  As the Comet left Brannan’s World behind and prepared to enter RzSpace, Pelquin decided it was time to take Drake’s advice and confide in the crew.

  This ought to be fun.

  Drake noted that the brief sojourn in a police cell had done nothing to dampen Pelquin’s spirits. In fact, quite the opposite; Pelquin seemed in ebullient mood now that they were close to their goal and his irrepressible good humour was proving infectious. Even Nate Almont managed to crack a smile in Drake’s presence, while whatever resentment Bren might have felt towards her captain had clearly melted away. He seemed fully reinstated as the apple of her eye.

  Many politicians and talented performers struggled to compensate for a lack of natural ‘presence’. Pelquin had no such problem. At the reception Drake had seen that Pelquin had charisma in bucket loads; more than enough to keep audiences attentive and ensure that his opinion was heard and listened to. It was at times like this, as the captain stood in front of his assembled crew and prepared to address them, that Drake could almost see what so attracted Bren. In this sort of mood Pelquin could charm the fish from the sea and the stars from the skies, so selling the crew on an illegal excursion into Xter space should be simplicity itself.

  “All right, you’ll be glad to hear that as of now we’re heading straight for the cache,” Pelquin announced to a smattering of cheers. “So from here on in I want everyone to be on their mettle. This is the Big One, boys and girls, the once in a lifetime opportunity, so let’s not mess it up. We’re about to pull off a raid that even Cornische and his Dark Angels would have been proud of!”

  The knowledge that they were now directly en route to the Elder cache put everyone in a party mood. Even Drake, if he were honest. He would be glad when this one was over. Mudball sensed his unease. Say the word and I can seize control of the ship, his silent companion assured him.

  Thanks, that’s very reassuring.

  If the alien caught the sarcasm he didn’t show it. Don’t worry, I’m raring to go; just give me the green light and I’ll be all over these systems like a rash. They won’t know what’s hit them.

  And where exactly would that get us? Drake asked.

  In control, of course. You don’t really trust Pelquin and you sure as hell don’t trust Almont. Seize control. Let them dance to our pattern for a change.

  Tune, Drake told him. It’s dance to our tune. He corrected Mudball by long-established reflex, though the little alien rarely made such idiomatic errors these days. You really think you could control and navigate a starship with just me for help?

  Probably. Maybe.

  And what would we do with Pelquin and the rest of the crew? There are no secure facilities on board, don’t forget, and not enough cryochambers for everyone, before you suggest that.

  We could always toss them out the airlock.

  Thanks but no thanks.

  Well, just remember I offered.

  Pelquin was still talking. “Now, as seems fitting for such a bountiful trove of glorious goodies, things haven’t exactly been easy up to this point, as we’re all aware, and they aren’t likely to get any more comfortable from here on in. You know what it’s like on this ship – we never do anything the easy way.”

  “You can say that again.”

  From the moment he’d allowed Pelquin’s Comet to blast off from New Sparta without challenge Drake was complicit in that act and in everything else that followed. When he stood by and watched as the ship entered RzSpace in the face of direct police instruction to stand down, he was complicit; and again, when he was less than fully open with the PoD back on Babylon and had subsequently bullied the Brannan’s World authorities into releasing Pelquin and his ship… he was complicit. The thing was, taken individually each decision had been logical and even justifiable. It was only when you added them all together that it became apparent just how many boundaries he was stretching on this trip.

  The discretion afforded him by First Solar only stretched so far. It had happened by increments, with his condoning one minor indiscretion after another, but he now had as much invested in the success of this venture as anyone. Return with a hold bulging full of Elder artefacts and it was astonishing what could be forgiven: all hail the healing qualities of wealth! Generous reparation presented in proper fashion could dampen the most righteous of civic indignation.

  Nice of Mudball to let him know that he was in a position to take control of the Comet, but, with all due respect to the alien, so what?

  Pelquin’s next pronouncement dragged Drake’s attention fully back to the meeting. “So, there are a few things you need to be aware of,” he said. “For starters, the cache we’re about to claim is in Xter space.”

  After a moment’s stunned silence, Bren said, “And you didn’t think this little detail worth mentioning to us before now?”

  “Worth mentioning, certainly; wise to mention, no I didn’t; not with Jossyren snapping at our heels and trying to sabotage us at every turn. Not until we couldn’t be stopped. And that’s not meant as a slight on anyone; just hear me out, okay? I realise we’re playing a little fast and loose with the legal side of things here, but it won’t be the first time we’ve done that and we’re not pushing things as much as you might think.” A quick glance in Drake’s direction at this point. “That was why we stopped over at Brannan’s. As we all know, we’ve got our section of space and the Xters have theirs, but a lot of folk – humans and Xters alike – want to see that change.”

  Bren snorted. “Fat chance.”

  “That’s as maybe, but the hope is that before long we’ll be allowed to settle human-friendly worlds inside the limits of Xter space which they’ve ignored as being more hassle than they’re worth, and the Xters will settle on worlds in human space which are ideal for them and not so for us. Eventually, no more borders, just one big happy human and Xter universe.”

  “Would that work, though?” Anna piped up. “I mean, aren’t we already colonising the marginal worlds here in our own sector?”

  “That’s not entirely true,” Drake said. “You’d be surprised at how many marginals have been abandoned in the last century as folk get tired of working their backsides off merely to survive and realise there’s a much easier way of life to be had elsewhere. A new world opens up offering fresh opportunity and suddenly scratching around trying to eke out a living on a planet that doesn’t really want you there loses its appeal. There are still colonies on a few of the marginal worlds, but a lot less than you’d think, and people can always be relocated if needed.”

  The situation was more complex than that, of course. Most of the settlements that still remained on the marginals were mining communities. They weren
’t so much interested in claiming another planet for the greater good of humanity as they were in plundering its natural resources for the good of their own pockets. Such folk were hardly likely to welcome Xter settlers with open arms. This, in Drake’s view, was why the ‘greater sharing’ idea was doomed to fail: if humanity couldn’t find one use for a world it could always find another; but it suited him at that moment to support Pelquin.

  “Still sounds like wishful thinking to me,” Bren said. “I bet you half a cache share that a hundred years from now the Xters are still sitting on their side of the fence and we’re still stuck on ours, glaring at each other with mistrust and menace.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Pelquin said, “but who cares? That’s not the point. The point is that the groundwork for this ‘greater sharing’ is already underway. Low key, and out of the public eye because nobody wants to start a panic, but at this very moment expeditions from both races are being authorised to slip quietly across the border and into each other’s space to carry out feasibility studies on potential worlds with a view to future settlement; and, as of now… we’re one of them.”

  “No fucking way!” Bren looked both stunned and amused.

  Pelquin grinned, clearly enjoying himself. “That was what our recent altercation with Olly Webster was all about.”

  “You mean Oily Webster,” Bren said.

  “One and the same, though these days he prefers to be addressed as Senator Oliver Webster and is a highly respected pillar of the community; the sort that can’t afford the faintest whiff of scandal.”

  “Such as the fact that he used to bankroll a large scale smuggling operation bringing contraband goods onto Brannan’s, you mean.”